not dead, fyi. https://notdead.fyi/ Tue, 14 Apr 2026 02:55:03 +0000 https://i.snap.as/dVwRxDwo.png not dead, fyi. https://notdead.fyi/ red shoes. https://notdead.fyi/red-shoes?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[So much for writing here more often. You know how it goes. Not only did I think I would write here at least once a week if not more, but also I thought I might actually be able to write about something besides sadness and grief. Welp, chalk another failure up on the board. Today's entry is brought to you by that old classic: melancholy. I threw away my pair of old red Asics today. And it messed me up. !--more-- I've always been too stupidly sentimental about things. It's just stuff, I know. There was nothing particularly special about this pair of red Asics. I don't even know what model they were, I think H saw them on sale online and sent me the link. I bought them because of the price and not much else. They were definitely just casual, everyday shoes. They weren't particularly suited to running or any sport, but they were comfortable enough until I wore through them, destroying the rubber soles. Usually, when a shoe is no longer watertight, I'll throw the pair away. It's not that hard for me to let go of worn out shoes, despite my previous claims of being overly sentimental. Unless. Unless the particular pair of shoes was the last pair I wore to go on walks with you. Unless this was the particular pair I was wearing the day you died. Unless this particular pair seemed inextricably linked with what used to be so much of our time together. I still wore them when I went on the walks that I now dub "memorial walks," as much as I hate the idea that you are only a memory. The memorial walks I still do every day, still unable to fully break myself of this habit. Don't get me wrong, I had long since bought new shoes. Several pairs. I wore different shoes to work, different shoes when going on normal, non-memorial walks, etc. But when I was going on that special daily walk to remember you, I'd always put on the red Asics. They were already old when you passed. Despite only wearing them for maybe half an hour a day, they were soon past the point of usual shoe retirement. These shoes waved goodbye to being watertight a long, long time ago. Yet I continued to conscript them into service daily for the walk. I pushed them beyond being comfortable to wear. The hole in the bottom of the shoe continued to grow, starting to look like worn out shoes in cartoons that are exaggerated for comic effect. I still couldn't let go of them. But this week I'm going on a trip, in memory of another loved one who has passed. Seems like there's way too much of this in my life, but that's how it goes as we get older, I guess. I needed a pair of shoes that would be better suited to more outdoorsy kinds of activities. So I got them, but upon getting home, I realized there was no more space on my shoe rack. Sometimes, I can only deal with something like this as if it were a bandage. Rip it off quickly and brace for the sting. Almost without thinking, I grabbed the red Asics and placed them in the trash can. And then jammed them down, as if to tell myself there's no going back. And that was that. The red shoes are gone. I wore a different pair of shoes on the memorial walk today. It's not the first time, there have been days where I was too busy to change out of shoes after work or just forgetful or whatever. But, never again shall those red Asics tread those grounds. I was surprised I was able to throw them away. Then I was surprised at how it was bothering me, hours later, almost to the point of tears. I was almost crying over shoes. I was almost crying over something that happened over a year and a half ago. But I managed to toss the shoes. And I didn't actually cry. So, is this progress or not? I don't know, but I'm not dead, FYI. I managed to write a post in March, even! Although I had to pound it out in one quick pass as there is less than an hour left in the month here. I guess that's my way of excusing the writing for being worse than usual. Which is saying something. See you in April, hopefully. a href="https://remark.as/p/notdead.fyi/red-shoes"Discuss.../a < Back to the Index]]> So much for writing here more often. You know how it goes. Not only did I think I would write here at least once a week if not more, but also I thought I might actually be able to write about something besides sadness and grief. Welp, chalk another failure up on the board. Today's entry is brought to you by that old classic: melancholy.

I threw away my pair of old red Asics today. And it messed me up.

I've always been too stupidly sentimental about things. It's just stuff, I know. There was nothing particularly special about this pair of red Asics. I don't even know what model they were, I think H saw them on sale online and sent me the link. I bought them because of the price and not much else.

They were definitely just casual, everyday shoes. They weren't particularly suited to running or any sport, but they were comfortable enough until I wore through them, destroying the rubber soles. Usually, when a shoe is no longer watertight, I'll throw the pair away. It's not that hard for me to let go of worn out shoes, despite my previous claims of being overly sentimental.

Unless. Unless the particular pair of shoes was the last pair I wore to go on walks with you. Unless this was the particular pair I was wearing the day you died. Unless this particular pair seemed inextricably linked with what used to be so much of our time together.

I still wore them when I went on the walks that I now dub “memorial walks,” as much as I hate the idea that you are only a memory. The memorial walks I still do every day, still unable to fully break myself of this habit.

Don't get me wrong, I had long since bought new shoes. Several pairs. I wore different shoes to work, different shoes when going on normal, non-memorial walks, etc. But when I was going on that special daily walk to remember you, I'd always put on the red Asics.

They were already old when you passed. Despite only wearing them for maybe half an hour a day, they were soon past the point of usual shoe retirement. These shoes waved goodbye to being watertight a long, long time ago. Yet I continued to conscript them into service daily for the walk. I pushed them beyond being comfortable to wear. The hole in the bottom of the shoe continued to grow, starting to look like worn out shoes in cartoons that are exaggerated for comic effect.

I still couldn't let go of them. But this week I'm going on a trip, in memory of another loved one who has passed. Seems like there's way too much of this in my life, but that's how it goes as we get older, I guess. I needed a pair of shoes that would be better suited to more outdoorsy kinds of activities. So I got them, but upon getting home, I realized there was no more space on my shoe rack.

Sometimes, I can only deal with something like this as if it were a bandage. Rip it off quickly and brace for the sting. Almost without thinking, I grabbed the red Asics and placed them in the trash can. And then jammed them down, as if to tell myself there's no going back. And that was that. The red shoes are gone.

I wore a different pair of shoes on the memorial walk today. It's not the first time, there have been days where I was too busy to change out of shoes after work or just forgetful or whatever. But, never again shall those red Asics tread those grounds.

I was surprised I was able to throw them away. Then I was surprised at how it was bothering me, hours later, almost to the point of tears. I was almost crying over shoes. I was almost crying over something that happened over a year and a half ago.

But I managed to toss the shoes. And I didn't actually cry. So, is this progress or not? I don't know, but I'm not dead, FYI. I managed to write a post in March, even! Although I had to pound it out in one quick pass as there is less than an hour left in the month here. I guess that's my way of excusing the writing for being worse than usual. Which is saying something. See you in April, hopefully.

Discuss...

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]]> https://notdead.fyi/red-shoes Tue, 31 Mar 2026 15:01:21 +0000 just found something out. https://notdead.fyi/just-found-something-out?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[It was the last text you sent me before the one where you said you were dying. Okay, you never said you were dying. But you said that you were feeling unwell in a way that ultimately, though we didn't know it at the time, meant you were dying. "Just found something out." Those words took me a while to parse and I'm still not really sure what you meant. Guess I'll never be able to be sure now. Did you really find something out? I guess it's possible. But prior to that point, we had been talking about you asking me to write something about someone else's passing. Man, I really thought that'd be the worst thing to happen to me in 2025. But I digress. !--more-- The point is, I think you were trying to say "just pound something out," as in, just get it done. I had asked you for guidance on what you had wanted me to write. Being known as "the guy in the family who can write" is nice (although I suppose this blog directly contradicts that supposed quality about myself in more ways than one) but when you're given zero direction it can be a bit daunting. Did I say daunting? Look, I'll be honest, it can be annoying. I legitimately remember talking to my partner about it the night before, how vague your instructions were and feeling kind of annoyed. So I followed up in a polite way, asking for guidance. Basically saying, "sure, I'll write it, but what do you want it to say, roughly?" That was your reply, "just found something out." It must be "pound," right? If I am known as the guy in the family who can write, you were definitely known as the guy who couldn't. Your texts were often incomprehensible, especially when you used voice dictation. Which you did fairly often. Basically, every message should have automatically included a "dictated, not read" disclaimer on the bottom. In this case, I'm inclined to guess that's what you were doing. Maybe Siri just heard "_ound" and thought "just found something out" made more sense in context than "pound." Because otherwise, the "F" and "P" keys are pretty far away on the keyboard, although autocorrect has been known to do worse. Like I said, we'll never know. And I kind of hate that these were the last exchanges we had, at least the last in text form, that I can easily revisit and pore over. It's Chinese New Year, or Lunar New Year, which is now culturally more appropriate to say. Supposedly. I grew up with CNY and LNY seems to be equally fraught in my mind but I'll just leave it at that. I want to be a stickler and keep calling it Chinese New Year but I am aware on some level that this is the same excuse older people used for why they couldn't give up overtly racist language. "That's just the way we talked back then." Actually, I wish I could discuss this topic with you, because it's exactly the kind of thing that I know would rile you up and also god only knows what bizarre take you would have on it. I didn't always agree with you about these things, but I also can't deny that you usually had something interesting to say about them regardless. As I am currently nearing the end of my sixth consecutive day off from work, I'm also starting to feel really guilty. This is the one time of year that we get a guaranteed long break, and I always dream about what I'll get done when I just have days and days of free time. But now, I'm thinking about how I've really accomplished nothing, how I'm just going through the same daily routines, and then wasting the time I would've been working and at least appearing to be productive. I think about how I haven't even written anything for this site nor any of my other writing projects. I tell myself, "just write here at least, it's a blog, you can just say what you did today or how you're feeling. No one's reading it, no one cares! It's personal, damnit." So I finally open the text editor. I stare at the blinking cursor. Totally bereft of ideas. Then it comes into my mind. "Just pound something out." I said I hate that it is was our last real text exchange. But maybe, in the end, old man, it was kind of perfect. The encouragement your idiot layabout son needed and needs. Constantly needs, especially when it comes to writing which I fancy myself as doing more than I actually do. Said in a way that is so uniquely you, and by that I mean nearly impossible to understand. Thanks, dude. I did it. Today, at least. a href="https://remark.as/p/notdead.fyi/just-found-something-out"Discuss.../a < Back to the Index]]> It was the last text you sent me before the one where you said you were dying. Okay, you never said you were dying. But you said that you were feeling unwell in a way that ultimately, though we didn't know it at the time, meant you were dying. “Just found something out.”

