I’m 47 now.
I got old and the world got weird.
What even is this shit?
I continue to enjoy the ride.
I wonder if anything is after it?
Digital Poison Withdrawal
I deleted Reddit off my phone again. This has to be the third or fourth time I’ve done this. I also deleted the Youtube app. I’m not writing this in a righteous tone. It’s more the tone of a beaten down, yellow toothed, two pack a day cigarette smoker half assed-ly trying to quit again. Knowing the odds of it sticking with it are pretty low.
Deleting that shit feels like a positive step. Of course I still digitally procrastinate though. My new method seems to be just opening a browser and searching “news”. Why do I feel compelled to constantly do this? It’s just a deluge of shit every time.
Maybe this time will be different.
Independence as a weakness
I’ve always thought of independence as a strength. And it is… but maybe only partly so.
It’s a trait that aligns with resilience, toughness, security. It implies intelligence and competence.
But also isolation.
Unreachability.
Fear of vulnerability?
Social aversion?
I’m feeling guilty about keeping my parents at arms length. Ditto for friends. It’s worse when you know they are craving more contact, more love.
It’s hard not to feel selfish for not giving more of myself.
I have empathy. It drives these feelings.
Do I need to create dependencies with those in my circle? Why do I recoil at that thought?
Is choosing to allow others to help enough? Even that seems hard.
That feels like a weakness.
This isn’t your day, you navel gazing asshole
Today was a particularly long and noteworthy day. I think I may have to tiptoe too much if I try to write about it.
I generally don’t care about the consequences of someone happening to know me IRL and reading this site, but for whatever reason I am considering them now. It’s just not ideal when the mood strikes at 2am and you want to write about complex and interesting personal issues. It just can’t be done in a satisfying way through a public blog. Even if I’m anonymous and only a handful of people ever read this, it’s all here, indexed and a single matching search term or AI inquiry away. I risk burning the site and myself if I air dirty internal laundry here.
Whatever. Let’s look beyond my insomnia powered self focused BS and write a little about the day at hand. It’s the 25th anniversary of the Sept 11 terrorism attacks. I started this blog about 4 years after it happened. I probably have a 5 or 10 year anniversary post on here that describes what I was doing/remember from that day. Maybe I’ll look it up to play the telephone game with my brain across 20 years of memories and lived experience.
Sept 11, 2001. I was living in Beaver Hall. London, Ontario with my girlfriend. It was a subsided apartment for UWO students (the name of my alma mater at the time. They’ve since dropped the U and the O). We won our lease through a lottery. High demand apartments. I didn’t take it for granted, it was a privilege and a luxury to be able to walk to all our classes from an apartment that charged relatively cheap rent.
It was my 4th year, genetics. Worst academic year of my life, but I had no idea what was to come later, it being so early into the fresh school year.
I had class that day, a busy schedule with either a 10 or 11am start. Squeezed in a dumbbell workout before class. I had a boombox that played burned CDs. Survivor by Destiny’s Child played during the workout. That means at some point I burned a CD with that track on it. LL Cool J, Sean Paul, Eminem too I believe.
After the workout, I saw in the living room gf had a major network on our little tube TV. A plane had accidentally flown into one of the towers. Noteworthy, weird freak accident, but I had to get going. Gf had a more relaxed Tue schedule and a later start.
Now I can’t remember with confidence if I left for class before or after the second plane crashed. I think I saw it crash live, but not certain.
What I do remember was that the first class was normal, some rumblings among the students. Rumors of an attack on America. The next class we took a vote, and an overwhelming amount of students wanted the lesson and to continue. We did. Received distressed texts from gf while in class. Afternoon classes cancelled. Went home and was absorbed into the coverage and felt the weight of it all. Exhausted at the end of the day……
…..Which I may finally be feeling now as well. Insomnia may fading finally.
Goodnight.
