March 17, 2022
Today is quite beautiful. It was super foggy last night and this morning, but it’s all evaporated now. The sky is blue, although there’s still a slight haze. It looks cool, asides from all the soggy mud everywhere. I feel very good. I woke up at 8:30 and went on a jog! I’ve gotten into the habit of not running in the morning. Now that it’s not horribly cold I’ve got no excuse not to go. I wasn’t gonna run, but I decided to do it. I felt amazing afterwards. I totally forgot how much of a difference it makes when I jog first thing in the morning. I feel so sharp and awake afterwards. I sat on the couch and read for about 2 hours. It was so much easier to read today, I guess because I didn’t smoke weed yesterday and because I actually ran.
At 11 I walked Harry the big black dog. It was nice, although I much prefer walking him at 3. It’s just this week that I’m walking him in the morning. 3 is the perfect time for me because by then I’ve had lots of time to read, I’ve worked on stuff for 2 hours and I’ve eaten. After all that my brain starts to get sleepy so it’s a great excuse to go out for a walk. If I was at home I’d just sorta sit around being unproductive until like 5.
I’ve gotta run up to the Fox. They can’t find the keys. I closed last night with Denzel. I actually remember that I couldn’t find them last night either. I was gonna ask Denzel where he’d put them but I forgot to ask. So yah, I gotta do that now and I’m gonna get some groceries at the same time.
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Just got back. I couldn’t find the keys. I gotta feeling Denzel took them home by accident.
I love this laptop so much. It’s such a joy to use for some reason. When I watched the review people said that they got excited when they knew they had to use it. I have the same feeling. I don’t quite know what it is. I had a similar feeling with my first Mac. That was a 2015 MacBook Pro. I didn’t have that feeling with my second Mac for some reason. That was a 2018 MacBook Pro. It had the TouchBar, the butterfly keyboard, the USB-C ports. I guess it was a combination of those things and maybe some other things. This one has a much better keyboard and no more Touch Bar. I much prefer it without the Touch Bar. I still think it’s a super cool idea, and it worked well. I just never needed it. The computer is actually easier to use without it, for me at least. This is also the thinnest and lightest of the Macs I’ve owned. It’s only a MacBook Air. It’s also the fastest Mac I’ve owned by far. It’s insane just how fast it is. I even got it with 16 GB of RAM, so it’s quite powerful. I can do all my video and photo editing and music making on here just fine. There’s also no fan, and it almost never gets warm. It’s pretty insane. It’s using a chip designed by Apple. All previous Macs were using chips designed by other companies. My last two Macs were using Intel chips. It’s actually a pretty exciting time for Apple. I haven’t felt this sort of excitement since I was really young, when Steve Jobs was still alive. The products look awesome, and yet they’re not doing as many things that totally annoy people. The machines are so fucking fast, so the relatively high prices feel totally justified. I can do everything I need with a MacBook Air with 16 GB of RAM. It’s insane. This is only the base line Apple chip. Every other chip Apple makes will be even faster than this, and this one already feels overpowered in most cases. So yah, I’m very happy with it. I’ve been so careful with it. I want it to last a long time.
I’ve been getting excited about the website again. I can envision what it could be in my head quite clearly. I realize how helpful it could be for other people, not just myself. Just from talking to people the last few days about random stuff I’ll notice how it could help them. This morning I was talking to Brooke, Harry’s owner, and she was telling me how she has so many random things she’s written that are in her notes and scattered on her computer. I would love if I could just give her the software today. It would be so helpful. Ultimately, you should be able to have documents written in notes that are automatically uploaded to the website, very much like iCloud. I would also like the software to be able to scan your whole computer and compile all the different file types, as opposed to going through hard drives and looking for things. You could select something that says ‘Reveal All JPEGS’ or Reveal All MP3’. It should be able to do any file type. Once it’s showed you all the files, you should then be able to easily have those files upload straight to the website- the only thing you have to do would be to specify the date you’d like it placed in, if it’s different from date that the document was created. I like the idea of it uploading to a cloud storage system (the back end) as well as the website (the front end). It would be really cool if it could work seamlessly with platforms like iCloud, Microsoft One Drive, DropBox, etc. Those would serve as the back end.
As of right now there’s not really an easy and enjoyable way to look at old memories that are stored digitally. People might have everything organized perfectly on hard drives, but that’s like the equivalent of having all your family photos arranged perfectly in boxes. What you want is to have them organized in photo books that you can engage with and flip through, only this photo book includes not only photos, but videos, written documents, music, or anything else really. Any file type.
So I guess what I gotta do is first get as far as I can go with a version for myself. I’m probably gonna have to start learning to code at some point. I think that once I have mine as far as I can take it, I should then pick some one, either a friend or family member, and design one for them. That way I can get very good at building them since the repetition will be useful.
