Any car can be a flying car at least once. (Usually just the once, though.)
Category: on stuff and sundry
This little town doesn’t want to let me go.
I aim to move from here to Montreal (or at least move my things) four days from now, at the very end of September. And yet… Uhaul is unsure whether it can rent me a one-way intercity truck. The person taking over my apartment lease broke every deadline and will technically move in before her application is fully processed. And the landlord, who outed himself as a xenophobic racist and sexist when I finally cornered him at the sketchy, unmarked office, has made every excuse in the book and blamed everyone but himself for his company’s rather impressive lack of customer service.
Splendid, eh.
I’ll get out of here one way or another, even if that means pulling a cart full of stuff all the way from here to Montreal, but damn, the escape velocity this move demands is really something.
I’ve lived in Quebec City for four years and one month: longer than I’ve lived anywhere since college. Too long…
When, somehow and at some point, I finally stash my things in a nice, heated storage unit in the big city, I will be technically homeless for quite a bit: a few days at a hostel, a couple of big, fancy parties (the kind that only Montreal can offer!), and then I’ll kick off my two-week film festival tour: a daisy-chain of three festivals in Brooklyn, Pennsylvania, and Colorado. The first will involve crashing at my sister’s basement, while the other two provide free lodging to their filmmakers, huzzah! So many new friends, new experiences, new memories to bury the old…
That fortnight-long adventure will end on October 20th, after which (barring last-moment acceptance letters from the last two festivals in November), I’ll have absolutely nothing on my agenda for about four months, which means I’ll step wayyy out of my comfort zone and give Workaway a try. It’s a fun little setup: you find a host, pay for your plane ticket and insurance, work about 20-25 hours a week, and get a free place to stay and free food, as well as tons of natural beauty (or urban hustle, if that’s more your style). I’ve just sent an introductory message to an absolutely amazing farm in Ecuador, and if they actually reply… That’ll be amazing. (Giant-sized turtles! Organic fruit! Perfect night sky!)
And if they don’t, in fact, reply – well, my carefully curated list of favourite Workaway hosts (all based in South America, because these winters are getting to me) will set me up with more adventures.
Sometime around February, I’ll fly back to hit up more film festivals. Over the past few weeks, I’ve applied to about a dozen writer-in-residence openings and grants. (That involved typing up a chapter from my creative non-fiction proposal in record time, and then submitting it literally five minutes before deadline!) Frankly, no idea if I’ll get any of them. The odds are stacked against me, but aren’t they always? Can’t win if you don’t try. I figure that my list of film festival screenings (seven so far, with more on their way!) and published story credits has me firmly in the “emerging Canadian writer” category, and that ain’t nothing.
…but if I do not, in fact, secure any of those coveted writing/filmmaking opportunities, then there’s a very very good chance that, come April, I’ll open up my storage unit, drop off my stuff, pick up a carefully pre-packed backpack (tactics, eh), and fly out to San Diego to repeat my Pacific Crest Trail adventure. Unlike the one in 2022, hopefully it’ll involve a whole lot less yelling at my accountant every few days and a bit more fun. (Might even join a tramily!) In that particular eventuality, I won’t rejoin civilization until late August-ish, or just in time for the 2026 Worldcon. We’ll see.
I’m getting over the big breakup, but – as always – in my own way. For some reason, this month had quite a few deadlines for short story anthologies… So I went ahead and wrote a short story for each of them. All 10 of them. The grand total was roughly 26,000 words. Wordcount aside, this has been the single most productive month of my life, because my brain was in desperate need of a distraction. When you feed your subconscious mind 10 different prompts and tell it to get on it, the end result can be pretty amazing. I followed Charlie Jane Anders’s advice on writing: transmute your feelings into art, let them pass through you, and create something beautiful… Or something, in any case. Realistically, I expect at least three of those stories to get accepted. Almost certainly won’t get all 10. Five or more acceptances would be amazing.
Quite a few of my stories (three? four?) are coming out between now and New Year’s: the publishing industry’s schedule works in mysterious ways. I will, of course, share the links here with all y’all.
