In my opinion the two greatest threats to America are climate change and wealth inequity. They are pretty much the same problem. We know about climate change. An article in the Washington Post gave us some scary numbers about wealth inequality. The richest .00025% in the US have tripled their share of national wealth since Reagan was elected. Those 400 Americans now own more wealth than the 150 million adults of the least wealthy 60% whose share has fallen in the same period from 5.7% to 2.1%. I do not have a problem with wealth all by itself, but there is no such thing. I have a problem when the wealthy prevent children from getting the health care that they deserve, when they reduce education to gather more wealth to themselves, and when they simultaneously profit from industries that have caused global warming and fund climate change denying politicians. Please connect the dots: labor union suppression, voter suppression, denial of the truth about global warming, strangling education, expansion of the impoverished and marginally employed working class, stoking our fears of bogus national threats - immigrants, LGBTQ, terrorists, blacks, socialists, abortion clinics, whatever - all have a single purpose: accelerating and concealing the concentration of wealth.
Time for an update in modern physics
There is a powerful mechanism in the cosmos that has not been accounted for by modern physics. This photo documents the effect. I needed to wear gloves this morning because I want to do something outside, live in Minnesota, and would like to continue in my life with the use of all of my fingers. The first four gloves that I found were all for my left hand. What happened to the right-hand gloves, which I used and stored in the exactly the same way and time as the left-hand gloves? Similarly, when I need a Phillips head screwdriver, the first three or four screwdrivers I find are all slots and vice versa when I want a slot screwdriver. (I found out while checking my spelling for this post that there is such a thing as a "line head female tamper screw driver." Wait, what?) And when I want to plug in a polarized jack, either USB or power plug, the first time is always wrong. Same with putting on a t-shirt in the dark. You'd think that you'd be right in the orientation back to front of the t-shirt at least part of the time. But, no. I'm fairly sure that the cosmic mechanism also controls traffic. Ever wait at a t-intersection for a break in the traffic so you can turn? You guessed it, a small break in traffic coming from one direction is always plugged by a single car coming from the other direction. The mechanism might even extend to headsets you put in your pocket, drawer, or bag. Why after the briefest period unsupervised does it emerge braided, twisted, knotted so badly I consider throwing it away rather than deal with the mess. Integrating the uncooperative headset phenomenon might be a reach theoretically and must await some genius who can a Unified Personal Obstruction Theory or UPOT. A Nobel Prize awaits the person who codifies the behavior of this obnoxious mechanism.
Just another patch of darkness
On the way to my writing desk at 4:20 a.m. this morning, I paused by the window that overlooks my backyard. Often as I look out of the window at that time of day, I imagine that I see things: dinosaurs skittering across the yard, a man in a long coat leaning against the shadowy side of a tree, or UFOs blinking at me. The visions dance across the screen of my still somnolent mind overlaid upon the backyard.
This morning I saw something strange. The day before, my son Kai had left a small plastic swimming pool in a crumpled heap in the middle of the yard. Needing to paint the house, he had dragged it into the yard where I could see it before dawn on a cool September morning. The pool I expected, but not the two black things next to it. What were they?
I was certain from the moment I saw them. Two young black bears rested in my back-yard. They sat very still, close to the heap of pool, facing each other. Ridiculous, I thought. Still groggy from sleep, I rubbed my eyes and tried to imagine what else they could be, even as I knew they were bears. They didn't move. I wondered where they had come from. I previewed the call I would make to the police station. All the while I looked and looked.
Then came the moment of disillusionment. My eyes cleared. Kai had left the light on in the bathroom, creating shadows beside the pool. My mind, not expecting shadows at night, had done the best it could and had seen two black bears huddled by the heap of pool. But I preferred bears to shadows. How much more dramatic, meaningful, and unexpected bears are than a bit of lawn the bathroom light can't shine on. Here was a story, something to impress my friends, and mark the day for years to come. But now that I had a more plausible explanation, I was a little sad. I wished one of those shadows had licked the other, and, together, they had stood up and ambled across my yard in the moonlight under the cottonwoods. But they didn't. As shadows, they didn't even sit up any more. Now they lay resolutely flat on the ground, nothing bear about them at all. I thought about shutting off the light to free the shadows. Maybe the light, the pool, and the ground had frozen to the spot those poor bears. If I turned off the light, they would scamper off into the woods and go about their snuffling way. But the light, the pool, the ground, and my mind had called those bears into my backyard, not trapped them there.
