I watched Amelie that first night. Something different, for me, having fled a double-wide trailer life out in Chilliwack—a town known primarily for its corn, but equally a leader in alcoholism. I couldn’t sleep, so I flipped through the channels and stopped on this quirky French chick in a diner. She had cute hair. As I watched I thought about filmmaking, and how foreign-language films actually help the viewer suspend disbelief and more easily buy into a fantasy. I don’t know how Parisians are supposed to behave, so it might as well be just exactly like this.

When the credits rolled I looked out the window and wondered who was out there. It was late, but lots of people were still up, and there were a number of high-rises around me. My dad had a handy set of binoculars by the window because he was a creep. And I guess so am I.

I remember watching a girl in her mid-20s and a man probably twice her age. I tried to determine if they were a couple or a father and daughter, but I couldn’t decide. I watched as the man cooked a box of macaroni and cheese. He drained the noodles and left them in the colander, putting the pot back on the stove, then he mixed the butter, cheese powder and milk into a sauce in the warm pot, before adding the noodles back. This just absolutely blew my mind. I had never thought to do it that way. I always just chucked everything on top of the noodles and violently pummeled it into submission, like a normal person. This dude’s way seemed so strangely meticulous and loving, especially given what it was, though I have tried doing it that way in the years since and it just doesn’t taste right.

I watched a bunch of small moments in a bunch of small lives until dawn. All of it was pretty innocuous and unremarkable, but for me still spiritually fulfilling. And as the sun came up I stood on the balcony with a cigarette stuck to my lip and looked out over my new city. It took no longer than that for me to embrace a whole new life.

For a while I told stories about that place. I would descend into the world and play whatever character was available, meeting new people every day and hopefully enriching as many lives as I wrecked. If there’s a difference. But for me they’re all just stories, and I still draw from them and use them in my work in my more reflective and quiet phases. I seem to thrive on cycles of experiencing and creating. One year spent living in the world, then two years to parse the information and make things out of it. This is probably the most important part of the kind of person that I am.

But experience can be hard to come by, and increasingly so with age. There came a moment recently when I was struck by the thought that maybe there are no flavors left. I seem to have tasted just about everything.

Of course, there are tons of things I’ve never tried. I just don’t actually think that matters as much as it feels like it should, on paper. I’ve never had shaved truffle over fresh, buttery pasta. I’ve never had truffles at all. But I get the feeling that if I did grate one of them fuckers over my farfalle, it would taste like a mushroom with some herbs. Big whoop.

Years ago I got wicked drunk and ordered a BBQ Chicken Pizza for myself from this shitty chain called Megabite. I want to feel bad about it, but this is precisely what pizza is for and I’m willing to bet I’ve ordered more pizzas drunk than sober. Anyway, this thing broke the definition of a pizza for me, with barbecue sauce drizzled over grilled chicken in a zigzag pattern. I ate it alone and in shame and it was goddamn motherfucking delicious. I remember thinking: this is revelatory. That must have been about 2012.

A few years later, in 2017, I remember finding a pack of fresh ghost peppers in the produce section at a grocery store. I had to buy them, right? I didn’t have a plan for what to do with them, exactly, but it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. A couple hours later I was in the shower trying to comfort myself down from the panic attack that ensued from trying to eat one. Good grief.

And that’s it, I think. Those are the only truly novel experiences I’ve had with food in over a decade, which is a little strange to think about. And the same is mostly true for movies and music, and sex, and the fucking weather. Nothing is particularly interesting to me anymore.

I probably sound depressed, but I’m just not. These thoughts are rational.

Increasingly, I find myself nostalgic. The most powerful experiences for me these days are the moments I rediscover something I used to know, but had forgotten. For just a moment I remember what it was like to be alive in a world where everything felt interesting and important.

The first time I tried to learn to play the guitar it was an electric—probably a Squier—plugged into an old amp that smelled like burning hair when it was turned on. But it worked. It was super overdriven and distorted, to the point that basically anything I did was going to sound kind of good. At least to me. I just moved my hand up and down the fretboard and punched the strings with my knuckles like Billy Joe Armstrong. You know, just a couple weeks ago I listened to Dookie all the way through for the first time since I was a kid, and when this one song came on—Welcome to Paradise—it occurred to me I hadn’t heard it since probably 1994. But I could still play it on my (now air-based) guitar as if I had never left my old bedroom.

