Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1535: A Few Days

Posted on September 8, 2025 by Stupidity Hole

On Friday I was at yoga. Bit different, but moving days around, trying different classes. It was fine; it was enjoyable. Gotta stick to it, gotta keep to a routine. Trying to keep to a routine, which at the moment is at least once a week. But gotta see and gotta keep going as much as I can.

Anyway, I was at yoga, and I felt like bawling my eyes out. Felt like losing it. Didn’t, kept going, got through it, left, went home. But it made me think about things. It made me think about how I wanted to be doing this with my ex and it wasn’t happening then and isn’t happening now. But that’s what I have to live with.

Went home, went to sleep late, woke up early, started gaming. My habit is getting out of hand in the way it had years and years and years ago, but this was to play with friends. But I kept going way too long after they wrapped. I got some gardening done which is good, but not much of anything else. Oh, there was washing. And I felt like my life was slipping out of view, or perhaps it had a long time ago. I don’t know at this stage. But it was a day of nothing and that’s how it was.

Come Sunday and I’m hanging with friends, doing board games and relaxing a bit, having fun. Taking it easy, or at least trying to take it easy. One tries the best they can when they can. I was there and I was involved and it was just enjoyable. But I could imagine my ex being there and enjoying it, and it would have been fun. Maybe not more fun, but definitely not less fun. But it was a good time, but that longing is hitting hard.

Last night I prepared my stuff for work today. Planned to ride again, didn’t get enough sleep again. But this morning I still hopped on the bike. Took a shorter route, headed to Tempe station.

The ride was rough, in part due to the lack of sleep, but it was good. It felt like a lifting of sorts. It felt good, even if it wasn’t good in the moment. I was moving again. I wasn’t still. I was heading somewhere necessary, but not somewhere that is important to me at the present moment.

So much of my life has been spent wondering about what I’m doing and where I’m going, and right now a lot of it is spent wondering when my desire and passion will come back to me. I don’t know when or if, but that I was able to hop onto my bike and get to work is a step after a bit of backsliding. I didn’t have to force myself, but I had to push myself, but it wasn’t too hard to do so, and that’s good for me. After the heaviness, it was necessary relief.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 08:41:92

Bit slow, but necessary. Messy, but necessary.

Written at Dirty Red.

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Hideaki Kobayashi: Day Dawns

Posted on September 7, 2025 by Stupidity Hole

One listen.

Heard this song a few days ago and it’s a bit cheesy. Highly dated in sound, but that’s part of why I wanted to write about it (and a few more from this soundtrack).

What this song does is capture a sense of wonder really well. It could be the wonder of a futuristic city, or a dewy forest. It could be the wonder of a time far ahead of ours. But it has that particular sound and feel.

I didn’t get that across as well as I’d have liked. I was trying to squeeze this writing in between things which was a bad way to go about it as my mind was elsewhere.

Hideaki Kobayashi’s (小林 秀章) “Day Dawns” is from Phantasy Star Online Songs of RAGOL Odyssey -Soundtrack EPISODE 1&2-, the soundtrack (or one of the soundtracks; I’m not sure) for Phantasy Star Online.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Brightness shines in and percussion echoes. Suddenly a relaxed, cool future comes in. Bright, shiny, designed. Sounds flow forward with all the heightened impression of grand structures, sleek in design, seemingly forever.

The sounds continue, they rise. They rise up and the sky seems part of the structures, lost among them all but still there. Still distinct. Still itself.

A loop back to the start and that coolness remains. Around certainty, around the wonder of it all. Rising once more, then a descent into something a little lower, though with sounds picking up at the same time, it seems. Everything is wondrous, and everything is overwhelming, almost. But everything is contained. Everything lingers until a loop back to where it began.

This is simple, and it’s easy. It’s where the pleasantness of something new; something beginning lingers. Rising, looking above all from a position of under, and little to say that this isn’t the future. It’s a future envisioned, and its image fades away as the sounds do and the song ends.

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Light Over Field

Posted on September 6, 2025 by Stupidity Hole

I was going to use a photo very similar to this one for the Lens-Artists photo challenge I hosted a few weeks ago. Ended up not as it didn’t feel right. Didn’t use this one either for the same reason, though this one is easier for me to know why.

It’s too busy for what I was looking to do.

Anyway, I like the photo, or rather I like the attempt at a photo. I think I can do this better.

I hope you enjoy.

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Blue Among the Clouds

Posted on September 5, 2025 by Stupidity Hole

Sometimes I look at the sky and I find myself appreciating what I see. Except that’s most of the time. Anyway.

Just some clouds in this photo and a bit of blue thrown in. Nothing particularly special. I just like the colour and form.

I hope you enjoy.

 

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Little Pup

Posted on September 4, 2025 by Stupidity Hole

A colleague brought in their puppy the other week. I took photos.

This is my submission into Leanne Cole‘s “Monochrome Madness” for this week. The next one is hosted by Elke of Pictures Imperfect Blog, and she has chosen “Pets” as the theme.