Still I left the light on. It was the least I could do for them. They continued to huddle together by a crumpled up pool in somebody's backyard and listen to the hiss of the cottonwood leaves moving in the wind overhead. The frogs have quit singing for the season, but the reeds and cattails still rustled quietly under the silent moon. I left the light on. I would not interrupt a sweet moment like that. I would rather have two black bear cubs resting quietly, affectionately, together in my backyard by the swamp under the stars than just another patch of darkness.
Scared silly
One of the journals I keep now I call my Moments Journal. Each entry in that journal is one page long, perhaps three hundred words and focuses on a single moment in my memory. I describe the lead up to the moment, some of the details of the moment itself, and the feelings I had. I remember, for example, the moment at St. George’s Episcopal Church after I had reached the head of the aisle and turned to behold Adele in her wedding dress following me, all smiles. I remember where I was when I learned that JFK had been murdered. I remember being alone in a New York hotel room ten months later and watching the Democratic National Convention sustain an applause for RFK for over twenty minutes.
I can’t place many of the entries in time any more precisely than the year, but, thanks to Wikipedia, the one I wrote this morning I know happened at 10:30 pm, January 10, 1963. The rumpus room had been converted into a preposterous fallout shelter by then, which, while it would do nothing to protect us from the consequences of a nuclear war, did create an unusual environment. In it, fleeing boys could find a sanctuary that could be made to feel remote, silent, secure, and, with the lights out, utterly lightless. In that space, I watched many episodes of Fireball XL5, The Jetsons, and Johnny Quest on our first TV, which was black and white and made of molded black plastic with gold trim. On it, I watched the full fifteen minutes of the Redstone launch in May of 1961. Mom let me be late for school to watch it. The most important aspect of the TV, as you will see in this memory, was that the power switch was simple: pull to turn on, push to turn off.
On that Thursday night, some brothers and I – memory says it was Jeff, Dan, Luke, and I – watched The Twilight Zone. Specifically, the episode was The Thirty-Fathom Grave, in which a US destroyer patrolling in the south Pacific detects noises from below. Research proves that in this area, a US submarine, twenty years before, had been sunk by the Japanese. The captain of the destroyer had been assigned to the submarine when it had been sunk, but he had fallen off the sub before it had submerged and then destroyed. The captain blamed himself, because of an error he had made, for the destruction of the sub. Now he hallucinates that the ghosts of his fellow sailors were calling to him by banging a hammer on the inside of the hull of the submerged wreck. (I get goosebumps recalling the show.) Eventually, he throws himself overboard and swims to his death to atone.
After the show ended, as a squealing mob, the four of us fled the rumpus room to seek the safety of our mother, who in her callous indifference to our fear instructed us to go turn off the TV and get ready for bed. As if any of us would be able to sleep. We pled for mercy, but none was shown. The problem of turning off the TV was aggravated by the design of the bomb shelter. The clever designers had determined that a simple el-shaped wall, that didn’t even go clear to the ceiling and permitted a person to simply walk around the wall to enter the shelter, was sufficient to stop drifting, glowing, marble-sized, bits of radioactive fallout. The wall created a twelve-foot no-man’s zone that would have to be bravely traversed, somehow, to turn off the TV. We may have been scared out of our wits, but we had enough wits about us to solve the problem. We tied together a broomstick, a hockey stick, and a yardstick, which was long enough to be guided by extended and trembling hands of several boys to deliver the simple punch that would turn off the set. Of course, mission accomplished, we fled again as a squealing mob, back up the stairs to safety. I imagine Mom was obliged on the following morning to find, wonder about, and disassemble the broom, hockey stick, and yard stick.
My feelings were the thrill of fear, the joy of working with a team of brothers, and the amusement about the overall hilarity of the moment.
There were good times, too.
Squeaks is what you get
After the birth of my nephew Sterling, I sought a way to remind his older brother Tyler that, even though his parents would be very busy with his new, younger brother, he, Tyler, was still important. So I wrote hi letters. Here's one:
August 12, 1997
Dear Tyler,
Has your dad ever told you about the smell of floor wax? There are a lot of good smells in the world. For example, have you smelled your crayons? Red smells just like black to me, but they all smell different from anything else in the world. Attics have a sad smell for me. I think about all of the toys and puzzles no one wants to play with any more. Your pillow has its own smell too. Sniff it tonight after the lights are out and the house is quiet. You’ll see.
