Woolgathering: What most people call their “self” is, for the most part, a bundle of different moods, impulses, and roles fighting for control. “I decided” usually means “one impulse temporarily won.”
If this sounds preposterous, spend some time in honest “self-observation”. I’m betting you find a constellation of “selves” rather a self.
The “self” you experience when hearing a nostalgic song, for example, can be very different from the “self” that you experience after stubbing your toe or getting cut off in traffic. Often dramatically different.
In the episode “Troubled Waters,” the good Lieutenant seems to pass some gas, and it can clearly be heard. After Columbo first examines the crime scene, he heads to the doctor’s office to get help for his seasickness. Just as he reaches the top of the steps, just before he reaches the doctor’s door, you can clearly hear two farts. He even sighs after the first one. Now, I thought it might have been the floor creaking or the ship settling, but that particular sound is never heard again in the episode. So, say what you will, but I’m convinced it’s a fart, and the sound guy missed it… or perhaps they left it in. After all, he was experiencing problems with his tummy.
First time outside in a week and the world felt louder than I remembered. Snow still everywhere, piled and packed and sparkling under a painfully blue sky. I had cabin fever bad enough that even just a little pop outside felt like a field trip.
We grabbed breakfast bagels and instead of heading straight home, parked and let the car idle. The food was still warm in my hands, steam fighting the cold, and the mountains just sat there in the distance like they always do, patient and unconcerned. There is something grounding about eating quietly while looking at them, like they are reminding you that time keeps moving even when you have been snowed in and stuck inside your own head.
The parking lot was a mess of plowed snow and sculpted ice. Big chunks tossed aside by machines, frozen into accidental monuments. It was beautiful in that blunt, unpolished way winter does best. Clean but not gentle. (Not even that clean if you look at the parking lots and streets )
One building had a massive icicle hanging off the roof, long and sharp and honestly a little terrifying. The kind of thing that makes you instinctively drive faster away from it. A reminder that winter does not care about liability or signage. It just hangs there, waiting, daring gravity to do its thing.
We sat longer than planned, hands warming around breakfast, watching sunlight bounce off snow and windows. After a week inside, it felt good just to exist out there again. No agenda, no rush, just bagels, mountains, and the quiet understanding that the world was still here, icy and dangerous and beautiful, waiting for us to step back into it.
This evening, around eight, the backyard camera caught a familiar blur moving fast across the frame. One of the neighborhood skunks ran through like it had somewhere important to be, that low, determined waddle turning into a brief sprint before it vanished out of view.
What lingered was what it left behind. A new set of footprints stitched into the fresh snow, crossing and overlapping older tracks from earlier wanderers. The prints were small and neat, almost careful, as if the skunk was aware of its own notoriety and preferred to pass quietly.
I like knowing the backyard stays active after dark. While I am inside, winding down the day, other lives are busy out there, navigating cold ground and open space, following instincts I will never fully understand. The camera only catches a few seconds of it, but the snow keeps a longer memory.
By morning those tracks will probably blur or disappear, erased by sun or wind or the next snowfall. For now, they are proof that even an ordinary night holds movement and purpose, and that our little patch of ground is part of a much larger, unseen routine.
One of the first dopey programs written in BASIC back in the early ’80s, converted to TI graphing calculator BASIC, and then translated to HTML for the fun of having a flashback to the good ol’ days of Viewtron and coding on the TI-99/4A and IBM PCjr circa 1983.
// Coordinate scaling to match the TI-Basic 0-264 / 0-165 coordinate system // The canvas is defined as 528×330 (2x scale for crispness) const SCALE_X = canvas.width / 264; const SCALE_Y = canvas.height / 165;
// Utility: Draw Line function line(x1, y1, x2, y2, color, width = 2) { ctx.beginPath(); // TI coords originate bottom-left usually, but standard canvas is top-left. // We need to flip Y. // Input Y: 0 is bottom, 165 is top. // Canvas Y: 0 is top, 330 is bottom.
// Utility: Draw Point/Rect (filled) function ptOn(x, y, color) { const cx = x * SCALE_X; const cy = canvas.height – (y * SCALE_Y); ctx.fillStyle = color; // Draw a small 4×4 pixel block to represent a “pixel” on the TI screen ctx.fillRect(cx, cy, 4, 4); }
// Utility: Draw Circle function circle(x, y, r, color) { const cx = x * SCALE_X; const cy = canvas.height – (y * SCALE_Y); const cr = r * SCALE_X; // Assume uniform scaling
// Utility: Filled Rect (for buildings) function fillRect(x, y, w, h, color) { const cx = x * SCALE_X; // Y is bottom of rect in TI logic const cy = canvas.height – ((y + h) * SCALE_Y); const cw = w * SCALE_X; const ch = h * SCALE_Y;
// Windows for (let a = x + 4; a < x + w – 4; a += 5) { for (let b = 10; b < h – 10; b += 8) { if (Math.random() > 0.5) { ptOn(a, b, COLORS.YELLOW); } } }
x += w; safety++; }, 100); // Slight delay for animation effect }
// — OPTION B: PARIS — function drawParis() { clearDraw(‘#1a1a2e’); // Dark blue night statusText.innerText = “Paris”;
// Grass line(0, 10, 264, 10, COLORS.GREEN, 3);
// Eiffel Tower Legs // Using fillPolygon for HTML5 solidity, but lines for outlines
// Left leg line(100, 10, 132, 130, COLORS.GRAY); // Right leg line(164, 10, 132, 130, COLORS.GRAY);
It’s my birthday today, which always lands a little quieter than the calendar suggests. No balloons popping, no trumpet fanfare, just that low hum of awareness that the day is marked, that the year turned another careful click forward. I woke up still me, still here, which feels increasingly like the real gift. Birthdays at this age are not about becoming something new so much as taking inventory of what has remained stubbornly intact and what has gently fallen away.
There is something familiar about sitting with the impulse to narrate a life not because it is spectacular, but because it is happening. The weather outside doing what weather does, the streets holding their shape, the sense that time keeps moving whether I applaud it or not. Paying attention feels like the point. Noticing how survival can look boring from the outside, but feels quietly heroic from inside your own bones.
I do not feel older so much as more textured. More aware of the cost of things. More appreciative of moments that do not demand performance. If today is a celebration, it is a modest one. Still breathing. Still noticing. Still capable of warmth and irritation and wonder in roughly equal measure. Another year survived. Another page added. I am glad I am still writing it down.
It looks like a cute little barebones reader, definitely small enough to toss in a pocket, or put inside a passport binder for dual use with a pen and paper.
