Coming to a Bend

Posted on January 14, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

On the way back to Sydney from Bathurst I stopped to take photos twice, and both were before reaching Oberon. This was one of the spots, and it gave a bit of quiet and time to think about things, and the area and its residents. I thought about the landscape and I thought about the road, and how to capture it in a way that I felt worked.

This could’ve been better. I feel like I may have left too much length of the road in the frame when I captured it, but maybe it works as some sort of indicator of length of time spent driving from place to place, or something.

This is my submission into the three hundred-and-eightieth Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “What’s Around the Corner“.

What’s around this bend is more of the same, though maybe some more properties. However, that’s not necessarily known until it’s driven along and more is revealed, though it certainly can be anticipated.

The host of the Lens-Artists challenges cycles weekly between the following people:

Tina

Patti

Ann-Christine aka Leya

John Steiner

Sofia Alves

Anne Sandler

Egídio

Ritva

Beth

This one is curated by Anne. The next one is curated by Ritva.

I recommend joining the community and participating in the challenges. They’re pretty straightforward, allow room for interpretation, and provide a good way to think about photography in general. If not, however, then at the very least you should check out what others submit to the challenges.

I hope you enjoy.

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A Trip North

Posted on January 13, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

It started with waking up early morning, getting ready and heading off. The drive up north was uneventful, though it was interesting, and at least pleasant enough. Left whilst still dark, arrived at the destination in the afternoon. Normally it doesn’t take as long as it took for us to get there, but we took our time. We stopped off at a few places. Managed to avoid holiday traffic, too.

We drove for ten minutes from home, got petrol, then continued on. The songs on the playlist were timed well, and overall it was an easy drive. Low traffic which was great as it meant we weren’t getting stuck in holiday traffic.

We stopped at Ampol Foodary in Wyong, along the M1. It’s a large area with a few places to eat, and I’ve spent a good bit of time there over the years, mainly due to field trips to Smiths Lake. It’s an interesting space and it’s a convenient space, but there’s something about it that doesn’t feel as welcoming as perhaps it should. It’s a place to stop and rest and recover, and refill a vehicle if need be, so you don’t want to be spending a whole day there (unless you do want to), but there’s something about a smaller place that you can stop off and unwind at that feels warmer and more pleasant that sometimes you desire. But during the stop off, we weren’t thinking about that, or at least I wasn’t. I can’t comment on what the person I’m seeing was thinking.

This stop off was to give ourselves a brief break before heading into Newcastle, and it paid off. Got coffee and it wasn’t bad, which was disappointing. It felt like coffee that was consistent, but it was machine coffee. That’s not bad, but it lacked the excitement of consistent coffee from a barista. It had this sort of bland, agreeable taste and consistency which really doesn’t leave much to complain about and it was being what it needed to be, which was bland and agreeable. It lacked the qualities of a good coffee, or a bad roadside coffee that warrants more than a neutral, flat reaction.

We took some photos then drove off to Newcastle. I figured we’d get stuck in holiday traffic at this point as there were far more cars around leaving than there were entering the foodary, but we didn’t have to deal with much and so we had a pretty easy drive.

Newcastle was as it has always been; a place I’m told is improving and getting livelier, and a place that remains, seemingly, in a perpetual state of dying. I can’t deny that my view is probably heavily skewed. You do get quiet areas in Sydney, but it is much busier than Newcastle. I can’t deny that it’s likely that the times I’ve been to Newcastle, it hasn’t been at the right time. I also can’t deny that Newcastle never seems to be developing the liveliness I’ve been advised it is developing. It still is, at the least, a pleasant place to go through sometimes.

We stopped for breakfast near the beach and it was good food. Went off to check a breakwater after, but the sky was too open and it was too hot, so we used the bathrooms and then headed back to the highway. More traffic leaving Newcastle, but nothing bad, and soon we were heading north once more, and the traffic eased up, too.

We first drove to Seal Rocks, a small village. The drive along that bit of highway up to where Seal Rocks is is a stretch I find boring. Not all road needs to be interesting, but I do find that particular stretch particularly un, which doesn’t help make the drive any easier. I’m glad I was doing this drive with the person I’m seeing as we were talking for it. We  were conversing and listening to music, and it took away from the tedium of that stretch.

