}

Thursday, October 31, 2024

Eleven years married

Here I am again: Another anniversary of when Nigel and I were finally legally married. That was eleven years ago today, on October 31, 2013. It’s something I think about often, including the fact that he died around a month short of our sixth anniversary. But, then, of course I think about Nigel and the fact he’s not here.

I’m keenly aware that an eleventh wedding anniversary—or any sort of eleventh anniversary—isn’t particularly significant. Maybe it’s just me, but I tend to pay particular attention to anniversaries (including my birthdays) that end in five or zero, something I’ve mentioned in the past (including last year). But, an eleventh anniversary? What’s that? Apparently steel is the appropriate gift, though I’ve never paid attention to that.

Also seemingly irrelevant is that this coming Saturday, November 2, is the 29th anniversary of when I arrived in New Zealand to live, and Nigel and I began our life together. I’ll have more to say about that on the day, but just by the numbers alone, next year’s anniversary just sounds more significant, even though it’s merely one year later. And yet, just like today, Saturday’s anniversary is still important to me and my life even though the person who was at the centre of both has been gone five years.

When I write one of these anniversary blog posts—and I have several posts for several anniversaries every year—I always look up, at the very least, the previous year’s post. That’s what I did this year, and I have to say something I wouldn’t normally ever say: I think that last year’s anniversary post is among the best things I’ve ever written, and not just among my best blog posts. I’m not suggesting that anyone else should think the same thing, or even that it was merely “okay”; my core attitude about everything I create is I that it’s for others to judge the worth, if any, of my work. However, to me, that post captures extremely well what I was thinking and feeling at that time, and, in fact, what I’ve thought and felt about this anniversary pretty much every wedding anniversary since Nigel died.

I’ve always felt that storytelling is at the very core of what makes us human, and who better to tell our own stories than us? Ideally, others may get something from our stories, whether it moves them, enlightens them, or maybe just reminds them of the glorious wonder in our all too brief stay on this watery planet speeding through the universe.

The future is still as murky to me as it’s ever been, and I still have know idea whether that will change or when. But when I think about the improbable path that led me to the wonderful life I had with Nigel, I know not to make any assumptions about what is to come. As I said last year,
I’ll eventually figure things out, despite how difficult that is, and the reason I know that is embodied in the photo at the top of this post: I carry him close in my heart now just as I did then. I know that’s what will get me through into whatever my future will be. And when I do, I’ll have him and our life together to thank for it.
Our wedding anniversary is a reflective time for me, and has both sadness and optimism precisely because of what this is an anniversary of. And that, I think, is the best wedding anniversary gift possible.

Happy Anniversary, sweetheart. I love you. Always.

Previously
Ten years married (2023)
Nine years married (2022)
Eight years married (2021)
It’s still seven years married (2020)
Mixed feelings day (2019)
Fifth Anniversary (2018)
Fourth Anniversary (2017)
Third Anniversary (2016)
Second Anniversary (2015)
Still married (2014)

Related
To be married
Husband and husband
Just one more

Halloween again, again

Today is Halloween again. Again. It’s still a day that I don’t have any interest in—though I don’t hate it, either. To each their own, and all that. Today is a far bigger deal for other reasons, but more about that in another post.

I said last year that one of the reasons I stopped buying candy for trick or treaters was that there were seldom any that stopped at any of the houses we lived in but I also said, “I’ll probably buy candy” for this year. That never happened.

While this has been a difficult year for me, and for a lot of reasons, the issue right now is that I haven’t had enough good sleep, even though the number of hours have been enough, and it’s left me feeling tired and disconnected. I managed to mow my front lawn today (the back is scheduled for tomorrow), and that left me physically tired, too.

In fact, I was so worn out after the mowing that I didn’t have my shower until late afternoon, and that was when I heard kids’ voices coming for a neighbour's yard that I remembered it was Halloween today. As it happens, I had some things to do in the back of the house (including writing a couple more blog posts), so I wasn’t up front when the kids started knocking on the door.

The doorbell camera told me that between 4:57 and 6:43pm, there three groups of kids in costume who came to my door, around ten kids in total. Three of the visitors were mid-teen girls who stood looking at their phones after they’d knocked. One of them said, “He says he’s in the area”, and they went on to the next house a moment later. Just like last year, the only response the trick-or-treaters got at my house was a telling off from Leo. Also like last year, I had the blinds closed so I could have my dinner and watch the TV news in peace—well, relative peace.

There still wasn’t much news coverage, but Stuff reported that, ”Billionaires’ Auckland mansion transformed into haunted house for trick-or-treaters”, an event which turned out to be a fair bit more than the average New Zealander could do. Not content to let the billionaires have all the fun, RNZ reported that the NZ Police warned “Don't throw caution out the window for Halloween” , which began, “It's that one night of the year where parents basically throw out the stranger danger warning, send their kids out at dusk and green light them taking lollies from random people,” which is true enough—and the biggest irony of the holiday. Even so, the piece had a bit of a buzzkill to it.

I still don’t know whether anything can ever rekindle an affection within me for Halloween, but I do think it's kind of fascinating to watch how Halloween participation in New Zealand is growing in spurts and shrinkages. Last year I wondered whether “more people start adopting it, could change things for me, but the jury’s still out on that.

The drawing accompanying is post is one I originally shared last year, something I made when I was in my late teens or early 20s. I’m sharing it again this year because I can, I never did before last year, and because this particular crude doodle thing is still the only treat I have to hand out this year.

So, I guess that’s again my Happy Halloween to those who celebrate.

