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drewshumiliatingblog · 5 years

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Apocalypse Time in Happy World

In hindsight, Happy World was always due for an apocalypse.

To put it as plainly as I can, Happy World is a world where you're always happy. The name honestly does an exceptional job of conveying this. In Happy World, you can dream as big as you want to, and you'll get what you want. Loss, doubt, and other hardships just don't happen.

In the beginning, Happy World was as great as you would imagine. I was a young kid with a loving family, great friends, extracurriculars, and creative projects to my name. And I dreamed of an even more remarkable future. Making big Hollywood movies, being rich and famous, having my dream girl... Oh, it would be an exceptionally happy future.

The first time Happy World let me down was when I graduated fifth grade. I was never happy to graduate out of a grade because I would think "I'll never get to be in this grade again. I've lost this time. That's not happy." It was something I was mostly able to ignore, but graduating from fifth grade meant all of elementary school was now over for me. This wasn't happy. There were a lot of other things that were slipping away as time went by, too. But Happy World was very accommodating. I still had all the great things I had, and things that were lost were more or less replaced with other wonderful things. And my future still looked as bright as ever.

In high school, loss was joined by a new unhappy thing: Doubt. I found myself succeeding less as a student because the schoolwork annoyed me and didn't make me happy, so I spent less time on it. I also found myself in a dream relationship, but this dream girl found a lot of things wrong with me that I had never noticed before. I found myself thinking "What if my grades aren't good enough to get into a good college? What if my future isn't as bright? What if my shortcomings make me less valuable as a person and I get dumped?" Graduating high school didn't help. I felt the great loss of a community I had known for a long time, as well as extracurriculars like drama club that had meant so much to me. I was also dumped the very same weekend I graduated.

Happy World was appearing to crumble as I was certainly very upset over loss and doubt, but I tried telling myself it was fine. I wasn't in the most prestigious college, but it wouldn't matter to my future. Meeting people and getting involved wasn't happening nearly as easily as it did in high school, but those things would happen by tomorrow. I was spending more time alone than I wanted to, but I'd have another girlfriend and way more friends in an hour or so. Also, I still had my family and my best friends from grade school. And I was in college, so I was on track to the awesome future I wanted.

Soon enough, I was two years out of college and I was still waiting for things to get better. Happy World was supposed to deliver, but it was getting harder to ignore that it wasn't. But Happy World clearly hadn't forgotten about me, because it moved me to New York City. It was perfect. I would be right near the entertainment industry and become a Hollywood movie man that way, but I was only four hours away from my family and friends in upstate New York and I could see them constantly. This was it. Sure, I had loss and doubt. Sure, all it seemed I had left were family, friends, and a bright future. But this bright future was going to change all of that. Happy World was going to live up to its name.

This is when the apocalypse started.

It's hard to describe but, suddenly everything was a lot darker and on fire. I heard evil cackling and screams just about everywhere I went. Things weren't good. A great job in the entertainment industry didn't come in NYC. I struggled to pay rent. It became clear that with the hours I would have to work, I would not be able to see my family and friends with nearly the frequency I had imagined. It seemed the only thing I had left was the idea of a bright future. The idea that at some point, everything would be better. But as I looked around the hellscape that Happy World had become, a harrowing thought occurred to me: I think Happy World is doomed. And without Happy World, the comfort of a better tomorrow burned away. I had nothing left.

The world that I had been depending on for my entire life was gone. Things weren't just going to be happy for me. I was stuck with things like loss, and doubt, and conflict--hardships I kept thinking I wouldn't have to deal with because Happy World would change things for me. But Happy World was on fire now, and nothing was going to take these hardships away. People will die, like my terminally-ill dad. Friends may not be around forever. You'll have to move out of your parents' house. You'll have to get a job you don't like to pay the bills. You'll have to ask out girls to be with girls. You'll have to put in unpleasant hours to make your creative projects better. And you could have to move to LA and leave your family, your friends, and your longtime hometown behind.

It's a disturbing reality that I still haven't adjusted to. I'm still mourning Happy World and the idea of an entirely happy life. I've currently moved back home so I can try to make sense of all this and be closer to my family and friends as I do, and I'm working a temp job while I'm here. Things are still a lot darker and on fire. I look at everything and can't help thinking "How much longer will this last?" And the worst part is, those demonic voices from the apocalypse sometimes talk to me.

"Hey Drew, I notice you're at work. Why don't you not do work and write a blog post instead?" "Okay..." "Isn't this wonderful, Drew? Now you don't have to do awful, unhappy work." "But I have to do that awful, unhappy work so things don't become even more unhappy." "No you don't. This is Happy World, Drew. Just look around." "Everything is on fire." "It's happy fire." "I have to do my job right now." "Just keep, writing, Drew." "I have to work." "Write away, Drew." "I have, to, work!" (Drew punches the demon right in the face.) "What are you doing?!" "You need to shut up so I can work." "But work sucks!" (Drew punches the demon right in the face again.) "Ow, stop that!" "No, you stop. I'm going to do this." "For now. But you'll want to stop working in like, two minutes." (Drew kicks the demon in the face, knocking the demon over.) "Stop fighting this, Drew. This is the way things were always meant to be. You're going to be unhappy, no matter what. Because this isn't Happy World anymore. It's the apocalypse." "You're wrong." (Drew kicks the demon so hard that the demon launches into the gray sky.) "It's both."

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drewshumiliatingblog · 6 years

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I Considered Giving Up On My Dreams

This doesn’t happen with everyone, but some people are lucky enough to know exactly what they want to do with their lives from the very beginning. I was one of those lucky people--maybe too lucky, because there was a lot I wanted to do. It’s always fallen under the umbrella of “creating your own entertainment” but I’ve wanted to be a painter, an actor, a songwriter, a filmmaker, a writer... I’ve wanted the opportunity to live my life making all of these wonderful things. Growing up, I devoted so much of my free time to pumping out artwork like this, always daydreaming of a time where I would be so good at it that people couldn’t look away. Growing up to be an artist, an entertainer, a creator, was never something I ever questioned. That is, until last night.

While having dreams is one thing, making them happen is another. Over the years I’ve definitely thought about this; how hard it’s going to be, what my odds are, how much luck I’ll have to have. I think most careers have their growing pains but with the one I was pursuing, you really start a lot lower. The path to working your way up is long, difficult, and not necessarily happy. Other people might not mind their first job in their field but for me, it’s more or less grunt work. And I famously joked about this for a while, saying how most people had a nice incline where they went from high school to college to getting a job in their field to getting an even better job in their field, etc. Whereas for me, after college, my incline dropped right to the bottom again, and I knew my journey up would be much steeper. I was very aware of this, and it didn’t really phase me. Because I kept daydreaming about my dream career, and what I had to do to get it just seemed worth it to me.

Recently, I took a very big step toward making my dream career happen. I went through the very frustrating process of looking for an apartment in New York City and I moved. I had tried finding the work I needed where I was at previously but, that wasn’t going to work and I knew it. I had to move to somewhere with more opportunity, and I did. And I liked the idea of living in New York City. In a very shallow kind of way, New York City seemed like a place you lived if you were particularly important. I wanted to feel particularly important. I thought I was ready. I--definitely wasn’t.

For one, I’m a lot more isolated here. I knew that I couldn’t live with my family forever in their house with many rooms and that I’d have to transfer to a scrappy apartment. But being mostly confined to one room is vaguely maddening. It has just about everything I need but it’s starting to make me feel like I’m caged. It also makes filmmaking in particular feel like more of a challenge. I hadn’t realized exactly how much I depended on using my parents’ house as something of a studio, being able to film things in many different rooms. Now if I want to do that, I have to make a three hour drive. There aren’t many spaces to film here.

And even if I tried filming here, privacy is a huge issue. These walls are thin, and I couldn’t even fart without everyone in the apartment hearing it. Every conversation that’s had in the apartment is essentially a conversation you’re sharing with everyone else in the apartment. I--really, really don’t like that. I hate the idea that I couldn’t even have a bad day and cry without people hearing it. And maybe it’d be a little more tolerable if I were living with friends, but that dramatically didn’t pan out and I’m here living with three strangers that I more or less don’t really interact with. It’s very uncomfortable.

And it’s also very lonely. Another thing I knew is that you can’t make a big move like this without leaving your family and friends behind. I had a taste of this in college. But in college, it never felt permanent exactly. Now, it does. I miss being able to just text my friends if I was bored and spontaneously hang out. I miss just being able to know I could see them with a ten minute drive. And I had not considered how comforting it was knowing that my family was around in the place I was living, and how nice it was just being able to talk to them. It’s not something I thought of as a kid; how warm and loved you feel being a part of a family. And while I’ll always be in the family--I’m not with it anymore. I’m alone.

And there are things about New York City itself that aren’t too nice. Yes, there’s more to do here and things are bigger. But I like having a car, and dealing with alternate side parking down here is nightmarish. And I barely get to use the car. Public transit is usually the best option for getting places since parking is so horrendous. I miss just the concept of driving a car and being in my own little space. Public transit means you don’t have to worry about driving, but driving was never something I worried about. Also, the gym’s more crowded and I don’t like it.

And on top of all of that, I don’t even have a job yet--which is awful! I’m basically broke. I was trying to apply for jobs even remotely related to my field but I guess I underestimated the competition. I thought waving around a degree would be the one thing about college that was genuinely useful but apparently it really isn’t. Now I’m going to need to find some temp job in order to make ends meet. And yes, some temp job is going to be a lot better than being unemployed. But some temp job is not what I moved to the city for.

