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Were you ever into journaling? I feel like I missed out on a whole part of life because I never officially got into journaling. Like, okay, I guess you could call this technically a form of journaling But I'm talking FULL ON every-night-before-you-go-to-bed, writing-down-all-of-your-thoughts-and-feelings-so-you-could-look-back-10-years-from-now-and-know-what-was-going-on kind of journaling Like, I don't know... that was just never me. Like why would I want to remember what I'm doing right now? What am I even doing right now? Playing The Sims and drinking too much coffee, probably! Same thing I was doing in the fourth grade and same thing I'll be doing while reading those journals ten years from now. Except by then I'll be playing The Sims 8 which will only be playable in real time and I'll never make it past my 30s in-game because by then I'll be dead in real life. Not from like old age or whatever, but just because I'll forget to feed myself and die of malnutrition. Do you guys also remember the, like, eternal debate over whether to call it a journal or a diary in elementary school? I always called it a diary. But then... we see how that turned out. Anyway, now I call it a journal and I feel like it's truly me embracing the masculine side of my personality. ALSO! IMPORTANT QUESTION. DID YOU EVER HAVE A LIVEJOURNAL?????? oh my GOD!!!!!! The memories. Now granted those memories are cut short for me because I only used my livejournal for about 4 posts before abandoning it, much like a real journal but I remember the sheer drama of everybody's lives just being up and open for the world to read about. Which is weird to think about because now that's, like, how we all live our lives. Which I'm totally cool with because I've always kind of lived in that space. But it's kind of like if you were going to an underwear party and then your entire high school graduating class decided to come with. Like, don't get me wrong, I appreciate that you've all joined me here and it's very flattering that you all, like, "get it" now... but we don't all need to exist like this. I promise we don't all need to be okay with everyone knowing every single detail of their lives. Just me. Okay?
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We don't talk enough about how anxiety like, speeds up time to an insane degree Like I woke up like 10 minutes ago, but it's actually been 2 hours. Does that make sense? Wait, fuck, I just checked the time and it's been 2 and a half hours. See, this is why I wake up like 4 hours early for work. I could honestly just blink and be late. It wouldn't even be my fault. Also not to like side with baby boomer comics, but it absolutely has something to do with technology because the other day I went out for a walk without my phone or my watch, and it felt like I was out there for days like I walked so much that I was essentially living in the woods at that point (in... the middle of NYC) and then when I finally got too hungry to go on and walked home, I looked at the clock and I was only gone for 45 minutes. Like, what the hell is that? It felt like DAYS. Anyway I just went for another life-affirming walk because I really want to quit my job but can't like pin down how to do it exactly and so I was keeping my eye out for any help wanted signs in like non-retail establishments. Like, "Help Wanted: Need one inexperienced, unqualified Life Coach" or something like that, I guess anyway I was fully in the middle of a quarter-life-crisis/about-to-cry-while-walking-the-streets-of-NYC-meltdown while half-looking for help wanted signs and half-on-Grindr-looking-for-tops and then this happened! 
And I gotta say, I've never been more disappointed by a typo correction in my life. For a brief moment I really was like, "HOW DID THIS HOT MAN KNOW I WAS JOB HUNTING? THANK YOU GOD!" It was really a big let down. Which isn't his fault, because he had no idea what was happening. But still. Anyways, the point is the walk wasn't the same when I had my phone on me because I just spent the entire time on a constant cycle checking every dating app that has ever been invented. Also towards the end of my walk I started thinking about that video of the woman banging on the bus door singing opera at the bus driver and so then I just ended up watching that on my walk home instead. And I also thought about just, like, quitting and living off of what I have saved up which I could totally do, by the way. I'd just have to stop getting as much delivery and also go through and cancel all of my subscriptions that I pay for but don't use at all which would be like its own cool little scavenger hunt, 'cause I totally don't remember what I'm even signed up for. Like sometimes I just go to a website and all the features will already be unlocked for me. It's like I subscribe while blacked out or something. Anyways, I'd start by canceling the HBO addition for Hulu, then move onto Playstation Live, then Pornhub. Which, I know what you're thinking. "Wow, he pays for porn. And here I thought he wasn't responsible." Honestly, I never thought I would do it, but it's kind of like when you're young and you limewire a bunch of music because you don't have any money but then when you're in your 20s and have disposable income (and by disposable inc. I mean a $20 bill you found in your pants pocket when you washed your jeans from that one time you took money out to go to a bar that you thought was cash only but it totally wasn't) THEN with that disposable income you decide that you totally DO want to support your favorite