#630: B is for Bowie (“A New Career in a New Town,” The Box)

I “You’re such a wonderful person, but you got problems.”The second tune on Low, all one minute and 52 secondsof it, contains this gem of a lyric. It’s 1977 and records are beginning to sound reallygood, although people at thetime didn’t think so. Tony Visconti has a newtoy called a Harmonizer andit makes the drumsContinue reading “#630: B is for Bowie (“A New Career in a New Town,” The Box)”

#592: A is for Arooj Aftab

I go to a tequila bartonight, not for tequila, but for food, in part because it’s right behind the liquor store, where I reallywant to go, but also becauseI need something to eat. No kitchen. Everything on the food menu is preparedhere inside of an air fryer.I can easily go elsewhere,elsewhere, but for convenienceand economicsContinue reading “#592: A is for Arooj Aftab”

#587: Streak Ends! Stats Fail!

According to my Insight Timerstatistics, I meditated 203 consecutivedays and then I stopped. This morning, I meditatedfor the second consecutive day. Part of me feels like I’ve been robbed, so disappointed tohave broken my streak, to have experienced such a monumental stats fail. Another part of me wantsto trash the Insight Timeraltogether, right along sideofContinue reading “#587: Streak Ends! Stats Fail!”

#584: Meditation Under Construction (A Wally Camp Dispatch)

In my novel, the main characteris building a playhouseand his drivewayis torn to shitfor the necessary underground infrastructure. In reality, the campus atMacalester Collegein St. Paul, Minnesotais under constructionand roads and sidewalksand large lawn swathsare torn to shit to make way for the necessary underground infrastructure. We meditated to that. Windows open so the morningbreezeContinue reading “#584: Meditation Under Construction (A Wally Camp Dispatch)”

#569: Some Birds

I sit in meditationin a room with banksof window on three walls.The windows that openare open. It’s morning, April, and it’s cool in here;a breeze moves throughand I am almost cold. I practice breathing. Some birds are out there,doing their bird thing. We call it singing. This morning there’s a kind of call and responsehappeningContinue reading “#569: Some Birds”

On the Twenty-eighth Day of 2025…

…I find my inspiration lagging. A topic of focus for today’s post eludes me. “Nothing happens. Nobody comes, nobody goes. It’s awful.” A whole assortment of quotes from Beckett’s Waiting for Godot might be appropriate for today, but that was the first one that came to mind. It’s not exactly true of my Tuesday thatContinue reading “On the Twenty-eighth Day of 2025…”

On the Fifteenth Day of 2025…

. . .You decide to write about yourself in the second person. You realize that’s an odd thing to do, even though, as most things a writer can do, it’s been done before hundreds of times. You’re mostly curious about how it feels. You’ve tried the first and the third, the first being the mostContinue reading “On the Fifteenth Day of 2025…”

On the Eighth Day of 2025. . .

. . . while my friends in the east and the middle are freezing off their nards, and my Southern California friends are guarding against wildfires, here in the Pacific Northwest, during a miraculous dry spell of three straight days and counting, I worked in the yard today wearing a t-shirt. Today was one ofContinue reading “On the Eighth Day of 2025. . .”

On the Seventh Day of 2025. . .

I would like to say that I rested. I cannot say that. I can say, however, that I spent 20 minutes on the meditation cushion and had some difficulty quieting the mind. I just wanted to think about stuff. That’s the real difficulty, isn’t it, because it’s one thing to sit on a cushion withContinue reading “On the Seventh Day of 2025. . .”

On the Fifth Day of 2025. . .

. . .I had a nightmare of sorts in the duration of sleep between 7:30 and 9 AM. It was one of those deals where you wake up too early, say, 6, and lie awake hoping to sleep again for something like an hour and a half, and then suddenly you’re out, dreaming these super-realisticContinue reading “On the Fifth Day of 2025. . .”