Houses Part 2: Everybody Say "Bye House"

I've thought about this moment for a while. It's been on my mind for the past few days, if not weeks. And now that it's here... I don't really know what exactly to do with it. Somehow the screen seems too bright, and that makes everything else around it seem too dark.

The overhead light is on in the room. The LED lights that I installed in December of 2020 underneath the bookshelf that overhangs my bed are not. They would cast a glare on the screen, and that's not something I'm particularly interested in dealing with.

The slats underneath the bed are all in place, for once. As a matter of fact, I just got up and fixed them before opening up my computer. And, for what is probably the final time, I am seated in a position I used to take nearly every night: with my back on my army pillow resting up against the wall, my bed acting as a makeshift couch for one.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm not sure how to go about doing this. I have so much that I want to say, and not nearly enough time to say it. That just seems to be the name of the game these days though.

THERE'S NOT ENOUGH TiiIIIIiiiME!

There's always time for a song!

And I suppose that's true. So here we are for the song. The swan song of this home, if you will.

You see, we're losing this house. I guess I always knew at the back of my mind it would probably happen eventually. Life moves on, and people move along with it. I always feared that as people made their way out of this house, we would someday be unable to find replacements for the ones leaving, and it would become unsustainable for the rest of us to carry on. One of the saddest things is that that's not even what happened.

I wasn't the first to go, but I was the one who set the chain of events in motion. I won't go into the gory details here, but the house is about to be put on the market, and much sooner than any of us expected. I wouldn't even be up here if it weren't for the fact that I needed to make something of a mad dash to get the remainder of my personal belongings out of the house before a junk guy comes in and clears everything out. Ironically, much of the stuff still left in the house was only here because it made more sense to keep it here; stuff that we wouldn't need to pack if we traveled here (like toiletries and gym clothes) or things that we could really only make the best use of while here (like rollerblades, the accompanying blading speakers, or sleds for when it snows). Some of it was sentimental things that made more sense to keep in the family home (like photo albums, home movies on VHS, or our dad's old dresser, in which he had packed a bunch of stuff that was sentimental to him, including HIS dad's things). Many of the items I had left here were things I had just never been able to fit during any of the prior trips when I was hauling stuff down to our new house piecemeal over time.

But it all has to go. Anything of value to any of us has to be taken by the end of the month. It's not fair, but that's how it is, and so I am here to do it. And I told myself that while I was here, I would sit down and write one last blog from my bed. It's funny, because it's not like I was a prolific blogger in this house. I did FAR more writing in the pages of notebooks in this room than I ever did on this keyboard. I journaled a TON in this room, and I guess that's something I'll always have. I'm glad I did that, and I hope to someday have the time to transcribe all those journals into a digital format, so that maybe someday my kids (if I get to have any of my own) will be more easily able to pore through my rambling thoughts if they so choose. But look at me go. Rambling even now and getting lost in my own side-thought. My point is, I probably wrote considerably more blog posts at the last house we rented than in this house that we bought. I guess I could check. Gimme a second and I will.

Okay yeah. Upon completion, this will be only the tenth post I ever wrote in this house. I did one for every year between 2016 and 2023, with the exception of 2019, when for some reason I was struck with an inordinate amount of inspiration and wrote THREE whole blogs. Compare that to the 14 I wrote in JUST the first year we lived in the prior house. While we were there, between 2012 and 2015, I crafted 36 posts. That's more than triple my output during this current era, and during the first stretch (between 2009 and 2011) I managed exactly 30 posts. So that puts our current lifetime total at 76. I wonder what the 100th blog will be. Considering that for the better part of the last decade, I've only gotten around to one a year, there's every chance I'll be over 50 years old by the time that happens, especially if I keep digressing like this.

I guess I just couldn't walk away from all this without expressing how I feel. And I know that once I get home, I'll feel considerably better. Once this whole trip and its associated ordeals have been overcome, and I can finally get into a reliable routine at my new residence, I will feel less the way I do now. But for now, I am sad. I am sad to be losing this place that was intended to stay in the family indefinitely. I'm sad for the people who did not have the luxury of moving away voluntarily and who are now being hastily displaced. I'm sad for all the memories that now have to live only in our hearts and minds. I'm sad I won't get to come back here from a stroll after tomorrow. I'm sad that tomorrow will be the last time I ever drive to this house and go inside.

I'm sad that things have to change.

I guess that's really the heart of the matter. What I want to say is "well things didn't HAVE to change, but they're changing anyway, and that makes me angry." And while it is true that this particular sequence of events did not play out the way it has out of necessity, it is likewise an immutable truth of the universe that things must change. Many (perhaps most) of those changes are even good. And I'm sure we will look back on this time and marvel at how well things turned out in spite (or even because) of how things unfolded in these moments. Unfortunately, none of that makes the pill any easier to swallow right now. 

Three years ago right now, I was sitting down to play Doom Eternal for the first time. I just felt like I should note that. Like I said, I could spend hours detailing anecdotes that just pop into my head about what life was like in this house. Little things that only I remember, or only I even experienced, like my porridge and movie nights. Bigger things that other people were part of, like the time the power went out and we all walked around the neighborhood with flashlights because, during the height of Covid lockdowns, that was just about all you could reasonably do. Cleaning the house in preparation for moving in. Fires in the 10 minute hack job fire pit. Drive in Movie Yard.

Bringing my girlfriend into the house for her first visit. Proposing to her in the living room just before Thanksgiving. Having her invaluable help packing up my entire life over the span of a month and then moving out with her. Watching Bachelor in Paradise on our mini-Honeymoon after coming BACK up here for our wedding.

Halloween parties. New Years Parties. Christmas gift exchanges and birthdays. Board games, Jackbox sessions, and COUNTLESS games of Magic in both the kitchen and the living room.

