It seems like I'm only attending every other autocross event lately. I missed the July event for my partner's birthday, and I missed September as I rested following a big bike ride. I will also miss the first November event, but that's getting ahead of things. I did manage to make it out for our club's October race. It had been long enough since our August event that I almost didn't want to bother with getting the car ready to race, like maybe I wasn't really into autocross anymore. That was…

Typing and editing from a bar. The birthday girl wanted to go line-dancing. The first two dances have not been too bad. The second was fun, even. I like the little twirls but still can't get used to all the stomping. One incentive to learn the moves is to avoid having your foot stomped on by a heavily-tatted lesbian in cowboy boots. She met me at Levant Pizza first, after I devoured four slices. Two pepperoni, two garlic and zaatar. The waitress has an English accent and looks like my friend…

So many things have changed since the last time I posted 17 days ago. Grandma has been in the same UTI Factory since getting released from the hospital. She is set to be released on Tuesday and will finally be able to come home. I took a bit of a break from constantly updating here because it seemed like, every other day, the complete trajectory of my life was changing so rapidly. In a way, it was almost starting to feel like I was writing fiction. And yet, there are so many things from the…

Oh man, I didn’t know what this movie was about when my wife put it on. These stories were hard to watch and that makes me sad in that it echoes so much of the what happened and what continues to persist.

News from Bus Stop M (part 1) I've noticed something odd at Bus Stop M over the last week or two. Buses on route 205 have started stopping here. I don't know precisely when or why, but this is excellent news for a very small number of people who live here or who change buses in Bow. Route 205 was introduced in 2002 in preparation for the launch of the Congestion Charge zone. Originally it ran between Paddington and Whitechapel, then in 2007 was extended to Mile End and in 2009 to Bow Church.…

I got a A5 clipboard from Penco two years ago. It was one of the “I don’t have money for a Plotter” but kind of similar things I tried out. So I pulled it out from my stationery cabinet and have been using it as a writing surface for my Plotter when I’m writing on it on the couch and a few times in the car. I like it a lot.

Funny thing. I don’t think I have used a regular notebook as my daily driver in a really long time. As I was checking my e-mail archive the last time I ordered a Leuchtturm1917 was the summer of 2023 and the last time I ordered a DotPad was in the summer of 2024. I have used both after that, but mostly left overs after when I just started using Travelers Notebooks for everything again, until I got the Plotter.

Started out the day making a beat over at Xtreme while enjoying a delicious Everything bagel with Cream Cheese, then hit up drum circle. D circle! Next up was the Foundry Fest, which was the 20th year of the studio's existence. Foundry was opened by a brother and sister, who initially bought three studios then expanded out to Gilbert, Scottsdale and Flagstaff. They sold two franchises as well. Anyways, Becky met us there, and we had a great time, and I got an abdomen massage that is supposed to…

It’s been on my “todo” list now for at least a couple of months, but today I finally pulled out the old 3.25" floppy drive and dongle chain to recover these photos. Taken variously across Alaska and Canada earlier this summer, on a 1.2 MP Sony Mavica FD100.

Click here to book for The Gentle Author’s Tours If you are looking for TV repair in the East End, I recommend you visit Master Tech in Heneage St off Brick Lane – where, not only will the job be done expertly and at a fair price, but most importantly you will have the opportunity to meet Javed Iqbal, one of Spitalfields’ most engaging raconteurs. Although I do not even possess a TV, I was happy to spend my Saturday morning in Javed’s shop beside his workbench and surrounded by TV spare parts,…

about lunchtime on Friday, our phones were going krazya big one (earthquake) was comingthe thing I don't like about the Naver app is that it shows you the countdown (in the photo: where the number says "162") before the earthquake hits the area where you are (and the ring gets bigger as the earthquake "wave" approaches)...Anyway, we had 189 seconds before it was gonna hitLuckily Satoshi was

Week 10 I usually write parts of my weekly post throughout the week. And for some posts, I take about 30 mins to sit down and recap the week straight thought-to-keyboard style. Today, I decided to try a new experiment: write with a pen and paper. It’s been an unusual day in many ways. For a Sunday, I woke up way too early, around 7am. Kristen was going to work so I went to drop her off. When I woke, I felt a sudden dizziness, a first for me. And I immediately thought to myself that I didn’t get…

so i wanted to clarify by choosing not to bury the lede in this post that i don't intentionally title things based on a topic i only mention in the last paragraph of a post. i normally come up with title when i'm finished writing and so usually the last thing i wrote is what sticks out to me. i just title things based on what i think is amusing, not because i'm trying to get clicks. some time ago i decided to turn off bear blog analytics because i was checking them too much and it defeats the…

