Blog Post No. 501
Welcome to the far side of 500 posts. Usually in the middle of June, I write a little post for my birthday. It’s usually short and sweet (like a little break for both of us). I may have a comment on the concept of birthdays, or my personal experience with my own annual holiday. Maybe I come up with something specific for the year (like last year’s pandemic birthday post).
Blog Post No. 489
As I get older, the weeks go by faster and faster. It’s a common phenomenon that was shaken up by the nearly two-year-long shutdown. During that odd period, time lost some of its meaning. The months would blink by, but the days would sometimes drag. The temporary change seemed to soften the edge of the speedy weeks in exchange for a potentially worst manipulation of time.
Blog Post No. 471
Being on fire is a weird metaphor. (Though not any weirder than all the other cliché metaphors). It can mean good, like in NBA Jam when your player literally catches on fire when you play well (or I guess in every day life when a normal person is doing well in consecutive tasks). On the other hand, fire is bad. Things on fire burn and turn to ash. Right now I’m kind of feeling both meanings of the phrase. Continue reading “On fire”
Blog Post No. 446
It’s my birthday tomorrow and it’s one of the big milestone years. I haven’t really felt the same kind of excitement for birthdays since high school. Not to say that birthdays make me sad. I just see them as a marker of the years and my years are starting to add up. It’s all relative and as much as age is just a number, there are more battle scars each time the date rolls around. In my mind, I’m the same kid excited to get out of high school, sure that he’ll blossom in university, and bummed out that exams start on his birthday. That’s real, by the way. For all four years of high school, my first exam was on my birthday. Continue reading “A Short Little Post for my Birthday (2021)”
Blog No. 394
This year the stars have aligned and this post is coming out on my birthday. Like today. It’s my birthday. Right now (as long as you are reading this on the day it was released). Not that birthdays are all that big a deal. I suppose I’m at the age where only the milestone years are really celebrated (and my first big milestone is next year). I can’t remember when the switch happened, but birthdays haven’t really meant that much to me for many years. For a while I was content to just think of them as a normal day, but my mom pointed out how it’s as much her day as it is mine, and that makes a lot of sense, so I got a little more into celebrating them again. I suppose it’s nice to have a day a year that’s all about you. Where being selfish is okay (to a point). I’m lucky enough to have a close core family and some fantastic friends, so I get my moments to feel special throughout the year when they are thoughtful, kind, and supportive. Not to say celebrating isn’t nice too.
Of course, the pandemic is still ongoing (not that you would know with so many people not observing the proper isolation protocols). My birthday will be spent alone. Maybe I’ll play some games with my brother. Maybe I’ll just sleep most of the day away. There’s been a weird feeling hovering over my for the last few years that may be the extent of my mid-life crisis. Some things that were meaningful to me in my youth don’t exist anymore. It’s acute over my birthday since some of my best birthday memories were the co-birthdays I had with my friend Arvin at places like the Loop. Now he’s living in Toronto with his wife and kids and the Loop doesn’t exist anymore. It’s nothing more than nostalgia. We’re both doing well now, even if our youthful dreams didn’t pan out the way we thought, we’re working towards our current dreams. I’m inching closer to an ending for the Invasion Novel. I hope I can get there. (The endings are always more work for some reason).
Anyway. It’s my birthday and if you feel like doing something nice for me, you can do a review of any of my books that you’ve read. Goodreads or Amazon are good places for that. The Goodreads links are actually on the right side of this page. No obligation and feel free to be honest. Stay safe out there, and be vigilant!
Blog No. 237
Every year around this time, I go ahead and have a birthday. It’s a day where I mark the passing of another calendar year, thus adding to my numerical age. I’ve been doing it my whole life. I’ve even heard of some other people doing very similar things. I’m not accusing them of stealing, I think more than anything, it’s a coincidence. I’m actually kind of glad that I’m not the only one. Makes me feel like I’m part of a community or something. I do think I am the one who invented the term birthday. It’s because I mark my yearly numerical value from the day I was born. If you ask some of these copycats, I doubt you’ll get as quick an answer. Continue reading “Birthday Post!”
Blog No. 154
It’s a strange thing, what time does to us. I’m not afraid of age. I don’t worry about getting older (outside of the efforts I make to get healthy). I quite enjoy the age I am and, while I’m terrified of being elderly, (I don’t think I’ll be in very good shape by then) I wouldn’t go back to my twenties if I could. I would love to be able to tell 20-year-old Ben to get off his ass, but that’s something different. Time soldiers on even when we aren’t paying attention. In the same way, life changes, but being in the middle of it, it often goes unnoticed (at least for me). The one day, you find yourself handing out Halloween candy, watching old episodes of Venture Bros. and wondering what time you’re going to get up for your day off the next morning. Continue reading “Halloween Hangover”
Ben Van Dongen 