Another day, another dollar.

We spent the entire day gridding the bottom of the fire to the very top. And we didn’t just grid, we gridded. That meant our entire crew lined out on a line with about five feet between us, and we dug the ground and felt the dirt with out hands. We did this for hours. I wish I could explain how slow and tedious and back wrenching this work was. My back is killing me. And I know this entry is going to be short again, but I should be sleeping and not writing right now. Firefighting is hard work.

We had a pretty slow day today. We finished fighting the Elk Fire, which didn’t take very long. We thought we were finished, but we were told earlier in the day that we were going to go back to the Couture Fire in Arlee, which is where we’re at now. It looks like we won’t demobilize until Sunday, maybe even Monday. More days means more money. I’m fine with that. I did get injured yesterday, but it wasn’t that bad. Just cut up my shin.

You know what? I’m exhausted and sitting here in my tent is making me more tired. I will write more once I’m back home; I promise.

It’s been a long day.

I’m lying down in my tent out in the Bison Range on some pretty hard ground but comfortable enough for me to sleep on. The stridulating of the crickets provide the only sound and it’s so peaceful. I love camping. I love nature. I love today.

We were sent out on the little fire that broke out yesterday, which was awesome, but we had strong gusts of winds today — upwards to 30 MPH — which caused a tree to torch and then create spots all over the place. We all started running up the hill to where the spots were, and in my clumsiness, I fell and cut open my shin. I immediately got up and resumed my run up the hill again. We were able to contain the spots, fortunately and were ecstatic right after. Our adrenaline went down, as did our heart rates, and we have good stories to tell for years on end.

Unfortunately I’m exhausted, so that’s where I’ll stop today. I’ll write more about today later; it was quite memorable and fun.

I can’t overstate how much the quality of a crew makes or breaks a fire. I love my crew, and even though this fire was out before we even arrived to it yesterday, I love how they made it fun and tolerable. It looks like we’re going to be here one more day, which is great, but I don’t know if we’ll be sleeping together as a crew again.

I’m writing this again in my Day One app, which I’m loving. Writing is writing. It doesn’t matter if I’m writing on my laptop or on my iPhone, writing requires thought and discipline, and as a writer, I have to be “on my game” at all times. It’s been a long day, and it’s late, and I’m tired, but I’m still writing. I have to.

We mopped up again today, but I like yesterday, where we actually found hotspots and took them out, we found nothing today. The fire is out. So by noon (our day started around 7:30), we took a break and sat down, ate, relaxed, goofed around, for a few hours. When we began to work again around 3, there was a call on the radio that there were reports of smoke up by the Bison Range near Dixon. We all listened intently as the helicopter flew over to the fire and reported back what it saw. It was 1 acre, about, but it had a chance to spread. Command asked for a ten person crew, and seeing we were the only ten person crew around, we were called out to fight it. Needless to say, we were excited. For many of the rookies, this would have been their first time hotlining a fire. They’ve mostly mopped up this year.

So we go down the mountain, all eager to go fight this fire, and on our way there, we were told another crew was on its way to fight it. We were called back. Naturally, we were all sad. We went to the gas station, bought some snacks, drove back to the fire, and spent the rest of our shift on our asses, goofing off and having fun.

And exciting news everyone, while I was writing this entry, our crew boss called us in and she told us that we are going to the fire tomorrow morning. That means we have to wake up earlier than everyone else, pack up, and be on our way by six AM.

That is my cue to bid you all adieu.

Turns out, if I get a call to go out on a fire, I will, without question, say yes.

I’m in my tent right now as I’m writing this. I’m using my Day One app on my fully charged iPhone to write this entry, and I mention that because it is true. I’m having so much fun on this fire because of the people on it. The crappy, very very shitty crew boss from last time is nowhere to be seen, replaced instead with familiar faces and more competent crew bosses.

The fire is in Arlee, off Couture Road. Naturally, the name of the fire is the Couture Fire, and it’s about 17 acres big and mostly out. This was the same fire I was called out on Sunday Night, so that crew worked all day yesterday to take out most of the big stuff. My crew is 10 people big, and we were brought to help that first crew mop up the rest of it. We did a few hours of that today. Very easy work that went by very quickly because of how much we were all laughing. It feels so good to laugh on the mountain with good friends again. I’m reminded why I love fighting fires. That bad taste from the last fire is gone.

