January 4th, 2009 by Chris Eng

Being reflective and resolute at the end of December is something that many (perhaps even ‘most’) people do. Not me. I tend to ignore the end of the year in favour of being as reflective and resolute as possible during the other 51 weeks. I mean, if there’s something you want to do in regards to bettering yourself or your life, why not just do it? Why wait for an artificial opportunity like New Years Day? It’s just the same as any other day, except you need to put up a new calendar and are possibly nursing a hangover. Still, in the interests of hopefully gleaning some new perspective, I’m going to take a brief look back over 2008 and as much of a look to 2009 as my crystal ball can muster.

 
2008: The Year That Wasn’t… Then Was

To say there was an epiphany involved is overstating things, but the transition from my mindset at the beginning of the year to where I am now is certainly dramatic. I rang in 2008 at a job that paid well but was ultimately unfulfilling on any kind of creative or personal level: I answered phones at a plumbing supply company. I’m not going to shit on the job itself—I actually liked most of the people I worked with, and it certainly wasn’t hard—but during the year I worked there I barely wrote anything and any energy I might have had to devote to the other pressing matters in my life (home, wife, etc.) had completely disappeared. I was working 40 hours a week and spent the bulk of the extra money I was earning on books (that I may or may not have been really enthusiastic about), food (both at lunch and for dinner a couple of times a week) and booze (even though I’m not really a drinking man). I was spinning my wheels and was stressed out.

There were a few highlights, for sure—going to Bowen Island for the better part of a week with Carla was certainly one of them (even if it decided to rain for most of the time we were there)—but the internal pressure kept rising until I knew I had to quit and do something else. Now just for the record, I don’t love retail—not at all—but I know it and I’m certainly not bad at it, so despite the fact that retail is a step back from some of the grown-up jobs I’ve held (Editor-In-Chief, scriptwriter), when I was offered a job in a comic shop a few months back I was happy to take it. Yep, it was part-time and the pay was a substantial step down from what I’d been making, but I needed the space and the change.

See, while I was answering phones, the undone housework started to accumulate at an alarming rate and since Carla was the one with the career-oriented job (retail manager), I figured that if something was going to give, this was one that I was going to have to take for the team. Working part-time would allow me to take care of the dishes/laundry/whatever and allow me the time to do some writing and get back to working on stuff I love.

And that is more or less precisely what working at the comic shop has done for me over the past few months. While my writing projects haven’t all turned out the way I might have thought or hoped, that’s not the fault of my job, which has given me the time to work at them and explore them. And if you consider this blog to be a writing project, then one of them has turned out fairly well so far. The housework is mostly caught up, and I’ve managed to get some home improvement projects (The Purge I & II, most notably) underway.

But it was the transition I had around October that was the turning point for the year. In comparison, everything else is window-dressing. Reading The Long Emergency gave me a new perspective on my life and the world, and the chink it put into my mental makeup allowed other ideas to take hold—ideas that challenged my my views on Convenience vs. Self-reliance and put a severe crimp in my lifelong collection of ’stuff.’ And the more I talked things through with Carla, the more it turned out that we were both on the same page. The things it turned out I had come to value are things that she valued as well. Our lives had changed direction, but we were doing it together. Moreover, for all the work that our new lifestyle would entail, it seemed like an adventure and fun to boot, and if you can manage to inject that into a scenario where you’re stepping up your responsibility to yourself and the world at large, I’d say that’s a winning combination.

 
2009: The Road Ahead

As stated previously, I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions, because I don’t believe that a lifestyle change based on swapping calendars is as binding as one you make to yourself in the interests of bettering yourself. If you don’t have the resolve to change your life at the point when you notice something is wrong, then you have to ask yourself how badly you want that change.

But I do have a couple of resolutions for 2009, and with luck and a bit of determination I’ll keep them going through the years to come as well:

I resolve to take this new-found drive and run with it as hard as I can for the duration of the year. I don’t want to stop or slow down; I don’t want to get back into the slow lane. I want to learn a million things about living that I didn’t know before. I want to learn to be a better cook; I want to learn to be better organized; I want to keep making my already fantastic marriage even better, and I want to be one step (or 20%, considering the five year goal) closer to owning that dream property.

 
Coda

Years like 2008, with all its attendant highs and lows and revelations, don’t come along that often. I’m pretty sure that 2009 won’t be as dramatic a year for me, but that’s fine—I’m on the right track now, so as long as I can happily (and non-dramatically) keep plugging forward, that’s fine. I know 2008 was pretty shite for a lot of people, and 2009 may or may not be worse (economically, climactically), but if you were one of them for whom it was, I hope this year holds a little of what 2008 did for me. Take care, everyone.

December 31st, 2008 by Chris Eng

So, I’m back. I know that I didn’t tell you I was leaving beforehand, but I was off jetsetting for the holidays… if hanging out and drinking with your in-laws in a suburb of Edmonton can be considered “jetsetting,” anyway. Let me check up on that and get back to you.

Still, despite the neverending parade of sugary baking and Sailor Jerry Rum dancing past my eyes (and into my stomach), there were a couple of things that added a touch of greenpunk to my Christmas-time. First, I got two different encyclopedias:

 
The one on the left—The Encyclopedia of Country Living—is pretty much indispensible reading for anyone considering going back to the land or just adopting a more greenpunk/D.I.Y. lifestyle. The one on the right—The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia—is indispensible reading for anyone who wants to know what Lando Calrissian and Admiral Daala have been doing lately. I’m sure there’s a greenpunk angle there if I look hard enough, but I’m too thrilled with it to bother.

I also, in a roundabout way (which involved a bookstore giftcard), received a copy of Nikki McClure’s Collect Raindrops, which is one of the most awesome and inspirational books I own. Every year she makes a calendar of paper cut art, with each month illustrating some aspect of simple living. Collect Raindrops assembles the best of her art from 1998 to 2007.

 
The other thing we got to do, which I haven’t done in years, is visit a farm. Carla’s grandfather owns a small farm in Whitecourt, so we drove out and spent an afternoon socializing and wandering around the property. It was nice and I was happy to have been able to spend some time there, as well as finally meet her grandpa.

As a final note, in case anyone had read my previous posts and was wondering—yes, the Star Wars Encyclopedia is both excellent and beautiful. Just thought I’d clear that up.

December 1st, 2008 by Chris Eng

I went with Carla to the Home Despot today, partially for something fun to look at (even though we aren’t really in the market to do any kind of home repair/upgrades) and partially because one of the only two Harvey’s in town is inside it (the other is at the Vancouver Airport). We got our burgers with extra pickles and hot peppers and then wandered around to see what interesting things we could glean. Here are some of them:

1) Electric heaters designed to look like fireplaces are, by and large, pretty ludicrous.
2) I do want a chainsaw at some point (probably when I have more reason to use one), though I don’t want one that’s on sale at HD.
3) I can never have too many Formica chip samples. Their Classic line blows my mind every time. It’s like a ’50s diner exploding all over your kitchen counters.
4) HD is a great pace to spend an hour or so, because I have no real desire to spend any money, but it gets me all excited about house stuff in general.

Now for an excitingly domestic afternoon. I’m going to write and purge a bunch of books from my collection (though not simultaneously). I think Carla is bakin’ cookies. Mmmmm… cookies.