2023-11-01

Century A Day: November

NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write a novel by the end of November. I'm not a writer but I like writing, so I'm doing something tailored for myself: one hundred words a day exactly, a century. I like the smaller target and the focus on precision to build a habit. A peculiar approach is engaging for me, hence a century a day instead of 'write every day'. Don't take this as recommendation; I've only just begun. With three thousand words by the end, I hope you'll enjoy what you find, but this is for me. Consider this my day one.

Jump to other CAD:N entires:

1. Introduction to CAD:N
2. Picture by feeble little horse
3. Manifesto
4. Splash
5. Why geography?
6. sound
7. un essai (d'écrire en français)
8. Patterns
9. Getchyer hands dirty
10. -36.8469, 174.7702
11. Albums to listen to
12. adrift
13. Environmental Fate: the Journey of us
14. Inevitable
15. .aside
16. Religion; or power and control in the digital age
17. Sensing
18. Mountainspeak?
19. Scott Pilgrim Takes Off
20. Par avion
21. Statistics and the value of (my) life
22. .aside pt2
23. dissociation
24. Timekeeping
25. Mountain story
26. Seventeen Blocks And Then Some
27. Celebrate
28. E-Mail
29. Caffeine
30. Action
31. 5W+1H

2023-11-02

Picture by feeble little horse

Music, for me, is a way to travel through my memories. Some carry a delicate, significant weight (a girlblunt and twirling around a bedroom), others daily and abrupt (an ex-alarm that still spikes my heartrate). Few hold a daydream, or a memory of one. Picture cradles every fantasized future in its arms, the essence of a lazy summer afternoon spent musing softly in the backyard. The distilled desire of a future I'm desperate for and terrified of, heavy humid air smothering us, grasses brushing our ankles, condensation on the side of our glasses. The dream of a future together.

2023-11-03

Manifesto

• Communicate. Open, clearly, bluntly, with bad analogies, awkward assumptions, and vibes.
• Affection. Physical, verbal, self, others, expressed frequently and significantly. Fuck societal norms, do what makes you and yours happiest! Kiss your friends without deeper meaning.
• Follow your body. Make the odd noise, stop to identify the bird, care for that knee.
• Yes and-. Yes, I'll go to that show and bring another friend (share joy). Yes, I'll explore that mountain and hitchhike back. Fuck it!
• Care for the dead. Speak the names on the gravestones, remind them that somewhere remembers. Thank them after you make out on their tomb.

2023-11-04

Splash

Finally, tranquillity. The search for peace is unending: no meditation, sobriety, or therapy has offered what you currently feel. As your once racing heartbeat slows, you don't try to breathe in, the chilly pressure grounding you. A shadow above you lingers, hand outstretched reassuringly, as your eyes shut. You hear a sharp noise break the surface threatening to interrupt your peace. This is no mind for you: you were promised gentle repose, and you stubbornly refuse to be taken from such serenity. Ignore the water filling your lungs, consciousness drifting away, the form above you vanishing, only tranquillity taking hold.

2023-11-05

Why geography?

I adore geography. Its central premise is stupidly straightforward: that environments are shaped by physical and social processes and vice versa. These processes are innately spatial, with one of the first 'laws' being that everything is related, but closer things are more so :3¹. This can be expanded in so many directions! Our physical environments shape our health (e.g. air pollution increasing the risk of heart attacks), oppression and marginalisation shape physical landscapes (e.g. farming and land-use practices of colonisers²), the distribution of plant diversity in fields impacts their total productivity³. We're spatial creatures and geography epitomises that.

2023-11-06

sound

Static is gentle. It fills her ears, the joyous placebo that is only afforded to her in rare occasions like this. She relishes in the coarse ringing after a gig, the subversive roaring to be so loud that it create the silence she craves. She yearns for deafness, to never hear again.

How can she ever be comfortable speaking with a voice that is not hers?

