#biweeklyblog

Sometimes it feels like moments in life aren’t real. Not specifically the tragic moments, when someone dies or you encounter a traumatizing experience. Just random days, interactions, conversations. Sometimes it feels like I’m an actor or a character in a video game, if things go sideways, you can always yell “cut” or reload to a previous save. But I’m not an actor, nor am I a video game avatar. A small part of my brain always knows this, I think, which is why I still can’t act like a dick or believe that consequences won’t matter, but it’s not always the majority of my brain having this knowledge. Which is spooky. I don’t know if I’ve just removed myself so far from life that it feels like fiction or what, but it’s weird, to say the least, when the memories of these moments hit and I’m forced to fully realize that they happened in real life. 

Maybe I can put some blame on my dreams, for they come across so often as reality, especially when based in this world and in my life. When they’re so outside what I’m used to, I typically know that it’s a dream. But the ones where I’m just working a shift, of having a regular conversation with friends, doing something I’ve done plenty of times before, that’s when it gets confusing around what really happened. So maybe that’s my problem. Or maybe only part of the problem. 

Perhaps another part is my chronic headaches and migraines. A lot of the time I feel like I’m not fully here, like I’m at a distance from the world. I’m currently sitting on my couch, but I don’t feel like all of me is sitting here. My head is more separate, more behind me, floating a bit, in the room. It’s partially paying attention, partially understanding it’s here, but not entirely. I often have this strange floating sensation so would that be contributing? I don’t know. There’s a possibility though, I suppose. Plenty of times I don’t want to be in my body. The thing aches and malfunctions far too often so am I just constantly separating my conscience from my body to such an extent that I don’t always know what’s real? Am I just going insane? 

I wouldn’t be surprised. How can I not go insane at this point? After spending so much of my life trying to do what’s right by others, by myself, by my future, only for everything to shatter into a thousand pieces anyway, how might I stay sane? Plenty of the impacting lessons I learned as a child have turned out to be lies. So much of my energy is spent being a decent person, but failing in life nonetheless whilst cruel bigots thrive despite being the worst of people. I know it takes approximately the same amount of energy to be a decent person as it does to be an awful person, one you notice the strain earlier and the other you learn much later. But gods, do I hate that plenty of people haven’t yet been forced to face the consequence of screwing everyone else over while I get to be exhausted every day. 

Like, what even is life anymore? Have you noticed the utter madness that is this timeline? It feels like a farce, a practical joke. It’s every ridiculous thing that could happen, happening at once. If reality doesn’t feel real, how am I to tell the difference? Sometimes I remember that I’m not far from thirty and that ageing exists and I just want to flee to my mind palace and never return because of how bleak those two reminders are. Thirty isn’t old, however, I always thought I’d be more than a shell of a person by then. I thought that by working hard to maintain my body and soul as a youngling, then I would flourish all the more as I aged and grew into myself and experienced life and learned who I was. But that doesn't seem to be happening.

Imagine: you’re in a stairwell, it’s dim, empty, grey. You would use the elevator, if it was more reliable, but you have places to be. So you descend the concrete steps for a while when you hear something. Eerie whistling echoing throughout the stairwell. You can’t tell where it’s coming from. Above you or below? Nevermind, you try to ignore it and carry on, down, down, down. Then you come upon them, fellow users of the stairs. You realize one of them is responsible for the whistling.Except there’s something off. Many things are off. A quick glance would have told you the source of the whistling and nothing more. But you steal more than a quick glance and now you can’t help but keep your gaze on them as your eyes catch on each thing wrong about your neighbours. 

Their eyes are the wrong color, unnatural. And with the whistler, the irises are too big, they cover too much of the whites. All three have unsettling smiles, as though drawn on, but in such a way that you can’t tell if they’re happy or sad. Especially with their brows, seemingly paralyzed in an upturned shape. Their makeup, their clothes, all are made up of happy, bright colors. But the setting, the dingy stairs, the grey walls, the echo-y whistling drains the life from the rainbow collected before you. 