Nostalgia is dangerous. You don’t want to spend too much time there, at the risk of becoming trapped and waking up at 64 with perhaps a valentine and a bottle of wine, but without having created any new memories at all. Besides, if you aren’t making new memories, nostalgia is not a renewable resource, so you’re fucked anyway.

But the conclusion I’m coming to is that the experiential part of my life is largely over, and actually has been for a while. There will be more surprises, sure, but they’re likely to be fewer and further between, and I’ll have to find something else to do with all that empty fucking space. And since I thrive on cycles of experiencing and creating, you know, right now that cycle is kind of broken.

Maybe this post is about the decision to father a child. Not to have a baby, but—hear me out—to father the fucking thing, right and proper. To use the experiences of the first half of my life to guide me in showing the world to somebody who has never seen it before. With the probably wonderful side effect of getting to experience life over again, through their eyes, from day one.

That doesn’t sound like such a bad thing, now, does it? And you thought I was depressed.

But it doesn’t really matter what I do next. It’s just probably important to identify where I am in the story of my life. Whether I choose to embrace that or fight against it, it’s good information to have.

If I were a rich man I would probably buy a boat and set off in search of adventure. I could extend the experiential phase of life by quite a bit, buying novel experiences at market value and sailing defiantly against the wind. But I didn’t do well enough with my first forty years to have options like that, so. Rats.

However, knowing my limitations and deficits I can at least try to do a little better, and maybe say yes to small experiences I’ve managed to say no to up to this point. There are a lot of those, we hope.

Even still, at least for me, the best way to enjoy the flavor of life from here on will probably be to share my favorite experiential dishes with you. Or maybe my daughter, or just anyone who will listen. I’ve told a lot of my stories before, but not everyone has necessarily heard them.

You know, writing often feels purposeless for me now when I do it for myself. But when I tell myself I’m doing it for you, paradoxically, it feels 1) vital and 2) mostly for me.

At least in the northern hemisphere. The weather gets colder, people move indoors, and we feast to celebrate the idea that food is about to be more scarce. Funny thing. Thanksgiving and Christmas are rituals that force us into rooms together to share old stories by the fire. Even Halloween is kind of about looking back, if you believe in ghosts.

For me, this time of year is also when my birthday happens to fall, and it’s the anniversary of my father’s death. That’s today, actually. Those two dates feel inextricably linked now, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Over the years this has become the season to try and get in touch with distant relatives, sometimes just to check if they’re still alive. This year I sprang for a DNA kit and everything. And every year my ex writes me a birthday letter to remind me that she’s still alive, and that I’m always going to love her. I sometimes remember that I love the ones who don’t write me letters, too.

I’m into all of this shit, so help me. It’s my favorite part of the year by far. Time slows down, and I sink into a great big leather sofa with a hot toddy to listen to old vinyl. I think about things. It’s about time I had some children, I guess. And I should move to a more Canadian part of Canada, because goddamn, there ought to be be snow on the ground in November.

Around this time of year in 1996 I remember walking through snow maybe two feet deep. It was a special occasion not just because of the record snowfall, but because my mom had agreed to buy me a Nintendo 64. Would you believe it? We were dirt poor, but she saved up and found a way to make it happen. No amount of snow could have stopped me, then, on what was a most determined march to the local Zellers. And it was a great purchase, because mom got into Mario Kart, too, and she could even beat me on a good day.

Around this time in 2011 I prepared a meal for my girlfriend, Kim. I hadn’t seen her since moving into a hotel a couple days prior. But now I was back at home, and she was on her way over, so I made dinner. I can’t recall what it was, exactly, but I do remember being very proud of whatever I’d done with the asparagus. She didn’t eat it, though. And I never saw her again after that. But looking back, this is how one of the most valuable chapters of my life began, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Around this time a year ago I got a phone call at 2:30 in the morning. It was somebody claiming to be a cop, but I didn’t believe the guy. It sounded like a scam. I called the department and confirmed that the officer was legitimate, which meant his message was real, too: my father was missing, and they needed my help to find him. I spent the next hour or so preparing myself, gathering notes for my meeting with the constable. By the time he showed up at my apartment the news had changed. They’d found dad. So long.

