La Loche

I tried to have a good as a weekend as I could, given the horrible events in this province that happened recently. It’s not an incident I want to make a special effort to remember; yet it is one that simply can’t be ignored . . .

This province is a place that’s normally so obscure to most of the rest this globe: except to those who were part of the diaspora of leaving here for grander opportunities, or who still have family settled and rooted here. Lately, there has been a terrible light that has been shone upon us. For those of us who live in this province, which few people on this globe can pronounce, or would care to otherwise bother to find on a map, it’s a spotlight shining most unfavourably, on a remote place with little of anything redeeming to offset its reputation of being a rough spot to live in this province. We are (were) an ordinarily peaceful region in comparison to the rest of the world. Now however, we are no longer exempt from the list of places where violent shooting rampages can possibly occur. Now, a signal of further collapse towards the dark side of humanity in the northern communities and the first nations’ reserve lands is beckoning. This recent result: four dead, several others seriously injured. It’s a harsh glimpse into a community where society is already close-knit yet fragile, where families are already shattered with higher than average rates of poverty, unemployment, addictions, and suicides. Its isolation and lack of basic amenities and services don’t help either, nor does the clash of cultures, or having a provincial government who is largely dismissive of having mental healthcare, or even healthcare in general, accessible to its citizens; doing what it is doing to dissolve more of what little there is available already. It occurred at a time of year when the trough of wintertime depression is the deepest for most. There simply was less chance and resources for adequate intervention and prevention for things like what happened in La Loche recently. Most people are shocked, saddened, and angered about what happened there. As for me, after considering all the factors at play, it was no longer a question of if things like this could happen there, but a question of when and how severely the outcome would be.

Whether this all stemmed from long term recurring generational community strife and social problems, or simply is a punctuation of this script as a volatile short term mental derangement of one individual is debatable. There are not enough things yet released in the news suggesting how this storm of rampant untamed violence ultimately erupted. All we know for now is that it was a male young offender who did this, meaning under the Young Offenders Act of Canadian law, his name won’t be released to the public. The exact factors, precursors, and triggers of the events in this town will remain in question, as will the more detailed psychiatric profile of the perpetrator. There was some suggestion of bullying going on. As much as I can empathize with that young man given his age for struggling to deal with such an issue, I certainly don’t condone his chosen course of action to deal with it.

Mass shootings were once thought be limited mostly to the domain of that crazy nation downstairs*, with their psychotic fascination and promotion of gun culture, the ridiculous interpretations of their constitution’s second amendment, and the more relaxed regulations for firearm ownership and types of weapons one can own. Now, this insidious trend is appearing in other normally peaceful and civilized nations and societies, albeit (thankfully) in a less frequent degree. Norway, Sweden, Finland have suffered such tragedies in the past decade. Paris France, of course, is still a salient memory. Australia had the Port Arthur incident in the 90’s. Quebec (like École Polytechnique) and Alberta (Taber) are the other provinces in this nation to have had gunmen charging into schools and opening fire.

I can only imagine the sorrow and mood in such a community that has been unwillingly thrust by these circumstances into the view and focus of the whole nation, and to the rest of the world with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement of the tragedy in such an international forum like Davos, Switzerland. It’s moment of infamy that won’t ever be erased from the hearts and memories of those who were families and neighbours to the slain and wounded victims. Two teachers were lost, in a place with already precious few positive engaging role models who could have benefited that community. I hope the survivors get the support they need somehow; no simple bandage of financial support is going to make this nightmare go away for them, or reform an already shattered community.

*- To date, the first 25 days of this year of 2016, at this moment, the United States alone has had 786 recorded deaths by guns. That already amounts to more than half of all the gun deaths that occur in Canada for an entire year (an average of roughly 1300 for the past 25 years, according to Statistics Canada). Statistically, you are more likely to be shot to death in the United States than you are to die in a car accident in Canada.

Sub Minus Forty*

The sweeter days of the El Niño part of this winter seemed to have slipped away, and allowed for something more aggressive to move in and establish itself here in their stead. The wind chill was -44 this morning. I don’t really wish to belabour the point that today is not just cold, but frigidly cold. We expect these cold snaps to arrive here every January, we plan for this coming, we try our best to adapt to it around here, but we never really cease the bitching and complaining we do about it; questioning why we live here, and wishing we were somewhere else. My chosen course of dealing with it, for at least today, is to try to focus on being productively active with cleaning, fixing gizmos, and other house work, plus doing some weights and cardio exercise to raise my metabolism a bit.