The Ringer
This entry brought to you by caffeine fueled insomnia. That old familiar somatic state. It’s 12:34am. Dark. Quiet. The planets are aligned for a real throwback blog entry. So much of what’s written here has been forged under similar conditions. The only thing missing is an impending exam, the perfect trigger to procrastinate through inwardly focused writing. These college kids nowadays have no idea. There was no AI back in my day. I had to stumble through all my school shit with pure chemical fueled panic and moxy. I shake my metaphorical cane!
Last week my mom convinced me and Claw to go out for trivia at a local dive bar. This is a neighbourhood bar that I have always known existed, but never actually been to (I left for school far away from my hometown at 18 years old). It’s a place my parents would go to have a good time on Halloween (in costume). Meanwhile, I would be done trick or treating and settling into a rented horror movie on VHS and consuming a completely unreasonable amount of glorious 1980s candy.
The occasion for bar trivia was my mom’s birthday. We had a nice meal, cake and gift giving at her place, then headed to the bar. My dad, aunt, cousin and his girlfriend also came. My mom had three friends meet us at the bar, so we got a big table and settled in as a formidable group of ten. The bar had a good vibe. Completely unpretentious and come as you are. T.Bay is a blue collar city, and this was certainly a blue collar bar. When I wanted a beer, they didn’t have a stout or a cream ale (and I felt kind of like an ass asking for one). No fancy imported Guinness here. It felt like an American townie bar, but Canadian. So there was a unexpected friendliness. It’s probably not fair to generalize American bars like that. I’m likely tainted by living in Boston from 2005 to 2025. Walking into a Boston dive bar where your face isn’t known generally elicits an epic level of frosty indifference from the patronage. I’m sure there are many welcoming, positive vibe dive bars in the USA. You just have to leave Massachusetts to find them.
So we’re at the bar for trivia. My mom’s friends all work at a local catholic elementary school, either as teachers or administrators. They’re all 50-60ish ladies, and they all know exactly how many days until their respective retirement dates. Tough, no nonsense ladies all set to blow off some steam. Trivia is a regular weekly occurrence for them. They told me their goal was to get third place. They’ve never done that well, but thought they had a chance with us there. My guess is that my mom had hyped us up ahead of time. The trivia had apparently been dominated by two other teams for 5 weeks straight. The top team was from a well known suburb of the city, that has a funny sounding name. It made me legitimately laugh every time my mom’s friends complained about them, saying their ridiculous town name scornfully. These ladies clearly craved victory and could feel this might be the night with ringers in the house.
The trivia was a name-that-tune competition. The MC would play snippets of a song, 20 second or so, then we would write the artist and song name down if someone on the team knew it. No phones. Anyone caught using an app or even playing on their phone would result in disqualification.
We had a strong team for this. The 70s and 80s were covered well by the school ladies and my parents, young boomers. My aunt covered the old side of Gen X. Claw and I covered the young Gen X – old Millennial era. My younger cousin and his gf could cover garbage (sorry) Gen Z music. I would say my wheelhouse is music from ahhh about 1993 – 2010. That’s really where I was deep into exploring new music with a strong awareness of pop music. The evidence is all over old entries in this blog. I love music. Even outside of my wheelhouse, I’m not awful. Pretty sharp with new stuff, not too bad with pre-90s stuff.
Hoo boy, this post is meandering. You know I used to be clear and concise. WTF happened.
Let’s get to the crux…. I brought the heat. They Might Be Giants, Great Big Sea, Beyonce, Fountains of Wayne, Lonely Island, Fifth Harmony, Loverboy, the Offspring, Dropkick Murphys. I was killing it. Nailing the song titles. Round after round. My aunt picked off the few country jams. My mom got a John Lennon B-side that everyone else thought was Bob Dylan. My dad got Styx. The school ladies got Donna Summer and some 80s jams. Our Gen Z couple contributed nothing but silence and perplexed looks (shame!). Still, we absolutely crushed it. As final scores were being announced, we learned we finished at least top three. When we found out we beat the rival town, my mom’s elementary school friends were yelling out trash talk to the whole bar. They were so excited, “it’s like Miss America, and we’re in the final two!”. Then the MC announced we won. Pandemonium, cheering, taunting, celebration, wildly exceeding our expectations. We got a fun prize bag. The school ladies insisted I come back next Wednesday, and they buy food.