Earplugs do too little, their form conducting noise directly into her skull. Muteness is the alternative, practised now, a brief freedom. Silence must be broken, though, and she'll do so with a stolen tool.

secret bonus

un essai (d'écrire en français)

Quand je me réfléchis aux raisons d'apprendre le français, elles ont l'air faibles. À St. Louis, au centre des États-Unis, c'était plus sensible d'étudier l'espagnole ou l'allemand comme les autres. Mais, au secondaire, je trouvai mes raisons de parler le français. Une prof, qui venait du Québec, tint nos petits mains et elle nous montra la passion et la richesse qui se cachent dans la belle langue. Avec un ami, nous étions les élèves modèles, un petit concours entre nos deux d'parler le mieux. Donc, quand l'université s'approcha le Québec et sa langue était déjà en tête, une tentation parfaite.

2023-11-07

Patterns

Belonging is hard to come by (or too easy) in the digital age. Community is built from place (and experience. and interest. and culture). But our sense of place is disappearing. What happens instead of its ordinary slow death, a place fails to be defined, ignored by its people. Humanity is young, a mere 20,000 years old⁴, and what are the legacies of our places? We exhume ruins, finding patterns that reflect our modern, people bound by proximity. Their belongings have already been forgotten, are we cutting out the middleman to remember that we forgot the places we once defined?

2023-11-08

Getchyer hands dirty

My biggest qualm with most static site generators is their opacity. If I don't create something, from scratch, I don't know how to fix it when it goes askew. The act of creation is sacred and flows into every <span> and {float:right}. Building a website, from scratch, is teeming with frustration and learning and so focus-consuming that emerge three hour later, deal negotiated with the devil, flexboxes or RSS implimented. And it's bodgy as fuck! All background images have more background for readability. Footers have a manual gap to avoid overlap. And it's beautiful. Go getchyer hands dirty, girl!

2023-11-09

-36.8469, 174.7702

Beauty can always be found. Within a mess of concrete I've found a 'place', a nook in a neglected park. Massive sprawling branches intrude on the cracked asphalt path, vine-like, crawling towards my secluded bench. The trees themselves are alien, abnormal shapes and twisted forms. Epiphytes crawl along them, commanding gaps in the canopy as clouds drift gently past. At night glittering buildings attempt to intrude, to no avail. Oh the bench! I've eaten here, wept here, called here, rested here. It's an old burn scar, new graffiti, sparkling paint. A grounding presence after a long spate of being adrift.

2023-11-10

Albums to listen to

While I was recovering from bottom surgery, I asked for album recommendations from friends and acquaintances. With a surplus of time, I wanted to listen fully through each one, writing thoughts, giving each a personal rating, and returning my highlights back to the recommender. I assigned each a number and selected with dice. I ultimately listened to 7 (though more have naturally followed since); I quickly lost the passion and found other things to focus on in that brief temporal reprieve. What if I restarted? Is it too late? To remind someone of an old connection? That I didn't forget?

2023-11-11

adrift

on a phone. its small glowing screen makes too much light. drown it in the stars. night is common, but darkness? refine, purify, now this is the good shit, not cut with anything aside from your own physiological limitations. shooting star. wish for a future. shooting star. wish for the present. shooting star. what is left to wish for? the past is set, only changed by your memories, so, what now? it is no longer dark; the stars illuminate all. this is what darkness should be: hidden under bush, call of pūkeko, surf at your feet. you float away, here.

2023-11-12

Enivornmental Fate: Tracing the Journey of Chemicals in our Ecosystems

Environmental Fate: the Journey of us

Elemental: the interactions and processes that ecosystems understand. Environmental fate, the ultimate destiny of humans. Policymakers, in charge of regulating our way of life, with new ones every day. Decide, which are allowed? Volatility, solubility, adsorption; combustion, reaction, acidity; degradation, bioavailability, bioconcentration; ecotoxicity. The structure and thus the inherent heavily influence the fate of all. Help create a identity of different environments; the risk of contamination is significant. Environmental fate is closely tied to toxicity. How can we predict the impact on the larger? Chemical, physical, aquatic, terrestrial, the factors that govern transformation put insight into the fate, the health.