Those words took me a while to parse and I'm still not really sure what you meant. Guess I'll never be able to be sure now. Did you really find something out? I guess it's possible. But prior to that point, we had been talking about you asking me to write something about someone else's passing. Man, I really thought that'd be the worst thing to happen to me in 2025. But I digress.

The point is, I think you were trying to say “just pound something out,” as in, just get it done. I had asked you for guidance on what you had wanted me to write. Being known as “the guy in the family who can write” is nice (although I suppose this blog directly contradicts that supposed quality about myself in more ways than one) but when you're given zero direction it can be a bit daunting. Did I say daunting? Look, I'll be honest, it can be annoying.

I legitimately remember talking to my partner about it the night before, how vague your instructions were and feeling kind of annoyed. So I followed up in a polite way, asking for guidance. Basically saying, “sure, I'll write it, but what do you want it to say, roughly?”

That was your reply, “just found something out.” It must be “pound,” right? If I am known as the guy in the family who can write, you were definitely known as the guy who couldn't. Your texts were often incomprehensible, especially when you used voice dictation. Which you did fairly often. Basically, every message should have automatically included a “dictated, not read” disclaimer on the bottom.

In this case, I'm inclined to guess that's what you were doing. Maybe Siri just heard “_ound” and thought “just found something out” made more sense in context than “pound.” Because otherwise, the “F” and “P” keys are pretty far away on the keyboard, although autocorrect has been known to do worse.

Like I said, we'll never know. And I kind of hate that these were the last exchanges we had, at least the last in text form, that I can easily revisit and pore over.

It's Chinese New Year, or Lunar New Year, which is now culturally more appropriate to say. Supposedly. I grew up with CNY and LNY seems to be equally fraught in my mind but I'll just leave it at that. I want to be a stickler and keep calling it Chinese New Year but I am aware on some level that this is the same excuse older people used for why they couldn't give up overtly racist language. “That's just the way we talked back then.”

Actually, I wish I could discuss this topic with you, because it's exactly the kind of thing that I know would rile you up and also god only knows what bizarre take you would have on it. I didn't always agree with you about these things, but I also can't deny that you usually had something interesting to say about them regardless.

As I am currently nearing the end of my sixth consecutive day off from work, I'm also starting to feel really guilty. This is the one time of year that we get a guaranteed long break, and I always dream about what I'll get done when I just have days and days of free time. But now, I'm thinking about how I've really accomplished nothing, how I'm just going through the same daily routines, and then wasting the time I would've been working and at least appearing to be productive.

I think about how I haven't even written anything for this site nor any of my other writing projects. I tell myself, “just write here at least, it's a blog, you can just say what you did today or how you're feeling. No one's reading it, no one cares! It's personal, damnit.”

So I finally open the text editor. I stare at the blinking cursor. Totally bereft of ideas. Then it comes into my mind. “Just pound something out.”

I said I hate that it is was our last real text exchange. But maybe, in the end, old man, it was kind of perfect. The encouragement your idiot layabout son needed and needs. Constantly needs, especially when it comes to writing which I fancy myself as doing more than I actually do. Said in a way that is so uniquely you, and by that I mean nearly impossible to understand.

Thanks, dude. I did it. Today, at least.

Discuss...

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]]> https://notdead.fyi/just-found-something-out Tue, 17 Feb 2026 11:35:44 +0000 little cutie pie. https://notdead.fyi/little-cutie-pie?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[I'm determined to not let this year just slip by like 2025 in terms of writing. Or in terms of creative endeavors. Easy to say. "Determined." A week's gone by, so we'll see. To be honest, I'm tired, it's late. It would be fun to close the tab and just play a video game for my last waking hour of the day. Once again, though, I am driven to write by thoughts that bubbled up in my personal journal entry for the day. Realizing that recently I've fallen into this habit. Feeling out of gas at the end of the day and not really wanting to write, saying I'll do it tomorrow. But tomorrow, there will be something else to do; there always is. For this blog, then, or any of my creative projects, tomorrow never comes. A very cliche thing, for sure. But, okay. I'll do it now. Do it today. At least for one day. !--more-- My thoughts keep swirling to the game yesterday. I watched it for a person who isn't here to watch it. I watched it even though I had no stake in it and at the outset honestly not even much of an interest in it. The game did get legitimately interesting, though, and by the end I was cheering out loud and hollering, yelling at the TV screen, clapping. Just generally making a fool of myself as I sat alone in the apartment. The neighbors must love me. Afterwards, I wondered if that was some of you. In some way, you were watching with me, or perhaps I was even channeling your spirit somehow. I got caught up in it in a way that I really did not expect. And the ending, boy howdy the ending. The feeling was truly bittersweet. At once I felt so elated that your team had won, after so many years. It happened, man. I felt happy for you. But it stung, stung deeply to realize that you weren't actually here to see it. If you'd only held on for a little longer, just a few more months, you could've seen this come to pass. My eyes teared up, although I did not cry. But that's how it is for everyone though, in the end. You might've even responded to my thoughts, saying that nobody can stick around to see everything forever. Eventually, we miss out. So I'm stuck with hoping that perhaps, beyond all logic, there is something beyond this. Some kind of existence, and maybe in some way, shape, or form, you saw what happened. That you knew they won and that you got to revel in the moment. Later I had a discussion about this and other things with my sister. How we want to believe all of these thoughts about what is possible beyond this existence we know. It's a very 51/49 kind of thing, though, where our brains are just slightly more wired towards logic to really believe it. I try to find the meaning in dreams even though I "know" there isn't really any. Except that which we create. My sister had even less interest in this game than I, but everyone talking to her about it and what he would have thought about it at least got her to pull up the highlights online. Upon seeing the team logo, her kid said, "aww, look at that little cutie pie." Neither my sister nor I understand how he could've possibly called that logo a little cutie pie. Old man, you would've found the story funny. Maybe you do. a href="https://remark.as/p/notdead.fyi/little-cutie-pie"Discuss.../a < Back to the Index]]> I'm determined to not let this year just slip by like 2025 in terms of writing. Or in terms of creative endeavors. Easy to say. “Determined.” A week's gone by, so we'll see. To be honest, I'm tired, it's late. It would be fun to close the tab and just play a video game for my last waking hour of the day.

Once again, though, I am driven to write by thoughts that bubbled up in my personal journal entry for the day. Realizing that recently I've fallen into this habit. Feeling out of gas at the end of the day and not really wanting to write, saying I'll do it tomorrow. But tomorrow, there will be something else to do; there always is. For this blog, then, or any of my creative projects, tomorrow never comes.

A very cliche thing, for sure. But, okay. I'll do it now. Do it today. At least for one day. My thoughts keep swirling to the game yesterday. I watched it for a person who isn't here to watch it. I watched it even though I had no stake in it and at the outset honestly not even much of an interest in it. The game did get legitimately interesting, though, and by the end I was cheering out loud and hollering, yelling at the TV screen, clapping. Just generally making a fool of myself as I sat alone in the apartment. The neighbors must love me.

Afterwards, I wondered if that was some of you. In some way, you were watching with me, or perhaps I was even channeling your spirit somehow. I got caught up in it in a way that I really did not expect. And the ending, boy howdy the ending.

The feeling was truly bittersweet. At once I felt so elated that your team had won, after so many years. It happened, man. I felt happy for you. But it stung, stung deeply to realize that you weren't actually here to see it. If you'd only held on for a little longer, just a few more months, you could've seen this come to pass. My eyes teared up, although I did not cry.

But that's how it is for everyone though, in the end. You might've even responded to my thoughts, saying that nobody can stick around to see everything forever. Eventually, we miss out.

So I'm stuck with hoping that perhaps, beyond all logic, there is something beyond this. Some kind of existence, and maybe in some way, shape, or form, you saw what happened. That you knew they won and that you got to revel in the moment.

Later I had a discussion about this and other things with my sister. How we want to believe all of these thoughts about what is possible beyond this existence we know. It's a very 51/49 kind of thing, though, where our brains are just slightly more wired towards logic to really believe it.

I try to find the meaning in dreams even though I “know” there isn't really any.

Except that which we create. My sister had even less interest in this game than I, but everyone talking to her about it and what he would have thought about it at least got her to pull up the highlights online. Upon seeing the team logo, her kid said, “aww, look at that little cutie pie.” Neither my sister nor I understand how he could've possibly called that logo a little cutie pie.