And that is actually the biggest problem of all: What I moved down to the city for. I moved down here to start at the very bottom. Do grunt work in my field and claw my way up. I knew that’s what I had to do. I had joked about it. I had my eye on the future. But now, my eyes are also on the present. And the idea of doing this work--makes me really, really unhappy. Yes, after many years it’ll maybe finally pay off. But short-term happiness is valuable too, and something that up until now has been fairly secure for me. Now, I’m looking at the path to following my dreams and for the first time, I’m seeing how miserable it’s going to be.

And for the first time, I’m starting to feel how unfair it is that other people don’t have to be as miserable because they have different dreams. One of my friends is already married and more or less has his dream job while living in a nice apartment, with a move into a nice house pending. I can’t even fathom the kind of happiness he must be feeling. Another one of my friends just got engaged and is working a job he’s very comfortable with, while another one just got a job in a field he really likes. One of my friends just bought a house because they make a ton of money in their field. I have a cousin who’s younger than me and already doing so much better than I am living in the city. And it’s not fair. It’s not fair that I don’t get to be that happy.

So I considered giving up on my dreams. Finding some other career path I could take that wouldn’t be as brutal. Moving away from New York City to a place where I can get an apartment with some privacy. Being able to drive again. I still wouldn’t be living with my family. I might still live away from my friends. But I’d be more comfortable. I’d be happier. And I’d still work on my art projects on the side. I’d make them public. Maybe if I’m lucky, I could start my career that way. Just by being noticed and not by having to work my way all the way up. A lot of people don’t follow their biggest, loftiest dreams, but they’re still very happy with what they have.

But I’ve had the dreams I’ve had for my whole life. These dreams are a part of me. And even if I stop pursuing them, I’ll never stop daydreaming about them. I’ll never stop wanting them to come true. And it’ll make me sad, knowing that I traded them away. The trade would be more than reasonable. I’d get a lot more comfort by giving up on my dreams. But--they’re my dreams. They aren’t going away.

And for the first time, I started to feel cursed for having the dreams that I had. If I had wanted to be a restaurant owner or a barber or a data analyst or something, I wouldn’t be in this situation. I’d be happier. I wouldn’t have to decide between giving up on my dreams, or pursuing my dreams and being miserable while doing it. Because I want to be an artist, an entertainer, a creator, I’m doomed to this unsatisfying existence for however long it winds up taking for things to pay off. And they may never pay off.

So in a way, everything stayed the same after thinking all of these things last night. I still live in New York City. I still need to get a temp job as soon as possible. And I’m still going to pursue my dreams. I feel like I have to. It’s not often that my heart tells me things, but my heart is telling me that this is what I need to do. But what has changed is my awareness of exactly what I’m in for. I had been able to ignore it before because it wasn’t staring me in the face. But now--this is going to be my life. I’m going to be doing grunt work while most of the people I know are standing above me, feeling a lot happier. It’s maybe one of the most unfair things that’s happened to me. I hate it, and daydreaming about the future can’t make me stop hating it.

I’m trying to find a way to end this on a positive note. It’s stumping me because I’m very, very sad right now. It’s overwhelming how bad everything is, and there are constant reminders of it every day. I’ve been sitting here for a long time trying to figure out a way I can end this that’s happier. I had a thought of a life that might work out a little better for me. Where I moved back to where I came from. I know a lot of people from that area that have found the kind of grunt work I’m looking for down here. If I looked even harder, I bet I could find it for myself. I could work my way up and develop the skills I need to look appealing to the big jobs I really want. I could keep putting my art projects out there and try to get them noticed. And maybe I could get offers for big gigs in places like NYC or LA. But gigs would come and go, and I could always come back in between them. To a place where I have my own private apartment. Where I can drive a car. Where I get to visit my family that I love to pieces often. Where I get to be close to my best friends. Maybe there’s a way, to have both kinds of happiness.

It’s hard to know how things will play out. But maybe it’s not that thought of a happier life back where I was that’s the positive note to end on. Maybe the real positive note to end on is knowing just how much I care about my own happiness. That I care so much about giving myself the happiest future possible that I’m willing to sit here until I figure out how to end this on a happy note.

Life isn’t too happy right now. Not at all. But at least I know that I’ll always be striving to make it happy.

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drewshumiliatingblog · 6 years

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Dear 35 Year-Old Drew,

Hey, how you doin’? It’s Drew, also known as--you. Unless you changed your name to Andy or some dumb shit like that, which if you did, I’m just gonna kill myself right now so that doesn’t wind up happening. This letter started off way darker than I thought it would. Whoops.

Anyway, it’s hard to even fathom what you’re like from back here in 2018. I guess this whole letter is going to be rather predictive by nature but I just want to acknowledge upfront that I am not locked into any of these guesses for how you’re doing. It’s--as I said, basically unfathomable. But that said, I definitely have some hopes. I’ll just be blunt: I really, really hope you’re doing a lot better than I am right now.

I guess you’re going to have it easier because right now I’m really at the bottom. I’m just moving to New York City at 24 and hoping to get my first steady job in the film industry. At the same time, I’m getting all of my YouTube shit together to pave the way for more long-term (and hopefully more successful) YouTube projects. But I haven’t dated anyone for seven years. I’m obese and I hate the way I look. I’m seeing friends less and less. I don’t get out a whole lot. It’s not good.

And you know, there are a lot of potentially sad versions of you at 35. For one, you could be dead. Let’s just consider that. Some tragic horse-related accident or maybe you committed suicide for all I know. Or if you’re still kicking, you could be doing just a whole lot worse! Maybe the film career didn’t work out, and YouTube didn’t work out, so you’re stuck working some job you absolutely hate in a town where you don’t have many reasons to go out. Maybe you’re twice as fat. Maybe you’ve totally given up on all your artistic dreams and you just watch movies sadly. Sigh... I don’t want to believe that’s happened.

And I genuinely don’t think it will. Sure, it’s possible to lose your artistic spirit, but I just feel in my heart that you’ve got that something that’s going to keep your artistic spirit going. I think that you’re still trying. And I like to think you’re even succeeding. I bet by now, you’ve had two really successful YouTube channels cranking out quality content. I think by now you’ve had to release some original music. I bet you’ve acted in a few major things, even if they were very minor parts. And I’m just gonna swing big here. I feel like you’ve made a movie. An actual movie. An indie movie counts. I know how hard that is but I think eleven years is enough time to make something like that happen. I know a lot of our artistic success is contingent on exactly when (or if) we have that one lucky moment that really propels us and it’s insane trying to pinpoint it but, I like to think it happened for you two years ago and you’re just starting to see the benefits. And if it’s even earlier, that’s even better. Either way, it’ll be nice to have even a small audience encouraging me to keep going. Validation is nice.

Hmm... You know, you could be in California right now. That could be where opportunity takes you. I imagine that’ll have been rough on you because you had a lot of close friends in New York. Or--did you? Now that’s interesting. Which of the friends that I have now are even still around? I can easily, easily see about half of my current friends drifting right the fuck out of my life because they got distracted by other things. But I can also see myself finally making new friends while I’m in the city. I do think I’ll get involved in at least one extra curricular where I meet cool people. Regardless though, it might be a little tough making that move. But I can see it happening. And I can see myself staying in close touch with my remaining New York peeps.

I know that the metabolism starts to go at this age, and you’re starting to get real fuckin’ old, aren’t you? But I imagine we’re in good shape. See, up to this point in my life, I’ve never exactly tried to actively change my body type. It’s more or less just kind of fluctuated on its own. But this last year I’ve put in genuine effort to be fit, and--well, I’ve mostly failed. But I’m learning. And I think I’m going to figure this shit out and find a way to stay healthy. Now I don’t know if I’m going to have the muscles of a MODEL necessarily. That’s a lot of upkeep and I don’t know if I’ll take things that far. But I think by now, I’ll be able to look in a mirror and go “Oh hey, I don’t hate myself.”

I think the question on everyone’s mind is “Did you finally get somebody to fuck you?” And--you know what, I think you’ve had sex by now. I think somebody has made that happen. Now we can agree that it’s a total gamble knowing if you’re married right now or not, or if you wind up starting a family or not. But--I can see you seriously thinking about marriage right now. I can see you in a serious relationship. You’re 35 now. That can be happening.

I wonder if you’re reading this and thinking “Wow, 24 year-old Drew was really dark and cynical. I was so sad back then.” And can I just say that, you’re being kind of rude for thinking that. I am kind of pondering the same thing though. I like to think of myself as fairly positive but I guess I am coming across as cynical. Mostly because, I’ve seen optimism fail, and I guess it’s just--safer to be cynical and wrong than positive and wrong. I’ve failed a lot lately. I apparently don’t have the will to fail at being positive at the moment.

But I like to think you’re at least feeling marginally more stable than I am at the moment. I know there’s always going to be stress, and you’re always going to be moving onto the next big thing. But I hope you feel attractive. I hope you feel like you’re accomplishing things. I hope you feel loved. And I hope these things help mold you into a more positive person. You need the energy for positivity, and I hope you find it. To actually commit to a prediction here... I think you’re a happier person. It, terrifies me writing that out because I don’t want to be wrong. But I’m committing to it. And there’s at least one prediction I can feel confident making: You’re still gonna be me.

Ours,

~ Drew

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drewshumiliatingblog · 6 years

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Dear 24-Year-Old Drew,

It’s me: Drew from eighth grade. Do you remember me? I really hope you do because if not, something seriously traumatic must have happened to you. I hope you weren’t made brain dead in a horse accident or something. You stay away from horses, you hear?

Anyways, it’s crazy to think that it’s been eleven years, huh? Wow. You’re definetely not going through puberty at this point (phew!) I don’t have my magic future seeing goggle with me today and I promise I’ll bring them next time but for now I’m just gonna have to guess what you must be like.

