Hermes 3000

Habits. You have them. Like getting out of bed in the morning and brushing your teeth. Or having pizza every Friday. Or writing something, perhaps anything, for One Typed Page. So much of what you do is habit-based. And if (this is a pretty big “if” here), and if you want to change your life you need to change your habits. It does not take much effort if (another big if to be found here) you go about it in a way that makes it somewhat “easy.”

You may notice that I do not have a typing for One Typed Page habit. Others do. Boy do they ever and they remain a joy to read. Every Day. I do have that habit, reading a favorite author or two every day: A great thing about One Typed Page is allowing all of us to become producers. It is not like watching YouTube, a very easy habit to fall into.

Back to those “if” statements, there is a book called Atomic Habits, from James Clear. The atomic in the title here referred to as a dictionary says, “very small; infinitesimal” and what the author suggests is indeed this type of atomic. And yes, the pun of the power source is there here.

I recommend it.

— MichaelRpdx :: h3k

PS – Inktober is illustrated in the image I have included. A napkin? Yes, all of his ink drawings are on napkins. And they are all done really well, like this one. Now through the end of the month on Instagram.

Boy oh boy, the One Typed Page collection was great, is great. So much to reply to. Well, so much that I found interesting and want to reply to.

JCO — “I am an addict.” Good luck. But do you really need to give it up?

Barbara – Have no worries, I will read the intro, right after I finish up with all the other great stuff there. I always, usually skip intros and forewards and get right to the bits of it, dive in like a cold pool.

Mike in VA – My wife and I are different than you two. I go to bed early, rise early. My wife goes to bed late and rises late. (Usually, not always.) We find the times of solitude to be good for us. I am not sure which one is healthier for a couple. But it works for us, and it seems like you two too.

Catalina – Jury Duty? Oh, I am so jealous. Being on a jury, hearing the sides of the person’s story, ah that sounds great. I have been called to the jury pool many times. Get excited as they call the names of people who will go and be quizzed and then chosen or not. I have never gotten that far. I show up, spend a day, and am reminded that I have done my duty. No more chance of being on a jury for at least two years. Maybe next, time. If you do not want to be on a jury, well, I hope you have my luck.

Tori — You have switched from Morning News to One Typed Page for your morning ritual. Good on ya. I believé it was Thoreau (Kent, do you know?) That once got a paper with the news. It came out once a month. He deemed that plenty of it. A little closer to our times, Ryan Holliday, a writer of stoics and stoicism, advises you to read history. People say nothing changes. So you can read the words of people who have stood the test of time. One suggestion is Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War for the conflict between the USA and China. I will let you know how it turns out.

Daniel – How the last part of the book goes so much faster. I agree, what is it with reading that makes it so? As I read a book the first half seems to last for a long time and then zip! it is over. Oh well, there are other books.

Someone whose name I do not recall – So many things, so many interests, where will we get the time to do them all? All I can figure out is that I go through interests in a circular manner. While it seems that I have given up on something I know I will loop back to it. Eventually.

Keeping secrets.

— MichaelRpdx

Yours is there. I looked at the Nutella. Two big, huge jars weighing nearly, no over two pounds each. That was not mine. Mine was a small slim package. A Book. I opened the package. “What is it?”, she asked. Santa Ana? no, definitely not LA. I hate it when my brain gives out on the simplest items that I have a tough time remembering. Do not have a stroke. “You have recovered,” they tell me. Well no. I have not. I am grateful for saving my life. Just a little more would be nice. I held up the book for her to read. palm springs noir, that was it, remembered at last. palm springs noir arrived today. I skipped the introduction. Plenty of time for that later. For now, I started to read.

I like cactus. Cactus and old people, old places, things that survive. Quiet mornings.

And so it starts. And it gets better. Yes, I have some great reading ahead.

There was a murder this morning. Five of them. Tow of them were young. I went to get a camera to record it. Then I got a little too close. The crows flew off. Did they do that before, before our modern times when somebody keeps crows as pets? One might think that after twenty-odd years here with chicken keeping for a long time before they were killed by weasels and raccoons. Before the times of putting out chicken feed and french fries and leftovers before all of that, you would think that they would come to trust us and not fly off. We have walked by them on the sidewalk, slowly. They hop or two away but do not fly away. Maybe it is the young ones. Born earlier this year. They are being cautious. Maybe tomorrow morning I will be able to photograph them.

