Peppa pig and the bed -- A children's story

Peppa pig sat on a bed, the bed turned red and blue. Peppa pig cried in the bed, the bed turned pink and green. Peppa pig kicked the bed, it yelled, owww. Peppa pig yelled at the bed, the bed said bow ow ow.

The confession [2]

Badri was still sobbing. Shanker offered his bottle of iced water. After gulping it down in one breathe, he gasped for air, and settled down. He took long breaths. Counted down from ten. Counted up to twenty. Long breaths. Stretched his body. He felt better.

Tell me now, why are you bawling your eyes out, you look traumatized man. I know it's not something awful, it's something I can handle, but you need to tell me what's up before I can help you okay, because it's not something I take care of on a daily basis. Just tell me man, just tell me what's up, Shanker said, in a rather irritated voice.

Okay. Okay. Long breath. I feel much better now. And man, you know what I totally trust you. Not that it matters much anyway but I trust you okay, always remember that that you were the first person I told this shit to. Anyway...so you know how his family and my family are friends...And and we're...we're contractors...and land stuff..So anyway...I overheard my dad talk to his friends the other day...and I read the papers a few days ago...And I connected the dots. I'm honestly...honestly man it took me a long fucking time to connect the dots I tell you a long fucking time but now I know what it all means and everything I ever saw and how people interacted with me makes sense and it's so overwhelming and everything I've just never...never thought about this and I don't know how to handle this and it's strange really something I'd only seen in movies and even then they don't show how the character deals with it you know they just skip over the learning part and jump straight over to the cinematic fun parts that you pay the money for so I'd never...never really..you know thought about how to think and deal with these things, not even my wildest fucking dreams man really so it's a little weird and it'll take me some time to get used to but I think I'll get used to it, Badri said, wiping his nose with his sweater sleeve.

What happened? What did you discover? Is it something you can tell me or would you rather not tell me that. To be honest if it's your super duper family secret man, I'd rather not find out, but if it's something anyone will know, I don't mind hearing, Shanker said, fully knowing what was about to unfold. He thanked all the gods for making him experienced enough to handle this for the second time. He was glad this was in the 'guide book' so to speak, he wasn't coming at this from nowhere.

So anyway, everyone always treated me like a king or a prince you know when I was younger even people who I thought wouldn't. Like surprisingly so, even in places where they would rather you follow the rules, you know? I thought it was just that they loved me, or that perhaps my family was really well respected, and never gave it much thought. Because when you are a child you think the whole world's like your own world and you don't care too much about how people are treating you versus treating others. Welll...I started noticing more weird things later enough, like when people found out who I was they wouldn't be willing to take money from me in restaurants or whatever, or even cabs which was so weird, but I was like, wow my dad's done so many people a favor. So anyway, I find out people fear him and my family and Raj's family more than love and respect or revere, so that's the end of it honestly, there's nothing to know more, that's it and it's kind of a bummer that it's the reason, not that I'm going to go into my family's line of business or anything, I just wish they did something better, that's all. That's the end of it, Badri said, with a sense of finality.

The confession [1]

Why are you crying, tell me why you're crying, okay man you have got to tell me why you're crying or I'll freak and call the teachers okay, you have have to tell me why you're crying you don't have to stop crying you know I don't have too much courage or whatever what's wrong man tell me why you're crying or I'm going to get really really nervous and call someone else and I don't know if that's what you want but that's what is going to happen okay, seriously man just tell me what's up, Shanker said to Badri who had come into his room sobbing.

Badri began, between his sobs. I...I..don't know..I don't know what to..think of..or do..in my..life anymore..So...I found out...you know...my dad...my parents...yeah yeah they're fine they're fine or whatever, they're fine, or whatever you know, how I've ...I told you right, I told you, I don't know what to do man I don't know what to think...I don't...I told you, I told you right, my family..my family is...so my family is friends with Raj's family, and they've ...they've known each other for many many years yeah, and and...I told..I told you we were contractors...I told you...both our families were into land and contract business yeah...and I don't know..I don't know what to do man I don't know what to think I don't know...What will I do now, I don't know... He burst crying again, gasped for air unable to breathe.

Shanker took a long breath. He knew exactly what this was about. This was the second conversation of this kind he had this week, the first one was a bit of a shock but he had grown used to it now, and he knew exactly the direction it would take. He wasn't sure what good it'd do if he said anything so he just kept quiet.

Yeah yeah it's fine man, whatever it is, it's going to be fine, don't worry you shouldn't need to freak out it'll be fine, don't worry dude, we're your friends and we're with you, we're your well-wishers and we love you and care for you, don't worry man, whatever it is we accept you and you are our friend and our brother you are a part of our lives, don't worry yaar, just tell me what happened, tell me what's wrong and everything will be fine, I promise, he said in one single breath because he didn't know what else to say.

The sobs had subsided a bit, but Badri was still trembling and gasping for deep breaths of air. His face was red, hair disheveled, ears burning and nose watery. His eyes looked like they had been doused in a can of tomato soup.

So so so anyway they told me...They didn't even want to tell me, I found out...I found out...by myself...dude I don't know if I can..if I can..I don't want to..You're a...I don't know how to... What will I do now man, what to do, who am I I won't know what to think I don't know what to do, I don't know who to trust, I...Idon't know...I don't know...Shit man I don't know I think I'm in deep deep fucking trouble man, this sucks what to do, I don't know what to do man, Badri said.

[discontinuing it here for part 2 because I need more posts. This was written 4 days after the fact.]

Evaluating your choices

Whenever you feel the urge to lie down, think for a moment where your life is going, evaluate the life choices you have made and consider if this is the path you really want to take, ask yourself, what is all this even for? What is the point of you doing things, and what do you really want out of it, that will help you figure things out faster.

On occasions those questions can be just as hard to answer as the original question. For example, you don't always have the answer to the question of what this is all about, and what you really want. In such a scenario, surround yourself with negative questions to narrow down the possibilities enough so that positive questions can be helpful. Here's an example: say you want to find out what you want to do in the next five years, but have no idea, literally no idea what you want to do and where you want to be. Begin by asking what you definitely don't want and where you definitely don't want to be. Do you want to be an astronaut? Do you want to be a youtube celebrity? Do you want to be a deep-sea diver? Do you want to be an accountant. Once you have narrowed down your options enough, start asking more pointed questions. Imagine for a moment that you are, like I am, a more computer-oriented computer person. In such a case, ask yourself, do I want to keep doing this for the next five years? Do I want to die doing this in the next five years? Is this what I want to be known for? What if I made no money for doing this, would I still be doing this? What if someone paid me ten times as much the money for doing the same job, would it be the same? What would be the same, what would be different? What would be the direction from what you are doing right now that would put you on a slightly better path to happiness? Start with the direction of less stress. Happiness is not obvious, stress is. Move from the path of more stress to less stress, and eventually you shall find true happiness.

Figuring out what kind of people you want to be around and spend time with is even easier. Ask yourself, does spending time with this person make me tired or rejuvenated. Do I feel anxious after, or do I feel positive towards life? Having long conversations about life, the universe and everything with this person, is this something I'd rather do when I have something better to do, or do I hang out with this person  only because there is nothing else happening in my life. If this person stopped making an effort to keep in touch with me and moved away from my life forever without any fault or intention of their own, how much of an effort would I put towards keeping in touch with them, being in their lives, talking to them etcetera, or would I rather just give up, because they are just persons of convenience. Such questions are often quite easy and obvious to answer, and they will open the path to lesser stress and greater friendships, honesty and self-appraisal quicker. They'll do you better, and the ones around you will have a greater experience also.

Animals that feed themselves

As you can see, we haven't gotten around to training them to be obedient. Yet. That's the next step. Domestication is different from obedience and what we have achieved is what people have only dreamed for thousands of years, and we are the first ones to do it. Our names will be written in history books, and you can be sure about that. This is the fastest, cheapest, easiest way to rear large herbivores, and you can bet that they are the most efficient forms of meat compared to pretty much everything humans have reared. Ever. Dr Murgram finished his speech. He had done it dozens of times, practiced it in front of the mirror last evening too but every time was something different, you felt their doubt within you, their questioning gaze, their non-believing attitude.

So how expensive is it going to be compared to chicken, the journalist in the blue cap asked.

Let me put it this way. The worst-treated chicken, in absolute rubbish conditions that tastes like wood, whose legs are unable to support them, well that chicken is going to cost more in terms of impact to the environment and resource consumption compared to these beasts. And mind you, they eat everything, you don't need expensive specific diet like meat chicken, he said, tapping against the glass of a showcase that showed all the different potential food sources.

And is the cost for right now, or is that a projection, the journalist asked.

Well as you can see, we have gotten within the general price level to be able to compete with other cattle, but no as of right now we've not gotten that efficient yet. To get to that level, we need a larger level of investment so we can breed more efficient breeds, which can forage for themselves. There's also the possibility of autosynthesizing cells Dr. Samudra and her team have been working on. At which point you wouldn't need to care for plants anymore. As long as you have sufficient water, and necessary base minerals, certain parts of the body can produce their own food, and make it available to the rest of the system for metabolism. The only problem we have faced there is that the cells seem to grow too slow to be of any use. There are growth accelerators that we are experimenting with, but we want to be sure they're absolutely safe for human consumption before we bring it out to the market, he said.