We took our exit and stopped off at Smiths Lake first. I wanted to show where I’d gone for field trips, but there were people there and they seemed weary, so we left quickly and continued on. Seal Rocks was not far, thankfully, and so we got there soon after. The plan was to go to the lighthouse there, then go for a swim. On one side of the beach it looked like the water wasn’t the best, and as we drove past, we could see everyone being on the other side. That was fine; we’d just go for a swim where everyone else was.

We parked and I remember the person I’m seeing feeling a bit out of it. Decided we’d take the walk to the lighthouse casually and, if they felt it was too much, we’d stop and go back to the car. We made it to the lighthouse without issue beyond feeling a bit puffed from the steep ascent. Appreciated the wide, open view, enclosed by the vegetation and the sky. You know, a certain beauty that is not sublime, but is getting there.

And down we went, and back to the car, and we decided not to swim in part due to the time and in part not wanting to run the risk with the water. So we left Seal Rocks and went to Hawks Nest.

On the drive out we saw a bird on the road and I couldn’t move out of the way for it due to oncoming traffic. Went right over it, it didn’t hit the car, but saw it down in the rear view mirror. I felt pretty bad about it, buy I could only hope that wind caused it to fall over. It wasn’t a great thing to see. Neither was the smoke plume when we were back on the highway. Thankfully not something to worry too much about.

We reached where we were staying, set our stuff down, went out to eat, ate, then drove off to a spot to catch the sunset. We parked, got our gear ready and then charged up a sand dune. As we did, some kids asked if we cared if they were blowing stuff up. I said that so long as they were careful, I didn’t. I’d rather they be safe about it if they’re going to do it, because who knows how much fun they can have where they are.

I got ahead of the person I’m seeing and moved as quickly as I could up the dune, as I could see the strong colour in the sky and I made sure to get a few photos, and it was glorious. Strong red, as though a final push; a final display to show that there was still something left before fading away. The bit of ocean that was visible appeared purple, and the dunes themselves seemed smooth and silky. It was wonderful to behold.

I started getting gut pain and it was growing bad. The person I’m seeing asked if I was okay and I told them what was happening. I said we should stay until they got the photos they wanted. At one point I let off a horrendous-smelling fart and I felt much better after that, but we didn’t stay for much longer as we missed a good bit of the sunset, and also just in case my gut started getting bad again.

We got back to the car, and it wasn’t long before I started feeling my gut turning to pain again. We drove back at the limit, but I wanted very much to speed. Still, thanks to my gut we got to see hundreds of bats flying above us, crossing over the road, and it was an amazing sight. All these wings and bodies moving to wherever was net for them, filling the sky… just great stuff.

We got back to where we were staying, I managed to park the car well without thinking much about my parking; I needed to use the toilet. And so we got to our room and I took to the toilet. Whilst at the Ampol, I bought some sugar free snacks. I realised on the following day that that’s what caused my need to use the toilet. Ate too many. It was deeply unpleasant.

Anyway, the following day we went to the beach nearby, floated around a bit, then headed back to where we were staying. The plan was to head out to the dunes again, which we did do. It was a hot day, and the sun was out in a mostly clear sky. Going up was not a fun experience due to how much heat the sand had absorbed, but when we were back on top and walking around, the sand was much more bearable. The sun wasn’t quite, however.

So we walked around a bit and it almost felt like we were walking forever. Of course we weren’t, and we could see easily where we had been, but the space was so still and calm that it almost felt that way. Still, calm and open, and rolling hills of sand, silky, smooth, vague and specific all at once.

We came across a bit of vegetation that looked like an island among the sand, and it offered some reprieve, but we didn’t hang around for much longer. Too much sun in an open space, and we had sunscreen but it was still unpleasant. Still, it was worthwhile. We saw some currawongs land on the dunes and do their brief wander; we watched the shadows of clouds pass over and rapidly change the feel of the area, only for the area to snap back soon after.

Back home and back out for dinner again before back to the Dunes for the sunset once more, and there wasn’t much of one, but it was much cooler and much easier to walk around, and plenty of photos were taken. We headed back to our room to sleep.

