Notes

The life I’ve chosen so far … 👨‍💼

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You know, you start to feel old when many of the clients you work for are younger in life then you are. And you have to at least compare your own life to theirs, the choices they’ve taken and paths you’ve not taken. You look at the targets of young voters, often 30 years and younger in age, and at age 41 that seems so long ago. You realize many of people you grew up with had kids who are now going off to college. You no longer are young.

Yet at the same time, I don’t feel all that old. I still live in the same run-down moldy apartment that I moved into after college. It’s not as inexpensive as it once was, but nothing is these days. I’ve had Big Red for 13 years now, and it’s been 17 years since I graduated from college and started working full-time at NY Assembly. I still spend many of weekends in the wilderness, camping, drinking beer, burning shit in the fire year round. I ride my mountain bike to work to save on the bus fare, and when I don’t ride, I take the bus. I never eat out, I try to cook economical but healthy meals, I do most of my shopping at Walmart and avoid driving around town whenever possible. I keep my heat at 55 degrees or lower most of winter, I’ve never had air conditioning.

But I’m the unit director, I tell myself. I make one-hundred “k” or about that amount. Even in these inflationary times, many live on far less. I could afford more luxuries. Though it doesn’t feel like much money as I’m putting every cent away I can towards a dream of owning my own land, having that off-grid cabin and homestead. But if I wanted to I could certainly afford a nicer home, one where rot means the door is literally falling off the building and the fight against the mice and mold is non-stop. Yet, I don’t care, I don’t spend much time here except in more coldest of winter days. But I don’t necessarily want better.

Truth is I am looking. I am trying to figure out what my options are. I hate all of the houses that are on the market, they’re all super expensive, super crappy, too long of commutes and most don’t have nearly enough land. And for as long as I stay with my good paying job that I know I do damn good work at and are proud of — I am pretty much stuck in New York. I’ve been studying building and buying houses, though at times I get so damn frustrated I just toss up my hands. I don’t want a vinyl-sided monstrosity in the suburbs with an overflowing giant garbage can (and mostly fake recycling bin!) out front, a manicured lawn, and a television and high speed internet is every room.

People say I should grow up. Or stop delaying my dreams for a future unreachable. I am probably over-invested in the market, a lot of my wealth could be wiped out if we had a prolonged depression. The thing is I just don’t like what the options are and I don’t like the idea of being any more tied to New York State for longer then I have to be. Certainly not past age 55 when I can start collecting state retirement benefits at the earliest. And it’s not like every week as I save and invest more my net worth isn’t increasing, so my options only get wider.

But at the same time, it’s inevitable that I’m getting older. And it hurts to see everybody getting on with their life, and I’m really only a few steps in my personal life removed from college, even if I am on a great career path, though maybe not with skills all universally transferable, especially to a small town type place where I would much rather live in a much cheaper and freer red state. I see people I know growing up country, with their families and their homesteads, and I’m stuck here in the suburbs.

Now I am not delusional and I see better days ahead. I open up my net worth spreadsheet, and put’s a smile on my face to see how much it’s increased over the past year with outstanding stock and bond markets, and high interest rates. While I often feel poor with inflation making everything so damn expensive these days, the high cost of land and housing more generally, I know that day when I am ready to have my own land, build that off-grid cabin I will be able to do it. It’s better to wait, and be damn sure to know what your jumping off to when you do.

Still I can’t help but seeing the time marching by much too quickly.

His clothes are dirty but his hands are clean 👐 🧼

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One thing after getting this cold, I’ve really stepped up my hand washing game. When I go out in public, as soon as I get home or to camp, I wash my hands well with lots of soap. And maybe stock up on hand sanitizer.

I completely blame myself on getting so terrible sick over the past week on my poor hand-washing technique after going shopping on Sunday and being so excited to eat some delicious frozen fruit I got at stores with my bare hands. I know gross, I should have washed my hands, but I did not. And I remember not doing that. Now it’s burned into my brain.

I am not a germaphobe by any means, if anything the natural dirt and soil of the wilderness is healthy. You need exposure to a lot of natural bacterias to have a strong immune system. But when you expose yourself to others, you really need to be careful to wash your hands, especially before touching food.

Now I can’t guarantee that hand washing would have solved all my problems. I might have breathed in the virus, touched my nose or eyes before I got home and eat with unclean hands. But maybe it would have, and prevented a lot of agony later on. I don’t really fear mud and tangy smell manure, but I do néed to try harder to keep my hands clean so I don’t get sick again.

Early morning rain 🌧️

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It’s a cool enough of morning that I bet if I was in Madison County high up on Cherry Ridge or at the Fire Tower site it would have some snow mixing in it. And it’s going to continue on and off for the bulk of the day into Columbus Day. At least I don’t feel nearly as sick this morning, though I might wear the muzzle when I go to the store this morning.