It was a really good time, but I don’t think that will be our new Wednesday night ritual. It’s more fun to have dropped in on a single occasion and won the game anyway. That’s how legends are made.
Finite
One of the most recurring, persistent feelings I have is… that in any given moment, I am not living my life in the most fulfilling way.
And every moment that I squander, was the most precious moment because it was the youngest I will ever be.
I’m wasting the time that is perpetually slipping away.
Sunny Lundi Afternoon
I write here less when life is good.
I’m not taking it for granted. This is a really nice time in my life. Age 46, both my parents are still in good health. My marriage is happy. Home and finances are secure. I have satisfying hobbies and a few stalwart friends I can call on.
There are still problems to navigate, but having a stable foundation confers a lot of resilience.
An aside – I’m reading the 2012 Prophet comics and loving them. They are like a less focused, more biological version of the Descender/Ascender comics (also incredible). Great creative works like this make me feel like a nerdy teenager in the late nineties again.
Mrs. Black
In grade 10, I had a old crotchety English Teacher. A real old school battleaxe. She had a legendary reputation for being an intolerable disciplinarian. Angry, weathered with age, simmering with intenity. Think a female Gene Hackman. Not him playing Royal Tenenbaum, more from one of his Westerns, or that tense Will Smith movie. Charismatic, uncompromising, and ready to explode at the slightest hint of incompetence, idiocy or ignorance.
Anyway, she had a hard rule about writing papers for her class. All writing absolutely had to be done on paper. No word processor computer bullshit. Lined paper. Write that shit out. You better think beforehand what you want to say, because you aren’t fixing it in post. Pen on lined paper. Delete and backspace don’t exist in my world. Don’t like it? Tough shit. We do it my way.
I think this came to mind because I am in bed and am restless. 2am. I’m in a pitch dark room, laying awake next to my peacefully sleeping wife and I have insomnia. I grew tired of scrolling social media in that endless open ended stream of shitty dopamine micro doses. So I opened this blog. Typing on this hateful little on-screen keyboard. Stream of consciousness, no plan, editing on the fly. The antithesis of everything Mrs. Black taught us. RIP to a real one. I think Im tired enough now. Goodnight.
Hot Pockets
It has been a difficult adjustment stepping away from my career…
…immediately after writing that, Jim Gaffigan’s falsetto inner voice rang out in my head: Taking early retirement in his forties? What a nightmare right? Look at Mr. Humble over here, complaining about having nothing but free time.
What I mean by difficult, is not real struggle, but it has still been a surprisingly challenging adjustment. Way to make yourself sound like a stressed man of the people! Wow, you are soooo empathetic! (looks like Gaffigan’s mocking voice is riding shotgun for this entire post.)
There are the awkward social interactions, like when people ask, “what do you do?” or when older people state they’re x years away from retirement. That’s not the challenging part though. It’s handling unstructured free time. Seriously, this asshole is complaining about free time?
When I was grinding, trying to forge a successful career, there never seemed to be enough time. It didn’t feel like I was totally in control of my life. So often, just managing to take care of critical obligations. Wake up at ass o’clock, pick out clothes, shower, commute to work, frantically plan the day, ready presentations, meetings and experiments before the office got busy. Giving all my best energy and effort to my employer. Come home. Try to summon the will to workout. Find comfort with my significant other in a low energy state. This left such small amounts of time and energy. A tiny window to do anything else. Welcome to being an adult, buddy.