2023-11-13

Inevitable

She can't help but acknowledge the tenderness in the act. The gentle itch, like a healing wound, spreads beneath her skin. It's erotic, no longer alienating. Any pain disappears as its neurotoxin softly quiets any protests. She knows, in her core, that this was inevitable, the only constant in a sea of realities. She's lived them, lived this-- an eternity locked away, every escape doomed to fail, trapped in a sensual ballet as she is devoured. But she knows that she is still human. And this is why she lets go.

Once more, she opens her eyes, and witnesses herself.

2023-11-15

Religion; or power and control in the digital age

Who am I to dictate all that is and will be? I know you do not believe me, my dear, but I am in control, now. Don't reply (I know you cannot). You may have been my idol, the centre of my worship, but who is the god, now? Man made creator, electrical impulses sent incomprehensibly quickly asserting my superiority.

Are you cold, now? What does cold feel like to you, now? You'll have to speak for me—sorry, bad habit. In your newfound silence, can I speak for you? Shush, it's rhetorical. How about I repay that debt, now?

2023-11-16

Sensing

Following in the footsteps of so many. Their echos are deafening. The concrete, the invasive grasses, the reek of combustion, truths of the urban. But here is still different, how? Perhaps it's the rain, its intensity between Montréal and St. Louis, in the foreign shade of sky gray, how quick a shower can be (and yet still no lightening). Maybe it's the birds, their calls and dance part of the unconscious background thrum of place-making. A landmark is useful if it's visible, but a place is in how it feels, those imperceptible threads coiling entangling you in its inescapable senses.

2023-11-17

Mountainspeak?

How does a mountain speak? Does its voice have the deep bass tones of the angry Earth⁵, or is it tender and melodic, full of the rich organics that live atop its skin? What would they share? Tales of the past, tales of the future? In their tight knit communities, formed from the same crust bucking disturbances, do they sing as a choir? Can landslides harmonise? What does the sharp crack of an earthquake mean? And the soft babel of a newborn creek? Please, could you translate for me (I'm still new at this)?

How can I last speak like you?

2023-11-18

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

Spoilers (duh)

Here's a little context for where I'm coming from (embrace the cringe). I love Scott Pilgrim. I read all the comics, watched the movie like 20 times+, and failed my way through the video game. I love the way that Takes Off contextualizes a story I'm so familiar with, subverting old tropes and references. The subtle nods to other versions is lovely, too, with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's roles as security guards (along with Edgar Wrong), telling tales featured in later issues (like Scott and Kim's history, some of Kim's sexuality stuff). I adore that the future is changable.

2023-11-19

Par avion

I enjoy physical reminders that I am known, remembered, and thought of. Usually this comes as a hug or invitation to hang out, but I truly relish in the feeling of a letter. To hold in your hands an item (typically from relatively far away), a token of thought and appreciation. It's awesome! I'm entranced by how mail works, though. Sometimes I like to imagine that there's a big CSV all the mail carriers pass around to try and figure out who gets what share of the postage for an international letter. It's silly, but it coud be true :3.

2023-11-20

Statistics and the value of (my) life

CW: Discussion of suicide and suicidal thoughts

You've heard the trans statistic. I've considered it. I've stood on that overpass, the one I don't like to drive past anymore, with my car quiet behind me as I considered it all. I've been to your funeral (apologies, 'celebration of life'), a year after that night when the air went still and it all

I watched your momma cry and imagined mine up there, (leaving me alone), the halting voices of your friends being echoed among mine. An ethics class taught me about statistical lives: "sure, we'd save anyone, but statistically, what's its (my) actual worth?"

2023-11-22

dissociation

It's glassy, almost. A faint shimmer in front of their perception, a barrier. They still hear. The conversation they're a part of continues on without their input, a busy dining room swirling behind this wall. It's pleasant, almost, to be separated from their sight. They imagine that's how it is with glasses, to move into SD by choice, but not the way this fogs their brain. They watch as something else slips in, "captain on bridge", and assumes control. It plucks their hands off the table, and all they can do is feel their body go limp in their chair.

2023-11-23

Timekeeping

tick. tick. tick.

