Frankly, I haven’t been in a very good place recently. It’s something that comes and goes, and right now it’s here, sleeping on the couch and mooching my limited food so I hope it goes away again sometime relatively soon. This isn’t the sort of funk that need worry anyone, as I continually tell my family, it’s just something that I deal with and know that it’ll stop bugging me when my life is at least somewhere near the tracks again. Which leads to my explanation for these intermittent funks of mine – I’m 33, unemployed and have no idea what I want to be when I grow up.

The flip side of this is that I have a good support structure in the form of a family that loves me and wants to see me succeed in whatever I endeavor to do. They would love it if I could do that from the comfort of my own place, but that’s just being picky at this point.

In the midst of this, I’m extending myself in ways I’m not generally comfortable with in the name of developing a circle of friends. I’d like to toss a round of disc golf…but have nobody to play with and hence no challenge. I’d like to get out on the trails again…buddy system and all that. While Shira (the husky mix who keeps me company) is great company, I don’t think she’d be much use in an emergency. Unless you count running the other way when someone shakes a plastic bag helpful, in which case we’re good.

AND, I just found out that a store I applied at wants me to come in for a couple of short trial shifts this week and if all works out I’m end up with part time work starting in about a week. I’m not going into any more details so as not to jinx anything…I really need to get back to work and this is a great opportunity to learn.

That’s all I got right now, nothing groundbreaking, but sometimes I just need to vent and air things out. Seeing some of this stuff in writing lets me sit back and judge objectively how I’m doing. It gives me some perspective and hopefully the result is me feeling a bit better and helps that funk move on with it’s life and get off my couch.

Sleep in WAY later than you intended. Attempt to meditate for about 5 minutes or until your feet fall asleep and your hammy cramps. Trip on the way into the bathroom, torking your ankle and setting off a flurry of plantar faciitis activity (hint: feels like walking on a hot fire poker). Pee. Bruth teeth. Careful here, confusing those two can lead to all manner of unpleasantness. Hop in shower, forget to redirect showerhead, get doused into alertness by cold water. Shower without further incident, get dressed and head upstairs.

Rub tummy of dog sleeping on couch and boil water for tea. Curse descision to stop drinking coffee.

Open curtains and sit down at laptop. Watch hummingbird hover right outside window. remember this moment, it will be the highlight of the day. Open laptop and check email. Scan regular job listings. Together these take about 10 minutes…sink into hopelessness. Recover, drink tea slowly. Feed dogs. It’s now about 10.00 and you’ve accomplished everything substantive you need to do today. Sink into deepening funk.

Go for walk, realize that hot fire poker is still there, gimp back home.

Invent errands that must get done, borrow car. Drive downtown the long way, miss 3 parking places, circle block twice almost hitting the same drunk both times and end up parking in the first spot you missed. Don’t have any change so use debit card for $1.20 worth of parking, go to store, find that they changed the item you need so that it is now completely useless, get back to car with 20 minutes unused parking paid for.

Sigh deeply.

Drive across town to favorite coffee shop with free wifi and view of canal and trail and settle in to finish strangling day.

About a month after my return to Seattle, I had the opportunity to do a work trade in order to attend a Permaculture event in Portland. My friend was coming up from southern Oregon and had family in Portland we could both crash with, and I would shoot the event for their records and receive free admission in exchange. I just needed to get back into a dSLR outfit. I had been drooling on my roommates Canon while still in Israel and had been plotting a way to get back into shooting more seriously upon my return so this was a great excuse reason to drop the money on a used set-up.

I fould a Nikon D70 (exactly what I used to shoot) on Craigslist and dropped the cash 2 months ago (one month after returning with what I felt was no money). I’ve put maybe 100 shots on it and the event in Portland never materialized. So it’s been sitting down in my basement collecting dust…just like the last D70 I owned did.