artists and buy that new Amanda Palmer album when it comes out. It's like that, except instead of Amanda Palmer albums I'm paying for Mickey Knox videos. Do you ever think about the fact that some people's sleep schedules are so normal that they don't even need alarm clocks? That is so fucked up. They just get to wake up gently and normally while here I am waking up to Pinball going off at 8am, 8:05, 8:07, 8:10, 8:11, 8:11 again because I accidentally made a second alarm and never deleted the first one, 8:13, etc, etc. Also? Same outrage but directed at people with full nighttime routines. Imagine having a ROUTINE to go to sleep, rather than just passing out watching youtube videos with all of the lights on and then waking up to find out that you accidentally launched your laptop across the room mid-sleep? Can't relate. I read some nighttime routine where someone said they clean for an hour every night before they go to bed. EVERY. NIGHT. I have so many questions. Because I've thought about doing that but I ran into too many problems. Like, A) How are you planning that? How do you know when you're gonna fall asleep in an hour? B) Aren't you TIRED during that? I can't clean when I'm tired. I can barely do it when I'm fully awake. and C) when do you schedule time to scroll through Grindr with zero intention of following through on anything you say at that time not because you don't want to do it, but just because it's 2am and who in their right mind is actually going out to hook up at 2am on a Monday night? I just don't get it. Also, now that I'm typing it out, I realize part of my problem might be that I'm consistently up until 2am on a Monday night. Which might be totally cool for you if you're a night person but I'm not. I'm a morning person 100%. I'm just way more productive in the morning than I am at night. And I also found out that, in order to not be stressed at work, I need at least two hours of free time before I go in. So that means waking up four hours before work every morning. Two hours to wake up, drink coffee, and do whatever I need to do in the morning, then one hour to get ready (even though it only takes me 15 minutes) then one hour to get to work (even though it only takes me 20 minutes.) Which sounds like an alarmingly responsible schedule for me and a very structured use of my time, except that all of that extra time gets soaked up in me watching vine compilations and every video Megan Stalter has ever made in her entire life. And though I wouldn't personally describe that as irresponsible? People have different opinions, and that's fine. My entire life has been consumed with two games over the past few weeks. Children of Morta and, oddly enough, Minecraft. But we're gonna talk about the former right now. I remember going to my Uncle's house when I was 8 and getting to experience Diablo II for the first time. It was surreal. I'd played an alarming amount of Diablo I at that time, of course mainly utilizing the Sorcerer because I'm unable to not use magic in any game that offers me the option. To those of you that choose warriors and rogues in cooperative games? I salute you. Truly. You allow me to be the mess that I am in those games, and I thank you. I don't know how you get pleasure out of that kind of vanilla experience, but I appreciate you. Playing Diablo II immediately felt like the exact game I had always wanted. The expansive-yet-not-overwhelming skill tree, the loot that felt both plentiful and meaningful, the dark atmosphere and, of course, one of my first video game crushes, Charsi. Not only did it feel like the game I wanted in that moment, it continued to feel like that. I played Diablo II for the next... 15 or so years? On and off, but still moreso than any other game (topped now only by Rimworld) and without ever boring me. Children of Morta feels very different, but the feeling it gives me is incredibly similar. I knew the game was special when I watched its trailer what feels like 40 years ago. And I bookmarked it, put it on my watchlist, and kept checking up on it until it finally came out. And here we are! You start the game out with John, and I have to say as much as I hate warrior builds, I don't actually hate being him at all.  Look at my beautiful flower-power shield boy and the giant pretty leaf rock next to him. Perfect selfie spot.
I mostly don't hate being him due to the thorns ability he has, which, I'd say driving people away with an off-putting aura is a mood, but it's more like a lifestyle. Besides, I'm a sucker for any kind of thorns ability in a game (I once accidentally glitched out a level 1 paladin in Diablo II and had an infinite thorns ability that would kill everything that came within a few feet of me, much like Timmy Turner's mom. Very few people know she was the inspiration for the paladins in Diablo II. But now you're one of those few. You're welcome!) A lot of what I do with him involves holding my shield up and waiting for everything to die, and honestly? I'm at peace with that. The lore in the game is also really doing it for me right now. The broken up bits of story that you get after dying in a cave almost makes me want to lose which is fantastic because that, surprisingly enough, is usually my least favorite part of a video game. Weird, I know. I just wrote a second blog post in one day (today for me, yesterday for you) and immediately published it after re-reading it and deciding that it was hilarious. And then my blog ate the blog post. Just straight up didn't post it and deleted all traces of it. Which is absolutely a lesson in self-control for me.
