Night write

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Personal writing is often my procrastination tool.

In the old days, I regularly wrote in my blog late at night. So many of the old 2004-2005 entries are in the midnight-4am range. This was back when I worked the night shift as a concierge at a fancy condo building in London, Ontario. I would arrive for my night shift, half-fried from the school day, full of twenty-something stress and angst. After the shift change I would settle into the dark, quiet time. I had a computer with internet access and few obligations. There was a unique feeling to that workspace, that job. Home base was a somber, elegant marble desk with visibility through chic, transparent double doors looking into an empty, intricate courtyard. Quiet dark night. Echoing hollow footfalls. Racoons and crickets. It was pretty ideal for creatively writing.

Now it’s 9:22am and it feels wrong to be wasting morning energy on the selfish act of inwardly focused writing. Yet I’ve learned that years from now, it’s exactly these procrastinating self-indulgent notes that my future self will cherish.

DIY Voice Over

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Looks like WordPress has integrated generative AI now. It suggested as a title for this post, “Massachusetts Home Sale: Why We Decided to Demolish the Vocal Booth”. That bland-ass basic bitch title probably would drive more traffic. I’m not doing it though. 100% of the writing here is, and will continue to be, me, shitty post titles included.

I’m preparing our Massachusetts home for sale. There is now urgency because next month, we will be paying two sets of bills in two countries given we close on the Canada house May 1.

We had been on the fence about whether to keep and convert the USA property to rent for some asset diversification but ultimately decided no. It’s an old house from the 1930s and upkeep would only be possible through a property manager proxy. There’s also risk that the tenants would be a family with a young kid and we could be lawfully compelled to de-lead the house. That would be costly. So I’m prepping to sell.

We moved in back in 2011. A major modification I made to the house back in 2016 was to install a custom DIY vocal booth in the basement for Claw’s voice over career. This was a major project. To negate the sound from our busy street something custom was required. One of the principals of blocking sound is to use as much mass as possible. You want heavy, dense objects to impede sound waves. Sound also tends to travel and reverberate through physically connected objects. So things like disconnected framing and air gaps help reduce sound permeation. Certain insulation products like Rockwool can significantly help too.

Here’s a couple of the 2016 build pics: Framing, Insulation, Drywall

I really went all out. The structure had double framing so that each wall and roof could have two sets of Rockwool insulation separated by an air gap. Each wall, ceiling and roof also had 2 layers of drywall. Very heavy everywhere. I used acoustic glue and caulk to obsessively make everything airtight. The entrance was two custom cut solid core doors with extra wood to add mass attached. I used latches and vehicle trim molding to make them close perfectly. I painted the drywall inside and out, made custom sound treatments covered by fabric and hung them on all the walls and doors. I made a special baffle lined with rockwool for passive air exchange between the inside and outside of the booth. Integrated a small opening to thread a microphone, USB and monitor cord through. This thing was truly a DIY marvel. When you clapped inside, the sound was absolutely dead. The vocals that came from Claw’s high end microphone produced that type of crystal clear intimate voice-in-a-vacuum that audio engineers are looking for.

Claw’s voice over career was moderately successful. She took acting classes and lessons from well known VO artists, built up her skill to augment her natural talent. She booked quite a few gigs, had a NYC agent. Networked at GDC and similar conferences. Had a podcast. Her income was never enough to come close to replacing her day job like she had hoped, but she made enough to pay for the expenses. Claw has come to terms that VO would probably always be more hobby than business. She’s putting it all on hold for now. I don’t have a shred of resent or bitterness at the effort I put in to help her. I was, and still am, happy that I did this project for Claw and supported her all throughout.

Now it’s demolition time. I built this temple to silence, and now that not enough people listened, I have to tear it down. Maybe the right buyer would want a bespoke vocal booth in their basement, but most people would consider this a liability. So, I rented a big 20 yard dumpster for two weeks and got to work. The main tools were a crowbar, a prybar, a reciprocating saw, a rubber mallet, and, the MVP, a sledgehammer. Got a few N95 masks and cut resistant gloves and started destroying. It’s all done except the cleanup. Intact booth, sound baffle remove, tools, doors off, drywall off, insulation off, final frame standing, current status, dumpster.