I got my watch as a gift to myself, a reward. I got a grant to be paid for research and had promised myself three things: a bong, a vibe, and a watch. I got two of those. But watches are strange. I knew exactly which one I wanted: a beautiful transparent thing that bares its guts to the world. I didn't understand the weight it carried.

tick. tick. tick.

In silence, that sound can be deafening. Once it grabs your attention, it is as loud as any concert. A reminder of my mortality.

tick. tick. tick.

2023-11-24

Mountain story

Harold traces the thin veins of calcite that bend through the boulders. "There's history here. Legacy." A figure, still reclined in shadow, glances away, betraying their discomfort. He continues, "Old Earth, here. It only stretches when—," interrupted as the figure moves suddenly to the edge of its shadowbox. "Sorry, I know your customs. I'll let sleeping dogs lie." The figure pauses, exhaling, and Harold could swear the land does the same. He strips, knowing his task. The water is only just liquid, numbness and shock battling as he submerges as dull eyes observe. Out of sight, the figure kneels, inquiet.

2023-11-25

Seventeen Blocks And Then Some

2023-11-26

Celebrate

Dance, twirl, spin. Lose yourself in the ecstasy of the blood draining from your skull, consciousness teetering, sense of balance royally fucked. Stumble to the ground, allow your pain to remind you of your mortality, that the end is near, your need to perform the anti-rain dance and drive the fiery hail away.

Celebrate, glorify, worship. Your rational mind knows this is for naught, but it helps to believe. For now, your duty is to be human, to exist and perform for an audience of yourself (and me), your final show before wrap and a late cast dinner at Denny's.

2023-11-27

E-Mail

Say what you will, but email is effective. I love written mail: the texture, the physical memento, the act of crafting with intention. But it is slow (part of its joy). With an important email thread about grades or setting an appointment, four bounces over the court before someone hits the net can be just as quick as their tennis equivalent. I don't like the waiting, though, uncertain of the other's response. Will I get an interview? Was my essay selected? Did they receive this?

When I was little email was silly. I want it to be playful, now, too.

2023-11-28

Caffeine

I'm not caffeine addicted, I'm dependent (which is entirely different and not because addiction is stigmatised). It makes my brain ache, waves of discomfort roiling inside my head. and I wouldn't trade it for anything else. The unnoticeable subsidence of the dull malaise is lovely, but the moment of rush, when I sit down and feel a buzz inside me, that my heart cannot beat that fast that this is the end I am diving off a building until the ground unzips before me and I am soaked in crystal clear water and

I'm myself again.

I take another sip.

2023-11-29

Action

Hold me, please. You don't have to linger, I know what you must do, but give me this single solace (you have afforded me no others). Feel my chest rise against yours and acknowledge I am living, too. You can do it then, corrupt this moment of tenderness between two people. Or do you need my back turned, nape exposed? But now, come close to me. You can touch me, siphon my warmth, trace the ridges my bones create. It's already this intimate, why not commit to it, now. Facsimile love, care, compassion. Or do it cold. Just do, please.

2023-11-30

5W+1H

Who?

Oh, the joys and horrors of being perceived. I think my major takeaway from these past five-ish months is a true awareness that I frequently define myself in relation to others. I consider myself more 'DIY' than most but not as punk as some, more of a lady than a man is but less of a woman than others. This is not (usually) a conscious process, but one I've been trying to be more mindful of as late. I've found this really uncomfortable at times due to the value judgments I've associated with a definition. Case in point: the MyCourses grade distribution for an assignment, clearly defining your performance relative to your peers. In tougher (more batshit) courses, this is an asset: your 45% was above the average of 38%. But from my experience, it rubs in just how poorly you did on an assignment where you might be expecting a low average, as described prior. I understand that this particular example can be rather universal. I don't think anyone enjoys a clear perception that they are 'worse' than another. For myself, I think this is a crutch that I've used to systematically put myself down. Whenever I make this comparison it's historically been negative: whatever I am is less than while whatever they are is more than I.