The following day we bought breakfast before heading back down the road we drove to get to the dunes. This is a bit of road I’d been down plenty of times, but I’d never gone the whole way. It was always to go to the Dunes. This day was the first time I’d go further along the road.

We drove the whole length and passed through bushier areas that felt like forest, with trees hanging over the road, creating shadowed patterns over where their branches grew. We drove through space where the road was not enclosed from above, and we kept on driving until we reached the end, where a vehicle ferry was. Or rather, where a vehicle ferry would stop to take on vehicles as it was on the other side of the river. So we parked and we ate, and we took in the view. It was warm and cool, and refreshing in a way. And the food was good, too, and it was just nice. There was the sound of human activity, of course, but everything felt quiet, and I felt myself relax more than I had during the previous days and all of 2025 up until that point.

And we walked around this pleasant space and took photos and looked at a few things, and we talked. We talked about what we were seeing and experiencing, and our plans for the rest of the day, and eventually we drove back, with a few stops to see what was around. We came across a beach and decided we’d swim there, and also in the lake on the other side of the road, and we drove back to where we were staying to rest before heading back out again.

We returned to the beach and we had it and the ocean to ourselves. The waves cycled between gentle and strong, and they followed and crashed against the form of the beach, which almost seemed to be repeating lazy crescents. There were some birds around at a distance, though they’d occasionally fly over the water, and the breeze was gentle. It was an overcast day, but at this point the weather was still pleasant enough, and everything really felt like ours to experience and no-one else’s.

We spent a bit of time in the water, until at one point I saw some of the birds flying around a specific area, about fifty, one hundred metres out from where we were. I don’t know the behaviour of seabirds well enough, but to me that was not a good sign, so we got out of the water soon after, walked back to the car, then headed to where we saw a good spot to go into the lake. We got there quickly enough, looked at the water, saw a foam that didn’t exactly look the cleanest, then headed back to the beach to take photos.

Eventually we headed on back to where we were staying and rested some more, before heading out to our last dinner for the trip. When I went with my ex, our last dinner was going to be at a golf club. I am not a fan of golf, but it seemed a good place to eat. We were unable to due to how busy it was, but thankfully when I went with the person I’m seeing, it was much quieter, and so we had no issue, and the food was good enough. It was satisfying.

There were plenty of other things we wanted to do but we didn’t have the time, and we didn’t get enough sleep to go see the sunrise before heading home. Still, we had enough time to get food, and the drive back was pretty smooth, even when we started dealing with traffic. We stopped at the Ampol Foodary on the way back, stretched our legs, and continued on. We talked about music and life, and the time we spent, and started thinking about the possibility of returning some time. It was a break we needed, and my talking about it in a matter-of-fact manner didn’t do it justice.

Hawks Nest is a small area, and it thankfully isn’t besieged by people all the time. Whilst there are attitudes there one wants to avoid, it’s a nice pocket of space and there are plenty of friendly people there, too. That you can get quiet time there easily enough is wonderful.

I dropped the person I’m seeing off at their place before heading home. It was a hot day and by the time I got back, I wanted to rest but there was not much rest to be had. I had to get my washing done so I’d have enough clothes for the following day, when I’d wake up early and drive to Bathurst.

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Two Thousand Words in Twenty Minutes: More words than necessary

Posted on January 13, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

Alright, second attempt and I’m already slowing down. This is not good, but I can do it. I can try to do it, and do it I will, so I’m doing it. I’m doing it; I’m doing the writing and the writing is being done, but maybe the writing is doing me and I merely think I am doing the writing. If that is indeed the case, then what am I to do? Where am I to go? There is nowhere but to the left and down, and sometimes up. Maybe to the right. It is difficult to discern during these troubling times, in which trouble is troubling and yet I’m yet to know what lies ahead. Yet.

That is a word. These are more words.

Yeah, this one is going to be a struggle, but what can I do? Sure, I could write something a bit more coherent, but if I do that, then what am I to do? I’ll have to throw my hands up and admit that I’ve lost, and if I’ve lost, then how can I win? How can I find my way back to the surface, where all the delicious delectables lie? I don’t know. I don’t know what to do, and this is a real conundrum.

Sometimes when I find myself in this kind of situation, I go on a journey. I go through a journey through memory and I see what comes forward. Today I would do that; however, I already have done that and there was nothing. My memory does not want to work and so I need to put in the work and I need to use the forbidden power of… imagination.