Strangeness on Facebook

Everyone knows that what we see on Facebook, as well as their other services like Instagram and Threads, is driven by algorithms. Their goal is to keep us using Facebook as long as possible so that we’ll see more ads, and the best way to do that is to show us more of what they know we interact with of click on. But what if there’s more to it than that? What if they’re engaging in some sort of deliberate “de-emphasis”?

I noticed in recent weeks that I wasn’t getting notifications when the New Zealand Labour Party posted something, including a Live Feed. Instead, I’d get a Notification about something they’re supposedly posted “5 minutes ago”) or whatever. When I follow the Notification, I find out that it was actually posted six or seven days earlier. Here’s an example, first a Notification I saw yesterday morning (October 30):


And here’s what it sent me to, a Reel that had actually been posted on October 23—not an hour earlier, but a week earlier:


I also realised yesterday that I hadn’t seen any Facebook Posts from Kamala Harris in a long time. I went to the Page to make sure I was following it (I was), clicked “Like” on a post, and then a little while later a post from the page was in my feed. That has never happened with any Labour Party post, even though I often leave a “Reaction”.

I don’t think this is any sort of censorship of centre-left politics, and as far as I know the same thing could be happening with any other politically-focused Page. I also vaguely recall reading that Facebook made a decision to de-emphasise, or whatever they called it, political posts for the US elections. For all I know, this could be nothing more than them trying to keep politics out of people’s feeds, not necessarily completely, but just a bit slower.

Whatever the truth is, it’s annoying as hell. I’ve followed the Labour Party Page for at least a decade, yet I no longer see their posts in my feed nor do I get timely Notifications of posts as I used to. The fact that clicking “Like” on a post from the Kamala Harris Page made another post show up in my Feed, when doing the same on Labour Party posts never does is odd, though.

I’ve noticed something odd in Instagram, too: I’ve Liked and followed numerous political folks in recent months, and yet I seldom see their posts when I launch the Instagram App. Threads isn’t quite as much of a mystery, though, because I use it so little that the algorithms probably don’t have anything to work with.

I think that Facebook should respect our choices in what we want to see in our Feeds, or, at least, they should give us timely Notifications so we can choose to look at the post. Facebook deciding for us is a bit condescending and even infantilises uses to some extent. They already feed me lost of posts I never asked for and don’t follow, but not posts from people and Pages I do follow.

Pretty much every Facebook User I know has complained at some point about how Facebook often fails to show us things from people we actually know and/or have been FB “Friends” with for many years, and instead it shows us posts from the same handful of people over and over. There’s simply no way for Users to change this situation. Seems to me Facebook would have better luck in getting ads in front of eyes if it gave us more of what we want rather than what Facebook decides for us.

Just let us have more say in what we see. I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to ask.

Update – November 2, 2024: Yesterday evening, I noticed I was getting Notifications of posts on the Kamala Harris Page again, and today there were several more, as well as posts showing up in my newsfeed, too. However, I still don't get timely Notifications about Labour Party posts, nor do I see anything in my newsfeed. That particular strangeness is still going on.

Sunday, October 27, 2024

Penned up demand

I had a shopping excursion this past week, and because of that, some eight months of austerity gave way to me buying something for myself: Pens (photo at right). There’s a bit more to it, of course.

Back in February, I really did stop spending unnecessary money on myself, with my only “splurges” being some treats from the supermarket, but other than that, nothing I avoided buying anything I didn’t need. Prices, especially including for food, rose steadily since last year, and after my trip to Fiji, I decided it would be a good idea to just kind of coast for awhile (food prices have eased somewhat in recent weeks). Technically, I’m still hesitating about buying anything I don’t truly need, but if there was something I really wanted that I could afford, I’d probably (possibly?) go ahead and buy it. My shopping trip actually included something in that category, too.

The pens were the main reason for my shopping excursion. After I moved to Kirikiriroa-Hamilton and started going through boxes, I found a LOT of mechanical pencils that had been Nigel’s, plus some pens. I also had some pens—and a lot of them were dried up, it turned out. This small problem started becoming bigger over the past year or so.

Like a lot of people these days (apparently), I don’t often handwrite, and when I do, it’s often been with a mechanical pencil (so I can edit it easily). However, when I write notes or shopping lists by hand, I prefer pens (no idea why—habit?).

More importantly, there have been several times when I’ve needed to sign a form so I could scan it and email it where it needed to go, the most recent such time being when I needed to sign the FPCA form so that I could vote in the US election. Every time I’ve needed to sign something, I first needed to find a pen—and then search longer for one that wasn’t dried out. I decided that for the first time in many, many years, I needed to buy some pens.

The reason it’s been so very long since I last bought pens is partly because it used to be common for businesses to give pens to customers or potential customers, something that now seems to be as rare as cursive handwriting. Add this change in culture with the fact all pens eventually dry up, and my need to buy pens slowly became urgent.

I chose the box of blue ink ones and a box of black ink ones, because sometimes I need one or the other, and because the boxes with multiple colours had ones I don’t need/use. For example, I already have a couple pens with red ink, probably the only other colour I’ve ever actually needed.

Once I got home, I looked at the pens more closely. The black-ink ones from Bic looked in the photo on the box like the pens that were standard in every New Zealand office I ever worked in—but they pens are now made much more cheaply and are far less robust than the old ones that were ubiquitous in all my workplaces.

The blue pens were—unusual. First the tip of the pen had a teeny, tiny little plastic cover over it (photo at left, in the middle of my palm). Maybe that was to keep the pen from drying out? The pen body also opens up and has a tube-like ink container that looks like it could be replaced or maybe refilled. It reminded me of a fountain pen, and that intrigued me.

I was also surprised by the blue pens’ bilingual packaging. I don’t see that very often, but there were several other products in-store with bilingual packaging. It was a pleasant surprise.