Are you in control

I am happy to say, recovery is going very well. So well, I’m suspicious! 😄 When I had a laparoscopy done, some 15 or so years ago, the thing that surprised me most was how it basically wiped me out for a month. I felt so weak for so long, and completely drained. Now? I … Continue reading Doing well, and some garden surprises

Not from the last few weeks of enforced sabbatical, but earlier in the year, or even last year, but new purchases, rather than the stuff from the 2021-'23 sorting photo's folder, which we have been looking at in thematic lumps, and I can't remember where they all came from, but I suspect a couple of visits to the old bookshop in Alton, and a couple of charity shop purchases? Ironic, as I'd

James, Joel, and I had a discussion about favorite foods, which devolved, as it often does among folks who like writing, into an idea for a ‘blogging challenge.’ If you’re unfamiliar with what such a thing is, it’s often a series of questions around a certain theme you’re invited to participate in. James has since created the previously discussed ‘Food Questions Challenge’, and I’ve shared my answers! In this post, however, what I’d like to present to you is the ‘Cooking Conundrums Challenge,’…

Lately I’ve wanted some kind of change in the things I do. How I really want to have some kind of home in words. Not words over on some social media site or wallowing in favorites and boosts. More of a place I could hold. A place I could own and feel. A start of a thing. Not just where blog posts go when I’m done. Lately this feeling has been overwhelming at times. This unhappiness with my mere presence on the fediverse. How I felt I wanted different. Wanted to just have a single place to call…

D&D was fun this week, I’m enjoying Luke’s creative encounters, we had to defuse some peanut-butter-smothered dynamite before some squirrels got to it. Weekly is quite nice tbh, something to look forward to on a Monday! Charlotte and I played Finspan again, it’s a good game and it’s nice and quick. I like it when we have a little phase of sitting down to a game, it feels wholesome. I invented a new game for the cats called Stargazy Pie. I have a cardboard box with multiple holes in it, I sit…

last updated 1 minute ago hey! it's weeknotes number sixty eight! what a large and ever growing amount of weeknotes! the fact that you can't wear glasses to try on glasses, and thus have to squint and ask other people how you look, is a crime. i hope i picked well cos they're so expensive, and i'm way more sure about one pair lol. been thinking a lot about community and "what i owe to others" at the minute, after conversations i do think i would do well to try and find places where people are…

At this point it is super clear that I probably have ME/CFS. This has not been determined by a doctor (not for lack of trying!), but by a lifetime of experience and the fact that the issues I have match the profile pretty much exactly. I’d be tempted to blame the bad case of COVID I got back in 2024 but the precursors were there for a long, long time, so if COVID did anything it was just to push me over an edge I had been approaching for a while.Here are some of the signs that are now obvious…

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. Here I am, bitching about my neighbors. I’m in my curmudgeon arc. I bet most can tune out the strepitus suburbanum, but it’s driving me fucking mad. Every month, I Apple Pay an orthodontist I’ve never met 3,000 of my questionably earned dollars for the privilege of living in his future retirement home. I thought, for the price, it would be a nice, quiet retreat from the city. Shame on me for thinking. On one side, a guy obsessed with bringing the…

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Boo! Selfie a day for a year, day 51: Oct 18, 2026 edition.

Felt like I really benefited from having last week off work, and that feeling lasted about an hour into my Monday morning. Turns out a lot happened last week so I spent most of this week trying to process change while keeping on top of my own work. I had another basketball game this week, playing for Worthing D&D White in a 64-80 loss to Shoreham Spartans. Didn't get much court time in this one, playing about 2 minutes before subbing myself out so we didn't have players with a DNP (did not…

dim light heat caressing skin rivulets running, running into puddles relaxed, two bodies in a sacred space almost touching a deep breath, a sigh eyes meeting, no words one soul reaching towards another reaching back

The American Sign Museum is ten minutes away from my house, but I'd never gotten around to a visit until my friend Sam and I were invited to type poems for guests at a bat mitzvah party there last night.The museum is bigger than I'd expected. You feel like you're walking down streets that are crowded with advertising icons and neon.Sam and I were very impressed with a display of glass panels from a Victorian artist's "specimen book." These are only about six inches across, and they show…

this was one of the, maybe, 4 weeks in the year that i felt really good physically and mentally together. i was hoping that using my little energy to go out to inspiring spaces would help me get up to a few more good weeks. we'll see, i'm hopeful after this last one! it helps my mentality and physicality that the weather is finally getting cooler. i loathe the large air conditioner units that take up my two favorite windows, so having our landlord cart those away for the season felt so freeing…