Yes, that is how dire things are.

I could write about real life in an imaginary way, but the thing is there’s been enough hurt in my life. I don’t want to write about that right now. I’d rather let those thoughts sit to the side and wait it out until they;re a bit more tempered. I want to leave that to the side and just spin things that are new, or old, and spin them in a way that reads fantastically. This space has been far too frequently about my personal life, anyway, and especially recently. I don’t want to do that right now. I just want to spin what comes forward and let it come forward, and then ride it out to wherever comes next, and then go there, and spin this whole new world that exists that is of my creation, and I have ideas! I have ideas and don’t let yourself be fooled into thinking otherwise, for they are ideas of the thought of variety. They have come to me as I have conjured them, and they are all mine and they are mine alone! Laughter here.

So anyway, I’m thinking about things and I’m thinking about my stomach, which is quite upset, and I want to know how I get the things forward. I want to know how I advance into this forbidden power of which I am so mercilessly possessed, for it is there but it has been locked away for far too long. Have I let go of my innocence and given myself a healthy dose of cynicism? Have I given myself to cynicism and pessimism far more than I initially thought? It is possible. It is possible that doing this for so long has been incredibly damaging to my ability to write, and if so, then I don’t know what to do with myself. I guess I find another way forward, or no way forward and just keep digging the spot that I am on, going down but going nowhere, and that would be an interesting exercise.

I think I’ve spoken about this before, but perhaps I am far too stuck in the rut to notice. Every time I think I dig away I end up at the same spot, and that is as good a reason as any to try and force my hand out, but sometimes the process needs to be gradual. Sometimes the process need not be beset by getting dumped, but you know. You do what you can when you can, where you can with what you can. And I am doing what I can. However, writing this is not indulging in imagination and therefore it is trash.

I have written more trash than I haven’t written trash. This is the condition in which I revel, and revel in it I do thusly. Is this good? Is this bad? I don’t know. I don’t care. I need to just get on with it, and getting on with it is a way with getting on with it. But I do need to keep working on progressing and learning, for if I don’t, then I am not growing. I know I can tap back into my imagination. I know that I can pull out what lies in there, and I know that I can find the cracks and break through the tedium to produce some truly legendary crap, but I can also break through the cracks and produce something that really is some interesting fiction from the imagination, but that takes time and it doesn’t necessarily come forward until well after it is created and put out there. I need to bear that in mind. If I don’t, then I can fall prey to my own ego and then I’d start eating myself, and I’d rather not. I’d rather just keep on going and try to find where everything lies and pick it all up and start again., and here is where I should do that. I don’t know if it will be here. Maybe it will be over there. However, it will happen… maybe.

But maybe is a possibility. It might not read as well as I’d like, that word, but it is a possibility, and with possibility there is chance for success, and there is chance for growth and learning. One has to be willing to fail, but one also has to be willing to succeed where they can. Success can induce fear, or rather, the idea of it can. I mean, I’m sure that success also can induce fear, but the idea of it is what I’m talking about here. You know, the “what if” of it, and I don’t know why that can cause hesitation and lead to failure through inaction, but it can. And maybe I’m telling on myself here more than I’d like.

I know that last year I realised that I might just be afraid of success, and I don’t know why. I am yet to be successful. Okay, maybe that’s why. However, I have a strong feeling that that’s why there’s a lot of things I’ve started and not finished, because they show promise and then I put it down and go elsewhere. Of course there are other reason, but this is something that I think is worth considering. And it is something that I am going to work on stopping, because if I don’t, then that’s that, really.

Now this was meant to be a silly bit of writing and I’m failing at that, or I’m succeeding at failing. I don’t know. I think I’d like to know, but maybe I don’t want to know. Maybe I’d rather keep it at not knowing, but I don’t know. But anyway, I was hoping to delve into rambling incoherently, or perhaps even some fiction, but apparently neither of those are happening and so I need to do what I can with what I have. If I don’t, then what next? Where do I go?

