Train Buds and a Vet Party

My writing session last night felt really good. I wrote while in bed, my wife quietly reading beside me. It felt good on the writing side but also felt good on the personal end. Being able to create wherever I find myself is a personal goal. It’s the future I am trying to transform into my reality.

Tonight, for example, I am typing this while I ride the train into the city of Toronto. Not going to work, but rather a work function. Our studio is having a wrap party for a show we worked on last year. I figured this would be a great test of where my skills and stamina are at for working on a loud and busy train. At the is hour and with the direction I am heading in, the train is mostly filled with passengers on their way to a concert or sports match. Usually, the upper area where I am sitting is designated the “Quiet Zone”, but at this time of day and with passengers that don’t usually ride the train, it may as well not exist.

That makes it the perfect test to see how I can perform. And to be honest, with my earbuds in and a little classical music I’m not bothered or distracted at all.

Once again it feels good to be getting work done in a time and space that would otherwise be wasted. If this works out, I might be able to do 1 ½ hours of writing just on the train. Maybe another ½ hour at lunch. Then I can add an hour before work and another before bed. That should get me a good 4 hours a day. I’d like to routinely get to the point where I am writing 3000 words per day as easily as I find breathing.

Before I left tonight, I received the latest work in progress from my friend John. He writes and records his own compositions. I think the music he sent me today might be is most complex song to date. There are definitely moments of greatness in the song. I’m looking forward to hearing the final version. Not sure if he is going to add lyrics, but he typically does.

My BYOK device is somewhere in Canada now. Hopefully, it is getting flown airmail to Hamilton or Toronto. If that’s the case, I don’t expect to receive it until next week. Oh, the anticipation!

I tried to watch this week’s episode of StarFEET Academy, but I couldn’t get past the first scene. I got up until the inappropriate, nonconsensual Betazoid pillow talk. Nearly barfed in my mouth. Nope. Not for me.

I spent some time wondering if it was the brief seasons that are causing me to dislike all these new shows. Star Wars, Star Trek, Rings of Power and so on. I wondered if it was just that my tastes have changed. But then I think about something like HBO’s ‘A Knight of the Realm” and how they are just killing it. Great characters, great story. 

I think the writing is the culprit. To much signaling of every kind. The old Star Trek was chalk full of morals and righteousness, but it was always presented as allegory. These new shows don’t even feel like preaching; it feels more like pray the gay away philosophy of making people agree with what you want.

I think there is a desire to apply the wrong type of genre and characters onto existing franchises. There really isn’t much value in doing this, maybe in the short term, but if you went to the sci-fi section and it had a picture of a spaceship on the cover, but the interior was a pure romance, you would throw the book in the fire.

Seems to me there is a bit of that going on. People who don’t understand the IP’s they own are using them incorrectly, and the fans are correct to show their disdain.

The train is coming into the station. I wrote a total of 827 words. Not too shabby. It was approximately a 45 minutes' ride, so I’ll take those numbers.

The party was held at the Greta YYZ bar on King Street. We had some pizza roll things, cauliflower bites and parm fries. All delicious. Later they served cinnamon sugar hush puppies as well. We were each given a game card to go and use the pinball, skeet ball and other video games which was fun. Had some great chats with friends and colleagues.

I left around 11:30pm and took the streetcar to the train station. It was freezing cold outside or I would have just walked. Once on the train, which was delayed for fifteen minutes, I prepared to take my laptop and continue writing. The ride in had been so productive I was jazzed to get more work done.

And then all the Country Music fans poured in, drunk and having a good ole time. It got rowdy and loud in no time. I had managed to snag a seat, but it was standing room only and we were packed in like sardines. It was the last train of the night heading in this direction.

I couldn’t have put my laptop on my lap even had I wanted to. Just not enough space. Luckily the crowd were a friendly bunch, and although intensely loud, strangers were bantering back and forth having a great time.

One of the “Buds” yelled out, “I think we just became a community!” and he wasn’t wrong. It was a very communal, hour-long ride. We were so packed together that there were cheers of encouragement when anyone got off the train. They were a good bunch of ‘Buds’ from the Ingersoll area.

Normally when there is a country musician playing one of the big arenas the train in populated with girls in boots, short skirts and cowboy hats. This crowd was predominantly male, and more likely to be wearing a thick plaid hoodie and jeans. There was an overwhelming amount of light-coloured denim on that train.

It was some time after 12:30am by the time I finally made it home, exhausted but happy to have seen everyone.

And the ‘Buds’ made me glad Canadians can have fun with strangers and make a little train community even if it only lasted the hour.