The rain has arrived it would seem. 🌧️ As predicted. And I think slowly but surely my cold is fading away, my nose is still a bit damp and I’m a bit congested, but not bad compared to recent days. 👃 Probably not a bad day to not be in the wilderness, especially with temperatures only expected to reach the low 40s in mountains, and maybe the mid-40s locally. ❄️ I’ll be mostly staying home, though shopping is important as I really don’t have a lot of groceries 🛒 though that soup I made with rice, noodles, lentils and frozen vegatables came out pretty good last night. 🍲 People think you need a lot of fancy ingredients for soup, but what you really need is some water, stuff to put into it, maybe some salt and spices, and you’re golden. 🧂

Want to get some good citrus at the store today,🍊 as it’s been a while since I’ve had grapefruit, and I crave it more and more now that I know so many people can’t have it due to the interactions with statins. Figure got to enjoy it’s tangy taste while I’m young and still can. People talk about the weight lost benefits to eating grapefruit, I think that’s more of a fad created by the marketers of Florida produce, but it’s still pretty damn good eating and isn’t loaded with calories but has a lot of Vitamin D which is good to avoiding colds. Not that I expect to get sick again right away.

Last night I rode down to the town park 🏞️ and watched the sun set for a while before heading back home. I was feeling a lot better yesterday afternoon, though I was in no rush to set out on any big adventure. Truth is I needed just a day off to recover and start to feel better. 😴 Really the big push starts tomorrow, though today I plan to work on some code 🔢 and bang out some work so there is less to do come Columbus Day. Not that it’s going to matter, as Monday still looks quite wet. That said, the long range forecast looks good for next weekend. Laptop fan is working good, as the charge port, though I still need a proper sized charger 🔌 which I ordered for delivery today, so I can charge my laptop and work on it at the same time. The wrong-size charger I currently have works, but it won’t charge while the laptop is booted. ⚡️ And that’s a problem if I’m working on the laptop 10 hours a day. 🕞️

Truth is I’ve gotten way too addicted to caffeine lately, ☕ as I like getting up early as it helps with my sleep in the evening. And I’m doing those early morning trips out to camp, plus caffine helps when I’m at camp and smoking pot and want to get a really euphoric high to stay up late reading and writing down my thoughts. I’ve been looking at cheap caffine pills as a way to avoid pissing and without expense of those energy shots, which even the cheap ones are too expensive. I know the campaign committee they always have tons of Red Bull, and indeed I tried one, but was horrified by the number of calories and sugar it has in it. I know all that caffine isn’t healthy on the heart, but I’m still young, and I’d rather be abusing caffine then eating the larded up, sugary foods so many people eat every day.

While people are okay with caffine, 🧠 in many cases they still have a problem with other mind-altering substances, or the idea that one would want to experience euphoria and creativity in their lives. 🧩 I think it’s kind of silly, as if you’re harming no one but yourself, and the harm is far less then the processed food crap most people are putting are putting in their bodies, then so be it. I don’t smoke pot except up at camp, but tit’s a lot of fun around the fire. 🔥

I’ve been thinking more about my adventure next weekend to Charles Baker. 🏕️ I really don’t love campground camping, and I may very much try to get either the firetower campsite or the Lost Pond site so I can avoid the campground experience, don’t have to worry about listening to music, making noise, or a million other nuisances. Cherry Ridge is fine, 🍒 and probably won’t be that crowded but I doubt in October I’ll have it all to myself. Plus the fire wood supply nearby is often fairly picked over so you have to go pretty far in the woods to find good firewood. The only thing that sucks about both of those locations is they are somewhat higher elevation, so that means riding up hill to get back to camp, 🏕️ and more rough dirt roads to get there and back when going to Nine Mile Swamp to paddle 🛶 although truth be told, I think it’s not much a difference and maybe even shorter as they are both centrally located.

It looks like the unit next door is done, 🚪 as they got for rent signs up out front. I think it’s listed for $1,200 a month but it has a modern glass-top stove, an brushed metal refrigerator, new insulation, walls, doors and windows, and all the fancy shit yuppies would like. A lot more then what I’m paying now, but my unit old and really falling apart. I am going to get weather stripping today to try to stop air leaks around the door on my apartment before the really cold ❄️ weather starts. Fixed the rotted bottom that is falling off with electric tape. Don’t plan to turn on the heat for a while and I will probably keep it fairly cold in my unit, preferring the warmth of my heated blanket in the evening, along with a hot shower 🚿 and breakfast in the morning 🍳 and heading off to work early. Hopefully I can make it through here another winter, but I got to keep looking and figuring out what I want to do in the interim. Really unhappy with the houses I’ve looked at, they’re just not for me. Why pay a lot of money for a place I hate?