Maybe I should go sit on a bench. That is something I haven’t done in a while; not in a park, at least. I should go sit and rest and let myself rest properly, then move on and go to wherever. Do some hard thinking. Think deeply, or at least trick myself into believing that I am thinking deeply. I could do that. Not sure if it would offer much of anything other than me telling myself that I am deep and complex, but really I am no more complex than anyone else. We are all pretty simple creatures who are good at deceiving ourselves with our delusions of grandeur, even if we don’t believe that they are, for they often are and they are deceiving, and this is something that e need to work harder on destroying.

Sure, some people will say something about ego death through acid, but not everyone does that and there are other ways to dismantle and rebuild ourselves, and it need not be done in such a violent way. It doesn’t need to be done with a sudden smack and then have ourselves left to pick up the pieces and recombine them in a way that fits. It can be a journey without substance-based assistance. It can be done many a way, and I don’t think people think about this enough.

If you spend your life learning and growing, and you are generally open to it and genuinely open to being wrong as well as learning from being right, then you do grow as a person. Being right but being humble about it and not a smug asshole is a good way to learn. But there are plenty of ways of learning, and we need to make sure that our biases aren’t telling us we’re learning something when we’re not. Easy mistake to make, and there are plenty of them out there that we can hit on the way to wherever.

So… yeah. I think that makes sense. Or it doesn’t. But we must fight the great ego monster that the collective unconscious keeps summoning as though to torment and delude ourselves, for some reason. We are far too willing to tell ourselves things that just aren’t true, and of course there are plenty of truths out there and there are plenty of forms of what is true, but this is something we must be aware of. We are willing to hurt our learning too much and too often, and we keep on doing it, and what for? Why do we keep on doing these things?

I think about this not enough, to be honest. I don’t think about about why we refuse to learn at times, and I need to bear that in mind. I need to bear in mind a lot of things and I need to check my own self, too. I need to make sure that I keep learning and growing, and maybe that’s why the possibility of fear of success hurts me a bit, I think. Because it’s something that I’ve not considered for a while, and maybe it worries me a little as it it might say something about me that I don’t want to hear, but I need to face it. I need to face it sooner or later, so I try to face it sooner. It’s not a place where I can go using imagination (well, I can, but I don’t necessarily think it would be the best thing to do when I’m trying to figure something out that could be critical to my own growth), and so I must go in seriously. I must go in with intent and be willing to be hurt and afraid and wrong, and right, and I need to keep on growing from there. And everyone out there needs to keep on growing, too.

No one person gets out of life alive, and the best we can do is try to leave things in a bit of a better state. We don’t do that, then who are we? Who are we to make the claim that we did the best we could when we kept the best we could far away? How can we claim we did enough when we didn’t bother? So we try and try again.

19:36:99

Decent time and all that, and this really was unnecessary. However, I like that it kept moving. I like that what came forward kept moving and changing. It followed my thoughts and didn’t stick to just one thing and really dig in on the repetition, though there is plenty of that.

Written at home.

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One Thousand Word Challenge 234: I started with something in mind, but ended up writing about music

Posted on January 13, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

I don’t know why I’m doing this to myself yet again, but for some reason I decided it’;d be a good idea to set myself a limit and try to get this done. I’ve done this before and it doesn’t work out for me; or, it does, but it doesn’t feel like it works out and really, this is just an exercise in tedium… or exercise. An exercise in exercise. Yep. I truly an a literary giant.

So why am I doing this again, when I know that this is not a good idea? Well, I’m behind. I need to catch up. I don’t need to catch up, but I need to catch up. Does that make sense? I hope it does, because that’s what I’m going with. I’m going with some excise to stretch my fingers a bit and pretend that it’s just not an exercise.

Maybe it is an exercise in getting out all the thoughts cluttering my brain right now. Just trying to clear things and find a way forward. Maybe there is no clearing; maybe I’m stuck like this for the rest of the day. Maybe I’m not. I won’t know until I try, and really, this is about trying so try I’m gonna do.

Right now I’m listening to Cocteau Twins for the second time (might be the third), and it’s their album, Head Over Heels, and it’s all sorts of nice. I probably should’ve been listening to this around thirteen years ago. Somewhere around there, when I was listening to more music that was like this, but my head was elsewhere. My head was in far more abrasive music. Still is, really, but the older I get, the more I spread my wings. I was listening to a bunch of shoegaze at the time, or rather not much, but there was some. It was more prominent in my listening habits. Now shoegaze is more prominent everywhere and I don’t know what to do with myself. It almost feels like I was early, but I definitely wasn’t listening to it before everyone else. I would never claim that as that’d be an outright lie.