The thing I bought just because I wanted it was a new cookie jar. It was incredibly expensive: $6.

Many years ago, Nigel and I tried several different containers for cookies (which most Kiwis call “biscuits”). We bought a nice glass jar with a metal lid that has a silicon seal, but the opening was too small for our hands to fit inside easily. This reality was arguably a good thing for calorie restriction, but it was nevertheless incredibly annoying. We next used a plastic container that was a bit too big, and the plastic was damaged in storage by contact with some of the spongey sheet stuff that’s usually used underneath small rugs or matts to stop them slipping on a smooth floor. So, in this house, I went back to the jar with the too-small opening.

The new jar is shorter and more squat than what I had, and holds around 2.1 litres, according to the label, so it’s probably roughly equivalent in capacity. The shop had two larger sizes (and two even smaller), but the one I bought is all I need: I usually buy a bag of cookies from the supermarket that wouldn’t fill even half the jar I bought. I’m the only human living in this house, after all, so I don’t need to have a lot of cookies sitting around (and Leo’s not allowed any). A photo of the new and old jars is at right.

I could make a joke about all this extravagance, but the truth is that once I got home, I noticed a tall-ish ceramic casserole pot on my kitchen shelves that I haven’t used for years, and realised I easily could’ve repurposed it to use as a cookie jar: After all, it would’ve been free, and the opening was large enough. A momentary twinge of guilt over spending $6 was replaced by the realisation that I actually prefer clear glass so I can see how many cookies I have left—is it time to get some more?—without having to open the jar to check.

I also realised that I—theoretically—could bake cookies and freeze half of them, partly because the jar might be too small, but mainly because I don’t eat cookies very often. As I’ve said before, I like making things from scratch so that I can control what, exactly, is in the stuff I eat. But considering how seldom I eat cookies, maybe it’s best to buy manufactured ones because of their preservatives?

Most of this post is tongue-in-cheek: I didn’t hesitate to buy the stuff I chose, and while I was in the shop I also checked out possibilities for future projects, so there certainly I certainly did have any existential angst at the time (or since). In fact, I next went to the supermarket and selected stuff without paying much attention to how much I was spending—like the old days, actually.

But it amused me that my first trip to buy something for myself was focused on pens and a cookie jar, and I’ve long thought it was a good idea to make fun of myself before anyone else gets the chance.

While my next purchase(s) may not be quite as restrained, I hope they’re at least half as funny to me. Laughing at myself is kind of a general goal I have. I guess that’s pretty obvious by now.

Thursday, October 24, 2024

Problem kitty?

I’m a lifelong fan of dogs and cats, and have shared my life with several of both kinds. In general, I tend to prefer dogs a bit more mainly because dogs are so obviously happy to see me when I come home. Cats may do that, too—and some of mine did—but they’re far more likely than dogs are to show what seems like indifference when we return home. All of that, though, is really about furbabies I’ve shared life with. Other people’s furry companions are another matter—especially when they’re a bit, well, odd.

The photo up top is of Leo back in August of last year. It shows a brief pause in his barking at the cat on the fence. Leo likes cats and other dogs, as long as he’s properly introduced—he has very proper, some might say “old fashioned”, manners. However, if he sees a dog or cat walk past the front of his house, he will bark and bark and bark. And when this cat started walking along the top of the fence, he could also run along the fence to bark—and so did the two dogs next door.

The cat belongs to the neighbours over the back fence (I was “introduced” once, but I don’t remember its name—or the neighbours’, for that matter). Over the past year, I’ve occasionally had to go outside after dark to retrieve a barking Leo, with that cat laying on top of the fence, but directly behind my house, not at the corner, as in the photo. The cat seems to be wary of Leo—and intrigued by me. Maybe that's because when we first met, I talked nicely to it. Or, maybe it just likes exceptionally handsome men—that’s equally possible.

There's been a very recent change in the cat’s behaviour: It wants to come inside my house.

A week or so ago, I was standing in the living area, and I happened to look at the partially open slider door to the patio, when the cat appeared and placed one paw on the threshold, then froze when it saw me. I said, “I don’t think coming inside Leo’s house is very good idea…” and the cat turned and ran away which gave me just enough time to close the door before Leo could run out the door and chase the cat across the yard.

Last week, I was doing things in the back of the house and walked down the hallway and opened the internal garage door to get something when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see that cat running out the once again slightly open slider. I closed the door, and Leo was oblivious—until he caught scent of where the cat had be laying or sitting (and not peeing—I checked). He sniffed the area extensively, so much so that there are now very few fibres left in that spot of the carpet. He then demanded to be let outside so he could find the cat.

Yesterday evening, I let Leo outside after his dinner, and I heard a “thunk!” outside, which I thought was the next door neighbour (the parents of Leo’s dog friends) accidentally bumping the fence, like with a rake or something. Leo started barking, and kept at it, so I went out on the patio to being him inside. There was no one on the neighbours’ side of the fence, and Leo was going spare.

I walked over and peered over the fence when that cat suddenly jumped and climbed over the fence and ran across the yard to the same corner in the photo up top. Leo was oblivious, still convinced that the cat was on the patio, under the Vegepod (which I moved onto the patio two years ago this month). He could not be convinced to come inside, and ultimately I had to pick him up to bring him into the house.

As we were walking back through the same (more widely) open slider door, we turned and I tried to show Leo where the cat was sitting. He didn’t seem to really look, but the cat saw that and was prepared to jump and climb over the fence. Leo and I went inside.

I liked leaving the slider door slightly open in nice weather so Leo can go outside whenever he wanted to, but I’m not keen on having a cat I don’t actually know enter my the house, especially because its ideal choice of toilet may not be outside. More importantly, Leo isn’t keen on the idea.