Workday and Allston trip [Monday 30]

Worked all day long, made lunch of potatoes eggs cheese and sour cream which was awesome, did more work from home, after work got 89 to Davis, red line to Harvard, 66 to Brookline where I showed TD the NETA weed store, the house where my family lived and the nice neighborhood there, we took the 66 bus to Coolidge corner, we got an awesome dinner at Rod Dee over there (TD apparently knows some Thai?) tried chasing the bus for like ten minutes walked in hail sleet rain snow to SS's (of Allston), hung out with them for a couple of hours got wine got rid of our leftovers at theirs as SS got rid of her really awesome fudge with us, took the 66, red line and the uber back home, got back at 11.30/12, went to sleep without doing much. Walked a lot in the rain, did 40 pushups but not much else. Not a super productive day but not the worst either as things go.

This is the 1200'th post of this blog

And I know the last couple of posts maybe even dozens have been half-hearted attempts at writing and writing for writing's sake and just getting the blog posts out there. But that's the thing about milestones, they don't care about quality all it matters is the count not the quality, this is gonna be so good. First 1200 done, next 1200 coming out in the next year, plus or minus five. If I maintain a pace of 4 posts a day, it'll easily go beyond 1200. That's not going to be too too hard, right?

On Rod Dee -- The Allston One

The place looks nicer than the one they had at Porter Square (wish it was still open, sigh), is slightly more expensive, but the serving sizes are just as large, the taste is the same, the general general ambience is still the same -- that of a takeout place that also prefers if you'd rather you just stayed around like a cafe in a smaller less-affluent part of Bangkok.

Had the Indonesian Fried Rice with deep-fried chicken and sunny-side-up eggs, satisfying, crispy and just so fulfilling as always. The scallion pancakes were definitely not the best best I've ever had, but they we're still goddamn good. The tea that they have sitting out just as vanilla-flavored (as TD observed) satisfying as always, the staff friendlier than ever. This is the place to be for unpretentious South-East Asian food.

Yeah, there's a little bit of walk from the bus 66, but it's right next to a green-line stop (the C line) so it's great for residents of the neighborhood. Would I go all the way from Medford-Somerville to Allston to eat there? Maybe not...once in a while, but unlikely. Would I stop by if I was visiting someone around anyway. Exceedingly likely. Would I recommend you go once even if you don't live around just to taste and see? Most certainly.

A good place that I'd rather charge more than shut down. 9/10.

Discipline, writing and being social

Mind is blank, I can't write, writing habit is kaput, gone, bam, tata, nada zilch nothing etcetera. Only escape out of this hole is to keep moving fingers until they're tired, until they're like, you know what man yeah we'll come up with ideas and you'll write well it's nobigdeal.

Writing more means inspiring yourself to write more, thinking in terms of writing, always seeing yourself as a writer, writing lifestyle etcetera. When the writing stops, the thinking stops, the mindset ends and it's hard to come back again. This is all quite funny because I haven't even stopped writing regularly, I've just decreased the number of posts everyday (and keep trying to play catch up with the previous day).

Also, my checklists are out of whack. Meaning I haven't followed them in a long while. I get anxious when there's no structure and I'm all by myself, but when the anxiety is taken away by socializing with friends and family, there's no reason to get to writing because why write, I'm anxiety-free.

Which means that the hard part (well harder than the current task) is getting on a regular disciplined lifestyle while still being social hanging out with friends and family, writing and doing workouts. When there's order in life and safety and still writing happening that's when the real writing happening.

Therefore, the next step to learning to be self-disciplined is to have proper form and structure with my habits while being a social animal. Let's. Do. It.

A bunch of random questions just so I'm writing

Apple falls on the head. Scientist get an idea. Gravity! Discovery! How much credit should be given to the Apple?

Man spends hours and hours on the shower. Wife gets mad. Man gets ideas about life and Universe. Man gets famous, while also wasting water quite a bit, speeding up the demise of human civilization. Should everyone be allowed to take long showers now?

Woman plays with shiny but poisonous stones, doesn't realize they're that poisonous. The stones help in fixing diseases. Woman dies of the very same disease her stones helped fix. Who gets the credit, the woman, the rocks, or the hundreds of women who also got sick of the same disease and died?

Man stabs a couple of people. Commotion. People run away. Later in court man claims he's a messenger of earth, they're not smart enough to understand him yet. Do you believe him or not?

Ramen and Tufts [Sunday 29]

We got up late, went to tufts, took a bunch of photos all around the buildings and everything, walked back through the Boston ave, got lunch of frozen Trader Joe's indian meal, watched a lot of tv and lazed around, at 7 left for Santouka Ramen, had an awesome meal spent time around the bookstores while waiting, came back watched The Office (after finishing Kim's Convenience ) went to bed. Didn't do the regular workouts or other things from the daily checklist. Need to get back to that seriously.

Running around late with everything

Yeah I'm running a massive deficit of posts here because I've been busy showing TD around. This does not bode well for writing during travels but who knows maybe I'll be less distracted then. Need to get to it stat, I know.

On Santouka Ramen

Santouka Ramen in Harvard Square is probably the best Ramen I've ever had anywhere, their broth is rich and flavorful, they have a great variety of broths and are vegetarian friendly, without being absurdly expensive like comparable Ramen shops. Their addons and appetizers are great too, and I'm glad I've had food there. This is why I've had Ramen there twice in a week there.

Is it time?

Is it time
To move on?
Is it time
To change things
To shake around
To dare and jump
Talk the talk and
Walk the walk?

Is it time,
To become a grown-up
man
To take up the task
To jump into the pool
Make difficult decisions
And not give up on them?

Is it time,
To invest in dreams
Is it time,
To take risks,
To do what I must
And not care
If causes are lost?

Should I now
Care about how
I'm living my life,
If this is not the way
to go
And maybe I should just
Jump and run
And run
and run?

I should.
Should should should.
I will.
I will will will.
Will will will.

NYC cheaper than Boston

SS said that NYC rent near Long-Island city is pretty good, I asked her how much, the number she quoted for a 'nice 2-bedroom apartment' was a LOT lower than what I've been looking at for new apartments in East Cambridge. So here's the point: if NYC is cheaper to live and cheaper to eat than Boston and the salaries are better than effing Boston then what the heck am I doing in Boston which is a second-rate version of NYC in many ways really, seriously considering moving to NYC ugh I'm going crazy.

MFA & Wegma's trip, Dinner at Felipe's [December 28]

We went to Wegmans in the morning, Haymarket and the MFA in the afternoon, got back home, rested, and went to Felipe's with SS (of Harvard Law) to get dinner. TD and SS got dinner and a drink, we were out till 11 which was great as it was the longest hangout with SS, came back home, watched Kim's convenience and went to bed. I'm writing this the evening of the next day, worried that I haven't done any of my discipline things this week, getting guilty as things go.

Roommate PK is back from the holidays so that's fun, going to have the good old gang hang soon at our place.

MFA is not that great if you've gone there multiple times and there's no new exhibits. The Nubian exhibit was just okay. Haymarket was sad and cold. Everything was fine.

Just some animal thoughts

All animals should be treated like living beings, creatures with life and agency and a inalienable right to a healthy safe living and the ability to reproduce. It's okay to harvest them, provided it does not cause suffering or unnecessary pain for them.

Haka's realization

No, it wasn't him, it wasn't him, it wasn't him, the Khyaak had made him do it, the khyaak had made him do it. It was the Khyaak. The khyaak had possessed him, he was a possessed being, it wasn't him, it couldn't have been him, he wouldn't have had the brains, there was no way it could have been him, he wasn't that smart he wasn't that brave he wasn't that kind of person, he didn't have the heart of a murderer, he was not a cold-hearted monster who could strike into someone's chest with a knife he wasn't that person, he was possessed by the Khyaak and it was the Khyaak who had done it, who had done it all, Haka said to himself, over and over and over again.

He lay on the corner of his dark room, immobile. He hadn't moved for...as long as he could remember...he was sobbing furiously, he took large gulps of air between his sobs, he looked like he was drowning in his own tears, desperately flailing around for air in his gasps and gulps. It was cold outside, the windows were closed, the wind blew the curtains regardless, his skin prickled with cold, his spine tingled his head ached, his throat parched his tummy tumbled his legs groaned and his heart...his heart was just ready to give up.

Haka. Didn't. Want. To. Live. As. The. Monster. He. Was. Turning. Into. He was not a human being anymore, he was a grotesque being, evil evil that did bidding for other evil creature, he had no humanity left, or why oh why did I do all of that, he didn't want to live like the monster. He would, he would give up, give up in front of the police, tell them...he would tell them...about about everything, about the khyaak about the incidents about all of them and if they believed him fine and if they didn't he'd explain everything in detail the poisons the pushing the cutting the adulterating of alcohol they would know exactly what happen he didn't really care at this point if the Khyaak got into trouble or not he would just claim full responsibility of it, he had plannned everything and executed everything...If if they asked why they did it he would make something up just some bullshit cooked up at the moment in time about some bullshit corruption about his victims being evil people who spported evil things and and he would just just act like a maniac so they would have to believe him and if if they didn't he'd try to come up with some sort of evidence even if he had to fabricate them...He would be safe, and the world would be safe only only if he was inside the cells of the prison, only then would people be able to walk freely in the Valley without the fear of being murdered by a pschopath.

It didn't matter. It didn't matter at all not a bit even what the Khyaak really was even if it was real or not if it was his mind playing games if he was sick or a psycho or if he was really possessed by evl it didn't matter it really didn't he wanted to get away from the guild he wanted the bloody dreams to end he wanted to stop hearing the voices he wanted those fuckfuckifucking souls to stop whispering and looking at him with those sad eyes he wanted that girl to stop pleading at him he hadn't ever talked to her she hadn't ever seen him it couldn't be it was all bullshit even if it was all in his head he had to he head to end it somehow somewhen soon soon he couldn't live like this.