UPDATE: I did some googling and it turns out it didn't get eaten. The problem was that it posted from the past, so it posted on January 25th 2017 by accident. Instead of today. When I wrote it. Typical blogger problems. Still, I'm going to be more careful in the future now that I know that my blog is a temporal wormhole that can suck words and thoughts from the now into the then. For instance if I were to accidentally speak into the wormhole that is my blog that they should never do a Black Mirror episode about fucking inside a video game, I might end up changing the course of our future irrevocably. Today was a solid day. Lunch with Yeliz (whom I have now fully reconnected since publishing "Before Color") and then dinner with Luis. All of the while under the threat of having a deadline at midnight tonight for my next texties short story, which I then found out I had the wrong deadline for this entire goddamn time and is actually due in 4 days. Which is both terrible and great. Terrible because I caused myself hours of unnecessary anxiety today, but great because I forced myself to write thousands upon thousands of words today and can now finish the story extremely early rather than just in time. I should mix up my deadlines more often. I also just came out of the bathroom and while I was in there I encountered a mosquito so big that it may have actually been a small hummingbird. Regardless, my bathroom is now quarantined and no one is allowed in it ever again unless they're willing to donate their blood to the demon that guards my toothbrush now. The size of the mosquito also vaguely reminded me of some distant memory I have of a movie/tv show where someone goes back in time and kills a mosquito, and it completely changes the course of history as we know it. I don't know what it's from, which leads me to believe that it's from the Simpsons. Because while I fully know that I watched about 6 seasons of that show, the only episode I vividly remember is the one where Homer accidentally joins a company that is an evil spy organization with GREAT benefits. Honestly, the work/life balance would've made me stay. Also, because I posted my last post a day in the future, I now cannot get this post to appear BEFORE that one. And so I have no choice but to also post this one in the future as well. Which means that even without killing the giant Simpsons mosquito in my bathroom, I've completely fucked up this timeline beyond repair. And I must now always exist a day before all of you. Which is fine, because it means I have the power to warn you about bad memes before they drop. Speaking of? You don't want to encounter Soap Cat. Trust me. I literally opened my drafts folder and this was just sitting in there. No text. No context.No explanation. Just this title. I wish I could explain this to you, but I can't. My mind... is just too powerful.
Today I'm wearing pants in bed because I thought if I wore pants it would help me sit down and concentrate, but I didn't want to sit at my desk because then I'd get distracted by my Switch. And technically it is working. It could have something to do with how deeply uncomfortable I am because the pants are far tighter than any pair of pants have the right to be. And not in good places either. Not in butt places. It's tight, like, right in the leg elbow. So that it feels like someone is always stretching rubber bands on the backs of your knees just 24/7. It's incredibly ouch, but also, like, super good at getting me to abide by my own schedule. The one thing that really hurts for me, personally, is that I'm not the kind of person that can just listen to music or ambient sounds in order to help myself write. Because then I'd be unstoppable. I could make any writing schedule for myself and stick to it if that were the case. But no. I'm terrible at mentally multi-tasking, so as soon as I start listening to anything the entire rest of my bodily functions just shut down. I can't even watch a good TV show while eating for that same reason. I'm either eating, or I'm watching. Not both. Never both. I know what you're thinking. "HA! Does that mean you can't chew gum and walk at the same time?" And the answer is I haven't tried, because I would never put anyone through the trauma of listening to me chew gum in public. When I have gum in my mouth I'm a monster. One time I accidentally chewed a piece of Orbit in front of my co-worker while I was on break and he asked me if everything was okay, because the sheer SPEED and FEROCITY with which I was attacking the gum in my mouth was scaring him. There's no end to this post because there was never any beginning. That's art. So I'm going to go order delivery and play 13 hours of Rimworld. Pantsless, thank you very much. Because I'll be off the clock. Today I woke up in a chilly Hell's Kitchen apartment, drank hazelnut coffee while wrapped in a faux-fur blanket, then wrote the skeleton of a personal essay that I've been meaning to write for years. I woke up too late to see the orange of the sunrise. When I looked out the window the blur of pink and purple in the sky had been gone for hours. The apartment is mine. The window is mine. The coffee is mine. The writing is mine. The life is mine.
Except it doesn't feel like it. It all feels false. And I don't know if that's normal, and I don't know if not knowing if it feels normal is normal. Is a feeling like you stepped into the wrong version of yourself cliche? And if that's the case, should I corner myself into feeling content? Should I chastise myself for not being thankful for something I fought for that I no longer want? Today I sat inside all day and tried to write four different blog posts. I started them. I stopped them. I wrote in different colors. I wrote in pink hoping that I would fall in love with my words. I wrote in orange hoping that I would learn to be funny in the brightness. That I would feel happy. I didn't. I felt frustrated and I felt, as I always have, that orange is not meant for people like me. I'm meant to live in green and blue. And sometimes I'll lie beside someone so convincingly pink. A rich purple, even a daring red. But when they look at me they won't see my bright blues. They won't see the streams of green, finding life in every corner of the room. They'll look at me and they'll see a color I've never been. A color I'll never get to be. And I'll turn away from them, crying into their pillow without letting them know. They'll think I'm orange until they don't think about me at all. While sending around samples of my first collection of personal essays, and working on my second, I realized that I don't have a definitive master post of all the episodes from "Before Color." So that's this now. This is that. Enjoy! (* - denotes my personal favorites.) |
