what I am doing in 2025
This piece is an experiment in “
live journalingwriting what I'm doing in 2025
My live journal what I’m doing in 2025 is another experiment inspired by the ideas I originally explored in my essay The Virtual Book. One of the attributes of “virtual books” that most intrigues me is their dynamism, the fact that they can change over time. It excites me not only for its practicality, but for the artistic possibilities it enables. As I wrote originally in The Virtual Book and then reproduced in one of its separated pieces on this site:
What if a memoirist publishes a piece overlaid with their revisions to show the process of expression and expose the artifice of memoir? Or what if an English professor does the same to compare writing styles and the emotions they convey? What if a novelist publishes a first-person novel in real time to make it feel like the character really exists and is experiencing events alongside the reader? What if the author then goes back and rewrites previous parts of the novel to show the decay of memory and its corruption in the construction of personal narratives?
In this journal I intend to do something like the hypothetical memoirist. Throughout the year, whenever I feel so inclined, I will write here about events that might happen, are happening, or have happened in 2025. I think it will be interesting to juxtapose my expectations, experiences, and reflections throughout the year. I hope it will neutralize the bias we typically grant hindsight, which is a privileged perspective but not a consummate one.
.”
January
January 11 2025 – What I’m doing
nowwhat I'm doing now #7
Missing Japan, losing weight, experimenting with daily routines, & more.
missing japan
We just got back
from Japan. I would love to live there for a while someday, although I think it unlikely, even though they offer a six month Digital Nomad visa. Z’s work is not remote and she wants to develop her career, so teaching English or something of the sort is not particularly useful to her. Regardless, I am sure we will visit again.
losing weight
I am twenty pounds lighter than I was a year and a half ago. I still want to lose another twenty. I am trying to eat very consciously and exercise everyday. I feel optimistic.
experimenting with daily routines
For the last few days I have woken up early and immediately gone out on a walk with my coffee. It’s a lovely way to warm up for the day and start by accomplishing my daily task of exercising. Walking is useful for me given that I am a homebody with a remote computer job and a reliance on soccer for exercise. After returning from my morning walks I’ve spent some time reading before getting on with my day. An aspiration I’ve set for myself is to do each of these everyday: exercise, read, write, work, enjoy, socialize, discuss, grow, & plan. I realize they might sound cheesy, but they are distillations of more specific intentions I have for 2025.
working
In December I received my expected promotion to Senior Software Engineer. It’s a milestone in my career. The pay bump was nice if modest for industry standards, but the biggest perk is the deference I am already getting as part of the increase in my responsibilities. I have strong opinions on how certain things should be done and I feel already a boost in persuasive power generated from my new title. To summarize, I feel like I have more agency, and I welcome it.
reading, writing, and avoiding distractions
Matthew B. Crawford’s
The World Beyond Your Headhas provoked in me a lot of reflection about what things consume my attention and how
environ mentsdictate that.
I recently read
Molloyby Samuel Beckett and I intend to continue with the second book in the trilogy.
I also resumed reading and marveling at the prose in Blood Meridian. I think it appropriate to take my time with what Harold Bloom called “the major esthetic achievement of any living American writer.” Of course, McCarthy has since died and his legacy has begun morphing due to recent news of a very inappropriate relationship he had with a teenage girl named Augusta Britt.
watching movies
Last year as soon as the weather started cooling and days darkening early I started watching movies. In the last few months I’ve watched The Substance, Woman of the Hour, We Live In Time, The Godfather and The Godfather Part 2, The Power of the Dog, Killers of the Flower Moon, Anora, A Real Pain, Perfect Days, Gladiator II, and Punch-Drunk Love. Reviews and ratings for these are or will be on my letterboxd account. Tomorrow I’m going to watch The Brutalist.
following Arsenal
Following the English Premier League is so interesting because the competition is so fierce and sophisticated. It is so difficult for teams to win. It is so difficult for fans or pundits to predict what will happen. New players arrive, old ones fall away, young ones rise into prominence. It’s a lucrative business but it is also genuine, gripping drama.
what’s next?
The year 2025 is a blank canvas. We don’t have any specific plans. Of course, it is predictable in some ways. But perhaps more so, it is open ended.
I begin the year with several intentions. Do big things at work. Get fitter. Lose twenty pounds. Have more discussions with friends. Read copiously. Keep writing for and developing this site. Nurture friendships. Heal and grow. Enjoy our DINK status. Ruminate on longterm plans.
I round the corner of another year with the intention to change my life. Change it not majorly, but minorly. I intend to live in the same place, work the same job, drink the same coffee. But I want to sharpen my focus. I intend to withhold my attention a bit more and marshall it with more discipline towards things that matter. That doesn’t mean I will scold myself if I waste time, or spend it on unimportant things. But I want to try everyday to dedicate more attention to things that matter, to things that will accumulate rather than disappear into the void like jewelry into the drain.
