Platonic Chuck AU of the Dream SMP where Tommy is Chuck and Wilbur is Sarah, forced to pose as Tommy’s long lost brother in order to protect him.

Also featuring Techno as Casey, Tubbo as Morgan, and Phil as Stephen Bartowski.

#personal

When all was said and done I was only in New York for about twenty four hours.  I remember thinking at the ticket counter I had a choice of looking at it positively or negatively.  The Muslim woman at the check-in recognized the fact my trip was to be horribly cut short.  She had hinted that she might be able to talk to her manager.  The reality of the situation was that it didn’t really matter to me.  I wasn’t going to gain anything other than the moment in front of me.  I was going to go anyway.  Nobody really knew why for sure.  I didn’t even really know to be honest.  I just had to get away from here.  I had booked a flight the night before for my birthday.  I was looking up various Fashion Weeks around the world and saw the days mysteriously collided.  So I was already another trip in when the news hit me one minute after the checkin window for my current flight.  I thought about how bad it would look to cancel my hotel.  I thought about how easy it was to take the train back, take a nap and a shower.  I thought about how if I didn’t stop at the bathroom and use the infant dressing table to organize my shit I might’ve checked in on time.  I also wouldn’t have run into the Trans person in the bathroom either.  That was pretty normal for me.  I would hope in 2019 people would understand it’s a bad look to be Islamophobic and Trans exclusionary in any context let alone the airport.  I can’t help that I was raised by both my grandmother and my mother to respect women.  How I express it doesn’t often look the same as other social justice warriors on the Internet.  Mostly in the spirit of Jane Addams I believe that the sphere of morals is the sphere of action.  I rode the train in with a Muslim woman as well.  Politicians break their neck to sit at the same table as me within an earshot over coffee.  The call center for some Democratic machine has my cellphone number on speed dial.  I walk off the plane onto the Q70 like everybody else.  Take the train from Queens with a couple of missteps to Canal street in Chinatown.  There on the ground somebody has torn the letters off the New York Transit Authority’s Wet Paint placard to reveal a contraction.  Broken English I’m used to by now.  Ain’t gonna happen.  Ain’t that some shit.  Ain’t you happy we know exactly who you are by now.   Twenty four hours in New York for me is some other shit.  Something nobody knows about unless you observe it.  Kind of like the Quantum Double-Slit experiment, the trolley problem or multitrack drifting.  You have choices.  You make choices.  Other choices reveal themselves to you as a result.  I’ve never seen Bandersnatch but I live Black Mirror these days in real life.  I’m also not getting sued.

I had to deal with a leak yesterday morning.  I made a joke moving furniture about the CIA.  I don’t work for the government.  When people ask my politics at this point, I’m sure they can empathize why I answer the way I do.  People were talking about their birthdays as we were walking up to the space.  I didn’t say anything.  I don’t really give up much information anymore about my personal life.  I don’t even know sometimes why I make the decisions I do.  I feel drawn to certain things.  Sometimes growing up in Chicago I’ve felt held back by other people’s perceptions of what I should be and where I belong.  My life is largely my life.  If anybody has learned anything about me it’s that people seem to idolize me without ever really talking to me, listening to what I say or including my actual consent.  They have this fairy tale narrative of me.  The reality of jumping on a plane to New York without much of a plan is that it’s far easier for people to intercept you in real life.  People move to New York to be seen.  I just get my ass on a plane and a bus.  I was sitting on the tarmac ready to leave when I discovered a good friend actually worked at Baohaus.  One of my good friends who I literally had a show with at Jane Addams Hull House hit me up a day later about the Fresh Pain shirts.  She connected me with a print shop in LA that does workshops and has a gallery.  I connected her with my friend at Baohaus.  They’re both Chinese.  They both have a high opinion of me.  She’s going there in a few weeks to visit.  I’ll be there a week or so later.  No plans again really other than to get away from the claustrophobia and paparazzi here back home.  I don’t really feel part of it at times.  But there’s times when I walk out my back gate into the alley at the same time as my neighbors and it feels like a sitcom.   I’m very aware we live in a society.  I’m also very aware much of it is hypocritical and neoliberal.  That’s a very loaded term for me.  So are communism and socialism.  If the only thing people remember about me is that I was a DJ then they’re forgetting how much activism I’ve done.  I’m easy to forget.  I’m practically invisible.  It is like a thick fog of war.  I slice through it like a ninja.  Never leaving a trace except maybe occasionally carving my name into your heart.  Metaphorically speaking of course.  The heart is a muscle and I’d rather see it grow than scar.  If you’ve got a lot of heart you can make it.  If you can make it in New York they say you can make it anywhere.  I say this sitting alone in my apartment Saturday morning without much of a real clue as to what to expect from all of it.

If we resurrect that word I’ve resolved not to use much of this is still anticlimactic for me.  I already know where I want to go.  I already know where I already am.  If left in New York for a weekend it’s apparent I’m on my best behavior.  Helping Chinese tourists get to where they need to go when I am in fact also lost.  Picking up on hidden cues from the TSA during security screenings.  Trying to work within the system as much as possible when required.  I felt welcome in New York regardless of whatever is going on with my life.  I felt like it was not only a place I belonged but a place where a person like myself was valued.  This is to say I don’t think I could afford to live there with my current salary.  There’s a very huge reality with that statement.  I can afford to visit often.  I don’t know that it would be that hard for me to find a job in New York.  I also don’t know if that’s what I should be doing.  The way I live my life right now is by staying open, available and transparent.  Mostly because I care about someone enough to project that.  It also is not like I don’t have reassurance that it’s valued.  I’m a citizen of the United States so it stands to reason it would be easier for me to move to New York.  I also am fairly well respected on my block.  I rode the bus up with my neighbor at four in the morning.  People on the streets always say what’s up.  Like real street shit.  That’s par for the course in New York.  Chicago can be a little more hardcore.  They don’t call it Chiraq for nothing.  I don’t ever feel unsafe in either city regardless of what kinds of traffic follow me at any time.  I also don’t really ask for any of this.  It does prove a very real point.  That you can be accountable in real life and have it go completely unnoticed by the pundits and cheerleaders for whatever movement you choose.  And that hypocrisy isn’t something I benefit feeding.  It’s a beast that comes back years later and bites you in the ass.  For me it’s a hulking cerebrus that keeps to my side like a hunting dog.  That’s my karma.  Maybe it’s just my reputation.  I was truthfully scared to go to New York by myself after all this.  Who would blame me?  I’m obviously floating in some very strange and interesting circles.  Been swimming in these currents for years trying to reach someone.  I’m in the shallow water now.  It was pretty deep for awhile.  Almost like I was drowning.  Maybe someday we’ll be on a beach together instead of a fishbowl.  I’d like to believe that to be true.  I believed New York would be good for me despite the setbacks.  I believe my birthday will be quiet and restful.  And I believe I already made you a valentine’s day card.  I’ve written more than my fair share of love letters to you since.  This morning is no different.  <3 Tim