This challenge is open to all, and I recommend joining in. If want to, check out more information about it here, and include the tag “monochrome-madness” when you share your photo. If you’d prefer not to join in, then at the least check out Leanne’s photography, and what other people submit.

I hope you enjoy.

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Masashi Hamauzu: The Splendid Performance

Posted on September 4, 2025 by Stupidity Hole

One listen.

Went in, wrote, got out. Wait, that’s not entirely true.
I fell behind a bit and then managed to catch up and I’m not sure if that comes through or not. The writing does have a bit of a rush to it… actually that probably is a result of the having to charge ahead. Anyway.

Masashi Hamauzu’s (浜渦 正志) “The Splendid Performance” is from Final Fantasy X Original Soundtrack, the soundtrack for Final Fantasy X. Whilst Nobuo Uematsu (植松 伸夫) composed most of the game’s songs, both Masashi Hamauzu and Junya Nakano (仲野 順也) also contributed, leading to the soundtrack being a collaborative effort.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Keys and strings move together in rhythm and pulses, with a light percussion going along, keeping their time. The keys play flourishes and brushes of colour, and there’s something exciting in this.

The keys rise and dance further among a brief burst of sound, and they seem to lose some energy, or at least slow whilst brass calls in the distance. The sounds then go back to something similar to the original pattern.

Eventually it gets to a point where percussion pulls away a little and the brass rises a bit, coming forward and all of this feels grandiose. It feels detailed and passionate, but also calm in a manner.

A return to the start and that excitement still is there. The keys rise once more, shining in a moment as what is around creates a sort of cradle of focus before going back to the main pattern. Something underneath, low, reinforces the calm and those keys keep on dancing until they reach that point once more where everything moves toward the brass.

Maybe it’s not quite focusing on the brass, but it seems more apparent and it’s a still moment of motion anyway, and then everything goes back to the start before fading away as the song ends.

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José Ramón “Bibiki” García: Shady Omen

Posted on September 3, 2025 by Stupidity Hole

One listen.

I think this is very much a “finding my way back to writing” piece of writing. What I wrote came forward mostly on its own, but I still had to force myself to actually write. Push myself through. I feel like in a sense there’s a sense of teething issues in the writing. That said, I still think I did okay.

José Ramón “Bibiki” García’s Iyo Echoes is from the soundtrack for Arco, Arco (Original Game Soundtrack).

I hope you enjoy.

—

A small sound spreads full, and woodwind crosses over it. A  percussive sound follows. These sounds all move together toward something. They move toward something ahead.

The seriousness presses down, presses forward. It presses heavy and soon it’s that small sound and something else, warping, flickering in a bright day or in a full dark night. Curling, perhaps with some sort of cruel wryness.

Once all has been said, that small sound is found alone at the song’s end.

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Prepare to Stop

Posted on September 2, 2025 by Stupidity Hole

I was trying to frame this sign in a specific way and I was successful, but I feel I didn’t process this in a way that’s favourable to a sense of the dramatic, which is what I wanted to get across.

I hope you enjoy.

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Cup on a Wet Surface

Posted on September 1, 2025 by Stupidity Hole

Taken a few weeks ago whilst in the city whilst it was raining.

I was trying to frame the cup dramatically. Didn’t quite work, but I like the result. You’ve this interesting surface harmed by the cup being there, both from an environmental and aesthetic perspective.

This is my submission into the three hundred-and-sixty-third Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “Virtual Scavenger Hunt“.

I went for water.

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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Should Probably go Outside

Posted on August 31, 2025 by Stupidity Hole

I’m writing this between bursts of other things. Why am I doing this? Why am I choosing to write in this way? I don’t think I can write much of anything of substance, and does writing have to have substance? The best writing often does, but what if some of it doesn’t and we don’t know?

So I’ writing between things. I’m writing words and I’m trying to find something that says something beyond “I don’t know what to say”. Stringing words together, trying to find the gaps and cracks where I can. Trying to see if something does come forward, of course. Always am, never am.

It’s a nice day outside. Don’t want to go outside, to be honest. Don’t want to leave the bedroom. Going to have to at some point. There are things to do.

I used to write a lot because I enjoyed writing, and somewhere deep down I still do, but now I write more because I don’t know what else to do.

I suspect the Covid-19 pandemic did more damage to me than I initially thought. I know getting Covid twice certainly didn’t help. The second time especially. That was at the start of last year and I still feel a bit sluggish in my brain. Getting better, but getting better slowly, and it’s rough. It’s tiring. But I have to keep going.

As I’m writing this I’m realising I used to write so much more freely, too. In doing the challenges I’ve set up for myself, my writing hasn’t become more free, and it’s not the word limit or time constraint; it’s that I keep letting myself grow increasingly linear and less free-form.

I seem to be slowing down more and more, and speeding up and something seems to be getting lost in between. Some of that is due to the brain sluggishness; some of it is due to working on winding down this blog, and some of it is due to how my desire to write isn’t here.

The day is getting old, but it’s still young. It still has many hours, and so do I, and this is all sorts of dramatic and I’d rather not be. I’d rather go back to being silly, but I don’t want it to feel forced but it just might have to be.

I should probably go outside.

 

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