One Thousand Word Challenge 286: Hornswaggled

Posted on April 13, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

So yesterday failed, but that’s okay. It means splitting the work over two more days, but two more days is two more days. Could probably get it all done today, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. Maybe a bad idea. Don’t know. Will find out.

A few more days and already I’m considering pushing out for a few days more, just to make sure I’ve got everything wrapped up the way I want it to be. However, I also think that’s a bad idea. Need to allow things to come to an end, and respectfully, though this blog is definitely past the point where any soft treatment could be considered respectful. I must hack into what it is and tear it apart, and then go from there. Go from there, go wherever, go anywhere. Find the points of pain, find the pain points, and point at the pain and then laugh a little. Laugh and find my way to wherever is next.

So what does this even mean? I don’t know and I don’t care right now. I just know that I’m trying to churn and burn still, and today is going to allow that, but I’m going to be so wrecked by the end of the day. Yesterday was a busy day, but today is going to be worse as there is a lot of stuff I need to do to be ready for Friday. A lot of stuff.

What have I gotten myself into?

So anyway, soon I must walk. Get my legs working and moving. Get them going to where I need to go in order to show something for nothing and get the nothing something so that it’s something will face the nothingness of everything and look toward the morning and go “I will not be deceived. I will not tolerate this lack of effort”, whilst shaking its little nothing fist at a window. It’s how it goes sometimes, and I will be there, bearing witness to this spectacle. I will be wondering as to how my life got to that point, of course, but I don’t want to spend too much time wondering. I also need to make sure I have a life to get on with. I need to make sure I’ve time to think about the silliness of it all and the absurdity of my finding myself in these situations time and again, and let me tell you, they keep on happening.

One day I’ll be outside and it won’t happen, and I’ll be confused. I’ll be relieved. My life will go back to what it once was, and that will be great. I’ll enjoy that. And then, when I finally least expect it, when I don’t expect it at all, it will happen again an  have been hoodwinked. Hornswaggled, perhaps. This kind of boondoggling will be tolerated, unfortunately, as the world is a strange place and I’m just one participant. I am not the whole story. I am not the entirety of the picture.

But I have to go outside soon. It’s going to be a day of being outside and being inside and being everywhere and nowhere in all sorts of forms and shapes, and I will have to deal with all of that as it happens. I’ll have to deal with it and get on with life whilst I am, and I don’t like that. I don’t want to like that. I also don’t want to imply that I will like hat, because… I don’t know.

In truth, it’s just going to be a busy day and it’s something I’m responsible for in this particular instance, and I don’t mind. I don’t mind as I’ve brought it entirely upon myself, but I can persevere. I can get through it all, and I can see the end of the day easily enough. I just need to make sure that I do actually get everything done. I’m good at not and so… yeah.

Alright, what else can I write right now? I can talk about this music that I’m listening to. I can think of other things to write and then announce those and then never follow up on it, and that’s a thing. That’s okay. Or it’s not. I don’t know. But anyway.

Maybe I’ll try and write some fiction after this. Get some stories out there, find where they all lie and sit, and then go on from there. I do have a few that I was hoping to start sooner than this week, but that’s the way it goes. I’ve certainly put in what I feel is a valiant effort this week, so at the very least I can hold my head up on high in some manner. Hold it up and be proud of my effort, despite the quality not matching in the slightest. Might just do that, actually.

Still a few more words to go, however. Thinking about what I’ll do after this is not helpful to the process, and the process isn’t working. It hasn’t been working for a while, but I’ve kept going. I’ve kept pushing against, and that has been fine, I guess. Probably should have rethought things a good while ago. Didn’t and now I’m here, still going, still churning, still acting as though I am at the pinnacle of brilliance, whatever that means. Doesn’t mean anything, really. Or does it?

And so I’m nearly at the end of this writing. Definitely need to stretch my legs a bit, get moving, get grooving, get on with the getting on and find my way through these messes of sentences and wiry spindles of crap writing. So I should stop saying I need to and just get on with it. Go outside, get some light on me, get some food due to my laziness preventing me from making some this morning, go see the outside world, find where the things lie and think a little bit more about where to go from here.

The time it took to write one thousand words: 12:05:83

More serious / silly writing, brought to you by a Monday.

It’s quite obvious where I think my mind lies at this point. Not sure if a good thing or a bad thing.

Written at work.

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Cool Geese

Posted on April 12, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

A photo of geese… looking cool.

So this group (gaggle?) was walking toward the nearby pond. I decided to try and get a photo of them, which is the below one, and I think it turned out really well.

This is my submission into the three hundred-and-ninety-third Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, and as this blog is ending in a few days, my last submission into the series. The theme for this one is “Lucky Shot“.

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 Sofia. The next one is curated by John.

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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Mercury, Part 4

Posted on April 12, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

Another of these (previous parts here, here and here). Still not great, none of this parts will be, but it’s nice to have them shared.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Harvey and Cave headed on to the pub, their thoughts weighing heavily upon them. It was not long before they arrived and it was not long before the silence held onto them They sat there, staring off into nothingness, feeling as though there was nothing else that they could discuss about what they had witnessed. It went nowhere and it provided nothing and the silence was something that they needed to break, even if to just move away from the topic at hand, but the silence was deafening and neither felt they could speak out above it, for when they thought they could it would roar and intimidate them back into their position of fealty.

Spectacle ruled in this particular moment in time and if they could not escape it, then they should at least try to confront it, but that too was something that neither felt that they could get away with doing. Therefore, more silence held until Cave spoke up.

“I’ll get the first round.”