And it's all ending. The place we all gathered, even our new little family with my wife and our kids, is going away. Well, IT'S not going anywhere. But we won't be able to come back to it.

I try to close these things off with some kind of lesson. I try to look at the bright side and come to a conclusion about why it's not so bad. And sure, the people I love will still be here when all is said and done. They just won't be HERE, and it won't be nearly as easy to get everyone together ever again. So I think, for now, I'm just gonna let myself feel the loss. And when I get home after this, I will try to let myself recover and rest in the knowledge that life goes on, and the Lord provides (and won't he do it). I will try to remember that, as much as I feel for everyone who is being forced out now, I can't do much about it from where I am other than offer moral support and remind myself that they are resourceful and strong and they will make it too, just like I have. I guess maybe that's the lesson here. We will overcome this. All it takes is to just keep going, just as it always does.

This didn't shape up like I thought it would, but when do these posts ever? On the bright side... I did it. I got one last post in before everyone vacates this house forever. And I didn't even put it off until the last night I was here. THAT will be tomorrow night. Plus, if somehow I don't manage to crank out a New Years post this year... well there's already one in the books for 2023. And that's not too bad.

But I will miss this place. After all... it's the only house on the street with a white picket fence.

It's All Bullet Train, Baby

GOSH DARNIT BAYMAX. I had the PERFECT opportunity to sit in serene solitude working on my annual post, and you RUINED it by barking like an idiot. And now that I know there are other conscious beings present (other than the kids giggling and shouting in the other room, that is), it makes it that much harder to concentrate.

Concentration has never been my forte, of course. When it comes to these kinds of things, as I have oft repeated, ideas float to me, delivered by the fingertips of angels, as I take a shower or spray **** out of my ***.  But once I've left the confines of the tub or abdicated the porcelain throne, they dissipate, stolen away by the grubby little claws of imps. It seems that only under perfect conditions can I actually construct the post I had originally envisioned, and those conditions strike maybe once every 5 or 6 years. Heck, probably less frequently than that in the last decade or so.

Anyway. I set my laptop aside a few hours ago (according to the timestamp over there I last edited it at 3:08 PM and it is now 7:06 PM, so that is almost exactly 4 hours), and the opportunity to get rap-tap-tapping on the keys in near-solitude (albeit with the kids still hollering from the other room, of course) has presented itself once again. My laptop is now fully charged, so I have pulled it from its tether, and thank goodness I was able to do that, because thanks to a coughing fit, I have relocated to the upstairs bathroom so as not to wake my darling wife Ashley. Every adult on this property is sick, and about half of us have been since Christmas Day, the other half since about two days later. The children are fine, because their hyperactive little bodies have all already conquered this particular strain prior to passing it on to us JUST in time for the Holidays.

But I have returned to the domain where I typically do my best work. The door is open (in case anyone else actually needs to use the bathroom) and the lid to the commode is shut, but seated upon the toilet I am. So let us begin the task at hand: my now annual blog post to reflect on the past year and what it has brought about.

Perhaps, if you are among the infinitesimally small number of loyal readers, you have come here specifically for this. I would imagine that anyone who still remembers this blog even exists might have picked up by now on the fact that I never let a year go by without posting, and for the last few years, that post has come on New Years Eve. In that sense, I'm breaking the trend by getting it in a day early, but I've learned to modify many of my habits, as you do when you are in charge of young lives. And that's one development of this year, of course, but let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

Actually hang on, I have to go tell the young lives to stop making such a racket lest they wake up their mother.

Well they woke her up anyway, so it was all in vain. My hope was to get this finished before she woke up so I could post it all sneaky-style and she would perhaps see it at some point in the future if she checked, but oh well. 

I guess that falls in line with the theme of the year, doesn't it? You can't control everything, and hardly anything ever goes exactly how you plan it. I mean look at this: nearly this entire Christmas break (which is one of the final weeks of my extended retirement), we've all been sick and able to accomplish virtually none of the merry-making I had envisioned.  And that's okay. Because while things may not go how you would like for them to go, they go how they NEED to go.

I once tweeted that everything happens for a reason, but it's almost impossible to tell whether you're in the "everything" or the "reason" at any given time. And while I still think that's true, I think it's also a little more philosophically involved than that. We were having a discussion last night (Meg, Ashley, and I) wherein I made this very point, that life doesn't have precise arcs like stories do. It doesn't just have a concluding act followed by credits and The End. There are ebbing and flowing "everythings" and "reasons" all the time, and I believe that right now I am in the "reason" for the "everything" that happened since about 2012.

This has been one of the most challenging years of my life, but also one of the best. In 2022, I visited Texas, got Covid, came home after 6 weeks (was supposed to be 5; never made a trip and DIDN'T extend the stay, bay-BEE), returned to the workforce for 2 months and change, uprooted and moved my entire existence some 700 miles south, made many trips back and forth between Home and New Home, got married, and pulled off the kids' first Santa Christmas all whilst finagling travel between two states. Brief aside - Santa denial is child abuse. Quote me on that. If you tell your kids Santa isn't real, you are a miserable cunt, and no I'm not censoring that one because you absolutely need to hear it if you are one of those people. It is pure, unadulterated magic for children to walk into a room and see it filled with presents delivered to them PERSONALLY by a fat jolly man in a red suit, and you want to TAKE THAT AWAY FROM THEM?! What kind of monster would think that's okay? Santa won't come to the houses that don't believe, and the saddest thing to me is that there are so many children in this generation he's just not visiting, and those kids are none the wiser. Instead of experiencing the wonder and joy of free stuff from Santa, they're getting... presents from mom and dad. Just like on their birthday. There's no mystery, no intrigue, nothing particularly special about it. It's ridiculous and my heart breaks for those kids. You're a scumbag if you subject them to that.

