10/20/22

Happy to announce another good day today. The hypervigilance stuff is still lurking in the background, especially when I'm in the dark. But today was actually really good.

I caught up on sleep, woke up to get my Amazon packages... most of them. I got a foam roller for my back which is just... honestly a godsend. It's a simple thing but just a few rolls on it and it really loosened me up. I also got some toys for Max - she doesn't seem too into them, but... it's the thought that counts I guess. The vet appointment is tomorrow, so... yeah. I'm trying to treat her well, but she doesn't really know what the toys are yet so she just sorta lays there and stares at them intensely. She likes it, but isn't like... full-on playing. I also got diamond coated sanding pads and goddamn do they work better than the shit I've been using. These are hand-sanding pads... but I swear, if I had these pads on a power tool I would blast through these pieces super quick.

I had a few things to do today - call my old vet and transfer my cat's records to my new vet. I have no idea why they haven't transferred them yet, it's super obvious that I'm going there, I've been going there for like 3 years. It's really fucking weird, okay, now that I think about it. These are both small-town animal hospitals. I switched because I had some bad memories... okay fuck it, I had to put my girlfriend's dog down there, and it was really intense. Like... his head was in my lap and he looked me in the eyes. And it wasn't my dog. So it really kinda haunted me, I carried that for her for a long time, still do. And yeah, I just stopped going to that vet, it was too haunting. And I had a grudge against them because I felt like they fucked up my dog's ear surgery, but they really didn't, she just had kinda sloppy stitches... but her ear flopped over after the surgery and... I kinda blamed them. I didn't learn until much later that it wasn't because of the surgery, it was because of the blood clot... it's just a thing that happens sometimes. I still cringe at all that. I blame myself a lot. I don't want to linger on this thought, I've been in this mental neighborhood long enough.

I have no idea why the vets wouldn't just transfer all my records, or why the new vet wouldn't call and request, and just have me quickly call and confirm. It would make perfect sense. But I have a feeling they're gonna make me get records myself and bring them in to them... and I'm just getting tired of it.

Good lord, I'm boring myself writing this. The vet is tomorrow. So, cat crate is cleaned, toys are here for the night, alarm is set and my mom is going with me for emotional support. It should be okay.

After getting my packages and eating, I said fuck it and went skating. It was overcast and was starting to get dark. I got there and saw chainlink fence all around the park, they were doing construction expanding the park. It's gonna be pretty damn big, I'm excited to see it come together! I walked over and set up, there was a kid and his dad - his dad was around my age. They were kinda taking turns on a scooter and having fun. The kid asked me a bunch of questions - "are you good?" "can you grind rails?" Stuff like that. I answered honestly, of course. I said I hadn't really been skating in like 10 years, so I'm still getting it back. Still blows my mind how much time has passed, and how saying "10 years" sounds like such a small number because of how many just like... emotionless responses I've gotten to saying that. It used to be "I've played guitar for 10 years" and people would go "wow, you must be good!" Now, its like "I've been doing art professionally for 15 years" and they just sorta nod and go... "well that's nice, but have you considered getting a real job?" That sorta... "oh, 10 years experience, that's not too bad..." it's kinda infiltrated my temporal perception, through regular conditioning. So I guess when I said I had been off my board for like 10 years... to someone who was probably around 11 or 12... That number just doesn't really process to them. It probably just sounded like old-people talk. The father probably got it, he can probably relate. But he was doing that whole quiet dad at the skatepark thing... it's weird.

I'm still used to interacting with people in their 20's I guess. I don't interact with parents regularly, and maybe it's not all parents... but there's definitely a thing (and I'm sure I do it too...) where it's just like... quiet nods and chiming in occasionally, but letting the kid take the lead. I don't know if that makes sense, it could just be a regional or personality thing, it happens a lot. And again, I probably do it too. But I tried... you know... directing some jokes over his way, shit like that. Let him know I'm cool. I'm just a 36 year old dude wearing all black who showed up at the skatepark at 6pm on a Wednesday to skate alone. You know, normal everyday shit. But honestly, it's not abnormal and I'm just being insecure and shit.