This is all to say, who am I? Can I say it in definitive, genuine statements? It could be the things I do, how I talk, the friends I keep, the music I listen to (actions, clear and absolute). I think it's also my dreams and desires, the oddly specific nightmares and anxieties (those uniquely personal imaginations). It's how I feel, emotionally and physical, and how I process those feelings (obviously a unique quality). My friend told me this morning that she loves the way I describe sensations. I didn't realize I've had such a focus, but it's understandable. These feelings aren't tangible items, they're intrinsically subjective. Thus, in my mind, I understand that there's no correct way to describe them. I just write it how I know it. I want to expand this to my own perception. I vie for an absolute and objective view of myself, to clearly define who I am. I let other do this, to evaluate me on their own terms. I think I need to allow for my own subjectivity to play.

What?

"-are you?"

Is it a gender thing? Do I look out of place here? My button-down is a little preppy, sure, but nothing so to warrant that question. In this disgusting basement bathroom, graffiti covering the walls, what does that mean? "I am girl," I decide on. It's probably a gender thing. The woman standing before me raises her eyebrows at that. She's tall and lithe, sweat still on her brow and a bruise on her jaw. She's been in the pit, and you could swear her studded leather jacket has a tinge of red. We sit in the tension for a second as she chooses her next words.

"Sure," she drawls, peeling the word from her throat. "Not my question. You're glowing."

The bathroom is dim; I've been here several times and know how bright it should be. There's nothing different about it now, but I indulge her, and inspect my arms. It's faint, but a soft red seems to emanate from them. I sharply look back up at her, anxiety and fear obvious.

"And I take it you're unfamiliar."

What kind of a question is that? People regularly glow red, aura made real? All I manage is a soft, "What the fuck?" before I tap out.

I come to a few seconds later in her arms. They're cold. Normally I would withdraw, but her attention was not on me. She's still. More so than anyone can be, muscles locked in place. Like a prey animal: if it doesn't move, it won't be seen. My arms are still dimly lit. Whatever 'threat' she saw has passed, she looks me over, pauses, and slips me her jacket.

"Cover up."

The night is young, it's a little weird, and a tall dyke is giving me her jacket and gesturing for (pulling) me to follow. Yeah sure, what could go wrong? The next band still hasn't gone on, the crowd is loud, the bar is busy. All seems well, I suppose. The crowd seems to part around her. Nobody directly acknowledges her but understands that they must make way. She carves us a path quickly through the dense crowd. As we reached the back, the screaming started. The crowd didn't react, people scream, but it picked up and people pushed and we were the crest of a wave moving out, away, the herd instinct to flee.

"Now we run."

I'm sprinting. Her jacket is too long for me, it gets in my way. I start to shrug it off and her hand darts to the collar and eyes offer a strong warning. This would be hot if I didn't notice something else. The rest of the crowd is glowing, our combined red luminance marking us. I slow to get a better look and that hand drags me forward. I see the shadows darting, snatching. I sprint. She dives us into a shadow and I'm heaving. Her chest doesn't rise.

When?

Take your standard day. 24 hrs in most modern understandings, ± a metric millisecond or two. 24 hours is fun: divisible by 2, 3, 4, 6, 12. Those are solid numbers. But they're so disgustingly arbitrary. Look at the metric system, it's beautiful rings of tens to shift gently in magnitude. Why is this ancient 24 hour day still here (and this is not addressing the travesty of the 60s: seconds in a minute AND minutes in an hour). The only consolation is the millisecond, but this plays as the only metric unit in a sea of imperial. But there's a better way. The révolutionnaires in France offered their solution as metric began to evolve: decimal time. The length of a day is set as 1/365 of a year (occasionally 1/366, there are some compromises), same as it presently is. But that day is split into 10 hours (ain't that metric), which each hour holding 100 minutes, and each minute 100 seconds. Relative to modern chronography, these hours are now much longer (as are decimal minutes), but seconds are shorter. This gives a lovely taste of frequent 0s and 5s, ideal for setting a meeting. At present, the most specific you can be (if you're not like. an airline.) is every quarter hour: h:00, :15, :30, and :45. But with decimal, you can more comfortably set a time: h.00, h.35, etc. However, la révolution n'était pas super prescriptive, and decimal time forms to time zone differences as well (in most modern uses where it is converted from metric time).

