Preemptive Retaliation

This month has been spent taking a sledgehammer to a shed, painting fences and getting dirt under my fingernails, all while burning my neck to hell. It has been maddeningly sunny for a few weeks now. Three days ago I was in my bedroom, plugging in a fan to help cool us while we sleep, and I yelled, “I THOUGHT THIS WAS SCOTLAND DAMMIT,” into the muggy room.

We have been taking full advantage of the garden during this time. Hanging washing. Eating dinner. Cutting the grass. It’s a domestic bliss. Last weekend I was at a housewarming party that started at 4pm, sitting out the back with other married couples, talking about the nuances of one coat fence paint and our experiences of double glazing installation. It was an unironic, non-parody of myself, a situation of such non-ridiculousness that halfway through the conversation I felt suddenly compelled to make terrible jokes and excuse myself to play with their dog. I am getting older. These are my conversations.

In the meantime I am falling back into childish ways in other aspects. I have been taking a good run at Skyrim VR and ho boy am I having fun. I had this game for the xbox when it came out and spent ours crawling through its dungeons, being a cheeky stealth archer and having Rob give me guidance and tell me who to stab. It’s been a number of years since I’ve played it though, and going in almost fresh again has been an interesting experience. I made a conscious decision to switch up what I usually go for, and instead decided to properly roleplay in the world. So far it has captured some childish glee that I’m finding addictive. The other day, while exploring, I accidentally fell into a hole with no way out. Instead of reloading to save myself I traversed this hole, cave, and eventually ruins – sneaking my way through enemy camps and fighting well overpowered creatures in near black darkness. Eventually I made it to the end, having scavenged anything I could to help me survive, and ended up in a battle with a boss that almost took me out the game entirely. After my victory I collected my spoils and found the exit, only to be greeted with the rising sun of the world outside, welcoming me back to the fold.

And then Anna tapped the headset and told me dinner was ready.

I haven’t been that swept away by a game in a while. I was completely taken in by the world. I’m looking forward to spending more hours in it.

In the mean time I’ve been travelling for work less, which means I’ve been reading less. The last time I set foot in a bookstore it was unfortunately with Mike standing beside me, so as such I came out with four new books, none of which were the one I went in for.

I made my way through Ted Chiang’s Stories of your life: and others first, which was just wonderful. It was the first time I’ve read a short story only to go back and immediately read it again. There’s something very unassuming about Chiang’s writing which drew me in. His endings always seem a bit rushed, which I can relate to, but otherwise it was a compelling, brilliant read. It made me go out and immediately rewatch Arrival and find out my friend’s home address so I could mail it to him.

Right now I’m going through The Lathe of Heaven, which I’m chipping away at bit by bit before I sleep at night. I’m enjoying it so far, but sadly it’s not getting as much attention as it deserves since I’m getting distracted by the greatness of The Official Highway Code. Huzzah.

I joke, but actually The Official Highway Code is pretty interesting. After years of being a passenger in the car or cycling the roads, I feel as though I have picked up a sense of how people act and move when they’re out and about. I can predict when to cross roads, how to act at roundabouts, who has priority and all that. And it turns out that these implicit pieces of intuition I’ve picked up are actually laws that people have to follow! Whodathunkit.

In the meantime I am running everywhere. The sun has roused me from my bed earlier than usual and I have spent it chasing music round the neighborhood. It’s going well for me, and I’ve established it a little routine that gets me up and going. I’ve been trying to turn that routine into doing something with writing too, but it’s difficult. I’m finding it easier to get up and go outside than to get up and sit and create. This is compounded by the fact that I’m still really struggling with this story I’m working on. 

Again, I’m having trouble wondering if what I’m writing is actually worth it or whether I’m stuck in a sunk cost fallacy with everything I’ve put in so far.

Again.

At the beginning of the year I made a promise to myself that I would finish a fresh novel by my thirtieth birthday. This would be easier if I actually made the effort to write anything of substance. And with a wee bambino on the way I reckon that my creative time will unfortunately diminish. Still, in this promise to write a novel in X months, did I specify which novel? I didn’t, but there’s another story that keeps grabbing my attention the more I try to ignore it.

Holy fuck I just used a meme in my blog. This is truly the end.