Month: January 2019

I bought a tiny nightstand

My previous nightstand was six cardboard banker boxes with a towel draped over the top. Height-wise it was nearly perfect next to the bed, and it did what it needed to, providing room for my alarm clock, phone and tablet.

It was, as you might suspect, not overly stylish, and the tops of the boxes got a bit lumpy over the years. Yes, years. I’m not sure why, but I kept this setup far longer than would seem reasonable for something that was intended to be makeshift and temporary.

No more! As part of my Big De-Clutter, I am starting to replace boxes-posing-as-furniture with actual furniture. I started with the nightstand because, well, it’s the only boxes-posing-as-furniture that I actually have. But I’m still replacing other real furniture for various reasons, as I’ll cover in a future post (hint: some of it has to do with what I like to call “granny styling.”)

I picked a suitable replacement from IKEA, a handsome baby Malm that would fit in perfectly next to the big brother Malm already there and serving as my new, improved clothes dresser. But somehow I had measured something wrong (math is hard) and the baby Malm is maybe too much of a baby. It sits significantly lower than the bed (admittedly, we have a massive uber-Queen size that is something like three meters tall. You have to take a running leap to get into bed at night). It’s not unmanageable, but in the end it isn’t what I wanted. I was sad, briefly. Then the cogs in my brain started turning, as they do from time to time.

The tiny Malm could replace the kind-of ugly end table in the living room, as its diminutive stature would not be an issue next to the couch. Voila, nightstand re-purposed, buyer’s regret vanquished (mostly)!. I then began looking for other nightstands that were actually height-compatible with the bed and may have found one at one of the 1,000 furniture stores on United Boulevard in Coquitlam. We will be checking it out on Saturday.

I’m also turfing my L-shaped computer desk because the L-shape ended up annoying me and the desk is too shallow, and the fake woodgrain looks a tad tacky. But that will also be another post.

For now, Furniture Quest 2019, part of the Big De-Clutter and general life improvement stuff, is well underway.

Bye bye books

This past weekend I gathered up nearly all of my paperback books–four cloth bags and a cardboard storage box in all–and dumped them into a book donation bin.

The majority of books I had already read–in some cases decades ago–while others were bought on a whim and then forgotten, unread and still in pristine condition. Most of the books were in near-perfect condition, actually, only the ones I loaned to friends were worn. My 43-year old copy of The Exorcist was definitely showing its age, though, with the cover taped on and the pages yellowing and getting a bit foul [devil/possession joke here].

On the other hand, some other books nearly as old almost looked brand new, because I was a very careful reader. Why, I cannot say. Looking at my bedroom, you would never have said I was a neat kid. And yet my books were treated like treasures. I suppose in a way they were. I read all the time when I was younger and the last few years I’ve rekindled [Kindle joke here] my love for both novels and non-fiction.

So why did I toss nearly all of my books away, keeping only a precious few, like signed copies or reference guides that are still relevant? Because I am determined to strip away the clutter in my life, and the books hold no sentimental value for me, though some had pretty snazzy covers. Most of these books I’d read long ago and were stuffed away in boxes and bags. It’s been many years since I had a bookshelf, and given the, shall we say, uneven quality of the books I indulge in, I feel no great need to hang onto them or display them for all to see.

And so off they went, to find homes elsewhere. I don’t know if someone will want to read my 1980 paperback copy of Salem’s Lot (I finally read the eBook version in October 2011), but it’s in darn good shape if they do.

In the meantime, I have less clutter, both in the condo and in my mental space. It feels good. The de-clutterfest will continue this coming weekend.

Still technically writing every day

I have not found my groove yet early in this new year when it comes to writing, but I am writing something every day, as I had vowed to do. So yay for sticking to it for nearly a whole week so far! Only 51 more to go.

Part of the problem is my mind feels cluttered by negative thingamabobs, mainly but not exclusively related to a growing professional dissatisfaction. Maybe all those years of not working in a field I am passionate about is finally having an effect. I’m not saying there is something I am passionate about–clearly I struggle with writing, no matter how many books I read on the subject, and how diligently I follow all the little tricks and things to keep you going–but I can’t help but think there might be something I’d be generally more satisfied in doing in my work life.