I could go on and on forever about Santa, because I know he's real, but I guess I can't make parenting decisions for any of the myriad unqualified boneheads out there. I swear, they let just anybody have kids these days. But I digress. The real point here is one that I gleaned from a book (I'll get to that in a second) nearly two years ago, but which was reinforced and really brought to life by arguably the best movie of the year: Bullet Train. I'd also listen to arguments for Top Gun: Maverick, since that movie was AWESOME, but I think ultimately I'd have to give it to Bullet Train, since... well, it's got everything. Great action, bountiful laughs, an excellent story with slick, airtight writing, philosophical merit to ponder upon conclusion, a boppin soundtrack, and even a few moments of Genuine Feels. In my estimation, it's a more adult version of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (my favorite movie of all time, particularly because it's like the 21st Century Great Gastby, in that it has meant different things to me at different points in my life) because there's so much going on and a lot you can kick around afterwards. I

I'd compare it to No Country For Old Men (remember the book I mentioned last paragraph?) in its theming, except much more accessible and decidedly more optimistic. On the accessibility: I watched No Country For Old Men... what, about 4 years ago now? I wanna say it was early 2019. And I did not get it at all. I had no clue what I was supposed to glean from it, but everyone raved about how good it was (I mean it won Best Picture for cryin out loud), so I figured I HAD to be missing something. So I took it upon myself to read the book it was based on, thinking it might help me solve the riddle. And it did. The moral of the story is: crap happens, and since there is nothing you can do to stop it, you have to just deal with it the best way you can. The line from that book that really stuck with me was "you never know what worse luck your bad luck saved you from." A similar interpolation of that line is repeated at the beginning of Bullet Train, and that's pretty much what the entire movie is about. What you perceive as bad luck may be (and probably is) putting you on a more beneficial path.

How that applies in any precise moment is pretty tough to interpret, but what I'm saying here is that once you get where you're going, it'll look back and make sense. Just stay the course and keep moving forward. Let life take you where it does. Just like a bullet train.

For now, people are gathering in the living room and the festivities (as it were) are starting to slowly but surely churn towards being in gear. Which means I won't get to wrap this up as tidily as I would have liked. But that's kind of what the end of 2022 is looking like in a nutshell itself. So perhaps this is all a lesson in managing expectations and not clinging to them so tightly. On the bright side, since I had to put my laptop away before finishing the paragraph I was working on two prior, I WILL be achieving my standard publishing date of December 31st. Unless Blogger went back to their original method of listing the post as published on the date the draft was started. I guess we'll see. But do know that, as I type this, it's 4:14 PM on December 31st, 2022.

Remember: just because it SEEMS bad right now doesn't mean it's going to STAY bad or end badly. It's all Bullet Train, baby.

Thanks for tuning in for another year. Your loyal readership means more than you probably know. And if you're just discovering this now, don't worry. My next post won't come later than a year from now. And if I ever get any divine inspiration in the midst of considerable free time, I may even squeeze more in between then and now. Here's to hoping while realistically managing expectations.

199/264 U Spotlight: Act III -OR- Who Would Believe It?

And so we find ourselves, loyal readers (lol), once again at the end of another year, and that means one thing: it's time to post! Gotta squeak one in at the buzzer each year so we can technically say I've maintained this blog """"regularly""" for over a decade now (since February 15th, 2009, as a matter of fact). One post each year counts, and it's now become something of a tradition to post only on New Years Eve. This year I told myself I was gonna get my annual recap of the existential-crisis-that-was out of the way early, because I knew I'd likely be too busy to sit here and thoughtfully review the last year on the afternoon before it ends. Turns out I was actually too busy to do it even BEFORE today. But the Lord provides (and won't He do it! ☝), and here we are, afforded an opportunity to do just that, even if I am on something of a clock. So let's get down to it, shall we?

What a year.  I'm not gonna mince words here: I have found the love of my life. And don't get it twisted: this isn't some kind of "I'm seeing someone, and things are looking good" sentiment. It's not "I like her a lot, she could be the one." No, I am truly, madly, deeply, savage gardenly in love with this girl. She IS The One. She is my soulmate. I am indeed going to spend the rest of my life with her. We're engaged. We have a wedding date. There is a long story; it all happened somewhat quickly, and yet it took quite a bit of time to percolate. If you're somehow still following this blog and don't have access to the finer details, send me a text and I'll loop you in. I can think of exactly one person to whom this scenario MIGHT apply.

So yeah. I'm donezo; spoken for; taken; off the market. Forever. Kinda renders the whole blog moot, right? I mean virtually everything I have written here has been an expression of frustration over just how hard it is to cultivate or maintain a relationship with one girl or another. I've referenced a number of them specifically (without naming any names, I believe, aside from one instance where a friend of mine eventually became my girlfriend). I've pined and plotted and lamented my terrible fortune when things didn't go the way I'd hoped. And I was often hopeful for things that thankfully never happened. But it all happened for a reason. All of it, every experience I ever had with a girl, everything I ever poured into this blog, was leading up to this. This one manifestation of love that is the closest approximation to perfection this side of heaven.

I have never been happier.

And one of the the best things about all this is that I don't have to look back on the lessons I've learned from past relationships and say "well I was wrong about that." I am encouraged by the fact that my precise approach to life and its hardships is what got me to where I am today. Sure, my expectations were off in certain areas, but ultimately my outlook was correct, and the biggest takeaway from my last heartbreak is no less applicable now that I have found true love. And that lesson is to just keep going. No matter what life throws at you, keep going. As long as you're still going, the story isn't over.

Oh AND. I have to wrap this up pretty soon, because I do have things to take care of before our New Years party tonight, BUT! Let me just leave you with another postscript, and please, PLEASE take this to heart: The One exists. I know it because I have found her. Soulmates are real. If you're with someone and you don't think they're you're soulmate... they're not. If you don't believe in The One, it's because you haven't found him or her yet. Hold out for that person. It will be worth it, I promise.

