The bright side of a Moon
My 500 words a day streak continues. In private, as mentioned previously. I haven’t been writing anything coherent, just tapping out words until I reach my goal, so haven’t posted anything here. I’m glad you are still out there watching and reading my posts. I promise to have more substantial or at least entertaining things to say, soon. I know that habit forms the foundation for inspiration, after all.
The Feds said they arrested a suspect. Must have been a white guy.
I went to Rose City Comic Con Saturday. My co-worker and team lead, J., very graciously gave me 3 day badges they and their spouse couldn’t use. They’ve been sick with Covid-19 all week, maybe longer, and they were not feeling up to the convention. So their loss is my gain! I do love going to the convention.
I wanted to do a cosplay but I wanted to do a subtle one. I didn’t want to go all out. So I put on hole-y jeans, a ratty t-shirt, my well-worn Dodgers cap, and beat up Chucks, and strapped my Pip-Boy on my arm. I was a random wastelander! Just the thought of it made me smile.
If I was really doing it right, I’d have dirt on my face and clothes, and a pack full of odds and ends, like a caps stash, a stimpack, some Rad-X and Radaway, stuff like that. Maybe next year! I could make a backpack with those items hanging off them. It’s too bad Andy & Bax closed; military surplus gear is perfect for stuff like that.
Also need protection. After all, the wasteland is a dangerous place. Something small, like the Delivererer or That Gun or a 10mm pistol. Could I 3D print one of those? I still have to make use of my co-worker’s 3D printer at some point.
I wish I could have gotten a picture of my dad’s face when I walked down the stairs and posed, arms akimbo, and announced I was doing a subtle cosplay! His flash of confusion, spotting the Pip-Boy, and his snort of laughter was just perfection. He’s never played the Fallout games but he did watch the TV show and liked it well enough; he recognized the thing on my arm.
I spent probably a good 20-30 minutes trying to find legal parking near the convention center. I ended up parking at Lloyd Center and walking. Technically illegal but I wasn’t the only convention-goer parking there. They can’t tow us all! OK they could probably tow us all but the likelihood of that is low.
Several people complimented me on my Pip-Boy and I told every single one of them “Oh, this thing? I found it on a dead jerk in a blue jumpsuit.” I wasn’t just proud of this cosplay, I had a ready-and-waiting joke to open a conversation with.
And then… the convention itself. Inside was fucking jam fucking packed. There were so many people, and it was so warm in there. I was drenched in sweat, and I was just wearing a t-shirt and jeans. I couldn’t imagine the people in full costumes with masks and cloaks and all that. My wrist under the Pip-Boy was soaked; sweat dripped down onto my hand. Hated it.
So many people. I was never comfortable in crowds, being a neurodivergent introvert, but today was more people than I’ve seen in a very long time. The pandemic really has cooked my brain. I masked up inside, and wandered around the show floor, and looked at the cool costumes, and then after maybe a half-hour or 45 minutes, had to go outside, drink some water, take my mask off, and sit in the shade under a tree.
I did that cycle one more time, and then just could not bring myself to go back inside. I left; walked back to my car, and drove to Kay’s Bar for a beer and a giant jalepeño burger, before heading home for a nap. How exciting. I can’t be in a crowd anymore. Great.
The world is lessened with you not in it.
Hey, bestie?
Do you remember seeing Spoon at the Crystal Ballroom a few years ago?
Hi. Barely.
You, me, K., T.
Sorta.
Do you remember the opening act?
Bad memory, sorry.
Name it, pls.
Nope
A brunette.
Totally my type LOL
Tracy adds a heart to “Totally my type LOL”
I got a poster signed by her
Anywho
I’m slowly getting to the point
Tracy adds a heart to “I got a poster signed by her”
I remember that happening!
So I still listen to her
And she did a cover of Bowie’s “Heroes” with Postmodern Jukebox that brings tears to my eyes
Your memory amazes me
And it came up on my drive home from work
Can’t listen now, but will later
And I was singing along
Belting it out
Oh shit are you in the middle of something?
Sorry sorry
Watching videos with C.
All good
I’m getting close to the point I promise
Tracy adds a laugh to “I’m getting close to the point I promise”
Anywho I thought to myself, self, this would be AMAZEBALLS in karaoke
Tracy adds an exclamation mark to “Anywho I thought to myself, self, this would be AMAZEBALLS in karaoke”
But there’s no way any karaoke place would have THIS SPECIFIC VERSION of this song
Well bestie
Guess the fuck what?!?!?
VOICEBOX HAS IT
Wow
🎶 I, I will be king 🎶
🎶 And you, you will be queen 🎶
Anywho
Now singing real loud
Haha! Enjoy! Happy Friday Night!
There might be beer involved
I would hope so!
Cheers!
Walked downstairs last night to take my dirty dishes to the dishwasher and dad was on the couch watching a very young John Cusack and an even younger Jack Black.
I gasped. . “Is that High Fidelity?”
Dad grunted. “No, hang on,” he fumbled for the remote and paused it, “it’s… oh, yeah. High Fidelity.”
“That is literally a Top 5 movie for me.” That was a reference. “I love that movie. I didn’t realize it was streaming.”
“Yeah. It’s alright, I guess.”
I gasped again. “You’ve never seen it?”
“No.” His tone of voice gave away that he was surprised I liked it, and that I was reacting so strongly. I got the impression he was just looking for something to watch.
“Well, I would love to hear your thoughts about it when you’re done.” I put the dishes away and went back upstairs, and soon to bed.
