Category: Life

General updates about what’s happening in my life, and personal writing.

On the Road Again

The short version is that Simone and I (and Cecil!) have put most of our belongings in storage, and have begun a grand sojourn around the country, with plans to stop at various destinations for anywhere from a few weeks to a few months at a time. Our first destination is Vermont, and we plan to be there for most of the fall (at least September and October, we’ll see beyond that). (Doesn’t mean the whole time will be Vermont – we’re definitely planning some day trips to other parts of New England, and a weekend in New York City to see a few friends. But it is where we plan to have our base of operations for the fall!)

The how is actually pretty straightforward: my job is very remote friendly, so barring the occasional travel day, I can do my job anywhere with a semi-decent internet connection. And Simone is in a remote-friendly graduate program, so again, nothing to hold us in one spot. So if you have that freedom, why not make use of it? I’m still working through all of this, which is also an interesting experiment, to see how I do keeping up with work while traveling. (And yes, they’re aware that I’m doing this and have my boss’s blessing.) Continuing to get paychecks certainly makes the traveling a lot easier!

Looking down an embankment to a gently flowing river. The water is clear with a slightly blue tint to it. Pines run up the embankment on the other side, with a blue sky behind.
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2023

Happy New Year and all that. It’s now 2023, arguably an auspicious year in Discordianism, and hopefully a good year for the rest of us as well. I’m currently in Palm Springs with Simone, having spent the past few days wandering around and enjoying the desert while it’s not quite so murderously hot. (It’s even raining! How novel!) We had a nice wander through Joshua Tree National Park yesterday, and are having a nice relaxing New Year’s Day.

On Park Boulevard in Joshua Tree National Park, looking out at Turkey Flats and Pinto Mountain in the distance.
Joshua Tree National Park
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Austin, and also Fires

I’m in Austin this week, in town for a team gathering for work. The docs team where I work is distributed fairly broadly, so we try to meet up occasionally in person, though the past few years we’ve been unable to due to the pandemic (our last in-person gathering was January 2020, right before covid started messing with things). One of the fun things about being distributed is that there’s plenty of excuse to host the meetup in different areas – last time was Grenoble, France, this time it’s Austin, Texas. Next one, maybe we’ll do San Francisco, or pop out to Bristol – who knows?

I’ve had a pretty decent writing streak this month on here, so I’m going to try and continue that while I’m in Austin, but we’ll see. I will say, one bummer of this trip was looking out the window on the flight out and seeing the forest fires hitting just north of Portland:

My thoughts are definitely with the folks caught in the crosshairs of that fire. There’ve been strong winds in the Portland area the past few days, and I can only imagine that’s been wreaking havoc on controlling the fire. Fingers crossed they actually get some rain soon.

Why Canadian Thanksgiving

I often wish people a happy Canadian Thanksgiving (which is today!), which prompts a fair number of responses of “Oh, are you Canadian?” And then puzzled looks when I say that no, I’m not. SO, here’s a brief explanation:

  1. My family has a summer house on the lake in New England (I’ve mentioned it frequently on here, so this should surprise no one). That house is not winterized, so while it’d be great to host American Thanksgiving there, that’s too late in the year, far too cold out, and the house needs to be closed up and the water turned off well before then. Canadian Thanksgiving, however, is in early-mid October, which is a lovely time to be at the lake, and a reasonable time to have one last shindig before shutting down for the winter. That’s basically why my family started celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving (we also do the American one, because why not have two turkey days). When I moved to the west coast, however, I couldn’t afford to fly back for the big family gathering. So we started hosting our own, inviting friends and cooking up some tasty food.
  2. I may not be Canadian, but I do have friends and family who are, so why not celebrate with them?
  3. There is the added benefit of doing a little harvest-festival gathering, too, instead of Columbus Day (because seriously, fuck that guy). It’s a nice well-wishing event, and much more neighborly. (There’s also Indigenous People’s Day today, which is also a worthwhile replacement.)

So, yeah. I highly encourage others to also get in on the action — any excuse to get people together to break bread and be sociable is a good one in my book.

And Just Like That, It Was October

Rabbit Rabbit, y’all.

The usual apologies for not posting more frequently – it was certainly something I thought about, but just wasn’t in the mental headspace to do it. Some days the fields are a harvest, and some days they’re fallow. Both are important, though I feel better when it’s the former.

Vermont foliage, in the hills near Starksboro
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Ushering in 2022

It’s already the new year in some parts of the world, and will be here, soon. So let me just say! Happy New Year! I hope 2022 is filled with delight. Not just in big moments that punctuate periods of our lives, but in the little crevices and cracks that make up our daily lives. I hope you find the time to savor your friendships, to find that transcendent cup of coffee, to notice (and appreciate!) that moment in the afternoon when the clouds part and the world is lit up with that peculiar, golden, magic light.

I hope you find, and keep, and cultivate love, in whatever shape that takes. I hope you find joy in your journey, that you remember that the journey, not the destination, is the point. I hope that at least once this year, you find something that reminds you of a happy memory from your childhood. I hope that you make many more happy memories.

I hope that 2022 proves to be sublime, in all the best senses of the word.

I wish you all the best. Happy New Year.

Wrapping Up 2021

Here we are, in the last half of December. The past year (and really, two years) has been a weird mishmash of hurrying up and waiting, with days and weeks sort of blurring into each other. If I didn’t keep a work journal, I doubt I’d be able to tell you what I did last week, let alone a few months ago, and that doesn’t really help with the non-work parts of my life. I doubt I’m alone on this blurring – the pandemic dulls the punctuation of life, barring the occasional exclamation when something finally happens.

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Not Feeling It

But I am very poorly today & very stupid & I hate everybody & everything.

Charles Darwin

Not feeling it today. I’ve felt distracted and irritable most of the day, and at odds with time.

I’ve long maintained that I write here at my whim, and not as a brand or for an audience, but I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t tickled when I see an uptick in readers, get responses or likes, or any other sort of feedback that makes it feel less lonely and like shouting into the void. Then, there’s the personal desire to show some consistency and that I can be reliable, and the feelings of guilt if I don’t maintain that self-imposed schedule.

But sometimes your brain is just sour, and your time is scattered, and your focus is lost in the fog.