Now I know that right now I’m kind of on the small side, but as you know I’ve definetely been crossing my fingers that your going to be tall and get the genes from our mom’s side of the family. I hope you’re at least over five foot nine but if you’re five foot ten or eleven, that is really great. That is a good attractive height. Also, I’m sure you had braces on and off by now and you have very good teeth. It would be really cool if you were muscular. I think you could be. I’m in okay shape right now and as long as I don’t get morbidly obese, I really think you just might be muscular right now.

I dunno if you’re married but I wouldn’t be upset if you are. I love my girlfriend right now and if we get married (which I would be super okay with) then we would probably be married by now, you know? So tell me if your’re still with our girlfriend (or wife!) I kinda don’t even wanna think about what it would be like if we weren’t’ still dating because that’s just...really sad. But okay, if for some reaosn something happens, I hope that you’ve at least had a lot of girlfriends, or that you have another girlfriend you’ve been dating for a long time. I mean, at this point I think you should be in a serious relationship with someone super hot.

Oh yeah, and I guess I should ask if we still like the same kinda girls. We probably do.

It’s hard to even know where you would be at right now but I would have to guess you’re in California doing all kinds of art. By now it’s been over a decade and you have to be a total master at all the art stuff you do. You must be an amazing painter, and an expert filmmaker, and a total pro at acting. And I hope you learned another isntrument besides the viola, preferbly a whole bunch of them, and it’d be so cool if you had a band to make all the music we’ve had in our head, especially this year! I bet you wrote a lot more music since though. You’ve probably acted in big movies. I dunno if you’re a super celebrity that’s crazy famous yet but I really really think you could be so I really hope you’ve starred in at least one big movie by now, and of course I hope you’ve made at least one of the movies we’ve wanted to make, if not more. I know we have something really special and I know you’re gonna be really big by now. (Also you might still be in college getting your masters but I know you can handle all of that by now.)

I just thought of this actually but what about all the friends I have now! Because you’re in California so Dan and Steve are gonna be really far away. But I bet they can move with you. Steve can do baseball in California and Dan can be a history teacher in California. We’re a super trio so we have to make sure we stick together. There’s no way we’re not. My family’s probably still in the house in Sumerset which is fine. I’ll see them on holidays and stuff. I don’t know what my sister’s gonna be up to. Its gonna be weird seeing mom and dad ten years older but that’s how life works and stuff. It’s not like they’re gonna die any time soon but they’re definetely gonna be older. I bet they’re finally gonna be proud now that your art is all famous.

I dunno what’s gonna happen with the other friends you have in school right now but I like to think that if they’re really good friends, they’re gonna be near you. Man what else? You probably live in a nice place. There’s no way you’re a dad yet because that’d be crazy but maybe you are!! Is YouTube still around? Right now I’m trying really hard to get my parents to let me have a YouTube channel and I think its gonna happen but its weird thinking about how it might not even exist eleven years into the future. Please tell me all this fighting is worth it. Though I guess it doesn’t even matter if you’re making movies.

But anyways, to wrap this up because I know you’ve got stuff to do, I really just hope you’re happy. I know that is the cheesiest thing to say in the entire world and its making eighth grade me look like an extreme loser but come on Drew, it’s important. I know right now I’m doing pretty good, at least right this moment. It’s definetely gonna be the best year of middle school. But if I’m being honest I feel like a real nobody more than I wish I did. I have friends but I’m weird, and I know I’m weird, and I don’t know. I don’t want to change, you know? I like me. I think that by now people have to know how cool and talented you are and not think you’re weird. I know it! And I know you’re even nicer than me, and definetely smarter, and definetely definetely better looking hahaha. And you probably aren’t shy at all and I bet you have way more friends and throw parties and stuff and you’re really popular. But yeah, I hope everyone looks at you and thinks “what a really good guy.” And I hope you’re really happy and all that. Because we deserve it.

All right, I put off all my homework to write this like a total moron and I need to get back to it, assuming I don’t get distracting by AIM again (which is definetely going to happen.) Is AIM still around? Okay that’s enough. See ya in eleven years, dude.

Yours literally,

~ Drew

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drewshumiliatingblog · 6 years

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how it feels to have your longtime childhood friend get married

It was entirely underwhelming. To me, my longtime childhood friend and his now wife have been a couple for a long time, and in my head, they were basically already married. It didn’t feel like anything changed. But it felt wrong to be at a wedding of your longtime childhood friend and just think “This is fun!”. I had a feeling there were emotions I wasn’t properly feeling, and so, I’ve decided to mine for those emotions, right now.

Now one feeling I already know I had was happiness. But not happiness for them. For myself. I was the Best Man, and the Best Man gets ATTENTION, and I mean, attention is really nice. People really seemed to like my speech and it filled me with SELF WORTH and CONFIDENCE which is awesome, but it’s also supremely selfish when it’s the only feeling you walk out of your longtime childhood friend’s wedding with. There are more feelings than that.

I’d like to say that the first obvious feeling I’ve been neglecting is “happiness that my buddy married another one of my buddies, yay for my buddies!” but truthfully, there’s another feeling looming that I’ve been trying to ignore but should address. ENVY. I indirectly addressed this feeling in my speech but when you have a longtime childhood friend, you find yourself wanting to be as important to him as you possibly can be. And if you’re thinking “I’m one of the important people in his life!” then things are fine. But sometimes, you start thinking about your specific ranking. And it’s not good to think about your specific ranking, because odds are, if the guy has a wife, you’re not going to be #1.

And--well, yeah, there is something sad about knowing that no matter what you do or how hard you try, you’re behind someone else. You’re the best man, but not the best friend. Again, it’s not exactly a productive thing to think about. It’s unlikely that there will be a scenario where my longtime childhood friend has his wife and myself dangling from a cliff and can only choose one to save, and so he pulls out his official ranking sheet, looks at me, and goes “Dangit, Drew, I sure am sorry, but my wonderful wife ranks higher than you so it’s time for your death.” More than likely, we’ll all be watching a bad movie and not thinking about our ranks. HOWEVER... It is a deeper feeling, and it’s one that I had, and so IT HAS BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT.

So now it’s time to find that feeling of happiness toward my buddies being married to each other and being love buddies now--but no actually, there’s another feeling next in line. This was an unexpected feeling but the wedding of my longtime childhood friend reminded me about how my dad is slowly dying from a horrific disease. That requires less of an explanation than you might think. There was one line the priest said that I’m going to paraphrase and while you would not perceive it at all from my face (because I was a STOIC Best Man), it killed me on the inside: “May these two grow up to see their children get married.” And I was like: My dad will never see me get married.

It wasn’t the only instance of this. It kept popping into my thoughts the whole night. When the wife danced with her father and I thought “My sister will never get to do that.” When my longtime childhood friend’s father requested a funny song for the DJ to play and I thought “My dad won’t get that opportunity.” There were intermittent flashes of deep depression throughout the night that I didn’t dwell on because I wanted to have some FUN dancing to FUCKING SMASH MOUTH. But I’m on a quest to find these deeper feelings, and it would seem we’ve locked in on yet another one.

So what’s next? Finally thinking about the people that got married and how happy you are for them, or is this another misleading sentence? You’re very clever; I have absolutely misled you because now it’s time to talk about my feelings of sexual inferiority. I mean, listen. When you’re single, and you see two people getting married that are extremely happy--it makes you think a little bit about where the fuck you’re at with your own life. I’ve been single for seven years. These two have been dating for that entire time. Eight years and sixty-three days. My longtime childhood friend had his foot in the door when he was in high school.

Is it luck? Sure. We both asked out girls on the exact same day and I sure didn’t roll the dice the same way he did because he wound up marrying his girl. But does it matter? Nope! Because my longtime childhood friend is MARRIED, and I don’t even have my foot in the door, and I saw a picture of me giving my speech and went “WOW I’M A FUCKING FATSO” so there are--certain pressures there. And by certain pressures I mean the existential dread that you won’t accomplish your dreams before you die.

And that also implies that falling in love is one of my dreams, which is true! I’m a romantic. I’ve felt strong feelings of romance before and I’ve really liked those feelings. So I can only imagine what my longtime childhood friend and his now wife must have been feeling at the wedding, because they’ve had much more romance than I have. In my best relationships I’ve felt “Maybe I’ll get to touch her this month if she doesn’t break up with me!” I think the newly married couple is feeling something a lot stronger than that. The good news is that my inability to even fathom their romance helps mitigate the sting of not having it, but there is still definitely a sting. A sting that I’ve tried ignoring to maintain my happiness, but I’ve allowed it to resurface as a part of this emotional expedition. It is joining hands with existential dread and cavorting gayly through the fields of feelings.

So I guess I’m just not happy for these two, am I? My longtime childhood friend and his neat friend, then girlfriend, then fiancée, then wife... I’m not happy for them because instead I’m feeling inferiority and loneliness and depression and panic and doubt. And if I’m being completely honest here and ripping open my brain for my millions of Tumblr readers... I don’t think I found myself feeling happy for them. I wasn’t UNHAPPY for them. I watched them dance and I watched them have fun and I thought “That’s nice.” But I don’t think I thought “I’m so happy for them.” That makes me a monster, doesn’t it? However, we’ve proven that we can find feelings if we mine for them. And so far, we’ve dug deep enough to find all these brutal, kind of awful feelings. But maybe there’s more digging yet to be done.

I’ve known my longtime childhood friend for a long time, and also since childhood. It’s been around eighteen years, and I’m blissfully comfortable with him. I love the guy. I’ve known his wife for less time, but I’m just as comfortable with her. And as a couple, I’ve known them for enough time where I’ve grown used to them. As I said in the very beginning, the wedding didn’t seem significant because to me, they already seemed married. It felt like throwing a birthday party five months too late.