I will continue resisting idealistic aspirations towards abstract virtue, but will try to submit myself to disciplines that I trust will render concrete results. Spending more time reading. Waking earlier. Avoiding cheap distractions that undermine opportunities to spend time meaningfully. I’m not so interested in deeming time spent scrolling on instagram or passively consuming recommended YouTube videos as immoral. It is not bad to produce nothing or learn nothing for a few minutes on a random day, but it is costly to let it become a habit. Costly in time and in opportunity. I don’t believe I’m particularly special but I do think there is a version of me at eightysomething years old that looks back with some sastifaction at his life’s work. I want to do something meaningful and I know the steady progress of minutes hours and days can lead to things that irregular bouts of inspiration can imagine but never produce.
.
January 18 2025 – Winter in the PNW has been unusually dry and sunny. It’s beautiful, and joyful if you don’t stop to think about the disastrous climactic changes it might portend.
January 22 2025 – What I’m doing
nowwhat I'm doing now #8
Enjoying stillness, listening to Harold Bloom interviews, watching movies, and experimenting with routines.
enjoying stillness
Despite the fact I’ve only partially read The Listening Book and The End of Absence, and despite my criticism of the latter, both books have helped me savor moments of quiet and stillness. One of my favorite things to do right now is to take a hot, silent shower and put on the vintage cotton bathrobe I recently bought in Japan. I move slowly around the apartment and touch things lightly as if trying not to wake someone up. The calm I feel is exquisite.
It’s strangely soothing to say nothing for a time. Z and I sometimes do this in the car without prior agreement. The longer we go without saying anything, the more peaceful we feel. I think it’s possible outside of regimented meditation to reap some of its benefits by foregoing habitual self-stimulation like chatting and listening to music to make space for felt moments of clarity. In modern life we routinely cover up the mysteriously powerful sensations our bodies are capable of generating when idle and we therefore miss out on the cathartic experience of allowing those sensations to come to the front of our awareness.
In retrospect this is something I’ve been learning to do over the last few years. In 2020 I started going on runs through my neighborhood in Capitol Hill, Seattle and instead of listening to music I listened to the sound of my body striding over the concrete. I revelled in the unusually quiet streets of the early Covid pandemic and the unexpectedly sunny spring of that strange year. Birds, breeze, chatter, and from balconies the clapping of hands and ringing of bells to thank the work medical professionals were doing across the globe.
listening to Harold Bloom interviews
I first encountered Harold Bloom through his words on the back cover of Cormac McCarthy’s masterpiece:
Blood Meridian…seems to me clearly the major esthetic achievement of any living American writer.
His choice of the word esthetic piqued my interest because it was precisely that aspect of McCarthy’s writing that had grabbed my attention one evening almost three years ago when I opened The Road to its hundredth page and found I couldn’t put it down. I owe Ford Madox Ford for encouraging the whim:
Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you.
For more than a year now I’ve been reading Blood Meridian in bursts and every time I pick it back up I find myself listening to more interviews of Harold Bloom. I feel inspired and challenged by his devotion to literature and insistence on copious reading and re-reading. I am wary of the reactionary conservatism of which he has been accused, but have so far found his perspectives intriguing and thoughtprovoking.
watching movies
I recently watched The Brutalist. It was good, but disturbing. It had some themes in common with Nosferatu, which I also watched recently and really enjoyed. I thought the acting, the visuals, and the writing were all very good. It is the first Robert Eggers film I’ve seen and I’m sure it won’t be the last. I also recently watched Panic Room. I thought it was pretty good, but the more I think about how it handled themes of race and class the more uncomfortable I feel about it.
experimenting with routines
I continue trying to wake up early and start the day with a walk through the neighborhood. The quiet and freshness of morning is special. I hope to make it a habit. I think it would transform not only my daily life but it entire.
Another small change I am trying is to write my /now update more regularly. Usually I post one every few months. I wrote this one less than two weeks after the previous one. To achieve this, I’m trying to write the whole update in one sitting and this is the second time I’ve done it.
And, as cheesy as it might sound, to promote my goal to work, read, exercise, write, enjoy, grow, discuss, plan, and socialize everyday, I’ve put those nine words on my phone’s lock screen.
what’s next?
I’m playing soccer once a week but trying to play more.
Z and I are going snowboarding with friends soon.
I’ve been in a mood for producing but I intend to get back to reading in the next few days.
Despite all the movies I’ve watched recently, I still have appetite for more. Lynch’s recent passing is already making some of my friends more interested in watching his films and I intend to take advantage of it.
.
April 1 2025 – Over the last few days I’ve been rereading all my /now updates starting from the
first onewhat I'm doing now
I’ve been losing weight, playing soccer, developing this site, reading books, and more.
Life
Preparing green card papers for my wife, Z. We probably won’t get them until early 2025. Sigh.
Enjoying the fall. Except for the short days. Sun sets at 4:30pm nowadays. Blehj.
Playing soccer. I’ve noticed in the last several months that I’m scoring more goals from longer range, 20+ yards away from goal. I’m delighted that it’s turning out to be one of my strengths in the game. I’d gotten used to thinking that headers and penalties were my only goal-scoring strengths. (And, actually, I’ve gotten worse at penalties in the last several years.) I think I’m reaping the benefits of the hours I spent in my late teens (and perhaps early twenties) practicing long-range shooting.