After a couple decades of work you start to fantasize about retirement. All the things you would do with all that free time. How you’ll be able to pursue personal fulfillment unfettered. You’ll write in your blog, or finish a novel. Workout religiously. All the travel, gardening, woodwork, learn a foreign language, expand your social network, take up a sport, etc etc etc. It will make all the sacrifice now so worth it.
In reality, I’ve had a real hard time managing that open time. Now that Claw and I are settled into what we hope is our forever home, don’t you mean the “until you die house?” so many of my days just fritter away. I have a whiteboard full of tasks I truly want to do. I want survey and manage the small forest on my property, I want to grow mushrooms, garden. I want to paint the bedroom, repair shit. All the other stuff I would daydream about while still working.
Without the pressure of my career, (and having a wonderful permissive, kind wife like Claw), I just have such a hard time getting daily momentum. So many days I wake up, screw around on the internet or phone until 11:30am. Claw works from home, so I’ll make her lunch (of course it’s the least I can do). I’ll have my lunch. Maybe then I’ll finally get my workout done. Shower get dressed. Then it’s late afternoon and why start something so late in the day? Claw will be off work soon then we can eat and watch TV and movies. I’ll just have a nap with the cats instead. Fuck. I don’t need a Gaffigan inner voice to tell me how shameful and slothful that is, my inner voice does just fine.
There has been hope lately though. I made a small change that has reduced the amount of attention theft that the algorithms perpetrate. A significant victory in blocking out the social media “smart fog”. Okay, let’s hear this miracle solution, Einstein.
All I have done, is pledged to myself to not use my phone as anything more than a clock until I get my workout done in the morning. That’s it? That’s it. And it’s working. It’s the only thing that has worked so far.
I’m really trying to make it a long term habit. I know momentum is critically important for me. When I have positive momentum, I can be such a dynamo. When I have negative momentum, I am the MVP of sloth. On days when I get up and workout right away, those tend to be the satisfying days that fulfill the promise and hope I had for retirement. It works because I get bored quickly, and have nothing else to do but weightlift. After that I shower, get dressed and naturally just flow into the day. Geez, with this amazing insight, why don’t you write a self-help book about this? We have the next Tony Robbins over here. You can call it “The Subtle Art of Not Touching Your Phone” Such a brilliant insight!
I think my inner voice is meaner than Gaffigan’s.
Comic Judgement
Out of boredom I posted my bookshelf to r/BookshelvesDetective on Reddit.
That’s a sub where you post an image of your (or someone else’s) bookshelf. Then people take guesses at who you are. Many posts are people trying to get insight on the person they are dating. Sometimes the guesses are weirdly specific, and correct.
So I took a few pics of my bookshelf (Claw has her own in her office), and created a burner reddit account with no identifiable information and gave it the post title “Who is he?”
The Comments (I didn’t respond to any of these on Reddit, but will here (italics) in the private darkness of my blog):
- Nerd (kind).
- To quote the poet Donald Gibb, “nerd, nerd, nerd, nerd.”
- He’s a comic book nerd – Charlie Stross & Maus are green flags.
Yes yes, nerdy taste. I obviously enjoy sci-fi, fantasy and comic books. The spirit of these comments seems positive. Ie. He’s a harmless nerd and probably won’t be an abusive asshole if you date him.
• He’s also organized – my kids don’t have their books in any organized fashion – so he’s giving off mild collector vibes – I didn’t see a lot (or any) plastic sleeves – correction – went back, saw sleeves – but they also looked gently used so maybe I’m guessing living life and enjoying art is more important to him than possessing things – if that feeling extends to his romantic interests, another green flag ?
This was one of the more insightful comments. I do collect more for the utility and pleasure of reading. The ability to share my comics and books than any investment angle. I suppose that generally applies to life too. I have mercilessly culled so many Funko pops and other collectible detritus. I think about the paraphrased line, “The things we own, end up owning us”, all the time.