With some sheepish embarrassment, I confess that I’m probably entering a state of denial about having to cope with this weather. For example, this morning after I brought in some firewood from the outside cradle on my balcony, I realized that I made the extra effort to shut the bug screen behind me as I was closing my deck windows after re-entering. Why? Like the place was going to be invaded by an onslaught of fucking mosquitoes right now? It could have been just a force of habit, maybe it stemmed from an unconscious wish that it would be so warm such that there would have been a need to do that. Whatever the case, it seemed like one of those odd stupid moments that just make me shake my head at myself.

I don’t write this for my Canadian audience, nor for those who know full well the rigours involved with enduring the season here at this time of the year. This is for the benefit of the readers of the rest of this planet’s population who don’t know, and are perhaps blissfully ignorant of what living in a what I would call a hard core winter zone is like. ** It sobers my senses when I do the calculations in my head when considering the geographical distribution of the world’s human population. The reality is that actually only about less than 3% of the planet’s people live in such zones, even with a very generous guess as to how many people live inside places like Siberia, Iceland/Greenland, Arctic Eurasia/North America, the Northern half of the Scandinavian peninsula, and Antarctica***. That makes 97% of you from everywhere else not very well acquainted with coping with these extremes in cold temperatures. Even here in Canada, because of the higher number of urban population centres situated near the southern border, less than 30% of this nation’s population qualify as living in my idea of a hard core winter zone. Sure, every Canadian knows what winter is, but when it comes to temperatures, more than 60% of our population can live and die without having ever experienced its greatest extremes. Now that I`ve crunched the numbers, it’s strange and shocking for me to realize now that there are that many people on Earth who have never actually experienced living through a day with a temperature below -20 Celsius. It is no wonder then that the rest of these people, the by far greater majority of this planet, think that we are crazy to be living in places like here. We definitely are the oddballs to them. It was hilarious to see the expressions of shock and bewilderment after going to a tropical country, and explaining to these people the truth about the reality of living through winter in Saskatchewan, when the coldest they`ve ever experienced in their lives is only something like plus 20 degrees Celsius. It was also intimidating to be looked at as some kind of freaky lunatic afterward once this reality about my life back at home was revealed to them.

Sure, there is lots to dislike on days like these: vehicle engines being stressed and uncooperative, cellphone batteries blanking out, eyeglasses frosting up, dry skin, frozen extremities, the wind feeling like it's trying to peel the skin off your exposed face with icy daggers are just a few things I can think of instantly off the top of my head. However, there are things I can appreciate about days like these too, especially when I don’t have go to work (like today).

So with the questions of why do I accept living here during winter, and how I can even appreciate days like these in mind, here are some of my easy answers for that:

• It rarely snows more when it gets this cold (and at least it's a dry cold).
• Between dealing with light and powdery snowfall we get here versus clearing the wet heavy snow or having the ice storms they get by the Great Lakes and in the Atlantic provinces, I'll take our stuff any day.
• There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.
• It makes you appreciate having a home to stay warm in more.
• The pleasure factor of stuff like soup, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and blood-warming hard liquor increases tenfold after you’ve been accosted a bit by a frosty chill.
• It becomes easier to justify eating and enjoying delicious fatty food.
• It becomes perfectly alright to accept surrendering to a nap under a warm quilt, or losing yourself in a good story on page or screen.
• Solitude in general seems more acceptable. As the elements aren't making it easy for people to gather anyway, through reason, you feel like less of a weirdo for being alone.
• If you are fortunate enough to have intimate company, cuddling becomes more acceptable, maybe even necessary (it can feel gross on a hot summer/tropical day, no matter how much you love your partner).
• A good excuse to light a fire in the fireplace: it stirs some kind of primal comfort in us.

That’s all I have for now. Unlike for a lot of other people, even this weather doesn’t have me yearning for tropical climates. I suppose I’m weird that way. To be strong-willed and resourceful enough to find ways to be happy where you are, no matter what the weather is like outside, and to find people around who are cheerful despite inclemency is enough. Tropical holidays spent being corralled with tour groups, or confined to resorts, surrounded by idiotic people who are complaining about things “being not like they have it at home”, is my idea of hell. I’ll take the peace of an afternoon nap, or an evening by a fire, on a cold day instead.

