Category: A Day In The Life

Reposted from Drafts on October 30, 2019

Today I got the opportunity to root through a dead guy’s condo. It’s a surreal experience. A somewhat estranged relative of my father’s passed away a couple weeks ago. Today, with his brother and sister-in-law, my cousin and my dad, I went through his Surrey townhouse.

The last time I saw Cousin John was probably ten years ago. Even then, years before his heart attack in a cinema parking lot, conversations about him took on a past tense tone. He was labelled as an odd man to my siblings and I, and we never did a good enough job of staying in touch.

After seeing his place, I regret not taking more time to talk to the man. He had bookshelves filled with science fiction books that I’d love to read. John’s interests were varied–he had military books, shelves dedicated to books on aircraft, and it seems like he had a growing interest in submarines right before the end. The shelves also held textbooks on chemistry and biology, as well as books on alien encounters and TWO copies of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. 

EDIT (30-10-19): I took one of the copies and have not opened it yet.

EDIT (30-06-25): I still haven’t opened it, but I do still have it!

Though he was a fairly messy person (according to dad he always was, they had lived together for a couple years way back), I’ve been told that he was always very clever, maybe spending too much time on the more important questions of the day to have a chance to tidy up. I’m sure it’s partly because he was family, but I started to notice similarities between us as I walked through the rooms. He had two typewriters. I don’t know if he used them or just had them around.

I could’ve done a better job connecting with him, because after all I don’t know why he was so estranged from the rest of us. I mean, we’re a weird family anyway and he was just across a couple bridges in Surrey.

Anyway, maybe the point I’m driving at is that family is too easy to take for granted.

Rest in peace John.

Reposted from Drafts on October 30, 2019

I’ve hit up a bunch of different bookstores in the last couple days because I’m desperate for some good fiction, but whenever anyone offers to help me I keep saying, ‘I’m just looking.’

Because if I was honest I’d say I want a book about change. I want to read a book that will make me want to quit my job and go to Europe, and be excited about it. I want a book that takes all the fear and nervous energy and restlessness I’ve felt lately and reassures me that it’s normal, okay, and even good to see where one simple and kind of reckless impulse takes me.

I’d like to read a book about someone who isn’t certain of anything beyond the fact that they’re uncertain. And confused. And then I’d like to live it, and have almost everything go right, but enough things go wrong to keep it interesting.

Maybe a book that reads like Hemingway but is set in a contemporary world, with contemporary issues and characters that feel alive today. People that I’d imagine passing on the street.

I probably should’ve just asked, because after visiting three bookstores yesterday I came home empty-handed. I have a few books I’m in the middle of that I keep revisiting and then reshelving. I don’t know why nothing is holding my interest.

Today I went to Indigo while I waited for an oil change and I bought Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, a classic, and from what I’ve heard, a book perhaps more relevant today than ever. I’ll get to it once I’m finished The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway, which is pretty good. I’ve found that I can read any of his books pretty easily, but I guess that’s the reason why he’s so well known. I hope him and Margaret clear up this reader’s drought I’m living.

EDIT (30-10-19): Bruce Chatwin’s The Songlines ended up being the book I was looking for. He’s better known for In Patagonia which I didn’t like as much and have not finished.

Caption: selfie in a town called Klaipeda in Lithuania – I’m doing the colours of the Lithuanian flag

And not to mention the writer’s block. I’m all plugged up! It’s like flu season in my brain. I’ll average about 500 words of nonsense a day (beyond the nonsense here on the blog) and reading it back is just depressing. I should set up a proper counter and then once I’d written all the bad stuff down and had nothing left but the gold, I could say THIS IS HOW MANY WORDS IT TOOK TO GET TO SOMETHING READABLE: _____. I’m not there yet, but we must be well into the 200,000’s now. Closing in on the 300k’s, I bet.

At least I’m pretty good grammatically and spelling-wise, right? Good, not great, and usually I can write with an okay, or at least unique, flow.

My stories are just terrible. Depressingly terrible. And I keep thinking, how am I ever going to be a rich and widely read novelist if I can’t write a good story at 24? Not even a decent short story, let alone a novel.

Now, I think if I was giving myself advice it would be: keep writing. Don’t stop. And one day, fingers crossed, something will come out of my brain and hands that’s worth buying. Or at least worth reading for free on the internet.