Flying pigs

Pigs don't really fly, which is a true like they said in the meeting, but pigs are also...you know pigs...and they can't wear clothes and eat Italian food with fork and spoon and most importantly, pigs can't use the internet. So yeah, Hari didn't understand understand the metaphor what was that all about. If they did give him enough money to market and sell the research, it'd most certainly have returns that the market would never ever match. Even the fucking pig market couldn't match it even if those fatass pigs could fly.

They had already sunk in so much money into the research what he was asking for was nothing compared to everything that had been invested already. But no, the bigwigs had decided that the project would be shelved absolutely and completely, and crushed crushed with no chance of bringing it back up. All he asked for an opportunity to hire an extra scientist, who was already working for him anyway, and time of a competent marketing team that would most certainly be able to sell everything including the IP to a large biotech firm. They didn't care because they thought the big companies didn't care anymore since you couldn't patent living beings anymore.

The irony of it, the fucking irony of it all, that he would probably die thinking about that the research would lead up to flying pigs anyway, it wasn't about the weight ratio it was about the bone density and he'd shown that pigs with lower bone density could be easily induced that could still support their own weight and regular bodily functions. Adding a pair of wings and teaching them how to glide would have been the easier task, really. Still no fucking deal. What a bunch of wankers.

Boston happening

Whoo is actually surprised that outside the core Christmas days Boston is quite lovely and a popping city, so much life vigor and excitement over the historic city? Tourists and locals mingling laugint and just chilling around, on sunny afternoons, this is the proper city life, this is Boston. It's possible it's a bit too much if this is how it always is, but if you go by the theory that Boston will always be a second-rate New York at its very best (not that it's a bad thing) then these days are the ones to truly cherish.

Walking Cambridge and Somerville [Friday 27]

Got up, did my work from home, got caught up on writing, watched kim's convenience, skipped out on the workouts, watched more and more Kim's convenience with TD, cleaned up and napped while watching Kim's convenience. Was being too lazy but decided to lace up and get all ready, we left the house, walked to Davis, Mass Ave. to Porter, and then to Harvard, explored all the cute little places and paintings almost got drinks but didn't TD got eggnog coffee as her like fourth meal, walked all the way back, watched couple of episodes of Kim's Convenience and then to bed, no chores or writing or anything like that. Really need to get my writing schedule in order. Also IDK how sustainable 5 effing posts a day is going to be I should really consider easing up on days when I don't commute or go on long bus or train journeys.

Goddamn postal service what are they even doing

I have been sending out letters to friends, loved ones, and perhaps even acquaintances every day for the last several weeks. Some have made it, and some haven't actually. Which is weird because why would they not deliver the letters, it's a goddamn federal crime and I think I got the addresses right too and even if I didn't it'd just come back which didn't. And the letters my friends sent me didn't make it to me either, what's that all about, so frustrating ugh. I'm sending a bunch of postcards to everyone now and it's the longest I've gone doing it, so yippe dippe doo.

On Wegmans family rest room

The Wegmans rest room meant for families next to the Burger cafe is one of the best restrooms I've ever been to. The handwash and drying station is by far the best (really well-designed), the toilet paper is soft, the seat is super comfortable, the smells are nice, the vibe is chill, and everything feels so so great. Like I would consider spending extended period of time in the Wegmans burger bar and eating area just to go to their restrooms. Wegmans burger bar should be the place where friends catch up and play board games etcetera, the semi-private-public third place since everyone needs to eat and everyone needs a grocery store.

Burnout

Posting 3000 words (okay 2-3k words but I'm exaggerating) a day could take a toll on someone, cause burnout for some people. Look at those youtubers who get burnt out by couple of  posts a month. Not that my posts are as so consuming or tiring but I've been going at it for some time now, regardless of what I'm up to with my life.

Not happening in this case, I'm half-assing everything not putting a lot of my energy into this. Yeah, also not going to continue this 5 posts a day schedule forever, specially when I'm traveling. Three posts a day maybe. Four perhaps. And they're going to be short. Most of them are going to be filler even. Such half-ass attempts, there they are still continuation of my habits though. I'm excited about the writing habit. Need to set a minimum post limit per month (and per day), and I'm up and running like a out-of-control train in a desert with not a single vehicle or pedestrian crossing.

Stories to be read

Not all stories are written to be read. Some exist for the sole reason of satisfying the writer's intense urge to create, really create anything that can get them creating even more. They are not meant to be read as they often can't be read -- they lack structure, logic, and all the basic elements that make a good (or any) story. They just exist in the ether to float about and wander into nothingness, having never been realized into existence in anyone's head but the writer's.

Are we not but complicated stories ourselves? If stories are complex patterns on stone and paper and in patterns of electronic 1's and 0's, are we not complex patterns of atoms and molecules on paper of carbon and hydrogen, and in patterns of electronic 1's and 0's? If there are stories that are never read, can there be persons who are never 'read'? What does it mean to be read as a person, what does it mean to create impact, how far away are we from being mere stories?

We are quite far, truth be told. Stories don't move, interact run around pay talk all by themselves. Stories are passive they need to be interacted with, we are active our selves go out and interact with the world. Stories don't interact with each other by themselves, we do interact with other beings by our own self-determination.

And yet. The impact we create comes from somewhere. We change our surroundings, we change the stories of the people we talk to. We love, we laugh, we tell stories, we help we fight we hate we support we oppose and in doing that we shape the patterns of their lives as much as we do ours. And that's...what's important. Sure, you can explode a nuclear bomb and leave a deep scar pattern on the earth forever. That's easy. Physical patterns are easy to change...a volcano can spew but an influential it is certainly not. The biological patterns, the stories of our fellow beings are harder to influence because our self is entwined with theirs. When they get hurt, we are hurt, when they get angry we get angry. It's costly, physically and emotionally.

So the greatness of a person is a measure of how 'efficient' they are at influencing others positively. Efficiency does not necessarily imply a strictly physical definition..least amount of input for the maximum gain/output, it implies how good we feel about it and how good they feel about it too. A humanitarian who helps hundreds at a personal level going to their houses every day is better than an orator who irritates millions. The easiest way to achieve it is to begin a cycle of positive influence and inspiration. To inspire people to be good people to others, and to have them inspire others, and inspire others to inspire others and so on and so forth. To create a virus of goodness so to speak.

Where does it begin? From a single person. By being kind understanding and 'nice' to someone you care about, and having them pass it on to someone else. Let the stories be told, start the chain of chinese whispers of inspiration and kindness.

Grocery tours [Thursday 26]

Went to couch at 12 in the evening, asleep at 12.30.

We got back home from our journey at 9.30. Roommate PK was back from his VA holidays trip, and friend-of-the-house ND was around too, so we got caught up with them, their holidays, their friends and families and all the different ways Nepalis of different areas and statuses and professions spend their Christmastimes. It was so much fun, and funny and honestly it's embarrassing to admit but I missed the old crowd. so glad roommate PK is back and things will be going back to normal-ish in the foreseeable future. It's possible it was just the long lonely 'wfh' days that caused me the gloom, it was mostly ameliorated by TD being around, but now PK around so everything is aok commander etcetera.

We got to BBC (Boston Burger Company) at 7.45 in the evening. I've been to the place on three occasions, that I can remember of anyway, and the three of them have been important in their own ways. The first time it was the first day of general orientation (or was it just the classes) in my freshmen year with my floormates, I remember a couple of guys getting the 'jumbo' which is an insanely large and unhealthy burger that I was very impressed with. The second time it was the first day before I left for my solo trip across the U.S, I remember posting it here (or maybe it was a different blog who cares really I didn't really post much from that trip anyway, ahh something I need to get back to doing really), I had the Burger out in the open all by myself and had such a good time so eager for my new trip new experiences and the whole new world that was to open in front of me. And the third time it was yesterday with TD, and again it'd be accurate to say I'm at the precipice of something different, beginnings and endings and it could mark the beginning of another phase in my life. The delineations aren't clear obviously but these three memorable trips to that burger place have defined the direction for the following years.

Back to the place. It has a really reddish vibe, there's football on all their televisions, their clientele is quite diverse (in other ways if not necessarily racially so) and they are quite vegetarian-friendly. Their choice of burgers is massive, and I'd really get the 420 burger which you can only get for 40 minutes every day for 4.20. It doesn't have the meat patty which for a lot of us is actually a good thing. TD ordered a basic burger with an egg on top, I ordered some burger with lots of crunchy fried things inside, and ohh wasabi mayonnaise what a wonderful concept. The wasabi cuts into the fattiness of the burger so well it's a surprise it's not a more common additive...honestly it's not really wasabi but horseradish sauce, what a great combo still. The veggie patty was quite good, the burger was a bit too big for me, I devoured it and savored it. The 'chips' that come with the burgers aren't that great really, soggy and unevenly salted would avoid them the next time, but apparently their 'Inferno' fries are quite good. TD, the European person that she has become couldn't put the entirety of the burger into her mouth so she ate the burger with a fork and a spoon. Crime, I tell ya, it's a CRIME! At $40 bucks for 2 people, including a quite generous tip and a beer for one, it was one heck of a deal.

Reached Harvard at 5.30, and strolled around the square for a short while...the point wasn't to check the square out but to go to the river and so we did. We walked by the banks of the Charles for four bridges until we got to the one close to Central. There we were deciding if we wanted to going or change our plan when I remembered there was a Whole Foods nearby. A chance at another grocery store that's not in Europe or Sg! So we went to the Whole Foods in Cambridge and checked out every tiny aisle of it. Interesting fact, the prepared section food at Whole Foods is cheaper the one at Wegman's by a whole dollar per pound. Unclear what it says about either place, thought that was interesting. TD really enjoyed the place and figures when she's back again she might buy a few items there as gifts to friends back home.

