Meet my Desk Ducks

- and Company!

Svane #36

Another little guy - no idea where I got him

Follow DeskDucks&Co to meet them all!

36

Kenji kontacts Brooklynn for once this season, and I’m putting up a scorecard.

S: 16

Y: 6

B: 5

D: 9

P: 0

Long bday weekend

It’s sunday now, been off since thursday from work. Saturday was my bday. A very chill one to say the least. Saw some friends hung out with my parents and all the jazz that plays when becoming another year older.

Poème « Le dormeur du val » d’Arthur Rimbaud réadapté en bande dessinée

ʚ reasons to stay alive #36 ɞ

i don’t want the embarrassment of another failed attempt

The fascists are literally droppin’ bodies in the streets an’ you wanna talk civility? We’ll be civil when they stop the violence, not before.

(Art sampled from “Green Lantern” Vol. 4 #36 by Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis, Oclair Albert, Nei Ruffino, Rob Leigh, Adam Schlagman, and Addie Berganza. Edits: Dialogue.)

ALT

the departure

48h finale

The Good Side of Thirty

‘Thirty-six,’ said the lady behind the counter. 'That’s what they call the good side of thirty, isn’t it?’

I laughed, but I have to admit I liked the sound of it. I liked the suggestion that with the arrival of this new birthday year there was still space for more growth and change, and maybe even happiness.

The strange thing is that I often feel behind. I look at what people around me (or even in the wider world) are doing and achieving, and I consider the shapes of the lives they have created for themselves, and wonder why my life doesn’t look like that—if perhaps I might have veered off-track somewhere, a hiker charging through brush and thicket that’s taking me further away from the place I was meant to be going, with scratches up my arms and legs. There’s a possibility, of course, that this isn’t just me, and this feeling is a reality for all of us—one of the consequences of modern life and hours spent scrolling on fast-forward through the achievements and most flattering moments of others, all while our own life plays at normal speed with every mundane detail included. I think of a repeated meditation that bounces back to me every couple of weeks on the Waking Up app, yet which seems to strike me in a new way each time: Sam Harris talks about the fact that it is very likely for those listening that there are at least a billion people on this planet who would consider their prayers answered if they could take our place. If we live without suffering debilitating pain, without falling under the tyranny of political oppression, and if we have even just a few friends, we are the lucky ones.

I’m working on my obsession with forward momentum. Drive is good, ambition is noble, and discipline is important, but in the brief candle of our lives it feels more than a waste not to appreciate the little things. I read 170 books in 2025—a great effort, and a huge jump from the number of books I read in the years previous—but I also think it’s too many books… for me, at least. There were points at which I was simply racing the clock, cramming in another hour wherever I could, because those moments of 'success’ in adding another finished book to the pile became more important than what had brought me to reading in the first place: learning, stories, and the pleasure of stumbling into another world. Looking back, I realise that I could have read half the number of books and probably would have enjoyed them twice as much.

When you start to play a game in which you tell yourself you are not keeping up with others (and I think most of us play it almost all the time), it gets exhausting. Amazingly, it’s a game we can all lose at once. I wonder, sometimes, if there is anyone who wakes up each morning and confidently starts their day with the certainty that they have done enough, earnt enough, and are enough. It sounds almost comical even to suggest it. I think about the billionaires of the world, with nine zeroes after the first digits of their bank accounts, who nevertheless almost universally insist on continuing to underpay their workers and drive profits even higher. Imagine: a billion dollars! What has happened to us that we could have ten million dollars to spend every year for a hundred years and still not be satisfied?

Kings and queens spend the rest of their lives guarding their crowns.

Thirty-six feels like the right time to commit to a different shape and rhythm to life: not laziness exactly, but something more present; more joyous. I want to be tuned in to the conversations I have with the people I care about. I want to read more deliberately. I want less social media, and more cartoons and comedy. I want to spend more time running, stretching and lifting weights, but looking at them through the lens of how they make my body feel, rather than ticking off another chore or pushing for a new achievement. In the classroom and at school, I want to focus less on what I’m teaching, and more on who and how, so that each lesson starts with connection before I fall into the trap of simply stuffing my students’ heads full of information.

There’s more of course: nature, video games, and making time to connect with the people I love even as life pulls us all in different directions. There’s travel, and music, and food, and not taking things too seriously. There are theatre shows, and writers festivals, and dogs and cats and good quality sleep. I am not behind. There are metrics of life where other people seem to have built something more, or different to what I have (in their careers, in their health, or in their relationships), but I’ve spent more than long enough looking at things as a race. I don’t need to hurry along well-trodden paths when there is so much beauty in wandering.

This year, as with so many years before it, I consider how lucky I am. I have family and friends who I love, and who—if my birthday messages are any indication—share that love back to me with interest. I have a great job, students who make me laugh every day, and fantastic colleagues to work with who support me tirelessly on the good days and the bad. I have time to explore my creativity and to write. I am healthy, and the fittest I have ever been. I have a roof over my head that is not just a house but a haven: a quiet shelter lined with books, in a lovely neighbourhood, where the kettle is always boiled.

What happened to me that I could look at all of this and see only the things that might be missing?

Thirty-six feels like a good time to reset and find contentment. It’s exciting. The second I stop thinking about all of the things that are over there, I start to see everything that is here. I start to feel hopeful, and calm, and lucky.

Happy, even.

It all seems so possible, doesn’t it, when you think about it like that?

Maybe that’s how you end up on the good side of thirty.

36/365 - Winter Sunset

February 5, 2026

Broke the law on my way home from the office tonight. Picked up my cell phone to take a quick shot of the sunset while driving. In my defense, I was stopped at a traffic light at the time. But in PA, it does not matter if you are stopped at a light, or stopped in traffic…first offense can result in a $50 plus court costs and fees.

…😇

Just remembered I had a dream where my credit score was like 36 💀💀💀

XOXO GG

Zubi grabbed his back several times during the match, really hope he’s not injured 😕