A Tale of Two Cities is Boring

The thing you have to keep in mind is that I haven't actually finished the book. I've got... let me check real quick... about 80 pages left to go. In a 350 page book. Which I've been struggling with since August 7th. I've been inching my way toward the finish line for almost 5 months now, despite having a bunch of other books I'd rather read. The problem is, I can't bring myself to quit, but I also just don't ever WANT to read it. It's like a chore that I've been putting off, and the way I make sure that I will eventually finish it is by keeping myself from starting any other books.

This has almost no bearing on the discussion at hand, mind you. I mean, maybe it does; maybe there's some kind of symbolism you could derive or some pattern of behavior here you could analyze to get a better grasp on why my life has taken the trajectory that it has, and how I could correct that to work towards a better future, but that's purely incidental, and not what we're here for at the moment. The reason I even brought it up is because my initial and sweeping assessment of 2020 is summed up perfectly by the opening line of the book: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." I bet no one else has ever made THAT connection before.

But 2020 truly was one of the best years of my adult life while simultaneously being a trash year. And I'm not talking about that namby-pamby "a global crisis has me in fear for the future of humanity and please oh please just let the government take all your civil liberties so we can get this over with" attitude (although, to be fair, the trumped up coronavirus narrative, the accompanying paradigm shift of all the idiots who buy it, and the subsequent restructuring of our entire culture DID exacerbate a number of the brooding existential issues I typically deal with). It's just that... there was one thing I wanted this year, and it didn't even come close to happening.

I can't remember how much detail I went into during last year's New Years Eve post, and to be honest, I don't really want to check right at the moment. It might be fun to do so after this, but if I know myself, I probably made enough references that are veiled in a fashion thin enough for people who really know me to know what it was that I wanted. But that possibility (translation: absolute Magical Christmas Land pipe dream) was trounced long before coronavirus was on anyone's mind. And since then, I haven't really had anything in particular to hope for.

I guess that's not entirely true. In the middle of March, I got the daft idea to slide into the DMs of a girl I haven't seen since middle school. As you may be able to guess, that didn't go particularly well. To her credit, she was nice enough and very polite about it, and if you had no awareness of social cues, you might even think she was interested. But she gave me that "yes" that means "I'm saying yes now but it's actually a no, I just want you to leave me alone and hopefully we can all just forget about this pretty quickly," which is precisely what happened. I gave her the out by way of saying "well let me know when you're free," she said "definitely," and then I never heard from her again. And that was that. Please do not ever let me attempt a stunt like this again. I have now tried it twice in my life, and it was thoroughly humiliating both times.

I say this to note that, at that point, I was hopeful that perhaps I would be able to make some kind of long-missed connection, but since then, I haven't really hoped for much, at least not in the broad, life-altering sense. 2020 is the year that I gave up on having something to hope for.

And herein lies perhaps the biggest lesson I've learned this year: having nothing to hope for does not necessitate hopelessness. I am not devoid of hope. I do not feel as though the future is unflinchingly bleak. There may be good times ahead; there may not be. One thing I am fairly certain of (especially given the socio-political trends of the times) is that things are going to get worse, probably much worse, and probably relatively quickly. And I don't have anything in particular to look forward to. But that doesn't mean I have to resign myself to being hopeless. The struggle is indeed real, but hope is the attribute that allows you to carry on in spite of the struggle. Strangely enough, this is illustrated perfectly by Doom Eternal.

There's subtext in the game and in the lore at large that I'm not sure is even intended, but that's what makes good art good art: you can find meaning that even the creator didn't mean to place there (and I do believe that Doom, in its current form, is art). To summarize (and, uh, spoilers if you somehow fall into the almost impossible category of simultaneously A) reading this blog, B) haven't played Doom Eternal, and C) want to play Doom Eternal in the future), toward the end of the game, you learn that demons are actually just human souls that have been ripped from their bodies through a lengthy process of torture that completely extinguishes hope. In order to become a demon, a person must succumb to complete, all-consuming despair. And as we've learned, the Doom Slayer, in his many years traipsing across hell on his crusade to end their reign of terror, is incorruptible. And though he's on what is referred to as "the path of perpetual torment," which he willingly chose, he was never influenced by hell or the dark forces therein. Bear in mind that this is AFTER the demons took from him the one thing he loved and that he had to live for; he's a man with nothing to lose, which is part of what makes him so formidable. Despite all of this, he never lost that basic sense of hope. You'd have to maintain that in order to just keep going on a quest like that.

Of course, the irony of the opening passage of Doom 2016 (which is echoed in the sequel) is that it is directly contrasted with the closing line of Eternal: "Rip and tear, until it is done" becomes "your fight is eternal." It will never be done. The fight will never end. But you have to press on anyway, and you need some degree of hope in order to do that. You don't have to have anything in particular to hope FOR, you just need to keep pushing without giving in to despair. The fight IS what makes it worthwhile, because it's the right thing to do. I think Doom, at its core (and whether the creators meant for it to be this way or not) is about the resilience of the human spirit. Never stop moving and never stop fighting was the lesson of Doom 2016, and I think the lesson of Doom Eternal is that you just need hope in order to keep going; hope not that things WILL get better, but that they can, and even if they don't, it won't stop you.