Our camp is on a camp ground inside of Arlee, and instead of sleeping on the rocky and hard mountain earth, we’re sleeping underneath an arbor on astroturf or something like it. It’s a beautiful night with a soft breeze coming from the south. We have bathrooms and showers and are being fed crap — lots and lots of crap — but at least it’s free. I’m trying not to eat so much considering how well I’ve been handling my diet and exercise this past month.

We were told the fire might be three days long. I think we’ll get most of it done tomorrow, with possibly one more day to make sure. We might be lucky and spend another day on it, but I don’t believe we’re going to need it. We never know, though. If nothing breaks out before then, and if I don’t get called out within a week of this fire’s predicted end, I do not think I’m going to fight another fire this year. And if my feelings about next year hold up, this might be my last fire of my career.

But I don’t want to dwell on that right now.

I’m going to try not to forget to write every night I’m out here. I want be honest with myself and to all my readers. I set out to write 365 daily entries, and I knew fighting fires were going to prove difficult, but nothing is worth doing if it’s not a little difficult, right?

Right. One last thing before I go. I didn’t take any photos today, so this entry will be picture less. I hope to take more pictures during the rest of my tour here. They could mean something to me later.

I write to help me think, and I’ve been sitting here thinking for the past 30-40 minutes about what to write about tonight, but the only thing worth writing about, I thought, was about what I was thinking. No rhyme or reason to it. Just random thoughts.

I’ve been thinking about my Commonplace Books again, and a few days ago I had a strong desire to start one after reading a paragraph on a website from an author talking about another author’s book, and I copied it down because I thought it was brilliant. The writer compared the Commonplace Book to Sampling, which is common in Hip-Hop music. That analogy blew my mind. That’s exactly what’s going on, and I really wanted to start that because that’s something I understood completely. Alas, I haven’t done anything like that, but I think my thoughts and actions are pointed in that direction. Thirty-five days to go.

I finished reading Inherent Vice yesterday, and I began to read Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion, and I only read the first 30 pages or so, but I already love the writing style. It’s beautiful. Sordid. Harsh. Blunt. It’s beautiful. In fact, I’ve been doing a lot more reading recently, enough to compel me to leave my Mac on my desk and far away from my couch, where I’ve been snuggling up with my iPad and the most recent copy of the New Yorker. And during commercial breaks on Hulu, I’ve been reading snippets of saved Instapaper articles, sorta how people do pushups during commercial breaks to get into shape, but for my mind instead. I’m doing Insanity; I don’t need to get into shape. Which reminds me, I’ve lost a pound in the past week, putting me at 176.4 lbs, which is just a pound away from where I think I should be. If I continue to lose weight, a few more pounds at least, I’ll be happy.

Another thing that has made me happy is meditation, and today, I finished the ten day Headspace trial, and I don’t think I’m going to pay the $95 yearly membership fee to continue with it. I’ve been meditating for years, and all I needed was a jolt to get me back into it. I will try meditating like I used to tomorrow, and if after a month or so I feel compelled to return to Headspace, then I’ll consider paying that fee. Until then, I’m focused on saving money, paying down my debt, and enjoying all that I have now.

Which is going to be hard since I want to buy a lot more kitchen supplies. Individually, they’re not that much. $8-12 a piece for most of the tools I want, but I want a bunch of them, so all together, it’s going to be expensive. But I had my regular dinner tonight, one that I’ve always found tasty and wholesome, and I found it boring. I like cooking and trying new things and mastering simple recipes. A little effort is better than no effort because of the rewards, and isn’t that a good metaphor for life?

I had nothing really to write about (again) until I got out of the shower and checked my phone and saw that the Division of Fire called me, so I called them back and found out that there’s a fire in Arlee, but since I was a measly 7 minutes late in returning the call, they filled my spot with someone else. Part of me is relieved, but the other part of me isn’t, and I don’t know which feeling is the strongest.

