I used to ...

I used to live for sunny days; now I love the grey cloudy wet days and that is a good thing because this is the wettest summer I can recall in a long, long time.

I used to dread being alone; now it’s my preferred state.

I used to enjoy reading, rarely watched TV and loved undertaking creative projects; now I hardly ever read, I watch a lot of TV at night and I’ve lost my passion for creating.

I used to cry when emotions became extreme; now I have a seizure.

Even baking, a passion of the past three years, cannot engage me any longer. I’ve developed baker’s block and the “loss” is surprising and disappointing considering I just spent a modest fortune on cooking classes and outfitting my kitchen with a lot of new equipment.

Perhaps the most troubling change is from active to passive in that I rarely instigate getting together with anyone. Instead, I respond to invitations.

I made a booklet for my friends to explain and had it printed. I had it printed and I got it out just before the post office strike begins. On Thursday I had two mild seizures and yesterday I had three — almost every in the company of a friend — so I’m glad I circulated it because it tells people what to do when I seize.

The one constant of my emotional mosaic is my love of writing. It’s still the first thing I do every day and it’s still the most fulfilling thing I do. I really enjoyed doing the graphics and technical writing; it was like old times.

I write long emails to “pen pals;” I write letters to people on cards I make or buy and I write a lot of doodling with a keyboard that I throw away.

I used to post on this blog often and I’d be quite open about my life but I’m not inclined to such transparency any more. Instead, I’m going back to long form writing.

For thirty years I was a technical writer who worked to commission; I never wrote a word that didn’t earn me money. Post retirement, I got into long form that I published or produced myself (Trudeau, the Felons and Me, my last long form project, was technically a commission.) All that time, I was motivated by the goal.

Finally, a dream realized: I am wholly invested in process not outcome. I’ve let go of the world and I’ve got two long form projects going that I think are the best writing I have ever done. It’s certainly the most satisfying composing I’ve done.

I used to care how it ended before I began. Now I don’t and it feels very, very good.

A Puff Dessert

Hooked on inventing visually appealing and flavourful desserts, I made these to take to a dinner tonight with friends. It's a very eggy puff pastry filled with whipping cream, served on a bed of hazelnut paste with crunched pistachios.

First comes that moment when you see the pastries rise as
they are supposed to do.

I made a cracquelin with which to get the neat texture on top. 

Collecting versus Broadcasting

In the nineteen fifties, kids collected things. Collecting was popular hobby. Perhaps the most popular thing boys bought and traded were baseball cards; I collected stamps and minerals. Matchbox toys, dolls, marbles, commemorative pins, coins, model cars, photos of movie and singing stars, miniature soldiers — the list of things kids collected was a long one. 

Inside our home and the homes of many friends was a “party room.” They were large rooms with a single dominant architectural feature: A bar. In those bars, I saw some things adults collected: Beer bottles, bottle caps, matchboxes, coasters, etc.

Then television came into our homes and everything changed. Childhood entertainment went from active to passive and from a focus on artifacts of pleasure and others to an obsession with the self.

Worse: Instead of absorbing information about others and our world, we broadcast digital avatars as unreal as the Photoshopped images that surround us, driven by dissatisfaction with our real lives.

Almost every one of my true friends has ended or begun a sentence in conversation with me with this phrase: “You have so many friends.” I would always dispute their impression, always to no avail; they remained resolute in their impression. What I had, was many acquaintances. Here’s why: I was constantly changing jobs.

In humans, I have always felt that the purpose of sex was twofold. One, obviously, is procreation. The other is to function like glue. It serves to hold our interest in a potential partner whilst we get to know their personality.

In friendships, the glue that binds us during the discovery process is not sex it’s something that we value and have in common – a behavior, an illness, a skill, a location, etc.—and for someone like me who has lived in other cities and held a lot of short-term contracts/positions, the acquisition of acquaintances is easy. I had tons of them. But true friends are rare and I thank God every day for those I have.

My friends are now seeing that I was right. I only see one or two friends a week so I am back to collecting. I seek and collect digital images like these to post on this blog:

Modern Medicine

Loving Vincent

Few things have powerfully and instantly reduced me to tearful incompetency. It happened when a dog I though was gone forever was returned to me, when a friend came to my aid after I was assaulted and when I saw my first painting my Vincent van Gogh.

There have been other times, but those were by far the most memorable and dramatic—especially when I saw my first van Gogh paintings. It was memorable because my reaction, I knew, was due to my knowledge of the backstory of all Vincent’s work.

A fatally flawed man, Vincent was protected and nourished by his remarkable brother, Théo and by Théo’s wife and widow, Johanna. It was Johanna’s shrewd management of Vincent’s legacy and estate that made him the revered artist he is today.

But for me, growing up without love and alone, this remarkable fraternal love is what made me cry. Vincent’s paintings are, for me, artifacts of that love.

And a movie is coming out very soon about him called Loving Vincent and it's animated completely in his style. I am breathless from waiting.

Photos of Kamloops

It was so great to find that my only day in
Kamloops was a day when there was a local
Farmers' Market.

Local flood tides are compared to ancient
flood heights on a marker by the river — that's
The Thompson River.

A blue rose in the rose garden in Riverside Park.

The former Court House is now an arts centre. 

A local church in the hear of downtown. 

My gorgeous control panel. I love my car. 

On the road. Peaks to the left and right.

And miles and miles of Dandelions and wild flowers
make the highway gorgeous in the Fraser Valley.

Me reflected in the window of my favourite restaurant there.
I could not have wished for a nicer dining experience.