*- For easy reference: -40 is the equal in coldness for both Celsius and Fahrenheit.

** - By “hard core” winter zone, I mean in a region which has 20 or more days of a year where winter temperatures can hover around -20 degrees Celsius, or lower. This part of Saskatchewan definitely meets that criteria.

***- The degree of error in my estimate isn’t just dependent on cold weather latitudes, but also on varying pockets of Alpine regions of higher elevations.

Loving The Alien (Remembering David Bowie)

I'm not the sort to ordinarily gush or dwell on the deaths of celebrities, but this time is different.The news of the death of David Bowie shocked me, and I have to admit that I feel a deep sense of loss, more so than I would have for any other artist's passing. I realize now that I'm more of a David Bowie fan than I thought I was. I suppose my own music collection is telling of that. My iTunes Genius app includes at least one or two of his songs for every random playlist of 50 songs generated out of the pool of my 6000 or so songs in my collection.

I don't know exactly why he appealed to me so much as an artist. I think that he was favoured by those who themselves didn't readily belong to, or weren't grounded in any one conventional or specific place, time, vocation, or social group; harmless people, who are kind and loving sorts, yet regarded as oddballs and misfits by the rest of the world. That is, those who are left to feel like they were aliens walking on their own Earth and wandering and exploring it alone. It is a feeling I have struggled with for most of my life, and Bowie for the most part found the right imagery, words, and musical notes to explain it accordingly and exactly.

He did much to pave the way to bring social conventions that were seen as too taboo and abhorrent and softened them to more of a view and place of normalcy and acceptance, even though he used shock and awe to get our attention first, and thus made it a richer world for all of us. He was a hero to people who don't follow or conform to a set accepted script of gender or sexuality. He made it safe people for people to live within their own skin if they had eccentricities, instead of suffering for and from them. He was an inspiration to so many artists of other genres, from punk to hip hop, from metal to even country.

He was a master of sound and vision. He was a true artist right until the bitter end. Even though cancer was winnowing away the rest of his life energy from him, his creative spirit stayed strong until his very last breath.

Thank you David for all of your genius and greatness that you shared with us. I wish we could have had you cloned. I will miss you. Indeed, the stars look very different today.

My Favourite David Bowie Songs (in no ranked order)

• The Man Who Sold the World
• Ziggy Stardust
• The Jean Genie
• Ashes to Ashes*
• Modern Love
• Let's Dance
• China Girl*
• Space Oddity*
• Sound and Vision
• Slow Burn
• Changes
• Heroes
• Absolute Beginners
• Loving the Alien
• Rebel Rebel*
• Golden Years*
• Fame
• Queen Bitch
• Without You
• Station to Station
• This Is Not America
• I'm Afraid of Americans
• Lazarus

*- If the list was ranked, these songs would be in the top five.

5Q5A: Lit Trek

It is cool to see that even professional bloggers and authors are using the five-point format now for current and topical stuff: like for instance, Tim Ferriss with his 5 Bullet Friday posts. After last night, and the past week, I need to make things simple.  Here it goes with my version . . .

Q1. You were in McNally Robinson last night. What was there that piqued some interest?

A1. It wasn’t so much about any one book, or even one genre. It was formats of some books that caught my attention and fascinated me (I swear, sometimes I have moments where I have bloody Asperger syndrome). More specifically, I was roaming around the foreign book section, and catching sight of books that were in dual language format, One language on one page, and the translated English text on the side on the opposing page. I thought that this would accelerate my learning and retention of the bits of grammar and vocabulary of my other learned languages. There was Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis there in the original German and in English in the same book, another collection of Russian short stories formatted the same way. I’m not so keen as to learn more Russian, but if I had to that would help (I’d still be kind of hopeless speaking it though). I also wanted to collect the French translation of 1984. I can recite lines and passages from that work from memory, and having that copy would probably be helpful in improving my comprehension of at least written French. I also looked around for the title in Spanish, El Señor de las Moscas, for a likewise translation of The Lord of the Flies, but I couldn’t find one.

Q2. Did you end up buying anything?

A2. No, I resorted to my dirty little Jason Bourne-esque espionage sort of trick of mnemonically processing the ISBN numbers of other books, and walking out of there to plug into library searches later for free. If that doesn’t work, I’ll tour around and hopefully find the same things in the used book stores at a better discount.

Q3. Last favourite read?