The cat is clearly well-fed and seems happy and active—and it also could be a little too curious for its own good. For now, I'll leave the doors closed whenever Leo’s inside the house—like in winter or on a stormy day. I may eventually try again—until the weather gets too hot, when the doors are closed (and in the afternoon, their curtains are, too) to keep the summer heat outside.

I’ve never had a situation like this before, where a cat I don’t know wants to enter my house, despite a dog living here. But the cat definitely seems friendly, and it's clearly curious, so many I shouldn’t be surprised. Or maybe it really does just like exceptionally handsome men. I can understand that, too. Of course.

Friday, October 18, 2024

A super moon

Last night, many folks in New Zealand were talking about the “Super Moon”, which many feel appears to be bigger and brighter than an ordinary full moon. Scientists say it’s an illusion, and to them, it’s just the perigee syzygy—a full moon at its closest point to the earth during its orbit around us. Not quite as romantic a name as “super moon,” probably.

There have long been claims that a super moon can cause earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but scientists say the data doesn’t back that up. Coincidence doesn’t necessarily mean causation, of course.

When I went outside last night to take the rubbish wheelie bin to the kerb, the skies were overcast, but there was a bright light in the clouds, which was a little unusual. Even so, I didn’t think anything more about it.

When it was time for bed last night, I stepped outside onto the patio to try to lead Leo outside (which didn't work…). It was fairly bright outside, as it is on nights with a full moon, but not as bright as when there are no clouds. Even so, I looked up, and the photo up top is what I saw.

I don’t think that the moon looked bigger than usual, and not particularly brighter, either. Regardless, I always like seeing the moon lighting up the clouds between us, and I like it even more when it also shines down on my solar panels, too, like it did back in March, and also in September 2023. I was a little less thrilled with the moon’s cloudless visit last month, when its light showed the condensation on my solar panels as the temperature dropped; I don’t like cold temperatures or wintry weather.

But I clearly DO like seeing the full moon and the pretty views when it brings when it visits our night skies. That’s probably super enough for me, even it it’s just the perigee syzygy. A rose by any other name, and all that.

Thursday, October 17, 2024

Another podcast guest spot

This past Saturday (my time), I was a guest host with Daniel Brewer on the podcast he does with Adam Burns, The Gay Mix (aka “The Mix”) podcast. That episode, “173 – Too 2Political? What Kind of Name is That for an Episode?”, has now been posted on their site. Adam was away on holiday, and Daniel asked me to join him, partly so we could talk about politics—did we? Yeah, a bit, but I haven’t listened to it yet, so for all I know it may have been a total trainwreck—for me. Daniel’s aways a professional. I should add that the episode is roughly an hour and a half long.

I’ve known Daniel and Adam for many years now, and both were the creators and initial drivers of Pride 48, so in the time I was heavily involved with that I talked with them a lot. But I haven’t spoken with Daniel (as in, talked with my voice—can’t be sure about comments or emails…) since the last Pride 48 streaming weekend back in September last year. Life’s been… odd since then—busy, sure, but mostly odd. [I talked about the weekend on my podcast at the time, "AmeriNZ 399 – For years".]

This guest spot was technically my return to podcasting, since I haven’t posted an episode of my own AmeriNZ Podcast since April of this year. Actually, speaking of guest spots, this was my first since I recorded with my late friend Paul Armstrong way back in April 2021. I had no idea it had been that long, but, then, I’m not as active in podcasting or Pride 48 as I used to be, so it makes sense.

At any rate, I had a lot of fun catching up with Daniel and taking part in this week’s show.

Footnote: This is what I referring to in my blog post yesterday, when I said, “I needed to pause and tidy one of the bookshelves in my office because it was visible behind me during video calls (about which, more soon).” I knew Adam and Daniel videoed the episodes, but, fortunately for me (and the world…), the video for this one wasn’t recorded. But I got nice tidy shelves out of it, and that’s a huge win.

Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Flexible change

If there’s one thing that’s been consistent in my journey over the past five years, it’s been my inconsistency. I prefer to think of it as flexibility—being able to adapt or change course when things aren’t working. Doing the same thing over and over seldom produces different results, but making changes to what we’re doing may brings different results.

All of which means that I’ve yet again changed course. Again.

Back in July, I wrote about my latest attempt at wrestling the garage into some sort of order. I did very after that post, and the ongoing cold temperatures were definitely part of the reason.

Also, August and September held the last two of the three significant anniversaries I was facing this year, and I was a bit preoccupied. Surprising as it may seem, though, at first I didn’t realise that the fifth anniversary of Nigel’s death would be five years to the very day, a Friday. As the date drew near, I decided to invite the family in Hamilton around for dinner, like we used to do nearly every Friday. Getting together on the fifth anniversary seemed appropriate, especially to do so at my home now, a symbolic acknowledgment of my progress in my journey.

It was good plan, but there was a slight problem: The living area of my house was overrun with stuff I’d brought in from the garage (not for the first time…), and I needed to clear it. And that’s when an epiphany struck: I’ve been dealing with this decluttering completely backwards. I realised that I should move the clutter from the house into the garage, not the other way around, as I’d been attempting to do. So, I decided to put all the clutter into the garage, grouped together by the room it came from (because, disordered as it is, I nevertheless know what’s in each room—mostly).

What led to this new plan was the fact that there was nowhere I could go in my house that didn’t have way too much stuff in it. I’m well aware of the research that’s demonstrated that living with clutter negatively affects one’s mental health, and, specifically, is often a factor in depression. I realised that clearing the house out will inevitably help my mood and, I hope, my energy levels, too.