Cave walked on over to the bar and Harvey was left there to their thoughts. They felt that beforehand the thoughts were, at the very least, shared, but this was something else entirely. This was them and their thoughts; their thoughts were seated somewhere next to them, poking and pressing at them, asking a thousand questions but not waiting for any answers. What did they see? Did it mean anything? Could Cave have not been full of shit this whole time? It just kept playing back and piling on more questions and it just kept going on and on, and all Harvey wanted to do was just sit there and enjoy a drink before getting on with something else, and they wanted their interface back so they could go back to making their shitty music again. They wanted something to do whilst on this paid leave and they had nothing at hand, and so it was and so it would be for that time in the pub.

It was pretty in a way, but as Harvey tried to remember it Mercury retrograde kept on shifting in their mind. They knew what they saw, but their mind kept on playing around with it, changing it so that whilst the same series of events occurred, the image differed every time Harvey tried to remember it and it was something that Harvey could not get away from. That they could remember what happened clearly but the memory kept on changing threw them off. It was weird and uncomfortable and it was something they’d not experienced before, and they wondered what it all meant and-

“You gonna have your drink?”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“So… that was a pretty weird thing, hey.”

“I guess. You tell me what it all means.”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on. Surely it must mean something in all that cosmic woo bullshit that you believe.”

“I can’t tell you.”

“You sure?”

“Look, I don’t know what to tell you. That was something fantastic, but we already tried discussing it. WE tried putting it to words but the closest thing that I can get to is that it was… well, overwhelming. I don’t know what it means. I don’t know if it means anything at all. Perhaps it means some sort of particularly intense form of Mercury Retrograde. Maybe something happened to Mercury. Maybe something hit it hard enough for it to disintegrate and that’s what we saw. I got nothing.”

“But if something hit it, then surely it wouldn’t have appeared intact.”

“Who knows?”

“Maybe someone at the observatory saw it. Maybe we could go there tomorrow and ask them.”

“Why not this evening?”

“Because after this I want to go home and sleep.”

“They have people who work the evenings too, you know.”

“Well, maybe. Let’s see. Let’s just try and sit here and move away from it and hope that we forget about it and can then go on with our lives.”

Once more there was silence, and the sound of people became distant, somehow. The space that Harvey and Cave inhibited seemed to enclose around them and they were suddenly in their own dome that they could not escape from. Their food arrived and they took it and ate in silence, until eventually Cave spoke up once more.

“You know, as I try to remember it it seems to change.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you saw it and you saw what happened. That’s what I remember, and I remember how it happened and the stretch that formed behind Mercury, but every time I try to remember it something about it changes. The same events occur but something is different, such as the shape and size of the trail, or how Mercury was moving the way it was moving.”

“I see.”

“You’re having the same thing happen, aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

“Alright. We’re going to the observatory after this.”

“Why not consult the crystals?”

“Fuck off.”

“Why do you want to go to the observatory? I thought you found Astronomy to be a corrupted practice.”

“I saw something I hadn’t seen before, and so did you. Maybe someone there saw it. I think we should go ask.”

“Trusting science then?”

“I want a view outside of yours and mine.”

“Mine errs closer to the science and the realm of logic than yours.”

“So you say, but that’s beside the point. Maybe they know something that we don’t.”

Harvey and Cave ate as quickly as they could, then got up and left. The pub was full and there were people joyous and celebratory outside, but neither cared. They just wanted to see if they could get answers and so off they went walking at an accelerated pace.

The sense of foreboding and the weight of unease held fast upon their backs and they felt pressed down by some sort of belief that there was forbidden knowledge that they could not reach, or at least have been too exposed to in order to be able to understand. Regardless, they had to press on in order to get some sort of answers.

The sound of creatures made themselves known as the two traveled, and it was not long before they reached their destination. Cave approached the main entrance which was now shut and not open to the public at this particular hour, except for at very specific points in time and during specific events. There were some stargazers out on the area around, doing their thing, enjoying their time. Some were there to have evening picnics; others were looking to spark a little romance. But all in all they were few and far between, and so Harvey and Cave seemed to stick out with their speedy movement, almost seeming as thoguh they were going to deliver some urgent news.

Cave looked for a buzzer or intercom and tried to trigger it, but it didn’t seem to work. Harvey stood there, wondering what they were doing and felt that it was a fruitless endeavour.

“Come on Cave, let’s go. No one is coming. They’ve probably switched it off so they can do what they need to do undisturbed.”

“No, people are in there. I’m sure someone has an idea of what has happened.”

After a few more minutes someone came down, looking a little bewildered and annoyed.

“What took you so long?”

“We’re working. Also, the intercom appears to be functioning intermittently. What do you want?”

“Well, I wanted to ask about Mercury Retrograde today.”

The scientist looked at Cave for a brief moment and sized them up. Their face grew blank, as though exasperated but unable to express it, before they chose their words carefully.

“This is not worth anyone’s time.”

“But did you see it?”

“No. Go away.”

“It was weird! It was strange and it didn’t look the way it’s meant to!”

“Nice choice of words, Cave.”

“Can it.”

“Look, what my friend is trying to say here is that we have concerns about what we saw when we tried to watch Mercury cross the sky and we want to see if anyone else here saw anything, or if it is some sort of regular thing and we’re paranoid for no reason.”

“You’re paranoid for no reason.”

“Okay, but can we get some sort of confirmation?”

“…Alright, here’s what I’ll tell you. The observatory is open to the public in the morning. None of the night crew on at the moment saw Mercury today. Go away now.”

The scientist left. Cave grumbled to themselves for a bit whilst they and Harvey walked away. Near them some stargazers expressed awe at some of the stars as they seemed to shine and shimmer in the sky. Cave and Harvey would’ve looked, but Harvey just wanted to get home as quickly as possible, and Cave was too busy being annoyed by how pointless the endeavour seemed.

“Satisfied, Cave?”