Old man, you would've found the story funny. Maybe you do.

Discuss...

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]]> https://notdead.fyi/little-cutie-pie Wed, 07 Jan 2026 16:02:39 +0000 prolong the glide. https://notdead.fyi/prolong-the-glide?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[It has been such a long time since I've written here that I have forgotten how to format posts. That is to say nothing of basically an abandonment of the concept. If anyone was really using this blog as confirmation of life, I wouldn't blame them for thinking I was dead. Well, I'm not dead, fyi. I'm just gonna get that out of the way from the onset rather than it being the stinger at the very end. For anyone out there who has managed to read all seven (or I suppose eight, now) entries on this blog, I think that, while remaining vague for some reason, I've made it clear that it was born out of loss. Folks, I regret to inform you that since the last entry in May, there has been a lot more of that loss in my life. To the point where mentioning being dead (or not, but still) in the name of this thing just bums me out. Too late to change it now. !--more-- There's nothing in particular I care to share today. But I just thought, words on the page are better than none. Perhaps. It took until mid-December to once again feel this way. Back to the initial concept. I was writing in my private journal about something as stupid as throwing away a bunch of water bottles I'd been using since October '23. They were getting gross. Okay, okay, they had been gross for a while. I have a habit of just reusing "disposable" bottles forever rather than using nicer bottles intended for reuse. Of course, there's nothing stopping me from washing those disposable bottles like I would proper reusable bottles, except in my mind I keep thinking, "they're disposable, just recycle them when they get gross." Then two-plus years go by. I wrote in my journal, "time to let go." And then I wondered how often I've felt that way in the past, oh, let's say 17 months. I thought about how, when I bought those bottles (I wrote the date on them so I wouldn't keep them for too long), everyone was still alive. Well, not everyone. But those whose leaving inspired the creation of this blog. Perhaps I'm not doing my mental condition any favors by using the passing of loved ones as the watermark in my life, even when it comes to dumb things like ownership of consumer products. Will I one day purchase a new refrigerator and reflect on how the old refrigerator was used by those who have died, and the new one will never feel their touch? Am I this completely insane? Probably. Let's see how long I can stick with this. As I approach four decades spinning around our star, so much that felt constant and eternal in my life fades away or disappears. There remains at least one constant in my life, though. Starting a writing project (or any project, really), intending to work at it daily or thereabouts, and then promptly letting a year go by with half a dozen (or fewer) attempts. There are things we can still count on in this universe. I am alive. Just so you know. a href="https://remark.as/p/notdead.fyi/prolong-the-glide"Discuss.../a < Back to the Index]]> It has been such a long time since I've written here that I have forgotten how to format posts. That is to say nothing of basically an abandonment of the concept. If anyone was really using this blog as confirmation of life, I wouldn't blame them for thinking I was dead.

Well, I'm not dead, fyi. I'm just gonna get that out of the way from the onset rather than it being the stinger at the very end. For anyone out there who has managed to read all seven (or I suppose eight, now) entries on this blog, I think that, while remaining vague for some reason, I've made it clear that it was born out of loss. Folks, I regret to inform you that since the last entry in May, there has been a lot more of that loss in my life. To the point where mentioning being dead (or not, but still) in the name of this thing just bums me out.

Too late to change it now.

There's nothing in particular I care to share today. But I just thought, words on the page are better than none. Perhaps. It took until mid-December to once again feel this way. Back to the initial concept. I was writing in my private journal about something as stupid as throwing away a bunch of water bottles I'd been using since October '23. They were getting gross.

Okay, okay, they had been gross for a while. I have a habit of just reusing “disposable” bottles forever rather than using nicer bottles intended for reuse. Of course, there's nothing stopping me from washing those disposable bottles like I would proper reusable bottles, except in my mind I keep thinking, “they're disposable, just recycle them when they get gross.”

Then two-plus years go by. I wrote in my journal, “time to let go.” And then I wondered how often I've felt that way in the past, oh, let's say 17 months. I thought about how, when I bought those bottles (I wrote the date on them so I wouldn't keep them for too long), everyone was still alive.

Well, not everyone. But those whose leaving inspired the creation of this blog.

Perhaps I'm not doing my mental condition any favors by using the passing of loved ones as the watermark in my life, even when it comes to dumb things like ownership of consumer products. Will I one day purchase a new refrigerator and reflect on how the old refrigerator was used by those who have died, and the new one will never feel their touch? Am I this completely insane?

Probably. Let's see how long I can stick with this. As I approach four decades spinning around our star, so much that felt constant and eternal in my life fades away or disappears. There remains at least one constant in my life, though. Starting a writing project (or any project, really), intending to work at it daily or thereabouts, and then promptly letting a year go by with half a dozen (or fewer) attempts. There are things we can still count on in this universe.

I am alive. Just so you know.

Discuss...

