past the night
Last night I had puppy duty. My wife complains I don’t sleep much but when I see the puppies running to me, needing attention, wanting some love; life seems to circle back on itself. I remember another dog I had. Way back. This particular red monster was a Golden Retriever. A large and red child. Never the smartest tool but if you talk love and companionship, she was it. Her first night I stayed with her on the couch and she coming over every so often to find some love. She missed all those other pups she came up with. The rest of the then family loved her but I never doubted when she saw me come back from business trips that she had waited patiently when somehow she knew I would come back from Singapore or India or Japan or wherever.
This morning when I woke up I felt that familiar tug at the heart. Seeing both run to me tails wagging. It made a longer night seem so perfect.
coffee and past the night
I’ll get a walk in today even with some rain. Stop for a coffee. Watch the holiday times sweep across the country. Maybe write a bit more when the coffee takes me to a memory or whatever.
The looking for coffee was something. Many places closed for holiday. Ur cafe seems always open. Much appreciated. So I indulge.
I got a later start because of pup duty. Sleeping later is not sleeping in. But it works. It’s rainy and cool day. I’ll do this walk that lets me see some of this and that. I’ll add a thing to when I get back. Now I enjoy the coffee times.
Later that same day
Really enjoying the whole blog thing now. I’ve added some stuff to it I want. Added a plugin to do media embeds that is simple. Added footnotes which was kind of a pain. There’s not really more I want to add. I think for how I write and how the blog works I’m good. It’s a basic experience really. Write in markdown. Add an image using a shortcode. Copy files to git. Sync up the changes. Done. I always think how simple pika could be. Like none of the little things. Somewhere I would miss out though. It would not be a thing I did. It would be more polished. More features. Maybe in some ways easier. But I did not do it myself. I did the blog using 11ty not as a challenge but as a thing work doing on its own.
I happily used some AI where it made sense and to help me. The writing is mine. I happily make all the verb and noun errors and claim them. My other blog still lives. It is disabled. I can’t do two blogs. There’s no reason. Everything lives in a single house. I have the old files. It takes some little bit of work to change them to work now.
So I look at the things today. My little happiness at home running around and forever heading to me. My wife shakes her head. She gets it and she did it for me. She’ll complain the puppies pee on the floor. Then she stops and cleans it up. There’s a lot of neighborhood dogs that have no human. They live almost on the spur of the moment.
I’m gonna finish my coffee and walk. And see things through another lens. Just how life is here. How I feel involved and accepted but still feel outside. It will never be for me what other barang may want. There is no “going native” for me. There is me and them and we meet. No one crosses over. I can’t and they have no desire to be more barang.
I enjoy just this writing. This little exploration of a persons life spent looking in. There’s an invisible window and glass here. I stand over there. Some people want more. I’ve come to realize this is it. We can want but there’s nothing to give. No fitting inside.
I’ll just let this go now because I want.
☕️ 4 min read