On to the next thing… once my back stops hurting.

Big Apple Birthday

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On Sunday Claw and I returned from a long week-end in NYC to celebrate her birthday.

And we did it fancy.

I did the planning. The two main events were seeing La Boheme Friday night, and a Broadway show, Sunset BLVD (starring Nicole Scherzinger) on Saturday night. We stayed at the Empire hotel on 63rd St, right across from the Met. I bought two new suits, some ties and bowties to match Claw’s dress, cufflinks and a fancy looking watch. Ate at a couple fancy restaurants, saw both the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Brunched and shopped in Soho and was massaged in Chinatown. Walked through Central Park, had a final breakfast at Broad Nosh Bagels before driving back to Beantown.

It was a pretty decadent week-end. We needed it. Claw needed it. She works very hard at a challenging job. Getting out and experiencing some culture and fine dining was more than welcome. If we are going to be living in the Ontario forest in a few months, we should take advantage of some of the cultural opportunities a short drive from home while we can.

It’s not lost on me how many people can’t afford a week-end like this. This was in my head as the fancy opera audience watched a story about poor and starving artists. On the way to the play, the cab driver was complaining about being financially squeezed so that he had to work all the time now.

When we were dining out on opera night, Claw ordered a pasta dish that had a sizeable portion of truffle on it. Later when she posted it on Facebook, a friend commented about it being a weird combination, sweet on pasta. They didn’t realize that the truffle wasn’t chocolate. A lot of people in our respective families are just trying to keep their heads above water. I am humbly aware of how fortunate we are.

It felt like the city had some edge. That might just be New York though. The gruff interactions we experienced could just be par for the course. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that society is in the calm tension before the storm. How much more can this capitalist system squeeze out of regular people before things start to break?

Highly Recommended

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I’ve listened to about 30 albums out of the Pitchfork best 50 albums of 2024 so far.

My favourite one so far is MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks.

They sound like the best alt-country indie bands I loved in the early 2000s. Definitely would have been right at home on Hardcore Country on CHRW-FM 94.9 FM, my beloved college radio station. The first three songs on this album, “Manning Fireworks”, “Joker Lips” and “Rudolph” are so strong, and set such an authentic vibe. Stellar all the way through. So good.

2014 – 2023

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How do I feel after formatting and archiving all my old blog posts for posterity?

Wistful.

That kid that wrote here in 2004 embodied the spirit of my youthful soul. That young man is still in here, but there’s a middle-age crust now. There, now you see! I’m an ugly, horrible, grouchy old man! That melancholy feeling from yesterday has lingered. I ripped an old scab off my fungus heart and am now missing everyone and everything from that time in my life.

So what happened in the years where my blog fizzled out and Xanga died?

After breaking up with my long-term girlfriend (and the resulting interim dating phase), I found my future wife, Claw in 2009. She was, and is, a kind, generous, warm person with interests and passions that align with my own. We were married in 2014, and our marriage is still solid as a rock.

We decided not to have children. We’re both 45 and mostly at peace with that decision. We revisit the conversation once in awhile to reassure each other we made the right call. Heart and head don’t always agree though. The house feels too empty sometimes.

I went from being a very low paid toxicology technician at a contract research organization in a Boston suburb, to a slightly better paid Research Associate at a pharmaceutical start-up in Cambridge, MA. They ran out of money and laid everyone off when their diabetes antibody failed in clinical trials. The chief scientific officer apparently liked me though. After he landed another executive job at a stealth start-up, he reached out to me to join the tiny company. I spent the rest of my career there, 2011-2024. The company is now in the S&P 500, having made a blockbuster drug in 2020. I was promoted a few times, ended up retiring as a senior scientist last June. I feel incredibly lucky to have been integral in developing something that saved thousands of lives. I am listed as a co-inventor on dozens of patents and have financial stability to reclaim my time. I am still trying to figure out what to do with it. Claw is still working by choice. I am proud of my career. I worked hard. I owed it to that confused, exhausted, naive student who started this blog back in Weldon Library 21 years ago. You would be proud of us kid.