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]]> https://notdead.fyi/prolong-the-glide Sun, 14 Dec 2025 15:37:51 +0000 seems like it, though. https://notdead.fyi/seems-like-it-though?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[Having a particularly emotional Saturday, and I wish I could understand why. In one aspect, I know it’s always the same issue. But today I can’t really pin it on one thing in particular—I haven’t experienced anything that triggered me. Nothing like that. It’s not even a rainy day, one of my favorite excuses. I guess I’ve just had time to myself, time to think, and maybe that’s the biggest killer of all. We are past the midpoint of May. My last missive on this blog was in early January, so it has been a while. Sometimes I have thought about writing here—I’ve had ideas. And I’ve thought repeatedly of the premise, that I wanted to be able to post anything just to prove to the world in some small way that, in fact, I am still alive, or at least, not dead. This afternoon, something gave me pause, brought me back to the premise, and I felt compelled to write right here, right now. I’m not dead, FYI. Even if it sometimes seems like it, though. So, what finally got me to write? !--more-- Blame it on Youtube, seriously. It’s such a stupid chain of events, when I really think about it, to the point where I’m not sure if I want to keep writing, but whatever. I wanted to see the highlights of a sporting event that had occurred today, but of course when I got to Youtube’s front page, their wonderful algorithm decided to not surface such a video anywhere, despite following the official channel for the league in question. So I begrudgingly clicked the hamburger icon on the side of the screen, and I scrolled to my list of subscriptions. I never really thought about it until I’ve had to write about it right now, but what a bad design. It’s listed alphabetically, and if you’re like me and you’ve been using Youtube for years, you’ve got a lot of subscriptions, many of which might no longer be active. I have to click “Show More” since the initial view hardly made it past my subscriptions beginning with the letter A. Scrolling down, for some reason, I forget all about looking for a sports highlights video, as one of the listed channels catches my eye. There’s no dot next to it indicating a new upload, and perhaps that’s the issue. It’s one of those channels which seems to be no longer active. It’s the Youtube channel of one of my old friends. Maybe, like I said, it’s the mood I’m in today. Feeling wistful already, why not feel a little more misty-eyed? Since I’m motivated enough to write about it, you can probably already guess that my relationship with this person hasn’t been the most ordinary. But people always say that, don’t they? In a nutshell, she was someone I met very early on after I moved to this country. There were ups and downs in our friendship, we got on very easily but there was always an unexplained veil of obfuscation that she would hide certain details of her life behind. This especially became an issue as we got closer. There was actually a time when our relationship had progressed to a point where we were on the verge of becoming more than friends, but trust issues derailed things so badly that our friendship on the whole was entirely thrown off the tracks. We stopped speaking, and for a time I thought we were both better off. Years passed, eventually nostalgia got the better of me (as today’s writing will prove, it still does) and I threw out a line. I got a response and our friendship entered a second phase, which was decidedly more stable but less intense. We would randomly send messages off and on. Sometimes we’d chat daily, but much more often we were not really saying anything for a month or two, then there’d be a random check-in and catch-up, and that was that. She was still secretive about things. It was especially weird to me by then, because we were older and I thought we had kind of moved past the tumultuous times of our early 20’s. It’s crazy, actually, to think that this “second phase” of our friendship that I’m describing began nearly ten years ago, and thus it’s nearly twenty years ago that we first met. I don’t like confronting this fact, but I had to remark on it nonetheless. Ugh… Wait, what was I saying? Ah yes, by that point, we were older, and I had at least moved on with life and it seemed like she had as well. I was open with things like what I was working on, where I was living, how I had found a stable life partner, and a stable life in general, et cetera. Sometimes she would share equally as much, but other times, the same issue from before reared its head. Less important to me now to know her wheres, whats, and whys, I would just let it go. She seemed bothered by the mere act of asking, though. So at times I felt like I was walking on eggshells, not wanting to broach aspects she didn’t want to share, but otherwise still getting along with my old friend just as well as we ever had. A couple of years ago, she mentioned that she was trying her hand at making content on Youtube. She asked me to subscribe to her channel and in a way it kind of surprised me, as she was sharing a lot more of her life in these vlogs than I was accustomed to getting from her in our conversations. The videos were actually decently-produced with real effort behind them, not just someone rambling into a camera (or typing aimlessly on a blog, ahem). She had a few thousand views on most of her videos, some of them tens of thousands, which seemed successful to me, at least compared to the few random videos I had put up on Youtube over the years. Every so often, a new video would appear. Sometimes there would be gaps of a week, a month or even two, but that’s just how it always goes, isn’t it? (Ahem, ahem.) So it wouldn’t be atypical to not see her post something for a while. Then one day about a year and a half ago, I noticed on the messaging app we used, in my message list there was a chat with a blank icon and the name “Empty Room.” Clicking on it showed me that it was the message thread I’d had with this person. For this particular app, this could mean one of two things: she had either blocked me or she had deleted her entire account. I couldn’t think of anything that would have brought about her blocking me, as we hadn’t even been actively talking at the time. But again, I never knew if some topic I had asked about in the past might’ve irritated her, perhaps to the point of just wanting me out of her life without notice. I considered it unlikely that she would delete her entire presence from a popular messaging app that is basically essential for life here. Regardless, it seemed like a clear indication that no more contact was wanted, and I tried to accept the situation for what it was. Honestly, I assumed I must’ve done something wrong, as I’ve never been good at catching social cues. But I would be lying if I said I hadn’t tried to reach out after that. I had noticed in the ensuing months that zero new videos from her appeared on my Youtube feed. I thought maybe she had blocked me there as well, if that is even possible. But no, obviously I am still subscribed even to this day, which is what prompted this entry. There was just an abrupt stop in uploads. But again, fine, people get busy, lose interest, change priorities, change circumstances, et cetera. It’s not something I thought about all the time. As I said, by this point, we were not close nor talking too often, it wasn’t as if a piece of my life was suddenly missing. About eight months ago, I had dreams involving her, two in one night. They were mundane in nature, one involving a dinner with relatives and the other an airplane ride where we bumped into each other. But as much as I like to consider myself a rational person, unprompted repetitive dreams do tend to stick in my craw, making me wonder if the universe is sending me a sign. So I dropped her another line the next day, much as I had done almost ten years ago, which prompted the “second phase.” There has been, up to this point, no response, no “third phase,” if you will. As I said, this was eight months ago. There was definitely a time shortly after sending the message where I expected to hear from her, but as the days passed, it obviously seemed increasingly unlikely and it eventually slipped from my radar. Until today, scrolling through my list of Youtube subscriptions. So, of course, what did I do but click on her channel. Who knows, maybe there had been an upload after all this time, I thought. Nope, nothing. The latest video is still the same one, but I clicked it anyway, curious perhaps if there was some update in the description or something along those lines. No update. There was, however, a comment posted a mere three months ago. As I read it, I realize the commenter was also apparently a friend of this person. In the comment, she expresses some concern and worry, wondering why she hadn’t been able to contact our mutual friend for several months and asking if everything was okay. There was no follow-up or reply to the comment. And I felt, for a moment, extremely disconcerted. Even though it was a negative event, it was vanity, I suppose, to assume that I was the cause of whatever led to the abrupt termination of communication. Maybe in the back of my mind, I had considered there might’ve been something else going on, but I always just circled back to thinking, “Nah, it must be me. She hates me.” The comment that I stumbled upon on this Youtube video upended that for me. In a true display of how selfish my thoughts had been, I contended for the first time with the real possibility that perhaps something really bad had happened to my friend. Something bad enough where she had no further contact with everyone she knew. I feel like I don’t need to enumerate all the possibilities here. And then I felt a weird sinking feeling. That I’ll probably never know, one way or the other. That is another aspect of her secretiveness, I wouldn’t even know where to begin to reach out to get information beyond the avenues I already tried. I hope, as the girl writing the comment on Youtube did, that everything is okay. It’s weird to feel worried about someone but likewise know that you will almost certainly never know what happened or happens to them, and that it won’t really affect your experiences going forward because they have already been removed from your life for a long time. And then I thought about this place. Is there anyone out there thinking I’m dead? It hasn’t been years or even that many months, but still. Silence. It seems unlikely, but just in case, here are these words, and let me assure you, I’m not dead. FYI. a href="https://remark.as/p/notdead.fyi/seems-like-it-though"Discuss.../a < Back to the Index]]> Having a particularly emotional Saturday, and I wish I could understand why. In one aspect, I know it’s always the same issue. But today I can’t really pin it on one thing in particular—I haven’t experienced anything that triggered me. Nothing like that. It’s not even a rainy day, one of my favorite excuses. I guess I’ve just had time to myself, time to think, and maybe that’s the biggest killer of all.

We are past the midpoint of May. My last missive on this blog was in early January, so it has been a while. Sometimes I have thought about writing here—I’ve had ideas. And I’ve thought repeatedly of the premise, that I wanted to be able to post anything just to prove to the world in some small way that, in fact, I am still alive, or at least, not dead. This afternoon, something gave me pause, brought me back to the premise, and I felt compelled to write right here, right now. I’m not dead, FYI. Even if it sometimes seems like it, though. So, what finally got me to write?

Blame it on Youtube, seriously. It’s such a stupid chain of events, when I really think about it, to the point where I’m not sure if I want to keep writing, but whatever. I wanted to see the highlights of a sporting event that had occurred today, but of course when I got to Youtube’s front page, their wonderful algorithm decided to not surface such a video anywhere, despite following the official channel for the league in question.

So I begrudgingly clicked the hamburger icon on the side of the screen, and I scrolled to my list of subscriptions. I never really thought about it until I’ve had to write about it right now, but what a bad design. It’s listed alphabetically, and if you’re like me and you’ve been using Youtube for years, you’ve got a lot of subscriptions, many of which might no longer be active.

I have to click “Show More” since the initial view hardly made it past my subscriptions beginning with the letter A. Scrolling down, for some reason, I forget all about looking for a sports highlights video, as one of the listed channels catches my eye. There’s no dot next to it indicating a new upload, and perhaps that’s the issue. It’s one of those channels which seems to be no longer active.

It’s the Youtube channel of one of my old friends. Maybe, like I said, it’s the mood I’m in today. Feeling wistful already, why not feel a little more misty-eyed? Since I’m motivated enough to write about it, you can probably already guess that my relationship with this person hasn’t been the most ordinary. But people always say that, don’t they?

In a nutshell, she was someone I met very early on after I moved to this country. There were ups and downs in our friendship, we got on very easily but there was always an unexplained veil of obfuscation that she would hide certain details of her life behind. This especially became an issue as we got closer. There was actually a time when our relationship had progressed to a point where we were on the verge of becoming more than friends, but trust issues derailed things so badly that our friendship on the whole was entirely thrown off the tracks. We stopped speaking, and for a time I thought we were both better off.

Years passed, eventually nostalgia got the better of me (as today’s writing will prove, it still does) and I threw out a line. I got a response and our friendship entered a second phase, which was decidedly more stable but less intense. We would randomly send messages off and on. Sometimes we’d chat daily, but much more often we were not really saying anything for a month or two, then there’d be a random check-in and catch-up, and that was that.

She was still secretive about things. It was especially weird to me by then, because we were older and I thought we had kind of moved past the tumultuous times of our early 20’s. It’s crazy, actually, to think that this “second phase” of our friendship that I’m describing began nearly ten years ago, and thus it’s nearly twenty years ago that we first met. I don’t like confronting this fact, but I had to remark on it nonetheless. Ugh…

Wait, what was I saying? Ah yes, by that point, we were older, and I had at least moved on with life and it seemed like she had as well. I was open with things like what I was working on, where I was living, how I had found a stable life partner, and a stable life in general, et cetera. Sometimes she would share equally as much, but other times, the same issue from before reared its head.

Less important to me now to know her wheres, whats, and whys, I would just let it go. She seemed bothered by the mere act of asking, though. So at times I felt like I was walking on eggshells, not wanting to broach aspects she didn’t want to share, but otherwise still getting along with my old friend just as well as we ever had.

A couple of years ago, she mentioned that she was trying her hand at making content on Youtube. She asked me to subscribe to her channel and in a way it kind of surprised me, as she was sharing a lot more of her life in these vlogs than I was accustomed to getting from her in our conversations. The videos were actually decently-produced with real effort behind them, not just someone rambling into a camera (or typing aimlessly on a blog, ahem). She had a few thousand views on most of her videos, some of them tens of thousands, which seemed successful to me, at least compared to the few random videos I had put up on Youtube over the years.

Every so often, a new video would appear. Sometimes there would be gaps of a week, a month or even two, but that’s just how it always goes, isn’t it? (Ahem, ahem.) So it wouldn’t be atypical to not see her post something for a while.

Then one day about a year and a half ago, I noticed on the messaging app we used, in my message list there was a chat with a blank icon and the name “Empty Room.” Clicking on it showed me that it was the message thread I’d had with this person. For this particular app, this could mean one of two things: she had either blocked me or she had deleted her entire account.

I couldn’t think of anything that would have brought about her blocking me, as we hadn’t even been actively talking at the time. But again, I never knew if some topic I had asked about in the past might’ve irritated her, perhaps to the point of just wanting me out of her life without notice. I considered it unlikely that she would delete her entire presence from a popular messaging app that is basically essential for life here.

Regardless, it seemed like a clear indication that no more contact was wanted, and I tried to accept the situation for what it was. Honestly, I assumed I must’ve done something wrong, as I’ve never been good at catching social cues.