Losing weight. I’ve lost ~11lbs in the last 5 months, an average of 2.2lbs per month. If I can keep up that rate, I’ll reach my goal weight of 189lbs in 13.6 months. Geez, that’s January 2025. Sounds like early 2025 will be cathartic time for me.
I’ve noticed my attitude towards money has shifted recently. For years, I’ve wanted to keep open the option of taking a major career risk, so I wanted to save as much as possible. But nowadays, I’m pretty happy and could see myself staying at Microsoft for a few more years, at least. I am fortunate that money is not a scarce resource for me and I can use it to save time and make my life better. I still try not to overspend, but I don’t let it dominate my decisions as much anymore.
Work
Software engineering for Microsoft Loop. We just went to General Availability!
— Microsoft Loop (@MicrosoftLoop) November 15, 2023It's official! #MicrosoftLoop is now generally available for M365 work accounts on web and mobile 🚀🌐#MSIgnite
A big THANK YOU to everyone that provided feedback during our preview; it helped shape Loop's future. Think, plan and create together: https://t.co/xIY9McfNaT pic.twitter.com/r9M1HSloK5
Travel
Went to Mexico with Z. I was born and raised there, and she’d never been. We went to Ixtapa, Mexico City, Queretaro, and San Miguel de Allende.
Coding
Mainly working on this site, okjuan.me/vbook. It’s been tricky because I don’t know any Ruby and don’t want to invest time into learning it right now. So far, I’ve gotten by on documentation and other people’s examples. Most recently, I added backlinks, with some help from Daniel Miller. I also made tags the main way to navigate the site by folding ‘categories’ into them. Not only is this cleaner and more uniform, but it also allows me to assign multiple categories (now tags) to the same post. For example, a post can now be ‘filed’ under both #essays and #journal. See Folders kill creativity.
I still really want to make and deploy a front-end for music-lib-bot. A web app would make sense, but I also like the idea of an SMS interface or something of the like. Maybe even something integrated into Google Assistant.
Writing
Focused on posting here, okjuan.me/vbook. Not working on anything for okjuan.medium.com or okjuan.substack.com, although I can cross-post like I did for
learning to dress. Nothing currently in the works for 206 Zulu either. I worked on a second piece for them earlier this year, but that stalled. Ended up posting it
here.
Reading
I just finished 2 books: The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga and Into the Abyss: A Neuropsychiatrist’s Notes on Troubled Minds by Anthony David. The Courage was thought-provoking and written in a novel form. See Derek Sivers’ notes on it. Into the Abyss was full of fascinating cases and some good insight.
Recently read Anthony Lane’s hilarious New Yorker article, Can Happiness Be Taught? It’s a review of recent best-seller Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier, written by a Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School and sponsored by Oprah Winfrey. One of my favorite bits:
…imperative reigns supreme. “Start by working on your toughness.” No sweat. “Take your grand vision of improvement and humble ambition to be part of it in a specific way and execute accordingly.” Check. “Rebel against your shame.” Done. “Widen your conflict-resolution repertoire.” Ka-pow! “Treat your walks, prayer time, and gym sessions as if they were meetings with the president.” Which President? “Journal your experiences and feelings over the course of the day.” Since when did “journal” turn into a transitive verb? “Dig into the extensive and growing technology and literature on mindfulness.” Sorry, I was miles away, what? Above all, “Remember: You are your own CEO.” Holy moly. Do I have to wear a suit to brush my teeth? Is my dog a shareholder? Were last year’s migraines tax-deductible? Can I be fired by me?
Last month, I read the first part of Jane Jacobs’ famous The Death and Life of Great American Cities. To my surprise, it’s great so far. I expected it to be much drier, as I’m sure many books about city and neighborhood planning are. I bought a copy and intend to read it over the next couple months.
While traveling in Mexico, I read a bit of Vital Little Plans: The Short Works of Jane Jacobs. It was really good, too. Not sure if I’ll continue reading it right now though.
Last month I started listening to Stephen King’s
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craftand was surprised at how entertaining it was. I might keep listening. I like reading
booksand
memoirsabout writing
.
Last month (whew!) I also read a bit of Gloria Steinem’s Revolution from Within, which I found on one of my dutiful visits to my local Goodwill. It’s pretty interesting. The story about the Royal Knights of East Harlem was really moving. Here is a telling of it, apparently from Readers Digest, June 1989. It reminds me of the story Charles Duhigg tells in The Power of Habit about the safety initiative CEO Paul O’Neill instituted at Alcoa to astounding and comprehensive effect on the company’s success.
I plan to listen to another chunk of Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity to get some health tips. See Derek Sivers’ notes on it.
Flirting with starting
Infinite Jest. I don’t have a very good reason to do so, though. So we’ll see.
TV
The Sopranos for the second time. Amazed at the writing, once again. They follow so many characters and develop so many dynamics at the same time. Many story lines don’t build to a climax and exist instead to develop characters and prepare future story lines. Some just exist because they’re true to life. Like when Carmela and Tony struggle to keep their rebellious daughter in check.