I skated for a good hour. My lungs felt it pretty quick, that feeling at the base of my trachea, like where it meets the lungs. Right around my clavicle. That burn. Maybe it's the cold air? Maybe it's the smoking? Maybe it's me out of shape? All of the above, most likely. But it was crazy how strong and quick that hit. It hit me before muscle burn did, and I really didn't stretch that great. But I paced through it. I rode around a few circuits, scoped out the condition of stuff. Did a few manuals and ollies to warm up. Then I moved over to that bottom stair by the seating area. It's like a 3-4 inch stair, very low and like a foot and a half deep. I practiced nosestall-reverts, nosestall-shuvit-nosestall-revert, axle stall, and learned switch nosestall. I don't know why I like doing stalls so much, I always did my entire skating career - manuals, bonelesses and stalls. They're fun, and you don't need much to play around with them. They're all tricks you can do with a shitty skate spot, which is all I really fucked with.

Then I started fucking around with nollie and fakie ollie on the bank. I'd like to keep going with those, they're weird and seem pretty doable. After that, I went back to the stair and committed to trying to learn FS 50-50s. I've never really done truck grinds at all. Stalls, yes; grinds, no. It was surprisingly quick, I got a feel for the lock-in... kinda... around the third try. I'm not sure how much I want to be just riding on my toeside wheels, or if I really want to lean into the trucks on coping. I feel like I kinda want to lock the heelside wheels against the coping to keep me straight, and lean into the toeside wheels to kinda just ride along, while dragging the trucks lightfooted along the coping. Then I'm not putting my full weight on the grind itself and it should go a lot faster and smoother. That's my theory, still feeling it out. But the stair just dumps out into grass so... even if I was brave enough to get a good amount of speed and grind it, I just dump into a weird hill. I mean, I could probably make it work now that I think about it, it is kinda packed dirt... We'll see next time. But I did get some successful grinds, and it went pretty comfortably too. I just need to get used to the feeling. It's a weird concept for me mentally. Aiming for the edge of something rather than the middle. Like... trying to ollie up curbs and over gaps and stuff... your whole mentality is trying to stay away from the edge, aim for the area where you have the most wiggle room to land. So just tuning in my visualization when I'm approaching, getting a feel for jumping right on the edge of something from an angle that isn't... straight-on... like a stall. Like... that's what my mind is ping-ponging between. Like I can line up trucks on stalls pretty well. There's always the fear of them slipping out, especially on coping. But I'm pretty damn consistent with them. But I'm not used to approaching the ledge from a tight angle. I got the angle pretty quick, it was pretty intuitive and I did get one or two. Nothing I'd film, but good first stabs at a new genre of trick.

And the kid, when he left said "you said you were bad at skating, but you're actually good" and it made me smile. I don't know if the dad asked him to say it, or if he really meant it, I think he did. But it was a really nice thing to hear, because I really do feel like I suck now. But honestly, it's just the fear I don't like. And that will fade the more frequently I skate.

So that was sick. I came home, chatted with my mom, sanded some stones (and the new pads worked really well, especially on quartz), heated up some dinner, worked on my hoodie more, played some Rimworld and called it a night.

So yeah, this is the kinda day I could get used to, I just wish I had more people to share it with. I really wish I could do social skating, social art, social Rimworld. I feel like my life would be something I'm really satisfied with if that were the case. Add in some nature adventures, music, game nights, D&D, shit like that. That's the life. So, it's nice to have a taste. It just sucks to have no one to share it with.

