FAST FORWARD TO TODAY, EVERYONE READING THIS (no one)! I've been weird and depressed recently for absolutely no legitimate reason at all. Sometimes I get stuck in my own head and all I can do is think of bad memories and start to dread all the things that could possibly go wrong in the future, which is maybe the most toxic thing that this stupid little fuck brain of mine does. I'm composed of roughly 87% unproductive social anxiety, embarrassment, and confusion about financial shit, and like 13% organs and arteries and stuff. Anyway, enough about that.

I've been spending a lot of time with my grandparents, which is super nice because 1) they're very sweet and great, and 2) their scotch is DOPE. I was out to lunch with them today and we were having a pleasant chat, but my needlessly angsty fuck brain was busy making me feel miserable, because fuck this brain of mine. Seriously. 

So I was sitting there, stewing in my own stupid unnecessary anxieties and irrational fears, when I looked over and saw my grandmother was wearing earrings that I made for her when I was in fifth grade. 

For the record, my grandmother is a person that cares a lot about the way she looks. In her twenties, she was a really successful Quebecois actress and was on covers of magazines, for real. She was absolutely gorgeous and still is. She always wears nice clothes and walks around in curlers and spends a long time putting on her makeup and cares very deeply about being attractive (which is clearly not a genetic trait because I am HELLA schlubby). 

So my former actress grandmother, who tries to dress well and be beautiful for the public, was wearing my ugly ass earrings that I made for her in the fifth grade, at a restaurant with OTHER PEOPLE, and seeing that actually made me tear up in the middle of some mundane fucking conversation we were having about the Tour de France. 

It's been a long, hard, and frankly bizarre journey, but with the PS4 and Xbone (yes I'm still calling it that) finally out and black Friday looming like a bad omen, can we call a clear winner?

Well, let's compare

Hardware: Sony has been having some problems with a wonderful little hardware problem, lovingly nicknamed "the pulsing blue dickpunch of sadness" by Tim Buckly, but word from him and many others is that Sony is pulling out all the stops to fix this as fast and painlessly as possible. The Xbone on the other hand has been getting mix review about it's voice command system. The system is very picky about it's command phrases. Example; You might just want to play Call of Duty , but "play game", "play Call of Duty", "Start Call of Duty" won't work. It wouldn't have killed Microsoft to ship a crib sheet for commands. Granted, The Tech is still working better than predicted, but it's clear to anyone with an I.Q. over room temperature that it's just a gimmick. No clear winner.

Games: To be honest, both companies should be fucking embarrassed by the lack of diverse launch titles, there was a day and age when a company would be drawn and quartered for this shit. As they are, the 2 big players are probably Dead Rising 3 and Killzone: Shadow Fall. Dead Rising 3 was criticized from day one for it's grimy brown graphics and serious tone, and while Capcom back-peddled like mad to get it back to wild, crazy, zombie fun, a lot of people aren't buying it. Killzone looks great. Better than great even, but that's it. All it can really claim to be is a victory lap for the PS4's new hardware, furthering the argument that AAA game develpoment is 100% style over substance. No clear winner.

You know.... As I actually think about this, there is a winner. As bizarre, as insane, as completely against the curve it is..... It's the Wii U. No. I have not taken leave of my senses, let me explain. These two "titans" have only just launched while Nintendo has had their claws in the market for a goddamned year. Sure, it's suffered a shaky launch itself, but It didn't have to stand up against anything while it's dusted itself off and got running. It's got a Exclusive library to make the other two cry, not to mention the ONLY exclusive I even give a damn about right now ( Wonderful 101), and It's powered by loyal Nintendo fans ( only slightly less powerful then nuclear fusion.)

tl;dnr?

I've quite literally been racking my brain over the past 8 hours on how to. I get it, it doesn't sound like a lot, but it is when you were up crying until 2 in the morning and only able to fall asleep because of the exhaustion and when you broke out in to tears on your way to work for no reason. (And have at work multiple times now). 

It's easy to say nothing is wrong when someone asks. For the exact reason as I said above: depression otherwise is just extremely frustrating to try to explain to someone that's never experienced it long term. How do you explain to someone that what you're feeling is nothing? Nothing as in feeling like there's this deep black hole in your head where your brain should be? (All your feelings are still there but you wildly switch between feeling too much of them to feeling none of them). How do you explain to someone that even moving a muscle takes work because your body feels as though it's barely holding itself up? 

It's so frustrating to have people that care about you ask you whats wrong. Part of your brain is screaming to be let out to tell them and the other part is that tiny little voice that just sits in the dark hoping this will all blow over soon. And how do you explain to someone that you have absolutely no idea what's wrong or what brought you to this point? Every time I look into myself to try and come up with the words, I see dark. I want nothing more than to be able to open up and figure out what's wrong, but I can't when I myself can't even figure it out. 

I don't know what triggers it. I've always had my suspicions, but I've always wanted to disregard them as something that happened in a culmination one time. I've hoped, that while figuring out possible triggers could be beneficial to myself, that I wouldn't ever encounter them again.

I hate this feeling that I've pushed people away. That I've hurt them while simultaneously drowning myself in my darkness. I just can't explain the nothingness without being afraid of people running out (like they have) or without being afraid that they just won't understand and will brush it off as 'something to get over'.

I've tried so hard to never come back here. I've quickly brushed away negative thoughts, I've gone running when they've become to much, I've tried to surround myself with things that make me happy, and I've quickly come to find that some times that just isn't enough. Some how it all piles up. Some event pushes you over the edge and then all you can do is feel yourself scramble to get back to where you were; all the while feeling like you're still tumbling down. 