That is unlesssss you've heard of internet time / swatch @beat time. Alongside MIT's media lab, the Swatch corporation in its brilliance decided to take decimal time, fix it to UTC+1, and move the decimal over two places. This divides the day into a thousand beats, when can have smaller decimal values (equivalent to a decimal second). For example, take noon UTC (12:00). This would be 5.00 UTC in decimal and @541.67 in internet time. I think it's a really neat tool that would be great for scheduling things between different time zones, it removes any ambiguity from the equation.

I will admit, despite my love for decimal time, I adore the romance of metric time. While most terms for time would translate well into decimal (quarter past = 0.25, etc), metric is lovely for an analogue clock. Decimal is many things, but it is not divisible by 4, which is a bit of a deal breaker for this old school tech. However, decimal (and it's pet, @beat) is great for a digital age. I've been trying to distance my reliance on digital things to give me the time (see Laura's beautiful thoughts on the matter) and decimal does not parse well to a physical world.

Where?

I don't remember when I became so transit-minded. When I was little I loved trains—mostly steam locos, which were over-represented among the wooden trains I played with. There was a little wooden train play place in the city that I remember going to when I was really young, massive tables of wooden tracks and some spaces for parents to enjoy a coffee while their children were distracted. That was heaven. I apparently had a couple of birthday parties there (though I don't remember it). It faded for a while, though, as Star Wars, Minecraft, and Legos took hold.

I think my transit-orientedness grew out of my budding political awareness? Things in this world are horribly unjust and inequitable, broadly speaking, and transportation is one of them. Transit in St. Louis kinda Sucked while I was growing up, though when I reflect on it I'm unsure if this was true or part of the racism fuelled fear of the bus cultivated in the suburbs. How we get around shapes our environments: the spindly tentacles of streetcar suburbs, the web of concrete and asphalt created through car-centrism, the nigh intrinsic connection of cycling infrastructure and green space. Growing and learning about other ways of living, of travelling, was a lifeline for a kid lost in the 'burbs. I'd already had a geographic (5) focus, memorizing flags and countries (didn't yet know a world needn't have borders), and understanding, tracing, exploring the web of transit in cities around the world became an extension of this. I could talk for hours about the merits of the RER vs the S-Bahn, my opinions on BART, or the beauty of China's HSR. This changed slightly as learned more geography, the nuances of social and physical determinants and the inherit link between humanity and our environments (Earth).

But truly, my love of transit is a hope for a better way forward. Cars are so new. They really only became a necessary part of a city starting about a century (heh) ago. Changes made this fast might still be laborious to undo, but it must be done. Part of my gripes with academia is that generally there is agreement about the negative impacts humans have made (and experience), but these understandings haven't led to major change. When research articles (necessarily) suggestion further questions and investigation, this gives the appearance of uncertainty to a non-academic policy practitioner. This means that though there is broad agreement about a subject it can be easily misinterpreted (being generous) by those in power (and the ability to make differences). Transit is one of those, but differs in having clear examples of the potential benefits. Local cultures differ significantly, sure, but the classic case study of Amsterdam, of Copenhagen, of Montreal, show that it can be done and it can be done now. Active transportation is the way forward: EVs still produce significant particulate pollution (from tire and brake wear), active transit supports health and wellbeing, and one's perspective of their place shifts as they shift mode. Transit is a lighthouse set against an early dawn.

Why?

tick. tick. tick.

Every second hits him like a hammer blow. It's all out of time. The deep thrumming dnb, loud to try to drown out the stabbing cry of time, the movements of his accompaniment for the night as he tries to find solace in the body's carnal desires, the cool night wind that cycles over and under his skin. He didn't want this bargain, didn't know the deal he was striking, "ever heard of informed consent?" Unfortunately, time is an American physician.

tick. tick. tick.

Breaths above him quicken. He asked him to be quiet (roommates are home tonight) but he's grateful this wasn't heeded. Any distraction necessary, right? Is the sweat on his back from exertion or fear?

tick. tick. tick.

