Out of the fear of what might be happening here in the US after the election, in January, next year, in two years, in four years, and all the time from now on, I'm looking into relocating or at least considering my options. So I've applied to a couple of jobs in other countries in case they work out and I'm in need of a quick exit. Also looking at other places to work at inside the country because since I'm applying anyway why not. It doesn't matter I love my current workplace, and I'm unlikely to be considered a serious candidates in those jobs anyway. But it never hurts to try. Better than playing the lottery anyway.
I'm writing this to stuff my post count, I'm so desperate and sad at my upproductiveness but also a little concerned, which is related to this topic because it's the same concern that's making me consider options all over the world. Things are going to be fine, hopefully, like they always do, and in case they don't I'll have backup options at least.
Which reminds me, just like I did the days weeks and years following the 2016 elections, I need to completely disassociate myself from whatever the heck is happening out in the world, not care and just go about my life because me losing sleep and stressing about all of it excessively is helping nobody and only giving me scares and bad health things. Also making me unproductive writing wise. Gone are the chances of me finally freaking finally doing NaNoWriMo because you need a semblance of sanity and not much happening to accomplish that and at times like these, it's really really really hard. How do you even concentrate.
Besides, I still haven't finished my homework for the potential novels though with a few works I'm getting close. I'm getting close and it's exciting, a little turn on, because a crappy piece of shit novel that nobody reads but can be described as a 'novel' with some kind of coherent theme, encompassing certain events that somebody might care about, a cast of characters and at least some narrative would be an incredible achievement at this age for somebody like me. I could expand that later and edit it to be actually readable. The election has messed up all those plans though, maybe I should get a job in a safer, saner country just for the sake of my novels if nothing else.
New Places New People
Quick review of the new food trends I've gotten into
I write this not with passion but with a sense of urgency, I'm already backdating these posts by a day because I couldn't get them all out within the month. And now I have two more posts to go, it's already 11.10 of the next day, so there's layered urgency. I've not written anything for today, but also the last month's average is not where it should have been. This is a number-fudging post.
I want to talk about a couple of new youtube channels I follow and how I've been inspired by them.
The two I'll talk about here are both cooking related.
The first one is the channel of the popular restaurateur, cook, food writer and celebrity chef of sorts J Kenji Lopez-Alt, last-name double-barrelled because he took part of his wife's family name. He's a cool guy, takes the scientific and fact-based approach to cooking and I'd heard of him here at there, heard of his book, checked out his articles on the food lab which I think is on seriouseats. He's also in a few podcasts. But I wasn't intimately aware of his passion. In these covid times, he's become more active in his youtube channel and does weekly or biweekly cooking from kitchen. We get to see how he works in his home kitchen, the utensils and the tools he uses and his methods. It's such a revelation, the small things he does. And his PoV is great too, it doesn't look like it's overproduced. Makes me want to learn more about cooking techniques and try interesting new recipes. Unfortunately not a lot of them have been without meat so I'm still waiting for the recipe to fit my culinary requirements.
The other channel I've grown to love is called Chinese Cooking Demystified. It's hosted by a white dude who lives in China with his Chinese family and his wife, they show us the Chinese approach to cooking, utensils and philosophy in general. For example, in western cooking, even cooking on even utensil is important, but in Chinese cooking the wok's heat is supposed to be concentrated at one point, and you move your ingredients around to scorch them. Each has its pro and con but you can see how the existing culinary hegemony doesn't need to me how things need to be by definition. Was introduced to the channel because I follow Kenji, and now Kenji's featured them in his channel too.
I don't know if I'm actually going to follow their recipes but so many foods that I thought beyond my reach are quite approachable and don't even need weird ingredients, unless you consider star anise to be strange. And the desserts, the milk ones, the custards, all of them so yum.
Also got to learn a little bit about modern Chinese fusion cuisine history, how there's so many different items that are sinofied versions of western food and how those twice-transformed foods are now making their way back into the west. So originally western food that China made its own is now coming to the west as authentic part of chinese cuisine and now doubt it'll be modified using modern trends again and then sent back to china again and come again and again and again. That's how cultures work that's how knowledge transmits. Fuck the concept of culinary appropriation.
Game over in Kathmandu and pretty much Nepal at this point
Three months from now, Nepal will have had 50,000 deaths related to COVID though the government numbers will be much much lower. At this point, the numbers that the government has publicized and the books maintained by the army, which is doing death management for the time being, have different by significant amount already. Deaths in Kathmandu are increasing. Deaths outside the valley are increasing. People I know have gotten very very sick, some of them have passed away. Faraway relatives and family friends, but people we know. Who have been affected by this.
The government has given up on it, completely entirely, its focused on literally everything else but the mtherfking disease that all the serious nations are freaking out about, and is killing the elderly and severely weakening the rest. This is a massive massive failure with zero justification but nobody cares. Nobody. Fucking. Cares. I don't like using harsh words but what a fisaco a fucking shit fiasco. If anyone you know is dead in kathmandu because of the disease, it is the government's fault they had half-a-year of preparation time in which they did nothing and then rolled back all the controls just as the disease got out of control. I've said it before but let me re-iterate here: it's game over, hundreds of thousands are going to die, people will just shrug off and move on. The expectations are so fucking low, the political social structures are so corrupt lolnothingmatters, literally nothing matters.
I mean the orange blowhard goon turd is breaking all civility and now legal rules even the goons in Nepal wouldn't say the dumfuckingshits he blathers out of his severely handicapped mouth. But at least, until this point, he is an aberration a strange phenomena that people know should be rejected. We're comparing a third-world country and the U.S, and the U.S comes off a little behind but we think and know and hope this is an aberration and the other guy will do better things. Not there in Nepal. Shitheads are common, encouraged, part of the game, etcetera. The system is dysfunctional.
So I've come to this real real realization, things are very very bad here in the US, that I really should think of escaping but they're still and this is such a ridiculous place to be in, still so much better than they are in Kathmandu, in Nepal. I really wish they had one fucking thing going on for them that one could be proud and say, 'you know what everything sucks but at least they controlled the disease all this time unlike the western countries so proud of that', like they've done in South East Asia and Oceania. But no, I can't. Because things matter, institutions matter, what people say matters.
Such disappointment. I've written about this a dozen times by now, I write this as I get news of more infections and more deaths, not in my near and dear ones my family and friends are all safe, but people know and generally care about. This is awful, this is a fiasco and despite nepal being a poor under-resourced country it didn't have to be this way. It really really didn't. Yet, here we are. What to do. We're so fucked.
And I write this as my head hurts unbearably, haven't had proper sleep in the last few days because the possibility of the election results and the situation after have kept me awake. And this place is _still_ better, alas.
Places to move to if this election doesn't go the way we really really hope it will -- Part II
1. Non-Germany Mainland Europe. They're like Germany but with fewer job prospects, lesser pay, not that much cheaper, and nothing else happening. Also there's no job and they're not really into letting others in considering they don't have jobs for themselves, so this would be an outlandishly bad move, but who knows if you get a great job and a nice house, this could work. Just don't antagonize the French with your strong American accent and refusal to event attempt to speak French. Of course they all speak English, they're just testing you, don't play their game.
2. Scandinavian countries. Not great pay. Taxes that are pretty high. Awful awful weather. People aren't very friendly. You're not going to make a great community likely because people like chilling by themselves. And if the U.S were better with social protection and chill lifestyle they'd want to move. But they're happy with their great healthcare and social security and all the other services. Nothing is too competitive unless you want it to be, and things aren't happening. Also, try avoiding the skinheads and join one of the metal bands because that's how everyone makes friends there. I dunno, there's not many people that I know who live in that part of the world, but it should be in your evaluation.
3. Singapore. Wish I'd put this higher, but forgot. Eh, whatever. The best way to be in Singapore is as an employee for a multinational company transferred there. That way you get the wages of the better-off country, while getting to live like a Singaporean. Specially if you're young and Single it's an incredible place to be, props if you've got all that dough rolling in. It's not a great place to live forever if you you are a off-the-beaten-path person, but if you like order and rules and want somebody else to have decided the course of your life, this should be in number one. On the other hand if you end up working for a local Singaporean company the pay is shit, it's a struggle to get residency and citizenship is impossible and even if you're a 'look-straight-ahead' kinda' person, good luck being able to afford housing or making long-term life commitments. For a couple of years though this place would rule.
4. South East Asian Capitals. This includes capitals but could also be one of those better-off cities. Think Bangkok, Manilla, Hong Kong, Taipei, Jakarta, and the rest. They're cheap, and if you can score a good job there, they're amazing places to be. On the downside, unless you marry someone from the place, it's still not a long-term plan because getting residency and citizenship could be tough. But then with all the savings you'll be squirreling away you could probably even buy one of the more desperate well-off countries' citizenship later in life. Or if you're thus inclined, just settle there, close from home and with the potential for much greater growth since Chinese growth has slowed down this and Africa is where the world will be looking at.
5. The richer South American countries. It is ideal if you speak Spanish, but even if you don't, and you're a hustler who could score a well-paid job, this would be a cool move. The one downside would be that if the place is not guaranteed political stability, you could have to make a potential move again in the next few decades, so choose wisely.
Places to move to if this election doesn't go the way we really really hope it will -- Part I
l. New Zealand. The weather is great, the government is alright, the people are friendly and there are some jobs, it's away from everything else in the world so no need to worry about a serious global war or some sort of serious crisis with other nations influencing your life in a super duper negative way. It's not as racist as Australia, or technologically outdated, and it's not Canada cold. Plus, there's not too many Nepalis there but also enough so you don't feel like you're the lone person in the whole wide world.