Unfortunately, this brilliant idea occurred to me only days before the family was coming round. Clearing the living area was easy, but, newly filled with enthusiasm, I wanted to keep going, so next I took stuff out of my bedroom.

I realised that I could take all the boxes, etc., “temporarily” stored there (most of it for at least two years now…) and move it out. A huge amount of stuff stored in my bedroom was actually stuff that I intended to donate, plus two small boxes that could contain stuff I might want to try to sell (or else donate). I put all the donation stuff (mostly clothes, and also some linens) on the guest bed so it’d be easy for me to go through it and box it up. As a result, nearly half of the stuff stored in my bedroom was gone before the family arrived—and I thought the space suddenly felt enormous.

Since then, I’ve carried on, first going through those two boxes and deciding what to do with the contents. Then, I moved or went through a couple more boxes, and even made a first pass though my wardrobe, finding eleven shirts to donate. There are now only a few more boxes to get out of my bedroom.

My office is the worst room of all, but I intended the next room to be the guest room, starting with clearing/packing the donations, and then emptying the wardrobe so I can install a shelving system in it. That will help me to truly organise that wardrobe, and give me space to store things I use often, but not daily (like my breadmaker), things I’d prefer to store in the house instead of on shelves in the garage (right now, it’s taking up a lot of space at the bottom of my pantry).

However, I needed to pause and tidy one of the bookshelves in my office because it was visible behind me during video calls (about which, more soon), and that meant I removed 31 books to donate. I have two more identical bookcases to tidy, and my plan is to purge more books. Much of the library is, of course, books Nigel or I bought, but a large portion of it is books that Nigel inherited from his partner before me, Gary. Many of the books don’t particularly interest me, so I may as well send them to new homes.

That detour out of the way, it was time to get back to the last bits of my bedroom (including pulling out furniture I haven’t been able to vacuum under/behind “in quite some time”. I expect to shift my full attention to the guest room this weekend, then do my office (including installing a wardrobe shelving system there, too), and finally it’ll be the turn of my walk-in wardrobe—and I have a shelving system to install in there, too.

Then, the house should be clear, the stuff I moved into the garage will have new permanent homes in the house (or someone else's home), and then I can turn all my attention to making final decisions about the stuff that’s been in the garage the whole time. The way I’d tried to do it (and failed) several times—clearing the garage first—meant that I had literally nowhere in my house that was a calming refuge, and that left me feeling discouraged, defeated, and depressed far too often. Even though I still have a lot of work to do, I can already feel the difference—my house feels much more calming and welcoming than it has—well, ever, probably.

One of my specific strategies has been to go back to the slogan I thought up way back in the early days of this journey: “What I can, when I can”. I don’t force myself to do an entire room if I don’t feel up to it for any reason, because every little bit gets me closer to the goal, something I realised when I recently reorganised my fridge, a project that I did over a few days. Besides, I know that pushing too hard can lead to burnout—I’ve learned that the hard way, then re-learned it several more times.

This approach to decluttering probably “ought” to have been obvious to me all along, but, for whatever reason, it just wasn’t. My only real regret is that I wish I’d taken some “before” photos so I could share them alongside “after” photos. At least that’s been a consistent thing.

Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Will it be counted?

I’ve voted in the 2024 US federal elections, as I always do, but I don’t know for sure that my ballot will be counted. There are several different reasons for that, but all of them have the same cause: Republicans. The party that once liked to call itself “The Party of Lincoln” has now positioned itself as an enemy of democracy, and voters like me are in the party’s crosshairs.

US citizens living overseas indefinitely are entitled to vote in federal elections, just like US military personnel stationed overseas can. US citizens living overseas temporarily, like workers on a short-term assignment from their US employer, or those attending school overseas, would most likely apply for a standard absentee ballot. However, US citizens who are living overseas indefinitely (like me), register through a state-administered federal system, using the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) to register and get a ballot. The FPCA forms require a Social Security number, the number of one’s state Driver license or state ID. Many US citizens living overseas indefinitely won’t have a state driver license or ID card, so providing them isn’t mandatory (it’s probably there to establish ongoing state residency for folks that applies to). All applicants also provide the address where they were last registered to vote. The organisation “Vote from Abroad” has a good explanation of what a “US voting address” is on their website:
As a US citizen living abroad, your “voting address” is the street address of the last place you lived in the US. This general rule applies even if your family no longer owns the property, or you no longer have ties to the state, or you don't intend to return to that address or that state, or if it no longer exists as a residence. It also doesn't matter if you were ever registered to vote at that address.

If you are a US citizen who has never lived in the US, your “voting address” is the street address of the last place your US citizen parent (or spouse) lived in the US. If both of your parents are US citizens, you may use the last US address of either one.
The Republican presidential candidate has been whining constantly about mail-in voting of all kinds, and has repeatedly demanded it be ended (which won’t happen because it would harm Republicans, too), and lately his target has been to demand that no mail-in votes be counted after Election Day. He recently talked yet again (again) about suing to end mail-in voting [this was discussed by Democracy Docket’s Marc Elias and Brian Tyler Cohen on a recent episode of their “Democracy Watch” YouTube series].

This gets at MAGA Republicans’ first attempt to destroy voting by mail: Their hand-picked Postmaster General, who has done everything in his power to destroy postal delivery efficiency and timeliness, something Republicans want because it would mean that completed postal ballots may take too long to be delivered to the various states’ election authorities, just as MAGAts want.

Right now, many US states, including my native Illinois (which is, of course, the place of my own FPCA registration and voting) accept and count all postal ballots postmarked on or before Election Day that are received with a certain number of days after Election day. This long-standing programme has become a particular target of Republicans.