Anyway. These are ideas that have been rattling around in my head for months now, and it's harder than you think to effectively and linearly verbalize a concept like this. Hopefully it makes sense to you. At this point, I've been sitting here for almost an hour trying to figure out how to communicate all this stuff, and I fear I must hasten away to my duties. There's a party to prepare for, as usual. And here we are on the 10th anniversary of the greatest party ever thrown. I'm pretty sure I referenced that party last year, so I don't really need to go into great detail. And if it were any other year, I'd probably say something like "hopefully 2021 will be the new 2011," since 2011 was, without a doubt, the single best year of my life. But I know that won't be the case. That year was lightning in a bottle; I peaked then, and I'll never see times like those again. I can't hope for the kind of string of serendipitous occurrences that happened that year, but what I can do is is just keep going, knowing that as long as I can keep going, that is enough.

Another Decade Down

Imagine my surprise when I opened up this page to squeeze in one last post for the year and saw that, not only had I already posted, but I had previously posted TWICE in this very year. Here I was, thinking I was getting my annual entry in at the buzzer. I had even planned to say "For over a decade now, I have been posting consistently* on this blog," and then follow that up by denoting that the asterisk indicates that I have posted at least once every year since February of 2009.

But they say that life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.

The other day I had envisioned myself sitting down with a decade's worth of inspiration piled up behind me, to impart a handful of lessons I've learned since the start of 2010. The problem is (as I've no doubt bemoaned on countless other occasions on this very site) that inspiration strikes at the absolute worst times. I was practically writing the post in my head the other day... while I was in the shower, getting ready to embark upon one of my myriad menial quests that I've had to undertake this week. Naturally, I couldn't just sit down and pound it out right then and there, and now that I've finally got a small respite in the midst of all the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, most of what I wanted to say has seemingly vanished. 

Not conceptually, of course, just... the way I wanted to say it. When it comes right down to it, the gist of the message is very straightforward. I just have to be careful how I go about it, simply because I don't want to overshare. I guess it would be safe enough to say that the lessons I've learned in the 2010s have to do with loss and regret; blown opportunities and irredeemable mistakes. And death. But that's its own compartment, and really was only going to be a small percentage of the applicable lessons I take with me out of the past decade.

Nine years ago tonight, we had a party to close out the first year of the decade, and as far as I'm concerned, that was the greatest party ever thrown. I remain unconvinced that it could even possibly be topped. And yet, we continue to have annual parties in the same fashion. Because that's just what you do. You keep going, even when you know the best has come and gone. And I think that's a fine mirror for where I am in life. I'm nearly positive that I the best years of my life are over, but... life goes on. You can't just stop. So tonight, we close out the last year of the decade with what is almost certain to be an inferior party.

But what if, right? What if it IS somehow better? And what if the aftermath trumps the nearly transcendent glory of the year following that party?

This blog has, at its core, always been, in some form, about girls and my absolute failure to maintain a meaningful relationship with one. When it started, it was because, to that point, I was frustrated about how I had never HAD a meaningful relationship. I've had a couple since then, and I'm... not really any better off for it, or at least I'm no further toward accomplishing the few goals I had for my life.

But that's it, right? There's the rub. I could have been. I SHOULD have been. But, as I said... blown opportunities and irredeemable mistakes.

Maybe.

There is a part of me (and I can't even say it's a small part) that very strongly believes in the redemption arc, and that it's not only possible for me, it's inevitable. And that part of me has predicted 2020 will be the year. I say this now, as I've said it since about May of this past year, partially in jest, (because I know you can't just claim that kind of thing out of the blue) and so that, if it doesn't come to be, I can look back at myself and at how pathetic I was for even thinking it possible, and have a good chuckle at my naivete. But I also say it because I think it's something worth believing in, and there are enough decent reasons for me to continue believing.

I say all this because this, like any story worth telling, is about a girl. That girl. If you're reading this, there is a very high chance you know exactly who she is. Even if you don't, I think there's a reasonably high chance I go into great detail on it in the near-ish future, because, if we're being intellectually honest, I don't know how much time I've got left. I have a feeling (as I always have) that I'm not gonna be around for a whole heck of a lot longer, in which case this is all moot anyway  (and really, I sort of believe that's part of why everything has happened the way it has, and perhaps I'll get to that too). So if that's true, I want people to have some way know the story, even if it is somewhat hidden.

But that'll have to wait. For now I have a New Years party to prep for. Maybe in a year, I'll return and reflect on how wrong I was about never being able to top the party of 2010.

In the meantime I'll have to remind myself to sit down and walk through the lessons learned from the 2010s, sometime when I've got a few hours to spare to just sit and ruminate, and when there are no other distractions, and when I'm feeling suitably inspired.

In other words, probably never.

But hey, I do know one thing: even if things don't go the way I hope in 2020, it's gonna be a good year... because we finally get Doom Eternal.

Stack of Shame -or- Do I Buy the $60 DVD Set?

Who would have thought that, not even 11 hours after I wrapped up my last post, I'd once again be sitting here on the toilet cranking out another one?

I just have things I wanna say, and I'm not sure I have another great place to say them. Twitter has been my go-to mental dumping ground for years now, and maybe that's why I haven't blogged as much. But Twitter doesn't lend itself well to waxing philosophical like I tend to do. I mean it can (particularly now that there's a 280 character limit per tweet, and you can publish an entire thread at once), but when you tweet in high volumes at a time, no one cares. Twitter is a nice microcosm of people's attention spans in that sense. You overwhelm them with too much at a time and they just tune it out. Or maybe it's just that no one's interested in my tweets in the first place. Could be that too. But even then, I'd probably argue that that stems from how I tweet. I use it as a bag for thought-vomit.

This is better, right? I can at least collect all my scattered thoughts in one place, so that you don't have to keep clicking "show replies" to get the full story. And sure, no one responds to what I have to say here, but it's not like I have a superb success rate on getting reactions to my tweets either.

