Ftrain, by Paul Ford

I wish I could be fired. Not just from my job; from everything but my marriage. I have enough in the bank to read, and exercise, and write for five or six months. Make the rest up with freelance. Just start over. Leave New York City. Live in a tiny house somewhere with [Wife] and make art out of found materials. Grow a beard. Shovel things. Talk amiably to strangers at the health-food store. Cut things with saws. Wet down the roof. Smoke a pipe and split a bottle of wine once a week. Cook casseroles with thin crusts. Trade massages, raise earthworms. Spend two hours a day connected to the Internet and the rest of my time connected to the earth. Get excited when Michael Pollan comes to speak at the closest college. Go outside without a phone. Sadly, there are no signs that I'll be fired, or that I will quit. I will keep on doing exactly what I am doing, which is the best I can do. No task above me, no task beneath me. But no snacks to guide the way. Still, with this website I have done something I thought impossible, namely, to combine sitting at a computer with improving my health. And deadlines loom in the forest, too.

Weight: 339.5 lbs