But what I need to remember requires a lot of digging. It’s going to be intense, so I’m going to drink my special claw juice. You see, in this metaphor, I am digging through soil I guess. And I don’t have a shovel because if I used a shovel, I would get blisters. And I could put on gloves, but I just couldn’t find any in this metaphor because I didn’t design a metaphor garage with a metaphor cabinet that would contain metaphor gloves. So I’ve been using my bare hands, which seems very inefficient and like it would cause my hands much more harm than mere blisters, and this is true; I will admit this is a flawed metaphor. But for some reason I have developed special claw juice, which does not exist in the real world so it’s pretty special. This claw juice will fashion my hands with truly disturbing claws which I will use to dig with unhinged efficiency through this soil and find a feeling I felt a very long time ago, before I grew so comfortable with these newly married friends.

When I first realized my longtime childhood friend was in a real, wonderful relationship. A relationship that was here to stay, and a relationship that made him happy. A relationship that brought out the best in him, and a relationship that supported him during tough times. A relationship that gave him what he always wanted. A relationship that made him seem more complete than he ever had. When I first realized that my longtime childhood friend was in a relationship like that, I felt happy. I felt happy, knowing that someone I cared so much about was able to feel so happy himself. He had found love, and it was an incredible thing. And after years and years of being exposed to it, I had forgotten how happy I was for these two people. And I forgot to feel that happiness at their wedding. I forgot to feel most things at their wedding, except feeling that Smash Mouth is the band of our generation.

But I am happy for my longtime childhood friend and his wife. Apparently I am also various different versions of sad as well, but I am definitely happy. And feeling all of these feelings is not a bad thing. I’m not going to let them consume me and take over my life. If anything, I’m too good at keeping the negative feelings down. But it’s good to acknowledge them, and let them out, and recognize them. And in the process, I’ve let myself find what I was really looking for: Feeling so very, very happy that my longtime childhood friend and his amazing wife are able to be as happy as they are.

“Wow. I feel ripped off.”

What. Who are you. What is this.

“It’s me, one of the people that was at the wedding yesterday. I read this whole thing. I was curious about you after seeing your sick dance moves so I searched for you on the Internet and found this blog.”

Oh. Uh. I don’t know if that’s a good thing.

“Why wasn’t this your speech? This could have been an incredible speech and I bet a lot of people would have liked it.”

What are you talking about? This speech would have lasted like, twenty minutes.

“Don’t you know? Speeches at weddings are supposed to be EXTREMELY long.”

Oh. Really? How long, exactly?

“They are supposed to span one hundred years.”

...what?

“You are supposed to speak at length, without pause, as everyone in attendance listens on and slowly ages. They will sustain themselves with food and drink, but they will slowly begin to die as the length of the speech outlasts the length of their life. The stench of death will fill the room as more and more people die and decay, with the bride and groom eventually joining the deceased. You will carry on, escaping death through the power of your words, and speak until the hundredth year, at which time you will explode into dust in a room full of rotting bodies.”

What the fuck are you talking about?

“I am still extremely drunk from the wedding.”

Yeah, that makes sense.

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drewshumiliatingblog · 7 years

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The HAPPY Post!

Well hoody hickabee, it’s me, your old pal Drew, and some of you might be going

it is i, drew’s sole reader

i am a stalker and i am going to slit drew’s throat because he ate the last cookie

that fuckin jerk

And you’re right! I have had just too many BUMMER posts lately, haven’t I? I mean (arguably they were actually happy posts if you think about it) but SAD ELEMENTS, TOO SAD, THIS CHEMISTRY ISN’T GOING TO FLY. So it’s time for some jolly good times! That’s why I’m bringing in my best pal in the whole world, Jolly Glass Figure! Hey Jolly Glass Figure, how ya doing!

JGF: Hey I’ve abbreviated my name to JCF because you’re lazy.

Drew: Wow thanks, hey look, there’s my name, I’m Drew! So JCF, what are you here to do?

JGF: What?

Drew: I said what are you here to do!

JGF: It’s JGF.

Drew: Oh!

JGF: It’s an abbreviation of “Jolly Glass Figure”. Did you think I said “class”?

Drew: You had JCF in your dialogue!

JGF: Oh.

Drew: You fucked up, JGF!

JGF: You’re fucking writing this, you ass.

Drew: That’s the spirit! So Jolly Glass Figure, what are you gonna show us today!

JGF: Glad you asked, Drew! I’m gonna show you my amazing tap dancing routine!

Drew: Alright, let’s see it!

(Jolly Glass Figure moves slightly, falls over, and shatters into thousands of pieces.)

Drew: Hahaha, uh-oh! JGF, what’d ya do?

Drew: JGF?

Drew: You there, buddy?

Drew: Oh no.

Drew: Fuck me, no, no no no, are you

Drew: Why do bad things happen to good people.

LET’S JUST IGNORE THAT FOLKS, THIS IS A HAPPY POST! It’s time for a fun little game I like to call “Guess What I Have Behind My Back!” Is it

A) A phone! B) A box of candy! C) Two phones! D) The Bible

If you guessed “The Bible”, you’re correct! Let’s see what happy stuff is in here!

(All the pages are blank.)

Haha, I don’t know what the FUCK that means! Alright everyone, it’s time to bring the lights down and sing a happy song! Band, let’s go!

Band?

(A lone figure emerges from the pit, covered in blood.)

Aw shucks!

Lone Figure: It is I, Drew. Your lone reader. I’ve slaughtered your band and I’m here to kill you.

Drew: You killed my entire band? But they were supposed to play The Happy Song!

Lone Reader: Looks like all they’re gonna play is...

(The lone reader slips on the remains of Jolly Glass Figure and falls into the glass shards, slitting all his vital arteries and bleeding profusely.)

Drew: Well fuck, everyone died!

(Drew turns to the camera.)

Drew: But I didn’t!

(Drew picks up the microphone.)

Let’s all just take a moment Let’s have ourselves a breath And thank our lucky stars That we’ve avoided awful death It’s time to see some fireworks And have a glass of wine This moment’s just a moment But this happy moment’s mine.

(nobody applauds)

Oh yeah! There’s not an audience!

Oh yeah! My only reader is dead!

Huh!

(Drew eats a cookie.)

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drewshumiliatingblog · 7 years

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Drew Attempts to Depress Himself

I don’t want to talk about this. I’ve never felt that comfortable discussing my feelings, as important as I think that is. It makes me feel vulnerable and it doesn’t feel entertaining. But this isn’t something I can keep inside anymore. This is something that’s been going on for years, and it’s really been affecting my life. It’s just that no matter what I do, and no matter what I try, I keep ending up feeling--very happy.

Every day, I feel a gentle rush of warmth as I live my life in relative comfort, and it’s horrible. I’m not even living my best life here, but my excessive amounts of hope and optimism keep me from dwelling on it. Sure, I’ll occasionally feel a little sad, but it never sticks. I keep ruining it with thoughts like “Focus on the good things!” and “Everything will turn out alright!”

What happened to me? I used to feel way more miserable. This blog was founded on me expressing misery! Did my years of learning to love myself and think productively destroy my ability to just kick back and wish I were dead? I can’t even remember what it was like to be deeply, pathetically sad, and I want to. And so, I’m going to try to reconnect with my past. I’m going to try to remember those once-familiar thoughts that made everything worse.

Hey Drew. You know those popular people, who have a lot of friends and go to a lot of events and have a lot of sex? You’re not one of them. You’ve never been one of them and you never will be one of them.

You need to be hot, and you’re not hot. You’re short. You’re always going to be short, and too many girls find that an instant turn-off. And you don’t have the right interests and hobbies anyway. And you kind of suck at conversation because you’re always worried about how uncool you are, which is a reasonable thought because it’s totally true.

So you’re gonna be really bored and stay at home playing with pencils or whatever while people that are better than you socialize and bang each other, and keep banging each other, and continue to improve upon their banging skills until they’re rather advanced at it, while you’re not even really going to be at a beginner’s banging level because you’ve never banged anyone.

And there’s an even cooler crowd you can’t fit in with. It’s like that other cool crowd, but artsy. You’d think you’d fit into this crowd because you do art, but this group is for COOL art, and your art isn’t COOL. You like jokes and Pixar movies but this group is into provocative thoughts and Russian literature and underground music and stuff. You don’t know much about any of that.

So you’ll be home pushing buttons or something and a whole other group will be dancing and banging each other, except this group you’ll wish you were a part of even more because they like art and stuff. But they’re not gonna bang you. You’re too short, and you like Toy Story too much. Maybe if Toy Story had Woody kill himself, you’d have an in, but it didn’t, so you’re not gonna get to have sex. Some really cool girls are gonna be banging and be thinking “I’m sure glad I’m banging this person instead of Drew, that Woody-loving freak.”

You could be cool, if you were better. But you’re not. You’re unattractive, and you’re bizarre, and because of that, you’re lonely, and you’re boring, and you don’t know what vaginas taste like. You had a cool girlfriend once, but you blew it, and she’s went and had a bunch of boyfriends, and you haven’t had even one girlfriend, and she’s just proving how many people out there are cooler than you.

Oh yeah, there’s those other girls you liked too. They were also too cool for your school, and your school teaches mediocrity and horrible shame. They all rejected you because they didn’t want to be with you. That’s the plain and simple truth. Does it feel weird being a virgin when you’re 23?

Hey, you graduated college a year late. Everyone that was in your grade graduated ahead of you and it makes you look like you were too stupid to graduate on time. And you didn’t work as hard as you could have in your classes, so you were never one of the super smart kids. You barely got into any colleges. You should have taken AP US History, you HACK.