“No. We’re going back tomorrow morning.”

“You’re on your own. I’ve got things to do.”

“You’re not doing anything at the moment and you’re not going to do anything tomorrow either.”

Cave had a point, but Harvey didn’t want to engage with this. They [referred to be left to their thoughts and they just wanted to be bored alone and without Cave’s interference.

“Alright, I’ll make a deal. You get up in the morning and I’ll come along. You’re not up in the morning, you’re on your own.”

Harvey felt rather clever about putting this forward. They knew that Cave wasn’t in a position to get up at an hour some considered reasonable, and so they knew that Cave would fail.

“You’re on.”

Harvey hoped that that would be the end of it, but they also felt curious to know and decided that they’d go in the morning by themselves. They probably were just imagining the whole thing and their thoughts were just fixated on something that was actually pretty normal, or maybe they imagined they whole thing. That would at least explain why they couldn’t remember it the same way twice. Regardless, there was now something that lay ahead and it was something to at least help distract for a few hours. At the moment sleep was more important, however, and so at a steady pace Harvey and Cave made their way home, soon to rest for a small day lay ahead.

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Taku Inoue: Across the Katamari Draft

Posted on April 12, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

This is the last in a series of four bits of writing about music that affected me last year in some way. There’s a few changes between this and the final version (which will hopefully be published in a few days), but the main thing I want to highlight is that there was a line about my not understanding Japanese which allowed me to hear the song differently. I removed it from the draft and the final as it felt like a really arrogant and ignorant thing to say. It also felt disrespectful. Removing it improved the parts around it quite a bit, too.

Of note, the main vocalist of the song is MO’SOME TONEBENDER’s Momo Kazuhiro (百々和宏), and it’s through this song that I got into that band.

The final version of this essay will be published on From Somewhere out the Back. If you’ve been following my stuff here long enough, then you’ll recognise the name as the title for when I write about music releases in my music collection. I’d been intending to dedicate a space for those pieces for a while, and of course rather than hold to that, the space expanded to more than just music.

The draft below is just to give an idea of progress.

—

I hope you enjoy.

At some point in the second half of 2025 I discovered the song “Across the Katamari”, a song used in Touch my Katamari and included in its soundtrack album, Katamari Damacy Novita Original Soundtrack: Katamori Damacy. The album’s cover features a mandrill enjoying what I think is a bowl of ramen. It’s calm. The Katamari series is seldom calm, but it can have a calming effect, strangely enough. Among all the bizarreness and rather brazen, destructive action, there’s a whimsy that comes in its process of creation, of its continued work and building and working and working some more… you get the idea. “Across the Katamari” is calm, but it’s also not.

What an opening paragraph.

“Across the Katamari” starts with light percussion twinkling in a vast silence. Vocals soon join, singing short phrases. Elongating where required, and always remaining concise. More percussion comes in, firm, yet still gentle. Brass starts enunciating the melody, building on it whilst adding its own detail. More instrumentation joins and adds its own flair, widening the. There’s a bit going on, but everything is kept light and simple and gentle. Inviting in a way. Perhaps comforting and relational.

There’s a pause and additional vocals appear, harmonising, keeping things flowing and creating this very soft, small moment. The main vocal re-enters, then everything then comes back and creates this moment of grandness. The melody pushes out further, harder. Those background voices harmonise with the surrounding instrumentation, and it’s just a big and beautiful, yet humble moment. It doesn’t feel like it’s trying to be anything more than it needs to be, and it feels thankful. There’s gratitude in there.

The song becomes gentle once more, and sounds sort of drifts in a controlled way, becomes big once more, then returns to a verse. There’s more energy here, but there’s also more space. It doesn’t last long and once more things get big, and perhaps feel like a release in a way. The main vocals keep singing short phrases, and remain both gentle and firm and fronting, and a little smooth and a little rough, and eventually they disappear and once more let the song do its thing. The instruments stay in control as they drift and seemingly explore a beauty, a wonderment of the grandness of everything until they reach one more percussive curl, then let a guitar close everything off with the quiet smallness of everything.

Excellent stuff.

Before editing, I said that “Across the Katamari” is a perfectly-composed song. I don’t know if that’s fair as it doesn’t say anything about the song at all. Plenty of music out there is perfectly composed. It doesn’t mean it makes for good music. Instead, I want to say that “Across the Katamari” is an affective song. It makes great use of cycles and layering whilst preserving a sense of space. Vocals harmonising with the other instruments, and everything moves through a sectioned build that feels organic. It’s small and massive at the same time, and it’s fragile and strong, and efficient. It’s so many things, and it’s just a song. What I think makes it good, however, is none of this.

Where the song shines is in allowing itself to straddle many different emotions in one go. There is, what I feel, a genuine sense of wonderment, joy, jubilation, happiness, celebration… but there’s a certain openness in it, in the way the sounds flow, the way the push forward and pull back, and become massive at times without coming off as smothering. The lightness in them, and their ability to become expansive without becoming sparse. As such, it can be about something different from one listen to the next because it’s universal.

The great thing about music is how, even if understood, its meaning can change context based on different situations. A lot of music comes from the heart, and it often takes a lot of work to create something that feels throwaway like filler. “Across the Katamari” feels like it had a lot of heart and soul thrown into it. It feels like a song that Taku Inoue (here credited as NBGI) poured a lot into, and it feels like a lot of things, but it also feels optimistic and hopeful. It’s a song filled with wonderment, even when it feels sad.