I've also found that, despite the prevailing school of thought on brevity in radio, I do my job like I tweet. I say what I want to say, how I want to say it, and if it takes longer than other people are comfortable with, so be it. I toss everyone else's notions on how radio should be done out the window. And I think I'm in a place where I'm more or less entitled to that. My methods have proven successful enough that there's not exactly a great reason to change them, and at this point in my career, I've realized it's more important to me to be enjoying myself while I work than it is to be concerned with whether or not my style is making everyone happy. That's not to say there's nothing I can improve on, of course. You can always improve, and you should always strive to do so. I want to be the best that I can be... but in a manner that suits me personally, not at the whims and demands of others nor in pursuit of jacking their swag, so to speak. Drawing influence or inspiration from others is one thing; straight up copying (or even poorly imitating) is another.

Well that took a turn. But honestly, I kind of like this new stream of consciousness flow I've got going on here. Anyway, I explicitly sat down here to say two things:

1. I finally got caught up on New Girl, at least to where I was when I last watched,which was the end of season 4. At the time, season 5 was not yet on Netflix, but now the show has completed its run, so I can pick up where I left off without missing any of the emotional resonance of the details of the established plotline. This is something I can (and probably will) tweet, because it doesn't go much deeper than that, other than the fact that I really, really hope Nick and Jess end up together. If they don't, I feel like this whole exercise will have been a waste. In a weird way, it's like they're so perfect for each other that they both think they're not, and legitimately agree on it. That's some next-level synergy. I will say, the season 4 finale is possibly the best episode of the show to-date. I really hope they keep that energy going with the way they weave the implications of all the relationship dynamics together. I also don't want it to jump the shark in the sense that they overcomplicate those dynamics for the sake of forced drama. So far the show has been really good about making that all flow naturally, and since there are only three seasons left (and I hear the last season is only 8 episodes), I have faith that it'll stay a natural course.

2. I really want to play Doom 2. This in itself isn't a problem, and it stems from the impact Doom as a series has had on my life and my outlook thereupon (but more on that later. As in another post. Probably). The problem is that I haven't even finished Doom 64 yet. And there's a good reason for that. Doom 64 is HARD. Not necessarily in a mechanical sense either, but in a mental sense. It requires a certain level of commitment each time you sit down and play it, because if you don't complete a full level and get the password for the next one, you've made zero progress. You can't save mid-level, so if you die, it's back to the start. Basically it's Nintendo Hard, which is fitting for the only Doom game made exclusively for a Nintendo system. So I can't just say "I feel like playing a little Doom 64 right now." I have to block out enough time (usually at least an hour) to complete at LEAST one level. And on top of that, every time you turn the system off and back on again, you have to remap the controls and redo the display settings. There is no way whatsoever to get the game to save your settings, not even with a controller pak (which I don't have anyway). This combination of factors has made Doom 64 something of a chore, and that aspect increases the further into the game I get and the more difficult it naturally gets.

But that's not even my overarching point here. My point is that I have an entire STACK of games that I've acquired just in the last YEAR alone (not even counting purchases I've made and never touched throughout the years on Steam). There's Until Dawn, Resident Evil 7, Mortal Kombat X, and even Prey I only put about 2 hours into before I went and started working my way through the OG Doom games. And now I want to go dive back into Doom 2. What is wrong with me? Why am I like this? And I suppose the bigger question is... does it even matter? Why would I put aside something that I acively want to do right now just because there are OTHER things that I have not yet done? Does that make any sense? Why would I deny myself the experience I'm seeking? If the choice were a matter of objective right and wrong, that's one thing. But playing one video game as opposed to another? What does it matter?

I suppose the question at the root of it is "am I being a good steward of my resources?" Am I wasting money on games just to HAVE them, while they sit there in a pile as I keep replaying old favorites? And I honestly think the answer is NO. Because I DO have them in the event that I ever want to play them. I can pick them up at a moment's notice. I had enough desire to play them to buy them initially, so I do believe there will come a time when I will want to delve into them in earnest. And even if that time never comes... it's like insurance. You buy it not because it's practical, but just in case. And I'm a firm believer in that police of preparedness.

In a similar vein, I've recently been afflicted by a strange urge to watch Happy Days. I don't know why, exactly; perhaps because it reminds me of my dad, perhaps because I associate the period of my life when the show was constantly on Nick at Nite with when we got our first computer... and it came with a media demo CD that had Weezer's Buddy Holly music video on it, which is built around Happy Days. And that CD showcased the power of Windows 95, which became known as the optimal way to play... you guessed it... Doom. The problem is, the show isn't available to stream anywhere. I could buy the complete series at Walmart, but it's $60. And is that REALLY worth it to watch a show when I'm probably gonna lose interest after a few episodes?

Well if my philosophy about doing whatever the heck you want (barring moral impediments) is correct... then I suppose... yes, it is worth it.

Hmm. Maybe I'll go get it after the gym today. Speaking of which I should really wrap this up and get ready to go.

Anyway, maybe this kind of spontaneous oratory venture is a demonstration of how you affect change. By simply putting it into practice. I suppose I should sit down and just toss my thoughts out more from now on.

10 Years Gone

Ten years ago today, I started this blog. At the time, I fully intended to keep up with it indefinitely, but I never could have imagined where I'd be ten years from then. Ten years seems like an unfathomable distance in the future even now. I have a hard time picturing myself at 42 years old, because I've always kinda figured I'd be dead by 40. I've never been terribly sure that I even want to live longer than that, other than when I was in a relationship with the girl that I was sure I was gonna marry. But more on that some other time.

For now, I just want to celebrate the fact that I have (more or less) kept up with this blog for ten whole years. Not a year has gone by when I haven't posted at least once. Granted, for the past two years, those posts have come at the 11th hour on New Years Eve. And on New Years Eve in 2017, I'm pretty sure my post was only one sentence. Yep, just checked. It was. But to be fair, that was the end of one of the worst years of my life, and I didn't have much that I wanted to say. The point is, I persisted. I kept it going even when I wasn't necessarily feeling it. And I'm sort of proud of myself for that fact.