You can’t take back your failures, Drew. You had potential, but you lost it. You could have been an amazing student, but instead you were an amazing stupid. You’re so stupid you thought that was an okay sentence to write. You wanted to have fun instead of work, like you always do, and so you wasted so many opportunities. You could have been a nice person, but you’ve been selfish, and you’ve hurt a lot of people. You found new potential in being a jerk. They’ll never forget.

You’ve let a lot of people down who believed in you. Some of them probably don’t believe in you anymore. Your parents are probably kinda bummed. Especially your dad. I bet your mom thought you would be in Hollywood by now. But you’re not trying to make connections, and you’re just typing this from her basement instead of trying to get a job in the city.

You’re wasting your life doing meaningless things. You used to be so much more involved. You used to be in clubs, and be social, and those days are over. You won’t do anything to change it. You’ll just be alone, being bland, being bored.

You probably won’t be famous. All the movies you dream of making? You should probably consider that those dreams will never come true. Not just because a lot of people try really hard and still fail. You won’t even try that hard. You’ll never be able to get to a point where you MIGHT make it.

You’re going to be one of those people that daydreams all the time, and at some point, you’re going to realize how old you are, and how dumb you’re being for dreaming like that. You’re destined for mediocre things. You’re destined to get by.

You probably won’t be noticed. That Mathmaticious video you made? That could be the peak of your career. The best thing you’ve ever done could be when you were fourteen, and people will talk about that video to you, and it’ll make you depressed knowing you’re never going to get attention like that again. You’re going to die without having ever become who you wanted to be. You'll let everyone who believed in you down.

Just picture the other people, who had things work out for them. And remember that you’re not those people. You’re inferior Drew. Uncool Drew. Drew that’s not as good as the other guy. Drew that’s going to have nightmares of all the feature films he’ll never get a cent to make. Picture those stories you’ve written, melting away and disappearing. Picture the emptiness that’s left. That’ll be your legacy.

Ooo. Whoa. I’ve shivering. Or at least, the room feels marginally cooler, although I’m still kinda sweaty and I should turn on a fan.

So that was me, writing on the fly, reminding myself of some of my all-time greatest hits of depression. The theme seemed to be a feeling that I absolutely would not get things that I deeply, deeply wanted because I wasn’t good enough. My natural instinct was to wipe away the negative thoughts with a much sunnier outlook, but I fought that instinct as best as I could this time around. And it kind of worked. I did feel sort of sad.

But it’s already wearing off. The positivity is already starting to creep back in. I wasn’t really able to get to that nice, sweet spot of wallowing in my own misery, but I did at least remember what the feelings felt like. The thing is, I'm someone that clearly wants things, and wants them hard. And what I want most is to be happy. Clearly, my newfound struggle to cry myself to sleep is a sign that I’m getting much better at having that happiness that I want.

And whether I like it or not, I can’t help but notice that.

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drewshumiliatingblog · 7 years

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My Shitty Podcast

A hearty hello to my zero readers, fuck you, you make me feel so alone.

In 2015, I launched a 100-episode unscripted, one-take podcast where I reviewed every Disney Channel Original Movie. I chose this format because I wanted to talk about each movie, but I wanted to save as much time as possible by not having to worry about rehearsing or editing. This turned out to be an enormous mistake on my part.

I did not consider that I like my projects to be good, and I had no idea just how much effort it would take to make an unscripted, one-take podcast good. In fact, I am still haunted by all the things that went wrong during this year-long process. Since I’m often thinking about these things, I thought it might be interesting to officially document them. To give you the moral of the story in advance, think as much as fucking possible about what a project might require.

I did not have access to a recording studio, which prevented optimal sound.

I did not have the budget to create a home recording studio to attempt this optimal sound.

The audio started off very quiet because I wanted to play it safe with my wide vocal range. I learned to compress the audio, I think is the term, to make the quiet parts louder and vice versa. I’m still not sure this is even ideal.

My breaths as well as some of my p’s and b’s caused the microphone to crackle a bit because I never got a pop filter to record with.

The futon I started off sitting in was very creaky, which poluted the sound. I hadn’t considered that the place I was sitting mattered.

I needed to coordinate with the other people living in the same space as me so that their own activity wouldn’t be overheard in my recording. These podcasts could sometimes be hours long, so having your roommates be quiet for you is a big favor to ask. Timing to record the podcast when they are out of the house is also tricky as you never know when they might come back.

Apparently one of the places I was recording was not electrically grounded. What this means is that my mircophone could pick up radio signals if a radio tower was close enough. This is exactly what happened. It was a terrible situation.

You usually can’t coordinate with what neighbors might decide to do while you’re recording.

I went into each recording with notes, but often I wouldn’t refresh myself on these notes before recording. This lead to me forgetting what some of my notes meant, or discovering while reading the notes that the notes could have stood to be improved. Both these things made me seem like an idiot.

I hardly had the proper vocal training to position my tongue in a way where it wouldn’t make clicking and sloshing sounds. It was really just a matter of luck with however my tongue decided to behave that day. I still don’t have control over this yet.

Sometimes I would eat something that made my stomach make noises during the podcast. You apparently have to watch the foods that you eat.

Sometimes I wouldn’t eat recently enough, and my stomach would make noises because I hadn’t eaten. I attempted to eat foods that curb your appetite but this doesn’t really work.

It takes a spectacular amount of talent to be able to speak for such a long time without making any grammatical errors and misspeaking somehow. I admittedly have a surprising amount of talent for this--but not the amount that I needed. There was some highly embarrassing phrasing to come out of these recordings.

I was not physically well throughout the run of this project. I contracted bronchitis three times and suffered from allergies. I am finally taking steps to treat this condition because I’ve spent many months being sick, which just isn’t ideal. But these illnesses very much impacted my recording. It was hard to record for long periods of time without needing to sneeze, blow my nose, cough up phlegm, etc. This was obviously very unprofessional to do live.

I never considered that there are a fair amount of things I can’t say in a podcast for legal reasons. This led to needing to rerecord certain things.

Sometimes I would record too early or too late in the day and my voice would sound hoarse from just waking up or from being exhausted. Unfortunately, I am easy to exhaust.

Cell phones can create terrible mic interference, and I experienced this.

I sometimes tried to improvise piano music. Unless you are a very good pianist, you probably shouldn’t do this. I don’t think I did poorly enough to say it wasn’t worth it but, it could have been a lot better.

I would sometimes have guests on and I did not give enough consideration to if they were a good fit for being on a podcast. One guest would go very off topic. One guest had a problem with cutting other people off. Some guests just stammered and struggled to find their words. They were all smart and thoughtful guests, but these were damaging oversights.

Plumbing can betray you and cause there to be a sudden dripping noise in the room you’re recording in that fucks up multiple recordings. I am not a plumber. I can’t fix fucking pipes.

I myself found myself becoming inundated with all of these things I needed to do perfectly and often was unable to because I just didn’t have the control that I needed. This resulted in my focus often shifting from the topic at hand to my flagrant imperfections, and while this provided some entertainment for sure, it wasn’t always the best thing to do.

For these many reasons and potentially more that I forgot to include, the podcast feels like a failure to me. On the bright side, I can say that I’ve learned a lot about how to make a good podcast. And I should give myself some credit in that I think, despite all these many errors, I still made a good podcast. I think that I always came at it with energy and passion, and I committed myself to finding ways of making the run of it entertaining and fresh. It was a fiasco all things considered, but I persisted.

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drewshumiliatingblog · 8 years

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Doin’ School

I’m not one to be embarrassed by very much, but there’s actually something shameful I’ve been intentionally hiding. Last year, myself and many of those in my high school senior class were finally graduating college after four years--except I wasn’t among them. My college experience wound up involving three separate colleges, and as it turns out, the collegic system makes it difficult for transfer students to graduate in their expected year. While I was meant to be a 2015 cap-wearer, reality sets me at 2016.

I won’t lie; this made me feel very inferior to the peers I was formally graduating with, and even more inferior to the peers I was going to graduate with instead. It was the mental equivalent of getting held back a year, despite the fact I didn’t do anything to academically deserve it. This was a matter of timing only and had nothing at all to do with my status--and yet, I’ve never mentioned anything mentioning the fact I’m still in school publicly up until right now. I felt small not being able to do it in four years.

This fear of not being my best checkered a lot of my academic career. I would feel pressure to take as many AP classes as I could, even if I didn’t want to take them. I had to be the smartest. I started out school as a great student but as the work became more consuming, my focus waned, and it was hard for me to stay a great student. In fact, I really wasn’t. Once academics became a real commitment, my straight As were gone, and at some point I got Fs.

Do I still regret these things? Yeah, I do. I wonder what it would have been like had I applied myself more. Had I not become a prolific class-skipper in high school and instead taken more challenging classes. I don’t tend to have the greatest capacity for retaining volumes of information, but perhaps applying myself would have sharpened these abilities. I could have developed better intellectual recall. I could have become a smarter human being.

But then again, it wouldn’t have mattered too much. I still wound up getting into one of the best film schools in the country, which turned out to be disappointing for me. It’s such a crapshoot. So much of that shame I felt was because I felt I was denying myself the opportunity to get the best college education, but now I realize that a good college education depends much more on luck than on grades. Still, it could have been nice to be smarter.

The worst thing, though, is that I don’t feel much of an absence in my life. So many classes I did not really apply myself to, and I don’t really feel any worse off because of it. And this was such a large portion of my life. I wandered through it half-aimlessly, just seeking to have fun, and it panned out. I’m glad I’m happy, but I’m sort of bothered by the pointlessness of it all. I guess I had enough moments of academic discovery, like the arts, to make it worth it. Though not nearly enough.