Couples Therapy, season 3. So insightful and fascinating. Orna is an amazing therapist.
Welcome to Wrexham, season 2. I don’t think any other show has made me cry as much as this one, and I think my love for soccer is only part of the reason. The show has so much heart.
Movies
Rewatched Roma and Coco with my wife Z, who hadn’t seen either, while we were in Mexico. I love doing activities that thematically or topically match other things I’m doing in life.
What’s next?
File my wife’s green card papers.
Keep reading, keep writing. Holidays are great for this. Or so I always think.
Keep improving the design of this website. Allow people to subscribe via RSS and email. Add ‘last updated’ timestamp per post. Tweak padding in title-subtitle-date-tags section of posts.
Keep losing weight. Not so great for this, holidays. Or so people say.
Holidays in Victoria. Time with family and friends.
in November ‘23. I’ve been journaling in various forms for years now and still I am surprised by its usefulness. It’s so easy to forget our moods and modes, our thoughts and experiences. I maintain that journaling is a way to live longer. Through it and through intangible other forms of reflection I am determined to defeat the notions that time flies, that life is short.
Looking back at what I appended to
what I’m doing now #7what I'm doing now #7
Missing Japan, losing weight, experimenting with daily routines, & more.
missing japan
We just got back
from Japan. I would love to live there for a while someday, although I think it unlikely, even though they offer a six month Digital Nomad visa. Z’s work is not remote and she wants to develop her career, so teaching English or something of the sort is not particularly useful to her. Regardless, I am sure we will visit again.
losing weight
I am twenty pounds lighter than I was a year and a half ago. I still want to lose another twenty. I am trying to eat very consciously and exercise everyday. I feel optimistic.
experimenting with daily routines
For the last few days I have woken up early and immediately gone out on a walk with my coffee. It’s a lovely way to warm up for the day and start by accomplishing my daily task of exercising. Walking is useful for me given that I am a homebody with a remote computer job and a reliance on soccer for exercise. After returning from my morning walks I’ve spent some time reading before getting on with my day. An aspiration I’ve set for myself is to do each of these everyday: exercise, read, write, work, enjoy, socialize, discuss, grow, & plan. I realize they might sound cheesy, but they are distillations of more specific intentions I have for 2025.
working
In December I received my expected promotion to Senior Software Engineer. It’s a milestone in my career. The pay bump was nice if modest for industry standards, but the biggest perk is the deference I am already getting as part of the increase in my responsibilities. I have strong opinions on how certain things should be done and I feel already a boost in persuasive power generated from my new title. To summarize, I feel like I have more agency, and I welcome it.
reading, writing, and avoiding distractions
Matthew B. Crawford’s
The World Beyond Your Headhas provoked in me a lot of reflection about what things consume my attention and how
environ mentsdictate that.
I recently read
Molloyby Samuel Beckett and I intend to continue with the second book in the trilogy.
I also resumed reading and marveling at the prose in Blood Meridian. I think it appropriate to take my time with what Harold Bloom called “the major esthetic achievement of any living American writer.” Of course, McCarthy has since died and his legacy has begun morphing due to recent news of a very inappropriate relationship he had with a teenage girl named Augusta Britt.
watching movies
Last year as soon as the weather started cooling and days darkening early I started watching movies. In the last few months I’ve watched The Substance, Woman of the Hour, We Live In Time, The Godfather and The Godfather Part 2, The Power of the Dog, Killers of the Flower Moon, Anora, A Real Pain, Perfect Days, Gladiator II, and Punch-Drunk Love. Reviews and ratings for these are or will be on my letterboxd account. Tomorrow I’m going to watch The Brutalist.
following Arsenal
Following the English Premier League is so interesting because the competition is so fierce and sophisticated. It is so difficult for teams to win. It is so difficult for fans or pundits to predict what will happen. New players arrive, old ones fall away, young ones rise into prominence. It’s a lucrative business but it is also genuine, gripping drama.
what’s next?
The year 2025 is a blank canvas. We don’t have any specific plans. Of course, it is predictable in some ways. But perhaps more so, it is open ended.
I begin the year with several intentions. Do big things at work. Get fitter. Lose twenty pounds. Have more discussions with friends. Read copiously. Keep writing for and developing this site. Nurture friendships. Heal and grow. Enjoy our DINK status. Ruminate on longterm plans.
I round the corner of another year with the intention to change my life. Change it not majorly, but minorly. I intend to live in the same place, work the same job, drink the same coffee. But I want to sharpen my focus. I intend to withhold my attention a bit more and marshall it with more discipline towards things that matter. That doesn’t mean I will scold myself if I waste time, or spend it on unimportant things. But I want to try everyday to dedicate more attention to things that matter, to things that will accumulate rather than disappear into the void like jewelry into the drain.
