My marigolds have begun to bloom.

What a fascinating analysis by Jomboy.

Will Anybody Ever Love Me?

Yes.

A bit ago, I began my first Italian lesson, and I had fun. I wrote some notes, bought some extra textbooks, and I’m excited to start this journey. Because I’m fluent in Spanish, some of what I learned was familiar to me, so I hope I can pick up this language quicker than, say, Japanese. Why am I learning Italian? I’m planning a trip to Italy at some point in the next year. A big European trip, actually: Spain, France, Germany, Italy. Why not?

The other day, I asked a friend to recommend me some country music artists that I could listen to. I told her that after 11 years living in Montana, it was time for me to get into this genre. She recommended me a few artists, and the one I’ve gravitated toward the most is Zach Bryan.

But I miss you in the mornings when I see the sun
Somethin’ in the orange tells me we’re not done

His lyrics are heartfelt, heartbreaking, and beautiful.

He said the sun’s going to rise tomorrow
Somewhere on the east side of sorrow

I wish I didn’t take so long to get into country music. It is something else, and Zach Bryan is incredible. I am happy to own a few of his albums, and that I’ve let go of whatever stigma I once had about country music. It is a great genre of music.

Almost a year ago, I noted that I reached 5,000 minutes meditated on the Headspace app . This morning I reached 10,000 minutes.

10,000 minutes is a nice, round number, and by itself, it doesn’t tell me much, but looking at it another way, that’s 6 days, 22 hours, and 40 minutes. Since rebooting my meditation routine last year, I’ve meditated for almost a week, and I’m very proud of that. I have noticed the change this habit has instilled in me, and I am for sure a better person because of it.

Now, I’m not saying correlation implies causation, but I’ve definitely noticed the numbers tick up since the school year started in late August. It’s been… a year already, and we’re barely at Thanksgiving break. Thankfully, I am able to increase the time on my sessions, so I may be hitting 20,000 minutes meditated faster than I reached 10,000…

Over two years ago, after I finished reading American Pastoral by Philip Roth, I said that I was tempted to buy the Library of America’s complete collection of Philip Roth’s novels, but I didn’t. I couldn’t quite justify spending $240 on this collection, so I set that temptation aside and moved on with my life. However, that idea never left my thoughts, and earlier this summer, I was fortunate enough to earn a somewhat massive (for me) raise at work, and because of that, I tucked away some money every month until finally… well:

This arrived today. Needless to say, I’m happy.

“We are all digital notebooks now,” Warren Ellis wrote. “Writing just for ourselves and whoever finds their way to our caves to look over our shoulders as we scribble thoughts down in public and daub pictures on the walls.”

I’ve stopped publishing notes and journal entries on my blog because I’ve mostly been writing in my notebooks now. I’ve been writing for at least an hour every day since the start of last year, a span of about 636 days. I’ve written hundreds and hundreds of pages in my notebooks, and when I couple that with the time spent trying to live my life as best as I can, I’ve simply stopped making time for this online space of mine. I feel kinda meh about it, honestly. The only reason I’m writing this entry is because I want to publish something at least once a month, keeping some trivial streak of mine alive.

Warren was writing about something he calls a “social media winter,” this idea that “social media doesn’t create ‘growth’ any more.” “If you use social [media] to keep up with your friends,” Warren wrote, “then get them to move to new channels with you and keep them close.” Facebook, Instagram, and especially Snapchat have been daily companions to me for the past year, and I have enjoyed myself tremendously on them because my friends are on there. Contrary to my past feelings on them, my time on social media this year has been nothing but positive. They’re not without their problems, but what doesn’t have problems nowadays? So again, couple this with my time spent in my notebooks and living my life, and I’ve frankly lost most of my motivation to tend to this little digital notebook of mine.

And yet…

I like having an online presence. I like having my own little digital garden with my name on it and my words and my photos and my everything on it. Even now, as I’m writing this, I’m feeling those old feelings of pleasure and contentment and even calmness that comes with writing something for myself and for the 2 people who have added this site to their RSS readers. I read Warren’s post on the day he published it, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. This idea was planted then and has been growing throughout the week, and sure, I probably could’ve explored it some more in my notebook, but he’s talking about the web, about blogging more specifically, and I feel like my response to it should be on the web, too.

I’ve gone through spurts of intense productivity and long stretches of silence, and I’m not sure where I fall on that spectrum now. I have ideas and desires and plans for this digital notebook of mine, but I don’t know what will come of it. Life has been incredibly fun and challenging this year, and I’ve enjoyed writing about it in my notebooks and talking about it with the people I care about the most, so I’m not quite sure how to fit this place into my life right now. This could be the start of something fun and cool, or it could simply be the ravings of a madman. Not sure yet.

I guess we’ll find out, right?

Been jamming to this song over the last day. Love it.

Didn’t know there was a French version of it and now I’m hooked!

This might be the best version. So damn sexy.

• I want to learn bookbinding because I want to make my own notebooks. I want to scour the world for a specific type of paper that fits me and use that to make my notebooks with. Imagining this search for the perfect paper excites the hell out of me.
• Technology is exhausting me, and I just want to spend all my time holding paper, writing on paper, drawing on paper.

• Drawing these circles in my notebook was one of the most therapeutic things I’ve done in a long time.
• I want to buy more books but I’m running out of space in my apartment.
• How much does LASIK eye surgery cost? I don’t want to wear glasses or contacts anymore.
• I don’t have any tattoos but I kinda want some tattoos. No idea of what, though.
• I want to buy a record player and build a vinyl collection of all my favorite albums. Then I want to sit and listen to these records and do nothing else. Just listening.
• I used to spend so much time in libraries, and then I used to spend so much time in bookstores, and I’ve stopped doing that because I live in Montana and everything good is a long car ride away. I can’t walk to these places on a whim like I used to.
• One of my fondest memories from college was listening to my friends talk about movies and argue why The Departed was an awful movie and why Infernal Affairs was better. I really miss those times, and I really miss having a more active social life.
• All my friends are married now and have kids, and I don’t think I’ll ever be married or have kids, and I’m okay with that. I still wish I had a more active social life, though.
• I think the thought of sitting at an outdoor cafe, drinking a good cup of coffee, and watching people walk by for hours is a day well spent, and that’s all I want to do when I’m older.
• I’ve been thinking a lot about death. Don’t mistake me: I want to live for another 30, 40, 50 years, so not like that. More of this idea that so many of us are afraid of dying that we don’t ever truly live. That, in a way, we’re more afraid of living than dying. At least, I am. That we can’t ever truly live until we’re comfortable and fully accept our mortality, with dying. Memento mori: remember that you have to die.
• Sartre wrote that he hoped “the last burst of my heart would be inscribed on the last page of my work, and that death would be taking only a dead man.” I’ve been thinking a lot about that over the past few weeks, and that’s how I want to live, how I want to go out. The problem is that I don’t think I have to courage to live like that, but the other problem is that I’m running out of days to live like that.
• Montaigne wrote about “The Master Day”: the day that is judge of all the others. It’s the last day of your life, the day that completes your story.
• With that said, I wonder if I will spend the rest of my life talking about living or actually living. I’m hoping for the latter, but who knows.