the lights all went down in massachusetts

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04122024 - the lights all went down in massachusetts

it snowed today in somerville, mass. i have posters on my walls now! i will admit that i got a stuffed maushold and it has made me sleep better. ive been painting apples to pass the time. i read with samuel on monday and thursday mornings. ive gotten remarkably good at making handpulled noodles. i miss my sister and pan a lot. i find myself as the only canadian in rooms nowadays (no easy feat!). i submitted a grad school application. i found photos of michael and i from 4 years ago and i ogled at how he has aged perfectly. im thinking of joining the guelph historical society. the idea of being a social studies teacher or starting an afterschool program circulates in my head often. ive been reading a lot about reverse osmosis. oh, and river liming. two separate sides: one aims to remove and the other adds, yet an abundance of calcium and magnesium ions floating in the water still connect the two together.

i spoke at my first council meeting yesterday! i dont even live in cambridge, mass. i talked about vancouver’s strides in 6 story multi family housing. i listened to dozens of yimbys and nimbys. i try extraordinarily hard to find empathy for all. people say that some decisions can never be nonpartisan. i think i have much to learn about housing, but an abundance of time and a never-ending stream of curiosity that allows me to ask the right people the right questions.

i cried with john on the porch of november 6. i remind myself of the beauty of fighting for people i’ll never meet. we drank iced apple cider with dai and i was stunned it did not rain. the grad school application asked what news sources i frequented most often. i sheepishly admitted that i read a lot of guelph news and not so much the nyts, wapos, bloombergs of the world.

alkalinity enhancement is a logistics puzzle. i keep forgetting how large a gigaton actually is. pre aerosol skies on the east coast are getting hazier. sometimes i forget that climate change, as a concept, is not universally accepted. there’s still so much work to do. although, every stranger who asks me about the world’s first river alkalinity enhancement button on my winter jacket has responded enthusiastically. slowly, all commuters will know the existence of carbon removal...

oh, i screened anson’s documentary at friendly beans’ satellite of the socratica filmfest! and donald’s epic adventure across the desert. i cried to these first-time beaners about how much i loved my friends and how i felt so grateful for their passion to craft. vulnerability is a skill. holding silence even much more so. john and i keep reading oliver sabot’s blog. we may be his only two readers. i don’t think i ever want to meet him though. i like him as a figment of our imagination that tells john and i to dance and love the people we pass on the highway. we got an lcd soundsystem setlist! they did not play american dream.

what else. maybe kids are not in the picture for the next two years. i mourned these extra years with them but their lives will be much fuller if we wait a little longer. rachel is growing up right in front of our eyes! i find it awe inspiring to see her hobbies parallel with mine at the same age. she asked for YouTuber and attack on titan merchandise for christmas this year. im pretty sure i did the same at 12 years old. cool that a show can transcend a generation, and that my merchandise in my childhood closet can be regifted after a decade for the equivalent joy.

after 2 years and many holes in my soles, i got a new pair of sneakers during black friday. it took me 3 hours to decide on a pair and theyre just dad sneakers fr lol. but i hope they last me until i move back to guelph. i got a grape perfume that reminds me of shen and a butterball perfume that reminds me of my sister from a decade ago. those did not take me 3 hours to impulsively purchase (although it truly was a steal…)

roy was the one who drove me up to new hampshire for these material goods. he moved to boston recently and it brings me an incredible sense of comfort to know that he’s nearby. i reflect a lot on my freshman year of mcgill, the memories we shared, and the personal growth that came from meeting him. it was contrarianism, empathy, and also the most earnest form of the ‘play’ type of love that i would come to hungrily seek in life. when i think of thoughtfulness, i think of roy, a stranger, booking out bronf421 on a saturday morning to teach a random u0 student who was crying at the library the previous night, my first discounted cash flow. i remember he picked me up when i was too inebriated at cafe campus and he carried me back to douglas uphill in the snow. it was embarrassing, but we cared for each other a lot!

according to spotify, my top song of 2024 was 月亮代表我的心. this is because i played it for four hours straight at a teresa teng themed mid autumn hot pot party i threw. duly noted to use YouTube music for that next time. i need 2 root canals and my teeth have been in excruciating pain as i wait to do this dental work in the first week of january. i hit my dental insurances’ max in the united states. i wonder if my american dentist (who is actually canadian) with a striking resemblance to andrew garfield actually cares about my wellbeing?

i threw a thanksgiving party called “cansgiving”, where we could only eat food made out of 100% canned food. hannan, who i met at new york climate week, made an incredible penang curry. kevin brought beautiful canned fish from portugal. henry brought expired canned tangerines. i made 8 cans of different chef boyardees and proceeded to only eat its leftovers for the following week. we then shared what we CAN do instead of what we were thankful for. not so secretly, i am thankful that i have friends who are willing to eat canned food with me. i also think i CAN bring people together to appreciate the beauty of tin cans.

im getting really emotional over the fact that i spent a year in massachusetts making friends only for most of them to leave in the coming months. it is bittersweet and i guess i never realized how transient boston was, especially as most of my friends are in some form of education. i’ll miss kevin and doing weird experiments on plants with him. the smell of basil and ethanol will always remind me of him. i’ll miss andy, who has mastered how to make me laugh. the three of us went to somerville highschool’s rendition of mamma mia and he brought opera glasses to the front row. they’re teenagers, andy!!!!! i’ll miss steve, who was my first introduction to boston (he quite literally picked me up from the airport!) - watching him go through a year of meandering to new york city has made me feel happiness for his happiness.

my apple notes are a mess of debates around duty and love, justice, and apple reviews. i wish i had more female friends in boston. i hope claire and i actually live together next year! i wonder who i’ll meet in 2025…

i think a lot about a comment about nenshi’s time as mayor of calgary. cons: he acts like he’s the smartest person in the room; pros: he really is the smartest person in the room. im attempting a humbler flavour of nenshi by building my knowledge base to feel confident that the decisions i make are unequivocally the best courses of action… without purporting more than i really know, given the ever-persisting limited scope of view i hold. i want to be at the level of expertise and experience where municipal topics are second nature. i keep recalling how i used to answer peko logistical q&a with utmost ease. i can’t really do that with enhanced weathering atm, which means there’s still a lot of growing to do. but also it speaks for personal growth - accepting that there is always uncertainty, and that there is real merit in the admission of my own limitations.

feeling really hazy but also grateful this year. sometimes i’m a bear going to the bank, and other times im a crab throwing up on the T. life is so beautiful…

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