In Illinois, ballots—again, postmarked on or before Election Day—will be counted if they’re received within 14 days after Election Day. On May 25, 2022, a lawsuit, Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections was filed on behalf of three Republicans, including US Representative Mike Bost (R-IL12), who was one of 126 Republican US Representatives to sign an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, the infamous and idiotic MAGA lawsuit filed with the US Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election in another state—one they don’t even fucking live in. It was surely one of the most utterly bizarre and offensive legal stunts MAGA Republican politicians pulled, apart from every other suit filed by the Republican loser’s team of misfits and ne’er do wells. Then, January 6, when so many of them tried to stop the certification of the election and install the Republican candidate as president, even though he lost the election, was lightyears worse—as was the violent insurrection the Republican candidate incited.

The Republicans’ Illinois lawsuit argued that federal law requires all US states to hold Election Day on the first Tuesday in November, but Illinois allowing mail-in ballots to be received and counted for up to two weeks after Election Day effectively extended Election Day and, because of that, they bizarrely claimed that votes on Election Day are “diluted by illegal ballots received in violation of the federal Election Day statutes.” Ballots from US Citizens exercising their Constitutional right to vote, Republicans claimed, somehow magically “diluted” other citizens’ votes, because—who know why?! It’s always best to not explore Republicans’ very weird fantasies. The case was dismissed by the District Court, not on merit, but because of a lack of jurisdiction. The Republicans appealed to the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals, but they upheld the District Court dismissal on August 21, 2024. This means the 14-days after Election Day deadline remains—for now.

Meanwhile, Republicans also targeted Mississippi’s law, which has a deadline of 5 business days after Election day for mail-in ballots to be received. On January 26, 2024, the Republican National Committee (RNC), along with local Republicans, filed a suit, Republican National Committee v. Wetzel, making the same arguments they made in the Illinois case, but they also claimed that the extended deadline for mail-in ballots to be received somehow magically violated their right to vote under the 14th Amendment, because, Republicans, or something. A summary judgement on July 28, 2024 reaffirmed the exisiting Mississippi deadline.

The Republicans then announced their intention to appeal to the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, the most conservative—and arguably the most MAGA—in the entire country. We know the RNC did this precisely so that whichever way the court ruled, the loser—either the RNC or the Republican officials in Mississippi if they lost—could ultimately appeal the case to the Republican US Supreme Court, with the (probably) justified hope that the far-right Republican Majority will rule to help their shared party by outlawing the long-established precedent of counting mail-in ballots received before the state’s legislated deadline. In fact, the Republican-controlled Mississippi state legislature offered to repeal the law, but the RNC ordered them not to do that so they could get their Supreme Court to help them.

If the Republican Supreme Court does outlaw the counting of mail-in ballots received after Election Day, it, together with Republicans’ attempts to destroy the US Postal Service, will directly affect overseas voters like me. That’s because the attacks on the postal service mean it’s questionable whether a mail-in ballot sent from overseas has any chance of arriving by, let alone before, Election Day (no matter when it’s posted), so taking away the extra days many states permit may make it even more likely that the votes of overseas citizens won’t be counted—which is exactly what the Republican Party and its Dear Leader want.

There are a handful of other options for US citizens overseas long-term. Some states allow other means of submitting ballots, including sending them by fax or other electronic means (Republicans will definitely challenge those methods, too). Overseas citizens can drop off their ballots to a US diplomatic post, providing the envelope has the correct postage on it, and the staff will put the ballots in a “diplomatic pouch” to send to the USA, where they’ll be sent to the postal service. This method may cut a few days off the mailing time, however, it could mean a special trip. For example, NZ has two US diplomatic posts, the Embassy in Wellington, and the Consulate in Auckland, so I, too, might have to make a special trip (I’ve heard, though, that ballots can be couriered to a diplomatic post, though I haven’t personally verified that).

Another possible option might be to use a courier service to deliver the ballot, which Illinois law allows. However, it has special requirements, apparently around federal licensing, which usually means major companies. Of the ones I know are acceptable, the only one I know for sure is still operating in New Zealand is FedEx, but as far as I know their only facility in New Zealand is at Auckland International Airport, and there’s no option for collection from individuals. In the past, NZ Post had an arrangement with DHL, who were their US partner for document deliveries in the USA. I didn’t know that was no longer the case until 2020 when I went to send my ballot by courier, and the carrier was a company I’d never heard of. I know the ballot was delivered to Chicago, but I never got a confirmation email that it was counted, so I don’t know whether or not it was. On the other hand, maybe they stopped sending the emails after 2016.

So, regardless of what happens with the RNC’s court stunts, I have no idea whether my ballot will arrive in Chicago in time to be counted, or whether or not it will be counted if it does. This doesn’t matter in that Illinois is a solidly Democratic state, and Harris-Walz will carry Illinois—everyone knows that. There’s no US Senate election this year, so the only other federal office I got to vote for was US Representative, and the incumbent Democrat will win that race. My vote, then, technically isn’t needed—but it was never about that: It’s my duty to vote. It’s my values in action, and my commitment to democracy, neither of which would ever permit me to sit out this election—or to vote for anyone other than Harris-Walz. I hope most Americans are the same.

I also hope this isn’t the last election Americans will ever have, because if the Republicans win, it’s game over. Sorry I have no hopeful words, other than just one: Vote.

Sunday, October 13, 2024

Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 15

On October 13, 1984, a new song went to Number One: ”I Just Called to Say I Love You” (audio-only video up top, about which, more later) by American singer/songwriter/producer Stevie Wonder began its three week run at Number One on the Billboard “Hot 100”. The song was the lead single from the 1984 movie soundtrack album, The Woman in Red, which was the second Number One in a row to feature in a movie. It was Stevie Wonder’s biggest hit overall, not the least because it went to Number One in many countries (including his first Number One in the UK), and it won a Golden Globe and an Oscar for “Best Original Song” from a movie.

