It’s 30C in the shade of the earth (aka night). And almost too dark to type with the lights off. I’d light a candle but am afraid of the heat buildup.There’s no a-c at Walden. And that’s fine. A fan hums above me in the loft, stirring the air up there before I head up to bed. It’s 5C hotter there. Maybe I will have that beer. Jasper is asleep on the sofa behind me, exhausted after another day in the woods and at the MacPhee farm across the Dock Road. His little friends Megan (8) and Christie (11) keep him running, chasing barn kittens and exploring the hill and,…

I’ve been coming to this beach since I can remember. I’m sitting in the kitchen. The mouth of St. Peter’s Bay, PEI, opens to the Gulf of St.Lawrence. The sandspit point of Greenwich reaches out and fails against the inky waves. Buoys bob and sway. It’s 2006, but when I close my eyes on that shore and sink my toes in and suck in a deep nasal breath, sharp and salty in the back of my throat, it’s the early 80s again and I’m the kid on the beach, still a worrying type, but appreciative of the screeching dune terns, the endless night skies, the brace of a seawater cannonball…

Good-bye: One “Pump in Style” breast pump: $40. One Fisher Price wagon: $20. A live trap for “rabbits and small creatures”: $20. (Sorry to make you drive from Pinecrest, but it’s not big enough for raccoons). The Maytag washer is older than I thought. Marked down from $75 to 50, but the antique “Suds Saver” feature could come in handy! One glider rocker and slightly-stained ottoman: $45. Yes, it can easily be re-covered. A pee-green (no, not pea) micro-fibre-what-were-we-thinking reading chair: Please, take it. Getting rid of junk while the family’s away at a cottage for the weekend: Priceless. Hello, iPod.

It’s 10PM on a Tuesday. I just caught myself surfing sites on how to declutter the home. God, that’s bad. But I do like this suggestion: When travelling, pack old underwear, socks and t-shirts and, get this, Throw Them Out after wearing them. I can just see myself pulling over sweaty for a steamy cheesy foil sandwich from a silver truck at a rest stop near Rivière-de-loup. Peel off that Tee and keep on rolling! Voyons-donc!

I complain a lot about having too much stuff. And it’s a dumb thing to do in a world where 90% of people have too little. I have this ideal notion in my head that I will be happier with less. And I want to pass this on to my kids, but I feel I’m failing miserably. Dan introduced Jasper to Gameboy yesterday. Thanks! 🙂 The happiest times in my life have been those when I had less “stuff.” And discovering Thoreau has given me a historical touchstone for this perspective. But getting there’s tough. It seems I keep moving things out of my house and there’s still more and…

In the heart of Alaska’s Wrangell-St. Elias National Park there’s the tiny abandoned copper mining town of Kennecott/McCarthy. 30-40 people still live there, even though the mine was closed, suddenly, in the 1930s. It’s only in the last ten years that the pool table was removed from the local hall. Back in its hey-day, the only way into town was by rails that were laid across moving glaciers. Some say Armand Bombardier developed the snowmobile here, an innovation to deal with the 8 months of snow. Today the best way in is by bush plane. McCarthy is a great place to hang out. The main drag of town is a…

No, I wasn’t Looking at the car door. I Ran Into It (see below). They should rename the Boxter “Bruiser” and sell idiot insurance to the owners. The only thing I’m still bewildered about is the fact that the first thing that came out of my mouth after hitting the car was, “Is your car all right?” Twit. Could be the meditation. This week was transformed by 2 hours on my knees Wednesday at the Society of Friends Quaker house on Fourth Avenue. Try thinking of nothing for two hours sometime. It’s hard. But so, so worth it. Admittedly, my silent mantra to fight back the noisy mind-chatter was somewhat…

I inspected a car door today on my ride in to work. Up close. It was a silver Porsche Boxer. Convertible. With a tall lawyer in an Oxford blue shirt and gold tie. Maclaren and Elgin, next to Bridgehead. He has good taste in coffee but poor peripheral vision and was illegally parked. More later.

Still building the playlist to justify the iPod. Please help! Zac and Heavy Metal Dan have responded with some good tunes. Thanks! I’m listening to The Clientele right now: “Where the Universes Are”. Nothing from you yet, Alex! Come to think about it, I should check out people I already know. Like Jon at Kelp Records. I miss our breakfasts at the Maple Leaf. Or Andrew Vincent, or even my cousin’s band, Inflight Safety. Keep the tune suggestions coming!

I enjoyed this, though it took a minute to figure out why the site was called that. What’s that green hand thing?

Back in the mid-nineties, as the Internet was taking off and media companies were merging in the orgy of “convergence” I used to joke that I wanted to buy a manual printing press and a few thousand no.2 pencils and bury them shrink-wrapped somewhere safe so I could be a publisher after the “inevitable collapse.” Now that there’s a name for the end (Print and Read This Article) and I still don’t have my press, I’ve been looking to see what’s out there in the way of survival guides. Surely someone has written The Guide to Surviving the End of Oil. Maybe I should. Meanwhile, here are some good links.…

“High on a hill lived a lonely goatherd.” Write sponsor letters. Call Giant Tiger about media kits. Send the PM package. “That men will want to write on. To-o-o write on…” Send the revised budget to Suzanne. Call Globe about the bulb boxes in Shanghai. “Timid and shy and scared are you. Of things beyond your ken.” Prepare for meeting with Mayor at 2. Follow up to press release. “Fellows I meet may tell me I’m sweet and willingly I believe.” Call McGuinty, Baird, Poilievre. “A prince on the bridge of a castle moat-er” Review final Hydro contract for signing meeting tomorrow. “Folks in a town that was quite remote-er.”…

Happy Belated Father’s Day. Or, Belated Happy Father’s Day. I’ve been coveting an iPod for months; yesterday I got a jPod. Which is great. I really like Douglas Coupland, though I also hate him. Every time I read one of his books I think, “Shit, I could have written that.” And that’s the thing about art. It’s like JD said Friday night as we were waiting in line at the Fringe Festival to see Brendan McNally’s new play, Heads or Tails. “The artists are the people who have the balls to hang it out there for everyone to see.” Brendan’s been writing plays for years. Heads or Tails was fun,…

And now, from the “Gratuitous Grasp for Web Traffic” department, Kwesi’s got an idea. Skim down his post — and buy yerself some jigging line, har!

It’s been over six months since I was at Walden. I know because my dreams change. Lately at night I’m in the woods or on the deck or near thespring. Sometimes Dad is there, silently watching, and that’s not a bad thing anymore. Last night I dreamed of a big pumpkin patch out behind the bath house, bright orange balls popping out of the fall-dried field full of kids playing and picking jackolanterns for carving. I want a pumpkin patch. And a trip home. Too lazy to write more today. So I’m going to recycle.