That this song is used in a game considered (as far as I’m aware) controversial is a downright shame, because this is a great song. Until recently “Across the Katamari” was the last bit of credits music heard in a Katamari game. Maybe that adds a bit of unintended poignancy to it. I imagine it wasn’t composed as being final in mind, but it does feel final. To be fair, plenty of great music requires digging, but this is one really should be more readily accessible. Sure, the album it’s on is out there. You don’t have to play through a game to hear it, but how many people are going to come across it of their own accord? I only came across it by chance, but that’s the way it goes, really.

I feel lucky for having come across “Across the Katamari”. It makes me think about how small I am in the grand scheme of things, and how, whilst moments of joy will pass, I still carry those experiences with me. I think about the mandrill eating ramen on the album cover, and I think about my own intensity. This is a Mandrill embracing a moment of calm. A moment I’m an intense person and aging hasn’t changed that, though I’m a bit more controlled, at least.

To be clear, I’m not trying to relate myself to mandrills here. They are intense and sometimes violent creatures, as are so many animals we love, but on the cover of Katamari Damacy Novita Original Soundtrack: Katamori Damacy, we have one just enjoying a moment in time. It’s a picture that I feel works well with “Across the Katamari”, because the image can get across so many things, much like the song. There’s energy in the song; there’s energy in a mandrill. But sometimes, just sometimes, you gotta take time to relax and enjoy moments in life, and that’s something that we can all take something from.

I don’t know how the longtime fans of the series feel about the song, but “Across the Katamari” made me believe in music again. I’m finding myself thinking about last year and the trip it was. I think about the music that spoke to me. Mastodon’s “Gigantium” made me think of my friends. Lianne La Havas’ “Weird Fishes” spoke to me in a way that no other song could. Fever made me want to write about music again.

Music has been good, and writing has been there, but there’s been a detachment, as though I haven’t been taking part. I’m not really there. I played my first gig in six years and that was great fun, and  there’s potential for more sooner rather than later, but I wasn’t fully in it. There’s stuff that I’d heard that was affecting, but it wouldn’t take hold of me in the way music usually did. But “Across the Katamari”, and its being about anything whilst also reflecting on the journey to that point, and in its grand smallness; I came across it at the right time, and it made me believe in music again.

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One Thousand Word Challenge 285: Best Year, Stats-Wise

Posted on April 12, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

So I just found out that I’ve now had my best year here, stats-wise. The now-second best is 2017. Probably reached it yesterday or the day before. Maybe earlier today. I don’t know. I think this is interesting.

I’m not sure what I did well in 2017 that I was unable to replicate in other years. Maybe there was a lot more introspection or something. I don’t know and I don’t care to know, and that’s the main thing to take away from this. But anyway, that’s another story for another day.

I don’t want to get too much into it, but it’s an interesting milestone, I think. Or rather, it’s an interesting thing to happen. I think it’s interesting as this is happening when I’m approaching the end of the blog. A good few months ago, traffic just shot up and it’s stayed up, and I don’t know what has happened to cause this. I don’t know why people are suddenly swarming all over the space. I haven’t offered anything new or different. It’s as it has always been, nothing has changed, really. Well, the quality has gotten worse, but other than that, nothing has changed. It’s just been a massive dear diary thing for far too long, far away from the original purpose, and it keeps on going. The crap keeps on coming and there is no end in sight!

Oh wait, there is. Anyway…

So I’m doing well, numbers-wise. I’m doing the best I’ve ever done, and if I were to continue on to the end of the year, I’m sure I’d do far better than I am now. I don’t want to do that, however. I just want this to end in a few days. I want to be rid of it and then shake my brain for whatever comes next.

I wonder what attracts people to what I’m doing. I’ve never been a competent writer. Actually, I’m competent, but I’d never call myself a good writer. My vocabulary is highly limited, and my sentence construction is severely lacking. Maybe my writing feels incredibly human, or something.

These are things that I’ll never know the answer to, and I think that;s okay. I think that’s fine, because I’ll keep writing the way that I write and hopefully make some sort of incremental growth along the way, and some people will like it and some people won’t. I’ll just keep on going and doing my thing, because that’s all I can do, really. Well, I could stop, but I don’t want to stop. I just want the shape to change. The direction. And look toward other horizons. Toward other sunrises and sunsets. Find my path and cut through it with a long horn, so that I can then call victory once done.

So life goes on and I’m here, a bit baffled by the change in numbers. But the explosion in growth. It’s nice, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t know what it means or says about much of anything other than some people are now enjoying this, or at least coming here, than there had been previously.

So where do I go from here? I still have more words to write this evening and I’m getting there, but it’s tiring. It’s taking it out of me, so I hope that means that I will sleep tonight. Sleep and do backflips in my dreams. Flick backwards and somersault in whatever direction one does those in. I don’t know, I’m not a flipper. I am good at flipping, or something similar, however, so maybe there’s something that I can understand. But this, this I don’t understand.

What makes popularity? What makes success? Somehow I’ve gotten this far in my life without knowing much of either, and I’m still going and going strong, or at least what I think is strong. I’m still getting to the end of each day and waking up in the morning, and I’m still here. That’s quite a lot and I’m happy with that. That means something, even if it doesn’t mean that I’m rich and able to relax. That is some sort of success still, so I can be thankful for that.

And so… yeah. I don’t know where else to go with all of this. There’s still so little to say and so, so many words to use to say it all. I am struggling hard, but I’m getting there. I’m getting through it, and that;s the main thing. So long as I keep saying, I can keep playing. So long as I can keep playing, I can find my way through all the confusion and struggle and get to the other end in one piece. Maybe two pieces, or six pieces if I’m lucky. Then there will be more of me to go around.

Maybe the sudden increase in views is due to people wanting to see how thin someone can stretch themselves. I’m practically translucent at this point, however. Not sure if there’s more stretching that can be done, though maybe there is. I don’t know, I don’t hope to know and I don’t care to know either. I can just keep on stretching. Stretching further and further, going beyond all that is and all that ever was, and then finding myself wind back up in a quick movement. A snapping motion, and… yeah. You get the idea. I get the idea. We all get the idea. Now onto the next thing.