The fall has smells that remind me, and probably your dad, of being a little boy. Leaves crackle when you walk through them, but they have a smell too. Crumble one up in your hand and smell it. Sometimes you can smell someone burning leaves or having a fire in the fireplace in the house. There were more fires inside of houses and outside in yards and gardens when your dad and I were young.
Also in the fall, Grandma bought your dad and me new shoes. New shoes smelled like stores, not like somebody's stinky feet. There was only one kind of play shoe, which we called sneakers back then and that was Keds. And there was only one kind of Keds, the kind that laced to the top of your ankle. Every pair had a flat, round piece of rubber as a mark on the outside of my ankle, but I could get different colors: black, blue, white, and red. Brand new shoes smelled like a store and the rubber sole squeaked when I rubbed my finger on it. After about a month, my sneakers began to smell good, like baseball dirt, grass scuffing, and dogs. Grandma also bought us clothes so that we could go back to school in new clothes instead of the old, comfortable ones with the holes in the knees.
And always the first smell I smelled on the first day of school was floor wax. The janitors had worked all summer to make the schools clean and ready for us. The last thing they did, on the day before we came back to school, was wax the floors. My shoes squeaked on the fresh wax. Every time: new wax on the floor and new sneakers on your feet. Squeaks is what you get.
So whenever I smell floor wax, I remember long ago in the fall. I bet your dad does too. If he hasn’t told you so yet, ask him. He knows. He’ll tell you.
Uncle Chris
David Hargesheimer
I am starting to get email about my fiftieth year Mayo reunion. How I came to actually have a fiftieth year anything is beyond me. I don't feel sixty-six years old.
The strangest piece of information I have received so far is the reported death of David Hargesheimer. He was the biggest guy in my class at Bamber Valley and I was the smallest. The high point of my career at BV was at a kickball game. I was playing shortstop and David was a bat or is that at foot? I was usually the last or second to last to be picked for any team. I like to think that was a function of my size, not my athletic ability or personality, but who knows, so not much was expected of me when David kicked the ball. I wouldn't have caught the ball had it not been directly at me. My memory says that the balled followed a direct line from David's foot to my solar plexus, exhibiting no arc whatsoever. Actually the ball caught me more than I caught it. Again memory says that I was actually lifted off the ground by the velocity of the ball. But catch it I did, retiring large David.
The only other memory I have of him was at my ten year reunion. I recognized him right away even though he and I were then about the same size. The only bit of the conversation that comes back to me was him looking at me with droopy eyes and saying, "oh, wow" in what seemed to be a heavily sedated slur. I assumed that he was stoned, but I don't know. He had another thirty-four years of life ahead of him. I don't know what he did with his remaining time above ground.
I find it surreal that he is dead. Forever.
100 Things About Me
1.I am a polio survivor. Lucky dog.
2.I can't eat beets. They make me gag.
3.I can't play the piano. Tried for eleven years. No luck.
4.I can't dance either. Or sing, for that matter.
5.I have voted Republican once, 'cause the Sierra Club said it was okay. Sorry.
6.I never thought I would be an enthusiastic church member, but I am.
7.I climbed a water tower when I was about eleven. A rite of passage.
8.I lived on my bike when I was little. Only safe place.
9.Irish wolfhounds were the pet in my childhood home. They're big.
10.I love to eat red meat, but I don't. Enough dies needlessly without my help.
11.Once purple and green were my favorite colors. Now it's blue.
12.I grew up in a castle. Really.
13.I dodged the alcoholism gene. Lucky dog.
14.I started attending plays at the Guthrie in 1968. Way important for me.
15.I have one biological child of my own and two adopted ones. They raised me.
16.An arsonist hollowed out my home once. What a jerk. He's still in jail.
17.I remember Lincoln Logs and Tinkertoys. And Erector Sets.
18.I owned an Adam computer once. Remember Coleco?
19.I shook J.K. Galbraith's hand once. My brush with greatness.
20.I smoked a cigarette once. Made me barf. It's hard to be cool barfing.
21.I kept a dime store turtle alive for seventeen years. Named him Merl.
22.I prefer Halloween to Christmas. It's not so commercial.
23.The Exorcist scared the living bejesus out of me. Still does.
24.I've written two novels, but no one is interested. They must be tedious.
25.I've stood at the center of Paris. France, that is.
26.Best hippie credentials? I saw the Dead at the Guthrie.
27.I buy weird, useless ceramic junk at the Goodwill. Especially blue stuff.