I will continue resisting idealistic aspirations towards abstract virtue, but will try to submit myself to disciplines that I trust will render concrete results. Spending more time reading. Waking earlier. Avoiding cheap distractions that undermine opportunities to spend time meaningfully. I’m not so interested in deeming time spent scrolling on instagram or passively consuming recommended YouTube videos as immoral. It is not bad to produce nothing or learn nothing for a few minutes on a random day, but it is costly to let it become a habit. Costly in time and in opportunity. I don’t believe I’m particularly special but I do think there is a version of me at eightysomething years old that looks back with some sastifaction at his life’s work. I want to do something meaningful and I know the steady progress of minutes hours and days can lead to things that irregular bouts of inspiration can imagine but never produce.
on January 14th, a mere two and a half months ago, I am taken aback by what I wrote:
I round the corner of another year with the intention to change my life.
I’d forgotten this. This is one of the joys of writing. Most things I write I leave for a couple weeks while I occupy myself with new ideas only to come back to the old ones and find myself yet again intrigued and surprised by what this person who I supposedly am had to say.
February
January 18 2025 – In early February we have a couple plans for gatherings with friends. We also intend to visit Victoria. I look forward to it. I’m realizing I have a positive association with February. Perhaps because it’s the month when we usually get snow in the PNW and for a couple days our surroundings are awash in white, soft and bright.
February 1 2025 – What I’m doing
nowwhat I'm doing now #9
Biking around East Vancouver, reading The Ginger Man, finding Z a new apartment, and trying to become a planner.
biking around East Vancouver
Biking is a great way to achieve my daily goal of exercising. Seattle is prohibitively hilly but Vancouver has a great network of bike routes allocated on streets with sparse car traffic. They have a detailed PDF file available online that maps their location and marks them with useful information like incline and degree of separation from car traffic. I came up with a great acronym to remember the street names of the main bike routes in the area: W.A.L.K.
reading The Ginger Man
I bought a copy last summer and finally started it last week. I can see why Cormac McCarthy liked it. It also reminds me a lot of Fear and Loathing in Last Vegas. After finishing the seventh chapter I sat down and wrote an initial review of it.
finding Z a new apartment
Z’s apartment in Vancouver is a spacious one bedroom with a generous balcony. It is recently renovated with tons of integrated storage but it lacks a crucial feature: a second bedroom. I spend a lot of time at Z’s place and when I do we often both work from home. We have comfortable workstations at opposite corners of the living room but the distance does little when one of us actively participates in a virtual meeting. Noisecancelling headphones help but they also encourage us to speak loudly. And even when we both work silently it’s too easy to call out across the room to ask a question, share a thought, or make a comment. Both of us have a habit of voicing things soon after they occur to us. It makes for interesting conversation and for a disruptive work environment.
We’ve been keeping an eye out and finally we found a good two bedroom apartment in a lively, artsy part of East Vancouver. It costs almost the same as Z’s current place and it offers great physical separation between the two bedrooms. We will be sad to leave Z’s current place and the neighborhood it’s in, but we’re excited for the new chapter.
trying to become a planner
I don’t mean a city planner. Although I do fantasize about getting involved with municipal politics someday.
I mean I am trying to get better at making and adhering to plans in general. I get a lot of stuff done in my life through what I call coherent impulses, which have proved effective but lack certain special powers particular to planning. I’ve been ruminating on it and noticing when people make reference to it in their way of working.
Kiefer mentioned in his Approachable Music podcast that he keeps a to-do list and everyday he attends to one item at a time. I assume many people follow this approach. But I don’t. I keep to-do lists but my adherance to them is erratic. I suppose part of the problem is that many items have no inherent deadline and even those that do don’t threaten much consequence. If I for example neglect to plan an itinerary for a trip, I can still show up and improvise as long as my flights and hotel are booked. And that’s what I did in 2019 when I went on my multimonth trip abroad to Mexico, New York, and Europe. I enjoyed the fruits of spontaneity and just-in-time internet searches, but without a doubt I missed out on experiences that research and forethought would’ve produced. I want to reduce these kinds of losses by procrastinating less and planning more often. I want to change my habit. So I’m trying to consciously draw my attention to the benefits of planning and override the anxious avoidance that thwarts my planning impulses.
Jared Henderson, a former professor who is now a literary YouTuber, mentioned that he keeps a list of books he will read. I don’t. I keep track of books that I might want to read by saving them on Goodreads, but I never reference that list when deciding which book to read next. My methods are spontaneous and informally organized. I try out audiobooks on Spotify and Libby and continue only if they stick. I buy books impulsively and add them to my growing library of unreads. When I am ready to start a new book I eye my collection shiftily and grab the candidates my whims command me to and then I bring them to a comfortable seat in my apartment where I select one uneasily and crack it open. Then I read stingily, hesitant to imply by reading more than a couple paragraphs that I’ve now committed to My Next Book, that this is it, I must read this book through now or else I will have left one unfinished.
I’m trying something new. I’m writing a list of books I intend to read this year. In a way, my dabbling with planning in this way is a sort of coherent impulse. The coherence comes from the deliberate intention to exploit the benefits of forethought and the impulse is the list of fifteen or so books I slashed out based on my current interest and appetite as well as the current contents of my shelves. The list is unordered so I may choose to read them in any order I like and read multiple at the same time if I so wish. I will still entertain my penchant for sampling books impulsively via Spotify and Libby, but my main reading project this year will be dictated by my list.
what’s next?