I also gotta start getting serious about Australia. There’s quite a few things that are gonna be challenging, so the sooner I get started the better. I’ve gotta apply for a Visa. I’ve gotta figure out what I want to bring, and then I’ve gotta get rid of a bunch of stuff in the house. I guess I’m gonna have to ship some things? I want to bring my electric guitar, my cameras, my speakers and mics and I would love to bring my monitor. I don’t use it often but I love that thing. I haven’t been using it with my old Mac only because I haven’t been making music, but that’s what it’s basically for, and I’m definitely going to keep making music.
I don’t want to get rid of family photos, so I’m thinking that I’ll scan all the photos, and then hopefully I can leave them with Mami’s photos at her place in Montreal. There’s only a few photo books. I also want to keep childhood stuff, like the bag of stories and drawings. Hopefully I can leave them with Mami as well. I don’t want to be sorting through Liam’s stuff. I told him before he left that this was not his storage space. I told that to dad as well. I remember so vividly telling them that, and how angry they got at me. They can be such fucking morons sometimes. What do they expect me to do once I move out? Just pack their things with me and take it all to my next place? I told them both to decide what they’re gonna do with their stuff, because once I move out, I’m just gonna throw out what’s still there. They got so fucking angry at me. That’s part of why I’m so excited to leave. I still feel like I’m weighed down by the both of them in a way, I guess because so much of there stuff is here, and because we all lived here. I love the idea of living somewhere where it’s only MY stuff. I’m free from them completely. That really excites me. For some reason it make me feel weird when I talk to mom and dad on the phone, and I know that they know what the apartment looks like, as well the neighbourhood. It’s hard to explain, but one of the things that happened with Liam is that we totally don’t know his life anymore, aside from what he tells us and what he shares online. I don’t mean I want to cut them off the way he kinda did. Not at all. I really love talking to them both and having them in my lives. I just feel like I’m still living in my Dad’s house, and I don’t feel totally independent yet. I always feel like I kinda owe him something, since he’s the one I send rent to, and anytime something breaks around the house he’s the one I message so that he can contact the building. I won’t ever have to do that again in a different house. It will be nice to have that bit of freedom and not feel dependant on him anymore. I think it’ll be good for the both of us, actually.
I’ve gotta go to Nana’s today. I wish I didn’t dread going there. I only see her once a week and it’s really nice to see her. It’s literally just getting there and back that causes me such a headache. I think it annoys me because I know how close she is and yet it’s so slow getting there. It was much easier and faster when I would bike there. Now it’s like 3-4 hours somehow from the time I leave the house to the time I’m home. I don’t have a working bike, plus I often have groceries with me. And then I feel like I’m in a bad mood when I’m there and like I’m just trying to finish up the jobs as soon as possible. I feel excited and guilty to be leaving her. I feel excited because it can feel pretty suffocating talking with her sometimes. Dad had it much much worse, even mom. They both talk about how hard it was to ever talk to her just because she’s always asking questions about your life and why you’re not doing so and so and when you’re gonna do so and so. That wouldn’t be so bad if she was at least was happy for you when you actually accomplished one of those things. It’s so weird, because she’ll ask and ask when you’re gonna start a particular thing, and when you finally start it, she couldn’t seem to care less and will immediately move onto the next set of questions that she has. She’s not as bad with me as she is with Mom and Dad. I feel like I’m pretty good at getting her to stop. I kind of just answer simply and vaguely, and then ask her some questions. When we’re just chatting it’s very nice. I think it’s that she feels like she needs to talk about something and the only thing she can think of is to just ask for updates. Anyways, I feel excited to not have that anymore. It can also be hard because she is constantly trying to instil fear, it seems. I don’t think she’s doing it intentionally. If she could have it her way she would have her whole family living next to her in a retirement home, never going out at night, never leaving the city or the country. I remember on the boat how frustrated dad would get because she was always sending him emails with updates about gringos who’d recently died in Mexico. I’m expecting her to do the same with me once I tell her I’m serious about going to Australia. I feel guilty though, because she’s so old and sorta relies on me for a few things at this point. I also worry that once I’m gone she won’t feel that she has much reason to live. I don’t want to imply that I don’t like her. That’s not true at all. I fucking love her so much, she’s so amazing in so many ways. I need to definitely get as many recorded interviews with her as I can. She has such amazing memories, and she has such an amazing way of recounting them. She was born in 1929 and so she saw the majority of the 20th century. It’s her memories of World War 2 that are particularly incredible. She was 10 years old living in Manchester when it started and 16 by the time it ended so she remembers it all just fine.