I think what really got me attached to school, however, was the community. It’s not that uncommon an idea of a group of people taking notes as a superior addresses them. But something about that specific classroom setting, and the specific experience of attending a school, has really stuck with me. It’s not technically remarkable, but the fact I’ve been doing it for so long makes it noteworthy. And of course, the friends I would make along the way was wonderful.

And the reason I write about all this? Today was my last day of classes, ever. Humorously, it’s also the only day I pulled an all-nighter before all of my thirteen hours worth of classes, so my attempt to stay alert for a personal record amount of time made the day even more memorable than it already would have been. I took notes while doodling on a piece of paper today and I thought, I’ll never really do this the same way again.

When I was younger, I was heavily sentimental about graduating a grade--I recall finishing elementary school to be a particularly hard time for me. It was very affecting for me to sprititually leave behind a chapter of my life that I had invested so much into. While I’ve become better at not being such a wreck these days, I have to say that it’s hard to not feel something here. It’s not just another year come and gone; it’s the whole academic experience. Sure, I can take other classes if I want to, but that official road of schooling for me has closed at last. I won’t think of years as September-August anymore. And it’s hard to believe.

I’m not even really going to edit this (though eh, maybe I will). I just wanted to freewrite how I felt right now. It’s not often that I get to feel like this. There’s never been such a large part of my life that I’ve had to say goodbye to before. It’s like a whole volume of my life has wrapped up. There are so many incredible chapters to reflect on that I’m overwhelmed. But it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful to have been given the opportunity to feel so attached to something, even if it wasn’t of my own free will really.

What can I take from it? I would say that the most practical lessons I could give are “don’t make assumptions about what you’re capable of” and “follow through with things”. Doing both of those would have corrected so many of my academic shortcomings. But on a deeper level? The idea of growth. How sad and joyful it is to be able to change in such a way that you have to leave parts of yourself behind as other parts journey onward. And the idea of just how much happens. As slow as time moves for me, it’s wild when I remember all of the things that colored my timeline over the years. School is how I measured time. School is where I had so many opportunities. In a word, it was fulfilling, and I’m endlessly thankful for all of it.

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drewshumiliatingblog · 8 years

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Good as Gold

Considering my current reputation for not being much of a gamer, I imagine it might surprise some people to learn just how into Pokemon I am. Pokemon Gold was the first video game I played and I adored it. Maybe so much that I didn’t need to play other video games. But it had been a long time since I had first played that game--fifteen years. So recently I played through it again. It was a wonderful, nostalgic experience.

This isn’t a love letter to a Pokemon game, though. I’m more fascinated by the familiarity I experienced. When I think about life fifteen years ago, I feel a distance with most of my memories. I know what they mean to me and I can recreate the associated feelings based on my overall life experience with those feelings. But it’s vague. It’s not specific, and it’s not visceral, because I’m not making a real connection.

But this game, as I imagine is the case with all video games, has a unique power. It’s a relic that can emulate an exact experience I had from long ago. Yes, I’ve grown since then. Yeah, the way I think is different. And I had some “oh riiiight, that!” moments I wouldn’t have had playing it the first time around. But the feelings I had going through it--the anticipation, the frustration, the amazement, the satisfaction... They were all such distinct feelings. Every emotional response I had, I would think “This is exactly what it was like fifteen years ago.” It was like I had a time portal... Or rather, it was like time didn’t even matter.

This has never happened to me before. I’ve never felt such a complete immersion into something that happened to me so far in the past. And imagine if I could think the same way, too? What if I could access other times in my life the way I could access an old video game? But sadly, there's a dearth of opportunities for experiences like this. Even more sad is that I had lost touch with this game in the first place. It’s a memory that I’ve just confirmed is wonderful, and I hardly remembered it until replaying it. I let go of something that had made me so happy.

I can’t blame myself for it. It’s the nature of the mind; along our way, we grow apart from things we held close. We forge different paths. But it depresses me, because it’s as if my overall being can sense that I’m less complete than I used to be. There are other things I don’t remember well at all, but I know they happened, and I felt something. And that’s gone. A series of voids are created. My video game managed to fill a void, but many of the people, places, and things I cherished are wandering elsewhere. Some of them go away forever. And I myself am one of those things in the life of another. My luster is lost to time, and I can sense the dimming of the beacon I once was to someone else. There’s an inevitability of empty voids.

But of everything Pokemon Gold made me remember, one thing shone above the rest. While reliving the game and what I had once gone through, I remembered that I had gone through it. I had always thought of my time playing the game all those years ago as a memory, but it was more than a memory--it was life. I was thinking things, and feeling things, and I was filled with the essence of existing as myself in the same way I am now, and in the same way I always will be. I had forgotten how alive I was, and I hope I don’t forget soon. Because there inside of you is a vitality radiating like gold, and even if there are many things you’ll never be able to relive, you can at least know you lived them.

#Pokemon #Pokemon Gold #nostalgia #memories #familiarity #forgetting #experiences #being #life

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drewshumiliatingblog · 8 years

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Playing

Wrote that last post. Anybody read it? Probably not? It’s startin’ to feel lonely over at Drew O’Clock. While I don’t live for reaction, it’s always appreciated. But no one really reacts to my blog these days. Is Drew old news now? Is it because we haven’t chatted lately? I miss you. Let’s chat. AM I EVEN TALKING TO ANYONE.

On the other hand, it’s convenient that there’s such an echo because otherwise, somebody might have asked “Hey Drew, in your last post, you said you’d have shaved your giant beard and cut off your wild hair in two weeks. Now it’s been two weeks! Have you?” Because boy, it sure would be embarrassing to have to admit that no, I still look the same. But nobody read anything so I’m in the clear!

Well, I noticed this hair business, and I’m not stoked about it, but the good news is that the film I’m looking this way for has been taking up most of my time lately. I had four different film shoots in the last week and it’s thankfully getting there. Something funny happened on today’s shoot, actually. I was filming at a court house, which is apparently a public place despite all the security cameras! My crew had to take off so I was there alone, trying to get one last shot before my camera batteries gave out on me. Just as I was about to record...

Screaming, laughing children from behind me. I kept listening and, soon, I could hear that they were clearly right behind me. It was a nice day and I guess they were playing. And I immediately felt out of place. Here were some kids trying to have a good time and there’s just some guy standong in their space. Not to mention that from my perspective, being alone with a thick beard and a video camera while security was presumably watching on was a little iffy.

It felt weirder than that, though. To these kids, I was the adult in the way of their playtime, and knowing that these kids saw me as a prototype adult who does adult things and doesn’t play around was bizarre. It put me in a “lame grown up” mindset that made me feel more disconnected from children than I ever have before. I was thinking “I remember when I was that age. My friends and I would also ride scooters, play outdoor games, imagine things... In fact, we’d even film things.

And it occurred to me that this was exactly what I was doing right now.

I messed around with a camera when I was young and that hadn’t changed. What changed is how I did it. The more time I spent playing around with filming stuff, the more ideas I had for making it a more satisfying experience, like having better ideas, and finding cool locations, and actually growing out a beard instead of wearing a fake one. It was unrecognizable to those kids, but I was also playing.

The kids eventually decided to play hide and seek somewhere else, which was probably an indication that they were raised well considered how sketchy a stranger I appeared to be. My last camera battery then promptly died, so I packed up and got in my car. The kids had congregated in a nearby parking lot and there were a lot more than I thought there were. It was an event.

As I drove past them to leave, I looked at them as if to say “You can have that spot now.” I imagine they might have thought “I hope I don’t grow up like that guy.” But if they were having as much fun as I did at that age, I think they just don’t realize that growing up like me is exactly what they’re hoping for.

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drewshumiliatingblog · 9 years

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Joel and the Urinal

Hey, we’ve been a little sour here lately on Drew O’Clock. Why don’t we spice things up a bit? With urine?

So recently I was in Syracuse because, I don’t know, I guess I really didn’t want a tan anytime soon. And believe it or not, I ran into Billy Joel. The songwriter! It’s not actually that absurd--he’s played a record amount of times at the university’s dome (naw seriously, look it up), so I guess he might frequent this shitty place from time to time. Anyway, it was early in the morning at this bar and my friends weren’t around, so I just thought “Eh fuck it, I’ll strike up a bit of a conversation with him.” I should mention I was somewhat drunk at this point.

Billy boy didn’t seem to mind, though. It was nearly 2 in the morning; he didn’t look like he had anywhere to be. I stood by him and his friends and we all shot the shit for a little while about regular stuff. I remember it being a good conversation, but the whole time I wanted to ask him his advice on what I should do to get my own music out there. We started talking about careers and it was a perfect opportunity to ask that question, but I couldn’t fucking remember what it was I was going to ask. I told him I was going to go jog my memory outside and that I’d be back. He didn’t really care. Heh.

I went outside. It was kinda cool. It felt like autumn and the moon was out. I liked how warm the bar felt inside. It made it seem like there was always somewhere to be cozy. I should mention that Billy Joel is kind of an idol of mine and this is kind of a big deal. But there’s a reason I haven’t shared this story with anyone yet. Because I was feeling sort of drunk, and I told myself that the best thing I could do to make sure I didn’t blow my shot at my question with Billy Joel was to try getting the drunk out of me, and I thought the solution to that? Going to the bathroom.