2. Canada. The weather sucks. There are no jobs there. There aren't too many people in there either. THe politics is good, except those damn fools won't allow the cities to build tall houses so housing is absurdly expensive unless you want to live in the boonies. And the pay is not that great. At the same time the expenses are as high as any expensive American city. So if you're in my field of work you're looking at a fifty percent reduction in pay for maybe a ten percent reduction in expenses. I mean it's a more peaceful place for now anyway, but...that's about it. It's so so so very cold, and the summer last barely three months. Not much to do besides...idk hunt moose I guess. The one thing they do have going for them is that Hollywood has been moving there, so if you're in the entertainment business, things are gonna be lookin' good.
3. Australia. If only your previous options fail. One one had alright job opportunities and alright pay. On the other hand, expensive housing, so many goddamn Nepalis, too many, lots of family there, and their government is backward-ass in many many many ways they clearly don't want to live in the twenty-first century, Australia would be a great country to move in right now if it was the 1940's, unfortunately it's not. However, if things get real real bad and uhh one's neck is on the line, they do have a lot lot lot of land, so you could get a couple of hundred maybe couple of thousand people in there and be self sufficient until the world ends and it'd be fine.
4. Germany. Yeah Germany's not bad. The only thing you have to worry about is, have they really changed or do they still have uhhh cultural...memory...and desires and if they'll do anything about those, because you do not want to be there in those times. And you need to learn the language unless you want to be in Berlin where apparently there's not too many jobs. But the crisis is really testing them and their 'values' so you have to evaluate if you really want to be somewhere that's evaluating where they lie on the immigrant acceptance spectrum.
5. UK. This is a curveball. I don't know anything about it except the fact that Brexit was a clear vote against immigration, against brown people, against people going in there. If, despite knowing all of that, they somehow manage to pull you in and you have a nice large house in a great neighborhoood, maybe you can even get an estate in rural areas it might be something worth considering. They've got hella lotta class issues so you could fit right in! Obviously the local food is crap, but this is also where the modern Indian cuisine was invented, so they've got that going for them.
I can't write, too many things are happening, I can't can't can't
As you know from me complaining and fearing and fearmongering and complaining and being afraid of and scaredwriting for a thousand times now there's a lot of anxiety about what could happen in the next three days and then the next three months and then the next five years etcetera. They say America is not that mature of a democracy, it is after all only a 55-yearold multiracial democracy and barely a hundred year old gender-neutral democracy meaning it was stupid stupid stupid to assume the stability but when things were working and no psychopath made a rush for power nobody imagined things going south so quick and here we are complaining complaining complaining, the real question is are we fucked or is there a chance etcetera.
It's not just about the green card, or about living here and working here, it's about, should you need to worry about your neighbors shooting you up, should you worry about armed militia in the mountains committing genocide and great acts of violence while the arms of government the fucking fools given the arms who are supposed to protect the citizen stand by and watch and actually support them. It has happened in the past, it is happening in the rural areas and it's not unlikely it'll happen again, at a larger organized grand scale. If that is the direction where things are going, the question is what do we do, when is the right time to escape.
There are too many way way wayy too many concerns to be worried about, I applied to a job in New zealand because that seems reasonable times are tough and scary and I don't want to put myself or my near and dear ones in danger or fear of danger and the way things are going, this country is clearly not for us, and they're feeling more confident and open about coming out of their villages and suppressed racist minds and putting it all out in the open, maybe things will change in four years maybe they won't do you really want to worry every two years what could be happening next and if you need to completely relocate yourself. Would you rather compromise and make less money in exchange of peace of mind and guarantee of a chill life or would you rather live a convenient monied life but in fear of physical harm or attacks, and unimaginable instability.
People ask me, am I a political person, they haven't asked me too much, somebody asked me the other day there were too many things happening at the time for me to respond and the answer is, I'm a smart enough person to realize when me and my loved ones are in imminent danger of harm and to make an escape. This is the time to escape, if things go south. All options must be considered seriously, as I've said over and over again.
If you're reading this and you're in America, evaluate your backup plans, all of them seriously, and work towards executing them because anything can happen. And it's not some kind of joke or metaphor or fable, it is quite literal...with how unpredictable dangerous violent this fucking place has the potential to get, there is literally nothing these people won't do, so consider with a chill head how much you value peace prosperity and safety of your loved ones and consider accordingly. Not just that, just basic fucking human rights. Even if you thrive do amazing, do you really want to be profiteering from great unjust evil acts?
The escape from kathmandu situation
Writer's note: same disclaimer as the previous post. This is going to be wild, and that's fine. I need to get them words, the post count and do something funteresting.
As I was saying in the very late call last night actually this morning well well into the day almost even was that the story is about something and we never find out what exactly it is, that happens in Kathmandu, in Nepal in general, I've proposed a couple of things that happen explicitly that could be the part of the same universe but not necessary so maybe they're two different stories need to think more about that, anyway the idea is that we don't know what's happening in Nepal because the country's shut down the phone lines are dead the internet is down media has been pushed out basically someone has forcefully taken control of the state cut all contact with the outside world and its all gone dark nobody knows who or what is doing this and why and everyone, at least in our story, is unsure about why the other countries are acting the way they are, we see the story from the various points of view of individuals that had sufficient time to escape or happened to be outside the country by chance and were stuck because the borders were sealed before they could be let in, so they're fomenting rebellion, they're living their difficult lives starting from scratch they're hypothesizing they're so desperate and lost their roots have been forcefully torn apart from them, we see this not from the elite very rich upper class folks though we do see that too and observe how wealth and power can insulate you from serious repercussions and the middle class some of them revolutionaries and the young ones were were caught in the crossfire so to speak but also from laborers, hundreds and thousands of them, in Northern and Western India who go home for a few months a year who can't ever go back and it's about what that means for their lives, can they remarry what about their families, what are their children doing their partners, is it okay to cheat if you don't know if you'll ever meet them again, there's desperation and sadness but also some relief, guilt that follows the relief etcetera because they prefer living as a refugee in India with the ration cards and cities and resources than going back in their mountain villages to people they don't spend that much time with anyway and so much tradition and oppression they don't want to be a part of the vicious cycle anymore and feel they don't have a choice if they're back so on one hand there's a reasonable attempt to form an armed response and on the other uncaring agnosticism and even support for whatever may be happening, you know what Nepal always needed a dictator and this is what they got finally and while I'm glad I'm not in there right now because it wouldn't jive with the lifestyle I want it's probably not too bad whatever may be going in there like North Korea, look at them sure they're closed but they have nuclear weapons and missiles and they can bully the strongest nations on earth imagine what would happen if Nepal took the same part china and india could never bully us again, but like the plot has to be going somewhere, people have to be 'congregating' about a cause and we need some news to leak out of nepal, even if they're contradictory maybe nonsensical it can be justified by saying maybe those leaks were planned by the government who appears to have absolute control of everything something which was considered impossible due to the geography, but they're all rumors and heresies and really it's a wild world out there, the novel ends with something big, something remarkable unclear if it's good or bad but our characters' reaction to it are going to be ambivalent and maybe a little afraid and we're setting stage for the next novel when literally anything could happen, also I don't need to ground myself in reality I should go all-in with gods and aliens and other wild science fictiony plots if that's what seems the most feasible thing.
They sleep tight
Writers note: for the last many months I've restrained from doing totally random bazooinks writing here, for good reason since I'm not learning anything or exploring new patterns. It's generally writing for writing's sake with those pieces. I do that at my other super secret journal. Now there's pressure to reach this month's quota and other ways I can't think of getting there, so live with this one bub. This is totally random out of my butt stuff that I shouldn't even be publishing because this blog has one reader (you) and these things are not meant to be ready generally but eff.this.shiiiit. Hereee we go.
However they didn't just give a damn their friends had left three hours ago but those two fuckers who liked thinking of themselves as the only pair of mofos deeply in love in the history of love and mofos weren't to be bothered by how others were bothered by them not talking to anybody else, babe we're in love and we're enough for each other we'll fight them all to be with each other and stay with one another forever they told each other all day everyday which should really have been a hint hint hint that their relationship wasn't going where they were hoping because you don't want to be talking about how awesome you're doing and anybody who says otherwise is just a hater isn't this fun gosh what good relationship you have and next week is like your monthly anniversary you're so excited about it it'll be so romatic and then the fucking the fucking would be the hottest in the history of hotness as well as fucking, normal couples just don't do that because they've got their lives and things to do besides relationships and theirs are healthier but these idiots overconfident inexperienced fools who thought they were in undying love yet aware deep in their hearts that this was passing and there was really nothing else that backed their passion for each other more than the thought of proving everybody else wrong weren't going to admit it so they held hands and went out at four in the morning for a walk because is that not what the couples real real in love did in paris even though they were stranger spent all day night together but the morning was cold it was snowy there wasn't much to talk about they were tired and sleepy the night had been long and they were both little scared plus really they were uncomfortable around each other when there was no common gossip so the romantic outing ended quicker than it began, back in the bedroom the flame seemed to have vanished they were both in their undies under the blanket touching the others skin with their own hands pawing the sweet soft skin, rubbing rubbing the arms the legs, the back maybe the sexy parts but no that was too much pressure it was cold and they were tired no they couldn't have sex it wouldn't be great it was supposed to be romantic thing pure and from the heart not from the loin so they thought but there was the fear the throbbing uncomfortable fear that arose from deeper than their groins which told them to do something and these two younguns took off their clothes all of them naked as the day they were even less as they'd taken considerable care to grooming for this very event and still nothing no throbbing no pulsating no heat no fire only a lazy drone and yawns it was time to sleep, naked on one another no sex and the greatest fear in the world, what and what the fucking fuck was the next day going to bring what would they do, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
Late to get up, election addiction, Blogging and Music, Eggy lunch, Bojack finale, Union Square walk, Noodle dinner [Saturday 31]
I got up at 10 or eleven or whatever, didn't get enough sleep and then slept at like 7am etcetera. Shit's fucked up, I write this the Sunday after, I need to pre-date these posts, and things are fucking stressful dude. Fucking wild, I just wish this is over quick and peacefully and then things work out fine.
