I thought we’d successfully eliminated long supermarket queues.

“You make me want to go back outside into that blizzard.”

Reading Breath and thinking about how I use my nose… turns out I’ve been doing it mostly wrong my whole life.

“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” ―George S. Patton

Black & white. #mbaug

“We write to taste life twice.” —Anaïs Nin

We got new floors and they came up great.

Finished listening to Savage Son by Jack Carr, the third in a series. It was okay, but I’m done with James Reece for now methinks… at least until he pops up in a movie somewhere.

I finished reading my battered second-hand copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M Pirsig. What a strange book it is, full of deep and practical ideas that for me left dog-eared pages and pencilled-in margins in their wake, and scraps of which I’m sure will linger in my mind for some time to come. There a lot of philosophy-type stuff in there and some of it is hard going, and some of it is quite tedious too. I liked the father-son journey stuff, it captures some of the crazy concerns and emotions that being a father of a boy can bring. I wonder how much of it is true.

One especially memorable bit talks about a ‘South Indian monkey trap’, which I’d never heard of, and which supposedly involves a hollowed out coconut with food placed inside and a hole just big enough to admit a monkey’s hand. The monkey sticks its hand in and grabs a fistful of food, and can’t escape when the trapper comes because it can’t release the food from its fist. All the monkey needs to do is open its fist, but it is simply unable to reevaluate the positive value of the fistful of food vs the negative value of being captured and losing its freedom. There’s nothing physically keeping it trapped, but it just can’t let go.

“It’s very important in life to know when to shut up.” —Alex Trebek

My oldest boy turns 18 in a month and he’s a bit down atm after a rough time with the lockdown and now car and friend and girl troubles. I reach out with suggestions and sometimes have success, but at that age who the hell like, wants to listen to Dad, right? But I reach out anyway with sit-down-together meals and offers of film nights and walks which he sometimes takes me up on. I reach out and it seems to help. Letting him drive my car seems to help. Hugs are good too.

“Feeding two birds with one stonefruit.” —Tantek

Took a walk on one of the local maunga. Nice to feel some sunshine.