Oh, and I installed Overwatch 2. I used to play Overwatch a lot, it was like... one of the only multiplayer games I've played in the past few years. I had some stints with Phasmophobia and Space Engineers recently, but those people are too busy for games now, life kinda got complicated for them. So it's been hitting me pretty hard that I'm just playing single player. So... I've been watching Mr. Moon's movies lately. If you haven't seen his shit, check him out, if you're into RP at all. https://www.youtube.com/c/MrMoonsHouse "A Better Tomorrow" I watched last night and it was absolutely superb, well worth the watch, keeping in mind that it's all improvised by everyone, none of the storylines are written or planned. So I've been considering getting into RP. Again, I guess, I had a very short stint of it last year and shit just got a bit too much for me.

Fuck it, let's tell this story. So I made this character named Raymond Holmes that I originally wanted to make some kind of serial killer character, that had an inner protective alter-ego called "The Bull" that would come out and fuck people up if they fucked with him. But... I just didn't want to play that kind of character. I didn't like it. It just completely lost its appeal. So I actually converted the character completely overnight. I made it so that he would revert to a child personality during in-game night cycles, and shift to a grown man during the day, neither of them remembering anything that happens to the other one. I went to a gas station restaurant for food and met a guy named "Luke" who just went along with me. I was in "Ray" mode, so I was an early-mid 40's, ugly bald white dude who was talking in a child's voice and wearing a gingerbread man hat. I got his number and gave him a ride, we started hanging out. He was getting into crime. I tried to get him to do like, normal people stuff. But he had his own ideas. Ray (child) followed him when he did civilian grinder stuff, Raymond (adult) went with him to try to rob a convenience store (he was kinda just on watch, he really didn't want to be there), or when he went to sell weed at an airport. It started to make Raymond (and me) uncomfortable with how he really seemed oblivious to my life goals or whether I even wanted to be there. Like the last time we hung out I woke up (logged on) and gave him a call, he asked if I wanted to hang out, I said sure. He showed up... with another person? And a bunch of weed. And just took me to an airport to sell it. And didn't let me know any of it. It was weird...

Raymond was not a criminal, he had no intentions of being one either. He wanted to be a stuntman and wanted to film cool stunts and make a YouTube channel and see if he could go pro and shit. And this dude gave him a pistol, had him rob a convenience store and had him sit in the car while he and his buddy sold weed at an airport. Then, after we left and dropped off his friend, we went up to Paleto (desert up north) to look at the Halloween stuff the server put in there. So I guess it was about exactly a year ago, lol. And the sun went down, so Raymond switched to Ray. This dude took Ray to a giant loop ramp and tried to make his car do a loop. With a person with the mental capacity and mental age of like... 7 years old in his passenger seat... of a convertible... And after getting his ass fixed up at the Sandy Shores Hospital - chill paramedic too, he at treated Ray kindly - we went over to a parking lot and he tried to get Ray to smoke weed. It got weird, so he evaded it and moved it humor, of course. So that just... I don't know, it kinda made me a bit upset. He was clearly just not very good at RP and just wanted to grind and do crim shit. Which, of course he should have done. But the peer pressure for someone that pretty clearly has other shit going on, and other paths to go down... I don't know, I just really didn't like how he turned an alter personality that was clearly a very naive child into... something to play around with like a cat with a mouse. Like getting a child drunk at a party or something, it makes me really uncomfortable, and I think it should. And I started to get the feeling that a lot of people on that server would find joy in that too. This was confirmed when I found out about Penta's Jimmy Yougman character. Which takes this to extreme levels.

