The word of the week is lenticular.
May 26 - 25K!
Hard to believe that my blog has had 25,000 hits to date.
With over six years of weekly entries, I am tickled that so
many people have stopped by to see what I'm up to. As I've mentioned before,
it's hard for me to tell who exactly is viewing the page, though I can
generally see where the hits originate from in terms of country and links
followed from places like Facebook or Google.
Having something to say that's interesting is always
important to me. I don't talk about the mundane or the boring in my blog, nor
do I stuff it full of political commentary or opinionated rants.
I talk about things that are important to me and that I find
interesting.
Seeing that so many people have dropped by, I must be doing
something right, if only to be commenting on my own life as I live it… which is
really what a blog is all about, isn't it?
May 27 - Budget Smiles
Tonight was movie night!
Cheap movie nights, at that; for years now I've tried to go
on the discounted-ticket Tuesday nights at the local Cineplex in order to stretch my budget enough to
be able to see films in the theatre. Which I want to keep on doing, as it's an
enjoyable experience for the most part, though I've stopped in general going on
opening weekends to avoid the insane crowds and the giggle fests of immature
crowds that still plague the theatre. Thankfully, laser pointers have fallen
out of fashion and it's been a few years since I've seen someone ticking off
hundreds of people with a cheap $10 cat toy.
Tonight I saw X-Men: Days Of Future Past… and I loved it!
Being quite familiar with the storyline about how the
mutants deal with a future war and all its ramifications, I was thrilled by how
well the film addressed the story points. It's been a while since I've been
totally and completely engrossed in the movie from start to last and I have to
say that X-Men:DOFP delivers this experience: there wasn't a moment I can recall that
I wasn't completely absorbed in what was going on on the screen. Other people had similar experiences, given their reviews, which just reinforces my own sense of satisfaction.
Leaving the theater, I had a glow of satisfaction that's
been all too rare of late, of having got my moneys worth and more from an
entertainment experience. What's more, I knew that what I'd seen on the screen
was the result of extremely hard work from people who loved the material and
had done their utmost to do it justice when bringing it to life for the
audience.
It's that sort of dedication to storytelling that I hope to
bring to my work, to do my utmost to create stories that are compelling and
that will bring readers completely into the world(s) that I create.
May 28 - Small Thoughts
Do you know how big the universe is?
Douglas Adams tackled the subject gamely, when he said this:
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
Sometimes, I forgot that just how incredibly huge the universe
is, even knowing how far light year is and how small our sun( and even our
solar system! )is in comparison to stellar distances. The tiny speck that is
our little blue planet can't even be seen on a cosmic scale.
To give you an
idea of that unimaginable scale, have a look at this image below:
An area the size of the arrow's tip in diameter represents all the stars that we can see
in the night sky with an unaided eye. It's incredibly tiny and the
mind-boggling thing about the circle is that it represents a travel time on
the order of centuries for light.
When I find myself in an untractable state of mind, I try to remind myself that on the galactic scale of things, I'm both vast and small. My problems are not the universe's problems: they're at a scale where neither can comprehend the other, though we're one and the same, in a sense. Things that bother me today, that may seem insurmountable, are really just matters of perspective and I have to remind myself of that should-be-obvious fact.
In other words, I don't sweat it.
May 29 - Doubt
I had a few bad moments this week.
It's funny how a few small things can make your mind suddenly
whirl down into the cracks and crevices that are filled with the accumulated
doubts we all carry around with us.
For me, one trigger this week were my arms and the pain I
often feel after they've been used bit too much. Performing various daily tasks
only to find that a dull ache has surfaced beneath the skin can be intensely
frustrating for me and I'm afraid at times it overwhelms me. Overwhelms me
because I think that I should be able to perform simple tasks without pain, being
an otherwise healthy man of relatively young age who hasn't accumulated any
injuries of note. Yet to feel damage I can't see and I can't do anything to
repair according to medical experts drives me to the point of physical anger,
but as there's no source for such apart from my own damaged limbs, the anger
has nowhere to go and I end up having to calm myself through various means. To
remind myself that my animal reaction to pain is subservient to the knowledge
of my mind, that I have to carry on and do the best I can while minimizing
anything that will antagonize my damaged tendons.
It is what it is and I have to live with it.
Thankfully, I won't be lifting all that many printers or similar
heavy objects anymore, apart from the occasional singular weekend shift week to
week. Given that I'm not playing video games anymore and doing most of my
typing by voice, my arm should get a solid few months of general rest over the
summer, which I'm curious to see how much of a difference it will make in their
sub-dermal complaints.
Maybe someday I'll be able to pay a panel of experts to
examine my arms minutely and to give me a solid diagnosis that includes
tailored therapy leading to a full recovery of my former carefree days. Or
perhaps in a decade I can elect to have new forms of treatment applied, or even
some form of nanotech therapy that will allow me to enjoy those things I
previously did before my self-inflicted injury of ignorance.
Just being able to type again, pain-free, for a few hours at
a time would be glorious. I'm sure my Muse would agree.
May 30 - Kites!
There was a lot happening in the sky in Victoria today.
Down at Clover Point, the Victoria International Kite
Festival was taking place, starting tonight and running during the daytime all
this weekend. It's the inaugural event, the first of its kind, so I made sure
to make some time tonight to go down and see what I could.