This post and the previous one have both been more off-the-cuff and less formally planned out than my traditional posts. Back when I first started this blog, I used to come up with an idea and flesh it out, and I'd really have to have somewhere I was going with what I wanted to say before I would even sit down and start writing. There had to be some kind of ultimate point I was trying to make, lesson I wanted to teach, or piece of wisdom for me to impart for me to even get going on it. But the thing about that approach is that it's prohibitive to actually getting anything done. Because not only would I have to have a fully formed idea for the theme and path of a post, I'd have to have ample free time and be in the right mood to sit down and start working on it. And I operated under that frame of mind even into 2016, which was the last time I really sat down and crafted a post with an overarching theme. These days, I'm so busy that I almost never have both the time and motivation to start writing. Sure, I'll come up with an idea and be able to kind of map it out in my head, say, when I'm at work... but if I can't sit down and focus, I can't write. And I definitely can't do that at work. So here we are. Even without a direction to really take this, I have the time, and at least enough motivation to start pounding on the keyboard. And I think in the future when I look back at this I'll be glad I did it. I'm a very nostalgic, sentimental person, and commemorating significant moments from the past is just what I do.

In that sense, remember when I used to start almost every single post with something along the lines of "I doubt anyone even reads this thing anymore?" There's no point to THAT nowadays. I am certain no one reads it, if only because of how infrequently it's updated. I also don't post on Facebook when I update anymore, because I'm not sure that I want everyone I know reading this blog. I stand by everything I've said in it (I think; I guess I'd have to go back and read every post again to make sure, but I'm fairly certain that I do) and I don't feel like having to explain pieces of my worldview to people I work with, for instance. So it's best to just have this little corner of the internet to myself. The people who would want to read this most likely know how to find it, and if they ever forgot, they could just ask me themselves, since we do keep in touch.

And I guess that's one of the nice things about being here ten years down the road. I still talk to just about everyone I was friends with back at Liberty on at least a semi-regular basis. I knew when I met my core group of friends there that they would be friends for life, and they have been, and that bond is something for which I am very fortunate and grateful.

So much has happened in these ten years. And yet... I remember sitting at the table in E21 20...3? Shoot I don't even remember the number of the quad I lived in. I'm fairly certain I was in room B though, that much I do remember. My point is, I remember the day I started this blog. I remember the months that followed, playing Starcraft and Age of Empires and Magic. I remember the hope that I had that the girl I had liked all year might go out with me, and the crushing defeat I felt when, after I talked her into going on a sympathy date, she politely declined a second. I remember the uncertainty of my return to grad school the following year in the early parts of that summer, and the absolute despair I felt when it was finally decided I would not be returning. That was the closest I've ever been to calling myself "depressed."

I remember having it out with my parents that fall over the fact that I still hadn't gotten a job, and coming up with a plan to get myself out there in the market following one last visit to Liberty to say goodbye. I remember reconnecting with Chris's friend Anthony not long after, thinking he and his friends were insufferable dorks, and wanting nothing more than for Chris to stop hanging out with them so we could play Magic into the wee hours of the morning like we had spent all summer doing. I remember when Chris got them into Magic, and then they became good friends of mine. I remember the hours spent in Nick's basement in the summer of 2010, bleeding into the fall, meeting new people, having a new legitimate love interest for the first time in years, and joining our group with Chris's friends from RPI.

Perhaps most vividly I remember 2011. That's a year that deserves its own post, if not a series of posts. I moved out of my parents' house, got a girlfriend, and got my dream job. That was the best year of my life.

I remember 2012. Moving back to Colonie, breaking up with my girlfriend (but in name only, and still acting towards each other like we always had when we were together), and heading back down to Lynchburg for Dave's wedding. I remember how excited I was to see the girl I had liked during my final year at Liberty and catch up with her. I remember how wary my ex had been about me going down there, but how supportive she had been of me and my freedom to talk to any of the girls I had known from those days. And I remember the realization, like a bolt of lightning to my skull, that the girl I had pined over for so long in college and beyond was no good for me. I remember being so glad that I still had my ex at home, and I remember resolving to patch things up with her and make it work.

I remember that, when I got home... she was gone. In a literal sense, she was staying with her parents for a week while her sister visited, but more significantly, she had gotten over me while I was away for that weekend. She met another guy. She later told me that she was just using him to get herself away from me and that she knew he was never marriage material... but it worked. I never got her back. To this day, that is my greatest regret. I wish I had treated her better.

I remember how painful and drawn-out the reality of that breakup was, once we were TRULY broken up and she was official with her new guy. I remember the hostility between us when she moved out, and how it didn't bother me too much because I had already been talking to a new girl at work. I remember how, after a few dates with that girl, I realized just how much I truly missed my ex, and how desperately I tried to get her back just weeks later.

I remember meeting another girl at the company Christmas party that year, and thinking that that was why things didn't work out with my ex. Because I was supposed to meet THIS girl. I remember going on a date with her, and then a second, and then declaring to my roommates that I was going to marry her. I thought she was perfect, and to this day, she's the most attractive girl I've ever dated.

I didn't marry her. She flaked on me one too many times, and after she bailed on Leland Melvin Day, I proposed one last do-over with her from the beginning, and she declined. After that, I wrote her off. I spent months wishing I could get my ex back. I remember meeting yet ANOTHER girl in the fall and going on a few dates with her before realizing that I STILL missed my ex too much to commit to anything with anyone else.

