As you folks know, I’ve started doing a bit of bicycle transportation. Because like… exercise is good or something? And it’s like… genuinely as efficient or faster for most of the places I’m going. Actually so incredible. A great decision. I really need to get a basket or panniers or something. But alas.

Anyways, cast yourselves back to… a week prior to today. I am, of course, in my cooking era. And I decide to make pizza for the polycule (basically every night for the past two weeks that I’ve eaten dinner at home either myself or my partner has cooked for the polycule. It’s been epic). I, of course, need to get yeast and cheese and tomatoes and toppings for the ol’ pizza. So I decide to bike to the store.

Now you’ve got to understand. It’s morning, but like… not that morning. As in morning defined as just starting to be a productive member of society. So like… 2pm. I’d showered and everything, but this was the only time I was going to leave the house, so I was just like… this is a quick trip to the store — 2 minute ride — I’ll just rock sweatpants and a t-shirt. No bra, since it would be quick.

(Thank god that wasn’t the day I ran into Drédyn Fontana at the grocery store LMAO. That would have been crazy.)

Anyways, I go on my little bike ride. I’m having a great time. The sun is shining. The boirds are choirping. Hard to be upset. I cross the first intersection. Everything is fine. A car slows down so I can pass it. We’re chilling.

As I approach the roundabout (that is the second intersection of three on my way to the grocery store), I do a standard check to ensure that there isn’t a car actively entering the roundabout. Yahoo, there isn’t. (I should note, this is about all I can do because of the visibility at the corner.)

Once I enter the roundabout, I glance to my right and I see a big ol’ car barrelling down on me. Clearly, they had decided to just zoom and hadn’t yielded in any way shape or form. I was fucked. They were going to hit me. Like… actually trust me that by the time I could have seen them, and my position and with their speed there wasn’t really a chance for me.

So it’s like… what do you do when you’re going to get hit? I felt I had two options. I could slow down/stop or I could try to beat them. Perhaps I could have run myself aground on the centre island? But it didn’t occur to me then. Anyways, I chose to try to beat them. I figured if I might actually be able to avoid it by going fast enough, or at least position myself in a better spot. And so I zoomed as much as I could zoom in a second or two.

It worked flawlessly. I got hit — but only at my back wheel. I stayed up, and was able to pull over on the sidewalk opposite me. I feel very vindicated in my decision to zoom. Because if I stopped, I wouldn’t have stopped before the collision. So I just would have slowed down and got the front of my bike hit, probably going over the handlebars, then onto the car, then in front of the car (rough) or I would have been hit at centre mass, leg crunch, bike owie, knocked onto the ground, hopefully she stops before she runs me over (more rough). This car was also one of the tanks with the massive fuck off front part that makes it very easy to knock someone over and under. Not a cute little sedan.

On the side of the road, I checked myself. I wasn’t injured — I didn’t think I had been hit. I checked my bike — she had definitively been hit, but everything seemed to be mostly in order, with exception of my fender being a little bent. It is at this point, that I am struggling to smile. Genuinely and honestly, my thoughts are “oh my god. this is so great. this is so much fun!!!! I can’t believe I got hit by a car — what an adventure!!!”

I look up, and I see the car: she says “I’m sorry” as she rolls through the roundabout and starts to head off. I glance over at the street, and I see some debris. I run over and grab it. It’s the bottom of the license plate holder (WE BROKE IT OFF LETS GO TAKE THAT). My adrenaline filled brain is like “this nice lady is driving away without a piece of her car! I should go return it.” So I start to run after her with this piece of plastic.

Someone from behind me shouts “hey, were you just hit by a car?” And I’m like… “I guess I was? But I’m fine.” She drives away. I can’t give her the plastic.

The two people approaching me were like “we heard that shit from like a block away! Don’t worry, I filmed her driving away — I think we should be able to get her license plate.” Which was incredibly sweet. In my head I was like “this seems like way to much work for my being uninjured and with a barely damaged bike, but I really appreciate it so I guess I’ll take her license plate number.”

But as we’re scrubbing through the video, SHE CIRCLES BACK. And she offers to give me her number. And I — and I cannot emphasize this enough — very unenthusiastically take it. El oh el. Like I knew I was fine and getting my bike repaired probably wouldn’t cost much so like… but I knew it was the thing to do. I also got to say “here is a piece of your car.” Which was epic. She was honestly very nice and apologetic and did offer to pay for anything I needed with my bike.

My fender was bent and rubbing against my wheel, so I locked my bike to a street sign and I walked one more block to the grocery store. And got pizza stuff (I really struggled to find the crushed tomatoes lmao). Then I walked back to my bike and walked home with it. I put my groceries and my helmet into our apartment then I went out to walk my bike to the bike shop (once again, like 3 blocks away.)