Spent a large amount of day on twitter and reddit and the news sites obsessing over the election news and all of that. No point really except to get your blood pressure high and take all of the productivity you have away. Sigh. Please things work out better.
Had an egg sandwich for lunch. Listened to Imagine Dragons and wrote four posts for a few hours. Thought I'd write a lot more but it ended up not happening obviously and now I play catchup like the lazy fool that I was. Such disappointment.
Watched the finale of Bojack again, so touching such great such, great fuckin' show.
In the evening walked all the way to porter, to market basket where I spent a very long time buying not much, saw two nepali girls buying an absurdly large amount of groceries and trying to walk it to their car, I felt a little jealous and there were no rings mind you and little...hm...awkward and very much detached. So many opinions and emotions, so many ideas so many conflicting viewpoints. What stands is that the future is not in home, home is where they let you live.
Went to the Nepali store to get a couple of things, muri and moong beans, I'll try sprouts again because it's that time of the year for me if you know what I mean.
Came back, awesome awesome HDTGM podcast listening on the way, had the spicy noodles from market basket with tonne of my own spices yum yum, listened to more podcasts, chatted up a bunch of people more reddit and twitter i'm so addicted I've lost all my motivation and determination because of the stress, and went to sleep at one. Had trouble sleeping at first, but when I slept I slept.
Nothing Friday, lots of snow, internet addiction, longlong call, no sleep [Fri 30]
Got up at 9 am, despite having slept at 6 since I was talking to PA all that time. Felt tired and sleepy all day long. I write this the evening of the Sunday after, predating a lot of posts now.
Lunch of eggplant and rice, so very tired of it. I'm writing this on Sunday afternoon, the days are short it's rainy and cold so so terrible this has been awful for the 'productivity', so to speak.
Didn't do much at work, barely anything. Didn't do the writing I was supposed to, didn't even meet the daily quota.
It snowed all day long, kept on snowing and snowing and snowing and just when I thought it had stopped snowing it snowed away so much snow. So. Much. Snow. It was tiring, it was crazy. Wild really. Too much snow, too early. Apparently it was a record for the day since 2005, not a surprise.
Hooked to the news from the world, about the elections, about the repercussions, about the brewing civil war that honestly honestly is getting increasingly likely. I'll complain about this in a different post, but things are pretty bad right now and could get so much worse in a very short while. So much reddit so much twitter my eyes hurt by brain hurts it's not good for my health but what too do. I can't sleep, I can't sleep because of the stress.
I took an hourlong nap in the afternoon after work. The plan was to go on my regular walk but PK and ND started watching a movie, Knives Out I got into it then I got bored and it was so cold snowy and rainy outside so it didn't look like a walk was possible. So I skipped it. Skipped all the evening meditation too.
Don't know what I had for dinner. Did definitely not write anything at all. It appears I slept pretty late, around midnight. I got up at 3 in the morning to use the restroom. Then was too afraid scared to go back to sleep, so didn't get any sleep thereafter. Thank god it was Saturday.
Eggplant lunch, broccoli dinner, multi-thousand writing, motivation and meditation, snow-walk, strange sleeps [Thu 29]
Got up early in the morning, did meditation, listened to podcasts, felt good about myself. I was going to take care of myself, get shit right and it was all gonna be great.
Work was so-so, nothing worth talking about. Oh yeah, at work I got 4k words written, amazing achievement. Should have followed that up with 4k more words the next day aka Friday but didn't, bummer.
For lunch I had eggplant, obviously because I'm stuck with that mess of eggplant and I need to finish it ASAP dear gods what have I gotten myself into I can't throw because that's an awful waste of good food but it's getting so boring and nobody else will eat it so annoying. I had eggplant and rice.
After work I wrote a lot a lot lot, cleaned my room a bit, thought I was gonna get all my affairs in order. It was looking good. It was raining slash snowing outside so very wet, but leave I had to otherwise I'd be compromising on my well-being. I suited up with my raincheater boots and rainproof trousers and headed out. Realized very very early on that my jacket was not rainproof at all, I knew that I've know that for a while but it looks like it should be rainproof so every time I use it I forget that it's actually not what I think and hope it is.
The walk was alright, out of house to porter, go in front of Dollar Tree and Market Basket, don't go into market basket, walk back until I reach Medford Street and take it all the way hone. So very wet and it was annoying because maybe I never paid attention but that stretch of the roads are NOISY, so noisy I don't think I can walk there again.
I was meditating as I walked, from the app and various other tools I've been using. It was great, but uhh the noise, never noticed the noise before. Don't know if it's the meditation that made me notice the cacophony or that I take the podcast volume so high that nothing else is heard but so annoying.
After I got back I made roasted broccoli for dinner, yum! And then wrote for an hour or so, almost caught up, not exactly but I was on track to be doing really good. I put a lott of my eggs for Friday, should have known that never works out as there's a history of Friday being the least productive of all days but...whatever
Slept at 11.30.
And then got up at 3am the next morning, couldn't go back to sleep because I was terrified about the election, things happening in the world and personal security. Those four/five hours until it was morning and I was ready for work were terrible. Scary times, please make this be right all entities that I rebel against, mess this up only if you're tryina mess with me because you KNOW I'll fight back and you're not gonna be happy when I get there in my own sweet time and whoop yo' ass, so to speak.
First snow of the season, and the first melt
I wrote about the impending snowfall here.
Nine years ago I was a wee little boy -- relatively speaking -- looking down from my dorm windows at the heavy snowfall on Halloween night. Three years ago I was in grad school, it snowed a week ahead of Thanksgiving, and on thanksgiving the ground was still thick with snow.
It snowed yesterday, and the day before, here in Boston. We were expecting a light dusting at most, nothing that would stick. Surprise surprise it was quite a heavy fall, it covered the cars and the roofs, the trees too. Two days later there's snow all over, it's melting since the temperatures have caught up but ohh yeahh winter is here and the fall is over, we know that for sure now. And now tomorrow, we wait for tomorrow when the darkness take hold an hour earlier. Scary, exciting, wild interesting times. Can we have fewer interesting times please?
By the end of the day today it's looking like all of it will melt, and we're not scheduled for another fall for the next few weeks. It's like the weather wanted to leave a calling card and show up later.
Not excited about this snow, not at all.
The one thing that' great about the whole situation is...this is one of the more ridiculous claims but I say this with a hundred percent earnestness and honesty...how great fresh snow smells, and how bright it makes things. Because all the light's reflected away instead of being absorbed by the street or the sidewalk, the nights and days really light up...snow blindness is a thing after all, I gave trouble sleeping in the mornings and nights because of the snowbrightness. And the smell...it's low-key, but smells like...fresh water, maybe something grassy, can't describe it. It's great though.
The other great part of snow, the snowfall itself is how quiet everything gets. The traffic slows, the honks disappear and the background noise there is gets absorbed by the snow. It's a quiet winter wonderland, makes you feel one with the surroundings, want to connect with your neighbors and talk and just...celebrate...something. Snow makes me more social, bizzare but true. It's not about the cold, nothiing about the darkness. Perhaps it's how bright everything gets compared to how dark the days are that I see snow as a savior? Regardless, ahh snow how I love thee. When yer falling and softly packed and not a bother yet.
And then it melts and refreezes and that's how you get black ice, slippery street, wet mush puddles and a great gross gastly mess that nobody should have to deal with. That's how you know you've had enough winter and start imagining moving to Florida or California, it becomes clear that moving to Canada is never an option thanks to the weather. Unless things get really really really very bad.
First snowfall of the season and my spirits are still high, something worth celebrating!
A thousand posts, a thousand goddamn posts in a year, a goddamn mfking celebration is what this is
I did it, I did it.
Still haven't gotten into proper writing habit, every day morning and evening no 'inspiration' or 'mood' required, but I freaking finally did a thousand days a year here. It's more than the next best year by more than a factor of two and very soon, I'm going to be at a point where the number of posts this year will exceed everything I've written before this combined. In number of posts and in words.
There's still a long way to go. Still need to write my novels. Still need to plot out novels. Need to learn to write well, one way or the other. Need figuring out how to be properly disciplined. Discover the secrets of real writers. Not be lazy, learn to overcome the lazy techniques I've used as a crutch over the last decade. If I can keep going, I will succesfully unlearn all the lessons that have taken me to this point, and it will be the greatest achievement ever.
This year I'm getting to a million words on this blog. At my other, secret place, I've gotten to 220k words in the past eighteen months. A massive accomplishment if I may say so myself. Getting to a million words written will be a hard but it's the first step in learning to write. They say to work very hard to get there, and throw it all out because it's trash. So true. I'm ready to throw it all out and learn, break down to the essentials and start from scratch.
What the last year and a half have taught me is that writing cannot be a chore if you intend to do it for good. It needs to be a part of your life, like taking a shower, or brushing or eating. You should feel constipated if you don't write. Getting fingers on the keyboard, setting deadlines for yourself is how real writing gets done, not by staring at the screen and waiting for the inspiration to come to you. Inspiration is like the first brick that starts a house, not a bird that brings that golden gift from the gods. It's a germ of an idea, not the magical element that breathes life into words.