28.I don't wear boxer shorts. I micromanage. What can I say?
29.I'm post-theistic. Whatever that means.
30.I was called a destroyer of societies once. Wow. High expectations.
31.I frequently say stupid stuff. Explains why I keep my mouth shut.
32.I wax mystical at the sight of yellow maple leaves on the ground. Really.
33.I could live on pecan pie and vanilla ice cream. But not for long.
34.I was fondled by a nurse once. Only once, though, damn it.
35.Most impressive sight? Coastal redwoods. Other than Adele, of course.
36.I never get tired of Battlestar Galactica. It's so real to me now. Weird.
37.I want to see every Shakespeare play on stage. I'm at about twenty-eight now.
38.I love the smell of freshly cut grass. The kind cut with a lawn mower.
39.I have nice fountain pens, but I don't use them much. Too much hassle.
40.My favorite dog is a miniature Aussie named MyLo. He doesn't work though.
41.I read grammar books for fun. I'm less tedious than I seem at first look.
42.My first camera was an Exacta. It's was good camera. For its time anyway.
43.I wear cotton clothes pretty much exclusively. Doesn't itch.
44.I have never seen a ghost, but I have heard credible stories. Not many though.
45.I have seen one thing in the night sky I can't account for. Everything else, yes.
46.High school kids amuse me. Their humor is so brash and outrageous.
47.I studied Heidegger in college, believe it or not. Why?
48.I have had one adult relationship. Lots of childish ones, but only one adult one.
49.I watch very little TV after the football season ends. Why bother?
50.I have about ten extra pounds on me I can't get rid of. I love to eat too much.
51.I am a writer. Not published though. Yet.
52.I am a peace activist. No peace yet. Not for the world anyway.
53.I'm Christian. I'm not saved or born again though. And what's this god thing?
54.I am a scholar. No one learns from me. Info goes only one way with me.
55.I exercise. I eat right. Still over weight though.
56.I'm on a buckthorn jihad. Millions of them grow all around me anyway.
57.I take antidepression meds. I'm blue most of the time anyway.
58.I'm almost done with the day-to-day work of fatherhood. Can I nap yet?
59.I hate pairing and putting away laundered socks. So I own lots of socks.
60.My sixtieth birthday is a rougher passage than I expected. How did I get here?
61.Stones. Beatles. Beach Boys. Mamas and the Papas. Elvis. Johnny Horton.
62.I have no plans to live in the state of Mississippi. Ever.
63.I'm a space nerd. Saturn Vs. Mars rovers. LMs. That sort of thing.
64.I wouldn't do much differently if I had a chance to do things over. That's cool.
65.I've been to Athens. It was on the short list.
66.If I could live to two hundred years old, I'd be an architect next. Or a counselor.
67.I love smoked oysters on crackers. Kinda fattening though. Good stuff is.
68.I like news that's about a month old. Time filters out most mindless junk.
69.I have five brothers and no sisters. I don't see them much though.
70.I love well engineered stuff. Like my Nikon 850.
71.I watched the moon landing live. What excites young people today?
72.I had a ride to Woodstock, but skipped it. Silly me.
73.I collect book marks. They're small and don't suck up space.
74.I'm artistic, but don't know how very well. Yet.
75.I have tinnitus. Whistles, rumbling, that sort of thing. I know no silence.
76.I tip at 20%. I'd rather tip than be tipped.
77.I've kept a daily journal since 1966. That's the year my father died.
78.My favorite leisure activity. Walking in the surf without shoes.
79.I look down when I walk. I like to pick up pretty rocks.
80.Strip clubs appeal to me. Haven't been to one in thirty years though.
81.I can do about thirty string figures. Jacob's ladder. That sort of thing.
82.I've got a million beads, but don't do anything with them. Not any more.
83.I'm a dog person. Cats seem full of themselves.
84.Shirt size: M. Pants: 34-29. Hat size: 7 1/8. Shoes: 8 1/2 m.
85.I have little interest in the Civil War. Little interest in Vietnam either.
86.Best known known relative: James Longstreet. The Civil War general.
87.I like to poke around in junk stores. Ceramic blue stuff. Small stuff.
88.As a child, I always asked for lobster for my birthday dinner. Peas and potatoes.
89.I insist on telling the truth. Another reason I don't talk much.
90.One of my favorite places on the planet? Presbyterian Clear Water Forest.
91.My most painful recent experience: a tooth extraction. The dentist was a sadist.