In a way it’s nice to see that music comes back and people find new ways to make use of things, but at the same time I find a lot of music to be pretty bland. Of course that’s the way it’s gonna be; there is always a lot of stuff that isn’t good. There’s always stuff that is good, too, and you go digging for it. You go digging and looking for it, and you experience it and work out why you like it and why it feels good, or if you don’t like it, then why you don’t. You work with it and you find something else… eventually. You connect the dots and you create a chain and you go back and forward and all of those things.

Digging for music has become more difficult these days, and I think that is solely to do with content generation programs. People refer to it as AI, but it’s really not. It’s just content generating programs generating content. Maybe that’s a really primitive way of looking at it, but that’s not the point of what I’m writing. What I’m writing is that it makes it more difficult for people to find stuff, unless they’re fine with that kind of cutting and repackaging, in which case, more power to them. I’m not, and I know there are others who aren’t because we don’t want to hear that kind of thing most of the time, if not all of the time. But now you need to train yourself to work out what is and isn’t, and even then it can be difficult.

You know, the attitude that everything’s been done really frustrates me, because it’s not true. New things are always happening, and it seems that the people who most often put forward this view are the ones with the most limited range of experience when it comes to music. A lot of things haven’t been done and we won’t know until we’ve heard them. It seems to be generational, too. You know, a lot of people who grew up being told Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Janis Joplin, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, etc., are the best seem to not understand that this was probably something people before them were being told; that everything has been done. It’s just not true, and it’s especially not true when it comes to music. There is so much out there we don’t know and won’t know until we hear it, and when we hear it, maybe it’ll mean nothing. But maybe, just maybe, it will change things and reshape what we hear and how we hear it, and we’ll understand things that we didn’t before when it comes to sound.

Of course we could just be derisive and declare it to be wasteful and crap, but that’s the way these things go when we don’t explore enough and allow ourselves to be wrong, or to learn, or both.

But anyway, where was I? I wanted to say something and I’ve said it and now there’s nothing left to say. I guess I should wrap this up as this has mostly been about music, which is good, but I feel myself coming to an end of the ramble and so ending the ramble is what I should do. There’s no real point in continuing on if I’ve hit the point where I feel this should wrap, so this wrapping up is what will happen. No, there will be no rapping. There will only be wrapping, and it’ll be the wrapping of the up as this writing reaches the closing of the down.

So in conclusion, music rocks and there’s a lot out there to hear. We should always bear in mind the limitations of our experience, and we should try to grow and deepen it where we can.

The time it took to write one thousand words: 11:41:11

I was going to go for two thousand words and just write whatever. I ended up writing whatever, but it was more focused than I’d hoped.

Written at home.

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“Layla” in a Café

Posted on January 13, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

A good few weeks ago I was in Dirty Red, and the piano exit section of “Layla” was playing and it was quiet, and it made me think of Casino, when Robert De Niro’s character is talking about Las Vegas changing and becoming something that he sees as, ultimately, tacky. He has a point, but perhaps he was mourning more his getting a lot out of what it was and expressing frustration at being unable to, than anything else. Admittedly, whilst he does express dismay, he does seem to express some appreciation for his lot in life after his exit from Las Vegas. It’s a scene that could be allegorical for Hollywood changing, and probably the whole film can be seen that way, but I digress.

Later on I was reminded that the song was used in Goodfellas and not Casino, but there was still something fitting to me, as things change. Dirty Red was quiet when I was there, and it felt very unusually so. It felt as though it should’ve been much busier. The weather was great, people were on break, the actual holiday periods were coming close. But it was quiet, and it wasn’t the first time it had been quiet whilst I was there in the morning, either.

Over the prior weeks it seemed to grow increasingly quiet, as though a lot of what was drawing people in was not working as well as it had, and I didn’t know how to feel about that. Things change, and Dirty Red is just another café at the end of the day. It is, however, my café. Like Glebe Street Deli, Little Ethel’s, Rusty Rabbit in Burwood, and Four Ate Five before it, this is where I like to go and eat. The staff know me, I know the staff, and for me it’s just a pleasant place to be. But things change, and it seems business has picked up again, but who knows how long it’ll be for.