I should reward myself, somehow. Maybe eat at dominos tomorrow. Go to Mike's and get some pizza and beer, if the weather is willing. Jump around play around. It's a time for celebration certainly but that doesn't mean I'll stop writing. It's an inspiration to go in even harder. If I could just make myself sit down and write for an hour in the morning, and an hour in the evening, without waiting for inspiration without being distracted by the internet, that'd be a big achievement. It would be great for writing habits and it would be a great form of meditation, to help me focus on one thing for long periods of time. If I can write and I can attempt at writing well, there's no thing in the world that I can't do.
A friend...well maybe they're not really a friend...more like someone I know...said to me recently I should apply to one of the magazines in Kathmandu and write for them because I have the passion to write and can write pretty decently, better than most people who're writing for them anyway. And that idea isn't great because there's no reason for me to wrie for those publications, the money's nothing, the outreach is nothing, and it doesn't add to my resume or whatever. It could instead be a liability. One point that I have to consider however is that if I want to be a writer, and I know I'm not a particularly talented person so I have to get their through hard work and sheer tenacity, why not write non-fiction pieces, dare I saw 'thought' pieces. Fluffy they may be, but they'll get edited they'll be discussed and they're something I can add in my...album when I am...applying to be...a...whatever. I don't know where that would get me, but writing for newspapers and magazines is something I've thought about for the last eleven years. A column, a weekly one, called Tall tales from Afar, I've mentioned it here before. Perhaps it's time to dust off that idea.
I'm super-excited yes. And I'll be so much more excited when I truly believe that my writing has improved. At this point it's about the word counts, the post numbers, not the quality of what's being written. Any reader would have a terrible time going through this blog. I can change that, I should work towards changing that. That's my next goal. Until this point I've been a selfish writer, writing only for myself. From now I must try to be generous, and make it easy for the reader to understand what's going in my head. Isn't that the point of writing, and communication in general, after all?
When the cows go home
You walk out of the grocery store one day and discover that the streets are full of cows on bicycles. What’s even weirder is that you’re the only one who finds this odd. What is going on? -Source
A big bag of salt and two pounds of carrots in my backpack, I exited the convenience store. I never liked the place, it was musty and smelled like dirty feet for as long as I could remember. On that warm Saturday morning, the store was freezing, I wanted the warm nourishing Sun on my hand, that lifegiving life rejuvenating me from what felt like a disappointing dungeonlike hell.
There were a lot of bikes around, I was thankful for that. People were abandoning their cars, with their commutes nonexistent now, and taking bikes to groceries or...whatever it is that people did on Saturday mornings. I looked at one of the bikers more closely. It...was...strange. Four-legged large animal with a large mouth and an extensive udder riding the bike. I couldn't have been dreaming. I cleared my eyes, and looked around. Every one of those bikes ridden by a cow. If they were costumes, they were very elaborae, anatomically correct, and...possibly, impossibly expensive because their tails were quite active. It seemed like they were real cows, riding real bicycles in real life. What had happened when I was gone?
I look at a passerby, a human being thankfully, and shout at him. Do you see this, I yell pointing at the bikes. All those bikes, and the riders! He yells back, yeah, isn't it amazing, apparently it's one of the anti-cancer organizations organizing the bikeride, all the proceeds go to cancer research apparently. Amazing job they're doing! No, I said, I meant...they're cows...riding the bicycles...with their...four feet, you see nothing wrong with that? The man looked at me strangely, hey there man, he said, where've you been anybody can ride bikes these days grandpa, he said, snorting and walked away.
I went to the nearby bakery that I visited every day, I asked the girl on the counter -- I'd known her for three years -- what the deal was with the cows biking around and if nobody thought it was weird. Yeah I guess it's weird, she said, I haven't seen that many bicyclists at the same time I'm actually really happy that everybody is biking now, this is going to make the traffic on the highway so much better now. I know it sucks for he environment but hey, I ain't gonna be hurting my knees and thigh just to go to my favourite steak restaurant, you know what I'm saying?!
"Wait, Steak," I say, my eyes narrowed, my lips tightened. "What kind...of steaks?" I ask her with great deliberation, stressing on every word.
She stared at me, her eyes wide open. "Well of course," she starts, and then pauses. She starts the sentence and pauses again. Her eyes blank out. "Of course vegan steaks hahahaha, fooled yaa, what did you think I was gonna say, you don't think I'm ONE of those people are you," she says, smirking. Hahahaha I say, laughing a rather unconmfortable unconvincing laugh, of course not, but you never know. I was testing and you win, hahaha, I say.
Something is up, with this girl, with everyone else, and with the goddamn cows, I thought. And I was going to get to the end of it.
Winter will be coming soon
It has been raining for the last two days, yesterday was manageable, today was drenching. Still went on a two-hour walk because that's how you beat winter. By not giving up, by never ever ever surrendering. They say live by the clocks of nature. The people in Northern Norway would be pretty inconvenienced by it. I saw, the clock of nature is just a mild guide, live by your inner clock your brain clock and if it says it's time to go on a walk then it's time to go on a walk. If it says that despite it being dark gloomy cold wet rainy and possibly even snowy, you still go along. Doing otherwise is inviting the gloomies, surrendering your wellbeing to the darkness.
And this is just the preparation. Real test comes three days from now when the Sun will start going down at 4pm on a bright warm day. In sad dark gloomy days it'll feel like dead dark at 3pm, it'll be so chilly you could imagine yourself being in the North Pole, and your face will hurt, it'll be like being stabbed like a thousand microknives. The head will be throbbing, ears will be freezing off, nose frozen solid ready to be chipped off. The howling winds will stop you from walking or push you too hard. The wind will carry pile of fluffy snow, making it look like the north pole like they show in the documentaries. Terrible, terrible.
Yet, we must not surrender, we must never ever ever surrender. We need to go out in the cold and the dark and walk, walk through the slushes and the frozen black snow, walk through the cutting wind that threatens to cut us in to. Walk through cold rain, the honking cars, blaring emergency veicles. The sun will be impotent, there is no respite in these months outside of our well heated expensive hosues. yet we must go on. For that is our only way to keep sane, to remind ourselves that we remain the same, as the world around us changes.
This one's going to be tough, obviously. No more going out, no more hanging out with friends, no festivals no holidays. So we have to distract ourselves: meditation, podcasts, creative pursuits, and long tough walk where we think about ourselves, future plans, and just reflect upon our existence. A time for collecting ourselves in this otherwise hectic era.
Let's do this. Without fear, without a deep falling feeling in our stomachs. With grace, patience and strength. There is no other option. We have friends with us: our friends and family. But also indoor full-spectrum lighting and vitamin supplements to keep our sanity. This won't be too hard.
A mixup of heavenly proportions
Writer's note: This is the Shandilya story from a different angle.
ʜᴀs ɪᴛ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴅᴏɴᴇ?
There seems to have been an issue. We are looking at getting it right. Nothing to worry about.
ɢᴏᴏᴅ. ʟᴇᴛ ᴍᴇ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴡʜᴇɴ ɪᴛ ɪs ᴅᴏɴᴇ.
ɪs ɪᴛ ᴅᴏɴᴇ.
A small confusion delayed things, it's being sorted. Will let you know when done.
We're very close to confirming.
ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇs?
As I type this I'm going down to make sure everything is in order. A new comer made a mistake.
ʟᴇᴛ ᴍᴇ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ɪғ ᴜ ɴᴇᴇᴅ ᴍᴇ
Will do, probably nothing big.
At the site rn. There's been a mixup. A powerful ascetic is involved. I'll fix this.
ᴏᴋᴀʏ, ᴄᴀʟʟ ᴍᴇ ɪғ ɪ'ᴍ ɴᴇᴇᴅᴇᴅ.
Will do.
There's been a mixup.
The medicant and the person who we were supposed to pick up were mixed because...because he was doing transmigration...he says he was teaching a lesson to his puppul but looks like he was showing off to the courtesans
*pupil
when our people took her soul, they actually took his soul and so the wrong person, etcetera...it's a bit complicated, i'm putting everything back to where it was, fixing the books right now making sure this doesn't cause a longterm damage to the futures will let you know if i see something big. From the books it seems there's no large-scale impact we can't handle so you probably won't need to come down.
ɪ ᴡᴀs ᴇᴀᴛɪɴɢ. ʜᴏᴘᴇ ɪᴛ's ɢᴜᴅ ɴᴏᴡ
we did the returns, and i'm fixing the books, timelines look stable, nobody is complaining and in a few weeks all evidence of a confusion will have disappeared in the realms and that's the worse-case scenario. no need of concern.
ɢʀᴇᴀᴛ
...back to this thread boss...we need another intervention, and we need your permission to run the plans.
ᴡʜᴀᴛs ᴜᴘ
there was a switchup, when we sent the spirits back, they bonded more closely to the bodies they had been last at, so there was a more or less permanent switchup. so big the medicant seems to be stuck in the body of the courtesan and he is not happy. he's already a man with a very short temper we've dealt with him a few times before, but he could be causing some headache going on if it's not fixed up right away. i don't like the way he glowers at me, the junior folks are pretty much hiding behind me anyway. just need your authorization to extract the two spirits and put them back on carefully, not like the general release we did the last time. it could take some time, and the extractions are not planned. so need your permission to run through with it otherwise the books people will complain about how we want to rule over everything and you know.
ᴜɴᴅᴇʀsᴛᴏᴏᴅ. ɢᴏ ᴀʜᴇᴀᴅ. sʜᴏᴜʟᴅ ɪ ʙᴇ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ?
no no it's fine, I've done this before many times, didn't think this small-scale issue would get complicated, the medicant is a special pita to work with. just needed the permission. will keep you updated, not going back this evening until this task is done, it's been escalating by the minutes.