Yes, something is very wrong. It may be a saturday, the start of the weekend where stairwell traffic wouldn’t be much of a surprise. Nor would three individuals decked out in bright clothing and makeup. And it’s October, ‘tis the spooky season. But it’s only the twenty-fifth, not halloween and the halloween festivities would be on the coming friday night and saturday after. Not on an afternoon a week in advance. So why, in your descent of the almost empty stairwell, are you now face to face with three clowns? Why did the whistling suddenly stop? And why did they start staring like that…at you…in unison?

You can shriek in fear now. It’s okay, they understand.

No, but like, straight up, could you imagine?! That would be freaky as hell. Luckily, when we were in my stairwell, decked out in clowncore glory, there was no one to hear my companion whistling. As far as we know. There was definitely no one who came upon us though whilst we took strange, unhinged photos. Were that to occur, it would be a simple explanation, but whomst knows if it would be simply understood. The Princess Party was odd enough to explain, let alone the Clown Party. 

I forgot to come up with a theme when my birthday came round, but we had something planned for the friend who came next. So naturally, we went about town, the mall, and Boston Pizza as a quartet of clowns. We got questioned. We got glances. We got weird ass photos in the dark of my unlit apartment. And we got cupcakes and pie. Themed parties are really one of the greatest things we remembered we could do. And honestly, clowncore is a vibe, a fun one. It’s hard to be casual about it, but we would all definitely be down for another random clown day. It’s the spice of life, looking like a fool, and we go about it like Olympic champions. 

There’s such a simple pleasure in receiving a fortune cookie with your meal. Even though much of the time it’s an incredibly basic fortune or not even a fortune but a random quote, it’s still fun to crack open that little cookie and collect the paper inside. 

Such was the mindset my friend had going into hers when we were sat at a table in a mall food court. She cracked open her cookie and the four of us leaned in, anticipating what might be written. It was instructions. It was instructions to go online to the fortune cookie’s website. My pink friend said she wouldn’t even bother, but the owner of the fortune cookie was in too deep, she had to see what was up. The site had the audacity to request her email before she went further, but she gave it nonetheless. There was a mystery to get to the bottom of. I believe she typed in a code that was on the “fortune” paper and that’s how she got her result.

Sorry, better luck next time.

I beg thine absolute most genuinely pure pardon? HUH? If I could skillfully type in a sputtering way, I would, but you’ll just have to imagine it. How’m’st is that all she gets? All of those extra steps and not a fortune whatsoever? Since when was that a thing? No quote? No list of lucky numbers? Just a “sorry, try again” message? IS THIS THE WORLD WE LIVE IN NOW?

The third friend who was there hates apps, er, to be more specific, hates that everything has an app now. And I’m inclined to agree. This took that kind of nonsense to a whole nother level. Why, in the name of all that is unholy, do you need to go online to figure out what your fortune cookie wants to tell you? Is it solely just so that company can send you spam emails? Is that how desperate people are these days? Like, what are we doing? 

I don’t want to sound like an old curmudgeon saying “back in my day”, however, I think childhood and teenhood were better without existing so much on the internet. Granted many people my age did, I just wasn’t one of them but now it’s so much easier to end up on there. Everyone films everything even if you didn’t agree to that and the judgement is worldwide. Being a teenager and even a teenager of sorts part two: the twenties edition, is stupid already. Discovering yourself is hard and weird and uncomfortable a lot of the time, and it’s made worse that seemingly everyone is paying attention to everything you do. You have to fit in but you also have to be unique but not too unique but not too on trend. I’ve seen some discussion of late about the disappearance of young people's personalities. Everyone is so afraid of being ridiculed and it’s not even unwarranted because everyone is also not afraid of ridiculing others. You can be anonymous on the internet or just say whatever even when you aren’t because it’s not like you’re saying these things to one’s face. But because of this fear, people won’t admit what they like, they won’t get excited in front of others, they won’t display their passions because they don’t want snarky comments and judgement. 

