I am camping, not here.

I am in fact not blogging.  I wrote this post this morning.  I am writing it this morning.  I am writing it right now.  It will publish tonight, at my favorite minute of a twelve hour period.

It will publish…now.

I am going camping this weekend.  While I think I need to get away, it’s more of a working weekend than a vacation.  And, you know, I miss my wife when I’m away.  I made all my veggie food ahead of time so as not to be a pain in the ass to the cooks.  Though I think they might take it personally that I don’t eat their food all the time.  All I can do is apologize and eat my various methods of burrito art.

We are having what might be the perfect weather for a nice camp-out, too.  It was 95 degrees last year and humid.  I am wearing jeans and flannels this weekend.  And sleeping in a tiny tent by myself.  No snoring old guys to keep me up.  I might just go meditate in the woods.  I finally read The Dharma Bums this spring.  I should have read it a long time ago.

A friend of mine wrote to me two years ago, asking me about my Buddhist time.  The way that I abandoned in favor of some image of myself as some kind of renegade philosopher.  Plus, I took Max Scheler too seriously (search this blog for Scheler).  Anyway, I wrote back to him in a hotel room in Kentucky (which I mailed near a roadside Burger King) to disregard and dismiss all my dismissals of Buddhism as me being a know-it-all asshole.  That I think my unhappiness during my time as a PhD student might be traced back to when I abandoned Buddhism.  Or, at least, it might have been less soul-crushing.

Yes, I called graduate school that.  For me.  If it didn’t work toward crushing your soul, congratulations.  Seriously.  You’re probably stronger than I am.  You don’t need to prove it with hatemail.  I know some people who definitely enjoyed graduate school more than I did.  Some of them drank much much much more than I ever did, though.  One didn’t drink at all, but I don’t know how happy [s]he was.

Geez, “Achilles’ Last Stand” is a great song.

I currently own three bike multi-tools and a new chain wallet.

I have too much stuff.

I repeat, I am camping.  Not here.