Which is a little odd, you might think, as most people don't
fly kites at night. For one, it's hard to see the kite unless it's
light-colored and the moon is out. To, you'll really have to watch where you're
putting your feet to avoid tripping over anything in the dark.
However, you can alleviate both these problems by putting
lights on the kites and holding the event out where there's lights surrounding
a nice flat open space, just like there is at Clover Point, , which is only a
kilometer from where I live by the ocean, at the southernmost point of
Victoria.
Hundreds of people showed up at dusk, wandering in by foot
and by vehicle to see magic appear in the air. There was a light wind coming in
steadily from the southwest, just enough to keep the kites in the sky. Most of
the kites aloft had one or more lights and several had long blinking streamers,
as you can see from the picture below:
The real fun started after the sun had set, with just a
remnant glow in the west as the insert street lights flickered to life. More
kites join the ones already aloft in the sky until nearly 2 dozen of them
fluttered in the breeze and skittered across the breezes at the hands of their
skilled controllers. A special thrill took place when a series of stunt kites
were made to perform various precision acrobatics in the sky, to the delight of
the crowd, as you can see in this video:
Next year, I'll be sure to have an afternoon off and a kite
of my own to steer across the sky, joining hundreds of others in a beautiful
ballet set against the background of purest azure blue.
May 31 - Saying No To The Future
How often do you say no?
For me, it's a hard thing to do, as I have an inbuilt need
to try to please people. Is something I recognized years ago and I now know can
be detrimental to my own desires and needs. All the same, I do my best to
accommodate other people, as long as their needs aren't extravagant or
excessive as I like to think I'm a good friend.
Today though, I just couldn't accommodate a friend, which made
me feel like a bit of an ass. I'd already made plans to have breakfast with one
friend and see the start of the Kite Festival before work this morning, when a
Staples co-worker texted me last night to see if I would be able to switch for
his earlier shift as he's not really a morning person and it takes him a while
to get to work from where he lives.
Thinking about it now, it's not a big deal, but at the time
last night it took me a few minutes to think about it and say 'no' in my mind.
While it didn't feel good, it didn't feel right, which I know is a result of my
having been used as a human doormat for many years by MMart, though not often
by its employees: as I've mentioned previously in this blog I developed an
almost preternatural sense of when someone was trying to get me to accommodate
them in a need that wasn't really necessary.
The art of saying no is something I'm still refining for
myself. There's quite a few books and websites on the topic, which I'll leave
you to find if you need them; I'm good on the topic for now. There's not a lot
in my life that I have to choose to say no to, just the occasional social event
which really isn't much when you think about it.
No is the word I don't like and I don't think I'll ever be
comfortable with, but I think it's a necessary word in anyone's life. Necessary
because if you want to have a life that's your own, you have to have a boundary
where you know very definitively where you start and other people end.
June 1 - It Begins…
It's a new month and the spiritual beginning of summer.
Today was also my first true day off in two weeks, with
glorious weather to enjoy. I took my parents out to enjoy lunch and celebrate
my mother's 68th birthday, at a little place I've never been before near where
they live called Andrienne's Tea Room. It was a lovely time, as my parents told
me all about their trip to the UK which they just returned from last night.
They took many photos using their new HTC One M7 cell phones( which I chose for
them ) and were utterly delighted with the quality of the images as well as the
ease-of-use of the phones. They visited many of our ancestral homes and had a fantastic
time talking to many of our long-lost relatives, many of whom had no idea that
our family trees stretch so far back: all credit to my mother who has done many
years of research on our family history to trace it back well past the age of
Charlemagne and into Roman times. I had no idea I was related to so many
personages of note and that thought always comforts me: that I am descended
from so many historical figures that accomplished so much in their lifetimes.
Today also marked the official start date for my second book.
I promised myself that as of June 1 of this year, I would
begin work on my second novel. At this point of the project, I have a rough
outline prepared along with copious notes made from the editing of the first
book. It's going to be a much more complicated endeavor then my first novel, as
there are many interweaving plots and more characters by far to deal with.
Without spoiling anything, I can say that the story will continue from the
first book and be enhanced quite a bit, dealing with many things I touched on
originally that I felt now need to be explored more fully. It should be quite a
ride and I expect that I'll need every spare minute I have for the rest of this
year to complete it.
That said, I'll be spending less time on the blog week to
week, as I'll be doing less overall. With a solid 9-5 day job during the week to
pay my bills, I'll be devoting hours from my every evening to writing the
second book and when I'm not writing, I'll be compiling and planning and
revising my work.
So don't be surprised if I don't have a lot to say in the
blog about what I'm up to each week. Essentially I'll be working by day and
writing by night and that's exactly as I expect to be: my schedule's now fixed
and every minute that I'm not at my day job I'll be writing; no vacation for me
this year because I'll also be trying to find an agent for my first book while
revising it bit by bit in breaks from writing the second one.
I plan on escaping through my writing and I hope that when
I'm done, I can bring everyone along for the ride.
With a few variations, my weeks are going to look much the same: work and write, then repeat. I don't imagine it's going to be an eventful summer, as I'll have FAR less free time to spare than I did in the magical year of 2012, when I wrote my first novel sans day job. As hard as that was at times( see those blog entries, if you wish! )it's safe to say they were salad days compared to the steady work that's ahead of me. But, enough chit-chat: there's a novel to write!