But perhaps it is that. Maybe it’s not, and maybe it;s something else entirely. Maybe there is some quality in all that I have written that I am blind to, and it attracts people. That’d be neat if it is indeed the case, so I will not rule that out just yet. However, maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow I will rule it out and then I will be ruled by what I don’t know, and life will continue and I’ll go to work and… yeah. Fun times in the grind.

The time it took to write one thousand words: 12:16:31

Decent speed for something a bit more serious than my usual fare.

Written at Killara.

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One Thousand Word Challenge 284: Approaching Halfway

Posted on April 12, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

Approaching halfway now. Still don’t know what I’m going to say. Just know that I’m going to say it.

I have to wonder as to where I lost my way. It was probably somewhere around lockdown, I guess. Went far too hard in going continuous and doing something every day, and I imagine that that really took it out of me. That probably is what caused me to lose my way. Can’t find it now, or I can, maybe. Just, at the edge, at the fraying, and see where all of that goes and leads to. Maybe get back on track.

Maybe I just need to go for a long drive. That is possible.

Let me tell you, I am looking forward to resting my fingers at the end of all of this. They are in dire need of a break from writing, but I will still be writing. I’ll just be doing a lot less of it, or more of it, or maybe the same amount. This is yet to be determined, of course. Or it is not. I don’t know and I don’t care to know. What I do know is that I’m warming up and as I get warmer, I write faster, and as I write faster,t he writing gets worse.

So therefore I need to throw a bunch of fancy words together, like “therapeutic” and “condemnation” and then find my condiments for seasoning the whole thing and then I can eat and it will make food  a good meal… I hope.

I need to find my hats and I need to find where they have all gone, but I looked under the couch and I just don’t care anymore.

So in writing this I am aware that I am struggling quite hard. This was a silly idea and I may be regretting my decision to proceed. However, I cannot admit to that because if I do, then I will have to admit that I am wrong and that’s not something I’m wiling to do. I can never be wrong, and how can anything be wrong when we are so right  about  everything, and when I say “we”, I mean everyone and everything, and not necessarily in that order.

Perhaps I just need to skirt the surface of the deepest waters, and run alongside the fish that fly. I can go from there and find my here, and in finding that I’ll have found myself and in finding myself, I’ll have… said something that doesn’t really matter, really. But that;s okay. So long as I see waves, that’ll be okay. There are fun things out there and out there is a whole wide world and that’ll help keep me going along with earthing, So long as that does, I think I can get through the last few of these for this evening. I can do that. I can be happy with the result. I can be happy with plenty of things, really, but I can be happy with the result of the churn and burn. At least right now, I can.

I really should have started this earlier.

There’s a clock on the wall, I’m tired, I’m still going. I’m still writing as though my life depends on it, and it doesn’t and that;s okay. I can get through it all. I can get to the end of this, and then I can go to the next thing. I can find love in people; I can finish a few words off and then go to wherever, whenever, and never act like I said never…

Where was I going with this?

So anyway, I’m firmly rooted to this chair, just sitting here, doing my thing. Trying to get ore words done so I can keep going. Staring at my current partner, staring at them do their thing, and they’re staring back at me, and we’re being silly. This is a nice moment. Sure, I am working and not looking at the keyboard at the moment, but I am enjoying this. It’s just a small section of life that’s happening and that’s great. This is where pleasantness comes through, and this is where the writing happens, and the writing happening here is due to my sitting here, writing. And it’s great. It’s nice.

There are plenty of small moments in life and I think we need to pay more attention to them. I think we need to do more with the time that we have and find where all the pieces lie, and look at the small moments. They are as important as the big ones. Life is not a series of snapshots. It’s not a highlights reel. It’s a series of continuous small things blending into each other, creating a lengthy, amorphous body in life that goes everywhere and nowhere, thickens and thins and changes shape as we change perspective. It’s great that we’re afforded all of this. It’s great that we get all these things in our lives and they’re just small moments.

So, I think I’ve said all I can really say about that. That’s okay. I need to find the next thing now, but it’s starting to hurt my fingers. I need to rest a while after this week, I think. That’ll be good. Rest is always good. Rest is always necessary. However, right now it’s just all the way to the land of pain, known as pain city, and my fingers are going to hate me before I’m done. But I’m getting there and I need them to hold on for just a little longer. Just for a few more days and then I’ll be fine. I’ll be good. I’ll have made it, and then I can say “I made it”, and that’ll be nice. That’ll be good, and that’ll be that.

Well, there’s a few other things, but those won’t be for here. Those will be for elsewhere and those will then take over my life, but not nearly as intensely, I hope.

The time it took to write one thousand words: 10:54:56

Slight bit faster, also a little more coherent in places than the prior one.

Written at Killara.

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One Thousand Word Challenge 283: The Day Continues and so Does the Nonsense

Posted on April 12, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

Alright so I’m on the second one and now I need to work out where to go from here. I mean, I don’t. I can just satisfy myself with wasting everyone’s time, but I feel I have to say something important. Something special.

I’ve got nothing.

But you know, sometimes part of the fun of writing is having nothing. Sometimes it really is staring at the ceiling, zoning out, doing nothing, feeling everything and being incredibly paralytic. Incredibly and utterly paralytic, going nowhere, trying to find one’s way through a mess of thoughts flying off in all directions. It doesn’t always go the way we want it to, and that’s okay. That’s fine, to be honest. You just need to keep going, keep on trying, keep on loving and doing what you can in order to get to the end of your days in one piece, wherever that may lie.