The video above is from Wonder’s official YouTube Channel, and that makes it more likely to remain available long-term. Unofficial videos are far more likely to be taken down, which is a problem for blog posts like this one. However, there was an official music video, about which the Wikipedia article for the song (linked to above) says:
A music video of the song has Wonder, during a concert, singing into a telephone receiver while seated at a piano. By the end of the song, he and the audience are standing and swaying to the music. The video features concert footage recorded in Rotterdam Ahoy, in the Netherlands, on August 10, 1984.
I don’t remember whether I saw the official video at the time—which, of course, doesn’t mean that I didn’t see it. After all, the song was a huge hit, and so I could well have seen it. However, the official video, if that's what it is, was difficult to find on YouTube, though I eventually found one that appears to be it. I’ve included it at the very end of this post in case the video is taken down at some point.

I never saw the film The Woman in Red, and I’m not sure whether I knew at the time that this song was used in the film—maybe I did? It wouldn’t have mattered to me either way, though, since I wasn’t interested in the movie. It’s a little unusual for music videos for songs from movies to not use any footage from the film it was in, but that wasn’t unheard of, either, of course.

Now, about the song itself. I have to be brutally honest here: I never liked this song. I found the melody bland and soporific, at least in part because in that era I liked uptempo music. I also absolutely loathed the way the song ends, though I couldn’t articulate why it bothered me so much. My reaction to it wasn’t improved by advertisers using it in far too many sappy, and even twee, TV commercials over the years, removing the emotional resonance that was in the original song and reducing it to what would now be called cringe.

Having said all of that, it was really just that one song. I’ve liked a lot of Wonder’s work over the years, especially, his legendary 1976 album, Songs in the Key of Life. This song simply was not one I liked, and, despite how it may sound, I didn't hate it, either.

All up, “I Just Called to Say I Love You” topped 19 charts, and among the national charts for countries I write about, it reached Number One in Australia, Canada (3x Platinum), New Zealand (Gold), and the UK (Platinum), as well as Number One on the USA’s Billboard “Hot 100”, “Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs”, and “Adult Contemporary” charts, and was also Number One on the Cash Box “Top 100” chart. It was certified Gold in the USA.

The soundtrack album The Woman in Red reached Number 4 in Australia, Canada (2x Platinum), and New Zealand (Gold), Number 2 in the UK (Platinum), and Number 4 on the USA’s “Billboard 200” chart. It was Certified Platinum in the USA.

This series will return November 3 with the next Number One song of 1984.

Previously in the “Weekend Diversion – 1984” series:

Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 1 – January 21, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 2 – February 4, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 3 – February 25, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 4 – March 31, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 5 – April 21, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 6 – May 12, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 7 – May 26, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 8 – June 9, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 9 – June 23, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 10 – July 7, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 11 – August 11, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 12 – September 1, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 13 – September 22, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 14 – September 29, 2024

Thursday, October 03, 2024

New Zealand is changing

The 2023 New Zealand Census data that I’ve been waiting for has finally been released, and to statistics and demographics nerds like me, it’s utterly fascinating. To avoid burying the lede, New Zealand is finally majority non-religious. I’ve written about that subject several times over the years, and have always said this was inevitable.

This is the way Statistics NZ reported the change:
For the first time since the New Zealand census began to collect religious affiliation, over half of the census usually resident population had no religion at the time of the 2023 Census. The proportion of people with ‘No religion’ steadily increased from 41.9 percent (1,635,348) in 2013, to 48.2 percent (2,264,601) in 2018, and 51.6 percent (2,576,049) in 2023.
That’s an increase of ten points over a decade, but it was a slow change. This is the point where I always point out that “no religion” means precisely that: While it includes the categories atheist and agnostic, it also includes those who have “nothing in particular”. The only thing we know for sure about these people—which, full disclosure, is the category I chose for myself—is that we aren’t part of any organised religion. The stats for religious identification are also changing:
The three largest religious groupings in 2023 were:

• Christian – 1,614,636 people (down 102,543) or 32.3 percent of the total population, compared with 36.5 percent in 2018
• Hindu – 144,753 people (up 21,369) or 2.9 percent compared with 2.6 percent in 2018
• Islam – 75,138 people (up 14,517) or 1.5 percent compared with 1.3 percent in 2018.
I think that the small increase in those choosing Hindu or Islam is probably because of immigration (though that might take deeper analysis to confirm), but it’s fascinating that less than a third of New Zealanders identify as Christian—this in a country once heavily dominated by those identifying as Christian.

New Zealand has actually been a secular nation for a very long time, even when religious identification was still a majority (in other words, 2018 and earlier). In my personal experience, most New Zealanders don’t like having religion shoved in their faces, so much so that door-to-door proselytisers, and pretty much any insistent religious person, is likely to be called a “god botherer” (though not to their faces…) by ordinary Kiwis—even including many of those who identify as Christian. Basically, Kiwis want to be left alone.

The 2023 Census was the first to ask people about their gender, sexual identity, and whether they were born with a variation of sex characteristics. The results showed that around 1 in 20 adults belonged to Rainbow or LGBTIQ+ communities. Wellington has the highest percentage (11.3 percent) of LGBTIQ+ residents, Dunedin was second (with 7.3 percent), then Christchurch (6.0 percent), Palmerston North (5.8 percent), and Hamilton (5.6 percent). Auckland, by far New Zealand’s largest city, had a lower percentage of people who belonged to the LGBTIQ+ population (4.9 percent) than Hamilton has, which surprised me. Within Auckland local board areas, Waitematā, which is mainly the central city, including some historically LGBTIQ+ suburbs (neighbourhoods), had the highest proportion of LGBTIQ+ adults, with 12 percent. [For more detailed information, see “2023 Census shows 1 in 20 adults belong to Aotearoa New Zealand’s LGBTIQ+ population”].