In the morning, I went downstairs after showering and dressing, and dad was making coffee. I got my vitamins, waited for the coffee, nonchalant.
“So. What did you think of High Fidelity?”
“It was OK I guess.”
“You didn’t like it?”
“It was a little silly.”
Silly? I didn’t say it out loud, only thought it.
He continued. “But I guess rom-coms often are.”
OK dad, fine, keep your secrets then.
I came downstairs on Friday with some dishes and to get a refill of water and saw Jeff Goldblum on the TV. “Whatcha watching, dad?”
“Oh I was scrolling around and saw this new show.” He used the remote to bring up the title. Kaos. “It’s a little weird but I kinda like it.”
I paused, behind him, watching for a moment. “Is that Netflix?” Dad grunted a yes. “Oh that’s that new show where he’s playing Zeus?” Dad grunted again. “Not really your normal kind of thing.”
“Jeff Goldblum is amazing. I’ll watch anything with him in it. Even if it’s a little weird.”
I laughed and walked in to the kitchen to put my dishes in the dishwasher. As I was filling up my water bottle, I shouted out to the living room. “Even a Marvel movie?” Dad did not like Marvel movies. They were too weird.
But dad sounded interested. “Oh, was he in a Marvel movie?”
“Yes, he was in Thor: Ragnarok. It’s very funny for a superhero flick.” I walked out, paused again behind him. I put my hand on his shoulder, briefly. “He plays a bad guy.”
“Well, I might just have to watch that one. Like I said, I’ll watch anything with Jeff Goldblum in it.”
Stay tuned. I will post an update after he watches one of the better Marvel movies.
Wrote tonight about minor celebrities, people whose work I admire but are unknown to most of the population. I was inspired by a video about Tony Hawk, pro skateboarder, who tells many stories about people telling him he looks like that famous pro skateboarder, but don’t believe him when he tells them that he is in fact that pro skateboarder.
What a surreal experience it would be to have that happen. I’ve never been famous in that way. Well, briefly. I’ll write more about that later. But this idea of minor celebrity ties back to XOXO Festival for me. Most of the speakers and guests through the years have been people whose work I was somewhat familiar with, but the one thing they all have in common is that they create work on the internet, and they were known to Andy Baio or Andy McMillan, both minor celebrities in this same way.
I don’t want to mythologize the Andys; I do want to say that they are seekers of and magnets for the coolest things you’ll ever find on the internet. Indie games, digital artists, writers with deep knowledge of esoteric and lost topics, the Andy’s seek them out and promote them. They lead a small community of like-minded, inclusive, and kind people.
This is the viewpoint I’m writing my final post about the final XOXO. A very specific kind of community for the people involved, focused on a specific kind of fame for people. A fame of empathy and imagination. That’s the best kind. Stay tuned.
I won’t be posting it, but I did sit down and write today. I had a shitty day. Long story made short, I was on-call for work, and had to deal with not one, not two, but three different clients having network and server downtime on a long weekend. And that caused me to have to cancel my D&D game.
Boo. But that’s behind me now. Tomorrow will be better.
Tonight I’ve reached 150 days in my daily posting streak. And, dagnabit, I don’t know what to write about. There’s still all of XOXO to process, for sure, but for some reason tonight I am not able to focus on that. I’m probably playing a D&D one-shot tomorrow, but if I write about that freely, there’s a chance I’ll spoil something for my players, who may or may not read my blog. Had an interesting interaction with my boss today but, yeah, also, there I’m not sure I want to expose that publically.
There’s the volatile political situation in my city, country, and the world. But wow do I feel ill-equipped to write about that coherently. I have my leftist views that color how I see the world, but I doubt I’d be able to pursuade anyone else one way or the other.
So what is left to write about? What is worthy of being the topic of my 150th post in a row? Damned if I know. And that’s part of the problem of my streak.
I’m sure I’ve mentioned this previously, probably even recently: I can sit down and bang out 500 words, no problem. It’s just typing practice. I can produce clean, grammatical, correctly-spelled sentences and paragraphs, and most of the time those sentences and paragraphs revolve around a single specific theme. But are they good? Is it worth posting those? That’s the part I am not one hundred percent certain of.
I’d rather only post the good stuff. To do that, I still need to write every day. So that’s going to be a thing going forward. I will still sit down to a blank screen and bang out about 500 words. And when those 500 words mean something, or describe something beautiful, or interesting, or meaningful, or personal, or informative, I will post it here. If it doesn’t, I will still have kept up my streak, I will still feel like I’m progressing as a writer by exploring the ins and outs of constructing themes, scenes, stories, characters, and dialogue. I will still have shown up, which is the most important thing.
I have set myself a very high bar by never focusing this blog on any one specific topic, theme, or niche (I cringe to use that word but I am not sure of another that doesn’t have the stench of marketing and still conveys the same idea.) And because of that, when I want to write a post, I need to pull a topic out of thin air, or have one already in mind. That’s a problem if I feel the pressure to post or lose my streak. As you can tell by the fact that this post is similar to several others I’ve posted over the past 150 days, I fall into a rut. I don’t want that to happen.
I can still use this space to inform, share, and reveal things about myself without it being at least 500 words on a specific topic. I can post that I’ve done my writing for the day. I can share links to cool things on the internet. I can call out heroes and villains in the world. I can share pictures or even videos. I will still post daily; it just won’t always be longish posts. And hopefully the act of finding and sharing those kinds of things will feed my creativity and give me new ideas for the wordy posts.
Thank you for reading and thank you for sticking around. Lunar Obverse lives on, and on, and on.