A3. It was The Bat, by Jo Nesbø, a Norwegian author. The first book in a series about the exploits of a Norwegian police detective, Harry Hole (and yes, I know some of you are snickering right now). I’ve been impressed by both the quantity and quality of the crime and detective friction that has been coming out of Scandinavia lately. That’s both interesting and puzzling, because it’s inspired and created in such an idyllic place to live in this world.

Q4. Next Canadian fiction read?

A4. After thinking about it, I should maybe hope to get my hands on The Mountains of Portugal, by Yann Martel. I would collect that one . . . and by honest means.

Q5. What are your greatest negative/positive issues or experiences at a bookstore?

A5. Firstly, I have no mental filter for handling all the interesting titles and subjects. Not many subjects are boring or off-limits. It gets to be too much for my brain after even a short while, because it is like it is trying to download and absorb everything I see on the shelves. That gives me option paralysis too easily. The titles and subjects too often get burned into my neurons, only to be stored as useless information. That might be OK for a trivia contest, but it doesn’t serve me well when I’m trying to focus on a finding a practical reference or interest. I often get headaches when I walk out of such stores like that. The positive I guess is perhaps being around follow customers with perhaps similar interests, or at least interests . . . period. At least I know most of them won’t be boorish hellraisers. However, it’s typically a 95% population of introverts in a book shop, and thus those there usually have neither the courage nor the social intelligence in knowing how to get to some point of trying to even greet each other as strangers.  

Cabin Pleasures vs. Cabin Fever

I have taken this day off as my New Year’s statutory holiday. A good day to recover from a lot of skiing and committing to starting a lot of other things on my resolution list for the New Year. Committing to my resolution of doing an archiving project, as I said I would do in a recent entry, was one of them. Monitoring the moving and copying of a couple of terabytes of data to sort through later was beginning to be a bit of a monotonous process; filled with snags. So, on the side, I’m doing a bit of writing as a practical and meaningful diversion, as I watch things close by. I have purposely kept the TV and music off for the sake of being free of distraction.

Despite being struck with a big cramp in my foot today from starting all this off a little too eagerly; I’m still thankful that I’ve been able to get out and do some skiing. I sure wasn’t able to last year. The absence of the noise, with technology being a pain in the ass right now, and being grateful for the fact that I ski this year brought me around to exploring a challenging question that came to me recently. I don’t usually pick out subjects from Facebook or other social media to give an in-depth commentary on, but this particular one captured my interest. Perhaps some of you saw, or even commented on it. I don’t know what was more poignant: the challenging question, or some of the answers people gave for it. It was the Cabin in January question that has been getting a lot of attention in Facebook. It was presented such that it looked like a probe for auditions for a reality TV show offering $100,000.00 in prize money. My response I gave was initially for the prospect of easy money, but I realize that this was a rash answer. After some introspection, there is more to it than that. I had to get real with myself and remember how much of a trial it was for me last winter when I was incapacitated for much of it: unable to walk outside in the chilly air without extreme risk and discomfort, or even inside without feeling like I was going to collapse. Thus, I was forced to be a shut in for more than a month; left to deal with my own unwelcome isolation. Even with the company of my dog, and being surrounded by all sorts of technology and the amusements of games, puzzles, media, and literature that it could provide, I realize that I didn’t manage very well when the solitude was too prolonged. It was quite a miserable situation. So, would I really have it in me to last in a cabin by myself in the middle of nowhere, even it was for a modest fortune? I realized the hard way that it takes health and energy to deal with and endure isolation. The thing that majorly made it so bad was the fatigue and lack of energy depriving me of even the ability to focus and think straight. That was the most dreadful thing to deal with, plus being drained all the time by both anxiety and depression. I was left fearful and wondering what I would be doing with my life if the recovery stalled at point where I was going to be chronically disabled, and if that would be the limits of the energy I’d able to muster for each of the remaining days of the rest of my life. Thankfully, I’ve come around to being healthier than that, I can re-access and review why I think it would be a good, if not entertaining or interesting, exercise to do. Moreover, to do it by myself. It’s ironic that I dwell on the subject of coping with winter isolation with contrived conditions of scarcity, while I’m trying to deal with the mediocrity of it here, using technology within the comforts of modern civilization.