ɢᴏᴏᴅ. ɢᴇᴛ ᴛʜɪs ᴅᴏɴᴇ.
he was pissed but we've told him he shouldn't be changing bodies like that with just anyone, heavy insinuation at his intentions behind changing with the courtesan so he got a little bit defensive but at least he's not blaming us for anything. Everything good, going to close the books for this.
ɢᴏᴏᴅ ᴊᴏʙ
Awake early, meditation, busy work, twitter addiction, eggplant on eggplant, long evening walk, productive writing [Wed 28]
I write this at 10.52 of the same day, for the first time in many many weeks the daily journals and the day they're written about have caught up! Yeah I'm four posts behind schedule, but I can cover those up tomorrow, no biggie. No that I've learned to get up early!
And early I did get up. At 6.30. Thought about meditating and writing, after using the restroom. The place was occupied for an hour. So instead I just listened to podcast from under my sleep, very much awake.
Did a little bit of meditation in the morning, and a bunch of other things, couldn't make myself write unfortunately I tried I really tried hard, but just couldn't get there.
Some serious detective work in the morning, got pretty busy, didn't get about writing at the work journal. Also, I was feeling pretty low, thanks to the rainy weather, still pretty groggy and bummed out about missing stuff from yesterday.
For lunch I had rice, eggplant and parmesan cheese. I boiled up an egg, couldn't cook it through despite dropping it in boiling water twice, for twenty-five minutes. Bored and desperate I dropped it in the rice and had it, soy sauce instead of salt. It was damn good, soy sauce and eggplant with fragrant rice. No complaints there.
Realized that I forgot to block twitter on my cellphone's new browser, so was hooked on it for the next few hours, political updates, the status of the election and how that could be affecting my plans. It was stressful but goddamn is it entertaining. I do wish we were in less entertaining times.
Also did a few minutes of meditation from this app called Qbrillium that my work provides for free. It's a 'happiness' app or one of those things, I was quite skeptical about it at first, but it's not half bad. If I manage to create a routine and stay at it, this could be good.
Was on twitter until five. It was raining a little bit but the walk couldn't be compromised, hadn't walked in two days after all. So set my external charger and phone up, carried a backpack and headed out. Walked to Porter, from there all the way to Inman and the twin cities plaza, and walked the long street back home. I was amazed, so amazed to discover that my street goes all the way to the Charles. On the way I used headspace to do 'walking meditation', which was basically a mindfulness exercise to take in your surroundings. I could get used to it, replace my podcasts with guided meditation. Inman is incredible, wish I'd gone there more often when I was still drinking and the world was not in uhh such extraordinary circumstances.
Bunch of twitter after coming back. Roommate BB was chillin' watching the office, and soon went to sleep. Roommate PK was at his friend N's place in Cambridge, it's possible we may have come across each other.
Finally forced myself to write, eight to nine posts, I decided. And went at it. The best way to motivate me is to set deadlines, the 15-minute timer has been so useful. After writing 8 posts, went for a nice warm shower, evening routine, and here I am, at 11.01 as I write this, ready for bed. Will note down guessed sleep time tomorrow.
Toodles.
The old house
Write a scene that takes place inside a haunted house. How did the house become haunted? What do your characters decide to do about it?
Sir, do you have the permit to haunt this house?
Nnnnooo, nnno, sonnn I've been living in this house for 130 years, my great grandfather built this house. He was a poor farmer, working hard in the fields, people lived in huts mostly these days, those British, they lived in huge castles and palaces and big Ranas went to visit them and saw all of that. My great grandfather he went with one of them and saw how lavishly and comfortably they lived, so he came back and tried to get it built. But he didn't know how to build a house, he knew some masons but they couldn't design the stones and wooden beams all of that to make the house so big and strong. When the Rana ministers invited designers from abroad to build their palaces, he looked at their work, and made friends with them. Then by using just the sign language, just the sign language, he couldn't even speak Nepali that poor old man so tired, he was a farmer all his life you know worked in the fields when he wasn't carrying around for the Ranas his skin was dark and parched like that of elephants I remember seeing him as a little child those were the days so very long ago....
Sir, you need a permit to haunt the house, it belongs to other people now, you can't just live in it.
...as I was saying, he was an old old man, those were the days, he couldn't even speak the tongue of the Ranas but they could speak a little bit of our language, he was so proud that they showed interest in our words...the architects they took him in and designed a house for him the problem was the woodworkers and the masons nobody could understand anything from their drawings so he went back got the mud-worker to go with him, and they worked together on a small house made of mud and wood, but they explained that ohh this part needs to be brick, fired brick okay not raw brick, and some parts can be wood, and you need to get this done fast or the house will fall down and so on and on and anyway the rains started falling that monsooon that year the house took four years to complete, they say when it was built it was the most advanced house in the whole valley even the ranas and the kings in the royal palaces used to be jealous of our above, they say, I didn't hear any of it of course I was far too young no no I hadn't even be born...
Sir please back down, I'm telling you you need to get a permit from the city to haunt this house, either that or...
...and then my grandfather, then my father then me, then my son, my grandson, and now my grandson but they're fighting for it, they won't be staying long in it you understand because too many of them the house is only one, they're thinking of selling it, selling it so it can be torn down so they can or somebody else will make one of those ugly houses like everything else they're not rich enough but my grandfather wasn't rich either he was wise he was clever they are not all they care about and think about is the money not the quality so they won't make a good house and it'll fall and they'll blame me for haunting and destroying it, and I don't have the patience to handle it, so this I must do...
Sir please, back down, do not come any closer to me or else...Sir, Sir!
...so now I have to protect the house, you understand, at any cost even if that means I'm punished or bad things happen to me, pain lots of pain, that is what happens I know my future but this is for my family, for my family I must like my great-grandfather....
Ahem, alright, who owns the house, this is the police! Please open the door. I have reasons to believe the pending sale of this house might not be legal!
On discovering my neighborhood
I discovered this evening, after staying in this apartment for three or is it four years oh god life has gone for far too long here, that my street, the literal street that connects by 10m from the avenue our house is at, is quite long. And by 'quite long' I mean, long enough to have a very interesting and long walk. By which I mean, one end of it goes to one river, and the other to the other river in the area, and you can spend a solid hour-and-half going from one end of the street to another.
It may not sound like much, but the implication is pretty amazing. When I went out on a walk this evening I took a circuitous path, figured the return way would be just as confusing and full of turns and twists. It was not to be so. Looked up the directions back, and Google said, go one street over, and walk on it for an hour until your reach home. Done! So simple.
It's great because now I wont have to worry about directions or being lost, anything like that. I just decide which river I want to reach, keep walking and get to it. No other thoughts necessary. Which saves my mental energy for things like walking meditation -- it's a thing, a mindfulness practice I'm trying to improve in -- podcasts, talking to people, all the things I want to do with two, three hours of my life. Multi-tasking baby, talking to people as I do healthy exercise.
Speaking of my walks, I've finally come to accept the fact that my walks aren't making me any healthier, they're just for their mental and creative well-being. You need to be breathing pretty seriously, your heart needs to be thumpthumppumping hard for your body to feel the good effects of a workout and my walks...they haven't been slow strolls exactly but they haven't been intense powerwalks that I was taking last month either. The scenery has gotten more interesting, the walks longer, but the intensity has gone down. Why make it difficult and be sweaty when I can just soak in the scenery, haha.
On the topic of walking, the weather's gotten real bad, it's been raining nonstop for two days it's not going to be different for the rest of the week. It's vrrry cold outside, the wetness is a bummer. That is probably going to put extra mental blockage for me to go on walks, but they've been so enjoyable until now. When the time change happens, oh dear gods it's only four days of enjoyable evening hours left things could get even trickier...Walking in the dark...isn't as fun, but the people are fine, the streets are safe, I don't have any valuables any criminals would be interested in, so I'm not overly concerned. The cold though, leaving the comfort of our warm comfy apartment into the howling chilling winds of Boston is going to be an adventure. I like adventures. They build character.
So I wanted to use this opportunity, the time, the circumstances to explore my neighborhood and the cities around me, and that's been going quite well. I remember street names now, the general lay of the land, and how the major arteries connect to each other. Finally figured out where Inman square is, and how it fits in the geography of the region, so overwhelmingly proud of that. It was getting embarrassing, not knowing the place with nicer bars and pubs around. It doesn't matter the bars and pubs, for multiple reasons at this point, but still. Something I can talk to about with people after I leave the area. Which I'm planning to do soon.
The covid's plea
Listen here buddy I have nothing to gain by telling you this and everything to gain by making sure you don't change your actions, but it feels such a low blow you know, this seems just so goddamn easy that I'm going to make this a little difficult for myself, okay there bud? What I'm about to tell you is this: you need to fucking get your ass of the ground and do shit otherwise I'm going to beat you like a chessgrandmaster beats a child who's barely learned the moves of a chess. You know what I'm talking about?
I won't even introduce myself because you know who I am.
Of course you do, what has done so well, so extraordinarily bumper well, better than all the nations of the world, all the nuclear wars and recent armies, combined together? What has put all the traditional...uhh..issues to shame and caught up so quick on the DL? But not so DL that you don't know, but sneaky enough that it's more effective?
I'm telling you this: you need to get your shit together. What the hell, I thought this was going to be a fair fight, that I would have to use some real tricks I've learned over my lifetime, actually struggle and challenge myself. But you've clearly given up before the fight even began and that's one heck of a unsatisfying fight I tellya. It's not like you don't have the resources! It's not like you don't have the knowledge! It's not like you're some uninformed villager from a hundred years ago who could do nothing but cry and complain? No, you're a goddamn modern person with modern technology at your assistance, all your glasswares and labs and weapons and what not. And yet. You're all too human, aren't you? Where's your goddamn willpower, the willpower to resist and fight. What kind of loser throws the game in the first round. It's rough, rough as heck for you but it's not easy for me either you see. I was going to use this opportunity to grow myself, push myself to the boundaries and learn a thing or two from you. What do I get? Nothing, just a meek muted response, as if you're a bunch of mice living in a forest too lazy to do anything about the danger about to befall you.
