It’s hot. It’s hot for Finland. Hell, it’s pretty hot for Australia, and Finland has 20-hour days. It’s been hotter, for longer, than just about any time in Finland’s history. Every now and then it gets cloudy, but it hasn’t really rained in weeks. It feels like a thunderstorm could break at any moment, but there’s no sign of it.
It feels like the fucking Dark One touching the world.
And we knew this was coming. Nobody gets to be surprised. We’ve been told that the heat records of the past will be broken, and broken again, for longer periods. This is all just the way it is. It could be an unseasonable hot spell. It could be an anomaly. But it doesn’t feel like it.
I’ve had my ups and downs, some periods of sinking. But this doesn’t feel like that either. I’m lucid, active. For want of a better word, happy. Writing’s going pretty slow because I’ve gone into goanna mode like I usually would in Australian summer, but I’m fine with it. I’m not letting depression make me bleak. This is just reality making me scared.
I lay awake last night until about half-past two, thinking about what we should do if the forest around us catches fire (as they have had warnings in effect for the past month). Planning on backing up my writing onto a portable hard drive so I can throw it in the back of the car along with whatever else we have that matters. Mostly though, I’d let Mrs. Hatboy and the girls decide what to take. Wallet and phone is really all we need otherwise. This is why those (*shitty racist snort*) “poor desperate refugees” have smartphones. Because of course they do. It makes sense.
I’m not sure all my writing, Phase Three and beyond, will get finished. I remain hopeful that our contempt for nature and our fortunate placing on the globe (both physical and economic) will get us through this, and I’ll just get to carry on. Right now, though, I’m just hoping to finish the last two story anthologies of Phase Two and call an end to it if I need to. I’ve got a nice set of complete stories published, and while there will always be loose ends hanging, I’m fairly satisfied that there are no incomplete half-stories out there.
Yes, I’m fixating on my writing. Like the weather, this should not come as a surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention. The question of what my family and I can do if this gets worse (it probably won’t get cataclysmically worse, at least this year) is just too big. I have to circle around it.
But that’s where I am this morning!
Hatboy's Hatstand 
Anyway, back to work next week because capitalism doesn’t just stop.
I just walked up to the shops with Toop and the forest was a tinderbox. The sound of grasshoppers in dry undergrowth was exactly like Perth in summer.
I’m considering building an ark. It’s as wet as…well, something very wet…down this end of the earth.
Got some mad flooding happening down in Germany and Belgium, but no sign of rain here yet.
And now I hear it’s the moon’s time of the month, and that’s going to last 18 fucking years, and will make the rising sea level and flooding problems even worse. Don’t know much about it yet though.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/moon-wobble-climate-change-seen-driving-coastal-flooding-2030s-2021-07-16/
Sorry, my bad: it happens every 18 years, and we’ve apparently known about it for centuries.
https://inews.co.uk/news/science/moon-wobble-nasa-wobbling-orbit-increase-flooding-1105064
Will it be worse as sea levels rise? Probably.
Dark stuff, man…I’m usually so terrified of the politics in the US right now, the rise of full-on fascists that we were ALWAYS RIGHT ABOUT but people tried to convince us we were exaggerating for 4 years, that I can’t often put mental energy into climate change. But yes, it’s very fucking scary, and I’m sorry you’re having to worry about a massive forest fire, like California I guess. That’s awful and I don’t know how to even begin to plan for stuff like that.
Over here in the US as you may know, we had the heat dome in NW US, apparently deadly “wet bulb” conditions, those fires, and freakish rain here on the east coast. We just had a bunch of downed trees and no power all yesterday, great fucking weekend lol, and I guess that’s better than fire or heat domes but I just don’t know. It’s so crazy, I don’t know what to think.
And even more, what to DO. As we’ve discussed before, I reject the individual responsibility focus on climate change (and on many things)…one person is completely unable to make a difference in either direction. We do our part of course, but I will NOT take the blame nor will I make any more sacrifices that are huge to us but tiny against the problem.
Others who have been stupid on this for decades are either going to have to accept it or suffer the consequences with everyone else. Nothing I can do about that, or will do. I will share my voice, and keep doing what I can, and that’s it.
I think we’re in a great spot for this, now…aside from the zombie hordes of course. We’re pretty far from major water, good drainage and elevation, lots of trees but not close enough for a fire risk if we ever do shift to drought….
So I try to live my life and not think about it too much. Your not finishing your books is more on my mind than this.