I went into denial. Just like last time. I told myself I’d use it more when the weather got better. It did, I didn’t. I told myself I’d use it to document my volunteering. I do, but I don’t. All told it’s mostly captured the dogs playing and a couple of scenics around town. I just don’t like carrying it on my bike unless I feel a real need.

So it’s back up for sale. Hopefully I can recoup at least most of what I spent. I could use the money right now. 3 months of continuing unemployment and I’m starting to wonder how I’m going to replace worn out clothes…

Have I learned my lesson? I sure as hell hope so. I’ve only bought a few things since returning, some clothes for interviewing, a bike, and this mess. So overall I think I’m doing pretty well. May this be my one and only slip.

I don’t have any current pictures, but this one sums up my collection and favorite options, it’s from my time in Israel. Ignoring the flip-flops in back, I’ll start from the left:

• Source sandals (made in Israel), they’re a lot like the original Tevas if you go back that far. Just rubber with some tread and a very small arch bump. Nice and soft.
• Vibram Fivefingers (VFF) KSO. Look for a detailed review in a later post.
• VFF Classic
• VFF KSO in blue camo (no longer with us).
• Sanuk Sidewalk Surfer w/hemp canvas upper. Think flip-flop with coverage.
• Vivo Barefoot Oak in brown suede (wrong size, sold).

Now for the good stuff, the back story, reviews, etc…I’m going to do my best to stick to my credo of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) so as not to bore you into submission:

My saga starts eons ago when I was a teenager and started having knee pains. At the time I was playing baseball (catcher), football (offensive lineman), and skiing. Pick your knee poison. I was diagnosed as having Osgood-Schlatter disorder, basically “teenage knee pain” and told that it would go away in a year or so and in the meantime hold off on the sports especially the skiing. heh. Did I mention that I was teaching skiing 3 days a week and that I’ve been skiing at an expert level since I was like 14? 2 years later the pain was getting worse not better so I found a different doc to see, this one treats the UW football team so I figured I was in good hands. He diagnosed early onset arthritis combined with shredded patellar cartilage. Despite my only being 16, he suggested surgery to clean up the cartilege and maybe give me a year pain free.

Recovery sucked.

Then I was pain free, as advertised…for all of 2 months. Thank you Dr Fail.

Jump ahead to about 2-2.5 years ago and I decided to try reflexology for a hand problem (nerve was on the fritz, kept making me drop things I really wanted to hold onto). After a one hour session my hand was listening to me again and I was a convert. Turns out there was something impinging on the end of a nerve in my shoulder…who knew? Anyway, after the session the reflexologist (if you’re in the Seattle/Tacoma area and want a referral, just let me know!) looked at my Chaco sandals and said that I might want to consider looser, softer shoes to allow my feet to work as nature intended. Now I should explain that I had been going through custom orthotics like they were going out of style for years and had finally settled on Superfeet in my boots and Chacos for everything else. This combination seemed to keep the pain to a dull roar in my knee as well as the bulging disc in my lower back that I developed in my early 20s. Add to that being a bootfitter at REI for 2 years and being trained in how to rant about the benefits of solid platforms and rigid support…you get the picture. This was going to be interesting…

Considering that background, and the fact that this wonder-worker had been able to eradicate my hand issue after nobody else even thought to look at my shoulder and I had to at least look into this softer-is-better footwear thing. So I did the only logical thing – sat down with a cup of tea and Google and dove in.

After coming up for air I had to admit that she was on to something. Bottom line, our feet are engineering marvels and to think that the only way we can use them properly is with some sort of marshmellow looking shoe with a rigid arch support specifically built for our “foot issues” is sorta silly. Whatever power you believe in designed our feet for one purpose, to support the body attached to them, and to provide transportation for us. OK, so I was convinced, now what? I started by walking barefoot around my block every night – then recovering the next morning. Seriously, if you want to go this route, PLEASE TAKE IT SLOWLY! I can not emphasize this point enough. TAKE IT SLOWLY. Unless you already do a lot of barefooting, in which case why are you reading this?