As I said in another post, me and a couple friends are trying to depart from our "pathetic era”. What one friend often says is “to be cringe, is to be free”. This is an important step to becoming un-pathetic. Because in order to fully be yourself in your truest form, you must embrace being cringe at times. You must allow yourself to be silly, to like what you like unapologetically. We cannot become cardboard cutouts of empty humans. Expressing oneself without fear is the ultimate form of power. Dressing the way you want, talking about the things that truly interest you, not toning your personality down to nothing when in public. Life is hard and sad enough, why do we have to make it worse? Show appreciation for things, give a kudos and leave a comment on that fanfiction you really enjoy so the author knows someone cares. Recommend a show to your friends that you can all watch together so they can finally see why you won’t shut up about it. Play your music out loud in your workplace that’s cool enough to let the staff put on their own playlists. Display your artwork, your books, design your room to be something that matches the true you. 

People will always find other people cringy, and that’s okay so long as we keep it to ourselves. Miserable jealous people will always make a remark about it but that’s because they have nothing better to do. Don’t let your own opinions or the shallow opinions of others prevent you from living life how you want and learning who you are as you embrace the world and all it offers. I keep feeling stupid for really enjoying young adult books even though I’m twenty-six, but who cares, that shit’s great if you know what you like. I like animated movies and shows. I like listening to music that’s all over the place. I like my plushie collection and playing Baldur’s Gate with the girls and shopping at Hot Topic. I like that my house is more mismatched than it’s ever been because now I don’t feel like I need to stay within a certain aesthetic. I like stuff and things because I am a living human being. And whether they’ll admit it or not, so does everybody else. Acting like you only enjoy things ironically and being too cool to care is not a great long term plan. It’s how to have no real relationships or no authentic happiness.

Because the Pride Parade and following festivities is in July, it’s hot as hell outside. We learned that the hard way after the first Pride since covid came about and we all nearly suffered heatstroke. Ever since then, we split up the day a bit. We watch the parade, then go to brunch, then go to the vendor tents to peruse the goods. 

We love brunch so any excuse to get it is great for us. So that’s what we were doing after the parade. We were eating out beloved breakfast foods, enjoying the protection from the outside heat, slurping cold beverages and chatting. In the past, our random conversations have gotten a chuckle out of passersby and waiters. This day however, we weren’t exactly discussing anything enticing or scintillating. We were talking about the bizarre plotlines and unexpected violence in young adult books. It wasn’t our most witty conversation nor humorous, we were really just rambling. I only mention this because I otherwise have no idea why what happened later on occurred. 

We were sat at a corner table that was really meant for three but the four of us squeezed in because we like ourselves a booth. The small table next to me was occupied but I avoided looking in that direction lest I make accidental eye contact with my neighbour. I was aware of the presence as we were yapping, but I paid little mind overall. Until I heard him talking to the waitress. He was complimenting the joint and the staff and the exchange between them was merry and friendly. They asked for each other’s names and I assumed he must be a regular, the both of them finally learning the names that belonged to familiar faces. I didn’t eavesdrop too much since I was still talking to my mates. 

The waitress came round to us and asked if we wanted our bills, to which we said yes and, at the same time, the fellow left. I learned afterward that her question was a hint to him to exit before anything was revealed. She didn’t come back with our receipts, instead she came over and let us all know that the gent who’d been quietly sat next to us by himself had paid for our meals. I don’t know if it’s because he thought we looked cool, what with our colorful pride getup, or if he was enjoying our conversation, or if he just thought we all looked like we could use the help, but he paid for four meals and drinks nonetheless. This was not a cheap purchase for him, especially given that he paid for his own food too, but I guess there was something about us that made him think we were worth giving to. 

He wanted to leave before we received our bills so he was gone before we could thank him. I never even saw his face, I only heard his voice and learned from his exchange with the waitress that his name was Daryl. We were flabbergasted to say the least and spent the rest of the day on a high because of this man’s random act of kindness. I wish I could tell him how grateful I am and how much we all appreciated it and how happy it made us but since I can’t, I’m going to write about him and his deed instead. 