From the Whole Foods we walked to Central Square where I suddenly(! nope, planned) realized that there's an H-Mart in there too. So we went in there and spent maybe another 20 minutes exploring it and every nook and corner of it. Nothing new that I discovered there, but TD felt really at home apparently because that's how all asian stores look everywhere unlike in Europe where everything is shrink-wrapped in plastic wrapping they let their fruits and veggies breatheee. Fun times. Took the T to Davis after being confused by the entrance/exit for a few times fortunately TD who was paying attention to what I was saying took us the right way.

We left my apartment at 2.30 abouts despite the original plan of 1.30 because things got delayed and I spent a long while writing those long letters. So I thought for a couple of days I was out of postcards but I found them so now everything's great and fine and dandy. Walked to Davis, saw there were so many more people than the christmas day that life exists in Davis too, took the Red line to dtx, spent some time at Primark which TD went to a lot in Holland too, walked about the food court, went to TJMAXX (which is apparently called TKMAXX in parts of Europe haaah), walked the 'boulevard' from DTX to Chinatown, then took the train to my work where I collected couple of things I need for the weekend, spent more time chilling at work, decided to go to Harvard Square and walk the river before finally taking the Green Line and then the Red line.

Got up at 8.30 ish in the morning, got ready, had a banana each, and went on a walk. It was cold outside but we dressed up well, walked all the way to Trader Joe's at Assembly which is like a 20-minute walk maybe a little more. Spend an hour in their got a bunch of supplies and got back home to make breakfast of scrambled eggs and bread with fruits. Had moogicha with the breakfast, after which TD rested for a bit while I got caught up on the writings for the day. Worked out about then too. Planned to leave for Downtown at 1.30 but ended up happening a bit later.

A lifechanging retreat

"I'm not afraid of other people, I'm afraid of myself because I can get so powerful and passionate, and the power and the passion can be directed in any direction. I want to learn to harness those aspects of mine towards something positive and good for the world, and I'm here to learn self-control, discipline and motivation for that," she had said at the beginning of the workshop, when everyone was telling their deepest fears and insecurities around in a circle. Perhaps it was just her but she thought she saw a few flinches after she ended her confession of sorts.

That was three weeks ago, another age really, now she was a better person. She hadn't talked to anyone for over two weeks, lived under strict caloric restriction, the headaches and pangs of hanger had subsided away by the end of the second week to give way for an empty calm of sortts. Her back hurt, just a little but still...which was good because that meant her posture needed improvements. They had helped her be more at peace with herself and her environment. If you stood still with you eyes shut for fifteen hours a day without talking to anyone, while being reminded to not harbor any thoughts at all not even those about not having any thoughts at all, you kindof had to figure out a way for your mind to calm down or else, you'd end up like that finance guy from new york who had run out screaming and crying after twelve days of successfully going through the practice.

She realized she was looking at everything with an intense glare. There was so much emptiness in the world, the puzzle is not yet complete even your thoughts are full of big holes but life seems smooth and everything's chugging alone as if nothing's wrong but the world is a jittery movie where the editor completely skipped large parts but you don't notice anything because your mind fills in the details. Once you start looking at something, really looking at something with full intensity to understand it and what it's all about, things become more obvious. It's all lies built on top of lies built on top of other lies. But did they matter? Did it even matter if everything was a lie, if nothing made sense, because everyone just went on with their lives with no complaints? Was her new vision, her ability to see through things a boon or rather a curse. She hadn't pondered on such philosophical matters before, now they were all she cared about, well at least in the free 15 minutes they let you rest between sessions of meditation and before she fell into deep hypnotic sleep.

Every morning it felt like she was waking up from a deep coma, a thousand-year long slumber and she never knew what to expect. She was pleasantly surprised day after day after day that the world hadn't changed much while she had slept, that her mythical slumber wasn't that after all. It felt...so deep, so trancelike as if her entire existence had taken a nice long break during, gone to a grand old vacation to one of those warm islands in the Caribbeans and come back, right in time for her to make it for the meager breakfast. She was thankful for the sleep, she was thankful for the waking-up, and she was thankful that her existence had become so...Light. That was the only world she felt described everything accurately. She didn't fill pulled or dragged down by anything her psyche could fly and her physical body was only barely able to hold it down to Earth. Was this godliness, or was this just...existence, for other people?

It would be over in less than a week and they'd all be back in the grind, all those overwhelming sounds and sounds and smells and tastes overwhelming your mind distracting your thoughts keeping you enmeshed in the daily mediocrity, hiding true peace. And maybe maybe this wasn't true peace either maybe this was just the beginning and you had steps and levels and you would ultimately get to Nirvana after you completed the final stage. Now that would be quite something.

Beyond the comfort zone

Sometimes you need to run and run and run, until you can't run no more and then keep running not afraid to fall down or have a mild concussion obviously you need to worry about the dehydration because it's no joke but otherwise it's just the stamina and the will to keep going no matter what. Pushing yourself to the limit, and beyond, and way way way beyond the limit to places you wouldn't have imagined. Breaking the limit, laughing at it and running away.

It's no joke and it puts your body and psyche in a state of a stress because the limits were obviously there for a reason, they were to protect you. This is out of your comfort zone, which was there for a reason again, because those were the things you were comfortable with and these new universe of people and things and objects are unknown and foreign, you don't know how to interact with them how they work what they do and you always think, are they making fun of me when I'm not looking, do they secretly hate me but don't tell me because they're too nice, why are they being so mean to mean, and so on and on and on. You're in discomfort, And that's literally the meaning of 'beyond the comfort zone' means.

Why does it benefit to expand you comfort zone? So you understand more parts of the world and human beings how they work and interact with each other. So your toolset of exploring your life options, helping and interacting with others, making sense of the things around you improves, so you can adapt to changing circumstances better, get going with new places and people. And ultimately (you hope) it can make you a better human being.

The lore of Kaantimaai

Nothing good ever came in the big black trucks, ever. Sometimes it was dead bodies of healthy young men who had left in search of work to feed their families, send their daughters to good boarding schools and buy their wives some jewellery. Other times it was a group of mean army men armed to the teeth who bullied their way around the town in search for some person or other who seemed to always know that they were not hiding in the town but wanted to trouble them for no good reason. And twice it had been expeditions of foreign companies, once it was Chinese and once it had been Italian who were exploring the town for some natural resource that would suddenly make everyone rich, something they said was so much more valuable than gold, the country would become a rich developed country if they found it, they said.

The townsfolk knew it didn't matter either way. First of all, anything of value natural or manmade had either been looted a long time ago or had walked itself out on two feet never to return in search for better opportunities. And second, even if they did find their mythical substance they were under no illusions on the allocation of the benefits...the foreigners would take away most of it, the greedy corrupt central government would take almost everything that was left, and the leftover scraps would be divided by the provincial and local governments. What would be left for the people of the town would be sticks and mud. And that they already had plenty of, they didn't want any more of it.

They were scientists they claimed, doing experiment in the area because they saw something special in their instruments they hadn't seen anywhere. Something about magnets and electricity and lights they said. Evenings and nights should be dark in the village like everywhere around, apparently, the sky shouldn't brighten up suddenly and fade away. No, the villagers tried explaining, it was the stars and the sun and the moon and the planets, it was always like that. The brightness at nights that appeared not too often but often enough for an adult to have observed on several occasions weren't anything special they said, it was just thunder and lighting happening far away across the hills where it was raining even though the skies at the villages were clear. But no the scientists said clear sky turning blue and purple and yellow at nights wasn't normal anywhere else, lightning didn't work like that, there was something special about the village.

And so began the lore of Kaantimaai. Two large temples, constructed in the style of Kathmandu temples from the 15th century, a cable-car from the big city, multiple big hotels, even malls, they could come. Kaantimaai, the story went, the lady of the light, came down upon the village to visit her devotees once every few years to fulfill their wishes and desires. And when she came in, the Earth trembled, the sky hung its head in respect. So great was her affect, so bright was her presence, they said, it could turn the darkest of nights bright as a day, throughout. She had the power of a hundred million lightning strikes, such was the glory of the great goddess. It wasn't just some old superstitious, a group of foreign scientists and come by and validated the lore, they said.

The crypto conversation

"And that dude who must have dumped half a can of mobil on his head, what about him, who's right at the back of the rally" Orbind said, stubbing out the joint he was smoking.

"Oh yeah, leather pants, leather jackets hair slick as a snake's body? Him I'm not sure, I've seen him around once or twice, with a bunch of different people, apparently lived in Southern Europe for some time and back for good now, or something. To take care of the family business, obviously. Not clear what business they're in I know for a fact they're not industrialists or one of those hydropower or banking or telecom families. He's not a tourism guy either because that's not the look you want to sell, they're more...down-to-earth at least in how they look, gotta sell the poor country please-come-to-my-country-sir vibe yanno. He's an interesting guy isn't he," Rajesh said, scratching his neck beard.

"Could be uhh a don kind of guy," Orbind said looking around. "Where did I fucking put my glass again," he said inspecting every part of the glass table in front of them.

"Here you go, I put it down earlier when we moved the chair. It's a nice glass," Rajesh said, picking up the whiskey glass from underneath the chair handing it to Orbind, "Yeah he's not...I'd be very very surprised if he was. He's too out there. After the fucking idiots at the government went blazing guns on the local dons, they have become a lot lower key. Most have adopted a facade of legitimate businesses, I know a few who actually enjoy their fake businesses more than they like you know, criminaling around, " he gave a long incredulous laugh.

Orbind joined in. "Fucking criminals man, got to put your heart into something, can't figure out what they want in life even after all of that maybe someone should offer those coaching sessions to them too," he said, and they both burst into laughter.

