gerry.life

  • What happens when you get older?

    I keep catch myself thinking like an ‘old person’. More than one I’ve thought “perhaps we should go for dinner a bit earlier, you know before the restaurant gets really busy and the service gets slow’’.

    I can trace my path to thinking like this back to when I commuted to work by train.

    For the first year or two I thought it was sad that some people stood in the same spot on the platform every morning.

    I made the conscious decision to always stand in a different spot. Sometimes at one end of the platform, sometimes in the middle. I tried hard to be random, but, humans are not good at random behavior. We are programmed to fall into patterns of behavior. It saves time and energy if you don’t have to think.

    So, like most other people I gravitated toward standing in the same spot. I mean, it was the best spot for guaranteeing I got a seat on the train. What’s wrong with that?

  • Going with the flow

    While I was hiding from COVID, I spent a lot of time writing, usually using one of the three fountain pens I acquired during the first month of ‘sheltering in place.’

    Of course, I could have written with one of the many pencils I own — I have a bit of a pencil addiction.

    Still, I felt this past year —more than any other year —was worth memorializing in ink on nice paper.

    For the ink, I settled on Pilot Iroshizuku Kon-peki. An ink that is not too light, not too dark. It’s just ‘right.’ And, it comes in a gorgeous, aesthetically pleasing glass bottle.

    I did try some green ink. I thought it would be a light, happy color to counter the gloom of the ever-increasing pandemic deaths. But, I soon realized green was more suited to writing a manifesto than recording my time at home.

    I also bought some notebooks filled with Tomoe River paper. This is the paper that gets positive reviews on every YouTube channel with fountain pens as a focus, And, they are not wrong. It is very, very nice to write on.

    So, what did I learn from all this writing on fine paper with my not too-blue ink?

    Firstly, and most unexpectedly. Writing with a pen and ink really — and I mean really — improved my writing on electronic devices. I’m not sure why. But, it did. Secondly, I did feel the pace of writing with a pen made me more aware of what I wanted to record. That, of course, was expected.

    Now, as the pandemic is drawing to a conclusion in my part of the world, I’m hooked on pens, ink, and paper. I just bought ‘one last fountain pen’, a few more bottles of ink, and a load of paper and notebooks from Asia. Hopefully, I keep going along this route. The benefits are well worth the time and (growing unecessarily) expense.

  • Remember?

    This was a writing class exercise.

    I remember

    I remember Miss Gallagher, my primary school teacher. She was the best daytime Mom.
    I remember my childhood dog, Kim. He was afraid of everything.
    I remember soccer games at school. I hated that stupid game.
    I remember fighting Bobby McDonald when I was six years old. My first and only playground scrap.
    I remember wearing shorts and Wellington boots on cold, rainy days. And the red marks the boots left on my calves
    I remember sitting on top of a double-decker bus with my parents. Everyone was smoking except for me.
    I remember helping my father dig the vegetable garden in the Spring and having to smell turnips and cabbage being boiled in the Autumn.
    I remember throwing my younger sister’s favorite toy over the garden fence. She also never forgot.
    I remember getting my long hair shaved off. My father was happy and said I looked like a soldier.
    I remember connecting a battery-powered radio to the AC mains. It never worked again.
    I remember the moon landing and my Uncle telling me it was historic.
    I remember listening to Russian broadcasts on my Short-Wave radio, even though I didn’t know what a five-year plan might be.
    I remember telling my mother that lightning could shoot along phone lines and into her ear. She was afraid of phones for the rest of her life.
    I remember pretending I was a DJ by turning my radio volume down and talking between tracks during the Sunday evening Top 20 chart show on Radio 1.
    I remember getting a guitar for Xmas and finding out I would never be the next Eric Clapton.
    I remember being unable to sleep on Xmas even when I knew Santa didn’t exist.

  • The GOAT

  • Bay Bridge

  • Lighting the sky

  • Stones on the water

    Point Pinole

  • Orange on a winter’s day

    Bright bike on a cloudy day.

  • Orange on a winter’s day

    Bright bike on a cloudy day.

  • Point Pinole Pier

    The pier on a calm day.