Perhaps a bit dark for what I was hoping, but sometimes that’s the way things go, really. Sometimes you need to deal with darkness or heaviness, and try to face it with optimism. With jubilation and blissfulness. With joy in your heart. That’s what I hope to be able to do, one day. Maybe I already do and that’s what has beaten me down over time so much. I don’t know, but I might one day. I hope I might one day. Only one way to find out, really, and that’s through the getting of the things toward the status of done. Or not. Might just find out over time by chance. Through the gathering of experiences and collating them into neat little packages, then going from there. Going on and finding where everything fits in relation with each other and then do the facing of in a state of optimistic emotion or something.

So the day continues and it’s dark now and I’m just here, just a passenger in my life path of life, and it’s okay. It’s not bad, actually. I’ve done quiet well. I sit here in a kitchen and just bang on the keys and soon I will have food. Soon I will eat, and then after this coming week, I’ll be an active participant in life again. I’ll be actively doing life things and getting on with it all, and that’ll be nice. That’ll be cool. I’d like that. I hope that I’d like that.

A bloody hell, I’m getting all emotional and it’s not even time to get emotional. There’s still so much to get through. So much to do. I can get there, however. I can get there and get to the end of it, and then I will be the reigning champion of everything and nothing, and then no one person shall stop me, except for anyone willing to go “Hey, can you stop?”, because how could I resist such a request? How could I truly deny stopping when the need to stop is probably there, hence why in this instance I’m being asked? I don’t know and I don’t want to know, but I’ll keep on going along the path as that would be a curve that I’d have to follow and I don’t even know where this is going anymore. It’s just a series of thoughts not being expressed well, being overwhelmed by things beyond things and thinging beyond thinging.

So I et to sit here and there’s a spider web just outside the window. It sits there and I sit here and neither of us have anything to say. Of course the web of a spider doesn’t talk, but it does tell a story. It says something about the space around us. These are things we should pay more attention to, I think. Not enough people paying attention to the world around them, and I’m one of them. I cannot deny this, but I’d like to. I’d like to pretend that I’m abvoe it all, but that’d be a lie.

And so we get serious  once more and that’s not what I want to be doing. I want to be silly and float along and find my way, and then some other stuff that sounds cool. That’d be cool. That’d be nice. I’d like that. Or I wouldn’t. I don’t know. Or I do.

And so I keep going. I keep going and I keep writing, and I hope that at the end of this all I’ve have done the doing and I’m just saying the same things over and over.

Why am I like this? Why do I keep allowing myself to just stay where I am? I could easily go in so many different directions, and yet I keep doing the same stuff. It keeps happening and I don’t stop myself. What am I to do? Where am I to go? I don’t know. I don;’t know anymore, and I didn’t want to know. I just want to get to the last few of these and then do my goodbye thing and then I’d be free to run amok and amok a run. Just my own run though, to be clear. I don’t want to be yucking other people’s yums… unless I do. That’d show them, the ungrateful louts…

So anyway, I’m going further and further into nothingness and oblivion, and as I slowly go there I lose more of what makes me me so as to further simplify and determine various  lengths of tedium, measure them out and then go from there to here, and here to there, and find all the everything of nothing and turn it into a nice little suit that I could wear around the house, and maybe outside on the odd occasion. That’d be a good idea, or it wouldn’t, and I can only hope to be done with it when it no longer is fashionable. That’d be an idea, but it’s not one I feel is worth entertaining further, and so I feel it’s time to wrap this writing up.

The time it took to write one thousand words: 11:42:98

Bit of an odd writing. I’m glad it went by quickly, but it’s pretty sloppy.

Written at Killara.

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One Thousand Word Challenge 282: The Final Few Days

Posted on April 12, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

So I realised tat If I do something incredibly silly right now, I can wrap something up tomorrow, so of course I’m going to do then silly thing. The final week should not be about challenges and so I’m going to do my best to not make it about that. However, today and tomorrow will be.

So yes, it’s the final week, or rather, the final few days. I think there’s a week’s worth of days left, but it doesn’t feel like a week. In a few days, fifteen years since starting this space will reach its anniversary, and it’s making me think things. It’s a large milestone for any place on The Internet, really, and I’ve spent it entirely under the radar. In the shadows, beyond the shadows. Not even respectable enough to be said in the same sentence that mentions the shadows. That’s the way I like it though, so I’m not fussed. I’m okay.

This afternoon is going to be a churn and burn, and then I’ll be good. I’ll be fine. I’m going to write whatever and see what works and what doesn’t. It will be interesting to see the results are. Will be, but I’ll probably forget. They’ll fade away into nothingness, and that will be that, I suppose.

So I’m sitting here in Killara at this table, and I’m on my own right now. I’m wondering what my life has amounted to at this point, and what was and was not worthwhile. Where do the pieces lie, all that sort of thing. You know, the interesting stuff. I’m wondering where the meaning in this blog lies, and what is meaningful about it. It’s a strong expression of tedium and boredom, and a lot of misery thrown in for good measure. But that’s the way it goes, sometimes. Sometimes you set out to write silliness and nothing but silliness, and life takes its train and rams right through all the plans you had. And that’s okay, really.

There’s a strong wind outside, and it’s making things feel beautiful. Outside already was, but it feels more so. It feels inviting, and I am here to embrace it from a distance.

Water moves and makes the reflection upon its body waver, and the land is as it was: gradually changing eternally, representing everything and outliving all. Watching more sunrises and sets than anyone else will no. It has done this dance a countless amount of times, and nothing changes. Or rather, everything changes, but most at a rate we don’t perceive too well, or comprehend. We understand, but don’t comprehend.