The only reason why I want to fight fires right now is because of the money. The last fire I was on was a very bad experience, one I don’t think will repeat itself, but one that left a bad taste in my mouth nonetheless. I don’t feel like being pulled away from my life right now, especially when things are going relatively well for me. I’m cooking so much more now, and I love that. I’m working out again, and I can notice the changes in me. I’m reading a lot more, especially since I’m more disciplined when it comes to my time wasted on the internet. And I’m about a month away from starting the rewrite on my novel, and I’m just now beginning to plan for it. I’m also meditating again, which has helped out a ton, in both my focus and well-being. All these things are good and beneficial, and I don’t want to leave it. Hell, today was strange in that I actually loved living where I live, mostly for the things I’m discovering I can do but haven’t yet done.

But then again, I need the money. I really need a quick influx of a few thousand dollars. It won’t pay off my debts, but it’ll help me get started, especially after all the repairs to my car I’ve had to pay this year. And I love firefighting and camping and hanging out with my bros. It’s fun. The whole experience of it is fun, and no matter how well my life seems to be going now, I know I can’t provide it the level of fun firefighting brings. So I’m sitting on my couch, my phone next to me, hoping that someone drops out or something, and that the Division of Fire calls me and asks me if I would like to go out on a fire. But I doubt it.

So I need to take my mind off of it and write the rest of this entry. Other than a few random visitors that found my blog on Google, no one has read my blog in a few weeks. Nobody has read my tech-y articles or those few posts on my cooking endeavors, and I feel alone over here. Part of me can’t wait until I have to stop worrying about that, about readers, or how many stats my site is getting. It’s all a distraction. I have my pocket moleskine on my desk waiting to be opened up and written in once all this ends in a month. This blog was a godsend when I started it last year, but now, it seems to have both outgrown me and that I’ve outgrown it. 36 more days to go.

I’m having fun in the kitchen again. This is a dish called Chicken Prosciutto Involtini, and I found it on the Nom Nom Paleo blog a few weeks ago. It was probably the tastiest thing I’ve ever made for myself in my life. I loved every bite. The prosciutto, which I think was the very first time I’ve ever had it, is making my mouth water just thinking about it. It was orgasmic.

Other than that, I had a normal, slightly unproductive day. I slept for over nine hours, which felt good, but sleeping that much makes me groggy and a bit apathetic. I had my alarm set for 5 AM, and it did go off, but it wasn’t enough to get my ass out of bed.

It’s the first day of August, which means I’m on my last month of my one year project. This project ends about a week into September, and this streak seems a little easier now because I’ve only been called out on one fire. I expected to be busier this summer, but I haven’t been, and that sucks. Nothing I can do about it, though.

And that’s kind of all I have for today. I guess I’ll have to proclaim this picture to be worth 300 words or so.

One of my favorite apps of all time, even before I had any device that could actually run it as an app, is Instapaper. Instapaper made reading on the web easier and more comfortable than anything that came before it, and, I would argue, since. Instapaper strips all the unnecessary cruft and clutter present in most all modern websites — shit like ads and sidebar crap and whatnot — and returns only the text, which is the most important part of any article anyways. Instapaper provides a very easy way to add content into it by providing a bookmarklet and browser extensions if you’re on a computer, and iOS extensions if you have the app installed on an iOS device. Ever since I quit RSS feeds a while back ago, I seem to be adding even more content into my Instapaper queue, and this is why: I’ve changed my Information Diet to what I think is for the better.

I use to subscribe to dozens of RSS feeds, and I’ve used more than a handful of different services to read through them all. It began with the late Google Reader, expanded to Feedly, and then when I purchased my first iPhone, Reeder. From Reeder, I experimented with Unread and Mr. Reader and a few other apps I can’t remember now, but I stuck with Reeder because it had a great Mac app, and I liked that I could have this seamless experience from one device to another. For a few years, this workflow worked for me. It was easy to read through my feeds, add stuff to Instapaper, share stuff on my social networks, and bookmark stuff in Pinboard. Before I quit, though, I was growing tired of this monotonous routine. Everything seemed the same, and that’s because it was. RSS readers provide just one theme to every article websites publish. One second you could be reading a tech article, and the next you could be reading about some massacre in some part of the world, and the next second you could be laughing at a funny video about a spider. There was no break to things, and if you followed many similar blogs (like I did), you would see the same story covered over and over and over again, all linking back to each other like some cocksucking human centipede. I grew tired of all that, so I quit, and I replaced it with, what I think (so far), better sources.