But I would be lying if I said I hadn’t tried to reach out after that. I had noticed in the ensuing months that zero new videos from her appeared on my Youtube feed. I thought maybe she had blocked me there as well, if that is even possible. But no, obviously I am still subscribed even to this day, which is what prompted this entry. There was just an abrupt stop in uploads.

But again, fine, people get busy, lose interest, change priorities, change circumstances, et cetera. It’s not something I thought about all the time. As I said, by this point, we were not close nor talking too often, it wasn’t as if a piece of my life was suddenly missing.

About eight months ago, I had dreams involving her, two in one night. They were mundane in nature, one involving a dinner with relatives and the other an airplane ride where we bumped into each other. But as much as I like to consider myself a rational person, unprompted repetitive dreams do tend to stick in my craw, making me wonder if the universe is sending me a sign.

So I dropped her another line the next day, much as I had done almost ten years ago, which prompted the “second phase.” There has been, up to this point, no response, no “third phase,” if you will. As I said, this was eight months ago. There was definitely a time shortly after sending the message where I expected to hear from her, but as the days passed, it obviously seemed increasingly unlikely and it eventually slipped from my radar.

Until today, scrolling through my list of Youtube subscriptions. So, of course, what did I do but click on her channel. Who knows, maybe there had been an upload after all this time, I thought. Nope, nothing. The latest video is still the same one, but I clicked it anyway, curious perhaps if there was some update in the description or something along those lines.

No update. There was, however, a comment posted a mere three months ago. As I read it, I realize the commenter was also apparently a friend of this person. In the comment, she expresses some concern and worry, wondering why she hadn’t been able to contact our mutual friend for several months and asking if everything was okay.

There was no follow-up or reply to the comment. And I felt, for a moment, extremely disconcerted.

Even though it was a negative event, it was vanity, I suppose, to assume that I was the cause of whatever led to the abrupt termination of communication. Maybe in the back of my mind, I had considered there might’ve been something else going on, but I always just circled back to thinking, “Nah, it must be me. She hates me.”

The comment that I stumbled upon on this Youtube video upended that for me. In a true display of how selfish my thoughts had been, I contended for the first time with the real possibility that perhaps something really bad had happened to my friend. Something bad enough where she had no further contact with everyone she knew. I feel like I don’t need to enumerate all the possibilities here.

And then I felt a weird sinking feeling. That I’ll probably never know, one way or the other. That is another aspect of her secretiveness, I wouldn’t even know where to begin to reach out to get information beyond the avenues I already tried.

I hope, as the girl writing the comment on Youtube did, that everything is okay. It’s weird to feel worried about someone but likewise know that you will almost certainly never know what happened or happens to them, and that it won’t really affect your experiences going forward because they have already been removed from your life for a long time.

And then I thought about this place. Is there anyone out there thinking I’m dead? It hasn’t been years or even that many months, but still. Silence. It seems unlikely, but just in case, here are these words, and let me assure you, I’m not dead. FYI.

Discuss...

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]]> https://notdead.fyi/seems-like-it-though Sat, 17 May 2025 11:39:18 +0000 finding the way. https://notdead.fyi/finding-the-way?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[I don’t know who I’m apologizing to, but I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I haven’t written here for over a month. I guess I’m apologizing to anyone who stumbles upon this site by accident (i.e. no one), but… it just feels kind of bad to face such neglect. When I started this, I was so excited to have a public outlet to write about any dumb thing that was stuck in my brain, and then I just… didn’t. Perhaps the problem is that as much as I want to pretend like this is just some stupid blog that I don’t care about, I also want my posts here to be somehow good or worthwhile, and that leads to me being too precious about writing. That’s stupid. Pressing down the keys and making the words appear is like 90% of the battle anyway. So, to hell with it, I’m not dead, FYI, and here’s some random stuff that I thought about tonight. !--more-- I went on a walk by myself this evening. Nice weather for the middle of winter, except that it has been extremely windy all day. I’ll take the wind if it comes with clear skies, anything to rid us of the endless gray. I really can’t say why I keep going on these walks. Refusing to let go, I guess. \Another reason I’ve written less than I hoped was that I feared making entry after entry about the same basic thing. As I wrote in the [very first post here, this blog was largely borne out of loss, and the feelings that are still conjured up by that loss tend to be the ones that stick out when I think about what to write. Further apologies, then, but I’m going to indulge in those feelings now. This post is very similar to the previous post, but oh well. It’s easier to just directly address the subject of that loss, so:\] As the same shoes I wore when you were still here pounded the same pavement, I realized I really didn’t know where to go. I had just decided on “a walk” without really thinking about what that entailed. Not that it’s the first time I’ve gone by myself since you left. But most times I have some kind of goal in mind. Usually exercise-related, I want to get my daily steps or burn a certain amount of calories or something like that. Today, though, I had already exercised plenty. There really was no other reason to go on a walk other than to be outside for a while, to remember you and to hang onto the habits we had. Where to go, though? As soon as the question crossed my mind, it was soon followed by a thought of how this was rarely a problem I grappled with when you were here. You always led the way. I kept looking up at the sky. There were a handful of stars, those few celestial objects with enough luminosity to dare still shine in defiance of the urban light pollution. Thinking maybe you could give me an answer. Maybe you did. After all, my feet did find a way, I did tread a path. At least the park was quiet as I traced various sidewalks that we knew. I kept staring up. I like the stars. And I won’t lie, I also hoped that any passersby might not see the tears on my cheeks if I kept my head tilted completely upward. In the past, the only times when I felt like I had to lead the way were when I needed to curtail a walk, make it shorter. I now feel a twinge of guilt, of course. What I wouldn’t give to have an endless walk with you. It’s silly, I know when big changes come to pass, we can’t go back and nitpick every moment that came before. It’s too easy to find regrets. Life was, and is, what it is. On a night like tonight, though, I think I would’ve been more than content to roam with you. I found the way, and made it back home eventually. It is now 2025. I can say, “it happened last year” now. Time keeps passing. I wonder if the these feelings really do ever dull, I doubt they can truly go away. I wonder if everyone else feels this way, if everyone else who has ever dealt with loss is carrying around these wounds and we all just pretend and put on happy faces as best as we can when we interact with the world. I put the locket on the hook. Tonight was a nice night. a href="https://remark.as/p/notdead.fyi/finding-the-way"Discuss.../a < Back to the Index]]> I don’t know who I’m apologizing to, but I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I haven’t written here for over a month. I guess I’m apologizing to anyone who stumbles upon this site by accident (i.e. no one), but… it just feels kind of bad to face such neglect. When I started this, I was so excited to have a public outlet to write about any dumb thing that was stuck in my brain, and then I just… didn’t.

Perhaps the problem is that as much as I want to pretend like this is just some stupid blog that I don’t care about, I also want my posts here to be somehow good or worthwhile, and that leads to me being too precious about writing. That’s stupid. Pressing down the keys and making the words appear is like 90% of the battle anyway. So, to hell with it, I’m not dead, FYI, and here’s some random stuff that I thought about tonight.

I went on a walk by myself this evening. Nice weather for the middle of winter, except that it has been extremely windy all day. I’ll take the wind if it comes with clear skies, anything to rid us of the endless gray. I really can’t say why I keep going on these walks. Refusing to let go, I guess.

[Another reason I’ve written less than I hoped was that I feared making entry after entry about the same basic thing. As I wrote in the very first post here, this blog was largely borne out of loss, and the feelings that are still conjured up by that loss tend to be the ones that stick out when I think about what to write.

Further apologies, then, but I’m going to indulge in those feelings now. This post is very similar to the previous post, but oh well. It’s easier to just directly address the subject of that loss, so:]

As the same shoes I wore when you were still here pounded the same pavement, I realized I really didn’t know where to go. I had just decided on “a walk” without really thinking about what that entailed. Not that it’s the first time I’ve gone by myself since you left. But most times I have some kind of goal in mind. Usually exercise-related, I want to get my daily steps or burn a certain amount of calories or something like that.

Today, though, I had already exercised plenty. There really was no other reason to go on a walk other than to be outside for a while, to remember you and to hang onto the habits we had.

Where to go, though? As soon as the question crossed my mind, it was soon followed by a thought of how this was rarely a problem I grappled with when you were here. You always led the way.

I kept looking up at the sky. There were a handful of stars, those few celestial objects with enough luminosity to dare still shine in defiance of the urban light pollution. Thinking maybe you could give me an answer. Maybe you did. After all, my feet did find a way, I did tread a path.

At least the park was quiet as I traced various sidewalks that we knew. I kept staring up. I like the stars. And I won’t lie, I also hoped that any passersby might not see the tears on my cheeks if I kept my head tilted completely upward.

In the past, the only times when I felt like I had to lead the way were when I needed to curtail a walk, make it shorter. I now feel a twinge of guilt, of course. What I wouldn’t give to have an endless walk with you. It’s silly, I know when big changes come to pass, we can’t go back and nitpick every moment that came before. It’s too easy to find regrets. Life was, and is, what it is.

On a night like tonight, though, I think I would’ve been more than content to roam with you. I found the way, and made it back home eventually. It is now 2025. I can say, “it happened last year” now. Time keeps passing. I wonder if the these feelings really do ever dull, I doubt they can truly go away. I wonder if everyone else feels this way, if everyone else who has ever dealt with loss is carrying around these wounds and we all just pretend and put on happy faces as best as we can when we interact with the world.