People need to get their attention spans in check. I am sick and tired of things not being interesting enough because there’s no action. I’m sick and tired of people just wanting fast paced plot. I’m a writer. I have been writing a story for ages. I’ve had these characters developing in my head for years but I’m afraid to put them on paper. I’m afraid that the first part of my story won’t ever be picked up because there is too much “filler”. But we need filler dammit! That’s where character development happens! That’s where relationships strengthen and personal growth occurs and self reflection is had. When things are quiet, we get to see the impact from the things that were loud.

Except some people don’t want that. Some people have the attention span of a goldfish and they can’t follow one moment of calm or silence. Shows and movies are getting stupid because there isn’t any time to breathe. They don’t make many episodes these days that contain “slice of life” moments. It’s maddening. I have seen so many videos of people talking about the importance of pacing and why certain things failed because there wasn’t enough build up. Do you know how many times they reference Avatar the Last Airbender? So many! Because that animated treasure is spectacular and that’s including the “nonsense” episodes because they have CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT! You get to see these people think and grow in those slower moments and all the harshness that happens to them hits harder when you’re reminded that they’re just kids. They act like kids during these times and it hurts because they have so much weight on their little shoulders. The Mandalorian is great for this too. There’s the over arcing story and then each episode is a side quest slowly leading to that. Which is wonderful since you see how much the bonds in that show grow. You see people flourish emotionally. This is important.

We need more slice of life moments. Re-reading the Hunger Games, I noticed how many of these precious scenes were taken out of the movies due to runtime, and I get it, but at the same time, it’s frustrating. Especially because you so often hear the same sentiment, that it won’t capture people’s attention, it’s not interesting enough, or relevant to the overall plot. But you know what? I think it very damn well is. I cried over the deaths of characters in the books, but I shed naught a tear in the movies since nothing enough was established between people. The amount of loss there is in that trilogy that the movies just scratch the surface of is insane. But it isn’t just adaptations. Books themselves have weird ass pacing where you can’t take a breather and pause for a moment. The Mortal Instruments is chaotic as all hell. Six books, thick books, take place over the course of less than a year. Do you know how much tomfoolery happens in those books? Like every chapter there’s something. Those kids barely get a break but you’re supposed to believe that two of them have fallen so incredibly in love with each other even though they barely know one another because shit keeps happening and they can hardly have a conversation!

You know how I’ve written in the past just how much I cherish the days with my friends where we don’t do much but yap? It’s because those yapping days carry the most interesting conversation, the deepest topics, the personal stuff that we feel we can voice in the safety of my house. Sure, we still chat about a plethora of things on our days when we do stuff, but the focus is usually on the stuff that we’re doing rather than ourselves. And that balance is what keeps our bonds with one another strong and dynamic. We see all sides of one another, who we are alone, who we are around others, how we interact with the world, how we interact with uncertainty or discomfort or unfamiliarity. If we had to rely on constantly doing stuff to remain friends, then we aren’t really friends. Our outings add excitement but they aren’t the foundation of us as a group. The same goes with writing. If you constantly need something to be happening to keep the audience engaged, then the audience is stupid and/or you’re a bad writer. Entertainment can be compelling in a myriad of ways. Panic Room is not a fast paced movie but it’s full of tension and keeps you at the edge of your seat. It’s not an action movie, but it’s still entertaining. You’re still invested in what will happen next. 

I’m perfectly aware that not all stories need to be as multifaceted as humans truly are. But I wish it wasn’t such a risk to have that in general. I don’t want to have to stress about cutting out scenes that are really just about character interaction rather than the furthering of the plot. I don’t want us to feel like we need to condense so much character growth and development by making the audience fill in the gaps themselves. That’s a large part of why Arcane season two irked a lot of people. It relied on gap filling over actually showing us the progression. Writing is an art, it comes in many styles and forms, so it’s wrong to try and squish it all into one thing. 

