2025-11-01

Century a Day: November (2025)

Welcome back to Century a Day: November, my loves. We're back to 100 words after last year. I'll link to my co-conspirators, if you'd like. Enjoy yourself.

Co-conspirators

Real Life

Breathe in, sharply. Your attendance is mandatory, but your attention is not. Here, now, where are you? The only meaning is that which you create, an exercise in self-responsibility. This year has been terrible. This year has been wonderful. I feel the passage of time in discrete painful pricks in the back of my mind, driven deeper with the ticking of the watch. I feel like I'm still learning to define my existence, to ground it in the good work and those that I love. I'm terrified of feeling fulfilled and it's the only thing I crave in my life.

2025-11-02

On moving, as a concept.

Can you take it slowly, with me? I'm not ready to change, to fledge this comfortable nest that has moulded me anew. If I dance slowly, if we kiss and make up, can we make it work? (no.) I'm scared of change, to the point of irrationality. It's the devil's whisper of "this is the best it gets," that nothing could change for the better by sacrificing the ease of the present. Maybe this banality has bred complacency and change could grease the hinges. Auckland was terrible, but the memories I've retained define me. Could I do it again?

2025-11-03

title omitted

I feel it in my fingers, first. The pain needling the joints. As they go numb, the rest of the body picks up its chorus: the tug of a texture binding your thighs, the nails attacking your ankles, ice stabbing the nape of your neck. None of it compares to the cold, though, as the wind weaves through newfound gaps to deliver a killing blow to my furnace heart. I grit my teeth, a masochist at my core, and push harder. There is no relent. The end is near. I stow my stead and bear myself to the warmth internal.

2025-11-04

Headache

The dull thud in your head never goes away. Wake up. Coffee. Glass of water. Bagel. Out the door, flying through the cold air of the world. Work. Second coffee. You notice the headache again. Water. Breathe, slowly. Piece of bread. Diet coke. Back into the crisp air, the wind pulling your senses awake from your earlobes. Your head is louder, now. It's an aching, a bruise that never goes away, ibuprofen a minor aide in this horror. Dinner. Computer. Read a little. It moves into the front of your skull. Lay down and let sleep take you, remake you.

2025-11-05

On cooking, as a practice.

Everyone has a couple of dishes they default to. Laura loves her soup and pan-fried tofu, Ada her gochujang chicken and katsu curry, Cat her fried rice and curry (recipe taught by Snow). Me, I'm a stone-cold pasta-head¹, but I try to be adventurous when I can. Doing cooking as profession has changed my relationship with it; cooking used to be one of my primary creative outputs for a few years. Now, it has a tinge of professionalism and practice that leaves a sour taste in its wake. It tastes good, absolutely, but it doesn't make me happy. Just proud.

¹Yeah sure, that's a series of words you can make. Good control of language, alice,

En cours