It’s not hopeless — but it carries history on its back, and history is heavy.

He’s unlikely to wake up one day thinking, “I hurt her, I was wrong, I owe her an apology.” Men like this rarely get there. That would require real self-inspection, and he’s spent a lifetime avoiding that.

His regret won’t look like remorse.
It’ll look like irritation, defensiveness, maybe quiet anxiety when her name crosses his mind.

If he ever does regret it, deeply and genuinely, the most ethical outcome for him is to live with that regret privately.

Not to unload it onto her.

But to let her know one day, that he is living with it.

Then, it will be up to her, to open the door, or keep it forever closed.

Because he punished her for her very instinctive characteristics: feeling so alive.

She entered a system with energy, and someone unstable tried to feed on it instead of protecting it.

Universe! Thank you for the snow!

I want more! More and more!

You have no idea how restful my brain is at the moment! It’s like ice shower for all my wiring! It feels good, and I process better!

I feel that I am even more in love with everything!

My husband likes snow more than I thought. I like that.

Justin Trudeau is 54, and somehow he looks younger every day. A year ago, he looked like someone in their late forties—say, around 49. Now he looks more like someone in their early forties, maybe 41.

I could be wrong. Maybe he actually looks more like someone who’s 39.

He has the whole package: health, good looks, a fit body, good manners, charm, great height, education, a strong personality, and an excellent spirit. He has three children who are all happy by his side, and he’s lived a full, rich life. He’s been successful in his work, and he’s always out in nature.

When he was Prime Minister, he improved many laws and created a more inclusive and balanced society, giving everyone—especially immigrants—a sense of being at home. And even though he comes from old money, wealth, and influence, you always saw a young, smiling guy enjoying life with everyone, not a typical rich British aristocrat with pomp and pretense.

He celebrated all the festivals of immigrants and residents alongside them. He kept track of events happening in the immigrants’ home countries. Many people, especially immigrants, underestimated him and mocked him, accusing him of benefiting from everything. He posted all his tweets and messages in both of Canada’s official languages. And now, his absence is truly felt.

And he is enjoying his life, far from the madding crowd. I don’t agree with his ways… of approaching things fully. I disagree with some, or many. But he is one of a kind.

I like this girl, Janie. She is a detective in Death Valley.

Well, she’s Detective Sergeant Janie Mallowan, a young, ambitious cop in a small South Wales police team, to put it accurately.

Not only is she dedicated to her duties, she is a bit obsessed. Her obsession partly comes from grieving the loss of her best friend. It has turned to a coping mechanism for her mental state. But it is also part of who she is. It’s a fuel, kind of.

She loves to get a promotion, and she would do anything legal, and ethical, to have that come true.

She’s sharp, but flubs social cues, blurts comments, and wears her emotions just enough that she’s relatable instead of polished and dull. That’s actually why Dua Lipa disinterests me (and Taylor Swift, and Justin Bieber, for another reason, and Mariah Kerry, and NSYNC, Jonas Brothers, Cold Play, and many others.)

Her energy is strange, and resonates well with mine. Strange in a good way. I get you, girl.

Her lack of filter and quirky delivery are sources of comedy, which makes her fun to watch. She makes you laugh with her, not at her. She just says things out loud in perfect honety.

She has real pain and ambition — that mix of vulnerability and competence. And as funny as it sounds, John Chapel resonates well with her, as a mentor, father, possibly a little grand father, and a male figure she never had.

That’s why I enjoy that show. It’s not that the storyline is special. It’s Janie.

One of the peculiar things about listening to podcasts while cooking or making crafts is that, because you can’t easily change the episode, you end up listening all the way to the end.

Did you know there’s a website called Murderpedia?! It lists killers, complete with their personal details and the murders they committed.

How do I know this? From an Australian podcast broadcast out of Adelaide. It’s called Weird Crap in Australia.

I thought by “weird crap” it meant stuff that seems strange, new, or interesting to the rest of the world, but is normal for Australians. Like people having kangaroo suits at home and using them to rescue kangaroo babies.

That kind of thinking is what got me listening to this podcast, and now I know things about Australia’s 1960s and 70s serial killers that even Australian documentaries never mentioned.

Where we live, not a single snowflake has fallen in the past two or three days. A few days ago, it snowed for about twenty minutes and then stopped. But there was nothing left in the supermarkets—almost eighty percent of the supplies were gone. All because of a possible storm that might never even come, and yet everything was shutting down.

When I was a child, we would cross roaring rivers through the snow, trudging to school in the midst of it all.

Sometimes the wind passing down by the trailers which traveled to Northern Caucasus and back, would toss us down, but we would get back up and keep going. And all this while we didn’t even have proper shoes or clothes.

People, calm down.

We really lived life to the fullest. Sure, it was full of hardships and torture. Many aspects f it, was unnecessary. But we truly lived a full life. That’s why we are happy, and feel accomplished.

Why does it take so long for a girl to realize “she loved something and didn’t know about it”?

She was busy being reasonable, considerate, self-controlled.

Emotions happen first. Awareness comes later. Sometimes much later. The mind needs distance, loss, or comparison before it finally connects the dots and goes, “Oh. That wasn’t friendship. That was it.”

Wrong moment, wrong circumstances, wrong emotional bandwidth. The feeling exists, but it doesn’t get named until later—sometimes years later.

I love the months of December, January, February, and March. I also love November—if it’s somewhere truly cold, like Maine or Canada, or up in the far reaches of Europe around the Baltics, Caucasus, or anywhere with a spirit like the Balkans. Cold air calms my head. It soothes my nerves, and—more importantly—it makes my brain work better. My cheeks turn redder, my face looks lively again, flushed as if I’ve put on makeup; the pale of my skin fills with colour.

I don’t like summer here. I don’t like spring or autumn either. My face gets puffy. I gain weight. You have no idea how hard it was to bring my weight down. Feeling agile in warm weather is almost impossible for me. I get dizzy constantly, my vision goes off, and all I want is to put ice on my head and sleep.

Sea water is good—sure—but we’re not very close to it. I like cold water. Places like Baja California, San Diego, or Hawaii make sense to me only if you go for a week or two every couple of months: swim, cleanse your body in the sea, refresh your skin, enjoy the sun, eat well—and then return home to a cool climate.

We haven’t been to Peru yet, so I don’t know what it’s like. Maybe it’s wonderfully cool. It doesn’t matter that it’s on the equator. What matters is good sun—and cold air.

Another joy of living in cold places like New England, the UK, Argentina, the Baltics, or Canada’s East and West Coasts is that you can actually see the seasons change. And more importantly, you can spend much longer walking outside in nothing more than a light shirt and thin trousers.

The ponds freeze over. River water turns wild at first, then grows quieter, because everything freezes. Sparrows sing less—but still, once or twice a day, they do sing. Everything goes silent. And the mind finally settles.

I’m not a heat person. I like warmth only for romantic trips or work travel. I’ve just started going out in minus five degrees Celsius wearing a T-shirt and light trousers. Yes, it’s cold—but it’s delicious. Afterwards I come home, take a hot shower, put on some cream, and everything is fine.

Even my husband is starting to like cold weather. He says it keeps his brain more alert. Maybe it’s time, in a while, to move north again. Somewhere cosy and lovely in New England. Or further north in California. And then travel—to warm places and cold places around the world.

It’s fun, isn’t it?!