"Speaking of criminals," Rajesh began, a smile on his face, "how's our plan coming up? I talked to a couple of boys in there, you know the usual business opportunity, new technology, hot startup, exponential boom, incredible chance to be on the driving seat of the train that's going to the fucking moon, etcetera. They are...interested. Not maniacal about that yet, but those kind of people we don't want yet, these guys will arrange for those cats if we can guarantee them some sort of uhh guaranteed returns haa," he said.

Orbind paused. He took a long sip of the whiskey. "The website is coming out pretty well, we have a few people in India and Ukraine working on the software itself. The Indians will probably ban it the first at the first sign of smoke, it's hard to fucking bribe the Reserve Bank unless you know their kids or shit and even then they're a lot more suave lately. The Ukrainians are getting pretty tough too because they're dreaming of their EU membership, but it's not gonna happen anytime soon and there's a lot of pushback against financial regulations from the Russian businessmen since it's still a gateway to clean money for them. We'll last there a lot longer. There's a tonne of interest around Telegram groups, Kik groups too, we're still building community around that, the Ukrainians they're really good at collecting the small fry. So when the big..uh...investors...come in, we have a lot to show to them," he said.

"Hmmm. Three months from now for a formal release then? I'll have a few dozen real characters set up by then," Rajesh said, to the eerily quiet air now that the parade had passed by them. Regular Kathmandu traffic hadn't woken up yet this early in the morning.

"Yeah. Three months is a good time. Don't see anything big that should block us," Orbind said, tipsily dropping is glass on the table hard.

"Careful man, that's a nice glass," Rajesh said.

Family day [Wednesday 25]

What a good christmas day with (one member of my) family.

It's 11.15 right now and I'm in the common room ready to go to sleep. My pushups for the diagonal one are getting worse because I'm attempting them closer to my regular ones, when my hands are still tired and sore I'm not there yet but trying hard to be. Didn't do my daily reading yet, on it after this, and the final 35 pushups. Didn't write my postcards today because too busy but also because it was the last postcard I have left (ORR is it?) and I want to space it out. If I'm being honest to the cause might have to write and mail three postcards tomorrow which with family and everything not sure if I'll have the time for, but surely worth considering.

Have spent the last 30 minutes doing daily chores and writing. Before, TD and I were watching Kim's Convenience and she really likes it. She's also excited that she can get American netflix finally which is awesome because apparently Sg Netflix has even fewer shows than Nepali netflix oh dear what an awful curse to have.

We got back from our city visit at 930. We left the house at 3.30/4, walked to Davis on the way stopped by at Mint which was fortunately open, got us some teas, Katti rolls and momo. We got the mixed momo set, everything was eaten up but two lamb momos which apparently tasted disgusting which I blame no one for because there's a reason Nepalis eat pork momos the most and overspiced red meat is not really meant for dumping into dumplings you know?

Walk to Davis was cool, we observed like 10 churches on our trip which was quite surprising to her, and the favorite part of mine because people are really impressed by how many churches are around in this area. Davis was pretty dead, as dead as it could have been really, like if you filmed it this afternoon and put it as a scene for 'six months after' on a nuclear war movie about how the war killed all humans but didn't destroy the buildings too much it'd fit right in place.

We took the red line to Park Street, walked across Boston Common and the Public garden, both of which thankfully had a reasonable number of tourists like us, 'skated' around in the pond there which was frozen solid and surprisingly enough this was the first time I ever did that. We walked to back bay where I showed her my building at work and to Newbury street which was completely deserted. Then walked all the way to Chinatown which was superbusy but we didn't want to get anything there so we went to South Station, and took the Atlantic Ave to harborfront where we spend like twenty minutes by the sea and taking photos. Then walked to the North End, saw all the cute old buildings, two rounds of Hanover St, before finally stopping at Cafe Vittoria for capuccino and second-rate Cannolis. After spending half hour in the warmed of the place (and perhaps the warmed of the Italian hospitality?), walked to the haymarket station, where we took the Orange line to Sullivan, then the 95 and walked home.

Before we left home at 3.30, TD got ready where I took care of the small matters I had to look after. Her plane landed at 1.20, she came out at 1.45-ish, we got home at 2-ish. She got freshened up, changed, figured her bearings, unpacked and we were all set to see the city.

I got up at 10am in the morning and it was surprising, always thought there was no way I could sleep for so long but apparently I can. Cleaned up the house heated the leftovers, and got some writing done, before leaving for the airport at 12. Walked to Davis, red line, silver line and then terminal E. Which is where I wrote the thing about airports.

All in all a pretty great day, and if I can continue my daily discipline routine like I have, even with friends family company and happiness around, I'm in for some great times ahead.

On Katti Rolls at Mint

Had a Katti roll at mint eatery which has 'indian' in its name but it's unclear what's so indian about it except...that it's got it in the name. The owners, the workers, the institution, all Nepali. Still, they need to optimize the number of potential customers.

The Katti roll there, it's always pretty impressive. It's not too big nor nothin', pretty small compared to the ones in Baneshwar but the flavor is so so satisfying, and it's curious what's they do with their bread for the cover because it's so fluffy and smoky at the same time. And the insides are juicy, they need to be controlled because they drip all over. Perhaps it's really easy to win me over with some simple sugar-and-soysauce based syrup and some raw onions perhaps. Or perhaps there's more to it I'd really like to know. Regardless, the bread resembles roti canai and the inside resembles authentic Nepali chicken-chilli (oh but this one's tofu because remember I don't eat meat). A dream team it is.

Their momos are extraordinarily bland and not enticing at all in any way. The ones we ordered earlier today came broken which is the worst you can do to a momo because all the juices are gone and it means you really care about the momo because you don't understand what it's all about, you're just in it for the momo just to give people something to put in their mouths because they won't stop yapping about it and asking for it. So, so so disappointing.

What's good about the place, and keeps me coming back over and over again despite their absurdly poorly-thought momos is their free spiced milk-tea. Cardamom and other spices, tea powder in  think milk, with way too much sugar, ooof, that's the pest aperitif and the best digestif. Generally milk messes up with my stomach but no the one they use in their teas which has led me to believe on several occasions that perhaps they don't use real milk at all but milk powder. Which would also explain why it tastes so much like a dessert because with a lot of sugar they're just selling liquid pedas. No complaints there though, great stuff, them pedas.

Strutting about

"The girl over there, with thick legs and horns like that of a rhinoceros on her head, the sister of Miss Nepal from three years ago, just came back from Copenhagen after studying or whatever," Rajesh Khakurel told his partner in crime Orbind.

Orbind nodded. "And the one you see three rows behind her, with the purple flag, yeah yeah the one with full-on suit that makes them look like a squirrel? Yup, that's the uhh actor's daughter, she transitioned a couple of years ago. I think she's cute but she is seeing someone or whatever, don't care still talk to her all the time, maybe she's into me too, who knows we'll find out," Rajesh said.

Orbind looked at his friend. "Really? How did you meet her. And how come you're not in the parade yourself if you're...if you're soo...soo supportive of her, then?" he said, dipping a biscuit in the tea and taking a bite out of it before it dissolved.

"I said to them, I want to support you guys, but if I'm there I won't know how well you're doing, so why don't I sit on the verandah of our house which overlooks the rally, and that way, you'll be able to get an honest view of an outsider who can tell you how it looked like and they agreed," he said, opening up a new packet of biscuit. "Though to be fair, it's stupid of them to have organized this all at 11am, I was barely aware and honestly man no way I'd get up so early but at least got up to support them, which is a big deal," he said. He was waving his hands at the crowd and a small group at the back of the rally waved enthusiastically back.

"And them, they're all my sister's friends and friends' sisters. They're cool, and also just became friends which is why they're so enthusiastic about the whole thing. I don't understand how young girls are so cool about this whole thing, which I'm glad they are though they almost get giddy for the whole rallying and support thing which is great but still confuses the shit out of me you know because back in our time which wasn't that long ago man, girls were pretty shitty too. In fact they were assholes I tellya, I remember this this awful piece of human being bitch who told people I was gay because I wouldn't kiss her, 'cause I wasn't into her or whatever. That wouldn't happen now which is great, yeah girls are nicer now haha, the world's changed but I don't get it. I don't get it man," Rajesh said to Orbind.

"Ahh yeah, we're getting old," Orbind said clearing the ash off his joint into the tray between them.

"It's not just about the age still, probably we were gone in all these formative years we didn't see how it happened I'm thinking you know. Like you're used to seeing someone so you don't notice anything but you see someone after a long time and you notice, ohh you've lost a lot of weight, it's like that to me," he said.

"Sounds right. Sounds right," Orbind said, "So how are you again, we're seeing each other after how many, five, six years?"

"Yeah, six now. Shit man. We're old".

On Airports

Much electronic ink has been spilled over airports. I'm in terminal five to pick up TD, so more comments.

Air travel has evolved from what was once only for the ultra-wealthy to slightly more affordable to now being cheaper than the bus sometimes, particularly if you're going from Boston to Baltimore. While I was not around for 'back in the day', the way I've approaches air travel reflects that too. When younger, we put on the nice clothes, going to the airport and flying was an occasion. Now, it's becoming less and less of a thing, one could even see it as a glorified bus really. On several occasions I've just done my regular clothes (T-shirts and lose trousers) for long airflights and it's been fine. I want to test the limit of that -- how casually could you reasonably dress while doing the highest classes of flights? I wonder.

