Pneity

Rare 5am mobile post to start the year off. I visited friends near the city for a New Year's party. I left the house late and it snowed all day. Car wasn't fully charged and it's cold out so that was the first mission. Stop at the nearest charging station, a full featured local gas station restaurant hybrid. Plugged in, grabbed some chicken strips and onion chips. Settled in while the car got to 85% or so. Old charging tech is stressful and slow.

Still snowing, the roads were pretty terrible. They only got worse as I got closer. Once I hit the city limits, Jesus Christ, nightmares. My city is mountainous. Appalachians, lots of steep rolling hills. Once described as a town settled by mountain goats.

My friends' place is at the top of one. My GPS showed one concerning road. Mountain Ave. If it was untreated for this snow, I was in for it.

I was indeed in for it. What would be about 1/3 up the hill, my car ran out of momentum and slid backwards. I went in reverse, three point turned back down. Got back on the main road where a bit further in, I knew there was a gas station I could recover my nerves and have a piss.

Fresh back to the still warm car, I messaged my friend to say I may not be able to scale the hill and may miss out. But asked that he not count me out.

Gathered some nerve and started looking for alternatives. There was another road going up that way, but it was a road I'd been familiar with years before. I approached it, realized what hill it was, turned around. At this point, I knew I could only give the first hill another try. Roads were only getting worse. Way worse. I pulled into an ice cream shop which was closed for the season to pass some time. Empty parking lots are fine in a snow storm.

Apparently not. A firetruck pulled into the lot behind me and stopped. A fireman got out and approached my window. He asked, "did you call 911?". I asked him, "sorry, what?" because I was genuinely in awe of what he asked me and I assumed he may have been asking if I needed help, asking if I have called 911 yet.

"No, sir," was all I could reply. He grunted approvingly and said they got a call about a car accident in that area but couldn't find any accidents. He got back in the truck and they drove off.

I waited another few minutes, sent a picture and a message about the situation to my Discord friends. A friend direct messaged me assuming I wasn't stuck an hour from home saying if I didn't live so far, he'd come and get me. Their roads were all treated by then. But alas, I was actually stuck in a manner of speaking. Never let it be said I'm a coward.

I drove out of the parking lot, down the road to Mountain Ave. Traction control on my little EV started freaking out around the same spot but I saved some momentum. When I lost that momentum, I kept the petal down. Turns out I was flooring it. But with traction control, that meant the wheels would spin for a second then stop. But that carried me to the top. It was glacial and took some knowledge of snow driving but I got to the top. Not that the roads are the top were any better. And it wasn't the last hill, just the last bad hill.

But I made it, parked, and enjoyed a hell of a party. Scored the highest DDR score and sang a ton of karaoke. Got into debates about relationship dynamics and things that go along with that. Drank a few cassis orange. Talked with new friends well into the morning before announcing my departure to the remaining awake and getting back to my street parked car.

It had snowed another few inches and dropped in temperature a lot. But the snow finished. I even broke my window scraper trying to clear the ice from my windshield. Used car heater to get the rest off. Inched out of the parking spot and white-knuckled my way up the road, up the hill past their house. The direction I hadn't come from previously.

I stayed straight since the side roads were coated in thick snow. The GPS didn't like that. But eventually, I realized I was going down that hill I didn't try to go up earlier in the night! Going down was relatively smooth. A few hairy spots but regenerative breaking mode is nice for going slow down hills. Made it to the main road and knew there would be some scary patches and hills but I had confidence now.

That drive was incredibly slow and so cold. But it was an adventure!

My dad got too drunk twice last week, came into the house, and immediately fell down. The second time, he spent two hours swearing at mom. A third time a few days ago, he didn't fall down but did turn into a child and decided, as he usually does when drinking, that mom was making fun of him for the simple crime of not wanting him to lay his head back and burn his hair on the Christmas bulbs in the window sill. We asked that he lay down if he needs and that was enough that he got pissy with both mom and me. Then he, like a child, went nonverbal with me when I asked him what that was about.

I spent a few days unwrapping that exchange, thinking of ways it could have gone better and thinking of what I can improve next time. I couldn't find an answer to any of those questions that didn't actually put me on the bad side of the interaction and that was sitting weird with the "how does this change my relationship with my Dad going forward?" It doesn't. He was drunk. When he's sober, he's kind and thoughtful.

Today, New Year's Eve, they were out driving and making plans for the day. We always make a pork roast with kielbasa, roasted in our homemade sauerkraut. We put this year's batch of sauerkraut in the crock at the beginning of October. He was arguing while away that he got it all out and jarred it up. Something he absolutely didn't do. We still have most of last year's batch in the fridge. Mom is worried because that's a huge slip. When they got home, he saw the full crock of cabbage waiting in the basement, proving his memory wrong.

Among the family concerns, I face down 2026 now. Every year for the last decade or so, my resolution has been "to not be a shit bitch." I rarely succeed in such things, but I feel like 2025, I really took in all the literal nightmares around me and became poisoned by it. I am currently in a very dark, horrible place. All attempts to become a better person have stalled out or failed. I am less connected with my loved ones and much more entrenched in my own mire. I'm gross.

Worse at work, worse at family, worse at hobbies, and even worse at learning new things. In fact, I'm kind of thinking I have become unable to learn new things. Music, programming, products at work. Nothing sticks, nothing feels right. I don't know what is happening or where this ends. I want to do better but I don't know how.

Maybe someday in the far flung future, I can get my shit together. Have a conversation about all this and unwrap it with a professional. For now, I remain somehow dorceless.

Happy New Year, everyone. May we not rot in 2026.

So two days ago or so, basementhenge started again. The time of the year where for a week or two the sun shines directly into my basement window onto where I sit every day. Wild because that means the sun has to have a very low angle in the setting "horizon". I live in a hollow so the sun goes down over the hillside is about two hours before proper night falls. But during basementhenge, it's just before (and I assume after, memory is a bitch) winter solstice so that mofo is loooooooow.

Anyway, I'm sitting here at 3:30 PM and the sun is just blasting through the curtains. It'll be dark in an hour. Winter sucks. I have my foot heater and blanket.