In another world, where my luck was a bit better, I would’ve finished the Continental Divide Trail thruhike right about now, give or take. That would’ve resulted in a very very different year… For one thing, my relationship would still be intact, though every bit as doomed. My short story portfolio would’ve been much smaller. I wouldn’t have attended the 2025 Worldcon, wouldn’t have written this essay that’s gone viral, and that, in turn, wouldn’t have opened some rather interesting doors for me… On the other hand, I would’ve had a whole lot more experiences and adventures and new friendos.
On some level, I’m pretty sure that all the stories I’ve written (and sold!) over the past four months have been an attempt to overcompensate, to do something worthy and productive after my much-anticipated hiking adventure ended far too soon. My life is quite a lot different now, because of everything I’ve done since my return from the desert, and my 2026 will be quite different as a result of that.
The other me, the one who (hypothetically) finished the CDT, would be gearing up to do the Appalachian Trail, aka every introvert’s nightmare (it’s where the entire east coast comes to hang out), and would be making a fair bit less art. Maybe. Possibly. Hard to tell for sure.
These last few days of September are filled with giddy anticipation: I want to fast-forward through the remaining time, to jump straight to September 30th, to get it over with, to start my new adventure. The type of giddiness and impatience that every nomad knows…
But meanwhile, I need to get ready for a little going-away party with my local friendos – one tonight, another one tomorrow. A fun way to pass these last few evenings, before embarking on my Feral Artist Nomad adventure of uncertain duration.
And so it goes.
If my eventual cause of death isn’t “misadventure,” I will be very very surprised. For anyone in the distant future trying to make sense of my life and/or to create a facsimile virtual mind (good luck with that, bud), this here is a fine example of one of the core parts of my personality…
Quebec City’s bus drivers are on strike. Again. This time, the strike is 13 days long, timed specifically to coincide with the gigantic annual music festival, FEQ. I had been under the (very wrong, very misguided) impression that the strike had ended. That was incorrect.
When I got up, my plan for the day was fairly simple, as those things go: take a leisurely 90-minute walk (yes, 90) to the local Ikea, enjoy their 50% off Thursday dining hall, get a few tiny parts for my bookshelf (each move takes its toll, eh), then take the bus to the tourist sector, return a couple of library books, pick a new book, then rush back to the bus to take advantage of the 90-minute bus pass window, and head home. Easy-peasy, right? Wrong.
The 90-minute hike went fairly well: I got to experience a new (and not very impressive) part my city firsthand, with my own feet and nose and eyes. The Ikea visit was only partially productive, but their diner was fine as always. And then… Well, then I realized I could either walk 90 minutes back home, or 150 minutes (that’s 2.5 hours) to the tourist sector (aka Old Quebec), followed by a two-hour hike home afterwards. Reader, I chose option B.
I have two legs, high stamina, and way too much stubbornness for my own damn good. (Incidentally, this is yet another reason women usually live longer than men.) If I went home, I might as well have postponed all my library-related plans for 96 whole hours, assuming the strike ended on schedule. I support the drivers’ right to strike, but I also refuse to stay put. My 2022 PCT thru-hike is partially to blame: after you walk from Mexico to Canada, from that point on just about anything is in walking distance. It’s only a matter of logistics, really.
And, well, that’s how I got my 56,800 steps for the day, aka 28.4 kilometers or 17.6 miles. With a roughly 10lb backpack on my back. Also got a damn fine dose of vitamin D, and a bit of a sunburn on my face, but it wouldn’t be the first time. (Though, admittedly, the contrast between my arms (currently a nice shade of brown) and the rest of my body (Snow White’s long-lost brother from another mother) is mighty hilarious.
No regrets. Ever.
In creative news, my debut film (Please Don’t Send Help) has been accepted by two film festivals! One has asked me to postpone the announcement till later (secrecy makes everything more exciting), and the other one is ReadingFilmFest, an annual film festival held in the town of West Reading, PA. I’ve never been to Pennsylvania in my life, so it’ll be exciting to attend that fest in person in October. (Their generous assistance with lodging is much appreciated!) I’ll make another post soon about my rather ambitious plans to make a film festival circuit of my very own… ReadingFilmFest was definitely part of that list. One down, many more to go!