Here are a few random facts I thought were interesting:

• In 2023, 22.5 percent of the population was 60 years and over, and 18.7 percent were children under 15 years. These proportions were 20.8 and 19.6 percent respectivelyin 2018. Also, the average number of children born to each female aged 15 years and over was 1.6, down from 1.7 children in 2018 and 1.8 in 2013. Taken together, this shows why immigration will continue to be important for New Zealand if it is to cope with an aging population and declining numbers of New Zealand-born young people to support them.

• Almost 30 percent of usual residents were born overseas. The most common overseas birthplaces in 2023 were: England at 4.2 percent of the total population (208,428 people), People’s Republic of China at 2.9 percent (145,371 people), and India at 2.9 percent (142,920 people). 31,779 people in New Zealand were born in the United States. The number of people born in the Philippines increased from 37,299 people (0.9 percent) in 2013 to 99,264 (2.0 percent) in 2023. Not all of these foreign-born people are citizens or even necessarily permanent residents—they’re merely “usually resident”, and may be on work permits and visas. [For more detailed information, see “Census results reflect Aotearoa New Zealand’s diversity”, which also includes information on languages spoken and ethnicity].

• Around two-thirds of households in New Zealand (1,175,217 or 66.0 percent) now own their home, compared with 64.5 percent in 2018. Stats NZ principal analyst, Rosemary Goodyear, noted that, “This increase in home ownership, although small, is a reversal of the falling rates we have seen since home ownership peaked in the early 1990s.” However, home ownership is lowest in Auckland (59.5 percent), probably in part because it has some of the highest house prices in the country.

• About two-thirds of private dwellings (66.8 percent) had heat pumps in 2023, compared with just under half (47.3 percent) in 2018. That’s a huge increase, and that makes homes warmer and drier, but their energy efficiency makes the increase good new for the country. 

• Landline telephones are rapidly declining in use. In 2023, 31.0 percent of households had a landline, down from 62.5 percent in the 2018 Census. I don’t know if they have a way to track VOIP phones (what I have), which are internet-based but use traditional “landline” phone numbers.

Every time I look at newly-released census statistics, I always find things I think are interesting, and there was obviously far more in the press releases than I’ve shared here. Eventually I’ll look at the raw data to see if the answers to any of my questions are there, or can be extrapolated from the data that is there. But that’s a job for the future. Right now, though, it’s like Christmas for statistics and demographics nerds like me. Hooray!

More information on any of these census statistics can be found in the links above. Also, “Home ownership increases and housing quality improves” has data about housing, including the last three points on my random facts list.

Another new month will bring, um…

It’s now October! This year has been flying past, although lots of people feel that the passage of time seems to speed up as we get older. In any event, each new month brings a perfect time to reassess, redirect, recommit—in short, every month we get the chance to change course.

Another paragraph goes here.

It’s been difficult for me to commit to this blog this year—obviously. The had been a challenging year, which I’ve talked about several times now. I’ve also recently made a change in the way I’m doing things that I have yet to talk about, but it will shape the course of this month and many more to come.

In the meantime, though, now that we’ve entered the last calendar quarter of 2024, this is a particularly good point to look at my blogging (lack of) progress this year. The numbers of posts tell the story, however, as of October 1, the total number of posts rose to 124, which is three more than in my very first blogging year (2006)—except that I only blogged for the last three and half months of that year. Nevertheless, it counts! 2024 is not my worst-ever blogging year!

I thought that this year’s number of posts by month (visible along the right side of this blog) was interesting. The rankings to October 1 are: 1= January and April (23 each), 3. February (16), 4. March (14), 5. September (13), 6. May (12), 7. June (9), 8= July and August (7 each).

Because I’m me, I worked it out, and with 92 days left in this year (October 1 though December 31), I’d have to produce an average of 2.62 posts per day to hit my old goal of an average of one post per day over the year. That’s unlikely, to put it mildly. Even reaching my 2019 total of 263 posts would require an average of 1.51 posts per day. 2019 was, of course, the year that changed everything about my life, and nothing has been the same since, and for that reason in particular breaking that total is my dream goal for this year. However, my realistic stretch goal for 2024 is 238 or more, which would beat my 2021 total of 237, and it would also require an average of 1.2 posts per day for the rest of the year. I think that’s achievable. At the very least, I want more than 205 posts (my 2020 total).

Obviously, I’ve never given up hope that one day I might return to achieving one post per day over the year, and while that’s not going to happen this year, I should at least do better than several other of my “worst ever” years. This matters to me, first, because I’m highly competitive with myself, but also because so much has seemed so beyond my control this year that I want to work on regaining control of some of the things I seemed to have lost in 2019, and blogging is, theoretically, one of the of the things I can regain control over.

Blogging is not the only thing I want to regain control of. There’s my podcast, too—and I know for sure that’s about to return. This month marks 8 years since I last made and posted a YouTube video, something I never intended to stop doing, but, as with everything else, changes in my life got in the way. Someday I’d like to bring that back, too.

Having said all that, and having talked about my ambitious goals I’ve set, I’m also okay with the very real possibility that I won’t meet any of my goals. After all, this is the third day of this new month, and I’ve already missed two days of blogging. The past five years have taught me to be relaxed about where my blogging totals end up, precisely because I’ve always missed days. Besides, learning to let go of goals is just as important as having some in teh first place.

Still, even I’m curious to see what happens—or doesn’t. Of course.