Because I’ve done this most of my life, allow me to make a dance analogy: when you go to the ballet, you’re likely not expecting super intense, face paced, loud music-d showyness. You’re expecting elegance, tranquility, classical music, intermission in the middle of a three hour show about one story. You aren’t going to whine if you don’t see dancers break out in jazz or tap because that isn’t the style. If you wanted that, then you’d go elsewhere. Now, maybe, this is a stupid comparison because dance performances in general aren’t nearly as popular as movies and tv shows. But I don’t think any particular dance styles are being shut out or dwindling because someone wants to blend them all together or change them to make something more interesting. There are still distinct forms of dance and people naturally separate them with no problem as far as I’m aware. So why can’t we do this with writing? Why can’t we just accept some stories are going to be slower paced or more character heavy than others? Why can’t we just let people express themselves and take the risk and see how it goes without trying to mold everything into a perfect little box first? 

Our twenties is basically teenagehood part two, we aren’t really adults yet, just at a higher stage of figuring ourselves out and being cringey in a new and different way. Unfortunately for my friend group, our early twenties, the more formative years, were nuked by covid. We were thrust into limbo, unable to grow or progress or evolve. Instead, we devolved in a way, the pandemic wearing us out in every aspect, just trying to make it through our bleak lives with little thought of the future. Because during those few years, there was no future or past or really present, it was just a blur of time that muddled our memories and left us wondering what happened when. It was like we went through a wormhole, one day we were barely twenty, then the next we were twenty-three with very little knowledge of how we got there. 

Now we’re in the latter half of our second teenagehood but we don’t feel like it because we missed out on all the weird shit we may or may not have done had the world not shut down for a spell. So lately, we’ve been working to remedy that. Right now we are in, what one friend calls, our Pathetic Era. Most of us live at home, have sad jobs or no jobs, few go to school, and when we gather, we hide in our introverted bubble. But no more. This is the summer of exploration, of Exposure Therapy. We’re having the deep conversations now, not the usual ones about the socioeconomic state of the world but the ones about our bodies, our desires. We had a day of dressing scandalously (by our standards) to make peace with our figures, prancing about town feeling so terribly uncomfortable but pushing through regardless. A couple of us even dared to swipe right on Tinder, not necessarily engaging in conversation from that but the swipe alone is a leap from where we used to be. 

It wasn’t just covid that ruined us unfortunately, we were also slammed with trauma and drama in pretty quick succession which did us no favors and further made us into scared children rather than fully fledged adults. This is why we are now often manifesting the energy of being thirty, flirty, and thriving. With how disabled we all are, our bodies feel way older than thirty, so we got that down. We’ve dipped our toes into the flirty aspect recently with our silly little outfits. The thriving remains untouched, but we are still dreaming and planning dammit, for that day. The day we live in a house without parents, find our significant others, have careers instead of jobs. We keep pressing forward for that day, we can’t give up or give in or die, it would be too embarrassing. What have we accomplished yet? Nothing! We can’t perish in World War Three or in the earthquake that’s supposed to sink our island or be exterminated in any other way. We have stuff to do, and things still. 

We lost so much precious time, we no longer have the energy we used to. It’s depressing because we really didn’t stand a chance. The whole world was frozen in time for years. But we aren’t wallowing, we are scheming. We have activities galore this summer, man, and we usually hibernate in the summer because we all hate the heat for the most part, but not this time. This time round, we’re going places. Not far away places but places that aren’t just my bachelor suite. We had Pride, we got the indigenous market coming up, the museum, a renaissance faire, playland, haircuts, and mini local vacations. There’s a list. This summer, we reinvent ourselves so when the ideal time to exist, aka autumn, comes round, we’ll enter the new season glamorous and glorious and glowing. We’ll conquer the bland months, rainy and grey, the trademark of the pacific northwest that we love so much, in our newly refurbished skins, our fresh identities. 