We bought a house and moved to a Boston suburb in the Metrowest area. We love vacations to the Caribbean. Aruba, Puerto Rico, Grand Cayman, Bermuda. My original wedding ring is buried somewhere in the sand near the Pillars of Hercules in Antigua. We visited Japan, the UK. Countless trips around Canada. I was the best man in a Vegas wedding. Trips to Cape Cod. We’ve had great vacations in LA and NYC.

I’m still in good shape, working out most days. No major health scares yet. I started growing weed. I made a bitcoin mining rig. Wood working projects. Friends have come and gone. Couples have rotated in and then out. Friendships are like plants and I’ve never been great at watering them. I’ve maintained a few close ones though. I think there is space for more now that time has opened up. Life feels quiet. I work on my chess game, read, play video games. Life can feel boring without real stressors. It feels an incredible luxury, but also existentially uneasy. What is my purpose?

“You pass butter”

We are preparing to leave Massachusetts. Since Claw’s job is fully remote, we are going back to my hometown in Ontario, Canada. It is a secluded property buried in the woods on 40 acres, but within the city limits. No neighbours are visible from the house, only ancient granite mountains. It’s our apocalypse home and a fresh start. We’re going to find out how hard is it to build a social network outside of family in our mid-forties. 2025 feels like the start of a new chapter. I hope it’s not the last good one.

2004 – 2013

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Yesterday I spent a lot of time cleaning up formatting and broken links on my old Xanga blog entries that make up the posts from 2004-2013 on this site. I am so grateful that I have this treasure trove of writing. This was me from age 24 to 33, struggling to define and build the foundation of my life. I am so happy I captured it. Reading through caused so many of my amorphous, ethereal memories to be injected with hilarious color and detail that would have otherwise have been lost to time.

But holy shit, was it an overload of bittersweet nostalgia.

One of the best things about this exercise was reading all the old comments on my posts. They are restored now too. I miss the friendly support and encouragement from Xanga friends. These relationships were meaningful, but also had a parasocial element, where you didn’t know each other beyond the mutual assimilation of personal writing. That pseudo-anonymity was the secret sauce. It provided a veneer of psychological safety to freely muse and vent. It allowed deep social connection without real life logistics.

I am grateful to wonderplum, Kalligenia, lizamae, Sarahndipidee, tania_li, TheParkN8r, peaceofmymind84, coconutjules, Meghantothemax, reyrey12, shygirLuv, kwasham, Happytalia, shadowed_perfections and doraemon08. All those Xanga comments were little gifts, and I treasure them.

Cinephile 2025

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Every year I make a real effort to see all the Oscar nominated films. I’ve been doing this to a certain extent ever since I was a teenager. My wife and I try and see everything. Everything. We even try and see the movies nominated for best song and best makeup. It means hunting down the shorts in independent and art-house cinemas. For the documentary shorts we had to drive to Salem this year. Cambridge had the animated and live action shorts. There are unforgettable, powerful and beautiful films in these categories.

The best picture category is overrated. Big studio campaigning ensures unworthy films like Wicked and Emilia Perez secure nominations everywhere. Both my wife and I don’t see the appeal of Wicked. It feels like we’re missing something, because a lot of people claim to love this movie. The story was bloated. No one was likable and the acting felt superficial and secondary to set design and costumes. We started watching at 1.25 speed, then 1.5 speed. Not for me, sorry. How the fuck was Ariana Grande nominated for best supporting actress when Trine Dyrholm was out there with an absolute monster performance in The Girl with the Needle?

Emilia Perez wasn’t great either. I think at one point we sped this one up too. It had more potential than Wicked, took more chances but was messy and ultimately not good. It did the Joker 2 thing of jumping into songs as interludes between drama. I could have lived with that if the movie was compelling, but it was not. It didn’t know if it wanted to be a musical, a comedy or a crime drama. It ended up doing none of those things well. This feels like another case of very mediocre art being elevated due to social and culture war agendas.