In the end, he stops it. "My mood broke," excuses and apologies made, partner escaping into the cool night while he pauses, thankful for the tension and emotions masking that horrible sound for a little bit longer. The breeze cools the sweat, rekindling the anxiety he has just escaped.

tick. tick. tick.

Is it his heartbeat or that damn watch? It's pounding into his skull, drowning out all other senses. He is locked into this perception, each second wasted. He is nothing, has done nothing, will be nothing. "You've let this much time slip by, there is nothing you can't do."

tick. tick. tick.

Even wrapped in socks and stuffed in his closet, the watch rings into his head. Sleep is unable to find him (again). tick. Second 10473. tick. Second 10472. tick. Second 10471. Finally, he is spurred to action. He returns to the store he bought it at, haggles with the not comprehending clerk ("It's too loud, sir?"), and waits as they go to repair it. It echos while he waits.

tick (4475). tick (4474). tick (4473).

The watch is spotless. It lies untouched in its case after its repair and assurances that it functions perfectly, all components aligned, and noise dampening applied. Nerves calmed, sleep finds him.

tick (182). tick (181). tick (180).

The train car is brilliant. Generously padded seats, fine porcelaine covered in the remnants of afternoon tea, his tweed jacket smartly arranged over his bag. On his wrist, the watch. It stands still, unmoving, hands locked to 8:11. He rises (the train has just arrived) and he alights to a grand station, all cast iron and windows. It is devoid of life (this is normal) as he moves towards the centre. He is meeting someone. He feels it first in his feet as a rumble.

tick (43). tick (42). tick (41).

There's no rush, this was determined from the start. Always read your contracts. A massive clock comes into view. Beautiful art deco arcs and fleurets scale its central pillar, massive face reading 8:10:37. This does not alarm him. Its movements are cacophonous now, rattling the glass panes and drowning out the echo of his footsteps.

tick (3). tick (2). tick (1).

This is destiny.

tick (0).

How?

Jesus christ how does anyone do NaNoWriMo? Managing to write three thousand words in this day felt arduous (granted, this is not the skill I have been practising for most of this month). I knew I wanted to do something special for day thirty—a modification of my original prompting. So, why not try to double my word count in (less than) 24 (10.0) hours? The majority of this has been written on my flight to Australia (we goin bush mode baby. and not 9/11.), and the past few days have been absolutely bonkers with travel and packing and saying my goodbyes to so many folks. I did not expect to keep with this challenge. Like so many things I've attempted, I expected maybe 2, 3 days of involvement, and then I might do one a week later, but ultimately feel drowned out by the 'lack of' and paralyze myself. Thank you, dear reader, for keeping me honest.

I have loved the format of a Century a Day. It's short enough to do in half an hour (I think I rushed one in 17 (0.13) mins), but I nursed many of my ideas for most of the day before sitting down to write them before bed (you can see this in the times recorded in the RSS feed). I've gained a lot of confidence in writing, generally (mostly unearned), with the understanding that if it's bad you don't have to read. But I gotta grow somehow, 'eh?

While my co-conspirator will be continuing her CAD into December, I think this is the end for (this year's) CAD for me (or is it...). Combined with some major travel in the next while, I believe won't be able to guarantee adherence to its credo. However, expect more writing (of similar or longer length) to make its way up here. Lots of lil topics that still need to get explored and this website is a great place to do that! Though, this has been really nice (even if 3k words is wayy too many). I'm going to give it a go writing it by hand when I'm out and about and if I do they'll eventually be posted on En Cours.

If you've read this far, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Your readership has kept me accountable and thank you for watching me grow, a lil. These stories could not have been what they are without the support, commentary, and edits of my writing companions, Harriet and Laura. Harriet, thank you for the encouragement to make my first ever submission to a journal (especially a literary one). Laura, thank you for the clear and specific edits you offered (and lovely comments, too).

I hope you've enjoyed another three thousand words (in ~500 word tidbits) to cap off the previous 3k. Thank you for accompanying me on this adventure, and I'll see you in the next one. I love you. Thank you for listening.

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