So I strode back inside and found their restroom and went at it in the urinal. I was concentrating as hard as I could. But this was amazing...And I guess sort of gross, but bear with me. As liquid hit the inside of the urinal, the colors making up the inside of the urinal bled and swirled around. I thought this was disgusting at first too. There was just brown and orange and I assumed it was filthy. But looking closer, I saw that these weren’t the colors of filth. These were pure, saturated colors put there intentionally. This was some kind of an artistic urinal. I still can’t figure out how it worked, but the colors just kept swirling. They didn’t run out. It was mesmerizing to look at. I was fueling a beautiful piece of art with my own stream of urine. Then I shook my head and had a thought.

“Ah shit, this was all just a dream and now I’m peeing myself.”

Yep. It was a perfect storm of subconscious stimuli. Come on, Drew. If you pee, you’ll be able to get career advice from one of your biggest idols. And look, Drew. Peeing is contributing to the ongoing creation of a swirling spectacle of color and wonder. Pee, Drew. Pee for inspiration. Pee for your future. Pee for yourself. Yeah, my dreams are fucking assholes sometimes. And all I had in the house was fucking Clorox so that was fun. That’s what I get for trying to get to bed early. Good to know I had a giant erection.

But you know, there’s something kind of refreshing about all this I guess, aside from the peeing part. It’s good to know that, even if it was merely a reverie, I was willing to go such lengths in order to promote my creation of art in my life, something I want so much. Be it my music or a porcelain canvas, I was very in touch with my desire to fulfill myself by emptying myself. I wasn’t just peeing in my dream. I wasn’t just peeing because of my dream. I was peeing for my dreams.

(Do you like how I managed to make this sentimental?)

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drewshumiliatingblog · 9 years

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You Want a Sandwich

You need it. You crave it. You just gotta have a sandwich, right now. Don’t think too much about it. Don’t bring up that you hate crafted foods that start with “s” after a weird thing your ex-boyfriend magician said. You just want the sandwich, okay? You want it bad because you’re a naughty sandwich-haver and you know it.

Do you have a sandwich right now? That’s awesome! You just happened to have a sandwich right in your hands! You happened to be right in front of the sandwich place when you first wanted a sandwich and they had a free sandwich right there for you because you looked like your heart was in the right place, and now your sandwich is in the right place--your eager fingers! You bask in that sandwich. You bathe in its mighty glow. You and the sandwich are one, and there is happiness.

I’m kind of jealous, actually. I want a sandwich, too, and that’s just awesome that you were able to get a sandwich like that. I wasn’t even in front of a sandwich place when I first wanted a sandwich. I was chillin’ at a morgue when the rumblies hit, and there sure weren’t any sandwiches at the morgue--trust me, I asked! It was some crazy unpleasant business, let me tell you. I demanded sandwich satisfaction and instead, I was handed a bunch of empty nothing stuff. I just had to wade through this nothing stuff until I was able to get a sandwich. Who even thought of this nothing stuff? Nobody wants a nothing. Everybody wants a sandwich. But I guess there’s just some nothing rules in this world and I have to have nothing, which is not the same as a sandwich no matter how you look at it.

But trust me, I can dream about that sandwich. I can basically taste it right inside my mouth, and I know what it feels like as I’m grasping it while it’s in my mouth. And I’m a little congested right now, but I can imagine what I’d imagine the smell would be like, which is crazy stuff. And it looks great. I mean, all the senses are covered here. Even the abstract ones. Like, I can perceive the existence of the sandwich and know its true desires or something. I know the dimensions of the sandwich. I think I’ve proved that I think really hard about this darn sandwich, okay? I just really want it!

I remember the last time I had a sandwich. It was at Laura’s Going Away party because Laura finally got out of prison but she didn’t want to be reminded of her hometown because they all knew she was a murderer. I didn’t even know Laura but I worked with a nurse that like--well--alright, I don’t really remember why I was there, but I was there, and a sandwich was resting beautifully in my welcoming palms. I enjoyed every bite, and everything that happened around me was so much more wonderful while I was eating that sandwich. Talking to that total stranger who thought I was Brian but I wasn’t was magical with a sandwich in my mouth. Running away while Laura got a surprise shanking from her old gang felt much more meaningful with sandwich bits jostling about my tongue. I can’t even tell you what it was like spending an entire day in a candle store smelling candles when I could also smell my delicious sandwich nestling in my greedy hole.

Everything. When I saw a movie I liked. When I had my heart broken. When I thought I’d never amount to anything. When I had a stroke of luck. When I danced to a rhythm that moved me. When I cried to an idea that hurt me. When I found a feeling I never knew I could feel. It was all better because of the sandwich. The sandwich was a new level of life.

And without the sandwich, I’m stuck hanging out in nothing, waiting for things to be what I knew they could be. And there’s just nothing to do in nothing. I mean, there’s coloring books. That’s kind of cool I guess, and they have a couple of those obscure crayon colors which I’ve got some deep respect for. But nothing feels as great without a sandwich, you know? I could color in the lines perfectly, and a kid would say I cheated but I’d have videotape evidence that I won the coloring contest fair and square. And the color just wouldn’t quite be there. It would feel great. Like, really great. But without a sandwich surrounding it, something just isn’t right.

It’s not like I’m not trying to get a sandwich. Just because I’m in nothing stuff doesn’t mean I AM nothing stuff. If I’m in a swimming pool, does that make me the water? No, silly, this is so easy to follow! I’ve been taking steps toward getting that sandwich. The morgue was in a weird part of some town I’ve never been to and Laura’s corpse wasn’t even in there, but I know there’s a sandwich place somewhere and I’ve been looking. I mean, sometimes I stop to tie my shoe. And I might find a quiet place to masturbate, but otherwise, it’s basically sandwich quest up in here. I’m doing what I can for a dwich with some san. That’s a cool rhyme I came up with that I got tattooed on my arm while I was taking a sandwich searching break. And hey, I think I may be close! I’m sort of sure I smell a sandwich nearby although it’s easy to mix that up with the scent of the Smell Papa who is also nearby!

But I don’t know if that matters. Not the Smell Papa smell thing (which is super weird that he smells like that!) but being close. I mean, I’m glad. But I’m thinking about all this time I spent in nothing stuff, and all the stuff I’ve done. I kinda lied because I mean, I haven’t been 24/7 sandwich. I’ve done some stuff. Seen some people, been to some places, hidden Laura’s treasure where no one will find it. Some good, some bad, some everything really. And when I think back on these moments--well, I don’t know if I even will. Because I didn’t have a sandwich. But I don’t like that. I don’t like thinking that all this time I’ve been spending in nothing stuff, without a sandwich... Doesn’t mean anything.

It’s my life. I want it to mean something.

...

You know... I wound up in a field the other day. One with all those wheat stalks. I was searching for my keys because there was a hole in my pocket when I first went through it, and some friends I had only just met spent hours trying to help me find them. Those wheat stalks were basically bread, right?

And when I had to visit my grandparents and had all this nostalgia of when they used to have two awesome cats scurrying around the farm yard that weren’t there anymore. They still had some cows. They kind of make cheese, right?

And you know, I was just walking down a street when I saw an absolutely mesmerizing display by a street performer. He balanced a shopping cart on his chin! It was kind of inspiring. He didn’t even have that much of a crowd but he was doing something amazing. And he was made of meat. And meat goes on a sandwich.

I don’t want to remind you of that ex-boyfriend magician of yours, but maybe what I need is a little trick. I’m looking at everything as sandwich and non-sandwich, but maybe I can trick myself into seeing things differently. Maybe all these moments in nothing stuff are parts of a sandwich. A sandwich that is definitely out there and that is definitely mine. They’re just kind of, separated from the sandwich, but I know they belong to the sandwich that I love, so it’s cool. In fact, knowing that they’re just a part of the sandwich kind of makes it feel like I have the sandwich itself. Like these sandwich-less moments are all a part of a great, whole sandwich.

Who knows when I’ll get my next sandwich. But until then, I can start making one.

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drewshumiliatingblog · 9 years

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Graduation Party Every Year

I wasn’t planning on throwing a graduation party when I graduated high school. I thought grad parties were lame--every one I had been to had an awkward mashing of school friends and family, and nothing exciting ever really happened. But born out of this aversion was the sudden whim to throw a fantastic grad party.

If I was going to do this thing, I wanted it to be great. I had a plan to have my family over first and THEN my friends to separate the different social groups. I hand-picked a bouncey bounce to order. The Facebook event for it was pushed like this party was going to be an event. And it wound up being a great time. Twenty-some of my friends showed up and stayed a while. I was a little sad that more people didn’t come. I had a feeling that some of the friends I liked just didn’t feel like being there, but then again, could I blame them? Grad parties don’t have a great reputation.

Come next year and I had finished a year of college. I had really wanted to throw another party because I thought it was fun, and I had the idea “What if there was just another graduation party, despite the fact I already graduated?” It was a dumb idea that was immediately rolled with. It was done up with the same flair as the last one. This one had a pool on location, a trampoline, and a projector with video games (or at least a good attempt to get one going). It looked like about twenty-five or so people showed up, which may have beaten last year’s attendance. The fact nobody was graduating didn’t seem to deter people, and some people showed up to it that I didn’t see last year. I felt pretty good.

So of course next year, a third graduation party was planned. The advertising for it got more gimmicky as my friend and I staged a fake rivalry. I got the bouncey bounce I had always wanted: The bouncey bounce with a giant wrecking ball in it. We also had a whole stretch of woods to play outdoor games in. I had also vaguely planned the next two parties--there’d be one next year, and the year after that there’d be a big final grad party when I was actually graduating from college. I was stoked.

Twelve people came to the party. For most of the party, there were six of us, including me. The next year, there wasn’t a grad party.

I told myself it was inevitable. High school friends just weren’t going to be around the area much anymore. I suppose I’d been too excited to really think about that. Besides, grad parties weren’t even known for being that great. But there was a sadder, more distracting thought. Sure, maybe distance was keeping people from these parties, but maybe they also just didn’t want to go. Maybe they had moved on.