Speaking of airports, the Boston Logan airport has made taking Lyft/Uber on arrivals the worst...you need to change three elevators and escalators, walk to three different buildings and take a maze of passages to get to where you can get rideshares. Which is fine if they made the same rules for taxis. If rideshares are paying the same as taxies (which they are), why are they being discriminated against I wonder, particularly at airports. The fact that they make 'traffic worse' is such bullshit because that's what private cars do too and so do taxis. So I guess the aim is to make lives of people who don't have cars as hard as possible, is it? To encourage people to move into buying more cars because that's what is going to solve the traffic problem around the boston area. That seems to be the thinking anyway. People need to consider the concept of perverse incentives before they take ridiculously stupid decisions. That's all

Escapist fantasies

An escapist fantasy is one where you imagine running away from all your existing issues and problems and logistical nightmares into one that doesn't have any. It's not necessarily the ideal fantasy and may not be that different from your current reality, the only difference could be that your immediate problems are somehow wished away, poof! Ah what a world that'd be to live in!

Escapist fantasies are great, versus other outlandish fantasies, because they (can) mirror reality so much...so often it's not as much a fantasy as making future plans, or projecting yourself into the future, and identifying the changes you'll need to make to be in a certain situation. They don't even have to be problem free -- they can come with their own series of issues, but they're the problems you'd rather have than the ones you're facing currently. Too much money to count? Yes, please! Don't know where to spend all that money you have and it's stressing you out? I'd like to have a piece of that!

In any case, you have to remember to distinguish the fantasy from reality and identify what are the more achievable aspects of the fantasy. Otherwise it's losing yourself to illusions and it can be very easy to be addicted to sweet illusions.

The point I'm trying to make is, I often have fantasies of escape once a while, such as a couple of times a week lately. It'll be fine, and the 'problems' aren't really problems but communications issues and expectation setting tasks, but someone's gotta do them and I'm not going to be the one to do it.

Jackie Brown on Christmas Eve [Tuesday 24]

Got up at 8, started working at 9, cleaned up the house, cleaned up the room, threw the trash out did the work out, made the posts, forced myself to get shit in order. Had PB sandwich for lunch and made an elaborate roasted potatoes with eggs thing for dinner. Meant to go out for Christmas eve chill, ended up not doing that because watched Jackie Brown in the evening, with roommate AL.

And that's my day. No observations, no nothing. Read the Nanowrimo book that's reminding me to not be afraid of failure and mediocrity but embrace them, rather even go after them so a good inspiration as always, and I'm getting more and more encouragement from it to do a writing-month (50k words in 30 days) which I might do once I'm back from the holidays, but that's about it. The movie Jackie Brown is great, the dinner I had was great, I was feeling a little unsure and indecisive about next year's living situation, but that's for next year nothing for me to worry about right now.

I realize my posts have been getting shorter in the holidays but that's what you get when you don't have anywhere to go except the restroom kitchen and the living room and do nothing but watch tv eat and type. Life needs to be interesting to actually write about, things need to happen, when they don't nothing worth writing about in your journals. This is important to note though because some nothing days are different than others and it's important to identify a good nothing day from a bad one so the bad ones can be easily transformed into good ones.

Finally, and this had nothing to do with the daily journaling just random observations here and there, I've been feeling the need to make my life more involved and busy. This was a realization sometime last week when my days were getting empty but I've read about busy people getting disproportionately large number of things done because what's one more thing to a guy already doing like a hundred things anyway, but to someone who doesn't have much to do even one single task seems real big. Need to remember that...to keep myself busy on holidays and free days somehow, maybe by planning them so I can stay sharp and on my feet. Literally and figuratively.

On Jackie Brown

Watched Jackie Brown the movie my Quentin Tarantino this evening. It's a fiine movie, in some ways better than Pulp Fiction ever, which is also the only other Quarantino movie I've watched and think I can watch. Can't watch his more action-packed and violent ones, and Once Upon a Time is a bit too much.

The movie is repeatably watchable. The most important thing about it is, particularly in the era of Netlifx and rewatches, it can be your background movie after the first few watches and you can catch it up wherever it's at. It's not as imminently quotable as Pulp Fiction and the characters are not as out there but then who can compete with those, they're all in a universe of their own. No, Jackie Brown is about people's insecurities, and how they choose to deal with it and the fear of impending nothingness.

And that's what the movie is about in its entirety: a fear of impending nothingness. The weapons dealer needs his retirement money to escape, his surfer-girl girlfriend needs him (and his money) to avoid nothingness, his buddy needs a direction cause and a little money to escape nothingness, Jackie Brown needs money and a thrill, the Bond guy (the dad from Modern family) needs real stakes and perhaps some personal life, the cops need the weapons dealer, the Bond guy's assistant needs recognition ("I find people, that's my job," he says).

And that's it. I'll watch it many times in the coming years with near and dear ones. Four out of four stars.

Just another milestone post

Solidly on track to have this month's post-count be the second-most prolific in ALL YEARS except this. In other words, I'll be publishing more posts this months than I have published in any other year except one. In other, other words, if I keep this pace of publishing next year I'll have published more than 1500 posts, which would be greater than the sum total of all the posts I've ever published. Additionally, the total wordcount for this month itself is certainly more than that of every other year, another encouraging stat. Finally, if I maintain the current pace for next year, I will have written very close to a million words over the course of a year, and published a large percentage of that in this blog. That, by the way, is massive. There's only so much free-writing you can do before the characters and plots and stories and thoughts want to coalesce around common themes and topics. Which is another way of saying, sure I may not be getting very far ahead with the novel-writing but I ain't doing too bad in absolute terms bruh!

The meaning of true beauty [2]

Note: I'm actually kind of proud about the previous piece, felt quite honest and real yanno? Hope it's not like I'm playing stereotypes. Here we go again.

What is not to like, she was a rough and tough girl with brains but she was also beautiful like an angel, obviously he fell in love with her the instance she opened her mouth to talk to him for the first time. Hi, I'm Anya, she had said, it had taken his brain some time to process that message. His brain had been fried because of her charming looks he was surprised that an angel like her had even talked to him, so obviously he was not prepared to respond. After several eternities of awkward pause he smiled meekly, and said Oh hi, I'm a bit tired from all the office work, I'm Ashesh what's up in one single gulp. She had giggled a little, or that's what it seemed to him anyway, and said Are you okay, you don't sound well, and his stupid throat had decided to choke at that very moment. Five minutes of rib-aching coughing later, he recovered but she was gone by then, Anya the angel of his heart.

He should have known, she wasn't an angel of only his heart. There was this other man, just like him, even the same skin color and the geographical origin and everything so it wasn't even like she didn't prefer men who looked like him. He had met her the first time in the same party too and by the end of the night they were talking like old buddy-buddies and thank god he got called away by his friends and she had to leave when he was gone because he was worried he would ask her number and that would be the end of his love story. Fortunately the gods of love and fate and all the other gods who took interest in matters like these had interfered in his behalf. Just before she left, he forced to mutter 'Nice meeting Anya, hope to see you again," and she said Hopefully then you're feeling better and not dying, alright bye and then left. What did she mean by that, perhaps that was her way of saying that if he had been feeling healthy and not like a total and utter fool she would be interested in him? But not now. Because he was not in the best of his shape. Which was fair because if a cool smart talented knowledgeable female came up to him and started impressing him with all the cool facts and sharing interesting information of work life but suddenly started coughing like a tuberculosis patient and couldn't get words out of her mouth properly he too would be worried about her health situation and consider dating her only after he was a cent-percent sure there was nothing contaminating inside her. You had to be careful these days, with people meeting each other on tinder and what not like that openly, you never knew who was who so...Not that...not that Anya was worried he was a sickly bastard who probably had sex diseases but if she was indeed then it would be fine to because he was the kind of man she probably thought would attract a lot of single ladies, of all different tastes and races, so it was only natural of her to have made the assumption. Still, it sucked that it happened to him and not someone else. Like that other douchebag for example, what a wonderful life it would be if he was the one who talked to her and had the fun while the other man was the one suffering and unable to talk to her because of nervousness issues. Not that he himself was nervous mind you, just that it'd have been fine if other people had been.

The meaning of true beauty

It's easy to be cool, you just wear a baseball cap backwards, expensive shoes, trendy t-shirt and some jewelry or whatever. He didn't care about being cool, why did people even think it was such a big deal. If you have enough money you can always buy yourself enough accessories to be cool, and you don't even need to know anyone cool. Google 'cool clothes' or 'how to be cool' buy those items from the list, and there you go, where is the inspiration, where is the creativity? It was all bullshit, he was not buying it.

What really bothered him was people seemed to be carried by this sort of nonsense and now he was having to compete with that crap. People needed to understand what was real and what was not, what was real and what was bought but no people just went after the coolest most trendiest crap they'd find and then suffered later because they'd look at their pictures become embarrassed and felt sorry for how they had missed out on the real gems by going with the phonies. He wouldn't give them even a look back, those phonies he would pretend as if nothing had happened but he would remember each and every memory of it and treat them to the same experience they had treated him.

What was so cool about that guy even? Talk all fancy in American accent, do hifi things, drive a car tell the barber to cut your hair like this or not even that he must have told the barber to just cut whatever hair, buy some expensive crap and that was it. Nothing more, like an empty but fancy vessel, if you tapped on him he would probably echo that's how empty that guy was. To be a good person you need to have some kind of substance and content from the inside, and it was hard for people to appreciate that because you can't show it in your face you can't put a sticker of it and tell people ohh look at me I'm a good person I am so-and-so I'm doing this job and I'm making good money but also I'm a good person and I really like  you no, you couldn't do that. But that guy, he could foolishly all his money in stupid things like expensive branded jackets and what not and all the girls would be after him. What  a scam.