Keep biking. Continue striving to do every day each of the following: work, read, exercise, write, enjoy, grow, discuss, plan, and socialize
Finalize Z’s moving plans.
Go snowboarding with Z multiple times.
Read the rest of The Ginger Man to keep up a good reading pace for the year. After I finish it I will start Malone Dies unless it doesn’t suit my appetite, in which case I will pick up one of the other books on my list for 2025.
.
February 4 2025 – As foretold the annual snowdump came down in February, this time on the very first evening of the month. For people like me that rely on outdoor sports like soccer and biking for exercise it’s rather inconvenient but that inconvenience is more than repaid in stunning views of snowcovered mountains looming above the clouds, lit in the early sunset. Not to mention the ease with which one could drive up one of those mountains for a weekday evening of skiing in Vancouver. I go on slowtrudging walks and soak up the scenes.
Diligently the neighborhood character that in the spring and summer tends to the garden in the nearby rotunda today scrapes off the snow from a sidewalk path and peppers blue salt into the gash of concrete as if to cauterize it. I greet him and he responds with a grin. Living the dream! he says. On the roads his mechanized counterpart heaves aside large mounds of snow effortlessly and from its back showers a trail of salt. I walk ten minutes to one of the sushi restaurants in the area to pick up my lunch. Too hungry to wait until I get home I pause and stand beneath the awning outside the restaurant and drink my miso soup and watch the neighborhood go on without me on its natural rhythm.
June 24 2025 – The decision Z and I made in February to upgrade apartments in Vancouver was a brilliant one. For a while, we’d pined for a second bedroom. Both of us work mostly from home, so even a large one bedroom apartment is an uncomfortable fit. Every few months, I scanned Facebook Marketplace for rentals and we even visited a few places, but we never found anything good. Then, one night, after watching a YouTube video about the slight rent decline in Canadian cities, I searched again. This time, I found one option that actually looked good. Within a week, we’d signed the lease. It all happened very quickly. With the passing of time it has only gotten clearer that our decision was a good one.
March
February 4 2025 – I have loose plans to watch Mickey 17 with friends when it comes out in theaters. It was written and directed by Bong Joon-Ho, who directed and cowrote the magnificent Parasite.
March 8 2025 – What I’m doing
nowwhat I'm doing now #10
Thinking of sentences, reading Pachinko & The Dominant Animal, watching Severance & The White Lotus.
thinking of sentences
Two years after reading about it, I’m finally doing Verlyn Klinkenborg’s writing exercise of mentally formulating sentences without writing them down. I find myself doing it habitually, out of interest. In the shower while I think over the week’s events. Standing on the balcony in the quiet of morning and watching a neighbor walk their dog over snowy pavement. One word at a time I lay out a sentence in my head, pruning clutter, swapping out imprecisions, and toying with the order of clauses. I expect it will make me a better writer. A lovely surprise was noticing it making me more present.
reading Pachinko & The Dominant Animal
After finishing The Ginger Man, I felt ready to dive into a novel by James Joyce. But none of his books are on my list of books to read for 2025 and I’m trying to get better at adhering to plans, so instead I started Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. I also just finished The Dominant Animal by Kathryn Scanlan, a remarkable little book of short stories that I’ve been reading very slowly for the last couple of years.
watching Severance & The White Lotus
I watched the first few episodes of Severance months ago until I lost interest. But now season two is coming out and many of my friends are talking about it so I resolved to catch up. Rewatching it I feel again underwhelmed.
I much prefer the approach that the writers of The White Lotus have been taking. Instead of hinting cryptically at forthcoming drama and withholding it for several episodes, they start with a cast of characters with tensions already between and within them. The potential is there from the beginning. Throughout the season they build up the existing tensions and introduce new ones until eventually someone takes action or an incident triggers a chain of reactions. Drama and plot flow naturally from interpersonal dynamics instead of dictating them.
Severance feels designed and implemented from the top down. The White Lotus feels incubated.
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April
April 25 2025 – This spring has been a turbulent time for me. For several weeks issues of immigration and taxes have plagued my thoughts mercilessly. They are the kind of issues I wish I could banish from my life forever. They are meaningless problems that threaten retaliation not by a person but by an amorphous, impersonal entity of brute force and unreckonable reach. The task is not so much facing reality but placating a selfappointed arbiter of it. To avoid these problems is to risk persecution from the world itself.
Unlike interpersonal problems, these allow little opportunity for persuasion or compromise or compassion, unless a not-fully-dehumanized bureaucrat sneaks some in between the paperwork. The main recourse is just that – paperwork. For people in my situation that means hiring my own (expensive) functionaries to prepare papers that will please the faraway and faceless adversarial functionaries so that they in turn dissuade their armed counterparts from deploying violence on me. But fear not! For our underdog has been schooled in the art of reading instructions carefully and filling out answers dutifully even for questions absurd or irrelevant. He knows how to deal in this horrible cypher of ink and paper to earn whatever prized document he needs to secure passage between manufactured realities and to live a life unhounded inside them. Let’s not dwell on those not so well prepared or those of lesser means.