I remember how sad I was when I graduated elementary school. I cried a lot that day because I was going to a different middle school next year. I would barely see all the people I had gotten to know in fifth grade. I was very sentimental, and I hated the idea that people I cherished would just be gone in a flash. But what got me through was the hope that distance wouldn’t destroy things. That no matter where I was, a true friend and I could always stick together. Then I made new friends in middle school and seemed to completely forget about that sticking together stuff. I don’t think I’ve talked to anyone from elementary school in a decade. And hey, why worry about it. We all moved on.

This time in my life has been a little different for one reason: I didn’t move on. I bounced between three different colleges and only made a friend or two at each of them. Some of them were great friends, but they didn’t fill the void of those high school friends I was so sad to let go of when I graduated. I had the same sentiment then as I did back in elementary school; that I would be able to stay with these friends that had touched my life no matter what. And because I didn’t make many new friends, I found myself in a unique position: I remembered my own sentimentality.

And I watched as people moved on while I didn’t. I found myself wanting to talk to old friends, and the more I started conversations with them, the more I was aware that they weren’t starting them with me. I have many long messages about getting together that were never responded to; just forgotten and abandoned. Friends that I stayed up talking with until sunrise now don’t even remember when I said something to them. Sure, sometimes friendships can fall apart because of differences. But this seemed much worse. I was just disappearing.

Now, most of those elementary school friends, middle school friends, and high school friends are all graduating college. They’re moving onto the post-grad world, and I imagine they may miss their friends from college for a while, and then make some new friends, and then forget to be sentimental. But I’ve had the sad luxury during my college years of being forced to remember these old friends, and to wonder what it means when they’re forgotten. That while it may be natural, something that made someone happy is being abandoned. It just seems to be a trend that people don’t mind. Maybe that’s just life, and at some point we just stop going to grad parties. But maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe grad parties aren’t so lame. And maybe it’s not enough to have just one.

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drewshumiliatingblog · 9 years

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Roller Skates Turned Into Silverware

It had everything a kid could get excited about: A roller skating rink, an arcade, prizes, contests, a big jungle gym, multiple ball pits, hit songs blaring overhead. And one day my parents read something in the newspaper saying that the owner of that place was closing it. And instead, he was going to move somewhere else and open up a restaurant. That was somewhat of a shock. I initially pictured the restaurant being exactly like the last place, but they also served you pizza. Turns out I was wrong; it was going to be a fancy adult restaurant. Which meant there probably wouldn’t be any ball pits.

I was bummed that one of my favorite places was disappearing, but I wasn’t even able to focus on being upset. I was too intrigued by this owner. I couldn’t believe that somebody could want two totally different things. I just assumed people had one ultimate dream that they spent their whole life going after, and yet, this guy crafted a one-of-a-kind empire to stimulating the imagination and thrill of small children everywhere and decided that he also wanted to make a restaurant for adults that like to be fancy.

The world stopped being a place where people just had one dream; where they were either living it or had to settle for something else, and I would want to go up to that plumber and say “If you always wanted to be a yo-yo entertainer, you should go do that instead!’ and the plumber would cry and break his plunger in two and pull out from an old dusty box his sacred yo-yo and jump out the window and grab onto a bus that was heading to the world yo-yo competition. Now, people could have more than one dream. Somebody could like being a birthday clown AND a porn star.

This really changed things. It's awesome, but when you have more than one dream, it’s very hard to make time for both dreams. Sometimes, you have to pick between the two. And then you have one dream that isn’t being realized anymore. For a while, I just thought of myself as a drawing/painting guy. My parents, teachers, and peers all encouraged me to keep up with it, and I did. But I haven’t painted anything for years now, and you know what? I miss it. Sometimes I just want to stop what I’m doing (which may or may not be trasitioning into a bird person to be among my avian friends) and paint. It’s just not that easy, though. Birds don’t usually paint.

It doesn’t just affect you, either. Several creators on YouTube that I love have moved on to do other things. The lives of those creators are definitely changing, but so is mine. The type of videos I watch has changed. The things I’m being inspired by has changed. The things that I miss seeing? That’s changed. Will I ever get to see the last episodes of that web show about telekinetic cats?

With multiple dreams, you see a lot of things that end up getting abandoned for a while, and sometimes forever. All I want to do is watch these things grow and flourish when they often won’t. But isn’t that urge a sign? Having that urge means that something’s there. That somebody managed to put something out there for a while. And isn’t it cool, that I can have this urge in the first place?

Who knows where that roller skating owner is now. Maybe he’s making just the best salads. He owns the finest salad hut in Fancy Town. And right now, he’s thinking “It’s been a real wild ride galavanting with all this lettuce, but it’s about time I moved onto my true calling: saving people from quicksand. I’ve just always wanted to wait around quicksand in case some traveler falls into it, and then I’d rescue the traveler with my quicksand savior skills.” And maybe when the restaurant closes, some customer will go “What buttshit! I loved his salads and now I can’t have his salads anymore!” And I’m right next to him, and I go “Yeah, and I wanna cool place to roller skate again!” And there’s another guy that says “I can’t believe he stopped saving people from quicksand to go build a giant balloon castle in the sky!” but that guy isn’t able to say that because he’s in quicksand.

What a load of things to cause, huh?

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drewshumiliatingblog · 9 years

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Just Saying

What if we had a letter for every word.

What if we had a letter for every sentence.

What if we had a letter for every paragraph.

What if we had a letter for every written passage.

You would go to read a book, and it would just be one word, and you would go "Wow, that book really stunned me."

But of course, there would be a letter for that sentence.

But wait. How would you say that sentence.

What if we had a syllable for every letter.

What if we had a sound for every syllable.

What if we had a line for every letter.

What if we were capable of producing near infinite unique lines and sounds, capable of expressing everything from a gesture to an anthology.

Ah shit. I think I just described robot language.

...

What if we were all ro-- "SHUT THE FUCK UP."

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drewshumiliatingblog · 9 years

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Hello, My Name is Many Names

Who am I, exactly?

I can imagine myself as having so many different sets of traits, to the point of being entirely different people. In theory, I can imagine myself as being anyone, or anything, in existence. I can imagine myself living many lives at once. Infinite lives, even. Maybe I'm everything, all the time, forever.

Any suggestions on how I should write that on a name tag?

It might help to narrow things down. Perhaps, of all the things I can imagine myself being, I should select the most popular ones. I am the things I imagine myself as most.

Still, this name tag only has one line. And I can't get multiple name tags; the lady said they were already unsure if they had enough for everyone at this banquet.

I'll have to narrow it down even more. Of everything I imagine myself as, what's the one, singular thing I see myself as the most?

There are so many ways to answer that. Are we talking about my physical form? My personality? The dominant way I spend my time? Something I can't even fathom in this life? Let me ask some people at this banquet.

I think I deeply confused the man running the complementary cheese table. He asked if I wanted cheese, and I asked why he called it cheese. He said it was cheese, and I told him "How do you know it thinks it's cheese?" The man laughed, and that just confused me, and he seemed even more confused at my confusion. After about five minutes, another person took his place at the cheese table, and she asked me to leave.

I hadn't thought of this, but maybe your identity isn't what you say you are; it's what others say you are. It's a strange custom to wrap my head around. I did notice that I willingly referred to the cheese as cheese. That seems to be the appropriate thing to do, but it feels awfully rude for me to not even ask the cheese itself. I'll do just that.

The people at this banquet were polite enough to move away from me so I might have better luck hearing the cheese's response as I spoke to it, but alas, I couldn't understand the cheese. I just can't comprehend the cheese in this life, and if I can comprehend it in another life, I'm not psychically linked to this information. What an unfair rule of this world. We assign names to the things we can't understand. We change the identities of things we cannot know so we can know them. That has to be rude. What do people call me in other worlds? Mr. Broom? I had better imagine that I'm a broom in that world.

I'm outside now. A large man in a suit asked me for my name so he could find it on a clipboard, and I asked him what I was called. He said he didn't know, and that's why he asked. I told him that he named the clipboard, so he could name me, and I guess that got on his nerves because he forcefully urged me out of the banquet. I admit, that was a little silly of me. Of course he doesn't know my name--in this world, I am a human, and he is a human, and since we can understand each other, we're allowed to name ourselves. In hindsight, I probably should have pointed that out to him.

Though thinking about it, that logic only works if it's true that the two of us are humans. Am I a "human"? That's what they call my physical form in this world. Reality. My senses work the best here and my mind has the easiest time understanding it. The cheese is definitely easiest to taste here. I hope this cheese isn't another person, but if cannibalism is so easy, is it such a crime? Someone is probably eating me right now somewhere. I guess I'm getting off topic.

I don't necessarily think that the fact I have the simplest awareness in reality makes what I am in reality an important part of my identity, but I can at least credit reality for granting me the ease to scale this building up to its roof and begin inching my way through the ventilation system. I just don't agree with reality's naming customs, but that isn't helping me. The question still stands: How do I identify myself? What part of my perceived existence is the part people should refer to me as? Even having narrowed things down so drastically, there's too much to choose from. It seems like the only fair thing to do is to not pick any of them. To pick a completely irrelevant collection of words that give absolutely no insight into who I am.

Wait. I think that's it. That's my epiphany. And it looks like this metal casing I'm crawling through is about to collapse--what fun timing!

That was quite a fall. I think I broke a few of my theoretical reality ribs. People at this banquet sure are surprised. Oh hey, the name tag table. I think I can fill this out now.

"Hello, my name is Drew D'Amelia."

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