But here I am, getting all big and emotional and introspective and stuff, and I’m struggling. I’m not even part of the way through the first of these today and I’m already struggling! Who am I, and why did I presume I could make everything all fine and dandy? I’m only one person, and I’m doing the thing and failing miserably, but that’s okay. It’s going to be a big hour, maybe a bit longer, and I’ll be fine. I’ll get through it. Always have and always do, and I’m lucky in that regard. Always lucky, always travelling, always continuing on to wherever comes next, and always making a small deal of it.

I’ve had so many weeks to get everything caught up and I’ve failed miserably, and you know, that’s okay. I don’t necessarily mind right now. I can only continue on and continue doing what I do until the end of it all. I think that’s best, really. What else is there for me, anyway? I just need to wrap this up, and wrap it up the way I feel is best The way I feel best works. If I can do that, then I think I’m good. I’m golden. Maybe platinum, even. I’ll get there. I’ll get to the end.

So what to say now? I’m just sitting here and it’s nice and I’m not enjoying the time that I have, but one tends to get moody near the end of things, I suppose. I suppose that it’s the way it goes at the end of it all, and that’s okay, really. Could be worse. I’ve had a good run with this space. But you know, moods and all of that stuff. Moods and cycles of thoughts going here and there, and there and here, and finding my way through it all. Trying to find the truth of it all, or the lies of it all, and find where all of everything sits and where everything sits among the all of it all. And trying to find words that will go together. Words that will fit neatly together and allow me to make sense of the thing of everything. The thing of everything.

Everything. The thing of. I’m already struggling and it’s too obvious. That’s the way it goes, sometimes, I suppose.

The day passes, I sit here, I get all introspective and wonder about my lot in life, and then I keep on going. And I have to think about how lucky I am to be alive at this particular juncture in time. It’s great. I mean, everything does suck, true, but it is great that I can sit here and crap on about things that don’t really matter. This is a significant privilege to have, because a lot of people don’t A lot people don’t have the ability to sit in relative comfort and not give a shit about so many things out there, though I do certainly give a shit about  a lot of things. I give a shit about those people, and those less fortunate than me.

So, soon. A few more days. It’s going to be interesting. Or it won’t. We’ll just have to see. Or we won’t. I am yet to find out. Could be incredibly boring the whole way through. That’d suck, but it’d be something. It’d be something that says something, and that’d be something neat.

The time it took to write one thousand words: 13:04:37

Good speed, bits of good writing in here, but not good enough.

Written at Killara.

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One Thousand Word Challenge 281: Always Been Grey

Posted on April 11, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

And so begins another round of finger punishment. Of hand destruction. Of finding the way through the pain and damage in order to churn out a load of crap. Always the crap, always a load of it. Always a lot, never enough. Never a dearth of crap around here. Perhaps carp, but crap, no. And that’s the way it must go. The crap must flow.

Down the river and around the bend, toward the waters resting in the valleys, boundless lakes bounded by mountains and greenery, fields and spread out so far and wide so as to be truly gargantuan. Beautiful, pretty and all of those sorts of things. It all flows toward lakes.

Lakes of crystalline water, seeing clearly until light can penetrate no more, and so lush and refreshing. Land truly fertile for nature, and so beautiful. So spread out, pretty… wonderful. Wonderful land. Beautiful land.

The sounds of birds and other animals spread out, occasional rustling, wind, stillness. Stillness and motion and vibrancy, all wonderful, all out there equal and great and wondrous. Wondrous, wonderful, lovely. Peaceful, even. Untouched.

Vegetation grows large, as large as is allowed, and it grows thick. It protects, it surrounds. It keeps everything safe and still, and the land changes and it holds things together. It stabilises and pushes an equilibrium. But everything remains in flux and everything changes. Movements, motions, tiny squawks and occasional growls from something bigger, all spread out, all wonderful. All lovely. All peaceful. All as is and as it should be, and that’s part of the beauty of it all, really.

And everything extends onward, into greater spaces. Into greater things. And the mountains rise up high, and yet not so high as to disappear into the clouds, and they too are flanked by various greens and clean, refreshing air. Air that we don’t get much of in urbanised areas. Areas full of crap.

Urban areas full of concrete hardness and jagged danger, of hurtling chunks of metal moved by those who do not respect the amount of awareness they require in order to pilot these contraptions. Areas full of suits and steps and solid paths locking away greenery and nature, and providing cold and unbearable heat at times. Areas where climate is manipulated on a small level to the detriment of the climate on a greater level. Areas where food comes in packaging that leads to more waste that encroaches upon the nature of things. Packaging that takes more than it gives. And it keeps going on and on, and little changes, and our world goes from greens to greys, and we are given token pockets of nature for our refreshment. We are given small areas with not enough trees or growth, trees that lead to monocultural habitats, and what was ours disappears over time. Slowly the earth grows quiet from all the crap that is being produced.

Natural areas, over time, change. They adapt, they might become something else, but all that is being produced encroaches upon them. Those areas, seemingly vibrant, grow quiet. Those rivers and lakes and mountainous areas, appreciated for their nature, slowly disappear. They become cleared, trees go down, more space is created, access is provided, and what once was no longer is. The draw of going to a refreshing, vibrant lake, full of life, full of stillness, was to go there and appreciate what it is. Now it’s just another area to visit, blasted away in the name of access.

The area grew quiet, and the cities grew louder. They grew louder, pouring more crap over everything, unabated, unrelenting. Continuous crap production, spreading everything out, clearing more land, blasting away more nature, compressing it, creating more stress, spreading things thin, removing resources, clearing more and more, stressing nature, diminishing nature, and gradually it all grows quiet. Gradually it all disappears, and there no longer is a unique space to appreciate.