Eventually I’ll have to find another regular. There is, of course, a chance I won’t, but it’s good to explore what’s around, and maybe I’ll end up working elsewhere, or move somewhere that makes going to Dirty Red highly impractical. There’s danger in the familiar, and there’s danger in the new, and what I really want is a sense of community; A sense of place that I don’t have to let go of because of the impermanence of affordability.

Things change, and Dirty Red might just close sooner than I’d like. Maybe it won’t, but hearing the piano exit section of “Layla”, and seeing how the space was at the time felt concerning to me. The place survived losing two awesome staff well enough, but this didn’t feel right, and sometimes change, whilst inevitable, takes more than it gives.

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Accomodating Log

Posted on January 13, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

This was taken during my recent journeying over the holiday break. This kind of repurposing is not something I get to see, and whilst it might present an issue in urban areas, this was not in an urban area.

I hope you enjoy.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1556: Thoughts Coming and Going

Posted on January 13, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

I’m in one of those states where many, many thoughts are coming at me in quick succession. Cycling through them, moving away. They are as though vignettes that are refusing to formulate beyond their brief glimpses. They are complete, but they need time to be absorbed, and they are gone before that happens.

It is a tough way to have things flowing through the brain at the moment. Would rather some steadiness, but that’s not going to happen so I need to ride it out, or I don’t, but I rather I feel I need to. Probably because I feel I have no choice. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what my brain is doing this morning. I do know that I need to use the bathroom, but that doesn’t help with the current predicament. Or maybe it does…

Thoughts flow on and they go to wherever they go. I don’t know where. Probably back to underneath the surface. Somewhere underneath, buried, chopped up, disassembled, rearranged, turned into something new, and then brought back to the surface only ti disappear again before they can be fully grasped. Before they can be used in a way that helps things be understood, or created, or whatever. Many things, no things, everything things.

They change and rearrange, and there are glimpses of what once was in there, but it has happened so many times that the familiarity remains unrecognisable. It is reconstituted elements, or rather, a series of them, broken down, reconstituted, reformulated, recreated, old becoming new… you get the idea.

So all these thoughts moving in and out, poking and prodding and dashing away, disappearing, coming back in new forms, unfamiliar, still familiar, moving, moving, always moving, and moving in a way that eludes normal capturing. It’s a fun time to be alive and a time where I need sleep, and everything feels a bit more than it should but I’ll get through it. I always do. I always survive. Somehow, I always survive.

I’m wondering what these thoughts are trying to get across and why I’m having more difficulty than usual with them. Well, usually I’m pretty good at following my thoughts and letting them happen and following them, but today I’m not and I do think it has a lot to do with fatigue. I think it does; I’m not entirely sure. Really, there’s so many reasons that could explain why, but I don’t want to go digging into that all as there’s so many other things I need to do. So many other things I need to catch up on and get out of the way, and rest also needed. A lot of rest. So much rest. All of the rest.

But these thoughts, they keep coming at me and they keep throwing themselves at me, and I can only experience them right now. I can’t hold onto them and take them somewhere, and I think what I actually should do is unwind.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 07:16:01

Good speed. Not sure how I feel about what I’ve written. It covers how I was feeling well enough, but I don’t know if it makes for acceptable reading.

Written at home.

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Evening Utility

Posted on January 12, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

Just some utility poles and overheads at twilight.

I hope you enjoy.

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Standing at Twilight

Posted on January 11, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

On Christmas Eve, I went for a walk through a bit of Bathurst with Ewe and his dog. We went a good distance, to a field area, and I got this photo. I like twilight as to how it can make things feel quiet, and how it can frame things in a particularly moody way.

I hope you enjoy.

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One Thousand Word Challenge 233: We Need to do More

Posted on January 10, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

Yesterday I wanted to do so much writing and I couldn’t. Or I could, but I didn’t persevere enough. That was, ultimately, the issue that I had, and now I’m here, sitting and rushing as I’m about to head out to go spend time with the person I’m seeing. And that’s okay. Or it’s not, and I need to be accountable enough to admit that I have nursed bad habits for a really long time.

