a.k.a. V.J.

On June 6, 2023, I published the first post of this blog. The post featured a photo, taken that day, of the skies made hazy orange by Canadian wildfire smoke.

Today, June 6, 2025, I am posting a picture, taken yesterday of the sky over my neighborhood made orange by Canadian wildfire smoke. This time around, the smoke is much less pronounced. It’s just enough to give the sunset a creamsicle tint and make the air smell as if someone a few houses down is having a campfire in their back yard.

All reminiscing about air pollution aside, it is gratifying to me that this space has remained a (mostly) active outlet for a full two years now. In my initial mission statement, which was every bit as hazy as the smog outside my window that day, I wrote, “My best guess for now is that this blog will simply serve as a general repository of thoughts and photos from my day-to-day life. Think of it as a social media feed with more depth and less algorithm-driven toxicity.”

That’s pretty much describes what it has been, I think. The content is pretty inconsequential, and it reaches roughly the same size audience that I would get by shouting from a second-story window in my house, but it gives me a public outlet apart from social media. I’m still trying, with mixed success, to dodge that algorithm-driven toxicity.

A few days ago, I heard the Judy Collins version of “Both Sides Now.” It’s a beautiful, world-wise song that I will always associate with what should have been the series-ending scene of Mad Men. There’s a passage toward the end of the song that really speaks to how I feel about the world (both online and otherwise) right now and my current place in it:

But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I’ve changed
Well, something’s lost, but something’s gained
In living every day

Increasingly, I find myself feeling alienated from the direction everyone around me seems hellbent on charging toward. There’s a grand narrative to this era — a binary social dynamic — that I’m trying to opt out of. It’s partly due to my contrarian nature, but mostly because when it all ends badly, I don’t want to look back and feel like I was an active participant in a catastrophe. But rather than rage, or even grumble about the big picture, I’m trying to focus on those small every-day losses and gains Joni Mitchell was talking about. And then write about them.

That feels like an endeavor worth keeping up for at least a couple more years.