There are a lot of songs about November. Most of them aren’t any good, but there’s something to it. The best ones don’t have “November” in the title at all, but you can tell they’re November songs because you listen to them every November. What’s on your playlist?

Around this time in 2014 I was house-sitting for a friend of my father’s. She had a nice place, and a dopey old dog named Bailey that I kind of fell in love with. I spent the month there, living somebody else’s life, and having the epiphany that I’d like to make a better one for myself. I cooked every night, walked the dog three times a day, and listened to a staticky radio station that played way too many Tragically Hip songs. By the time I left, I thought they didn’t play enough Tragically Hip songs.

Em was there with me on most days. That relationship was still new and exciting. But the thing I remember most vividly is sitting at the dining room table with the dog at my feet, watching the girl move about the kitchen with purpose. Baking or something, it doesn’t matter. I’d never seen her like that before. Domestic, I guess. In that moment I became absolutely certain.

So help me, it’s my favorite time of the year. The sun doesn’t come out too much, but when it does the light glistens over every blade of grass, and—if you listen closely—it sings.

Well, he died.

Sorry if that hits a little funny. I’ve learned that the best way to tell people is just to say it, and that it honestly doesn’t matter how you get there. Personally, I found out from the cops, standing over me in my apartment at 4:00am like in the movies. Unlike the movies, though, they had basically lied to get inside, saying they had questions to ask in order to locate him. I was preparing a list of defenses for whatever behavior he’d been busted for when the subject changed. The officer said, “Well, he’s dead.” Everything else disappeared.

One of the things that happens when your dad dies, I’m learning, is you get some of his pens. Whether you want them or not, they just sort of become yours, along with the rest of his stuff. I’ve got a ring he wore on his middle finger that barely fits my fat little pinky and makes me look like an asshole. Currently one of his M&Ms figurines is holding it for me. These things are my keepsakes to cherish, or in some cases, my trash to throw out, but they’re mine either way. I inherited my father’s mushed-up granola bar, at the bottom of his messenger bag.

I realized a few days ago that, in a lot of ways, he is mine now, too. It’s not just his stuff that has transferred into my care, along with a few other people he loved, but the man himself. He’s ours now, and the way we choose to share his memory with the rest of the world is something he just doesn’t get a say in. I can show you all of his most embarrassing pictures, the way he used to show everyone mine.

My dad never got to be old enough that I had to take care of him, which I’m sure he’s happy about, but as I go through this process it does feel a little like that at times. Those vibes were particularly strong when I was rifling through boxes of his shit, trying to find the most incriminating stuff before someone else did.

I remember my grandma getting old, and having to be taken care of, back in the 90s. She would call me George and ask me to dance, and dad had to correct her: “No mom, this is Chris; my son.” I’m forever grateful for his effort, not only because grandma was a terrible dancer by that point, but because I never really appreciated how hard that probably was for him.

Also, one time she took her pants down in an elevator, and we all had to convince her to pull them back up again before the doors opened. These are the things that stick with you.

My dad never took his pants off at inappropriate moments. Or, if he did, he probably meant to. When he died, my feelings for him were oddly defensive, or protective, for a little while. My morning ritual became a Google search for his name to see if anyone had mentioned it yet, and when his obituary finally came up I was, of all things, embarrassed. Come on, dad, pull your pants up. Everyone’s going to see.

We’re planning to scatter his ashes in the same place as his mom, twenty-some years earlier. I remember Dad being surprised, back then, by just how big the tube of ashes we got from the crematorium was. Our little ceremony was in a pretty public place, so he had me hide grandma under my coat on our way from the car to the water’s edge. I felt like I was committing a crime. After a few words we popped the lid off, dumped the whole thing, and watched as a massive cloud spread through the water. We all looked around to see if anyone noticed what we had done to the lagoon. What do you do, then? Well, we ran.

I’m sure it’s not what dad had planned, but if his scattering was to go a bit wonky like that I don’t think he would mind. I probably wouldn’t, either.