And we keep on moving through our streets, along our paths, looking for something to bring in some colour, but we had that. We had it all and we let it slip away, and we long for it. We pine for it, but we keep putting out more crap. We don’t stop, we don’t give it a break, and little changes other than the shape of the land. Concrete and structure spreads, we keep producing and promoting the use of damaging items, and we don’t stop. And neither do the systems, and the world grows grey and grows quiet, and the beauty of it all gradually disappears. The beauty of it all starts becoming an idea that someone once had about things, but those ideas are far-fetched anyway, because how could that possibly happen? The world has always been grey and to suggest otherwise is just a dream. A dream of something not possible, because it never was and never will be.

And off to structures tall and barren we return, and we return in silent nights where insects once hummed among trees, and skies were highly visible, and stars were not hidden behind a weirdly purple smear.

There was a time where insects were numerous and spread out, and they attracted many animals to come watch and perhaps consume them, and there was a dance of life. You’d see so many buzzing about, landing on things, and you’d hear their calls, looking for something, looking for someone, moving all carefully and wildly all the same, and they’d trace paths that existed in memory. And you’d run around and maybe be scared of them, or maybe you wanted to see more and be curious, and with the loss of invertebrate life came the loss of our innocence, and gradually the earth grew quieter as the cities spread out, leaving select creatures around more as a monument to hubris, as a shallow recreation of what once was, and everything disappeared, leaving cold, colourless cities around, sticking out of an earth that had stopped moving, and just rotated silently, and without life.

The time it took to write one thousand words: 17:13:89

Another from a few days ago, and this one got far heavier than I anticipated.

Written at work.

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One Thousand Word Challenge 280: Many Mistakes You’ll Never See

Posted on April 11, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

It already a morning it is, and that’s because the sun has risen. That is how it works when you’re here and not there, where there is not here and here is over somewhere else, thinking about its life choices. It do be how it can at the best of life.

I’m really, really good at writing terrible opening paragraphs, and I’m fine wi0th that. What I’m not fine with is all of the spelling I’ll have to fix up once I finish this. I’m easy. I’m going all over the place. It’s not a good way to be.

I think the lack of sleep I’ve had over the past few weeks is really starting to get to me. I think that means an early night tonight. Let me get sleep in. Get some good rest. Then go n from there. Go on and wake up early and drive into the middle of nowhere, for tomorrow is a driving day. It is a day driven by the owner of the motor, and the motor will get m to where I want to be in pieces and shards. And then I’ll reform and I’ll become… the carmobile.

Actually, that’s really silly. I’m gonna drop that.

So it doesn’t seem like I’m functioning too well this morning. I’m writing this and I can see so many words being underlined, and I can see that a lot of them are spelling errors. Some are just the way words are spelt in Australia, but most are… actually I think all of them are spelling errors, so far. Oh god. Not going to be a good day. Everything is wrong and and odd and weird, and I’m stuck here, bearing the brunt of my mistakes. Bearing the brunt of my errors.

They keep on coming and they are coming faster than I can keep up. I don’t like this. I don’t like the way this is all spiraling. This could, of course, be so much worse than it is, but this is bad. This is bad and I don’t like it. I need to do something to change this around. I cannot blame lack of sleep, but I am blaming lack of sleep. I think that’s part of the best course of action that I can take, but right now… yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know a lot, really, but I don’t know where to go from here. I don’t know how to handle this.

This should be a day of celebration and it’s a day of suck. It hasn’t even started yet and I have so much to do. I have so much to churn out and catch up on and I’m going to burn out and be set on fire, and that will be that. This will remain this, but that will be that and I don’t know if I can even. I can odd, but I don’t know if I can even. And even that sucks. It could be worse, of course. It could be so much worse. However, my hands are not cooperating and they are not striking the correct keys. They are raining fiery injustice upon the wrong keys, and how do I stop this from happening? How? Why? Why is it happening?

How do sentences work?

So now I must part with my hands and find new hands, and I don’t know what to do with this information. I just know that it needs to be done, and I am crying internally. I am crying a sea of tears and they are filling this office space and I cannot even fathom. I literally cannot even.

But of course I just need to keep on going. My hands are refusing to relent. They are refusing to halt this serious miscarriage of justice. I cannot stop them. I am a slave to my hands and their refusal to be respectful to my time and lack of it, and they are refusing to cooperate and allow me to write what I feel like writing in a way that prevents me from needing to go through everything in fine detail in order to make sure that it’s all correct.

Oh, woe is to me. Woe is to me and I am merely a passenger upon this chaotic journey through tedium and boredom, and I cannot wait for things to change, for once they do, I will be free. Once I am free, I can then write what I so choose to write, and I will no longer have to clean up all the mistakes that I have left behind. All the mistakes you will never see. Or you will, depending on how lazy I am.

I can be a lazy person, but not today. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after, but not today. Today is all about getting the churning done, or so I keep saying, but today I really do say. However, I do have to admit that I am bound by the fact that there are only so many hours in each day and tomorrow I become the carmobile, and will be hurtling down the highways to wherever the next stop lies, and then I’ll be there and take up too much space and I’ll drive in a really bad way, and then… something else will happen. I’ll probably encounter my greatest enemy, known only as the hands that keep making mistakes, and then I’ll wake up and realise that I’m still here, writing this bit of shitty writing, trying to get to the end of it all and find where the answers all lie. Then the answers will cry. It’s the way it goes and it’s the way it keeps going, and sure, that’s okay. There are worse things out there. Still, I am not happy about it one iota, and therefore the next thing will be much better, unless my hands create more issues, which they will, and there’s not much right now I can do about that.

The time it took to write one thousand words: 11:06:93

Written a few days ago, and this was awful to write. I was making many spelling errors, and there probably are a few remaining but I don’t want to spend the time looking over this.

Written at work.

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