May
February 4 2025 – May is the month the European soccer season climaxes. Crowned are the winners of leagues and cups alike. Arsenal, the team I support, are still in the running for two major honors: the English Premier League (EPL) and the UEFA Champions League. Two days ago they defeated the reigning EPL champions by a whopping and unforeseeable 5-1 scoreline. And yet our biggest competitor this season is not them, but Liverpool, who are six points ahead of us with a game in hand. In early May, Arsenal will go to northern England and duel them at Anfield, Liverpool’s fortress. That will probably be Arsenal’s biggest match of the season. I start to feel a bit queasy thinking about it now, three months ahead. It’s shocking how thrilling it is even from a thousand miles away to support a sports team embroiled in genuine competition.
June
June 1 2025 – What I’m doing
nowwhat I'm doing now #11
Helping my self.
helping my self
The last couple months have been, at times, brutally stressful for me. Issues of immigration and taxes have racked my mind and my body as well. My eczema flared to the worst it has been in years. Compulsive worrying postponed my sleep.
Playing soccer was a rare thing that relieved me of the heaviness of reality for good periods of time. It is truly one of the joys of my life. Contemplating it, my awe only grows as I notice all the things it gives me. An opportunity to exercise and to play. A healthy distraction from all my worries. A way to commune with friends and strangers, out in nature. All at the low low price of zero dollars. On an ordinary day, it’s a beloved hobby. In times of struggle, it’s like sustenance.
But soccer didn’t solve my problems. I still had to do that. And the most difficult part of that was stomaching the uncertainty and unpredictability of it all. Along the way, I vented to friends and loved ones about my doubts and fears, but paramount to my emotional regulation during this turbulent period was a middleaged British journalist named Oliver Burkeman via his audiobook Meditations for Mortals. In a stoic yet cheerfully amused tone, his disembodied voice eased me out of my ceaseless fretting. After I finished the book I began it again, eager for more of the reassurance his virtual presence gave me. But it wasn’t just the tempering effect of Burkeman’s tone or the snappiness of his writing that alleviated my stress. It was his shrewd insight on life’s problems and the exceedingly realistic stances he took on them. I don’t care what people may say about Self Help. It helps.
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June 24 2025 – I had a moment last week when I realized I was finally out of the woods. There are no longer any tax and immigration issues for me to address. The tallest wave has come and gone and I’ve not drowned. It sounds melodramatic but I was in physical pain for much of the spring. The patch of excema that flared on my left hand appears on the way to recovery. I can breathe a ragged sigh of relief. I feel free to let my mind loose again.
Now, my most pressing concerns are meaningful ones. Z and I have a London trip to plan. And before that, perhaps also a small anniversary weekend away together. And when July arrives, my day-to-day job will be to enjoy the two whole months of uninterrupted sunny weather we get in the PNW.
There’s also the question of where we will live next year. It could be Seattle or New York if Z gets her long awaited green card, or it could be somewhere in Europe – the UK, the Netherlands, Portugal, Germany. We’ll see.
(While writing the above, it occured to me that this experiment of “
live journalingwriting what I'm doing in 2025
My live journal what I’m doing in 2025 is another experiment inspired by the ideas I originally explored in my essay The Virtual Book. One of the attributes of “virtual books” that most intrigues me is their dynamism, the fact that they can change over time. It excites me not only for its practicality, but for the artistic possibilities it enables. As I wrote originally in The Virtual Book and then reproduced in one of its separated pieces on this site:
What if a memoirist publishes a piece overlaid with their revisions to show the process of expression and expose the artifice of memoir? Or what if an English professor does the same to compare writing styles and the emotions they convey? What if a novelist publishes a first-person novel in real time to make it feel like the character really exists and is experiencing events alongside the reader? What if the author then goes back and rewrites previous parts of the novel to show the decay of memory and its corruption in the construction of personal narratives?
In this journal I intend to do something like the hypothetical memoirist. Throughout the year, whenever I feel so inclined, I will write here about events that might happen, are happening, or have happened in 2025. I think it will be interesting to juxtapose my expectations, experiences, and reflections throughout the year. I hope it will neutralize the bias we typically grant hindsight, which is a privileged perspective but not a consummate one.
” could expand its scope beyond the current year. The piece might be called what I’m doing in my life and it could be dense with references to other pieces, including this one.)
July
April 1 2025 – Spring is springing and I’m already looking forward to paddleboard season. Many of our friends in Seattle own paddleboards and we all go out on the lake regularly in July and August. I expect this summer we will spend many more hours out on the water. I’m also looking forward to Sports Days – afternoons we spend in the park playing volleyball and soccer, listening to music, snacking, and drinking cold beverages. And a new tradition I anticipate will involve lots of leisurely communal outdoor time in the backyard of the house that my friend owns and a bunch of us live in. It’s going to be great.
