A Short Little Post for my Birthday (2020)

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!

Thoughts about Books

Blog No. 155

Much of the following story has been told on this blog before, but it may have been a while ago, or you may have not read it, or you have and I’m telling it again anyway.

Some time ago I was in London Ontario for school. I was only there for eight months, but in that time I made some astounding discoveries. One of the greatest was audio books. I took the bus to campus most days. The school forced students to buy a bus pass and I wasn’t about to pay for a parking pass. I wasn’t overly experienced with riding the bus (coming from a family of drivers) but I was given a crash course. The first month or so I tried to read during the short trip. Sometimes it was things for school, but mostly it was for leisure. At every stop (and there were many) I would look up from my book and lose my place. I’m a slow reader naturally, so over the twenty minute ride, I wasn’t getting more than a page read, and being distracted at every stop wasn’t helping.