There are a lot of valuable disciplines and lessons one should achieve with this challenge of coping with isolation away from a noisy, instant gratification society if one does it right. The ones I see that are the most valuable that appear off the top of my head are these things

1. Lagom:  to gain a sense of that nice, concise word, invented by the Swedes: to instill a value of learning how to consume or use just enough; not so much to be wasteful, and yet not so little as to feel deprived. I would think that after a while it would change how you direct your energy for real living. I had spoke more about lagom in a past entry about Sweden and Unions (Learning what Lagom Is). Given that you have limited to the things in your cache of supplies here, and no option to just dash off to a store, learning to ration and make the more out of your materials is critical.
2. To be Grateful: a cabin without electricity or access to media is about as bare essentials as you can get, but realize that so many in the world have even less than this. What is even yet more profound is that among the many of them who do have less than this, there are those who are able to find happiness and gratitude.
3. You May Find Out What your Authentic Self Is: once you take away the trappings of this material world, or at least get put in a place where such things have no practical use, or where there is no one else around to admire them, or be impressed or covetous of them, you may be forced to see that knowledge and skills, not things, are the real treasures. I think that this would allow one to realize exactly what kind of skills one would inherently want to have. This brings me to the next point . . .
4. You May Find Out What You Are Truly Lacking: without interference from the rest of the outside world trying to sell you shit, or adverts trying making you feel like less of a person just because you aren’t consuming and hoarding more junk, you might tune into the qualities you wish you had instead of quantities of stuff you want that go obsolete and out of fashion quickly
5. You May Soon Discover That Most of the Stress You Have Living in a Modern Society is Artificial, and Ultimately Trivial: I’ll leave this one open for debate.

The ideal location options I’d like for this cabin (if, as in the picture, it is indeed in a Boreal location):

1. Definitely out of Saskatchewan, unless it was by a lake with a good ice-fishing. Maybe somewhere else in Canada, like probably Northern Ontario or Quebec, (BC is too alpine for me; I don’t fancy avalanches). The hint that reveals that this cabin in the picture is somewhere in North America is the sign with the English word “Welcome” over the door.
2. If in the USA, hopefully in a northern state by some (unpolluted) lake.
3. If in Europe: I’d opt for either Norway, or Sweden, or Finland (because there’s a good chance then that I might conveniently have a sauna nearby to use).
4. The lowest I’d stoop to is this . . . Russia, that is if this place is situated close to the borders of Western Europe. I’d hope to hell not in someplace inside deep in the Siberian regions of Irkutsk, Yakutsk, or Omsk. It’s fucking insanely cold over there! It’s often such that the coldest places on Earth in January are within those regions. Too cold for even me: one who is usually well adapted to it. That would make it a very hard earned $100,000.

The 15 most basic tools that I would hope were provided for me:

1. An Axe
2. Matches
3. Candles
4. A sighting compass, with both degree and mil readings, plus a map including the area within a 10 km radius of the cabin
5. A good hunting/filleting knife (with a sharpening stone)
6. Fish hooks and fish line (at least 20 lb test) if near a lake or river
7. A good length of rope (15 metres)
8. A shovel
9. A bucksaw
10. Snowshoes or skis (depending on the terrain)
11. A camping lantern (with spare wicks/mantles and a good supply of fuel for it)
12. A kettle
13. A wash basin
14. A cast iron frying pan
15. A bucket

If there is absolutely no electrical power in said cabin, what things would I have with me to keep myself mentally stimulated? (Let’s say I was limited to five)

1. A set of writing instruments and paper - I grouped this to be one thing, as each is useless without the other. The paper would be in a ruled notebooks and blank sketchpads. Journaling, listing, cartography, schematics, calculating, for the practical side. Creative writing, sketching, calligraphy, origami for the recreational side.
2. A Carving Knife/Blade - with an abundance of wood around it would be a practical implement. I'd use it for carving utensils, harpoon points, snare trap riggings and such if I wanted/needed extra protein beyond the provisions. Also, for crafting an abacus/Napier bones (a non-electrical homemade computer for the sake of saving paper while doing complex calculations). It would probably be more likely to be used for whittling figurines for something leaning towards the recreational.
3. A novel – I couldn’t guess which one right now would be the perfect one to include with this experience, but it would certainly be a long one.
4. My Guitar – It would be an ideal time to re-acquaint myself with it, and try to master it better. The bright side is that there would be no one around to complain. A chance perhaps to compose a song for someone special. If worse comes to worse, i.e. I lost my all my food somehow and was starving, and I have no firearm¹ for hunting, the strings could be used for snare wires, or a fashioning a crude bow.
5. Ella, for an animate form of companionship to talk to (and to give her the job of being my alarm system, and helping to keep the bedding warm).