One of the first things I did was subscribe to the New Yorker. I’ve been reading through each issue I get from them in about a week’s time, which seems right since it’s a weekly magazine. From there, I subscribed to multiple email newsletters. Instead of me sifting through hundreds of shitty headlines to get to that one that I may want to read, I let humans, multiple humans that are much smarter than me and with better taste, curate the shit for me, so when I get their newsletters in my email, I’m left with some really great content with multiple links. These are the links I then save to Instapaper, which provides me a great interface for me to consume all this great content.

But, you may ask, isn’t Instapaper providing the same unified style for everything you add into just like any RSS reader? Well, inquisitive reader, yes, yes it does, but here’s the difference: Instapaper is meant for longform content. It’s meant to be a temporary storage place for you to come back to later and consume. RSS feeds keep increasing in number the longer you neglect it. Instapaper stays the same, especially if you neglect it. And I know my Instapaper queue is full of only good content, whereas RSS feeds feed me crap like 90% of the time. Not everything my favorite websites publish is good.

Another benefit quitting RSS feeds has given me is more time to read. With RSS feeds, something new is published literally every second, and with this knowledge, your body develops this tic where you need to keep checking it to see if something amazing had been published somewhere. You’re addicted to checking the news, and when there’s nothing, you take a few minutes to breath, and then you check again. With Instapaper, newsletter, and the New Yorker, I make the time to simply read. I get one newsletter a day at least, sometimes more, and I go through it, adding links I may want to read later into Instapaper, and then I’m done. I go on with whatever it was I was doing. Then, when I feel like reading, I open Instapaper, open an article, and start reading. From there, I can do the same thing I did with Reeder: bookmark stuff into Pinboard with notes, share it on Facebook or Twitter, or even text message it to someone if I’d like.

Instapaper makes my life simpler and provides me the opportunity to be a better consumer of content, and that, in the end, is what I wanted to be with RSS feeds but failed.

Day 18 of Insanity Max:30 went very well. Since starting this workout again, I’ve lost 2 lbs and I’m on track to get back to my ideal weight that I lost during the dark months of May and June. I worked out a bit too excitedly, though, because I hurt my right knee doing the X-Jumps/Burpee combo. It popped or something, and it feels uncomfortable if I move my leg wrong. My last workout of the week is tomorrow, so maybe I can push through that and have a nice two day break to rest and recover.

My days have regained a nice rhythm from my slower, but more stable, routine. I’m still watching more TV than I should be, but I think I need to simply to balance the work part of my life from the play, and watching TV is play. I’ve been struggling with balance my whole life, and I doubt I’ll ever find the answer during the remaining 40 days of this blog. Life is never steady. My life now can be completely upended tomorrow by forces outside of my control, or completely in my control. Nothing remains stable for long, so maybe my quest to find balance is pointless? I can always strive to find an internal balance, but I think I’m mostly thinking about balancing my professional and personal lives. And by professional, I’m mostly thinking about my professional development as a writer, which involves writing and reading and living, while personal means staying healthy and fit and happy. Once all of these forces are moving forward at a steady clip, my happiness seems to be abundant. But once things start slowing down and one or more of these forces stop, my mood darkens.

It’s this constant up and down that I know exists in my life, yet I can’t seem to take control of it. Maybe I shouldn’t? A rollercoaster wouldn’t be a rollercoaster if it didn’t have its ups and downs, and maybe life is just like a rollercoaster, and trying to control it is nothing more than an exercise in futility. There’s this thing that the Headspace app has taught me while meditating, and this image of sitting on the side of the road and watching the traffic drive by. Your thoughts and feelings are the cars, and you should simply sit and watch them go by. You don’t want to run into the middle of traffic and start chasing one or more of these cars. You simply want to watch them go by. You acknowledge their existence but you let them be. Maybe we should let our rollercoaster of a life simply be and accept it for what it is without fuss. We should accept the fact that our lives will have its ups and its downs, and we should be grateful for all of it because it’s all part of the spectrum of life.

In totality, life, especially when it’s messy, is beautiful and we shouldn’t feel burdened by it. We should embrace it and love it and live it to the fullest because it’s the only thing worth anything during our brief time on Earth.