I spent the evening in kind of a stupor. I don't really know what's up.
I slept like garbage - I'd actually made plans to read Claire a bed-time story. I always do Dan Kim's "
The Dollmaker's Tale," when it comes to reading people bed-time stories. I don't know why, but I've actually been pretty popular with regard to the topic. I think it might even stretch as far back as when I'd taken my first swing at Ragnarok's Roleplay Servers.
I was a troubadour named Papeko who regaled Towns and Inns with bad puns, singing, and puppeteering done with a colossal insect doll named Percival. Percival and Papeko together made up the "esteemed roadside spectacular" that was Papeko Paprenjak's Puppet Pantomime. It was a lot of fun. I regret concealing my identity there, and last I'd spoken to the folks I left behind there, they said they missed and remembered me very well.
Nostalgia. The day's got a lot of nostalgia.
I've finally finished all of my paperwork. It was a grind. Music's been helping me get through the days as of late. I've been starting my days early and kind of in the doldrums. Paperwork was the last thing I wanted to do, but I'd heard 8-bit Betty, of all things.
I'd heard 8bit Betty's "
And I Know That You're Happy (Ballad of the Lonesome Spaceboy)" on a DJ Session. I want to say it was a Midnight Snacks session, but I could be wrong. It was really good, though. Struck a chord with me, because I was thoroughly enamored with Cave Story during the summer I'd heard it, and it fit right in with all that. I quickly downloaded Betty's album,
Too Bleep to Bloop, and then kind of disregarded it after getting that one track I'd wanted from it. For some reason, I gave that album a full listen that morning, and I heard "
Blast-Off!" which is...All about nostalgia, and plans, and love, and space...
I thought, "You know what? Let's go into space. Let's suit up. Let's do this."
Likewise, the song you've undoubtedly begun to hear now is holding hands with the stupor I'm in quite well. It's "
Sleep Forever," from Jasper Byrne's new pixellated horror side-scroller,
Lone Survivor. It's a lot like sideways rendition of lol's acclaimed
.flow.
I'd given the demo a whirl. I have to confess I was actually pretty sad. I loved the game, and it ran smoothly, but no sooner had I than I watched a little bit of a Retsuprae so that I could see a little past where I'd left off. Everything ran smoothly, the monsters twitched eerily instead of just kind of writhing in place like mine did, and the fade-outs were quick, as opposed to the thirty-second snow-session I got every time I entered a sequence or something.
I guess I'm just really coming to terms with the idea that "Low Graphics" doesn't mean "Low Demands," and the fact that my Netbook is a pile of garbage. Dustin gave my specifics a look-over last night and laughed at them. He said they were, "So bad it's cute." Oh, CPUnzan, I really wish you'd have a successful installment in your namesake for a change. I really do.
I have a sneaky suspicion the CPUnzan's going to die soon. Moments ago, it stalled out twice without repair, until I'd not only turned it off, but hardbooted it as well.
But that's a First-World Problem if I've ever heard one.
I spent a good portion of my evening crying as well.
I don't like these stupor-y feelings. They're kind of odd little ruts where I'm not necessarily sad or unhappy so much as I am wistful or longing. Even my dreams were kind of like that.
I had a bizarre series of dreams that consisted of what appeared to be little vignette-y interviews with addicts and prostitutes. I remember a woman - really angry in voice, but I couldn't see her face. She was talking in a soliloquy of sorts while someone painted a fuse-box. She said, "You open your mouth wide, and decide you'd like to become what you destroy, but it doesn't work that way. You can't be whatever you want."
After that, this blonde woman with a page-boy cut and really grimy make-up that kind of hid the fact she were an addict apart from her teeth was smoking a cigarette and talking about her time as a prostitute and how she'd fallen in love with one of her frequent clients. She'd said, "He had a spider tattoo. Then again, maybe it was an asterisk. It was a small tattoo, I don't know. But man, we all wanted to climb that silver thread. He took care of you. Shared his fruit. 'Course, his cock was the only part of him with a real job."
Somewhere before both of those was a vague vignette where two people told eachother that they were important, and then simultaneously had multiple affairs.
It was all exceptionally sexual, but also unhappy. Even the fond memories of the blonde woman with the cigarette had kind of a weird conclusion and they were just that - memories.
I don't know.
But I reread Emily's letter to me, with it's worries, and it's hand-drawn sigils and pentagrams, and silly faces that she does so perfectly, and how her mother likes me, and I started to cry. I just cried and it puddled-up on my glasses. And I just stayed like that for awhile, until I felt composed enough to wash my bedsheets. But not before sponging my face dry with them.
It's a good evening. Just a nostalgic and odd one.
It's a really odd evening. The Pillow's "
Bran-New Love Song,"
(sic) and "
Sleep Forever" just really cover all of what I'm feeling right about now.