— MichaelRpdx

It was so quiet last night. I had waited up to hear it for myself. There was one crackling’ boom. Was that, firework? Yes. Just the one. It does help to be hard of hearing. My wife says there were many more in the direction she pointed. I heard nothing from there. Last year, oh my what a difference. There was a pair of guys dueling with roman candles. That was our neighborhood for the days before and after the fourth of July.

—— MichaelRpdx

Sisters. Don’t you love sisters? If you have two or more you understand. So closely related, yet so different. In my family, there was myself and two sisters. When we were young, preteens, they competed in being my favorite. I really did not get it, but I did enjoy it.

Yesterday the third sister arrived. The eldest was tall and willowy. The middle sister was sinewy and kind clingy. The youngest, well we are waiting to see how it turns out. We expect it to be sorta broad. Spreading out.

We gave the oldest space to grow in. The middle sister is close to the first one, so it can grow up close to the first one. The youngest one got a place to itself. We are waiting to see how they turn out. Time will tell.

These sisters are corn, beans, and squash. They have been planted together for generations. Iroquois have used this method for longer than I know. (Iroquois is easier to type than Haudenosaunee, try to substitute it in your mind.) Corn is planted first and in our case, it grew to six inches tall. The beans on either side of the corn. When they appeared and I ran out of patience we planted squash. Varieties of both beans and squash. We shall see how and which does the best.

Oops, this was meant to go out yesterday. More in the three sisters later.

— MichaelRpdx

108, 112, 116 three days, three records. You have heard of it. We are happy it is over. Today on a walk in the mid-70s we even got rained on. Back to normal.

This typing comes to you from a new to me, well sorta, typewriter. It is a 1970 Hermes in the Type Space. Type Space being a new place in Portland. They have banks of typewriters for sale, or for a loan, like this one. Anyone can come in, see a machine he or she likes, and give it a whirl. They do repairs — at the encouragement of Matt of Ace Typewriter, he is backed up by three months or so. He tells people to come down here. So, I don’t need to feel guilty. And I did, brought in a Royal Mercury for refurbishment. And, it turns out I am the first customer. I gave them a dollar – their first dollar. Damn, there is happiness floating through the air. OK, I am really excited to be the first person here. Well, the first one to submit a repair to be done. I told him, Mark the tech, to not worry about how long it takes to do the work I have other typewriters. The other people here are Julia and Tony, the owners, and a half dozen people checking the place out. There is a mini-museum of typewriters dating back to the late 1800s. From the 20s to the 70s, well those are for sale and on view and touching. What can I say, this new space is full of happy people lost of typing in the air.

It is good to be back.

—- MichaelRpdx

What had happened? All we knew was that four people were dead and it had happened about 10:00 or so. And a lot of cops had shown up. That was it. Everything from 42nd Ave to down below our house was enveloped in it was big and untalked about. We were approaching 12 hours after the event and there was not any information being released.

We had planned to visit my mother-in-law in Salem. We would need to leave by 9:00 for that. I walked down to the police car blocking Cesar Chavez. I walked down the middle of the street. A small pleasure.

Can we leave the area in our car?
Yes, we will let you in and out.

We decided to go ahead. There was nothing to do that would do any of us any good. I did call my Mon.

Hi Mom
Well hello, how are you today?
I’m calling to tell you something before you hear it on the news.
OK
Four people were shot on our street.

We put up an alert on Facebook. It would not be good for people to read about four people being shot on our street and not a thing revealed. My wife thought it was the occupants of the “chop shop”. A shabby little house that always had four new cars parked tightly. There was a pregnant woman and a six-year-old boy living there. That would be gruesome.

It used to have a saying “If you want to know it, read The Washington Post”. They had broken the story about Senator Bob Packwood and his affinity for underaged women. This time around The Oregonian had the story. Three men from Texas arrived in order to buy marijuana, tubs of the stuff. The deal went bad. Two of them and two men who lived in the house were killed and one fled in a van.

That is what we know now.

— MichaelRpdx

PS: My erasure, eraser had run out. Sorry about that.

Creeping up on midnight, after 11:00 at least, already. The house was dark. The doorbell rang. In the darkened house close to midnight. My wife got up and went to the door. There was a police officer there. She answered, “just a moment while I get a mask.”

“Have you heard anything unusual tonight?”
“No.”

She realized something was wrong. There were a dozen cop cars in front of our house. Blue lights flashing on them all.