And now, time to lean back, enjoy a big cold beer, and play some Stardew Valley to unwind… Aww yeah.
“Hope… Do not look down, my friend. Even in the darkest of times, there is always hope. Hope for a better day, hope for a new dawn. Or just hope for a good breakfast. You start small, then see what you can get.”
Covetous Shen, Diablo-3
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“Subdue the regret. Dust yourself off, proceed. You’ll get it in the next life, where you don’t make mistakes. Do what you can with this one, while you’re alive.”
Disco Elysium
A strange thing happened the other day.
I was leaving a restroom at the end of a long isolated hallway in a shopping mall when I had an unusual encounter.
A quick aside: I’m tall, broad-shouldered (despite being skinny), usually have some stubble, wear a chain around my neck, a few steel rings, and dress in all black most days. I also like to walk fast. I’m no Amos Burton, but I can see how I might seem a little intimidating, which is why I generally try to paste a small smile on my face. (Which, come to think of it, is something Amos does as well. Damn.)
When I think I’m alone (for example, when I leave a restroom at the end of a long isolated hallway in a shopping mall), I have my resting Russian face on: neutral, serious, emotionless.
Now that I’ve painted you that quick mental picture… There I was, speed-walking through the long and dimly lit hallway, when someone stepped toward me from around the corner. The stranger was a short guy with a big belly, about 45. He glanced at me, and his instantaneous reaction was to flatten himself against the hallway wall – face to the wall, butt out. There was plenty of room for the both of us to pass each other without so much as a stray touch, but nope. Straight-up fear and panic.
I speed-walked past him without acknowledging him or making the already weird situation even weirder. Still, I’m curious what precisely he’d thought in that split-second before he decided to (unsuccessfully) merge with the wall, and what he thought afterwards. Did he regale his friends with tales of that terrifying encounter? Or perhaps that’s just a quirk of his, and that was an everyday experience? So many questions.
Unbiased and objective self-perception can be difficult. Objectively, I know I’m taller and hairier than most people – yet it always surprises me to realize I’m almost as tall as most doorways. I try to keep a peaceful half-smile on my face, and cross the street rather than walk behind women after dark, and generally try to be as non-threatening as possible. And then, of course, there are random encounters when I don’t have my mask on, and folks freak out. Not often, but often enough to make me wonder: what on earth do I look like to others when I’m just being myself?
I guess I’ll never really know.
Sometimes, you get a lovely combination of nice weather, terrible boredom, and zero plans whatsoever… The obvious solution is to dress up and go to my favourite restaurant in the tourist district for an amazing meal. (Because life is too short to require special occasions.) My fellow bus passengers were a bit confused, which is always a fun bonus.
Incidentally, if you’re ever in Quebec City, and wandering through the tourist district, and want to have a great meal without paying a fortune, I highly recommend checking out Au Petit Coin Breton. Their mimosa salad is gigantic, delicious, and a great deal – and the bottomless coffee is surprisingly good!
Life can be beautiful, if you will only let it.
People often say that with all the inflation, you can’t buy anything for a single dollar. Those people are wrong.
My all-time favourite podcast is “Ologies” with Alie Ward: she’s an amazing interviewer, a science enthusiast, and has a wicked sense of humour. She also has a fun incentive for her listeners to support the podcast on Patreon. For just one dollar a month, you get to ask questions for every upcoming episode. If Alie picks your question, she’ll read it out loud (along with your name), and you’ll become part of the podcast’s history.
Well… One of the many fun things about Patreon is that you get to pick your own name – or nickname. Long story short, if you listen to the most recent episode about praying mantises, at the 54:15 timestamp you’ll hear Alie say my nickname – “Grigorius of Tomsk, Devourer of Pop-Tarts, Victor of Many Battles.” To her credit, she managed to say that without laughing, and with only the slightest delay after “Pop-Tarts.”
