Shoot more photos, get weird with it. But not too weird.
Get back into game design.
Try losing weight again (lol).
Give up soda. I drink sugar-free now, but I want to go back to just water, like I used to years ago. Who knew that one cup of Coke Zero in 2010 would be a kind of gateway drug?
Be more at peace with myself and the world, no matter how screwed up things are. Be calm, be smart, be ready. And keep caring about making things better.
I think that’s enough for now.
Here’s to 2026 being better than 2025, not just for me, but the whole flipping planet.
I’ll have my 2025 review soon, I don’t want to spoil the mood of fragile, tentative hope right now. 😛
2025 has been a rough year at both a personal level and, you know, globally. But as I type these words, I remain hopeful that things will actually get better. The road is long, but it doesn’t end with a cliff.
And now, Christmas cat:
Bonus thought: No snow, hooray. I know some people like at least a dusting for the holiday, because it looks pretty, and I don’t disagree with the pretty part, but I like my snow in the mountains, where I can admire it from a safe distance.
Last night I had several dreams and the second one, for a moment, went totally meta.
In the first dream, I was in a subway system–it may have been the Canada Line, since it’s the only subway we have here (currently)–but the layout was its own dreamworld thing. All seemed normal when an announcement came over the PA warning passengers of a kind of breach of the system and for everyone to basically watch for trouble.
The breach took the form of what appeared to be a gang of young white guys, either in their late teens or early 20s (I saw several of them close enough to ID this aspect. I also noted that they were the typical stereotypes, laughing and cackling over the terror and mayhem they were causing.) who had somehow managed to get their vehicles into the system. The warning was that they were essentially terrorizing the system by recklessly driving their vehicles through the tunnels. They had pick-ups, muscle cars and a station wagon that I remember spinning out on a section of track that I assume was a switch area, since it was relatively open.
At one point I was in a station and saw a number of vehicles making their way over (don’t ask how I could see this) and started heading up the stairs/exit to safety. I never questioned why the transit people would keep the system running with this chaos going on, or how exactly one might drive a pick-up truck into a subway, but hey, dreams!
In my next dream, I was with a couple of people on bikes. We were in an area that seemed to be a combo of a conventional amusement park, but also a real park with trails for riding and such. We were exiting a store as the dream began, and returning to our bikes. We set off at a leisurely pace, heading past both natural scenery, like a river, and rides of a nature I can’t precisely recall, but may have been themed to fit the area–things like log flume rides or “mines” to explore. The trail began heading down, presumably into a valley, and I was in the lead. I began peddling harder, picking up speed, something that is rather uncharacteristic of me in non-dream life. There was a family riding behind us and they were getting too close for my liking, as if they were going to try passing us. I was having none of it. The downhill slope had occasional uphill parts, and I remember peddling harder in these sections to maintain speed. The feeling of doing this was very visceral. The dream ended without conclusion, alas, so I don’t know where our ultimate destination was–but we did leave that pesky family behind.
The one detail I’ve left out is the meta part. As we were exiting the store, I described a dream I’d had, a dream about guys terrorizing a subway in their vehicles, and how it must represent my fear of riding transit or something. Yes, I was in a dream describing the immediate preceding dream to my fellow dream people. I don’t think I’ve ever had that happen before, but it was weird and kind of delightful.
I was heading out to the SkyTrain, off to pick up a replacement motherboard for my new PC (I will get to that particular tale in another post) and just past the hospital building next to our condo complex, there is a path made of concrete pavers that goes from the road to the sidewalk. From there, the hospital’s main/emergency entrance is at the top of the hill (this is a separate building from the one mentioned). The curb here is low and curved, allowing you to roll things like strollers or wheelchairs onto the path.
Here’s a 2023 shot of the path from Google Maps:
A woman was ahead of me in a wheelchair, and was using her feet to slowly shuffle forward. She got to the curb and it was clear she didn’t have the ability to get over it. I mean, I wouldn’t have been able to using my feet, either. I think you’d need the feet of a hill giant.
I offered to help her over the curb and then just kept pushing. She was thankful and, really, if she could have managed using foot power to get the wheelchair up the sidewalk (which was doubtful), it would have taken ages. I figured it was time to put my sexy running legs to use.
I got up to the corner of Keary and East Columbia. Here, the hill rises even more steeply, albeit briefly, before levelling off. It was now a workout for me. She guided me onward and inside the hospital, down a few corridors and to the elevator that would take her to her therapy. She described being in a car accident–she called it being “run over” and listed an assortment of broken limbs and such. I assume her hands were still on the mend so she couldn’t use them to help with the wheelchair. It all sounded awful. I wished her a speedy recovery and said it was no issue bringing her to the hospital–I was glad to help.