I walk in and with a likely unnerving excitement said “I got hit by a car, not but 45 minutes ago. I am okay, my bike seems mostly okay — just the fender is a little bent.” So the very nice people start fixing my bike’s fender (and apparently a couple of the spokes too).

And the person — who was very nice and sold me my bike and has helped me multiple times already — was like “does this make you consider wearing a helmet next time.” And I was… I wouldn’t say indignant, but certainly defensive. Because I had worn a helmet. I just took it off because I was walking my bike (honestly I was carrying it a little since I didn’t want the friction to wear the tire).

Anyways, they didn’t charge me at all for the two minute repair which was very nice. And it was nice to talk to them after being hit with a car.

That’s basically it. I’m very cautious about roundabouts now. Walking and riding. That one specifically. But it’s not like a major fear? Literally as soon as I walked my bike home and got my helmet, I made myself ride out to where I got hit, just so I didn’t psyche myself out about it.

Also telling people you got hit with a car goes so hard — especially when you don’t have to follow it up by “and the hospital put two of my limbs in casts and now I have 27 pins in my body and I’m 10k poorer because of the US’s fucked up medical system”

Other News

So remember that investing meeting…

Yeah it went wayyyyyy differently than I thought.

So I was going to VanCity because I’m a filthy leftie. I’m going to be very vulnerable about my ignorance with finance. I totally thought I was going to sit down across from a VanCity advisor and they were going to ask me about whether I wanted to invest in the Vancouver Nonmarket Housing Fund or the Vancity Environmental Startup Fund. (These aren’t real things, I just assumed it was)

That was uhhhh…. not what I got. I go in there and the Most Finance Guy possible confronts me. This guy made every VP Finance look like a card carrying, money hating communist. After I told him that I don’t want to think about investing in my daily life and I just want to have it happen in the background, guy was like “well I’ve got this app that I use. You could probably use it too. It allows you to invest in cryptocurrencies.” And I was like “well, truly all I want is some Not Morally Disastrous index fund or some shit where I can put money and have it become more money.” And guy was like “you know, a lot of young people start out investing on their own — like if you like Tesla, you can put like $40,000 into Tesla stock — and then if that doesn’t work out for them they settle down into something like that.” And I was like “I don’t want investing to be a hobby, I just want it to happen.”

And then guy talked me through some options using numbers and concepts that were an order of magnitude off from how much money I have. (Guy said “a hundred thousand dollars” so many times 😭. Which is obviously an amount of money I have. From… all my Ubyssey checks that aren’t just free snacks. Or me and my boyfriend’s middling success of a Draw Steel adventure.)

Also when he was pitching things like tax free savings accounts and stuff, guy was like “by the way, you can’t invest in cryptocurrencies here.” And I was like TRULY I DONT CARE GUY. I ACTUALLY PREFER IT THAT WAY.

Sigh. And then we looked at specific funds which was honestly the best part because he noticed my visceral reaction when he pulled up one with Nvidia as 10% of it (and other AI companies for the next 10) and showed me a different fund. That was cool I guess.

But then he didn’t help me set up any accounts. And also ended off by making me look at his investing app where he was once again like “are you like 100% sure that you don’t want to invest in cryptocurrencies.”

And then I talked to one of my coop coworkers whose gay fiance is some sort of financy investment person and she said basically what I already knew which is to just throw it in an index fund.

Honestly such an L Vancity experience. Like probably some of it was my unfounded expectations going in. But also like… CRYPTOCURRENCY????? Like I know that computationally we’re way more worried about AI training siphoning away our precious water and electricity but like…. crypto farms do that to??? Not very environmentally based.

Next thing I know, Vancity is going to offer to refinance The Nest as an NFT.

I MEANT TO PUT THIS IN THE LAST ISSUE

But my character playlist for Zelikaz my dead troubadour is all musical theatre songs. Which was honestly kind of tough for me. But I did it and I am happy with it. So I shall share it!

Fun fact, the first song added to the playlist was the BDSM/SA porn song — on recommendation from my boyfriend.

I am hopelessly illiterate when it comes to music. But I have resolved that each of my Draw Steel characters in a long term campaign will get a playlist in some general stylings of them. (I don’t want to say genre because truly I wouldn’t get a 50 on a true/false genre quiz.)

My space-fantasy character Kayzyxx the Unkneeling is much more like… idk grungy emo punk type music? I think? I dunno. Perhaps I shall share that if my boyfriend ever gets back to running that game.