Or are you really that stupid, that you don't understand that there's a serious danger out to get you. Because these days, I can't tell, can't tell what's real and what's a joke, who's smart and who's pretending to, or who's real dumdum or just pretending to for political uses. Maybe you're playing a twelve-dimensional chess where you're letting me win so I don't grow stronger or learn anything...and just...peter...out...or something, but that wouldn't make any sense because when I win I win and it's gave over for you, you can't take the lose and be back for a second round. So that can't be it, can it?
Just give me something, anything, even if it's your third-rate science experiments from countries that have more experience with hot air than true medical biochemical innovation. The use of 'salt water', or some 'tonic' or herbs was weak sauce, it was not even funny or amusing, if that was the intention. It's like you don't even care, that you don't even want to win the fight.
What the heck is up with you, ugh.
Eggplant sandwich, good rice dinner, sleep problems, otherwise gloomy weather, gloomy day [Tue 27]
It's 9.35 in the evening of the next day, and I'm only eight posts behind the schedule. If I do four more posts today, and I do have the time to do that before my bedtime that I'm moving to 11 just for today, I'm going to be caught-up ish. Three more days for this week to end, I can play catchup at the rate of a post a day. The work posts are gone, didn't write anything yesterday and didn't write anything today, that's because I've not been following the checklist. Jeez if only I had a 'meta checklist' where the requirement was for me to go back to following my checklists it'd be pretty wild. Should put that in Google calendar, seems like not a bad idea.
I don't have any photos from this day. I didn't do much, didn't leave the house, and felt not too good in general.
I got up late because as you will remember I went to sleep pretty late, and the sleep-awake cycle was totally borked, nothing I could do about it. Got up and straight to laptop, such headache all day long. Did some searching and figuring of things, which was productive. When I was being unproductive tried forcing myself to write but couldn't. The problem was that I had the gloomies: the lack of good sleep, hunger, and general sadness due to the crap weather had taken away my spirits.
The meeting with the eap person was not very well-directed, though they did tell me to focus more on the meditation apps, so at least there's one place where I have external motivation for improving myself.
Lunch was good, it was amazing actually for a day that was otherwise disappointing. A goddamn discovery or an invention, if I may say so myself. I was so excited by it in fact that I called N in VA after I ate, and we discussed in detail on what I ate, bringing this up because the original recipe was hers. So if you will remember, all I have been eating and will be eating pretty much all of this week is the eggplant stew I made on Monday because i made too much of it and there's no way to get rid of it in an ethical manner. Also I like it very much and it would be offensive to throw it away.
Anyway so for lunch I didn't want to make rice, so I just toasted up some bread, heated the eggplant stew, which was not very watery, and got some parmesan powder out. Put a BIG heap of the 'stew' between the slices of bread, dumped a bunch of parmesan powder and ate it like a sandwich. It dripped a lot, but I used the bread to scoop the eggplant. Don't mean to be braggy, but yum! It was great, it was like an easier and lower-end version of the eggplant parm, I should be making it a lot more often! N told me I should be making green beans too, great, great idea.
For dinner I cooked up some rice, with saffron bits, made the saffron tea myself, bay leaves, tomato in the rice cooker, butter, and black pepper. The rice itself was so fragrant, the eggplant on it was perfect. Or actually, I probably didn't even need the eggplant, the rice was great by itself.
Didn't go out on walks or anything after work because I napped. And then had rice. And then watched tv for a bit. Then came to my room and twitter [the last time because it's blocked everywhere else] and youtube. Sat down to write but couldn't because I was just so goddamn tired. Told myself I was too tired to write and would be more productive the following morning when I was more fresh. The last part was true, but write I did not. Went to bed at 10.25, slept at 11/11.15 maybe.
On meditating
Since then I've not meditated seriously at length except for the couple of hours I've spent with JD in between. Not enough discipline, I've told myself and others who've asked, I'll do it one day when I'm more serious about life, and in a more disciplined phase. Well life has been passing me by, and real quick at that in these rough Covid times, and I dont' seem to be improving on either of those things. Discipline has troughs and crests though I seem to never be motivated enough to go as far as meditation, and the 'seriousness' is never going to come if I wait for the day of declaration of adulthood. I have to suck it up and start doing.
If you've been an irregular reader here at least, and I know you are because I can see in the traffic logs that you've not visited the site in recent days what's up with that we need to talk, you will remember that I always talk about starting meditation, making plans for it, but actually never execute it. It's in the top five things I really want to do and should be doing, and yet it never gets done. There's never enough motivation, never enough push.
Things have changed a little bit since I started talking to the eap counselor who suggests that if I want to improve my experience at work I should start meditating and doing mindfulness practices to control anxiety and improve focus. I keep telling them I'm about to do that, and I make plans, and do all sorts of things, but never actually do do it. But in the last two weeks I've done it a few times, today I did it twice, once in the morning and then in the evening. It wasn't real real in that I spent only a few minutes and even then surely I wasn't fully focused. But it's a step. I'm learning not the alphabets yet, maybe to draw the lines, but that's in the right direction towards being able to string words and sentences together.
N gave me the password to her meditation app. I had it for a year or two last year when N (the other one) had it from his work, but I didn't really use it too much. I browsed it a few times, maybe even attempted a regular practice but it never got around to becoming a thing. Because there was no motivation, no reason, and nobody checking if I was doing it or not. Now there are controls. There is accountability. People I don't want to disappoint. This is something I should be doing. For my own good.
My parents meditate, so do my grandparents, and a large part of my family in general. It helps with the 'pressure they say, makes taking life one day at a time easy. And it's not just when you're in desperate need of some sort of help, generally, it's like having a 'life coach' guide you through everyday happenings. It never hurts to do it.
So I'm now going to do it regularly, as regularly as I can possibly do. As regularly as writing even. Five minutes here, ten minutes there. I may not be able to maintain a proper timetable, but as the practice gets frequent, I'm sure it gets easier. After all that's how I got into podcast listening too.
A pretty serious person's plea, sure he may have made some mistakes but who hasn't
Fiction, obvs , inspired by Charles Sobhraj and real arguments that are being made in the US.
And they call ME the villain!
How many people die of diarrhea in the country every year? Hundreds of thousands probably. How many of malaria? How many of other simply treatable diseases that nobody cares about, because the hospital wasn't there, because the doctor had gone for the holidays, because some politician had made the money for the health center disappear? What is the value of human life really, in the country where women are treated like shit, where there is an open attack on people being out in the open against the government, where the police treat young people like an annoying piece of trash to be thrown out. There is no privacy, no dignity of an individual. There is no value of life. Those truckers who just hit and run, even back you to squish you to death, do you thing anyone ever does anything about that? No, because they've got a strong club of other murderers like themselves for group protection. And the politicians, are you telling me their negligence isn't killing hundreds of thousands every year? I don't buy it.
You know about household violence in the country right? How women get beaten up and burned and buried and dronwed for dowry, or for not birthing a child, or for birthing a child of the wrong gender, or wanting the property that is legally hers. How many women suffer like that every year? Is it in tens of thousands, or hundreds do you think? And does anybody care about that? No, because the politicians will lose their elections if they start punishing the perpetrators because that's how the patronage system works. The corrupt support the criminal in times of need, and the criminal provide the cash and violence for the corrupt to win at the elections. That's how the system works, you know it and I know it. How come then they are not in jail, or even in the courts? Because life is unfair.
So what, I killed a couple of dozen people some of them women, so what, there's bigger problem your way. You know how many people air pollution in the valley kills? Worms in the food? And the goddamn ongoing pandemic, you haven't really thought about it have you because let me tell you it's killing more people every day than I did combined over two decades. And your prime minister does nothing, even when those deaths are avoidable, who's the real killer now, someone who kills dozens every day, or someone who murdered over a long period of time.
And hey, don't judge, you don't even know the circumstances. If anything I did you all a big big favor, since they'd have tested your already failing health system, bothered your crumbling law enforcement, all of that. If there's anybody to blame here it's those losers who couldn't let go of a piece of cloth they saw in the forest and had to report the authorities. If you hadn't found about it you wouldn't have known about it, you'd be none the wiser. The world would have gone on, with no injustice really, you think everything else is just and fair, and me walking around a free man is unfair and unjust? Grow up, this is life, shit happens, learn to live with it.
Every day tens of thousands of Nepalis die, I killed a minuscle negligilble pretty much no percent of that. You're probably killing more people with your hate for the environment and lack of care about politics than I have. Indirectly yes, but deaths are deaths. Why aren't you in the court, why must it be me. Is it because I look like the victim time, the idiot who gets caught even after all this time, and you smug in the knowledge that you're safe don't have to pay for your actions? Because if you think that, watch out, I'm coming for you.
Hey so, what's the knock outside your window? Your second-storey window.
One's boyfriend
This is a character portrait thing for my Appointments & Disappointments series, this is One's boyfriend, don't worry if you don't know who they are.
I was three. I saw the mountains, so blue, so cool, so shiny. I was hooked, hooked that memorable morning from the hills, the clouds beneath us. I knew that day I wanted to work in a field that would take me near them, always and forever.
I was proud My country's beauty stood way above anything Singapore had to offer. Nothing could compare to the aura of the mountains, the cool air, the feeling of being above the clouds. My family was enchanted, I was not. The malls, the people, everything there. I saw the buldings, the parks, the attractions. Our family went on a trip, our first...and last it turned out...in many years, to Singapore. I was five.