Amazing. Absolutely amazing. That right there was the best dollar I’ve ever spent, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop laughing at that tiny soundbite. Go forth, y’all, and be the chaotic creative goblins you know you should be.
…forcing yourself to go out solo on a Friday night because your partner is with one of her other partners and it’s been at or below freezing for over six months, and you just want to see people wearing anything other than winter coats, and see some new people for once, or a few dozen new people, or a few hundred new people, and the security guy doesn’t even glance at your ID, and the perfunctory patdown misses the pocket knife and other goodies, and all the 19-year-olds inside stare at you – old enough to be their father – like you’re a “How do you do, fellow kids?”-type narc, though granted, wearing a blazer over a Fallout T-shirt probably wasn’t the best fashion choice, and they still stare, and if you wonder if you remind them of a cop, or a professor, or their parent, and you buy an overpriced beer to fit in, and bop your head up and down with the rhythm of surprisingly old-timey songs from your own college years, and suddenly, you realize you can’t recall the name of the young classmate whose death you’ve played a small role in almost a year ago, and how long has it been since you last thought of her? – and you make laps through the large basement dancefloor, part of the crowd and yet not part of it, living vicariously through the young as they hop and make faces and hold onto each other’s hair to make it through the crowd without getting lost, and Ronel, Ronel, her name was Ronel – it comes to you, suddenly, when you have all but given up, and you realize the DJ looks like a middle-aged Benjamin Franklin with laser-shooting gloves, and the bearded man standing to him is either a Babylonian or a damn fine approximation, and the musician upstairs starts singing Wonderwall, followed by Country Roads, in a Quebecois accent, and the veil between realities seems to be thinner than usual, and finally – finally – you get outside, and get some fresh air, and get home, and wonder if maybe you should go out more often.
Well, that was unexpected. I moved to Canada in March 2019, and did a fair bit of travel both before and after getting my permanent resident (PR) status in 2021. To apply for the Canadian citizenship, one needs to spend 1,095 days total (the equivalent of 3 years) in Canada over the period of 5 years, but the pre-PR days count only as half-days. And when you throw in all the travel… That’s a lot of calculations, eh.
I’d had some basic mental idea that I’d accrue enough residency days sometime around November 2023, but I never actually sat down to crunch the numbers until getting so very, very bored this evening. After digging through all my emails to find 4-year-old travel receipts, I discovered that I was eligible to apply 3 whole weeks ago! Huzzah, mis amis!
It’s really quite remarkable how fast the immigration process is here in Canada. In the US, it takes quite a bit longer to obtain both the PR status and the citizenship. The big downside here and now is that the processing time is 17 months. Yeah, no, that wasn’t a typo. 17 months, as in 1 year and 5 months, as in I’ll probably get my digital citizenship certificate in the first half of 2025. Well, I guess I definitely have something planned for that year now. (I wonder how much of this is due to the covid bottleneck?.. Did the processing time used to be shorter? Will there come a day when even a 17-month wait will seem relatively short by comparison?)
It’s been quite a journey… Only 4.5 years, but that included 2 years of Amazon stress, a goddamn worldwide pandemic, a huge stock market success, being part of the GameStop mania (293% in 2 days, awww yeah), a few relationships and a couple of deaths, moving to Quebec, and hiking from Mexico to Canada. That was a pretty eventful stretch of my life, and it hasn’t even been 5 years.
It irks me somewhat that I can’t finish my citizenship application right this minute because I have to go out and find an official photographer to take my citizenship application picture. (They reserve the right to verify the photographer’s information, which makes sense from the security standpoint.) It irks me even more that it’s 9:30pm and there are absolutely no photographers open at this time of night. It also irks, though a tiny bit less, to know that I’ll be charged an arm and a leg for a simple digital picture against some plain background. A whole lot of irking, in other words.
But meanwhile, here and now, wooooooo! Wooooooo, I say! I wooooooo in Ottawa’s general direction! To celebrate, I’m going to have an unscheduled cup of tea, followed by chugging some Grade-A Canadian maple syrup right out of the bottle. (Gotta start integrating into my new society, eh.)
Life is good.
Grigory Lukin.com 