speaking of the fog.

I Worked Through Some Shit, Pt 2: The Fog

We eventually moved on from the ruins. I saw mushrooms growing under an Asian tree. We made our way to the highest point in the garden, then meandered down to the Japanese pines. While everything did look cool, I was too nervous to really appreciate anything. Then we looked in the sky and saw a massive bird. A red-tailed hawk, I was told. The hawk landed on the top of one of the pines, where it was clear just how big it really was. We sprawled on the grass and watched the hawk, at one point recording its squawking and playing it back to try to get its attention. No success. Probably for the best. Then it was time to get moving. We had to get to the fog.

Things started to feel more and more interesting en route to fog. A sign said there were foggy ruins over in an adjacent park, but we decided the walk was too far. Foggy hills for us. We reached a tree that was planted in 1917. Or 1907? I don't remember the year, but I do remember that I started feeling the full-body effects of the tab at this point.

By the time we made it to the fog zone, the fog had just ended. We had hit the 2.75 side of our 1-in-3.75 chance of getting there while fog was happening. No worry. We find a place nearby to sit. I take out the 5-way splitter, we each break out our earbuds, and Rob puts on a playlist. He wanted us to hear a song transition. The first song is classical music, which feels somewhere between beautiful and goofy. The classical music transitions into Every Planet We Reach is Dead. Then it's time for fog.

Brandon wants to be there when the fog starts. Rob and I hang back, as to enter the area whilst fog is already happening. Once Brandon walks off, Rob and I discuss the rising imperitance that we call a Lyft immediately after this fog. Because shit is starting to elevate. Anyways, fog time is here.

A family of children is frolicking through the fog. Rob and I enter, overwhelmed with visual sensation, trying not to lose our shit. There is thick fog rolling through the forest. (Realizing as I write this that it was totally reminiscent of that time we tripped on the broken mountain road.) Anyways, time to play the find-Brandon game.

We find him. We explore the fog. I try fog with music, Animal Collective's live version of Softest Voice. It's hot fire, but I like being out in the world-soundscape more.

The fog is amazing. When it's over, it's time to get the fuck back to a safe base because shit is only getting crazier. We saunter over to the nearby park entrance and Rob orders a Lyft. We wait. At one point my hand just forgets to continue holding the steel water bottle I've been carrying around. It slams onto the concrete. The sound is jarring and startles a man walking by. I defend myself, saying "that's the first time that's happened." We start to almost lose our shit laughing and in the same second I see our Lyft pull up.

I Worked Through Some Shit, Pt 1: Beginnings

The two of us met up with our friend at the end of the line. We crossed the street and wandered down a path brimming with dense green life. Once we reached the tree garden, we veered off the main path, then veered off trail entirely, until we came upon the stone ruins of what was once the foundation of a house. We settled, and waited for all human activity on the trail still in view to pass. When the moment was as good as any, he removed some foil from a pack of gum.

I looked at tab in the foil handed to me. Expecting plain white, I was surprised by the small, intricate art. It was purple and a brownish orange, and was that a triangle with an eye in it? Too anxious to examine for much longer, I cut to the chase and put the tab in my mouth. For better or worse, the deed was done. The die were cast. I was on my way.

Eclipse Follow-Up

I was going through past blog posts to find the coral video that Geologist did the music for in celebration of Animal Collective's new album when I came across an old, offhand post about seeing the eclipse.

Well, (most of) we fucking did it, people. And I recently got around to finally uploading the footage, so without further ado:

Facebook

early christmas post

where i'm at

The Radish Dilemma and Rrrock Facts

Bainbridge Island is pretty much full of old hippies who also have buttloads of money. They care a lot about their trees and don't give a shit about paying $5 a bunch for tiny carrots.

Staying dry by planting lettuce under greenhouse tunnels we built.

By my estimate, we have something like 1200ft of radishes in the ground, which is a bit insane considering that's just one crop out of the 50+ that we grow here. A common radish task is to thin them once they start showing their first true leaves (about an inch tall). In practice, this involves going down rows of plants and murdering them. Tiny ones are plucked out of the soil in favor of the bigger stronger radishes that must be spaced 1-2" apart. Simple. Except sometimes you have a big radish that's just too close to the other guys and now it must join your pile of corpses. It lived better than any other radish and certainly is superior to the scraggly radish left behind several feet ago, but it was born in the wrong place. It was born in the wrong place. Something that it couldn't control and now it must die.

My boss chillin'

In the past couple weeks, I've come to peace with the radishes and cozied into my home for the season. Today, instead of changing into sweats and researching plants in the comfort of my room, I decided to enjoy a bit of the rare evening sun, tidy up our overflowing compost, and map out an outdoor mushroom bed for one of my experiments. A pile of rocks by our fire pit was prime pickings for the border of the bed, but I was worried it was a small pet cemetery or someone's sacred collection of rocks. It turned out to be a communal rock pile. My coworker mentioned that the fire pit always tends to get stacked and re-stacked by its many visitors - something I found terrific and ceremonious.

Anyways, the stones weren't claimed and the pit already had plenty of them, so I started placing the excess in a bucket until I got swept up in mixture of sadness and guilt. These aren't my rocks. These are everyone's rocks. Did I really not just get my own rocks because I'm a lazy piece of shit? Yes. Definitely yes. I decided to replace the rocks after finishing up the border because it felt like the right thing to do. We had joked about harvesting rocks in the field since Washington has such rocky soil, so it felt silly-in-a-good-way to actually be doing that now. I walked down the edge of the garden beds as the sun was setting, putting rocks in my bucket. And as I was adding rocks into the communal pile, I thought, "Oh shit this is what it's all about." Using collected rocks that came from other people to build something new and then adding your own rocks back.

I'm sure there are much more straightforward, less rock-centric and radish-y ways of coming to terms with the good and bad aspects of life, but that's all I got. Toodles.