Adulthood is so weird because it feels simultaneously so freeing and so limiting. I think it’s due to how we’ve been programmed. You can have fun as an adult but fun so often means things like going clubbing or to bars or gambling. Dressing up consists more of looking put together, mature, maybe a bit sexy, with a touch of quirkiness. Like sparkly cocktail dresses or tight skirts and crop tops. Everything screams elegant colors like black and gold and every activity requires wealth. That’s how it feels anyway. I’m taking this from both movies and what I see passing all the bars and clubs on my way home in the late evenings. Now, everything is expensive these days. Hanging out at all requires money. It’s pretty hard to have fun without it because even at the bare minimum, you at least need to eat something. But we can direct our money in so many more ways as adults. We have our big girl jobs and our big girl brains but if we really want to expand our possibilities we need our little kid ideas.  

Where am I going with this? 

Princess Party!

My pink friend mentioned this one day after seeing something either on Pinterest or TikTok. She saw these women making those pointed medieval period hats. The ones with scarves attached. Like in the animated Sleeping Beauty. Grown ass women were crafting these and they were pairing them with fancy dresses, and my pink friend had a light bulb go off in her head. She wants a princess themed birthday party. Mind you, her birthday is in September, but that doesn’t stop us from dreaming for that future. It also got me thinking about how themed parties are such a thing for kids' birthdays, but you don’t see a lot of adults doing that. 

But, why? We have more means to. Maybe because everyone knows it’s a kids thing and we aren’t kids. But kids can’t look at fancy dresses online that cost a hundred dollars and justify buying them because they have a job and know that, since they dress silly almost every Saturday, they’ll get good wear out of them. Kids don’t have the patience probably to spend however long it’ll take us to make our goofy little hats. I mean, shit, we can sit for hours, our knees hurt. And kids don’t have access to Pungeons and Flagons because they’re too young to fail at making alcohol concoctions. But we aren’t kids. 

We can do the dressing up, getting sloshed, getting goofy, getting silly like many adults do, but we can elevate it too. We can bring back themed birthday parties with all the extra pizazz that comes with having a job and not doing much else in life. 

We live for Saturdays. Saturday is our hobby. It’s when we celebrate birthdays regardless of where they fall in the week. When we have impromptu sleepovers because we don’t need to ask our mums. When we go to two restaurants in a day because my stupid little kitchen is too small to cook in and also we like chatting over food other people made. When we try to get drunk on poorly mixed cocktails and bead bracelets for hours on end or watch all of the Star Wars in chronological order. So why not add themed parties to the list to spice things up further? And hell, why doesn’t everyone theme up their birthday? The options are endless! Picnic party, garden party, beach party, fantasy party, sci-fi party. Dress up as your favorite color rainbow party. Cottage core party. Spooky goth halloween party that can be done in October or any other month because it’s a birthday. Faery party. Fancy gala party but it takes place in your living room that you spruced up as best you could. I could go on. And the thing too, is you can get stupidly specific which makes it all the more fun and hilarious.

I just feel like we, as adults, are drained of so much as we age. Not in terms of our bodies slowly deteriorating, because honestly, that can happen at any age, but in terms of livelying up milestones and events. There are five of us, five days a year when we can have some goofy themed birthday party. Five days that don’t have to focus on getting older or having passed yet another year single and living with parents. Those days can focus on making silly little cone hats and flouncing around in dresses. They can focus on a theme that gives us something to think about preparing for months in advance because the only thing that fuels us is looking forward to anything. Birthdays, like holidays, give us an excuse to do something, to hone our attention on a single concept rather than get overwhelmed and scatterbrained trying to make everyday something meaningful. That’s why it’s fun to have friendsgiving and our New Year's Eve sleepover. It lets us think about a particular day and what we want to do for that one specifically. Because then, we can make it extra special since our easily distracted noggins have a target to lock on. Three hundred-sixty-five days is a lot to think about, but holidays, our birthdays, and the times of year we usually plan trips, as well as all the Saturdays in between, isn’t as daunting.