Consumerism and compulsion are not a healthy mix.

I find myself stuck more and more these days not even on products I might want to have or use — long ago I lusted after a Dickie’s messenger bag, got it, used it, loved it — but to brands.  There’s a new Moleskine?  I need to have it.  I realize I might need to keep a binder at work?  I need to get the expensive Moleskine one.  I need to.  Anything bag related?  I need a Timbuk2 and even a very heavy diaper bag that I can pass onto Charlotte later for travel/school.  Because, you know, a bag has to be made of a material that was designed for flak protection in WWII to be worthy of a bag, right?

This could be my relatively boring life.  I never go camping as much as I used to, or travel.  So I sit and obsess over backpacks and messenger bags and what sort of gear I’ll need for my imaginary solo trip around Europe and the near East (which I’ll not only never get to take, but also don’t really want to take; my wife is a great travel companion as well as life companion).  When I was in my teens and camped more, I never really thought much of gear.  I had (still have) a framepack from 1990, and that was that.  My sleeping bag still has a cigarette burn from October 1995, in the mountains of Western Maryland and probably hasn’t even been washed since.

So I sit and read about bags to do things I don’t do.  Look on Flickr at pictures of Moleskines and other tools of writers, while I never write anymore.  I read adventure and manly books to imagine myself doing it.

And I don’t do anything.

I used to convince myself (even until this morning when I noticed a few meaningless broken threads on my precious custom Timbuk2 bag — one of FOUR I own!) that I really just needed to be able to enjoy my stuff, to love it so much that I didn’t care about the universal flaws that things which are made of material always exhibit (namely, never ever being or remaining perfect!).  That’s crazy.  The only entities worthy of being loved beyond their flaws are people and maybe your country.  Not your damned messenger bag that was made in San Francisco just for you or notebooks that have freakin PVC in their covers and paper that’s really, let’s face it, not great.  More properly, I need to regain my love of things like hiking and camping and traveling so much that I don’t care what beat-up piece of crap I carry all my stuff in.  I’ve been actually planning on buying a backpack to take to the mountains this fall.  Why?  I’ll just sit there worrying about and thinking about it.  There’s no point in spending a lot of time on it.  When I was a teenager, my journal was just a big spiral notebook I never needed for classes, and then the books people would give me as gifts.

I’ve gotten to the point where I would be ashamed if the people whom I admire were to learn about my sick ways.  When my dissertation director was here last month, I hoped I wouldn’t slip and admit how much I’d read about the little backpack I had with me at the time.  I’m not quite sure that Thoreau, Hemingway or Chatwin would own four Timbuk2 bags or even that any of them would get anywhere near a Moleskine, especially now that there are better and cheaper alternatives that do the same thing.

There was a time when the only things I was obsessed with were Space Pens, and I just wrote and traveled and camped and enjoyed activities and experiences.  This wasn’t that long ago, merely months before I started blogging, maybe a year.  I need to get back to that.  I don’t think I need to somehow learn to deal with accepting the imperfections of the stuff I am already obsessed with.  I think I need to get rid of and no longer buy the things I’m obsessed with.  Things that don’t obsess me don’t bother me regarding their imperfections.  Hell, I love shit that’s broken in!

My consumerism even extends to how I spend my time online and why the hell I even own a digital camera anymore, but that’s another post for another dark lunch-hour.

August 4, 2010 | Johnny | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Big face and a fun new playgym.


Charlotte has two playgyms, both from Ikea, and she loves both. Both bear being written about so that you can enjoy them, too, if you’re in the market for one (or two).

Without raving about either, she’d like to wish everyone a Happy Memorial Day weekend. Today, we’re going to see Grandpa off for his camping trip (on which Daddy has to sit out this year); going to her first campfire Saturday; and celebrating Uncle Joey’s birthday Sunday with a small family cook-out.

Mommy and Daddy both go back to work next week, and we’re not happy about it.

May 28, 2010 | Johnny | Tags: , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Need more outside.

outside1009
Taking the bus lately, I enjoy much more human interaction than you get when you travel by car or even by bike. But what I’m missing is outside time, which was/is a benefit of cycling to work.  I haven’t had to wear socks to work until today, when it’s raining and in the 40s.  I’m altogether too protected from the elements.

I got nothing but outside time this weekend, and it was fantastic.  From the spiders and deer to my wet feet and chattering teeth, I got a big dose of Mother Nature/Earth on our little camping trip.  But the end of Saturday, I was not bothered with being dirty.  By Sunday morning, shedding layers, sweating and packing/cleaninp up our campsite, I was elated over how stinky and dirty I had gotten.  I smelled like sweat, baby wipes, campfire and coffee.  I arrived home  in flannel PJ pants, a flannel shirt, dirty and wet socked/sandaled feet and visibly dirty.  Awesome.