Maybe I'm sensitive, maybe I'm roleplaying a bit too deep and personally, maybe I'm getting too empathetically attached to the character (which is weird because I only played him about a week)... but it was uncomfortable enough for me to walk away from the server. I should go back. And when that happens, actually sue them. Or find a way for it to lead to consequences. I'm actually intrigued by this approach. Like... I kind want Raymond to just... not revert back to his daytime persona. I kinda want him to be stuck in child mode, and have the "normal Raymond who wants to be in his own version of Jackass" sitting on the back burners for when I need him. The day-night cycling was a cool practice and experiment, but I think it was too rapid and people just tried to... RP check me... regularly... So I just kinda want to see what a Freaky Friday 7 year old in a 40+ year old's body can learn through the kindness and participation of other server members. About how to be safe, and what to do when strangers treat you poorly. I know how far they will go to try to fuck with a cartoon character for the memes or fucking whatever weird highschool burning ants with magnifying glass stuff that is... "ooh lets make him sell meth! teehee!" That shit. It's all been done. But like... I want to know what lengths people in the community (lawyers, cops, ems, civilians, maybe even gang members with a heart) will go to in order to punish people who did this to someone who pretty obviously has the mental capacity of a child. I want to see if they recommend legal action. I wanna see this in a civil suit, with Little Ray and his lawyer suing Luke for child endangerment of a 40+ year old man. I want to see how the judge reacts to that on the fucking docket! I want to see how a cop treats an EMS who tells me to "stop screaming, you're so loud" when I'm realistically acting out a child being hit in the head with a golf club by a gang member. I want to see who actually gets him hooked up with therapy and like... social support. Because he's very obviously a very vulnerable character.

So yeah, I've been considering getting back into that server. It seems very... taken over by Zoomers who just stockpile money, cars and guns and just sit in their gang compounds with their friends. You know, as it seems is like... the inevitable fate of servers... But maybe there are still a few RPers left on this RP server. Maybe there are people who will encounter a grown man with a child's voice and not see it as a novelty, or lame, or "let's fuck with this guy" and actually engage with him like they would a child. Be good role models, help him learn stuff, keep him safe and give him a good life. I mean, probably not, it seems like most people I encountered were just jaded or just wanted to do cliche gangster GTA bullshit.

So I'm also thinking of finding a modded Minecraft RP server, and maybe a Space Engineers RP server. Space Engineers could be very interesting... I'm curious. But I'm honestly afraid that DayZ (which was the one that really made me go back down this rabbit hole...) will be too intense for me emotionally and subject-matter-wise. The post-apocalyptic setting gets very dark very quick, and people always seem to want to push the edge with that. I had one time that I played DayZ on an RP server, I was a blonde woman and it was winter. I had looted some stuff from one of the coastal cities and was leaving to the north at night. Two guys came out of nowhere and mugged me, they stripped my jacket and boots off and shit, and started to like... tried to make me say things to them? They were making some kinda of forced prank compilation video or something, like Punk'd or something... but I was actually in character... and I was just RPing accurately that I was freezing to death - which my character was. And since they took their time - with assault rifles pointed at my face - I started to just go "you might as well kill me, I'll never be able to get a fire started before sunrise, I'm already dead." I stopped complying and started to be realistic with them. "Just shoot me, I'm not going to survive the night, I haven't been able to feel my feet for like 15 minutes now." I just started to imagine how it looks through their eyes (there were two of them), a woman stripped down in the snow at night with flashlights on her refusing to say their stupid tagline... like "you just got _____'d" or whatever. Just refusing to say it and saying outright, "you are free to kill me, it would be a mercy killing. I already have frostbite and the zombies are going to eat me alive before dawn."

The quieter of the two pulled the dude aside, got him to leave, gave me some supplies and my shotgun back and apologized. I went to a shack nearby, sat there for a few minutes and logged out. So... it was clearly very memorable, and story lines like that are important. But I'm not sure if I'm emotionally ready for that if I'm going to be playing alone. I don't mind it if it's leading to something, but if I'm in an emotionally sensitive phase it can be pretty haunting and I'm just getting out of a phase like that... so... I'm being a bit paranoid about preventing another one.

Anyway. Huge long-winded way of saying that I miss multiplayer games a LOT. And I'm going to get back into them. And RP may be a good way to do it. But Overwatch is on the table too, maybe League of Legends too but idk. Bed time, big day for Max and I tomorrow.

most people: "i was super proud of my OCs/ideas when i was young, but looking back, i'm embarassed by them"

me: "i was super embarassed by my OCs/ideas when i was young, but looking back, i'm proud of them"