He thought she wasn't like other girls that's what he originally thought but now he was having to reevaluate his opinion and perhaps even feelings about her, if she cannot identify a scammy guy from an authentic real guy who likes her maybe there are other faults in her that he hadn't considered because he was blinded by her beauty and other good characteristics of her. She had a face like that of a flower, voice like that of a songbird, hair like a natural waterfall she was not like one of those girls who would cover up their face in layers and layers of makeup and other things and their face looked different from what they looked really which is like false advertising, no she was a natural beauty and she was kind in the way she talked to him and listened to him and she had a way about her, the way she laughed and smiled that totally took your heart away. But! Bad judgment. In a partner what he looked for first and the foremost is the judgment. They can be the most attractive female in the world maybe even miss Universe or Miss India or whatever but if she had a bad judgment she wouldn't be a good partner because you would have to be responsible for her decision. Now he was wondering if she was even qualified to be his partner, perhaps he should put her through some type of informal test to make sure her judgment capabilities were tip-top in shape and only after that should he try to woo her, away from that crazy worthless talentless monster who would probably mistreat her except he was probably too lazy and not strong enough to do that, what a crap kind of person that man.

Okay day [Monday 23]

Got up at 8-ish, despite having gone to bed at 2.30, generally in ok-ish mood throughout. More productive writing but realization that serious novel writing is harder than it seems. Needs more planning and commitment. Went to wegmans got some groceries, got popcorn chips and zero-cal soda for dinner, youtubed and newsed around, quite tired and confused really, I'm all set to call it a day. It's one of the more ok-ish days I've had in a while, need to fix a tonne of things in the apartment and it's way wayyy too overwhelming for me. Unclear if it's related to not sleeping enough, we'll figure it out later.

Need to work out and clean up and then ready to call it a night. Skipping writing a letter because not feeling it this evening.

Writing a column for the papers

The name of the column would be Tall tales from faraway, written weekly and it would cover a new aspect of living outside Nepal and how it relates to the Nepali experience. Some ethnography maybe, some advice, little bit of journalism  but mostly a personal take on cultural issues. At submission time it would go up to 12-1600 words, written at the rate of 300 words a day, worked on every morning before leaving for work. Weekends would be when I'd edit the column and plan out the next one, to be written over the course of the week.

I should start working on that, it would at least get me more practice on writing serialized pieces.

Writing a novel is hard -- obvious realizations coming in late

Here's the gist of it straight: the rules I set up for myself are great and force me to be super duper disciplined and actually the perfect template to start writing a novel, at this point anyway. The problem is, I'm not yet, not a hundred percent ready to commit to full-time novel-writing in my free time. Allow me to explain.

I've been doing freewriting in small broken-up timeslots all the time. A post or two in the morning, a post or two in the commute, a post or two just when I'm hanging out. Whenever there's an interesting observation, a snippet or two expanded into a post. Etcetera. You know short low-commitment pieces that don't need a large chunk of time.

Additionally, outside of writing pieces that generally tend to follow one another or are generally based in the same universe or storyline, there hasn't been any real effort to string pieces together really. What a novel needs is a bunch of connected passages that are connected to each other not just thematically but also emotionally. The recommended 'gap' in writing a novel is a couple of days between chapters/scenes. Writers have gone for years without touching a novel before coming back to finish it but when they are back they really do write it in one lump part and not say five lines at a time. It's hard because you need to be in the same headspace as your characters in their universe and once you let your real life get the hold of you, the imaginary universes begin losing their grip.

So here's what we need: I should set aside at least an hour, preferably two hours every day to do nothing but mostly write on the same topic. Not just that, the same topic across different days. As in, I need to be working on a single piece of writing every day for at least a couple of weeks for it to go anywhere. Not different parts of different novels everyday for 2 hours each. And then I can get anywhere near the 'nanowrimo' achievement.


I'm not there yet. I only started writing regularly three months ago and this might be the test that breaks my back. Additionally every time I write something I pretty much always start from scratch...only on rare occasions do I refer to an earlier post to create connections to it, which is the diametric opposite attitude a novel-writer should have. I should be in the same novel 'mindzone' every day after work with a fire of writerly flame burning bright in my heart moving my fingers and hands getting those words out to the screen. That needs more commitment and discipline I currently have. It's all about practice actually, and to frame it in that context my practice as of right now has only been writing pieces from scratch with nothing to influence them. That's what I'm going to do...write pieces that are at least somewhat related to some piece (or pieces) I've written in the past, whether that be in the same universe, a callout or a meta wink at the readers.

That's all I'm going to say for right now. Maybe I'll lowkey keep working on the novel but my primary approach is still going to be get the words, get something legible or readable and hopefully something people are not embarrassed to receive or read. That's it. So this is a 'forgival' post to myself letting myself know that it's not extremely urgent to start on various novel(s) as long as I know what I'm doing and what the right time would be.

Planned novel summaries -- Part II

The shiva series:

Shiva gives responsibility-free life in the West a try, unsuccessfully

After millions of years of living in the East, in the Himalayas, Shiva, the destroyer of the worlds, the wearer of the Ganga, the fierce one, the braided one, decides to change things a bit by living in Northern Maine. In his human form as an ageless college student, he hints at his true identity to those close to him, undermining the legitimacy of his experience. His Gana comes in searching for him, seeking his assistance in saving the Universe from major catastrophe as he tries to avoid all matters cosmic and appreciate a true unadulterated modern human experience for the first time. He has to chose either directly interfering in human matters breaking his age-old rule, or let the people he spent many enjoyable years to suffer through a terrible calamity, while fighting the fores that threaten to undermine the inner workings of cosmic operation and the very existence of eternal beings. He must do it all, and make it on time for the Division III basketball team practice.

Appointments and Disappointments:

A Kathmandu girl discovers the city, and herself, in her gap year.

UNNAMED_CHARACTER(UC) gets a guy friend, a nice blue bong, goes on solo adventures and discovers what it means to be by yourself for the first time. On a (her first) hiking trip she gets trapped (between two massive deadly landslides) in the mountains (two) days before a final exam paper, a miss that could waste a year. She goes through rough times when she discovers all her friends will be going abroad, and she might not be able to. After her encouraging supervisor at work quits to join a competitor, her job is threatened (later the replacement banishes her to writing numbing press-release coverage). She gets dragged into a celebrity affair as the first one to (unwittingly) bring it into public notice. Her (first) attempt to have sex with her partner ends up in frustration and embarrassment. Everyone is sad gloomy depressed for weeks preceding their departure to foreign lands for college, plans are made --unconvincingly-- to meet up in the breaks.

Hiranya story:

A rag-tag group of friends survives yet another challenging year in their boarding school

I've already plotted the crap out of this one, don't want to summarize this because honestly I've been doing this for far too long today and it's not fun anymore. I've got the plot, just need to summarize it here.

Palpasa story:

A man reconstructs his friend's final few weeks to identify her assassin

 

A friend of Palpasa reminisces about Palpasa's final days as she went into the territory of the rebels fighting against the single-party communist regime. He decides to follow her trail with sufficient firepower, identify her murders and bring them to justice. He discovers that the various lose threads don't amount to a proper story, that the narrative of her and her artist boyfriend's death is complete fabrication. After surviving close encounters with armed groups on both sides, he meets the only man who can give him the full story, the way it really happened. He goes through a crisis of faith after the conversation, deciding to abandon his quest and go back to his day job. The reader is left to evaluate his decision, against the evidence available.

Two of a kind:

A young Kathmandu reporter has to live with an exact clone of himself

 

Honestly this is not really well-formed and I only wrote a couple of thousand words on it that went nowhere and now we already have Living with yourself Netflix series that plays with 100% the same context much better than I could ever have so I'm holding this off until I come up with some legitimately good idea to carry it.

Link to part 1:
https://yuppyuppyupp.blogspot.com/2019/12/planned-novel-summaries-part-i.html

Link to the summaries here:
https://yuppyuppyupp.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-bunch-of-one-sentence-summaries-for.html

Planning document:
https://yuppyuppyupp.blogspot.com/2019/12/playing-around-with-snowflake-method-of.html

Planned novel summaries - Part I

The Khyaak story:
An innocent Kathmandu boy is forced into crime by a mythical creature from Newari folklore

A mystical creature mentioned in Newari tales appears to a Newar boy and promises him great power and longevity. In return it asks from him a completion of a series of important 'jobs'. After originally agreeing, and backing down later after realizing the full implications of the commitment, the boy Haka is threatened and coaxed by the Khyaak into servitude. Haka goes on a rampage of low-key murder and sabotage under the Khyaak's guidance. His mental health deteriorates, relationship with his friend and crush dissipates, and he considers taking his own life. Haka finds peace, a way to live despite himself -- by convincing himself that his actions are justifiable.

The Raul Story:

A U.S returnee encounters unexpected challenges as he tries his hand in Nepali politics

Back in Kathmandu after spending 18 years in the U.S, Raul finds himself lost and confused in the city he never knew, with no friends connection or direction. After a particularly bad breakup he finds himself at an interesting party, joins a political party and he aspires to become an honest, credible politician, leveraging his Wall Street experience to clean up Nepali politics. He is betrayed before elections by his Party despite serving with loyalty dedication and commitment. When he makes it through, his opponents use underhanded tactics to undermine his credibility, and hit him hard by attacking him personally in the media. He suffers a big setback at a personal level when his life savings that he counted on to keep him honest are destroyed in a natural calamity. His personal life is upturned as he turns into the very political creature that he promised to vanquish.