I take after him in a lot of ways. Some of them are even good, probably, but I’ve got his sciatica, and I’m pretty sure I’ve recently acquired his hernia from digging through boxes of his stuff. The coroner thinks dad died from a sudden heart attack, and I had my scare with that bullshit around this time last year. I found his blood pressure cuff at the bottom of one of those boxes, and I think that might be the one thing he’d really want me to have.

Dad, I know you always read the shit I posted online, even when I made you swear you didn’t. If you’re reading this now, there’s one thing I really want to say to you.

What the fuck is this?

I’m looking through your hard drives and devices (yes, all of them), and it seems like you must have had a secret Instagram account where you photographed every beige meal you ever ate. I don’t even know where to begin.

1. An extra sandwich is not a side dish.
2. Veggie Straws are not vegetables.
3. Did you really add a second type of pasta to a box of mac & cheese?

Come on, man.

Also—and I’m only going to say this once—I love you. I was never really comfortable saying it, and I’ll blame that on you because you didn’t say it much either for a good while there. But you made an effort, I noticed it, and I would have gotten there in maybe one or two more birthdays. Probably. But you had to go and die young, so I’m pinning this one on you twice over.

And if you’re somebody I love, reading this after I’m gone: I’m sorry if I ever forgot to say anything, and I hope you don’t blame me for too much. That being said, I’ve left everything to the cat.

The other reason I brought back my blog is that I realized my writing is important, at least to me, as something of a historical record. I’m thinking about adding more of my oldest garbage back to the archive. Right now, the oldest posts date back to 2001, which, if you’re terrible with math, is nineteen goddamn years ago. This is my meager, incomplete record of one way to live on the planet Earth.

It occurred to me that the audience for posts about COVID-19 might be people from the future. Maybe they want to know what it was like to be human, way back when everybody was locked inside, alone, to stop themselves from killing each other. Or maybe they want to know what life on Earth was like before that kind of thing became normal.

If you want to understand life in the crosshairs of COVID-19, honestly, it’s not that bad. Unless you’re short on toilet paper.

You don’t see your neighbors as often, but when you do catch a person’s eyes for a second, it feels good. Better than normal. People are kinder, now. More considerate; their smiles are more genuine. As always, times of strife bring out the best in the humans, and for the most part they’re doing okay.

Of course, none of that is worth the pain and loss that a growing few are having to endure. At the time of this writing, over 100,000 people have died to this disease, which is way too many, way too quickly. Maybe in your world of the future that’s a small number, but we have a population of about 7.8 billion and 100,000 feels like a whole lot.

Alternatively, maybe you guys have cured death, and the idea of even one person suffering brings a tear to your eye.

As for me personally, my lifestyle is very quarantine-compatible. I’m healthy enough, and I’m playing more videogames than normal. The government is paying my rent, so I get to take on projects like resurrecting my old blog. It’s hard to complain, but I worry about my parents. It’s my mom’s birthday today, but I can’t see her for fear I might infect her. She’s in her mid 70s and has serious lung problems as it is. Every day I think about the idea that one irresponsible asshole has the power to kill her by forgetting to wash their hands. I try not to think about it too much, though.

Maybe you’re here because you live in a future where people over sixty don’t exist, and grocery stores are exclusively on your phones because humans couldn’t be trusted not to wipe their noses all over cartons of eggs (assuming you guys still eat eggs, which, if not, it’s too complicated to get into right now). If you live in a future where April 2020 seems normal, or even nice, you might want to know what life was like for the last generation of free-range human beings. I’m not an expert, but I’ll tell you what I know.

I went on a camping trip, once, where full-grown men put together a hopscotch tournament and, after a few beers, gave it everything they had. Some time later, I sat on a balcony with a girl and her mother, belting the hits of the 80s and 90s into the open air for an audience of disgruntled neighbors. There was beer involved in that one, too. I spent a night wandering the streets with a homeless guy who stole my iPod. I had sex in tall grass, under the stars. Not with the homeless guy. I walked several dogs that weren’t mine. I helped countless little old ladies reach stuff on the high shelves at the supermarket.

I miss all of that shit. I’m probably going to miss the whole summer this year, outright, but for the record, I think skipping one summer is well worth it right now. If your future reality is bleak, I’m really sorry, but I tried my best. Most of us did.