Hello good people.

This is a newsletter, and I thank you for your patience. I’m 48 years old. Coming out of winter pretty good this year. I've just recently switched meals, as you may, or may not know I spent all of 2023 and a few months of 2024 only making and eating coconut curry chicken stew. I did this in the spirit of experimentation and because I had developed anamazing (to me), recipe. I live alone so I have a well controlled environment, and after eating it for a while it just became normal. I graze on apples, roasted almonds and raisins, primarilyduring the day, then have a bowl of coconut curry chicken stew and for dessert a big bowl offrozen blueberries, thawed out and covered in warm almond milk and honey. The benefits of eating the same thing all the time are many. The time I save when in the grocery store is remarkable. When I buy the same thing every time, I develop my own path, determined by my regular choice of ingredients. This really takes the Dilly Dally out of my visit. I also feel less like I am being manipulated when I go there. These places are designed very carefully, and the less time I spend being corralled around by bad decisions, the better off I am. Another huge benefit is the space in my brain that is freed up by not thinking about what I'm going to eat. The more I observed my thoughts, the more I realized that they were just different versions of what am I gonna eat next. I'm not a hunter gatherer on a barren plain. This is a profound finding that has created large empty areas in my brain that I can fill up with weird ideas. As I’ve recently had a recent surge of weird ideas. And did I mention that I don't have nearly as many dishes to do as I used to. I just make one big batch and it lasts five or six sometimes seven days and I don't have to cook on any of those days so a few dishes is nothing. In late March I felt like it was time for a recipe change. I now make a chicken soup and it's delicious. I also make a couple of loaves of bread per large pot of soup. My experiment is really about simplifying my life. I don't want to have to make choices that could be perhaps more like reflexes. When I make a loaf of bread or a pot of soup now I don't think about it while I'm doingit, it's not unlike a repetitive commute to work. You don't do it anymore it just kind of happens to you. My stresses only really comes from having to deal with things that don't happen on their own. I mean we'd all be fucked if we had to try to beat our hearts and breathe and think and swim all at the same time. So, this seems to be a successful experiment so far and I'm going to continue eating the same thing all the time. aside of course, from meals outside of the home.

I happen to be an extremely lucky and fortunate man. I've been living and building art in my cousins rental cottage (with an attached garage). To be able to fall into such generosity when I was in limbo has been life saving! I started building art and furniture again here in October 2023.

I’ve been spending a fair amount of time working on my digital illustration skills, and I am currently working on a grant application for an illustrated book that I've dreamed up. This book has been percolating for many years, and is finally starting to come together. So I'm excited for that.

I've completely fallen in love with meditation and bakers hours. It's been about four years of daily guided practice, and I am starting to notice the line between my meditation practice and my life is starting to gently blur. I'm not saying that I am walking around in some kind of altered non-dual state, but I am now living a much more examined life than I used to. I found that through doing just that, paying attention, I am much less reactive and a lot happier. And that's what I'm going for, I'm not meditating to become enlightened I'm meditating because it reminds me every day that there is no “me” or “other” and from that perspective, everything is just happening. This takes all of the wind out of the concepts of blame and judgment, and makes for an easier 24 hour cycle. I use the waking up app as a kind of digital guru. There's guided meditations, sections on theory and life, with a wide range of teachers and topics. This is not a paid advertisement. However, I do highly recommend it. Also, if you're not looking for another subscription that you have to pay for just send them an email and they'll give it to youor free. It's built to be available to everyone.

Bakers hours for me, is about 3 AM until 8 PM. I do this as a part of the experiment as well. I spend my early hours, drinking coffee, brushing the cats, meditating, doing the Wordle, baking and puttering. I then run a couple of daily errands that lands me home before 9 AM and that's when I get in the studio and attempt to lose my mind in my work. I eat between 5 and 6 PM then watch something or clean up the studio if needed then it's bedtime. And this all started not on purpose but because I was sick for a couple of weeks and couldn't sleep and unknowingly developed a pattern of not bothering to go back to bed when I woke up in the middle of the night. And it turns out because I make my own schedule, I could just shift everything and see how it goes. And it goes like this… I'm really liking it. and I'll change it when I don’t.

OK that should do it, no?

I'll try my best to keep doing this newsletter and hopefully add it as a regular part of the experiment. I'm sure I have some room during Baker's hours.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for helping me do what I love to do.

Keep your eyes on the website for new pieces. Thank you. I love you.

Lenny