I put the locket on the hook. Tonight was a nice night.

Discuss...

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]]> https://notdead.fyi/finding-the-way Sat, 04 Jan 2025 16:51:37 +0000 orion's belt. https://notdead.fyi/orions-belt?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[How quickly time flies, doesn’t it? Once you miss a day of writing, it’s easy to miss two, and then three. From there…well. I really can’t believe it has been more than two weeks since I’ve written here last. I would love to say it’s a good thing, that maybe because the weather has been gorgeous for over a week, time has gone by quickly and I just have felt less compelled to sit down and write. Honestly, though, it’s not like when the weather’s ugly and I’m feeling down I’m always super-motivated to write, either. The truth is simple: laziness has gotten the best of me. Writing is not the path of least resistance, so when that’s the path you choose to walk for a while, well, things go silent. Here I am, though. Not dead, FYI. !--more-- As I said, the weather has been really great lately. Finally a bit of the winter chill, coupled with clear skies and the sun’s warmth during the daytime. This morning, it made me a bit emotional. Although it was so beautiful, it reminded me of our first winter. At that time, we lived down south, where winters are warmer. You came into my life late in October, so our first real season together was one of those warm southern winters. Looking back on that time, I remember a lot of brisk, sunny mornings. And this morning felt like that. Then, tonight. I went for an evening walk under those clear skies. I counted the weeks since you’ve passed. Twenty-one. That number is getting unwieldy, and I’ll admit, I feel some melancholy about it now being December. That the calendar will soon tick over to 2025, and I can just say it happened “last year.” Although it still feels really weird to realize that you were still here “this year,” too, in a way that I can’t fully articulate. As I’ve said countless times, it feels like both yesterday and a million years ago. I walked down the same path that I walked the evening you left this world. That night, I walked because I really didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t stand to just sit in the house that felt so empty. I just kind of ended up there, and I remember feeling a certain hopelessness with each footfall. I hated the glow of the LED streetlights that had been recently installed, they were much too bright and made it hard to look up at the sky to see any stars. It was something to focus my thoughts on, anything but the despair. Those stupid lights. That night, a neighbor I was friendly with passed by. “Hey, H—,” he called out. I’ll admit I hadn’t noticed him, I wasn’t really in the state of mind to be noticing anyone at that time. “Isn’t it so nice, to have this kind of place where we can just walk?” he asked, gesturing to the path we were on. I feigned a smile and tried to match his level of enthusiasm for a moment. I got what he meant, but the comment struck me as a bit random, and at the moment I suppose I felt anything but “nice,” though I was trying to be as positive as possible. After brief pleasantries, we carried on in opposite directions. Tonight, I reflected on what was different and what remained unchanged in the 21 weeks since. There were certainly fewer people out in general, and I didn’t run into anyone I knew or engage in any conversation. The LED lights are still annoying, but now I realize how well they captured my breath condensing in the cold air. I like that. I exhaled a few times, a bit heavier on purpose, the way one does after realizing their breath is visible for the first time. The hopelessness is still there. It is not the same, of course. Less a feeling of shock, but more a feeling of absence. I still don’t know, in a way that I wondered about on that first night, how I will really go on. Yet, twenty-one weeks have elapsed, and I’m still here. Somehow. And in that, maybe there’s hope, that we all find a way, whether we understand it or not. In between the stupid bright LED lights, I kept my eyes pointed toward the sky. The city’s glow drowns out most of the stars. I reflected on how much better the night sky was at home, one of the non-human things I miss the most from that place. But I’m grateful for the handful of stars that are visible tonight. For a view of the sky from within a densely-populated city, it’s not bad. I focus on Orion’s Belt. I remembered one time walking home with you along the same path. I saw a bright shooting star. A perfect, textbook example, what a child would draw if you asked them to demonstrate what a shooting star looks like. A definite rarity, and to see one of those here it really has to be a big one. I thought at the time, if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have had that opportunity to see it at all. The things we take for granted, though. The shooting star I had in my life all along. I wish this story had some incredible ending, like on tonight’s walk I saw a shooting star again or something like that, and knew it was a sign from you. No such luck, but that’s alright. I don’t know if you’re out there among the stars now, but I’ll keep looking regardless. a href="https://remark.as/p/notdead.fyi/orions-belt"Discuss.../a < Back to the Index]]> How quickly time flies, doesn’t it? Once you miss a day of writing, it’s easy to miss two, and then three. From there…well. I really can’t believe it has been more than two weeks since I’ve written here last. I would love to say it’s a good thing, that maybe because the weather has been gorgeous for over a week, time has gone by quickly and I just have felt less compelled to sit down and write.

Honestly, though, it’s not like when the weather’s ugly and I’m feeling down I’m always super-motivated to write, either. The truth is simple: laziness has gotten the best of me. Writing is not the path of least resistance, so when that’s the path you choose to walk for a while, well, things go silent. Here I am, though. Not dead, FYI.

As I said, the weather has been really great lately. Finally a bit of the winter chill, coupled with clear skies and the sun’s warmth during the daytime. This morning, it made me a bit emotional. Although it was so beautiful, it reminded me of our first winter. At that time, we lived down south, where winters are warmer. You came into my life late in October, so our first real season together was one of those warm southern winters. Looking back on that time, I remember a lot of brisk, sunny mornings. And this morning felt like that.

Then, tonight. I went for an evening walk under those clear skies. I counted the weeks since you’ve passed. Twenty-one. That number is getting unwieldy, and I’ll admit, I feel some melancholy about it now being December. That the calendar will soon tick over to 2025, and I can just say it happened “last year.” Although it still feels really weird to realize that you were still here “this year,” too, in a way that I can’t fully articulate. As I’ve said countless times, it feels like both yesterday and a million years ago.

I walked down the same path that I walked the evening you left this world. That night, I walked because I really didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t stand to just sit in the house that felt so empty. I just kind of ended up there, and I remember feeling a certain hopelessness with each footfall. I hated the glow of the LED streetlights that had been recently installed, they were much too bright and made it hard to look up at the sky to see any stars. It was something to focus my thoughts on, anything but the despair. Those stupid lights.

That night, a neighbor I was friendly with passed by. “Hey, H—,” he called out. I’ll admit I hadn’t noticed him, I wasn’t really in the state of mind to be noticing anyone at that time.

“Isn’t it so nice, to have this kind of place where we can just walk?” he asked, gesturing to the path we were on. I feigned a smile and tried to match his level of enthusiasm for a moment. I got what he meant, but the comment struck me as a bit random, and at the moment I suppose I felt anything but “nice,” though I was trying to be as positive as possible. After brief pleasantries, we carried on in opposite directions.

Tonight, I reflected on what was different and what remained unchanged in the 21 weeks since. There were certainly fewer people out in general, and I didn’t run into anyone I knew or engage in any conversation. The LED lights are still annoying, but now I realize how well they captured my breath condensing in the cold air. I like that. I exhaled a few times, a bit heavier on purpose, the way one does after realizing their breath is visible for the first time.

The hopelessness is still there. It is not the same, of course. Less a feeling of shock, but more a feeling of absence. I still don’t know, in a way that I wondered about on that first night, how I will really go on. Yet, twenty-one weeks have elapsed, and I’m still here. Somehow. And in that, maybe there’s hope, that we all find a way, whether we understand it or not.

In between the stupid bright LED lights, I kept my eyes pointed toward the sky. The city’s glow drowns out most of the stars. I reflected on how much better the night sky was at home, one of the non-human things I miss the most from that place. But I’m grateful for the handful of stars that are visible tonight. For a view of the sky from within a densely-populated city, it’s not bad. I focus on Orion’s Belt.

I remembered one time walking home with you along the same path. I saw a bright shooting star. A perfect, textbook example, what a child would draw if you asked them to demonstrate what a shooting star looks like. A definite rarity, and to see one of those here it really has to be a big one. I thought at the time, if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t have had that opportunity to see it at all. The things we take for granted, though. The shooting star I had in my life all along.

I wish this story had some incredible ending, like on tonight’s walk I saw a shooting star again or something like that, and knew it was a sign from you. No such luck, but that’s alright. I don’t know if you’re out there among the stars now, but I’ll keep looking regardless.

Discuss...