I remember taking 2014 off from making any kind of moves on any girls whatsoever... other than to try and reconnect with my ex. But those were all failed attempts. I remember my dad's cancer diagnosis that summer. I remember that phone call vividly... and I remember believing he would beat it. I remember that Christmas, when his doctor pulled some strings to get him discharged from the hospital on Christmas Eve, and going with Chris to pick him up. I remember the nurse coming to our house and showing him and my mom how to drain the fluid from his abdomen at home. I remember how terrifying it was when he started puking blood on Christmas day and thinking we were gonna have to go back to the hospital. I remember the relief upon hearing from the doctor that it was a false alarm, and how grateful I was that we would just get to stay home and celebrate what may very well be one last Christmas with our dad. I remember him sitting us all down and telling us how much he loved us, and how much that meant to me. I remember Meg and Michael crying together on the couch, and trying to hold it together myself as I watched them. I remember that as one of the best Christmases I ever had, because of the simple gift of getting to be together as a family without taking it for granted.

I remember driving my dad to work between December of 2014 and July of 2015, when he got too sick to keep working. I remember meeting a new girl at work in June of 2015, and starting what turned out to be something of a summer fling with her. I remember buying this house, and how happy and relieved my dad was that we owned land instead of throwing our money away renting. I remember how stressful it was trying to move out in time, and I remember having to get up from the table early on my dad's last Thanksgiving so we could continue moving. I remember him asking us if we had any Thanksgiving memories... and no one did. That is another one of my greatest regrets. I wish I had just sat there a few minutes longer and come up with something, ANYthing, to perpetuate that conversation with him.

Man I miss my dad.

I remember that Christmas. The last real Christmas we had together as a family. And considering his condition at the time, my dad was in remarkably good health and spirits. I remember him laughing at Texas Boots. I remember it was like 60 degrees on Christmas, and we all went outside and watched Mark ride his new unicycle, and I remember how both amused and proud my dad looked. I got that on video, and I'm so glad I did. I believe that's the last one I have of him.

I remember New Years Day, and walking around the desolate floor of Colonie Center with him after hours. I'm surprised we weren't asked to leave by security. But that started something of a weekly tradition for us. From then until he died, we went to the mall every week, and he'd tell me stories from his childhood. He liked to just sit and watch people go by. I remember him telling me he knew it wasn't easy for me to get up early and come out to church and then to the mall afterwards, and I remember thinking he was crazy for telling me he knew how hard I had it.

I remember our last trip to the mall, when he told me he felt like he was slowly slipping away; like everything was slowing down. He knew he didn't have much longer, but I didn't want to believe it, and I didn't want anyone to worry, so I never told anyone else he said that. He said he would have liked to take another trip up to Schroon Lake, and I told him we would go up in the spring when the weather got warmer. He bought me a video game at Jay Street that day - OddWorld: Stranger's Wrath. I was gonna buy it myself, but he insisted on getting it for me, and I think that's because he knew it would be the last thing he would ever buy for me. To this day, I can't bring myself to play it.

I remember how hard I worked on Danny Latin's bachelor party video for about a month, and I remember thinking as I walked out the door to leave for the airport for his wedding that this could very well be the last time I ever saw my dad. God forbid something happened while I was gone, but I wanted to make sure I took it in just in case.

I was right. He died while I was in Florida. I remember not knowing how to feel when I broke the news to my friends, and I remember telling them I was fine, and I remember Danny Latin telling me that I don't always have to be fine... and I remember losing it when he said that and breaking down. And I remember how embarrassing that was. It shouldn't have been, and of course I know they understood, but I don't like people seeing me upset. I'm so thankful they were there with me when that happened.

I remember the rest of that year being simultaneously a blur and utterly, almost unforgivingly miserable. And to cap it all off, I remember seeing my ex in Target on Thanksgiving weekend, reconnecting with her, meeting her for lunch... and finding out she was engaged. I remember feeling like I was punched in the gut when she told me that, and actively trying to prevent myself from throwing up. That was easily the worst year of my life.

I remember 2017. That was another year that deserves its own post (or series thereof). It started off in abject mediocrity, became what I figured would be the best year of my life when I met the girl I truly thought I would eventually marry, and plummeted near the end to not quite the worst when she broke my heart.

I remember struggling through the end of that year and most of the following one to find myself. I remember how helpful Darrell was in showing me how to process and move past that pain. I remember starting at the gym, and continuing to go to the gym, setting and achieving goals (I can do 10 pull ups, and now my goal is to be able to bench my body weight; I'm about 15 pounds off). I remember the rollercoaster of hope and despair whenever I would consider the possibility of getting back with the girl who dumped me.

I remember discovering Doom. And that also deserves its own post. That game means more to me than I think anyone can understand. I know it sounds silly, but perhaps more than anything, Doom is what showed me how to believe in myself. I'd say "how to believe in myself again," but... I don't know that I really ever did before.

I remember my desperate attempts to get back with the girl who destroyed me, and I remember Darrell being right in his predictions of what would happen between us every step of the way. I remember the fallout with her, her family, and consequently Anthony. I remember AJ taking advantage of us, owing us thousands of dollars and costing us thousands more in repairs necessary to the Swag Pad. I remember him leaving his dog to die after Chris gave him his eviction notice.

I remember the problems that started when my mom got remarried. They're ongoing, but there's light at the end of the tunnel now. I remember the first Christmas we spent here and not in our childhood home. I remember going to the Chinese buffet for dinner... and honestly that was a great day.

And most recently... I think I can stop saying "I remember" now, because we're just about caught up. I went through my first Valentine's Day ever without feeling desperately lonely. For the first time in history, it just felt like another day. That's how I know I'm really making progress on myself.

Wow. I didn't expect to get that into it. I don't even know how long I've been sitting here. Maybe in another 10 years, I'll get back on here and write up a big long post that includes how I remember sitting on the toilet, painfully (and at points joyfully) recapping the events of the last decade.

For now though, it's time to hit that publish button and resolve to do this more regularly. And maybe update my picture and the tagline for this blog too. At some point.