Assuming that food was indeed provided, but there’s actually no power keeping anything preserved in a freezer/fridge, (or no meat, butter, cheese, or other goodies frozen and cached in a cellar pit dug into permafrost) here’s what I’d hope to at least find as essentials for dried or canned stores in the larder:

1. Dry pasta of various types, and tins of sauce (not my favourite, but it at least has some vitamins and serves as good energy)
2. Packages of Instant porridge (slow-cooked porridge is better, but instant needs less water and heating to prepare)
3. Canned evaporated milk
4. A few jars of assorted sour pickles, including sauerkraut
5. A couple jars of jam (at least one of them strawberry)
6. Olives
7. Crackers
8. Jerky/dried sausage
9. Tins of corned beef (I’d just have to mash in some olives and pretend that it’s pâté)
10. Canned ham
11. Tins of smoked oysters
12. A bag of flour (so I’d be able to at least make bread, or bannock, or if I’m desperate . . . crepes!)
13. Yeast (at least enough to make a sourdough starter)
14. Nuts, or dried fruit of some kind
15. Soup stock powder/bouillon cubes
16. Various pulses, legumes, and grains (like Lentils, Chickpeas, Beans, Rice)
17. An assortment of spices and seasonings
18. Salt
19. Sugar
20. Baking Powder

What I would hope not to find in there in abundance:

1. Canned Salmon
2. Sardines
3. Instant Coffee
4. Turnips
5. Rat turds

If I were permitted five creature comforts for this adventure, they would be:

1. Tea
2. A large bag of Jujubes, or other candies to suck on
3. A sizeable bottle of either Jägermeister, or some other form of spirit/sipping whiskey (for medicinal purposes)
4. Dog chow and a rawhide bone (not for me; for Ella)
5. A picture of someone I really love

Media and technology I would I really happy to be without:

1. Receiving 20 junk e-mails for every one I get that’s useful
2. Requests for games I don’t play
3. Any political news from the United States, especially about Donald Trump
4. Any news about terrorism, and the constant fear-mongering related to such things
5. Political opinions on Facebook from sanctimonious assholes who think they know all the answers, but who spell and use grammar at the level of fifth graders in their comments

Media I would miss during this time:

1. News feeds and humour from my genuine friends on Facebook
2. You Tube
3. iTunes
4. TED talks
5. Netflix

Five useful apps that I would miss for a month:

1. Duolingo (my language learning app)
2. Google Translate (for testing myself in composing non-English sentences after learning some new vocabulary)
3. iPhone Camera
4. Note/Evernote/OneNote
5. Weather Network

Television series I might miss:

1. Jeopardy!
2. The Walking Dead
3. Vikings
4. The Big Bang Theory
5. The X-Files (new series)

The things I’d most likely enjoy and value about the experience:

1. Adjusting to a more natural rhythm for my waking hours of the day, no alarm clocks
2. Free to use my energy to its fullest when I have it, rest at my leisure when I don’t
3. Watching nature and the wildlife
4. Complete freedom of other distractions, to get a more honest peek at what I place down on paper, and to come back with a sounder idea of an ideal career and lifestyle change
5. Far away other peoples’ negativity, and hopefully a chance to smarten up about dealing with my own
6. An extra 100 G’s baby!!!!