< Back to the Index

]]> https://notdead.fyi/orions-belt Sun, 01 Dec 2024 15:38:38 +0000 tents and traffic controls. https://notdead.fyi/tents-and-traffic-controls?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[I haven't written here for two days. Did anyone out there wonder if the blog title was no longer true? You never know. But, no, I'm here. Not dead, FYI. I'm a diligent writer in my personal journal. Every. Damn. Day. When I first started this, I wondered if I would make the same level of effort to put something--anything--on the page, day after day. It only took four days to find out the answer to that question. Ah well! This one will be a bit of a quick one (I hope). I didn't think anything today was even worthy of being written about, but I feel like it's already becoming too easy to say that every day, and from there it's a slippery slope to totally abandoning this project. !--more-- (Since you're now reading below the fold, rest assured, I probably will be abandoning this project sooner rather than later, like everything else I start. But c'mon, I've gotta make it at least, like, a week, right?) Tonight, as we walked in the park, there were a lot of signs up announcing various traffic control measures for the nearby roads this Saturday. Likewise, when we got to the top of the hill, by the running track, the area looked quite different. A great deal of canopy tents were set up, flanked by electrical generators, a big stage, and more signage. All evidence of something going on this weekend. Some sort of anti-smoking fun run, apparently. It's rather amazing to see how quickly everything appeared. I took the old scooter out this morning to run some errands. The weather was nice, and it's always fun to putz around with the vehicle that was once my primary means of transportation, but now feels like a go-kart. One reason I occasionally fire up the old scooter is to make sure everything's still working and to keep the battery charged. Thus I usually take the scenic route, as driving directly to my destination today would have taken fewer than five minutes. Better to give the scooter some time to stretch its legs, so to speak. So I drove the old Yamaha around the park to add some time and distance. Just a little fossil fuel burned for no purpose at all, I'm doing my part as a citizen of planet Earth. We can all produce a little greenhouse gas emissions as a treat, right? There was no evidence of any of this fun run stuff at all as I scooted by in the morning. Less than twelve hours later, the place is transformed. Amazing efficiency, in service of what I'm not quite sure, but there it is nonetheless. Events at the park used to be such a source of anxiety for me. I wondered how it would affect our walks. How busy would the place get? Would we have access to certain facilities? Etc. I realized tonight that now, it no longer really matters at all. It's entirely possible that this fun run on Saturday will pass me by and if they're as efficient at breaking it down as they were at setting it up, it'll be gone before the nightly walk's time comes. This made me feel surprisingly emotional. I know it's stupid. Having fewer sources of anxiety should be one of the upshots I can take from this whole situation. But it's just a reminder. That the walks no longer really mean anything. Not in the same way they did before. We depended on them, and therefore I had to contend with things like fun runs. No other choice. Small things like these are the things that continue to surprise me. Things I never thought I'd be sad about in a million years. They make me wonder if I'll ever stop feeling down about unexpected, random events that remind me of your absence. I know there's light at the end of the tunnel, surely, but sometimes it's still hard to see. Hopefully, this entry will be the last time I ever have to type the phrase "fun run." I believe I've hit my lifetime quota. Not dead, FYI. a href="https://remark.as/p/notdead.fyi/tents-and-traffic-controls"Discuss.../a < Back to the Index]]> I haven't written here for two days. Did anyone out there wonder if the blog title was no longer true? You never know. But, no, I'm here. Not dead, FYI.

I'm a diligent writer in my personal journal. Every. Damn. Day. When I first started this, I wondered if I would make the same level of effort to put something—anything—on the page, day after day. It only took four days to find out the answer to that question. Ah well!

This one will be a bit of a quick one (I hope). I didn't think anything today was even worthy of being written about, but I feel like it's already becoming too easy to say that every day, and from there it's a slippery slope to totally abandoning this project.

(Since you're now reading below the fold, rest assured, I probably will be abandoning this project sooner rather than later, like everything else I start. But c'mon, I've gotta make it at least, like, a week, right?)

Tonight, as we walked in the park, there were a lot of signs up announcing various traffic control measures for the nearby roads this Saturday. Likewise, when we got to the top of the hill, by the running track, the area looked quite different. A great deal of canopy tents were set up, flanked by electrical generators, a big stage, and more signage. All evidence of something going on this weekend. Some sort of anti-smoking fun run, apparently.

It's rather amazing to see how quickly everything appeared. I took the old scooter out this morning to run some errands. The weather was nice, and it's always fun to putz around with the vehicle that was once my primary means of transportation, but now feels like a go-kart.

One reason I occasionally fire up the old scooter is to make sure everything's still working and to keep the battery charged. Thus I usually take the scenic route, as driving directly to my destination today would have taken fewer than five minutes. Better to give the scooter some time to stretch its legs, so to speak.

So I drove the old Yamaha around the park to add some time and distance. Just a little fossil fuel burned for no purpose at all, I'm doing my part as a citizen of planet Earth. We can all produce a little greenhouse gas emissions as a treat, right?

There was no evidence of any of this fun run stuff at all as I scooted by in the morning. Less than twelve hours later, the place is transformed. Amazing efficiency, in service of what I'm not quite sure, but there it is nonetheless.

Events at the park used to be such a source of anxiety for me. I wondered how it would affect our walks. How busy would the place get? Would we have access to certain facilities? Etc.

I realized tonight that now, it no longer really matters at all. It's entirely possible that this fun run on Saturday will pass me by and if they're as efficient at breaking it down as they were at setting it up, it'll be gone before the nightly walk's time comes.

This made me feel surprisingly emotional. I know it's stupid. Having fewer sources of anxiety should be one of the upshots I can take from this whole situation. But it's just a reminder. That the walks no longer really mean anything. Not in the same way they did before. We depended on them, and therefore I had to contend with things like fun runs. No other choice.

Small things like these are the things that continue to surprise me. Things I never thought I'd be sad about in a million years. They make me wonder if I'll ever stop feeling down about unexpected, random events that remind me of your absence. I know there's light at the end of the tunnel, surely, but sometimes it's still hard to see.

Hopefully, this entry will be the last time I ever have to type the phrase “fun run.” I believe I've hit my lifetime quota. Not dead, FYI.

Discuss...

< Back to the Index

]]> https://notdead.fyi/tents-and-traffic-controls Thu, 14 Nov 2024 15:52:00 +0000 good day, bad day. https://notdead.fyi/good-day-bad-day?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[I originally thought about calling this blog “good day/bad day,” and I’d simply categorize each day of my life as broadly good or bad. Hopefully, I might expound my daily conclusion, but at a minimum, I’d answer the question: was today a good day or a bad day? However, I felt like there might be a pressure I’d place upon myself to ultimately conclude that most days are good. The same way we almost always tell people we’re doing fine when asked, even if we’re anything but. Perhaps that false positivity might even be a good thing, to always be trying to find the upside. But I felt like it would ring false, and I ultimately settled on it being easier to merely conclude that I was not dead with each post, and leave it at that. If I were adhering to the original blog’s concept, though, I’d categorize today as a bad day. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so hard to be negative after all. !--more-- It’s not that anything was horrible today. As I take a step back, though, it’s just a lot of little negative strands that pulled together into a knot as the day went on, leaving me feeling rather depleted as I write these words in the final minutes before midnight. I spoke to my mom for about an hour this morning. It was a rather difficult call at times, as we discussed her having to put her pet to sleep. I knew from contextual clues that it surely had happened already, but she never actually confirmed it with me until today. Turns out the deed was done over two weeks ago, so at least it wasn’t a totally open wound for her. There was not much to say for comfort beyond truisms and platitudes. Her pet was handicapped from birth, she gave him an incredible life that he couldn’t have had without her (in fact, he surely wouldn’t have lived at all past infancy without her). She did so much for him. Yet, as time went on, it was obvious he was in increasing physical discomfort, and the physical demands were starting to be beyond what my mother could provide as well. I felt a bit of guilt on that last point, that I am not there to help out. I was the only other person who knew how to care for him. She had taught me and only me. Though I only took on the duty for a short time a year ago, it also made me feel sadder about the news, as I had a connection with him. He was a good boy. Even a year ago, though, I could tell his life was rough. Animals often amaze us with their resiliency, but I am often left wondering how much of that is just projection. I suppose we’ll never know and that enigma is perhaps part of the charm, but it makes knowing what is right in these circumstances all the more difficult. Maybe he really didn’t want to be alive at all, even back then. He was definitely getting worse, his body continued to contort itself further as time went on. I saw him a couple of months ago and I wasn’t even sure if the techniques I had learned last year would still be useable. The vet told her it was 100% without question the right thing to do, as he was surely in tremendous pain. But I also wonder if that’s just something they always have to say to make the crying pet owner feel better about the predicament they find themselves in. Even without this particular piece of difficult news, I always feel a bit down after speaking to family on the phone. I know it’s not what most people describe, which is that words from loved ones spark their spirits or reinvigorate them. For me, after the call is done, I am suddenly very aware of the distance and the absence. Maybe it’s just easier for me to not be reminded of how far away I am from most of the people I love. Aside from the call, just the typical little things dragged me down. Poor sleep, annoying bad weather. Like the past three or four days, it was gray all day with a light mist that isn’t even real rain but somehow is still enough to keep you from going out and doing anything easily. Work brought annoyances, too, some expected and some unexpected. I brought home a pile of paperwork I have to do and I can’t even bring myself to look at it right now. I suppose the only saving grace is that tomorrow, the good day/bad day dichotomy resets and there’s at least a chance of the coin toss coming up good. A coin toss might be a bad comparison as that implies a 50/50 chance of good or bad. I feel like it’s weighted a bit heavier towards bad right now, especially if this weather continues. But hey, at least there’s a chance. There I go, indulging in false positivity. Hmm, well, forget it. Not dead, FYI. a href="https://remark.as/p/notdead.fyi/good-day-bad-day"Discuss.../a < Back to the Index]]> I originally thought about calling this blog “good day/bad day,” and I’d simply categorize each day of my life as broadly good or bad. Hopefully, I might expound my daily conclusion, but at a minimum, I’d answer the question: was today a good day or a bad day?