I got her name, but I wished I’d gotten some contact info, because she is going to be stuck if she needs to take the same route again. I’m going to keep my eyes open for her.
It felt good taking the time to help, and I wondered how many people would have just brushed by her as she struggled. I suspect most, but I could be wrong. It feels like people tend to exist in their own narrow space when they go out in public, the world shrunk down to whatever is on their smartphone screen, oblivious and indifferent to what is happening around them.
I guess it’s nice to know I’m not one of those people.
Help people, when you can. It feels good. It is good. And it makes the world a better place every time you do.
Years ago, I used to mock people who used LOL in online conversation. It always looked trite to me, as if anyone would really “laugh out loud” at every slightly amusing thing they see on the internet.
(I’m sure some do.)
But I’ve mellowed over time and now use it myself exactly as it was intended: a shorthand way of saying, “You made a funny.”
I still reserve this glare for people who use LOL as punctuation, though:
Speaking of snow, while I still generally dislike the accursed white stuff (yes, I hate fun1Fine, when it first starts falling, it’s pretty and all that, but then comes the slipping and sliding and the slush and why is that patch of snow yellow?), this animated GIF always instills a wonderful sense of calm and quiet:
Going forward, I am pondering a few things for December, writing-wise. I kind of want to do a more focused blog, but I’m still unsure if I have enough to focus on to make it worthwhile (and what of the bazillion platforms I would use for it, though I’m leaning toward Pika). I am organizing some of the fiction I’ve posted here previously, making it easier to read and, hopefully, enjoy!
UPDATE: Someone has indeed managed to set off fireworks. Persistence! I also remembered that stores will be playing Christmas music non-stop for nearly two months, starting tomorrow. This makes me wish Halloween lasted longer.
And good luck trying to set off fireworks in New Westminster tonight, with the ongoing deluge of rain.
Also, here’s a neighbour who is into the spirit (or bones) of the holiday:
Lee paints realistic scenes, typically urban structures in odd settings, such as a tenement building in the middle of a grassy field, or even weirder than that. I love the style and the absurd juxtapositions.
Disclaimer: I don’t really believe what I’m about to say below, but it feels like such a plausible explanation that I want to believe it.
The idea of alternate or parallel dimensions is one that has been mined extensively in fiction and has just enough scientific validity to give such stories a patina of believability, even if most don’t really think there’s some version of the world where Nazis won WWII or hyper-intelligent cats displaced humans.
What makes me entertain the notion–even as a mere thought experiment–that I should actually be two parallel dimensions over and not this one?
Logic.
I know humans are emotional and we are often very bad at keeping a handle on our emotions (look at what men with control over weapons do), but we are still very much capable of engaging in logical, rational thought. And yet, it feels to me as if more people now are abandoning logic for emotion or just…nothing. And they either don’t see this, or they don’t care. It drives me batty.
I could list examples I’ve encountered, both trivial and otherwise, but they all point to the same thing: Why is this happening? Why does it often feel like I’m the only “sane” person in any given group? And the idea that I somehow slipped from my reality into another one that is close, but not quite the same, just feels so right.
Maybe I’m too fussy, maybe I expect too much. Maybe I’ve seen too many TV shows or movies where giant-brained aliens are so much smarter and clever than us.
Intellectually, I know the idea that I’m in the wrong universe is far-fetched and a way to derive comfort from a world I seem ill-suited for at the moment. I’ll do my best to hold onto logical and rational thought and hope others will do the same.
But if I wake up tomorrow and have a goatee, pay for things in moonbucks and others around me behave logically, I won’t complain1.
None of this is to say emotion is bad, but when making decisions, you have to understand when it makes sense to let emotion guide you and when logic/rational thought should be used, and it feels like a lot of people I encounter now don’t understand this or consciously work against using logic for whatever reason. ↩︎
And it didn’t even rain today. The transition between summer and fall always hits me like no other season change. It feels like I go from heading out as early as possible for a run to avoid the heat to having to think about wearing layers within days. Everything is lush and green and the weather is warm, then just a few weeks later, we have The Rains, temperatures drop into the teens during the days and single digits at night…which begins around 6:30, instead of a more civilized 9:20.
Oh well. I’ll just look at my photos of blue skies and remember summer will come around again.