92.I haven't played chess since I learned to play bridge. Too uncivilized.
93.One of my oldest friends has spent most of his adult life in jail. Really.
94.I'm not done at the Louvre yet. Not by a long shot.
95.Favorite ice cream flavor? Vanilla. With maple syrup. Too much maple syrup.
96.The book that has most influenced me? The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
97.I usually come out of left field in conversations. Another reason I don't talk.
98.One thing I eat not many others like? Kimchee. Not many Americans anyway.
99.I'm retired. Still working though, just not paid anymore.
100.One of my great heroes: Niels Bohr. Who?
I have a soft spot for rocks.
I am amazed at how some information gets around. Here's an example: Adele told me once that one of her favorite stores is T Lee Customer Designer Jewelry. All by itself, that's a source of anxiety for me, but Adele is, by and large, a responsible consumer of custom designer jewelry if there is such a thing. A couple weeks later, I told her that I discovered a store that had quickly become one of my favorites: Hedberg Masonry and Stucco Supply. Now I have never masoned or stuccoed anything in my life; I just like rocks and rocks is what Hedberg has. Lots of rocks. It was a joke. Adele laughed, but I still like Hedberg Masonry and Stucco Supply. (By the way, the rocks Hedberg sells are frequently larger than the rocks T Lee sells.) That was it. I don't remember ever talking about Hedberg's with anybody again, except my neighbor Matt shortly after he moved in. He's nearly as big a nerd as I am so I thought he would like Hedberg's too and he does.
Spin forward ten years at least, enough time for my chimney to fall apart. I have paid off my mortgage so I can no longer justify not repairing the chimney, which is going to cost me more than a really nice Nikon camera would. (Those are the dimensions with which I measure my life these days: how long it takes for my chimney to fall apart and how many nice Nikon cameras something is going to cost me. I know: I need to get out more.) Gary the brick guy texted me this morning at 6:43 am. That's fine; I respect a man who's already taking care of business at 6:43 am. I called him and we talked about repairing my chimney and replacing my front stoop, which is also falling apart. Yeah, I've been in this house for a while and I have some other things that are falling apart that I am not going to mention on Facebook because that would be widely regarded as TMI. Anyway, in the course of our conversation, he mentioned that his wife knew me and that he had heard that I liked Hedberg Masonry and Stucco Supply and that I ought to get over there to pick out some rock for my new stairs. I did a quick review of what I can remember of women I knew whose husbands I didn't know to verify that I shouldn't have a concern around hiring that husband to do expensive repairs on my house: nothing. Gary seemed friendly enough. But how would he know that I had a soft spot - I know a disorienting metaphor for a rock store - for Hedberg Masonry and Stucco Supply? I didn't ask him how he knew because I will still a little anxious about how he was managing the information that I knew his wife and he didn't know me. My memory isn't what it used to be, but I didn't want to accidently reopen a can of worms, not that a guy whose favorite store is Hedberg Masonry and Stucco Supply and isn't a mason is the kind of guy who would have many cans of worms in his history.
Anyway, I am amazed at how some information gets around, but then I spend most of my time being amazed at stuff.
Journals I keep
I write every day in one I call My Main Journal. It has dated pages and is a midsize book. In it I write pretty much whatever I want to write. I react to people and events in it. I express anger, pleasure, gratification, astonishment, etc. I have kept that journal now for fifty-two years.
I have one I call a One-liner. In it, I enter a single line. It is a dated journal, but not associated with any year. When I look at January 1, I see entries from 1996, 1997, 1998, etc. Typical entries: I see the first robin of the season and Finally complete the big history of the Depression.
I have a Gratitude Journal. I make frequent entries, sometimes as often as twice a day identifying one way I feel grateful. Typical entry: I am grateful to have been born after the invention of Novocaine.
I write maybe once a week in a Moments Journal. I remember an important moment in my life. I write a full page, perhaps three hundred words leading up to the moment. The last few sentences are always descriptions of the feelings I had in the moment.
Of course, I have a Vocabulary Journal. Each entry is a word I would like to sock down deep in my memory, make it part of my active vocabulary. Each entry is a date – maybe the only necessary element of any entry in any journal – the word, the type of word it is, an adverb, for example, and the definition. I reread the entire journal periodically.
I have a People Journal. In it, I write the name of one person in my life and then a brief entry about who that person is and how she has participated in my life.