However, I felt like there might be a pressure I’d place upon myself to ultimately conclude that most days are good. The same way we almost always tell people we’re doing fine when asked, even if we’re anything but. Perhaps that false positivity might even be a good thing, to always be trying to find the upside. But I felt like it would ring false, and I ultimately settled on it being easier to merely conclude that I was not dead with each post, and leave it at that.

If I were adhering to the original blog’s concept, though, I’d categorize today as a bad day. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so hard to be negative after all.

It’s not that anything was horrible today. As I take a step back, though, it’s just a lot of little negative strands that pulled together into a knot as the day went on, leaving me feeling rather depleted as I write these words in the final minutes before midnight.

I spoke to my mom for about an hour this morning. It was a rather difficult call at times, as we discussed her having to put her pet to sleep. I knew from contextual clues that it surely had happened already, but she never actually confirmed it with me until today. Turns out the deed was done over two weeks ago, so at least it wasn’t a totally open wound for her.

There was not much to say for comfort beyond truisms and platitudes. Her pet was handicapped from birth, she gave him an incredible life that he couldn’t have had without her (in fact, he surely wouldn’t have lived at all past infancy without her). She did so much for him. Yet, as time went on, it was obvious he was in increasing physical discomfort, and the physical demands were starting to be beyond what my mother could provide as well.

I felt a bit of guilt on that last point, that I am not there to help out. I was the only other person who knew how to care for him. She had taught me and only me. Though I only took on the duty for a short time a year ago, it also made me feel sadder about the news, as I had a connection with him. He was a good boy.

Even a year ago, though, I could tell his life was rough. Animals often amaze us with their resiliency, but I am often left wondering how much of that is just projection. I suppose we’ll never know and that enigma is perhaps part of the charm, but it makes knowing what is right in these circumstances all the more difficult. Maybe he really didn’t want to be alive at all, even back then.

He was definitely getting worse, his body continued to contort itself further as time went on. I saw him a couple of months ago and I wasn’t even sure if the techniques I had learned last year would still be useable.

The vet told her it was 100% without question the right thing to do, as he was surely in tremendous pain. But I also wonder if that’s just something they always have to say to make the crying pet owner feel better about the predicament they find themselves in.

Even without this particular piece of difficult news, I always feel a bit down after speaking to family on the phone. I know it’s not what most people describe, which is that words from loved ones spark their spirits or reinvigorate them. For me, after the call is done, I am suddenly very aware of the distance and the absence. Maybe it’s just easier for me to not be reminded of how far away I am from most of the people I love.

Aside from the call, just the typical little things dragged me down. Poor sleep, annoying bad weather. Like the past three or four days, it was gray all day with a light mist that isn’t even real rain but somehow is still enough to keep you from going out and doing anything easily. Work brought annoyances, too, some expected and some unexpected. I brought home a pile of paperwork I have to do and I can’t even bring myself to look at it right now.

I suppose the only saving grace is that tomorrow, the good day/bad day dichotomy resets and there’s at least a chance of the coin toss coming up good. A coin toss might be a bad comparison as that implies a 50/50 chance of good or bad. I feel like it’s weighted a bit heavier towards bad right now, especially if this weather continues. But hey, at least there’s a chance.

There I go, indulging in false positivity. Hmm, well, forget it. Not dead, FYI.

Discuss...

< Back to the Index

]]> https://notdead.fyi/good-day-bad-day Mon, 11 Nov 2024 15:48:08 +0000 impinged vision. https://notdead.fyi/impinged-vision?pk_campaign=rss-feed <![CDATA[Not dead, FYI. My left eye kind of hurts, though. It’s a bit of a nothingburger, so apologies in advance for choosing this as the thing I’m making as my first “regular” post on this blog, but it’s still bothering me even as I write this at the end of the day and thus it’s what sprung to mind when I thought, “oh yeah, I should write something here.” !--more-- I did the dumb thing that I’m sure is a cliched “everyone can relate to THIS” moment. After waking, I was reading my phone in bed, enjoying the lazy Sunday morning. And then… I dropped my phone on my face. Shocking, I know. I’ve done it before several times. Everyone has, right? Well, I guess my luck finally ran out this time. There was something about the angle of the phone and where it hit my face, I guess. This time it hurt like hell. Trying to not wake up my partner who was still happily catching Z’s, I writhed in pain and suppressed the urge to shout out obscenities. It really, really hurt. As a coincidence, I got a phone call like a minute later, so that was the final impetus to get up out of bed and leave the room. The whole time I was on the phone (a call from my father, unannounced and relatively early for a Sunday morning made me think maybe it was important, turns out he just wanted to talk about TV shows for 45 minutes), I’m rubbing the area where the phone hit. It was right below one end of my left eyebrow, on the side toward my ear. I could feel a bump and it was obviously painful, but for some reason during the call I never thought to meander over to a mirror and take a look. During the call, I started to realize that the bump was clearly visible without a mirror, since it was affecting my vision. Like there was a bit of a black spot in the upper left corner in my field of sight. When I checked a mirror, yep, there was a bloody red mark at the precise point where the phone had hit, and then around it was a blackish-blue bulge forming. Lovely. As the day progressed it seemed to grow. In the afternoon, it was quite annoying in terms of obscuring my vision. It’s hard to describe, it’s not like I felt like I was missing visual data but the fact that there was something weird going on made me feel like I kept having to look in that direction, akin to catching something just out of the corner of your eye and wanting to take a better look. I can say by now that, while the bump is still there, my brain has already learned to basically filter the spot out and I’m not really noticing it anymore. There’s probably a lesson there in how quickly we are able to adapt to things, for better or worse, and just accept something as the new normal. Still hurts if I touch it, though. You know when you see boxers with their eyes all swollen up? I’ve never experienced anything like that, and I’ll be glad to keep it that way, thank you. But it did make me wonder how annoying it must be, I assume their eyes are still functioning under their swollen eyelids or whatnot and maybe even some light gets through. It’s gotta be a billion times worse than this little bruise bump that I’ll have to contend with for a day or two. I’ll try to keep a better grip on whatever I’m reading when I’m suspending it over my face. Even a hardcover book could hurt, I suppose. I do feel stupider because it was caused by a phone. Back to work tomorrow. Sunday nights, always dreary for me. But not dead, FYI. a href="https://remark.as/p/notdead.fyi/impinged-vision"Discuss.../a < Back to the Index]]> Not dead, FYI. My left eye kind of hurts, though.

It’s a bit of a nothingburger, so apologies in advance for choosing this as the thing I’m making as my first “regular” post on this blog, but it’s still bothering me even as I write this at the end of the day and thus it’s what sprung to mind when I thought, “oh yeah, I should write something here.”

I did the dumb thing that I’m sure is a cliched “everyone can relate to THIS” moment. After waking, I was reading my phone in bed, enjoying the lazy Sunday morning. And then… I dropped my phone on my face. Shocking, I know. I’ve done it before several times. Everyone has, right? Well, I guess my luck finally ran out this time. There was something about the angle of the phone and where it hit my face, I guess. This time it hurt like hell.

Trying to not wake up my partner who was still happily catching Z’s, I writhed in pain and suppressed the urge to shout out obscenities. It really, really hurt. As a coincidence, I got a phone call like a minute later, so that was the final impetus to get up out of bed and leave the room.

The whole time I was on the phone (a call from my father, unannounced and relatively early for a Sunday morning made me think maybe it was important, turns out he just wanted to talk about TV shows for 45 minutes), I’m rubbing the area where the phone hit. It was right below one end of my left eyebrow, on the side toward my ear. I could feel a bump and it was obviously painful, but for some reason during the call I never thought to meander over to a mirror and take a look.

During the call, I started to realize that the bump was clearly visible without a mirror, since it was affecting my vision. Like there was a bit of a black spot in the upper left corner in my field of sight. When I checked a mirror, yep, there was a bloody red mark at the precise point where the phone had hit, and then around it was a blackish-blue bulge forming. Lovely.

As the day progressed it seemed to grow. In the afternoon, it was quite annoying in terms of obscuring my vision. It’s hard to describe, it’s not like I felt like I was missing visual data but the fact that there was something weird going on made me feel like I kept having to look in that direction, akin to catching something just out of the corner of your eye and wanting to take a better look.

I can say by now that, while the bump is still there, my brain has already learned to basically filter the spot out and I’m not really noticing it anymore. There’s probably a lesson there in how quickly we are able to adapt to things, for better or worse, and just accept something as the new normal.

Still hurts if I touch it, though.

You know when you see boxers with their eyes all swollen up? I’ve never experienced anything like that, and I’ll be glad to keep it that way, thank you. But it did make me wonder how annoying it must be, I assume their eyes are still functioning under their swollen eyelids or whatnot and maybe even some light gets through. It’s gotta be a billion times worse than this little bruise bump that I’ll have to contend with for a day or two.

I’ll try to keep a better grip on whatever I’m reading when I’m suspending it over my face. Even a hardcover book could hurt, I suppose. I do feel stupider because it was caused by a phone.

Back to work tomorrow. Sunday nights, always dreary for me. But not dead, FYI.

Discuss...

< Back to the Index

]]> https://notdead.fyi/impinged-vision Sun, 10 Nov 2024 15:45:00 +0000