July 2 2025 – What I’m doing
nowwhat I'm doing now #12
Plant tending and goaltending.
enjoying my plants
Plant care for me is more chore than hobby, I am tempted to say. But upon reflection in a better mood I notice that in the process of caring for my plants I experience many little moments of satisfaction and even awe. One of my favorite things is noticing how my plants respond to my fulfilling their needs. The day after I water them I see their perkiness restored and the firmness of their leaves replenished. One day they sag helplessly, the next their posture rights as if with pride. New offshoots appear and bud slowly until one day they are leaves fully unfurled. With the enthusiasm some take water, others respond to the sun. A wellwatered but withering plant moved to a brighter area suddenly sports a new sheen.
goalkeeping
One year ago my interest in goalkeeping resurfaced. I looked around for opportunities to play and considered even joining a new team exclusively as keeper. But then in my first casual stint between the posts I broke my finger. I still can’t fit my wedding band onto it, but it has long since recovered enough to allow my return to goalkeeping. I feel like a kid again, diving left and right at shots my friends take from outside the box.
Part of the fun is trying to apply the techniques I see professional keepers use. Their footwork I find hardest to emulate. I suppose I am not fleetfooted in the outfield so it’s no surprise I am not a quick stepper as goaltender either. It’s a crucial skill though. It expands a goalie’s reach by bringing within diving distance the edges of the goal.
In games, however, making saves is not so much a matter of diving heroically to stop a well placed shot. It’s more so about forcing the opposition to place their shot well in order to score. The primary task is to position yourself between your goal and the oncoming attackers to minimize their viable angles for scoring. It’s an act of constant calibration that depends on how far away the attacker is and from what direction they are coming.
A common mistake I see made by goalkeepers in our rec league is that they stay near their goal line instead of approaching a shooter who is about to fire from a close distance. The closer a shooter gets to the goal, the easier it is for them to score. But when a shooter reaches a certain proximity to the goal, the goalie can make himself bigger by rushing towards the ball. It’s a neat trick of geometry. By shortening his distance to the ball, the goalie increases the number of shooting angles they cover. As the goalie approaches, the shooter’s target shrinks.
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July 20 2025 – Last week, Z and I went paddleboarding for the first and I’m afraid perhaps the only time this year. We bought paddleboards in August of 2022 and have been enjoying them every summer in Seattle since then. For two and a half years, I had an apartment in Capitol Hill, a six minute drive up the incline from Lake Union. At some point, we discovered Terry Petus Park, a lovely little lakeside spot tucked beside the houseboat neighborhood in Eastlake. In the summers, we’d go down there with friends and launch into Lake Union from the treeshaded dock and spend a few hours out on the water chatting, listening to music, and having drinks.
In late 2024, I moved into my friend’s house in West Seattle, and nowadays Z and I spend more time in Vancouver. We haven’t tried paddleboarding in Vancouver yet, but we expect it to be less convenient. There is far less access to lakes than in Seattle, where it is abundant. The biggest problem, however, is that Z and I are going to the UK for most of August. Come September the warmth will evaporate rather quickly. You can’t have it all.
August
April 1 2025 – Some friends and I are thinking of taking a trip to the San Juan Islands or to some other natural destination in the region. If indeed we do so in August it may coincide with some of our birthdays.
July 20 2025 – Z and I have booked a trip to England and Ireland. We’re going to Dublin, County Clare, County Kerry, Bristol, & London. We also intend to visit Bath and Cornwall. It’s going to be great. In London, we are going to attend Arsenal vs Leeds. I’ve never attended an Arsenal match. Watching them play a Premier League game at the Emirates Stadium will be a dream come true.
September
April 1 2025 – Paul Thomas Anderson’s new movie comes out in September. He is one of my favorite directors and film writers. I really enjoyed Licorice Pizza in theatres and There Will Be Blood is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. I have multiple friends who would also be excited to see his newest work in theatres.
October
July 20 2025 – I saw somebody wearing a motorcycle helmet adorned with big furry rabbit ears and it reminded me of Donny Darko. I watched it for the first time in the summer of 2023 and I want to watch it again. It occurred to me that I should host a series of spooky movie viewings in October. We could watch one per week and let friends know ahead of time so they have it in their plans for October. I’d probably show a David Lynch film, too.
November
July 20 2025 – Thanksgiving is a big holiday in the US. I get the Thursday and Friday off. Last year I thought about going to Mexico City to visit my grandparents, but didn’t end up doing it.
December
February 4 2025 – In the spirit of living with forethought and premeditation, I suggested to my mom that we begin planning a post-Christmas trip to Mexico or Guatemala, somewhere warm. In years past I’ve intended to buy flights for the holiday season months in advance but never managed it. Hopefully this year.
April 1 2025 – Z began learning to snowboard this season and has been slowing buying her own gear. The current season is winding down now but I look forward to the next one.
July 20 2025 – On condition that we go to Indonesia in the spring of 2026 to see her maternal family, Z has agreed to visit Mexico for Christmas of this year. I’m excited to explore the Yucatan peninsula, a part of Mexico I’ve never seen.