This was my first post on substack, now available in audio format. In the future, episodes will NOT be released with an accompanying email, except for select favorites, which I will publish alongside the regular feature on Tuesday.

I can tell I'm an adult now because I've developed an extremely refined palette for dirt- my toddler has far less discerning taste and just eats whatever happens to be right there which I don't begrudge him because hey, I've been hungry too. I grew up on suburb dirt and rocks and I built huts out of like seven or eight sticks at the local hiking trail and once tried to transplant a weed there hoping it would spread like a virus and form a sort of carpet for my hut but it died, apparently weeds need water? The curse of Adam failed me. Anyway I hate hiking and camping but married a good girl and I'm cool with them now. So here's the deal:

We've scheduled a camping trip and the air will be cleaner and the living space will be cleaner and the dirt will (naturally) be cleaner . I will bathe my kid in dirt. It isn’t trad, its efficient. Make nature babysit. Let the trees do some work for once, do you know tree babies don’t even require their supervision? Unreal.

You can get full on boredom if you consume enough of it, or if you consume boredom of a high enough quality. That's the appeal of camping, I think. At church we listened to one of the prophet's talks this week, and he said quote "quiet time is sacred time", shaking my dang head he has no respect for his youngers.One of my hobbies being plugged in to 100 different curated feeds of high quality dirt and I'll have you know that my body is getting pretty good at extracting or fabricating real nutrients from the stuff but, I'm also aware that when prophets get serious they tend to go out into the wilderness or the mountains. It always says that they're fasting, because the children of Israel were I think city slickers, unfamiliar with mountain delicacies such as volcanic ash.

It takes some real effort to carve a quiet little temple into your home, whereas it only takes a little time to go out into the mountain yourself. There’s all sorts of spiritual amenities, and you can bring some rocks home, to share, as a treat. As far as I know there is no size limit on these as long as the mountain is not a designated national park. Everybody’s doing it, yes- the brother of Jared, the brother of Aaron, the brother of Brigham… Rocks from the mountains. Revelation is stone soup.

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