_{Hello friends! My name is Max Daniels and I’m a life coach and a writer. I wrote a short and salty book about the easy way to quit overeating and binging. I write here about all manner of life improvement. And I have a monthly column about self-care over at Modern Daily Knitting.}

_{Please get in touch if you’re looking for coaching. You can also ask me a question.}

Couple questions for you.

First, it’s been 13 months since I started taking a GIP/GLP-1 peptide. (Generic, reconstituted at home; not covered by insurance.) It’s been … honestly, JOURNEY is the word.

The other word is MIRACLE.

I’m writing up my observations to share with you and I’ll be publishing that soon. Is there anything you want to ask about that? I will answer from my own experience, rather than medical expertise. (Which as you know I don’t have.)

Second, have you any interest in a little book club? I’m thinking of something brief (brief book, small number of meetings), affordable (low two figures) and supremely useful: let’s discuss and put into practice some LIFE improvements—not self-improvement.

I’m thinking of that book that’s still got my attention: Robert Fritz’s The Path of Least Resistance. Let me know if that would be of interest to you.

Here’s where I notice I really have been thinking about this, because I can already see we’d have

• a kickoff meeting, introduce ourselves, I’ll introduce the book and we’ll get an orientation to a useful approach to its thesis

• go away for a week and read the first half then at our second meeting talk about what we’ve discovered and how the work has impacted us, then

• go away for another week or two, finish the book, do the “exercises” (omg they’re so good!), come back together and share our (possibly) mindblowing realizations and (very likely) surprising shifts, and talk about what we imagine for ourselves going forward, having encountered this truly life-changing magic.

And I’m thinking September, trad book club restart month. If that sounds intriguing, just hit Reply and lmk and don’t hesitate to include your thoughts.

I am always prepared to do things even if it’s one time only.

Here is something I am enjoying as a solo person in the world: following a glittery trail, even if I don’t know where it’s going. Perhaps it’s a dead end after a very short hike? Big deal, turn around.

This way of being was a problem for me as a married person, by which I mean it was a problem for my husbands. I am not clear why and it is not my question to answer. (But if I wanted to write one of those brutal divorce memoirs—I do not—the chapter on The Disapproval of My Enthusiasm would detail some of my harshest experience.)

I’ll give you one example, an entirely non-brutal one.

Sidecar: But first, let me just say briefly, maybe I’ll write about this at length sometime but not today: I have been liberated from the feelings of anger and injustice about my divorce. And if it would have been a bad idea to write about what an asshole my husband was while I was mad at him, it’s 100% not something I want to do now.

And to be CRYSTAL clear about this for the bygones crowd: my position on the way he dumped me after 22 years has not changed even slightly. I’m not seeing the marriage with very starry eyes, either. I’m just not experiencing the anger.

SOME people would call it forgiveness. Fuck it, I don’t give a shit, let ‘em.

Anyway here’s yer example: once I wanted to learn to make cavatelli. This is not hard, you just need a little mechanical hand-crank dealie. They probably cost $1400 today but back when I was interested, they cost $25.

This was all because of the Frankies’ Spuntino book. I imagined I would make so much cavatelli! So romantic my vision!¹

I’m sure in my mind’s eye the kitchen was full of people eagerly awaiting fresh pasta while I cranked it out with one hand and kept glasses full with the other. Dust off cavatelli maker, repeat. To glad cries and accolades, duh.

Husband knew better and argued we should not buy a $25 piece of equipment only to experiment with it once. Which: sure.

He knew that I don’t like equipment², especially specialized equipment. I only like equipment that will do 10,000 jobs, doesn’t need to be taken apart to be cleaned, in fact doesn’t require maintenance of any sort, and can be compressed into a one-inch cube for storage. A cavatelli maker fills none of these requirements.

(Nor does anything else, which I know you know, but just so you know I know it too.)

Anywayanyway, I made the cavatelli one time, they were fun to make, and I did not really enjoy eating them. They reminded me of the ST:TNG episode “Conspiracy”. If you’ve seen it you know exactly what I’m talking about; I will spare the rest of you. I took the cavatelli maker to the thrift where for all I know it was bought by someone who didn’t use it even once.

So husband was right. All that shit went straight into his evidence locker, too. (Which later burnt down; unsolved case.)

The defense rests.

For my closing argument tho I will say I am right too.

There is nothing wrong with following a seemingly hot track that goes cold quickly. Sometimes trails lead good places; that’s why we go. We’re allowed to roll those dice.

There might just be something wrong with insisting that every spark deliver a 10x ROI, that it have a practical use, that it go on forever, and that it not come to completion after nothing more than a fun afternoon.

I have been talking about this with a couple of my clients lately, and I also experienced a hot track the other day at the local fiber guild’s Portable Projects meeting. One of the women was working on an embroidery project that I recognized as pretty specific to Northern New Mexico; when I asked her about it she invited me to join the group for a lesson. I am doing that this week! And my enthusiasm is high.

(It is called colcha! This is a couching technique that you might know by other names, but there’s a very traditional New Mexican style.)

I don’t have a church to outfit in altar cloths or anything, I just think it might be a fun afternoon. I’m here for a few weeks, and I’m trying to live life and see what happens. Following the glitter.

Is that perhaps what you’re doing too? I mean I would LOVE TO HEAR EVERYTHING. Hit Reply and tell me.

RECOMMENDING.

more tracking.

One of my most fun hot tracks was a wild edible plant walk in Berkeley and Oakland with the knowledgeable and delightful Alexandra Hudson. She’s now doing her walking classes through Cabrillo College Extension, and they’re open to everyone. If you’re in the Santa Cruz area, I recommend her so highly. Two classes are upcoming:

“This Saturday from 1-4pm [Pacific] we will wander the trail of “Four Mile Beach” and get to know the shoreline plants. The trail starts on Highway 1 and makes its way through fields of radish, nettle, blackberry, cattail, sea rocket, wild roses, and more, before opening up to the stark beauty of this very starkly beautiful beach. Join here: https://cabrillo.augusoft.net/connect/ClassInfo/ClassInformation?int_class_id=15611&int_category_id=0&int_sub_category_id=0&int_catalog_id=0

In a month on Saturday August 8th from 2-6pm we will convene first at Cabrillo College in Aptos for a bit of ID and seaweed tasting before making our way to the Pescadero area for harvesting seaweeds in the tides! This class is ecstatic oceanic bounty at its finest. The feeling of stepping onto those boulders and being able to munch most literally everything in sight, meanwhile the surf crashes and vaporizes all around us, crabs sidestep our thuddy steps and anenomes blush at the sight of us, as we touch into the primordial fertility of the ocean and feel ourselves a humble part of this great mystery… it’s very special. Join here: https://cabrillo.augusoft.net/connect/ClassInfo/ClassInformation?int_class_id=15598&int_category_id=0&int_sub_category_id=0&int_catalog_id=0

You can keep up with Alexandra at https://www.wildfoodandmedicine.com/ and also on IG https://www.instagram.com/alexandraehudson/. She is a rad human.

Okay, then! xoxo and see you soon.