I was nine, my father got sick all the time, he had some sort of breathing problem. One day when we were playing cards during tihar he said he had trouble breathing, we took him to the hospital. He was at the hospital on and off for the next several months, until one day he quietly passed away with all of us around. My mom didn't even cry, her tears had dried out. My sisters didn't want to talk about it or our dad ever again, they stopped paying attention to their studies after that.
I was thirteen. My mom sad my oldest sister had eloped away. With some taxi driver or someone, she said, I don't even care who she says I'm not going to take care of the child. We didn't hear from the for two years, until her husband tried contacting us. They had moved to Australia apparently, and she was working as a nanny and he was working in the shops. She said she was happy. Mother told her they had to come home to get married properly if they wanted to be accepted. And they did.
I cried a little bit back home.I took the taxi home, abandoning my friend. I didn't want hookups, I wanted a respectable relationship, where people talked and joked, not some random person. I didn't want things to happen like that, I didn't want an illegitimate affair. But it didn't feel right. I had recently learned to masturbate. It was exhilerating, my mind shut down, my chest began to hurt. I got talking to this girl, and somehow we were kissing. I got drunk. Everyone was drinking, I did too. There were many other boys and girls from the school he went to, rich boys and girls, who didn't have to follow the rules like us normal people did. They had a waterfall inside the house, in their living room, with a glass wall, there were small fish in the pond where the water fell. Their house was fancier than anything else I had ever seen before, even in hindi movies. Dude was very rich, very very rich, richer than anyone I knew then. I went to a friend's friend house, his parents had gone out of the country for a few days. I was fifteen.
I was seventeen, and knew what I wanted to do...become a tourist guide. I was ready to go on tours and do trainings. I got involved in an intercollege debating competition because they said i needed to improve my English, and speaking it, practicing it, and talking to other people who spoke it would help me with it. I participated in a couple of events despite not winning anything. But a girl caught my eye, I wanted to talk to her, wanted to know her more, be around her all the time. Was I in love?
A hundred posts hurray
I'm writing this because I'm out of ideas, need to reach the post count, it's not doable, this is crazy what I'm attempting to do, alas it must be done. There's no reason I should be celebrating a hundred posts a month, I've done that pretty much every month for the last year, in fact this should have happened the day before yesterday.
But I've set expectations for myself and lets be honest here I'm not a freaking idea factory okay there's only so much I can write, I ain't no superman.
Now I've wasted 2+ hours looking up election news, election predictions and all the related news, these are stressful times, the next week specially and the next three months generally. What to do. I'm also thinking of just not posting anymore sometimes, pause basically.
Calls on calls on calls, Eggplant cooking, Dashain at home, PK goes to town [Mon 26]
I'm writing this the day after, and it's been a blur quite recently. What I do remember is I woke up to do some meditation, got distracted by new podcasts in my waiting list, and just listened to them.
Work was busy, all meetings till lunch, and connection stuff after lunch. Somehow I got a thousand words in, thank god, phew.
Talked to family for couple of hours in the morning, from Nepal and from VA. Got caught up about everything, felt good, seeing this was Dashain. Everyone is safe and doing well, not completely crap yet. Everything is fine.
Roommate PK went to his work work the physical office in the morning and came back in the evening. He brought his nice office chair back from work, we made fun of it but he says it's quite comfortable. He says the town looks dead, the lunch places etcetera, but he was surprised at how many people were out and about. Still, these are sad times according to him.
After work I had a LOT of posts to catch up on, so I figured I'd cook first, have a quick dinner, walk real fast, and take a nice sweet time writing. So I started cooking the famous eggplant stew with one eggplant, then thought of doing three, settled down at two. Dropped in way, wayy too much tomato paste and diced tomatoes etcetera. After it was finally done, I was so tired I didn't feel like eating it, so had it with roommates' pasta and parmesan powder. It was really really good. Eggplant goes surprisingly well with pasta and tomato, funny thing about the unlikely combo right.
By the time everything was cleaned up, it was two hours later, so down went my walking. No worries, at least I was going to do all the great writing!
I began to write the fable, following the template I'd just created. It took me some time but I got like a third of the way through, and NG called. We talked for like 40 minutes, funtimes. After it was done, went to writing again, and then PN called. Hadn't talked to them for weeks so that went on for like two hours. By now it was 11. Getting late, but still worth writing, so I worked hard at it. Didn't finish the fable.
PA was free, started talking to them. We kept talking until 4 in the morning. Which means I didn't get much or any sleep today, and I didn't get anything written yesterday. All the catchup posts remain, and so do the articles that were supposed to be written for yesterday but weren't. Which is why today, and right now is when I'm trying to write a lot. Will write a 'waste' post after this, then I'll have 8 to catch up. If I can do six, I'll be in a good place. Fingers crossed. The easy ones will have been done, but ehh I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.
Sugar hangover, evening Somerville walk, Grits for dinner [Sun 25]
It's 7.30PM of the Tuesday after, and dear gods I need to get my posting in order. I'm falling behind, can't let this happen.
Got up at 12pm with terrible headache, and a terrible hangover. Got afraid for a bit, looked it up, realized sugar hangover is a thing. Because I had had like 7 pieces of lalmohan the evening before my body was having a tough time dealing with the increased glucose levels. Headache, dehydration, confusion, general annoyance, you know how things are.
Talked to a bunch of people, spent a long time on youtube. Looked up other things don't remember, really I should be writing the journal posts at the end of the day or else this is not worth it. Why am I wasting my time writing things I don't remember if I'm going to be referring to my photos anyway?
In the evening I went on a walk to Somerville, checked out the dollar tree, nothing good in there, checked out the Market Basket, found a couple of things I found interesting ...Bob's Red Mill Oats and cheese cloth but I couldn't buy them because for some reason my NFC payment didn't work. Walked back empty-handed. Well...At least it was a nice walk.
Got back, had nuts and chocolates, and then in the evening Grits Kimchi Soy Sauce butter etcetera for dinner. It was fine, I really need the fragrant fresh leaves to pop it up.
Slept sometime after midnight, probably, still with a mild headache.
Catchup
I was all set to write eight solid posts of wisdom last night. So interesting so cool, I even skipped my daily walks for it. The world was going to be a brighter, better place. That was the plan.
Well it didn't work out that way.
N called and we talked for 40 minutes. Then NP called and we talked for 2 hours. Then I talked to PA for like four hours or something. I went to sleep at 4 in the morning. Which meant no writing. Boohoohoo.
So now I'm like way way behind on posts, if I write like a madaman this evening, and this is Tuesday evening, I might be able to catch up but barely.
Something that's not been said here is that the average lengths of posts has been increasing in recent days because I noticed my posts were getting lazier by the day and I was not living up to the expectations. Well for the next ten twelve posts they're going to go down in the dump because I'm done done done being behind the times. Need to be caught up and that's the end of it. This is non-negotiable.
I'm going to be writing like four posts now, eat my dinner, go on a walk, and write six more posts. Because why not. Sleep on time, get up on time, yabbadabba doo.
I cannot estimate recipe change proportions and it sucks
This evening I made the famous eggplant stew that I've written about at least a thousand times, conservatively, here. Planned on using three eggplants first, that seemed like a LOT, so chopped up just one and pan fried it. It didn't seem as much, so I added another eggplant. That seemed like a decent amount of eggplants to put in a couple of cans of chopped tomatoes and tomato paste, and like six slices of dried lime.
Now it feels like it's tomato sauce, for pasta and as such, that's been thickened with eggplants. Not that I might, the umami kick from the eggplants is awesome, the sugar and lime cuts into the strange 'grassy' smell of the vegetable. It's well cooked, the onions are still crispy enough that there's some bite to them but cooked well enough that you can't identify them individually. The garlic -- I used all the garlic that was available in the house -- gives a nice background hint, without overwhelming the dish. Like I like my garlic to do, usually. I'm hoping when it cools down and is stored, and eaten with rice for the next longfuckingtime because I made a lottt of it, it tastes more like eggplants. Either way though, it's a win, I like tomatoes, I like eggplants.
This is about how I cannot upscale recipe. I look at a recipe and think, I need to make it slightly more so it lasts me two meals. Then I realize if I leave out one of the raw ingredients cut and unused, it'll go to waste. So the rest of the dish is upscaled to completely use up whatever raw ingredient it is. Which means I need to cut twice as much of everything else, and at this point I'm making thrice as much as the original recipe.
By the time I'm done, and it takes me two hours even though the recipe says it's a 45-minute dish because I muddled around with the ingredients, I'm not hungry because the entire thing's made me cry those goddamn sharp onions. I'm tired of standing up working for two hours, and I've smelt so much of the dish there's absolutely no desire to eat it. So I steal my roommates' dinner, use my sauce as a sauce for the pasta, and get done with a truncated meal. While there's enough stew in the large pressure for at least five days of lunch and dinner. Really need to sell my roommates and friends of the house on helping me finish it. Wasting food is bad, it's awful for the environment, yadayadayada, so I can't make myself throw anything away. Two weeks of eating the same base sauce with all sorts of carbs it is for me then.
And that's the problem with cooking for one also, when you cook it just for yourself for a few meals the other ingredients are wasted, when you cook a large batch you're stuck with the same goop for weeks to an end. I don't mind honestly, if it's been cooked well and doesn't taste terrible, you do get to know the dish intimately, so you can make modifications in the future. Throughout the time though, there's very little excitement and you get made fun of.
Either way, I'm excited about my eggplant stew, made thrice as much as the recommended amount, and looking forward to eating it in combination with all sorts of carbs.