The Imps story:

Indra's realm faces existential crisis and the 'fixers' are unwilling to help

 

The planets have aligned against Indra and his court at Swarga, and this time not even the quarternity can save him. Indra discovers his courtiers are planning a coup against one of the senior Gods of the court whom he also disagrees with, but cannot let his own authority be undermined. There is a rebellion fomenting in the palace against the Gods, this time by the nymphs, dryads and other service persons who want greater celestial abilities and better representation in the Palace. Meanwhile, the heavenly Imps who maintain and create the rules of the Universe have discovered fundamental flaws in the systems managing the Gods' celestial powers but are too afraid to report in fear of retribution -- they must try to fix the system before anyone else notices. Indra must manage the several confounding several issues at once, but the biggest force he has to fight is his own ego: will he seek help from those he fears and despises, or will the court of Swarga succumb under internal pressures?

The demons story:

The demons are sick of Indra and this time they are on to something

 

After millions of years of fighting each other all demonic races unite under a charismatic leader to fight against the yoke of Indra and the hegemony of the Palace of Swarga. The demons are betrayed by spies within and are caught off-guard by a surprise pre-emptive strike by Indra's goons. After spending years recovering and making allies with the humans in the Earthly realm, heavily preparing and arming for the final battle to end all battles, they discover that the luster of Swarga is only in appearance and it's crumbling from within. Instead of coming off a great war as glorious victors as they hoped to, the demons fear they must now uphold a cosmic order that they are unable to lead and ill-prepared to deal with. They must re-purpose their weapons of war and co-operate with their eternal nemeses to stop the existing order from devolving into chaos while influencing the new cosmic order they hoped establish.

Link to the summaries here:
https://yuppyuppyupp.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-bunch-of-one-sentence-summaries-for.html

Planning document:
https://yuppyuppyupp.blogspot.com/2019/12/playing-around-with-snowflake-method-of.html

Productive writing day, Chinatown trip finally [Sunday 22]

It's 11.45 PM, finished doing 60 pushups and writing a letter. Need to washup and do the remaining 30 and I'm done for the day.

After getting home from Chinatown at 8.15, made dinner (steamed broccoli with seasame oil soy sauce sriracha cheese probably other things too), had dinner, talked to roommate AL, wrote a bunch decompressed a bunch texts with a couple of different people who keep on changing plans all the time, read a bit of the book by the guy who invented NaNoWrimo and the philosophy behind it worked out and here I am now. If I could speed up my letter writing process (it's lengthy because it's handwritten), I can definitely get my evening schedule down to an hour giving me a lot more time to do writing and socializing.

Left for Chinatown at 4.30 about, took the 101 to Sullivan got off the Orange Line at DTX, went in to Primark for something I needed, went to H&M in Back Bay where I actually found what I needed, walked all the way back to Chinatown from there got a solid supply of veggies fruits and desserts from my favorite Chinatown grocery store, walked all the way to DTX, took the Red line to Davis where I got off too hungry to think clearly so went to the 7-11 and got the only edible vegetarian item on their menu which also inspired me to write about it, and walked home. Such a productive day.

The rest of the day was productive too but in a slightly different sense of the word. Spent the first part of the day (until 12) in bed lazing around and getting ready for the day since we'd planned to go on a hike this afternoon. SBK and co cancelled the plans so I took my sweet time eating breakfast -- blueberries with sugar, crushed, so good, with egg and goat cheese in a sourdough roll. I will say this, blueberries are massively massively overrated and outside their cultural traditional history in American cuisine during the holiday season when they merely become a vehicle for people to load up on sugars and using the berries to justify it as being healthy there's literally absolutely no reason for these tasteless pointless honestly not even well-textured to be eaten ever.

Between 1 and 4 spent time cleaning up a the house a bit and doing a bunch of research on writing templates, writing strategies, and just writing generally. It was a quite productive day in that sense, I'm not running behind schedule in any way.

Review: The 7-11 cheese pizza slice

One wonders why the corporate suits at 7-11 decided to sell pizza pies and slices at selected outlets (those with ovens). 7-11's have more in common with a rest stop outlet far from anything whose restroom you absolutely need to use so  you'll just buy whatever random bullshit they have in there for cheap maybe a drink or maybe a coffeee aahh they have chips too can't ever go wrong with a chip and so on and on, than say a Domino's pizza. So why the pizza?

Perhaps they're trying to replicate their own success in East Asia and more particularly Japan where they sell high-quality prepared food at extremely reasonable price, with amenities to warm up the food right inside the stores and area to sit down as you enjoy your all-7/11 food. Pizza's a good place to start if that's the plan.

I searched for a review of their individual pizza slices on the internet, and all I got was posts from 7 years ago when they first released it. The price was apparently originally at $1, $5.55 for a pie which is a goddamn fine deal since you can barely find frozen pizza at that price point.

I went to the 7-11 at Davis Square, the price of a pizza pie was $8, $1.70 for a slice including taxes. That's not the worst, but considering you can get a large 2-topping pizza pie of your choice for the same price at Domino's which, if I may say so, does know how to make fresh pizza.

But you can see the thought behind the single slices. You get out of the train station tired from a full day's worth of hard work, and a little weak and hungry because lunch will only take you so far and in your attempt at cutting back on the carb you've severely limited your lunch intake. As you walk out of the station you have two options, you either get a solid meal to fill yourself up, or you get some fast food to keep you standing till you can get home and whip something. Everything is fast food these days, you want a small serving with limited calories just enough to last maybe an hour or so. Would you rather get a McDonald's burger with all its saltiness or fries or whatever, or would you rather get a medium slice of plain cheese pizza for the same price, who's nutritional content you're well aware of. You know exactly what's in it, you don't fear the mysterious goop.

And that's about the situation I was in. After a long grocery trip it was a choice between spending 12 bucks for a full meal, or spending considerably less on something, anything really to fill myself up enough to last the walk home. There were two options: cheese or pepperoni, meat was not an option so I got the default choice. The cheese pizza was the only vegetarian option available at the cooked-food section (if you can call it that) there. I ordered a slice not realizing there was a slice under the infrared lamp already. The cashier packed it up and handed it to me.

Now onto the actual review. This was by far not the worst pizza I've paid money for. In fact I've paid a lot more for a lot less at sit-down places. No this is not the best pizza I've had and it doesn't remotely compare with the Domino's large pizza with 2 topings which you can get for the same price point of the pie. Still quite good though. The crust was a little crumbly and slightly more chewy than I'd have liked, a little cookie-like texture if you will but it tasted fine. The cheese topping was quite good and had me considering getting a second slice. As far as reheated pizzas go, and apparently all the chain restaurants are mostly reheating their pizzas, you'd be hard-pressed to find one better at this price point at locations convenient as 7-11's. For what it is, it's a great deal.

Yes, it was sad pitiful even that I ate a single slice of 7-11 cheese pizza in the cold standing on the sidewalk as a group of college freshmen girls jumped around and giggled. They weren't making fun of me strictly but might as well have been. I had a damn good time though and I'd do it again. And that should tell you all you need to know.

A bunch of one-sentence summaries for works in progress

The Khyaak story: An innocent Kathmandu boy is forced into crime by a mythical creature from Newari folklore

The Raul Story: A U.S returnee encounters unexpected challenges as he tries his hand in Nepali politics

The Imps story: Indra's realm faces existential crisis and the 'fixers' are unwilling to help

The demons story: The demons are sick of Indra and this time they are on to something

The shiva series: Shiva gives responsibility-free life in the West a try, unsuccessfully

Appointments and Disappointments: A Kathmandu girl discovers the city, and herself, in her gap year.

Hiranya story: A rag-tag group of friends survives yet another challenging year in their boarding school

Palpasa story: A man reconstructs his friend's final few weeks to identify her assassin

Two of a kind: A young Kathmandu reporter has to live with an exact clone of himself

Playing around with the snowflake method of writing

I wrote in the previous post about how I'm moving up from freewriting into planned writing, themed writing etcetera where every post will generally have a purpose behind it [Unless I'm feeling crappy in which case more freewriting!]. And freewriting's not going away I'm just adapting the lessons I'll be learning to try to learn more advanced writing techniques. It's all about the technique and write now I've learned to float in the water barely. If the deep end is too scary there's always the float in the shallow end that's my place of comfort that I can come back to.

In any case, there's this technique called The Snowflake Method where you start with a single sentence summary of what you're going to write, and describe every part of it, and you keep on expanding every individual bit of it, and each individual bit further, create characters and characters out of characters etcetera until you have a complex fractal piece of work that began with one seed but now exists in a well-defined universe of its own. It' a pretty top-down approach meaning you first plan everything out and then start writing. Your characters and events can influence the story obviously but that happens after the fact, not as you write. This gives you the safety blanket of knowing where your story is going and what's happening next even if you don't know how you're getting there. You know it's all going to turn out well (for you, not necessarily for your characters hon hon hon). That seems comforting to me at this point anyway when it's unclear if I even have it in me to write an entire novel yet.

So here's the pointers. A checklist of the snowflake method is here. A detailed description of each step and how to execute is here. And here is a good list of writing templates like the snowflake method to get me started writing more easily. This is not going to be easy but it's going to be fun!

As long as I'm here, I should remind you that this is not going to be the only focused writing I'll be doing. Fable-writing (or some form of that) seems to be fun, short-stories would definitely be fun if I could write a proper beginning-middle-end with some substance. And there's so many other potential formats to try at. But no matter what I write or which technique I write, I'll be mindful about what exactly I'm doing and why I'm doing that at any point. That'll inform the direction the piece will take instead of the general rambling and meandering that's currently happening. Ohh dear the beer bees and the honey piece from yesterday I was so desperate. Great at getting something written down on the train when I was feeling tired and dizzy, crap at being about anything actually entertaining or informing.