I love living in the city.  The best way to really enjoy the outdoors is to enjoy it, not cut it down to live in a small piece of it, poison the air getting there and also waterways and the land itself with roads, etc.  I do want to retire and die in a little cabin one day, but that will have a small footprint.  But I haven’t been getting out enough even in the city lately.  Few walks, few cycling trips, little of anything.  Monday, I got three hours to show a nice guy around Baltimore for three hours.  It was his first time in Charm City.  So we walked from Midtown all the way to the Inner Harbor and East to Fell’s Point — and back.  It was tired, and we scored big sandwiches when we got back.  I gave a walking tour of Central Baltimore the next day and earned my pasta dinner.  These are improvements.

But now it’s raining and nasty today, and I haven’t even gone to get my afternoon coffee yet.

October 15, 2009 | Johnny | Tags: , , , , | 2 Comments »

Chief Wiggam.

chfwgm1009
There was a gateway competition at camp this past weekend, and the boys wanted to do “The Raven.”  The rules stipulated that the gateway was to be made at camp, out of “natural materials”, by hand.  No bust of Pallas, then.  But the boys found this bust in a closet and thought it would work well with the bamboo they lashed together.  We found a robin in a store’s garden section and painted it black for the raven itself.  Hunting decoys were too expensive.  The “raven” was fixed by lashing a pole behind The Chief and then around the bird.

October 12, 2009 | Johnny | Tags: , , | No Comments »

Back to “civilization.”

From camping.  And “civilization” means a few very crazy weeks at work, including a VERY last-minute site-visit tomorrow when I was hoping to work from home and continue the fight against getting sick.

Autumn is here, though, and that is damned fine.

And my waistpack smells like campfire, after my friend Zack and I sat around one last night for 4-5 hours, including melting two glass rootbeer (yes, ROOTbeer) bottles in the center/coals of said fire.  For the record, it was Zack’s idea.  I thought they’d explode, even empty.

I also kinda lost my cool and yelled [shortly] at a few kids who, in my defense, totally deserved it and needed to wake up a little to unexpected pains in the ass that come with being an adult and sometimes come when you’re fifteen.  I think it worked for the time, and there were/are no hard feelings.  Unless there’s a heartless revenge headed my way.  In which case, it did not, in fact work.

I am deliriously tired.

October 11, 2009 | Johnny | Tags: , , | No Comments »

Camping this weekend.

Aside from some small possible rain, the weather looks nice, too.  I have my food packed, but not clothes.  I’ll get around to it.  Been out shopping for it the past two evenings.  I’m freakin tired already.  Our boys are doing a gateway to their campsite made from natural materials and based on “The Raven.”  I’m proud of them.

October 9, 2009 | Johnny | Tags: , , | 4 Comments »

Red face from a campfire and revenge.

I came home from camping, and my wife asked if my face was red from too much sun.  No.  I led a nature hike of sorts in the woods, but we had the shade of poplar trees.  I didn’t sit in the sun much.  I sat in the shade, wrapped in flannel and fell asleep in my father’s chain from the relaxing wind and allergy pills.

I had a burned face from a very hot and pretty immense fire that some teenagers we were leading built.

They put extra stumps in the center of it to make it burn longer, because one of them didn’t lift a finger to help and was assigned to put it out.  They were getting revenge on him for his always-lazy-ness.  He did wind up proving them right when he threw a hissy fit and kicked something when he had to put the fire out after he tried very hard to get out of it.  I mean, it’s easier than finding, cutting and stacking wood.

On one hand, I was proud that they stuck together and glad that the person who always manipulates the rest of them and gets out of doing anything he doesn’t want to do got a small portion of what was coming to him.  The whole thing smelled of justice.  But on the other hand, I was disappointed at their revenge impulse.  There were other ways to get him to work, though I can’t think of them.

Mostly, though, I’m afraid I might have instilled this revenge instinct in these youngins.  I hope not.  They are some nice people.

May 27, 2008 | Johnny | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

This weekend, in my mummy bag.

The forecast called for cold nights this weekend in the city, so I knew it would be colder where we were camping.  I took my mummy bag accordingly, a sweet army surplus bag I inherited/stole from my Dad.  My usual sleeping bag would hold two people.  While comfortable, it’s not a great option when the temperature dips under 50.  With this particular mummy bag, you really need to pull it up over your head even if you’re not that cold.  You can unzip it a bit, if that helps.  I did.  It was chilly but not cold when I went to bed.  But each night I woke up with my face sticking out of the bag, all zipped up, my large nose very cold to the touch.  It was awesome.  I actually crawled entirely inside and made a tent of hot breath and my hairy arms.

Friday night, I used my cell phone as an alarm clock.  I wanted to get up first, get a shower, make coffee, etc.  I had it inside my sleeping bag so as not to wake anyone else up.  But when it went off, I was on top of my arms, which were asleep and numb.  I could not move them to shut the dang thing up.

Maybe I’m the only one that thinks this was funny.

I damaged a few pieces of gear this weekend, which usually drives me batty.  But I didn’t really care.  Could it be that I am getting closer to relating to my possessions like a normal person?  At least, the utilitarian ones?

I figured out the source of the bruise on my rear: when I kept falling on top of my metal flashlight during a skit about beans.  The flashlight looks like it got run over by a small car or several bikes from my big butt hitting it repeatedly on top of rocks.

Come on, that’s funny.

May 26, 2008 | Johnny | Tags: , , , | No Comments »