Dashain party, Aldi trip, insane sugar consuption [Sat 24]
It was a Saturday, as usual I went to bed late on Friday and got up like four times to use the restroom because I really screwed up the plan to have my sleep cycle organized. So I really got out out of the bed at 11.30, maybe even twelve. Talked to a bunch of people on the phone, watched many youtube videos. Now that my new phone is becoming my regular phone, I've blocked pretty much all the timewasting websites, so that's something I've done better now.
Had lunch at 1.15: scrambled eggs, salsa, goat cheese and crackers. Yum. Watched tv for a while. Showered, headed out on a walk. I wanted to go to haymarket, thought against it because didn't really feel like taking on a new project.
Walked to Aldi, got me some nuts, tomato pastes and two large eggplants. I need to make a new round of the eggplant stew. Planned on making for the gathering, but roommate PK already made three different items, in addition to an amazing rice and desserts, so thought against that.
Came home, helped clean up a bit. Hung out with a bunch of different people. I was there, so were NB and RG, and IP too. NR, who I've written about quite a bit was there too, her first hangout in eight months, the last time she hung out with a large group of people was when we went to her house before the lockdowns started the first time around. The beforetimes.
I, who is usually quite funny, was in extraordinary form, so so hilarious. Talked a bunch with NR, we'd not talked much before and I feel like I know her much better now. She was screwed over by a couple of folks that should have had a legal obligation to help her out, and she's working to get that fixed. Still, respect, mad mad respect for her for everything.
We talked about politics mostly, which was depressing and annoying because I started the conversations unknowingly, distracted. Took a bit of the gigglies. I've started having really bad side-effects of the gigglies, need to seriously take it down or just stop consuming those. Once my meditation and mindfulness exercises get better, it should get better to do that. I use it to destress and be calm.
Both the goat meat items that PK made were amazing, so was the roasted cauliflower and salt. The rice was well-seasoned, and done perfectly, with bay leaves and other spices put in while steaming.
The desserts were lalmohan and a pie. I ate like 6 pieces of lalmohan because I had the gigglies and a good amount of pie. Felt so bad, hadn't eaten that much in a long long while. People left at 1, half past one, I went to bed and slept at perhaps two, unaware of the extraordinary bodily reaction I was to experience the following day.
Surely someone must google me
Someone must Google me,
when they're sad
or bored
And be amazed
and intimidated
and a little bit excited
Or
Is that just me?
Surely,
I'm not lost
In the world of Instagram
And twitter
And
The whole horde of dating apps
Surely I'm not forgotten
lost and uncared for,
in the crowd of messages
and DM's.
Surely someone
must hate me enough
to check up on me
To glee at my lack of existence
To bask
In the nothingness that is
my existence in the zukerbergian world.
I looked someone up today
We were friends,
were,
and I still check sometimes
when the days are slow
to see what
she's been up to.
The jobs she's been at
And the conferences she's organizing
The countries she's visited
And the disappointment she's had
with everything.
I looked her up on Google,
that's where I go
In the shit world of feudal techlords
I'm less than a peasant, less than an insect
A nobody, non-existent, invisible.
And yet.
Surely,
Someone must google me,
when they're sad or lonely
or even horny
surely i am not an island,
a big and self-satisfied one, yes,
but an island nontheless
unconnected from the mainland,
floating in the wild,
Unconnected, uncared, unloved.
Seven billion people in this big round world,
surely there's someone there
who googles me
when they're bored
It can't be, that I'm the only blob
uncared for?
Surely,
someone out there
must imagine
I've got secrets,
and a great deal of funhaving
that I have to hide,
That I'm busy, and otherwise occupied
Dealing with the big-picture stuff
Too distracted to be
otherwise tied.
What if,
there is nothing
and nobody out there
It's just me
floating in the
ether
Uncared unloved and unwanted
In the modern media land
The zuck has won,
I'm a pariah, an idiot and a fool
Invisible and not of concern.
What if,
the online is real
and I am not
Only way to exist is to
bow down to our great overlord
the all-seeing all-powerful zuckerbot?
And I, the apostate
am done for,
existing but not seen
living but without the live-giving filtered sheen
What is life now
when the likes and snaps are gone
But loneliness and sadness
and the fear
of being forever forgotten?
Do bones and blood a being make
Or photos and videos of glamour and cheap ads
Is what it takes
In this whole new world
Run by the terrible idiotic bloodthirsty kobold?
I am a child,
angry and uncompromising
unable to abandon the uprising
against the control of the techo-lords
and for that I must pay
by being cut of from
the livegiving nutritious social cords
Sometimes I wonder
Is it worth it
And then I remember
I don't know how
One gets into a DM slide
A man outdated and unable to change
that's my freaking fate, forever cringe.
And yet.
I hope.
Surely,
Someone must Google me,
when they're sad
or bored
And be amazed
and intimidated
and a little bit excited?
Getting ready for a long stay
Writing prompt: Write a scene that takes place inside a haunted house. How did the house become haunted? What do your characters decide to do about it?
Source
"And that sir, is our scheduled ceiling rattling, happens almost every fifteen minutes or so, by magic. We've run a series of tests, and it's guaranteed haunted too."
"How do I know it's not some low power motor doing its thing, or some kind of mechanistic apparatus triggered by springs that one of your staff members sets up every time a new guest arrives?"
"Excellent question sir! You are welcome to inspect the parts of the hosue that shake and vibrate, and in your contract you will find that if you are able to provide us with logical, scientific reasoning and proof of what's happening, with an ability for us to replicate your results, you'll earn yourself a thousand dollars. In other words, we're betting you a thousand dollars that this is real haunting and not just some second-rate mechanical engineering homework."
"I see, that is exactly what I have to come to expect from your establishment, your words are backed by your wallet, by legal contracts. This is how it should be, specially if you want to be taken seriously, and seen different than the rank phonies who'll use base magician tricks to convince the unsuspecting targets that something ethereal and otherworldly is happening."
"Yes sir, we take pride in the fact that we are the only institution of the kind that we know of in the entire world. What I am even more proud of is the fact that our guests haven't been permanently harmed or traumatized in a very long time, despite the...dangers present. Through the years we have met customers who aren't fully satisfied by those circumstances, they would rather...something happen...and hope that we take the legal responsibility of the repercussions. You will be glad to know, hopefully, that we've never had to be in such a scenario, and as a properieter here I don't intend for things to change."
"Wonderful Thapaji, wonderful. Tell me more about the experience, and how everything fits. What I should be expecting, what sort of things I'd rather not know, what the times are like, all of it."
"Truth be told sir, it's a better experience going in without getting an intimate knowledge of what could be happening, or anticipating the...strangeness of the events. Since your interest is not in the thrill I see but in the mechanics of it, so to speak, I can openly talk to you about the...other factors. Guests sleeping in these suites have always had terrible dreams, confusing, messy convoluted meet with the faux-reality. Often they can't tell the difference between what is real and what is not. Some of our more serious guests have claimed that their three-day stay here felt to them like being trapped in a haunted prison for decades. Since such opinions are of the subjective nature, we cannot verify them and put similar claims in the nature. We have not had a single guest who was disappointed, or didn't feel anything out of the ordinary.
Besides the dreams, are the usual haunting actions, the floating candles, shuttering windows, eerie noises coming from the outside, noises that you cannot triangulate despite using the most state-of-the-art technology, trust me many have tried. The fog that rises over the ravine we've discovered is not of supernatural origin, but it does add to the spooky environment. You will likely see a floating transparent or translucent apparation, though they've been getting more rare as of recent. And obviously, all your electronic devices will go haywire once in the house"
Writing a fable: a template
Here's a nice guide on writing fables. I'm trying to get better at writing short self-contained stories, preferably some with morals, because writing a complete story helps me practice my writing of characters, terseness, and move away from writing scenes that go nowhere and don't contribute to the story.
The trick about learning to write something new is to start with a template, I've discovered. You write something from scratch, you don't know what the rules are, what railings you need to catch, what mistakes you need to avoid. A good template gives you support for all of those, and yes it does 'limit' your creativity in that you cannot do literally whatever comes in your head storywise, but more rules means a greater need to actually be creative. So here we go.
Determine the moral
It needs to be short, and general. It shouldn't be specific. Examples of morals:
- Treat others as you would like to be treated.
- Slow and steady wins the race.
- Appearances can be deceiving.
Pick one, or two at most, major animals or inanimate objects to be the main characters. Characters don't need name, they can go by kind. Examples include: sun, moon, wind, rat, fox, lion, tiger, owl, and so on.
Pick a trait for your character, that will create the meat of the story. Eg. the haughty rabbit, the slow tortoise, etcetera. In case of 2 characters, it's easy to contrast the negative characters of one with positive or the other character.
Create a conflict, that will highlight the personality traits of the characters, and make the point in the moral.
In conclusion, start with this table, for your character or characters.
The final step is to just write the story.
Remember that the moral can be negative or positive, if the evil character 'wins' in the story, the moral has to be about trust, or doing something that would have stopped the evil characer from winning.
Fables are often short and to the point. The book of fables that I have and use as inspiration for writing more myself has the actual fables last for a few lines. So if you want to make them longer, decide to the environment of the story rather than making the plot needlessly complicated. The fable about the thirsty crow can go on to describe how hot and dry it really was in the desert, to increase the tension, how desperately the crow needed the water. It's a bad idea to instead talk about the crow's passions and desires, or how the crow thinks he should have listened to his mother. Have no distractions, every word, every line should be in the service of the point that is being made. If the story reads too 'one-dimensional', don't worry because that's the point of the fables: to present an argument from an angle. Don't be afraid to take sides, because that's what fables are...telling others what to do.