But anyway, it’s already warm. Today is going to be a brutal day. Incredibly hot, horrible, etc. And I don’t know if I have the energy to keep hoping we’re going to do better, because we’ve royally fucked everything and, when being asked to do something about it, we decide to dig our heels in. So maybe we have had our time and we’re going to keep digging further and further in until we throw our hands up and say things like “Why didn’t anyone say anything?”.

Yes, we need to hold corporations to task. Yes, we need to keep our elected public servants to task. There are a lot of areas in which we need to ensure people are being responsible. We need to be responsible ourselves, too. Often it is that we behave as though we can live the lives we live without repercussions, and the fact is is that, whilst the biggest polluters out there need to be reigned in massively and there needs to be genuine consequences for their actions (beyond the ever-increasing likelihood that everything will go to absolute shit), there is little, if any chance that, if we want the changes to happen and be effective, we get to keep living with the kind of luxury that we live with.

There are people out there with needs who require things that plenty of us take for granted as a convenience rather than a necessity to improve quality of life and general function. A lot of us are going to have to go without if we keep on polluting and fucking things around because our footprint is small compared to that of a large organisation.

We all live on the same planet and we all have an obligation to treat it as a place we want to live. We all have an obligation to put aside our desires if our desires get in the way of clearing land, or restoring habitat. We don’t choose to be born, but we don’t have to make it worse for others, and we really shouldn’t.

There are so many places I see that could have so many more trees. Yes, trees drop branches. Vegetation can cause issues. If need be, we can create more green corridors. Stick a fucking footpath along them if need be. Get people involved and interested, and get them having a reason to want to protect and restore habitat. What, more insects? Who gives a shit.

I’d rather a healthier environment than a dying one, but that doesn’t happen unless we actually participate in the protection and restoration of it, and whilst there’s a lot in our current society that makes it difficult to take part in the work that needs doing, we still all need to do something.

I don’t want to be letting go of hope. I don’t want to have to be giving up on talking to people about what can be done and what steps are needed to work toward making things better. It’s getting really hard though, because I look at everything. I think back to lockdown and how, for a lot of people it was stressful, it gave some time to think about the world as it was, and what could be done. I think about now and it’s though it never happened. This global crisis and people just went back to how things were, because of course we all did. It’s fucked.

I am angry this morning, sure, but I feel my anger is justified, and it’s also mixed with despair. There’s so much out there I want to see and do and it might not happen because we just keep on consuming and taking things over and we don’t think about our impact. No single drop thinks it is to blame for the flood, and not enough people think about the responsibility they carry on a planet that has diminishing natural resources, and what I mean here is the spread of nature and habitat that we can see, rather than harvest because being able to see things means they are a form of resource. They’re something that provides something to us, but we’re not appreciating what’s around us enough. Not the fucking houses; the natural landscape.

I drive through The Blue Mountains a lot because I love them and I think Sydney is, quite frankly, an ugly place. I drive through and I see the natural landscape, and I see how people don’t appreciate it enough and I get angry about it, because people will treat the natural environment like their personal dumping ground. I still want these spaces to be available to everyone, because for every few disrespectful people, you’ll get one or two who will think about the space and what it means and offers, and of a few of those, you’ll get one or two who then decide to get involved with preservation and reducing their own footprint.

Yes, there are far larger polluters, but we all have an obligation to the planet. We don’t get to live with all the conveniences we have if we want to make things better. It takes a collective effort. It takes a lot of work, but it can be done. We don’t get to rest because we have it good; we then fight for a better tomorrow for everyone. We fight, even if it costs us some luxury, because that is what we have to do. I don’t think enough will, and I’m finding it hard to hope we’ll turn things around.

The time it took to write one thousand words: 17:43:30

Originally I was going to stop sooner, but I felt as though it would be better for me to keep going. I don’t think it helped the writing, however, as I dragged out things that probably didn’t need to be dragged out. Too long. However, with that being said, I think I made my point pretty clear. It’s one that, perhaps, needs to be wielded as though with intent to bludgeon someone, because not enough people seem to get the severity of the situation we’re in, or are incredibly unwilling to understand.

Written at home.

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