I have a large format journal, my Diagramming Sentences Journal. Typically, I will find a good complex sentence drawn from a non-modern source because so few writers are interested in complex sentences anymore. Dickens is good. So is the Federalist Papers. I write down the sentence at the beginning of the entry and then I dissect the sentence is excruciating detail. Some sentence analyses go on for eight or ten pages. The journal has blank pages. I like to use colored pens and my own rules rather than the formally proscribed rules of analysis.
A journal that I have completed, which means I simply ran out of pages, is one I call my Tens Journal. In it I make lists of tens. Some are superlative lists as in The Best, The Worst, My favorite, etc. Others are just the first ten things that occur to me for a specific category. Examples: Ten countries I have no plans of ever visiting, Ten movies I have seen more than twice, Ten weird foods I have eaten, etc.
I have started another small format journal I call my Fours Journal. In it I keep lists of sets of four: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. John, Paul, George, and Ringo. I have identified perhaps fifty such sets and am not expecting to find many more.
One of my favorite journals is one I call My Lists of 100 Things Journal. In it I propose to write a lists of one hundred things. 100 red things in my life. 100 successes. 100 things I love about my wife. My daughter Phoenix once moaned that the only thing she was good at was soccer. I told her that I could name more than a hundred things that she was good at. I stopped at one hundred and five. These I printed in a large format, put in a frame and hung on the wall. You wouldn’t think you could complete a list of 100 people I need to forgive me something, but I have never started a 100s list without completing it. There is even a list of 100 topics to write lists of one hundred about. Writing entries in this journal flips my mind into an unusual orientation, an openness. Usually, at about number eighty, I hit on a zinger and wonder why it took me so long to find it. The only rule is that the list must be completed in one sitting, typically an hour and a half. Repeats are okay.
Of course, I have one journal each for my three children.
I have a Sex Journal, in which I wrote at tedious length about who I am sexually. No one sees that one, why I am uncertain of.
Similarly, I have a Dream Journal. I don’t share that with anyone because other people’s dreams are tedious.
After completing my Tens Journal, I have set out to complete my 10,000 Memories Journal. It is what it sounds like. The entries are frequently brief and I will be working on it for several years.
I have what I call working journals. They are usually dedicated to specific projects like a series of articles I want to write, stories I am working on, etc. The journal I take to my photo class qualifies as a working journal. I have two journals in which I write what amount to notes for an autobiography. I write about events in my life, what they meant to me, and how they shaped me.
I have a journal with no title in which words are prohibited. Only undated drawings appear in it.
I have a Coincidences Journal. I collect instances of unexpected connections I have with people. For example: My best friend and I ate at the Macaroni Grill for many years. There we built a friendship with one of the servers. That server went to Denison College in Ohio. One of her friends there is my god daughter, whose mother knew Adele and me before Adele and I met and has also worked with my best friend’s wife. Weird, huh. In this large format lineless journal I try to fit together as many coincidences as I can in a single scheme.
In My Concerns journal I enter lists of what is absorbing my interest on the day of the entry, which I make about once a month. Concerns can be trivial, such as seeing Infinity Wars with my nephews, or significant, as in making strategic decisions about how I want to become more involved with The Minnesota Peace Project. Both claim a slice of the churning of my mind and so have similar psychological dimensions even as they have different scales of impact on me or my world.
I keep a Death Journal, in which I write messages to people who survive me. I record the things in my life that I hope don't get lost when I pass, like my autograph of J. R. R. Tolkien. I have described what I would like to see happen at my funeral, not that I would care anymore. I list things that my survivors ought to know about my house and my finances. Mostly though, it is a personal book, one in which I follow Montaigne’s instructions about the importance of preparing for death.
I have a large format lineless Geometry Journal in which I work out geometric solutions, such as the construction of a pentagon. I use lots of colorful pens because the designs are pretty. To support that exploration, I use a little book called Ruler and Compass.
I have a Preferences Journal. It is a long list of preferences: I prefer broccoli to cauliflower. I prefer red M&Ms to blue M&Ms. I prefer the Pierce Brosnan James Bond to the Sean Connery James Bond. The contents of that journal can be found in this website under the Preferences tab.
Here's a bibliography of good books on journaling that I have learned from:
· Journal to the Self* by Kathleen Adams
· The New Diary* by Tristine Rainer
· The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
· Life’s Companion by Christina Baldwin
· Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg
· Creative Journal Writing by Stephanie Dowrick
*On everybody’s lists of best books about keeping a journal