The best thing for me, I've found, is words. I can put pen to paper, or fingers to keys, and I can jumble my way through something that at least makes my thoughts seem somewhat tangible. I can sit here and sort through my thoughts or I can just put them all down as they come to me. It helps so much more than talking because I can go back and look at what I've written down, and I won't feel stupid, or pathetic for repeating myself to someone. I also find it easier because I can break down over text much easier than I can in person. If I was to try and say any of the things I've said above, I would break down and cry, and I wouldn't be able to continue on. Things would be left unsaid and I would feel like a failure, like a weakling, that was too scared to open up and get everything out. 

Anyways, another long and rambling post that will probably never grace the minds of another person, but at least I could get it all out of mine for a bit. 

I graduate in a month; do I care? No, not really. In fact I don't even feel like it's a thing. Like cool, I don't have to go to school anymore? Sounds like a fantastic time to me. The only things I've been excited about recently are months down the road. Getting out of the country for a while. Getting out of this state for a while. Getting away for a while with the people I care about more than anything in this world. 

That's what keeps me going. Keeps me from locking myself up in my room for a while. The people of my life. But I feel like I'm hurting them. I can't say how I feel because there are no words that describe it; no matter how delicately they are strung together. As much as I would love to open up fully to anyone, there's no possible way I could. Either I wouldn't get the emotions across or they wouldn't understand. Or maybe it's my constant fear that someone would understand and then they would be burdened with the fact that I feel like this.

And let me say this, I DO NOT feel like this all the time. It's just been recently. Maybe a week? My reasoning behind it is hormones. And that could very well be it. My feelings have been out of whack for a while. In a good way though! Because I actually have feelings again. That's what it is. I shut myself off for so long that I forgot what it was like to feel vulnerable; to feel anything for that matter. Gone are the days where I would inhibit everything with the things I put in my body. I don't eat my feelings (or at least I try really hard not to) and I sure as hell don't drink when I feel like it anymore. Hell my brain is screaming for me to drink right now, but I won't. I just forgot how hard it was to have so many things going on in my brain at once that I was happy/sad/stressed/scared/excited about. 

Life is hard, but I'm a stronger person for it everyday. I keep telling myself that because I know it's true. 

Being sober and tailgating with the same people you would tailgate with when you weren't so sober is always an interesting endeavor. They know you don't drink and are, for the most part, supportive of it. However, you not drinking is not going to stop them from drinking and that's fine. I don't expect others to change what they do when I'm around. It's not realistic to expect anything different.

The problem with this is that even though I don't want to drink, I would like to pick back up doing what it was I use to do. Most, if not all, of the venues any bands play at serve alcohol. With Austin being the "Live Music Capitol of the World" there are a lot of opportunities to go see a show. Pub trivia kind of implies in it's name that it takes place in a bar and pool halls, well, come on.

Like I said, I don't want to drink, but I have a fear that without the sword of WilCo hanging over my head the beast inside me will convince me that one drink wont hurt (It will). I can have one and stop (I can't). Like they say, if you hang around a barber shop long enough eventually you'll get a haircut. One drink will in essence undo everything I've done and all the effort I've put into the last 431 days. I don't want to go through that again, early-early sobriety sucks.

A year's worth of work on myself and people have noticed, more so than I have, changes in me. While still a cynical ass, I'm not as mean about it. I genuinely care about people I otherwise wouldn't have given a shit about. I'm willing to help people I don't know if they ask for it. I can be an example to people my age (23) that drinking isn't the only way to have fun, it is possible sober. These are good things, progress over perfection and whatnot. 

Bottom line is I can't drink. I drink I do stupid shit. I do stupid shit I get in trouble. I get in enough trouble the police eventually show up. The police show up and I'm back in a situation that I don't want to be in. However, I can still go out and do all the things I want to without drinking. This is what I intend to do. 

*Note: I quit drinking for me, not because a court told me I had to or because I had anything left to lose (because I didn't). It just happened it was also a term of my probation. I quit drinking 66 days before I was put on probation.

Scumbag 3rd Party Tech Wiz: Hey, I have an idea.

Bill Gates: What's that?

Steve Jobs: I'm listening.

Peter Chou: Please, continue.

Scumbag: You remember that awesome, ground-shattering first generation project you put out?

Bill Gates: Yes, my Xbox 360, which revolutionized the gaming world.

Steve Jobs: Yes, my iPhone, which made the smartphone accessible to the idiot.

Peter Chou: Yes, my G1 and MyTouch 3G, the very first Android handsets.

Scumbag: Wanna know a great way to make a whole lot of money really fast?

All: Yeah!

Scumbag: Well, all of your products are still fully contemporary and functional, as well as either contract-binding, or at a price point where buying a new/secondary is out of the question, right?

All: Yeah!

Scumbag: Well, how about you all release newer, better, faster versions of your devices, that now do everything the originals were supposed to do, but just don't?

All: Yeah!!!

Bill Gates: An Xbox with WiFi!

Steve Jobs: An iPhone with 3G!

Peter Chou: A phone with enough RAM to actually have two apps open!

Scumbag: But wait, it gets better - release all of these new devices at even more accessible price points, tempting your old customers to buy their way in.

All: You're a genius!

Steve Jobs: *accidentally sneezes on Scumbag*

Scumbag: Ok fuck you Steve, your updates are coming a year later than they should now.