But every time I take one of those “This is the work you SHOULD be doing!” tests, the results are always somewhat dubious. So I’m not sure how to go about investigating a possible career side-step. I’m also aware that I’m not exactly a 20-something that can freely experiment with a bunch of different jobs to see what sticks (or maybe I could, who knows?)

Anyway, the important thing is I wrote something today and maybe I’ll hit the treadmill again tomorrow. Also, only two more months until we are back on Daylight Saving Time, hooray. All right, this concluding paragraph was a little random. Maybe I accidentally lapsed into free writing. There are worse things that could happen. Like scurvy or the return of parachute pants.

Treadmill run 2019

Well, the first one of 2019, anyway. I’ll run outside one of these days (but maybe not tomorrow, as they are forecasting winds gusting up to 70-90 km/h).

I spent about five minutes out of the 30 doing a fast walk, with the pace set to 4.0 on the machine, which is…I’m not sure. I don’t really know what the numbers represent, exactly. The rest was jogging at a pace set to 6.5, which is a bit slower than an outdoor jog, based on heartrate and just generally how it feels. I’m more comfortable pushing myself outside because I don’t have to worry about flying off a fast-moving mat below my feet.

My best km, which did not include any walking intervals, was 5:58, which is actually pretty decent. The knees were again not an issue and my stamina is perhaps a very tiny bit improved.

The overall stats:

Distance: 4.62 km
Time: 30:03
Average pace: 6:30/km
BPM: 153
Calories: 336

This is slower than the previous run, but I spent a bit more time walking, especially during the 5-minute cooldown period when the machine automatically drops the speed to 3.9 (I raised it back to 6.5 for a few minutes of the cooldown, as I’m a rebel).

Here is the previous treadmill run for comparison:

Distance: 4.31 km
Time: 27.03
Average pace: 6:16/km
BPM: 157
Calories: 354

Haiku to The Rains

We’ve had a rainfall warning the last few days, which, as you might guess, means a whole lot of rain– between 40-90 mm, depending on where exactly you are. It’s been quite wet.

The Rains

The rains fall heavy
Vehicles splash and spray me
My spirit is damp

The rain actually doesn’t bother me–this is definitely the wrong area to live if it does–and I’ve learned to avoid the areas where splashing and spraying can happen.

But I still remember that dark winter day last year when I was learning that lesson, diverting along the one block stretch of Brunette Avenue between the Sapperton SkyTrain station and my place, unable to take the much nicer hospital lane, closed (and still closed until December 2019) due to construction. This section of Brunette tends to be driven at highway speeds. I don’t know what the actual speed limit is here, but I am reasonably certain it’s not highway speed. The combination of excess water on the road and the aforementioned high speed led to me getting soaked with a great wave of water that fanned over the sidewalk. I stood for a moment, trying to register the fact that this little slice of a comedy movie had actually happened to me.

I walked on and got soaked three more times. I was very wet when I got home. In the end I found it kind of funny. And instructive. I’ve never risked the same trip along Brunette again during The Rains. The safe diversion adds two blocks to my trip, a small price to pay in exchange for not getting a metric ton of water sprayed on me at high velocity.

Welcome to the year 2019

As I saw noted elsewhere, 2019 is the year that both Running Man and Blade Runner are set in.

Noted elsewhere on the internet:

Predicting the future is hard. Predicting the near-future is hard. Heck, predicting what I’ll be having for lunch in two days is hard.

(To be technical, you could probably say that Philip Dick and the creative people behind Blade Runner were not specifically imagining the future, just creating one possible vision of it for story-telling purposes. But that’s no fun.)

I think the best part about Blade Runner’s version of 2019 is how they just couldn’t pass up on flying cars.

Their version of a pollution-choked L.A. is actually not that far off from some of the mega-cities in China (and elsewhere), though. And corporations are already monolithic, evil entities. So maybe Blade Runner isn’t that far off, after all.