1 - Despite growing up in the Central Parkland of Saskatchewan, I never really coveted firearms, nor needed to prove my manhood through big game hunting. I know how to use a gun; I just do so with greater discretion and practicality. It doesn’t thrill me to kill animals for sport; I’d use one only in absolute desperation as a last resort. I won’t bother to own a gun if I don’t actually need it, and using the reason of defense to keep one is a bullshit excuse. I lived this long without one, so I don’t need one now. Even in this scenario of being alone in the middle of the wilderness, if my food is already provided, I’d see little need to keep a one handy. I’ll use the fish hooks first. Again though, it depends on where this cabin was. Some places have wildlife that is a little more nutritious (or savage) than others. The gun I’d have around in this cabin would probably be just a plain old .22 calibre repeater, with a simple telescopic sight (to compensate for my bad eyesight), and a 10 round magazine: for scaring off varmints, and picking off the odd hare, or game birds like partridges, grouse, or ptarmigans (if I was way up north). I’d probably really only take advantage of using it to entertain and test myself with creating my own winter biathlon course, shooting targets along with the skiing, in a remote place where I would have less of a risk of accidentally shooting someone else, or their property. The only other gun I might consider keeping around for a risk of more serious action in a scene like this is a semi-automatic Russian SKS carbine. It’s relatively cheap, rather crude, and utilitarian. I find those qualities of it fitting.  It isn’t fancy or pretty to look at: it’s simply a tool. I don’t want aesthetics, nor would I pay a lot for something I rarely use. I want just basic function and economy. To be deriving any pleasure, fixation, and fascination in admiring the aesthetics of an object which has the sole purpose of killing other things verges on being both disturbing and creepy. It’s actually an archaic-looking military carbine, using the same 7.62 x 39 mm ammunition as an AK-47 assault rifle takes, meaning that it should be adequate enough in dropping something that is as big as I am, or larger. The ammo can be bought in bulk by the thousands in shabby looking wooden cases at Cabela’s, also for super dirt cheap. I’d need a lot of practice shots. The model I’m thinking of even has a fold out bayonet, and it’s so heavy for its size that could be used for a melee weapon to bludgeon something to death, and still be able to shoot afterwards. Options to consider because again, I have bad eyesight, and would probably miss something fierce like a cougar or wolf charging straight at me. I would hope that things would never get that drastic.

Year's End Evening 2015

The year 2015 ends with me sitting in my humble dim living room, by my fireplace that was lit and kindled with the old calendars, sipping on a Scotch* on the rocks, reading and reviewing my chronicled entries I wrote throughout this year that has passed, and writing this current one. I really can’t find the will to be around any other company, despite feeling somewhat more alone than usual right now. The playlist generator app I switched on in iTunes guessed and programmed the perfect set of songs for what’s rolling around my mind right now. The ideal title for this particular playlist would be It’s There and Real. I wish it could be shared with the one I’ve been thinking about.

I was sort of lamenting earlier, as I wrote my last entry, about how 2015 did no special favours for me as a year of good fortune, and I’m at the point where I’m begging for some better karma for 2016. It seems though lately like even a small bit of good luck is a huge thing to ask and pray for. Even when good luck does come there now seems to be a catch, or a caveat. It seems to find a way of short changing me the chance of any complete potential, or the fullest scale for total happiness. Shortly after posting the last entry a little more than a week ago, I received a revelation that stunned and shook me to my very soul. I’ve been in a strange place ever since then, one in which I waver between states: where on one hand I feel like my heart wants to explode with joy, reveling in news that a guy like me would equate to winning the lottery . . . twice!  Then, I find myself falling just as suddenly to the other extreme of wallowing about in a fog of despair because the timing, distance, and other circumstances leave me powerless to be able to do anything more to make the reality of the situation less complicated and conflicted. It's like holding a winning lottery ticket . . . and being unable to collect the prize. A promise of discretion keeps me from explaining anymore about it; I could never betray the trust of the person who told me the facts. It’s something that I couldn’t ever forget anyway, and thus it's not necessary for me to record more here in great detail for the sake of my memory. All I can say is that I really wish I had the ability to clone the dearest people in my life. 

I have set no resolutions for this upcoming year: at least none which I could proclaim openly. My last meal of the year was nothing monumental. I worked this evening with no special ceremonies, struggling hard to find and recall any other special moments of the year for myself, other than what I just mentioned. It was futile. My last purchase of the year is a 3 TB cloud drive, for the arduous task of archiving and organizing my digital life so I can attempt to move other mountains. The recent effort of trying to recover some old photos showed me how urgently this needs to be done. It was bought out of necessity, not desire. It’s for preserving other work I have for the vain hope that it may get published some day. The threat of my laptop crashing any day still looms. Dealing with that may be my next issue.

I just glanced at a clock to see that I’m 40 minutes into the new year. My glass is now empty. Ella’s fear of fireworks was triggered from the bursts and shock waves from outside, and I suppose I have to coax her out of her hiding place. I suppose I should be thankful that throughout this past week, I’ve got real with myself after being sort of jolted and then coaxed out of some hiding places too.

Welcome 2016! Please don’t be as cruel of a year as 2015 was.

*-Single malt, 12 year old Auchentoshan . . . excellent stuff.