Those are the two egregious offenders in the category. The rest of the films have merit, but flaws too. There isn’t a standout in the bunch. The Brutalist, Conclave felt and looked like best picture winners, but they just didn’t resonate with me like they should have. Nickel boys and I am Still Here were well done, important stories, but a little too joyless for best picture. That leaves Anora, Dune 2, A Complete Unknown and The Substance as the best 4. If this was truly about what the best movie experience was, it’s probably Dune 2. I think I would vote for The Substance though. Bonkers and awesome. A creative concept executed with precision. Funny, dark and dystopian. Goes off the rails in the final act, but deliberately so.

This year (and as usual) the real gems of the Oscar nominated films are in the International Feature Film category. I already alluded to the standout film here, “The Girl with the Needle”. I walked into this film knowing nothing about it, and was blown away. It is a monster. An unforgettable existential assault. I would pick this as best picture over the other ten nominated films. Even so, I might like another movie in the category even more. “Flow”. This might be my favourite film of the year. The animated movie about the black cat trying to survive in increasingly hostile nature. This movie hurts my heart to think about. It’s even more of an existential assault than The Girl with the Needle. I feel the dread, loss and wordless beauty of Flow deep in the pit of my soul.

The Defiant Sloth

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I’ve been slowly re-reading and bringing old blog entries out of private status and making them public. Just got through May 2005. Each post needs re-formatting from the old Xanga archive format. The tedium from formatting isn’t what slows me down though. It’s that I can only do so much at a time before the nostalgia and old memories become overwhelming. The new music I’m listening to isn’t helping either (MJ Lenderman – Manning Fireworks, number 4 on the Pitchfork best albums of 2024). It’s rough melodic indie alt-rock that would have been right at home in the wonderful music scene of 2005. This album definitely would have been part of my student life soundtrack had it come out then.

My wistful heart aches with pride when I’m reminded of how that kid surfed so much chaos and persevered. So much self-doubt and fear, so broke and uncertain. Yet I somehow pushed through everything with a sparkling superhuman effort and naive energy that we’re only capable of generating in our twenties. I love that I lived that life, and that it is documented here. I stand on your shoulders kid. You laid the foundation for a future I didn’t think possible. A scientist retired at 45 years old, in my pajamas at 11am on a Friday, reading and listening to music. Using my time and freedom to unapologetically retreat from the world as it burns.

Choco-pie

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It’s been a month since Trump was sworn in. I want to ignore the swirling shit tornado of news and social media posts that are generated in his wake, but it is too pervasive. The hurt people are hurting people. No one else enjoys this destruction and cruelty. Congratulations assholes, you win. Everyone’s miserable now.

I’ve spent a good part of the last three weeks in a cannabis fog, breaking my abstinence streak spectacularly. Played an ass-load of Elden ring. Finished the main game, leisurely playing through the DLC now. Canada house purchase is moving forward, there’s so much to do on the USA house before its sale ready, and I’ve done virtually nothing on that front. Been eating like shit. I ate a whole box of choco-puffs or whatever the shit they’re called. There was 12 of them and I ate all of them between 10pm last night and 10am this morning. I gobbled them all and played Attack From Mars pinball until my THC-Methocarbamol chocolate brain started drooping. It’s miraculous that I am not a giant fat ass with this glamourous lifestyle.

I wanted a little more new music, so I checked the pitchfork list of best 2024 albums this morning. Number 1 was Diamond Jubilee by Cindy Lee. It reminds me of Camera Obscura, Broken Social Scene, Lo-Fi girl and B-movies from the sixties. It’s an appropriately slothful vibe.

Mello shut-eye

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Positive LoFi Radio.

Aspiring to a sauna and workout.

The childhood fantasies of what I would look like as an adult have been fulfilled.

Happy marriage, no kids, still passionate about video games, movies, music and books. Retired at a young age. An overeducated middle-aged brat with freedom.

In a world of pain, I’m a lucky one. I wish it didn’t feel like I squander so much of this precious time.