the tinyblog

About this time of year I go out with Zan to go get some nettles from Discovery Park. I get a bunch. I make tea with it, I cook it up and eat it like greens, I sting myself in the joints with it. I basically get as much of it in my system as I can while I have a batch of it.

Zan also tinctures it with vodka and makes nettle vodka shots, but I don't go that far.

Why? Because the hayfever I get in a few months is completely crippling for a few weeks, and nettles seem to make it better. Plus, the stings improve local circulation in joints that have limited mobility from me smashing the bones around them.

Also, it's really tasty and nutritious. I stew it with chicken and chicken broth. This year I blended the greens with a little onion and milk to make a Chicken Cream of Nettle. It came out rich and delicious.

When I do it, I feel like a total witch for a couple of months.

Posted by tiny daniel at 1:18 AM | Permalink

I never knew about eruvs until today.

Observant Jews, for those who don't know, have to follow some pretty strict rules about what they can and can't do on the sabbath. It's a "no work" holiday, and they get very serious about what they can and can't do. There's two separate rules for what you can do in your own home, and what you can do outside of the home.

Like... you can't carry your keys around outside of your home. You can't flip a light switch. For some you can't rip toilet paper. You know, work.

So it blew me away today to read a Harper's Weekly article/diagram about an eruv. Evidently there's this idea of a "shared space". You just string up some lines sectioning off an area, and then it's a sort of shared structure where jews can be basically "at home", thus, able to perform the home based tasks on sabbath. The Harper's article is about a big one covering much of the island of Manhattan.

I was blown away. How strange, I thought, until I googled and saw that there's probably one in every major city in the US. It would be interesting to get a google maps layer with all the eruv's in the country on it. I wonder how many square miles of eruv there is in the whole country. I wonder if I'm in an eruv.

Posted by tiny daniel at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna You Are The Destroyer:
Violently cool and human relationship destruction epic. Like hyper-disco or something.

Miles Davis - Miles Ahead +19:
The +19 is him plus 19 other horns. Inspiring little jazz tour de force for a damn good mood.

Kings of Leon - Aha Shake Heartbreak:
Rock and roll moaner extraordinare and truly rocking songs.

Amy Winehouse - Back to Black:
Funny, dark soul songs from a just-drawn-that- way London girl.

Joanna Newsom - Ys:
Earnest symphonic harp music from a girl with a squeaky voice and a million words.

(I guess they really aren't one line. Close enough.)

Posted by tiny daniel at 1:17 AM | Permalink

Once I get to sleep, I'm out until something really loud wakes me up, or until someone says my name.

It's not so easy to get there, though.

Tonight I did that rarest of things. I went to bed for an hour, and finally got up in frustration to work. Then I went back and laid down. Then I got up to blog, ruefully. It's worse when I have somewhere I have to be in the morning. That's the worst.

When I sleep with another person and I have it, I keep them up too. I don't try to. I can lay there very still with them, and even feel very relaxed. After many minutes pass it becomes quite clear that no one is sleeping. Then at least I have company.

Tonight I went to bed and it was almost like my heart was thumping, laughing at me. Like, OH no honey, you're not getting to sleep. You shouldn't even be laying down! Even still, as I write this, at 6:38 a.m., I still couldn't go lay down and sleep. I didn't even drink much coffee today! Maybe I should have drunk more.

Posted by tiny daniel at 6:32 AM | Permalink

If there was ever a story to my life, I've lost the thread of it. I'd pray to God if I thought I would get guided to my fate, but I don't think that. I mainly hear resounding silence. Even psychologists say you can ask yourself... your innermost self or whatever.

I ask. But me and my innermost self are quite silent. I ask myself what it is that I most desire, and I get lukewarm answers: I'd like to be a rapper, I'd like to have a nice girlfriend, I'd like to make enough money to have a car, pay off my taxes and move to Bellingham. I started out my life as a teenager with such vision and now perhaps I am boring? Perhaps netflix has ended my aspiration? I want things, but nothing so bad it burns in me and I'd be willing to give up everything for it, or even work hard for it. I'm 31 and I look at what I've accomplished and wonder if I should have just picked something arbitrarily.

The dharma has been a blessing and a curse. I like to and want to help all beings, and have learned to let go of a lot of attachment. But I have too much attachment to up and go in retreat like my sister, but too little to get out there in the rat race and fuck shit up. It's been going on like this for a couple of years. I don't see a solution.

Just letting you know. In case you have any ideas.

Probably has something to do with watching Stranger than Fiction. God, Maggie Gyllenhaal is so dreamy. She really is.

Posted by tiny daniel at 7:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I remember a scant few dreams a year. Some people tell me to write down my dreams, and then I'll remember them more often. But, when I put pen and paper by the bed, they are long since buried or shuffled away by the time I remember one.

I almost never have one when I have a full night's sleep. It's almost always in a luxury nap of some sort. Like, when you wake up too early, go out and have a bloody mary with breakfast, and then come home for a nap in the sun. Or if I fall asleep at a friends house.

I just met someone who said that I could remember my dreams if I let myself fall asleep during meditation a few times. I do that anyway sometimes, and while it's very relaxing, it doesn't help.

So, I was thinking I would make a conscious effort to remember some dreams so I can blog them. Maybe even tonight.

Posted by tiny daniel at 2:03 AM | Permalink

I thought about running a big long post thanking the tinyblog for all the times it was there for me to kick off the new life of the tinyblog. But, part of this new relaunch is about concentrating on the NEW tinyblog and not so much looking back to the past.

I'd like to clean up my old posts and find ways to present them, but I think that, most of all, for my own sanity. I'd better just start blogging again. About the present.

But perhaps, if YOU have a favorite old post, or would like to thank the tinyblog for something, you can do it in the comments.

Posted by tiny daniel at 3:48 AM | Permalink