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!
I’ve now been home for more than a month and officially off of the day job for fifteen days. Since then, the third book in my Synthetic Albatross series, 
Remember when everything even remotely related to the internet had to have a lowercase ‘e’ in front of it? Then Apple made the ‘i’ a thing and we’re still feeling the backlash from that. It’s all a moot point, though. I just wrote the title and it struck me that we’ll be stuck with eBook for the foreseeable future. 
Recently, my trusty ereader died. It’s a first generation Kobo, bought when I was working at Chapters seven or so years ago. A lot of book lovers I know (including writer friends of mine) have very strong views about ereaders, mostly against. Some are so strongly anti-ereader that they cheer the articles that proclaim digital death to electronic books. I’ve spoken before about my ereader, and my feelings that there is not only room for all books (physical, digital, or audio) but there are real benefits to having the option. Some authors have even made whole careers through the Kindle store alone. (Though a lot of that stuff is the kind of scam/crap that authors bring up when arguing against ereaders). 
Ben Van Dongen 