I was then introduced to the Vibram Fivefingers shoe via Barefoot Ted. If you haven’t read any one of the dozens of news articles that have been coming out about how barefoot running is the next “thing” and how these foot gloves are being sported by celebs everywhere…I’ll give you the summary: they’re foot gloves. Think thin rubber sole, pockets for each individual toe (to encourage separation and each toe being able to grip independently), and a neoprene or mesh upper to hold it on. That’s it. No arch. No support. No cushion. No nothing. If you step on it, you feel it. If you step IN it…well you get the picture.

I figured out my sizing and ordered up a pair of the KSO (Keep Stuff Out) model in black, hoping that the color would keep too many people from asking silly questions about my Hobbit Feet. I have really wide, flat, hairy feet anyway…so that was the last thing I needed. Wearing them for maybe an hour or two a day, and while walking for no more than 1 mile at a time is how I started the process of breaking myself in. Fast forward 9 months – yeah, I took a full 9 months to break the orthotic habit – and I was able to walk up to 9 miles on city streets in my VFFs and was wearing them or sidewalk surfers for pretty much anything. I found a pair of surfers with  brown leather uppers so they passed for work shoes and I would just slip them off under my desk or driving, etc…

It’s now been over two years since this saga started and as of today the dull ache that had been ever present in my knee and lower back are gone. They still hurt, don’t get me wrong – the damage is done – but the daily ache is gone. And the damage from tearing my left rotator cuff is also causing less pain. All this from letting my body realign how it wants to be aligned instead of how my footwear wanted it to be aligned. Seems so friggin’ simple in hindsight I have to marvel at how long it took me to figure out. I’m training to walk the Seattle Marathon in November, not sure about footwear at the moment, I’m having some arguments with my VFFs and am not sure they’re going to work for that many hours of walking…like I said I’ll cover them more in a future post, pros and cons. So the bottom line of this little journey? If you have any issues walking or running, lower back pain, etc…think about shedding your foot coffins at least part time. I promise your feet will thank you, and as a bonus you’ll be able to purge and simplify your shoe collection!

I did have a surreal experience this past week, actually it’s a 2-part experience – I was dragged to the bain of all simple folk – The Mall {{{insert B horror movie scream track here}}}

Part of what made the experience so surreal was that the first mall was in a ritzy eastern suburb, and the second was in a more working class area to the north…but I was seeing the same stores, same restaurants, same overabundance of consumerism. It wasn’t until I started really looking at the people that the differences became startlingly clear.

At the ritzy suburban locale, most of the people wandering past my perch were teens in groups of 2-5, all carrying multiple bags from whatever store is on trend this week. At least one in each group was texting at any given time, and none seemed to be listening to anything any of the others were saying.

In contrast, at the working class mall to the north (it’s too far north for me to think of it as a suburb), the crowd was mostly families – often including the same age group as was wandering alone at the other place. The families tended to have either no bags at all, or one or two from a department store. Not one bag I saw had someones pubes showing. I heard a lot of Spanish, Amharic, an African dialect I couldn’t identify, Arabic, and I think some Farsi.

My reaction at each location was almost the same, but that revulsion comes from the overt consumerism rather than from the people. Heck, I don’t know these folks – how can I make judgments? What hit me the hardest was the discrepancy in what was being purchased. Where there’s still a fair amount of disposable income the kids were stocking up on the latest summer fashions…whereas where things might be a bit tighter (or where the priorities are just different) it looked like more staples and less frivolous items. Of course, I don’t have x-ray vision (how cool would that be?!?! seriously…)so I can’t back up these observations, they’re just that…observations.

