Week 11: POP QUIZ!
What do you get when you cross Urban Scout with seven vodka soda’s, two shots of rum, and a bunch of punk rock kids with a home-made tattoo gun?
Answer:
After about 5 weeks of failing my laundry list, last week DeAnna asked:
No suggestions, just a question: Who is the laundry list for? How is it beneficial to you?
Her question, a question I forgot to keep asking myself made me look back at why the hell I started the laundry list. Why did I start that?
Structure. I need something to remind me what the hell I want to do. The problem arises when I no longer want to do what I did earlier, but feel pressured to do it because I said I would. I’ve done a lot of other things that past few weeks, just not what the laundry list had on it. So, from now on I will try to only put things on the laundry list that I actually feel inspired to do. I don’t believe in unordered chaos. Even nature has patterns, cycles. I feel like structure keeps me grounded and moving. When I lose structure, I lose ground and I drift off and don’t do much of anything. True, my break up with Sasha totally fucked up the structure I had, but even then the structure I had with her obviously did not have a stable base either.
I also feel like I need measurable goals. I don’t know if this has something to do with schooling or civilization or what. I don’t think so anymore. Lots of indigenous social systems had ranks and stages of life marked by rituals and types of clothing and tattoos. I need to feel like I have learned something with all of this, which I think this blog does make me feel that way, but I like the idea of setting and meeting (at least some) weekly goals, even if I fail I still learn.
So what did I do this week? Well, aside from deflecting e-mails from MORE angry vegans… I did a lot of writing and thinking and chilling and drinking. Our friend Rory (“23” on rewild.info) came to town and so Willem and I tried to show him a good time. I bought two bows; a nice recurve for serious business, than some piece of shit, boy scout camp recurve to play with. I figure if I bought two, I could always invite someone to come shooting with me. My friend Brittany bought a bow as well. It seems we have the beginings of an archery club. (I totally want to make a pine-needle-basket style quiver now) Oh yeah. I got a drunken tattoo also.
Right about now I would normally go down the laundry list, but…
This may not work as the best time to start a new laundry list, since I plan to fly to Pennsylvania on Monday and stay there for a week I don’t think I have any idea what to expect. So… Penny Scout, why don’t you post a laundry list or a project failure plan here for our week since you’ll run the show when I come out there. Go easy on me.
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Show your support and appreciation for Urban Scout
Hmm, Urban Scout, kinda hard to say. No doubt we will be collecting lots of wild edibles and doing lots of cooking over the fire. I think it’s best to leave things up in the air depending on inspires us during the week. Things we COULD do: We could pre-smoke and rebrain and restretch one of my too stiff hides. We ought to buy a cable, I think, to help us do it in the woods. The frame I have doesn’t even fit out of the basement. We could fire some pots. I have half a dozen that are dry. We could give my fish trap another go at night and we’ll definitely be trying with the pole too during the day. We could set some traps. If we spot a roadkilled porcupine we can gather its quills for quillwork. There’s really so much we can do, and with you here? I think the structure will build itself.
that tattoo is punk as hell. do you like it, or do you regret it? i actually have a friend who intentionally gets tattoos he regrets from the start so that it is always hilarious. when you get a tattoo that you’ve thought a lot about and are really into, you’ll love it… for a while, and then it’ll eventually get old. so this friend of mine’s theory is that if you get a tattoo that you regret, it’ll stay at the same level of enjoyment and hilarity without ever diminishing. i haven’t gotten a tattoo (yet), so let me know if his theory holds any weight for you. (although, i guess the fact that its a drunken tattoo may compromise the basis for the theory. oh well)
hope you have fun with penny scout!
>>hope you have fun with penny scout!
judging by some of penny’s comments, I think they will:
…stretch … my … stiff hide…
…do it in the woods.
…we’ll definitely be trying with the pole too during the day.
it sounds like a dirty laundry list to me.
have fun, scouts!
Hey Tom,
I love your friends idea about tattoos. I have one that holds meaning (or did… still does I guess) and one that is totally meaningless, so I’ll be able to report back to you in a few years. 😉
Rix,
SShhhhhhh!!! You figured out the secret code only scouts are supposed to de-code!