Cooking Era

Yeah so anyways I’m firmly in my cooking era

I don’t remember what all I made since last time, but I think it’s the following:

• Some cauliflower Mac and cheese from a vegetarian cook book. Pretty good. I enjoyed it and it was pretty easy to do, all things considered. Made me want a bigger oven

• Car crash pizza. The pizza isn’t car crashed themed. Only named as such because I got hit by a car in the process of purchasing ingredients (see above). Honestly so so good. We don’t have a pizza stone or steel or anything, so I basically use the broiler to cook the bottom of the pizza then flip it, put on the sauce and cheese and toppings, then let the broiler melt the cheese and stuff. It’s really really good :). I killed the yeast the first time I made it, but I made it again today and the yeast worked so hard. Bestie fully oozed out of the container I put her in and wedged herself between the shelf and the top of our fridge (it was an ordeal to free her)

• Zucchini pasta. Honestly it was just angel hair pasta and zucchini and a little bit of parmesan. But it was good! Also a recipe from the vegetarian cookbook. It was kinda a messed up recipe though. Like… a pound of pasta needs more than a single zucchini. Especially if you’re saying it serves FOUR. And also more than two tablespoons of parmesan. Those are rookie numbers. Next time I make her I’ll do probably 1-2 zucchini.

• ORANGE CHICKEN BUT TOFU. This is like actually probably my favourite thing I’ve ever made. It tasted sooooooo gooooood. And honestly wasn’t that bad to make. Like… oh my god. I haven’t actually eaten orange chicken in a while, but this felt like exactly it. The orange sauce just really like… oh my god. Incredible. Also using the oven to crisp up the tofu worked really well — I think we’ve been putting our tofu on too low a rack so far. I’m gonna make this so so much. It’s sooooooo gooooooooodddddddddd. I need her in my life so badly. I’m actually obsessed if you can’t tell. And I know some people question the tofu part of this but… idk I thought it was good. I guess you’d have to come over for dinner to try it 🤷 

• Vanilla pudding???? From scratch??? This was actually so easy it’s crazy. I impulsively decided to make it this morning 30 minutes before our Draw Steel session. (I had already said I’d make pizza for people after it.) It was literally so easy. Just 3 Tbsp sugar, 1-1.5Tbsp corn starch, some salt, and 1 cup of milk per serving. And then a splash of vanilla extract. IT WAS REALLY GOOD. I wasn’t convinced but after like 4 hours in the fridge she was perfectly good. And I burned a little bit on the bottom of the pot so it smelled like marshmallow while I was doing dishes. It was epic.

I’m so glad all the Ubyssey people glazed me so hard at Pender. I don’t think this whole era would have happened without that. And making food for people is making me so happy. I just want people over at our place eating our food every night. Like I’m not literally inviting anyone to come over any evening to our home for dinner but like………. if you’re reaching out by 3pm……………..

Pender food is going to go so hard next year, you don’t even know. Consider

• Veggie Lasagna

• Pizza with homemade dough and sauce

• Tofu tacos (THEYRE GOOD ELENA, TRUST. OR COME OVER FOR DINNER AND SEE FOR YOURSELF)

• Orange chicken/tofu (probably wouldn’t actually do this since I feel like people would be more opposed to this tofu more broadly. Maybe as a lunch? For me and a couple other people?)

• Chickpea curry (I’m realizing we’re at more dinners than there are at Pender lmao)

• Pancakes (maybe I’ll bring blueberries and chocolate chips for some fun and funky inserts)

• [Remember to come up with another breakfast Quyen]

• pudding of varying flavours

• iced chai

Plus Stephen said he’d make starters. It’s gonna be so epic. I really hope nothing goes terribly wrong and this will actually come to pass.

MIGHTY NEIN CONTINUES TO BE VERY GOOD

Not to tip my hand too much, BUT WIZARDS ARE SO HOT. I love a little wizard spies special opps mission. More so when it’s BISEXUAL POLYAMOROUS WIZARDS. It goes so hard y’all. Every piece of media should have bisexual polyamorous wizards.

LOOK AT THEM. I’m so normal about everyone in the Mighty Nein. (btw there is gore in this clip)

From the Archive

Not really an archive, but a subtweet of my favourite spreadsheet of the past two weeks.

That’s All!

I know this was all a very rambly newsletter. But this is okay. I do not make promises of quality writing here. (Quality writing is over at The Ubyssey — hopefully Soon TM.)

Hope people’s finals season goes well!

See y’all in a fortnight (Dec 21) at 10:03 pm! Or around there. I’ll be in a different timezone by then :p.

Until then, buzz on, my busy bees!

“My Christian faith has always put me at odds with partying” since 2025