Now, back to my journey or whatever you want to call this trip I’m on – does anybody have suggestions for exercise? I seem to have developed a pinch or a strain in my ankle that acts up when I try to ride my bike. Looks like I’m stuck driving borrowed cars for errands etc…and walking and swimming when I want to pay for it for exercise unless someone can come up with some FREE options. I’m all for natural play style options (lifting heavy stuff, body-weight stuff like pushups and planks, etc…) I just need help with the motivation. My business is under construction. I registered my DBA name, as soon as the license comes I’ll print up the flyers I already designed and get them hung around town. I’ve also got a website in progress, look for that launch sometime around the middle of July and will include a regularly updated blog covering all things purge and STUFF related. Let’s see…anything else…couple of warm leads on fuller-time income, fingers crossed and not going to say to much at this point, jinxes and all…

Think that about covers what’s going on in my world right now. I am working on a longer update, but as I started this post by saying, no promises on a posting schedule right now. Things are just to in flux.

I actually ran a one man home PC consulting business for 2+ years. Never really did make a living wage from that…which is interesting when you see what I was charging! Anyway, I’m thinking along these lines again now that I’ve been back in town for 2+ months and haven’t even had one less-than-serious job offer. Just what sort of business am I thinking about, you ask? Good question. Organizing and Simplifying of course!

Basically I want to take my attention to detail, teaching ability, and love for simplifying and help others achieve the peace of mind I’ve found. Yes, I see the irony in saying that I’ve found peace of mind when I’m sleeping on the floor of a mooched basement and have no job prospects…but odd as it may sound I truly feel at ease. And I know that most of that feeling comes from having been able to dissociate myself from the consumerism that runs rampant throughout our society and from getting out from under the piles of STUFF that were dominating my life.

Enter Seattle Clutter Coach (what do you think?). I have no details whatsoever at this point as it’s still just a larvae of an idea in the back of my brain, but it’s growing daily and I hope to have something more substantive to share in the upcoming weeks…so stay tuned!

After enjoying my free time in Israel, I was ready to get back to Seattle and get to work. That was just over 2 months ago now. I had a flurry of interviews within a couple of weeks of my return. And exactly none since then. I’m starting to wonder if the fact that I really don’t want to fix computers ever again is seeping out of my pores while I’m showing off my smiley faced best and trying to convince my nemeses interviewers that I plan on working their help desk until retirement. If you’ve ever seen me you’d know why the image of my smiley faced best is still making me chortle as I type…let’s just say I’m not the smiley face type and leave it at that, k?

If anyone out there happens to be in, work in, know someone who works in, or at least knows what permaculture and sustainable urban development mean – can you drop me a line with some contacts? I’m desperately trying to find someone to work for at an apprentice level to learn the ropes (and cob and hay bale).

That’s really all I’ve got for today, I was stuck in the car schlepping family and dogs and dolls (don’t ask) all over creation and back and am ready to settle in with a cup of tea and a book.

I thought I’d do a brief write up of my daily transportation. I’ve been asked by several people since my return what I was doing about getting around. Since they knew money was tight what with no job, they were curious if I was making use of the new Orca card and bussing it…or what. While I do have an Orca card and use public transporation when needed (home from an interview downtown) my preferred ride is this:

It’s an ’06 Kona Smoke that was totally rebuilt by the previous owner. I added a rack and some trekker bars for comfort. The pannier you see is a Madden, I found a set of 4 (front and rear) on my friend Craig’s list for cheap. All I have left to do is find a solid front rack that is compatible with the Project 2 fork so I can put a basket up front and it’s done. I’m also in the market for a used, cheap trailer for picking up things like the CSA starting next month if anyone knows of one in town…

More pics:

and a gratuitous cute puppy shot:

So far I use the Smoke for grocery runs, getting to a coffee shop for a day of online job hunting, and just getting out and exploring Seattle. I use a family car for hauling the dogs to the off leash area and for bigger errand runs (like to pick up tools or lumber, or the containers for my veggie garden – more on that next week). While I seem to have stagnated on the weight loss, I can feel the difference all this riding has made in both my legs and lungs. I can make it up 11th (if you know the U-District this will make sense) to the farmers market in my middle ring and still carry on a conversation when I get there. I can also ride up Capital Hill via Interlaken without breaking a sweat. Now if I can just refocus my efforts to drop the flab I’d be much happier…like I said, baby steps.