Onset I: Ichor
There are stars in my eyes. The music is so loud, and we're on so many drugs. I was walking by the river 3 years ago dreaming about when my life would finally be like this. I am walking by the river now, wondering where all that went. I guess it's still here, it's still me. I never stopped having fun, doing what I want, not giving a fuck. But I have to wonder how much of that is in my head, just making everything seem a little brighter than it actually is.
I always considered that a good thing, y'know? Always looking ahead, at least always trying to. Facing life with a smile. This year broke me, broke me but didn't break the smile. I guess I just reached a point where I have to ask, how much of my feelings do I have to put into brackets? I always felt those were the most real ones. Those I couldn't simply narrate while talking about my day or how my life is going, just a pure stream of words and meanings and connections. Maybe someday they'll invent a way to transmit just that, without words.
Solitude broke me. People think you put on a mask for other people, and your real self is how you act alone. But for me, that whole month was an act. A careful exercise in discipline and self-indulgence in equal measure. What really saved me was meeting with Miffy, where I could really, actually just be myself, neither a being imprisoned in a body nor a shallow performance put on to appease someone else, but the space in-between our bodies. I exist in air, I am brought into this world by language, I am real only when touched.
I am so glad Dog is here. Things are so fucking hard and tiring and unfair and we had to go through so much, but nothing is that complicated when she's here. I exist, I exist, I exist. We exist. This room can have the world's stupidest kitchen and the dirtiest floor and the shittiest angled walls but it is always forever 100% filled with us and everything we are. We live here, and we did it this year.
There are stars in my eyes! I will never see a dark sky in my life.
Onset II: Ferrum
There's poison in my veins. There's fog in my brain. There's a tiredness, a madness, a suicidal impulse to be happy at any cost. If life taught me something these nearly 22 years is that the cost of happiness is everything. We're so broke, we're so fucked, and it's only gonna get worse before it gets bad. We're living off of debt and we're living badly. Everything is dirty and nothing is free. We need meds that we won't get for years so we function enough to just get through life. My teeth are rotting, my body is sore, and I have no one else to blame.
I'm not saying this to scare you, to make you pity me, or to make everyone in the room depressed. I'm saying it because I'm never gonna get through this if I can't look at it in the eye. This is how things are, but it's not how they have to be. If I close my eyes, I can see a path, I can start walking into the dark and feeling the walls around me. It might seem that each one I touch is another direction I can't go in, but that's how I find the one I can.
I think that's always how it was supposed to go. The truth is that I'm a little nuts, and everybody can see it. Despite hating how blindly I go through life compared to everyone else around me, I simply see better in the dark. Navigating life through narratives, metaphors, analogies. Imaginary roads leading to real places. It's what kept me alive since I was a kid, whether or not I recognized it as that back then.
But there's a lot of paving real roads there too, and that's what this is about. It's about rolling up my sleeves and putting in the work. I will get us out of here, I will do whatever it takes, I will endure whatever I have to for however long. Without throwing myself into unnecessary pain but without sparing myself from what I'm afraid of. There is a future where I've mastered this balance, there's a world in which the things that hurt us can't reach us anymore. Dog and Kat deserve that. We all do. I do.
Onset III: Mercury
and here i was gonna write something like "the trip was long and exhausting but i'm glad we did it and got married, the island was beautiful and i hope to come back someday, we drove back home and got started on Dog's documents right away. also i got to play an rpg again and it was cool." but whatever.
the trip was long and exhausting. it took like 2 days by car each way, basically, with us stopping to sleep and all. and we had to get 2 ferries there instead of the expected 1. so that was fucked. but the ferries were fucking nice! the hotdogs were good.
once we got to the actual island, the first thing i did was combine 3 different maps with different landmarks and "good spots" into one big personal map of all the places i wanted to see. the thing about that island is that it's small enough to map it out in one day like this, but big enough that actually walking from one end to another would still take like 5 hours. but it didn't end up mattering anyways because we really only had 1 thing actually planned: the lighthouse.
we took the bus, we arrived to the closest spot we could, and then we started walking. we saw mostly fields, but there was fun stuff, some cows, some sculptures, some car junk. we were just talking about stuff. this is the amazing thing about Dog, i think we talk about literally everything all day and it never stops being fun. maybe this is what marriage is about? having a good friend you can yap to all day, who knows all your shit and will hear you tell the same joke for the 15th time, and disagree with you on movies and make you your favorite food, just because. maybe marriage is spending years living in a tiny little box waiting for the day your star will come out in the sky and you'll finally get your wings. this cruel fate.
we arrive at the lighthouse and, it costs money to go up there, and i forgot to bring any because i expected to be in civilized society but keep finding only barbarism. fair enough. we say fuck it and go past it to the tip of the island to watch the sunset. it's just about the most beautiful fucking thing i've ever seen in my life. and that's all the poetry you'll get out of me for a fucking sunset
we get married, too. im wearing a suit for the first time since i stopped going to church. i decide that my personal enjoyment of looking hot in a suit outweighs my annoyance that my dad would probably be happy to see me in it. i made sure to smoke a bunch while wearing it just to make sure. the whole thing goes by quickly and without any trouble, everyone was really nice to us, we say everything we have to say and that's that.
everybody asks how it feels, y'know. but it doesn't feel any different, that's just the truth of it. it feels pretty nice, like as a thing to do. checking that box and all. but we've been on this ride for a lot longer, and a piece of paper doesn't really add much to it. in fact it might be lamer now that the government's in on it. but the trip was something i'll remember for the rest of my life, that's for sure. i need to come back there with Kat.
so we get back on the road, and we get back home, and we get back to our precious little life. and look, most of it was pretty shit. it's been one of the longest 2 weeks of my life, and yet i have nothing to write about. we're just surviving the best we can, really. there were good things about it too. getting to see Yeen and Miffy a bunch more was probably the best part.
so i'm dating Miffy now, which is great. it was not great to not do it for so long and now it's great to do it. which is great. it's also really difficult. because i'm always scared they're gonna get tired of me, or that they have more fun with other people, or that my dick isn't cool enough.
anyways i don't even think she cares about my dick all that much, despite the source of my insecurity. it's more about them getting tired of me. and maybe a little about being jealous of their swagful sexy party girl vibe, but oh well. at the end of the day whenever we meet up all those feelings just kind of melt away and i realize i just really love them. it's all a bit weird and intense right now because it's new. it's gonna die down a bit with time, naturally, but that's not a bad thing, no matter what my brain says. i'm honestly just happy i get to be all obsessed about a girl like it's the first time i'm in love again.
thinking a lot about Yeen too. we've definitely gotten closer since i came back, and it makes me really happy. i know they're going through a lot right now but, i'm so glad we got to hang out again. she makes me laugh like nobody else, and the way she's passionate about music and shit, just, god it drives me mad sometimes that i'm not nearly as talented as her. but what can you do, she deserves it. it's a bit of a tragedy that it's probably going to take a while for us to really hang out again, but it's probably for the best if she can take a break.
outside of those two, i also got to meet a bunch of other people i started playing ttrpgs with. it's actually insane how easy it is. everybody vibes with me and i had a great time meeting in person. surprisingly. surprisingly? surprisingly. i was surprised.
i don't know, i guess that's that for these 2 and a half weeks. crazy shit. right now though, i think we're at a crossroads. a big one. and to be honest i don't know what to do.
Saltfields: Earth
i promise to write you a better story if I can, okay?