“Spell your name with two Ns?”
“Yes. Good of you to notice.”
“My name has two Ls.”

The police officer was shaken. Whatever she had seen was not good. They finished up the conversation and the cop left. She went to the window and looked out. Wow, twelve cars that she could see. There was an officer looking back into her eyes. She quit watching.

Back in bed, she told me, “there are twelve cop cars out there.” I was asleep. I moaned a response and drifted off into the night.

In the morning I got up early as usual. Nested into the couch going through the internet. Settled into watching a Bob Ross painting video. Halfway through my wife came out, “four people were killed on our street.” “What?” I said as I took off the headphones. “Four people were killed on our street.”

I got up and looked out. There were still cop cars visible. There was red tape strung across our yard, across the lots across the street. There was red tape as far as I could see.

I went outside and down to the street. Looking down there was a car with flashing lights blocking access from Cesar Chavez, blocking in or out. Looking up the street there was a bunch of police vehicles.

I went back inside. We checked the news. All of it this early was the same. Four people killed on Boise Street between Cesar Chavez and 42nd. It happened around 10:45. That was all.

— MichaelRpdx

Dreams With Sharp Teeth – it is great, go watch it.

We are also watching a love story for New Haven, Connecticut. Well, in reality, it is a love story for the apizza. The rest of us call it pizza. But this place filled with Italian immigrants called it apizza and so it is. Three places hold the honor of being “the” place for the style. Pepes, Sally’s, and Modern. It is a long story, filled with history and profiling each of the three places. If you want to know about this dish, go watch this story. It is called “Pizza, A Love Story” and it is on Curiosity Stream.

If you do not know of Curiosity Stream, well it is your lucky day because you get to find out about it today. Curiosity Stream is a place that hosts a bunch of things to watch. You know, like Netflix. Only the difference is Curiosity Stream has nothing but documentaries. Now, no they are not all great. Some are awful. But there are plenty of good and great ones. And, here is the killer. For HD quality you can get an annual subscription for $19.99. That is two months of Netflix. And yes, no commercials.

It is a great place.

—— MichaelRpdx

Love you like a mango. It is twilight, in the evening, and I am waking up. Gotta wka wk wake up, stay up, stay up long enough for a good night of sleep.

Wake up, stay up, wake up. That sounds like something from a reggae song. That is how you can wonder about how they came up with what they have for us to listen to.

Buckle up kids, this ain’t going to make sense. I am just going to blurb it out. Confession time. I do not floss regularly. Sometimes months without doing it. Now I have a thing where I keep track of it. Huh?

I have a page in my journal/notebook/writing thingy that I greatly track what I do on a daily basis. You maybe have heard of “don’t break the chain” something that allegedly is based on Jerry Steinfeld’s habit of having a calendar that he puts a red X on every day he writes a joke. He has a long chain of days red Xed out from the chain of days in which he has written jokes. I have similar things where I track whether or not I have gone something like Duoling (now at 871 days), Morning Pages (which I track based on pages, now over halfway through the 24th Composition Book), reading, writing, watercoloring, and so on. I am now doing that for flossing my teeth, I am at five. My phone has, and I will bet yours does it also, have an alarm. Like people use for waking up. Which I have not used for waking up in years (decades?) I wake up in the morning and it is early enough for things that need to be gone in the morning. Well, I have my alarm set for 8:30 at night every day. And I use it as the time to floss my teeth and take my evening medications. It works so far. It is an “Atamoic errgh Atomic Habits (book title??) my trigger to floss is to shut off the alarm and start in on what needs to do daily, every day, until they are complete. As for One Typed Page…

As you know my pages are not a daily thing. Like Spanish, Morning Pages, and the other things that are habits.

Here is a paradox: I prefer reading things that are not personal. People’s bits of fiction and observations about the world, book reviews, those I like. Yet, here I am: contributing to pages with observations about myself and what is going on with me. I am trying to break that habit. It is hard.

What about fiction told in the first person? Ummmm, well, Yeah that is it! Everything you read here is a lie. It is a lie in that it is all fictional. Yeah, right, everything you are reading is about some character. Told from his point of view. Kinda like Hemingway, so much of his “fiction” was based on his life. I went decades not knowing that. (Same applies to Richard Brautigan, all from his life.) Maybe it all is like that. At least some core parts of it. With some embellishment.

Well, I believe I have streamed along for far enough for one Daily Page. Now to pay attention to my life and find stuff to write about.

— MichaelRpdx