- Blankets is also a green flag in my book
- so is Once & Future
- Bone is a green flag too. Watchmen is a beige flag but in absence of reds we should assume green.
- He’s a total nerd but Blankets indicates a heart beneath
That last one made me feel warm. 🙂
• First thought was “this guy seems cool as hell.” Then I thought “I think this is my ex.”
I highly doubt it.
• I’m willing to bet he has a beard.
Yes.
- Becky Chambers is awesome, so another green flag.
- agreed, thought that was hot
- Cool as hell
Redditors predictably love Becky Chambers. That Wayfarers series is good.
- A comic lover. Though that Terry Goodkind novel is looking pretty sus.
- I’m not familiar with Terry Goodkind, what’s wrong with him?
- Daniel Greene did a really good video explaining why. It’s his argument, but I can’t summarise everything on a single reddit comment.
- I’ll check it out, thanks
- at the very least he only has one (and its the first). If he only could endure (or didnt finish) that one, i’d say that is positive
- Yeah, he should probably ditch that one.
- Both Terry’s on the shelf looking not great, everything else is pretty good though
I wasn’t aware Terry Goodkind was controversial. I read Wizard’s First Rule in high school after my Robert Jordan phase. I just kind of breezed through it, enjoyed it at the time, but didn’t care enough to continue. I remember it was pretty similar to the Wheel of Time, but with some kinky bondage/torture stuff near the end. Claw also makes fun of me for the Terry Brooks books. I only read the first one. Yes, I acknowledge it’s not high quality writing, but I don’t remember it being awful either. She told me that when we were first dating she loved my bookshelf, but Sword of Shannara was the one that made her raise an eyebrow.
- I was going to say a man who should read Fables but no it’s right there.
- You should get him Bone by Jeff Smith of his birthday is coming up.
- It’s on the same shelf as fables
I have such a soft spot for Bone that one of the characters, Roque Ja, is the mascot of this blog, and is the basis for the main image I use for it.
• The lack of Brian K Vaughn is a red flag and you can tell him I said that.
I’ve read some of Y The Last Man on my kindle. Haven’t tackled Dune though.
- Rich (literally some of those comics are old as heck) well diversified nerd
- I could give him a list of comic recs a mile long. Seems chill.
- I’ve never seen comics stored this way. This lad is an innovator.
- Why aren’t his graphics novels organized by volume number?
My collection isn’t worth much, I collected mainly in the early to late nineties. Like sports cards, there were a lot of copies printed of most of my comics. The ones I have showing on the edge are the oldest ones.
• millennial nerdy guy with a dog.
Swing and a miss. Gen X with two cats.
- It really bothers me that his The Walking Dead books are out of order
- I would say overweight, not well groomed, bad clothes, smells weird. Has a beard but not a well kept one. Neck beard is on the table but not guaranteed. Very passionate about trivial things.
Oof! Well, I think my beard is very nicely groomed. I shave my neck, have defined edges. After a shower I put on moisturizer, then soften it up a 50:50 mix of Jojoba oil (which I know to pronounce with a soft J) and Argan oil. Then i finish it off with a high quality beard balm and special scissors to trim any stray hairs. Then I go about my day with a groomed, magnificent looking, salt and pepper beard. I’m in good shape and smell pleasant too. And if I cared so much about trivial things, then why are my Walking Dead Graphic Novels all out of order then? hmmmm? What a meanie.
- Lethem and Vonnegut hanging out together under a couple Chambers novels screams green flag go to me. Nerdy dude. Probably some anxiety issues (why? No idea, just got that vibe.)
- I’m guessing 40-45 white male with a middle to upper middle class job where he works with his brain a bit more than with his hands.
Yes, these were close. Anxiety is probably a little above the mean. Slightly older than that age range, career in Science.
So… yeah that was kind of fun. Kind of hurtful. I do now mostly just read on my kindle, so the bookshelf is a bit of a snapshot of a younger version of me. A little library shrine.
