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Let's file this under #immigrationdiary or something, I dunno. For the uninitiated (or, I suppose, you weirdos who just love being overly-initiated), my wife and I are moving to Europe. Specifically, Poland. More specifically, Warsaw, Poland. And while I am still considering how to write about how this massive life change came about more broadly, I've decided to occasionally toss little posts out into the ether to help document some of the, uh, more unexpected feelies that arise during this process. Because though The Move has been in the works for some time, and I've been basically operating with a baseline level of optimism, I do find myself more frequently oscillating between excitement and terror. Like, I wouldn't say I'm in a state of perpetual freakout, but the closer we get—the realer everything becomes—the more my optimism has to fight something scarier. The unknown. I don't know what I don't know, and I want to know, but don't know how to know it. And so I go searching for assurances without even really understanding what I'm looking for. I just want answers to a question that remains elusive.
Like you know how sometimes you wake up at 6am this morning and can't fall back asleep, so you go out to the couch and curl up under the weighted blanket and soothe your racing mind by eagerly tapping around the street view of your short-term apartment to get a lay of the land? You know, preemptively build some familiarity with your soon-to-be surroundings. To settle those gnawing feelings of I wonder what it's going to be like to live here. Where are the parks? Where will my dog poop? What will I eat? Oh fuck! Food! Where will I buy groceries?? And then you realize in the bottom floor of your apartment building, there's a store called Żabka and you're like, Thank god! I know where I'll buy my groceries. And out of, like, I guess, morbid curiosity, you tap into their website and it's just... Polish. Everywhere. So many consonants. No language toggle tucked away in a dropdown menu. Not even an English-UK option. My kingdom for a "colour"! You think. Hell, I'll take an "aluminium". Or a "petrol". Or a "biscuit". But no, only "Oferta". I don't know what that is. And "Oferta 18+". Turns out, not porn. Only piwa. And you're just frantically tapping between all of these menus and trying to figure out what the Polish word for "lemon"[1] is but you can't even find a fucking photo of a lemon on the website, so you don't even know if you'll be able to buy lemons to recreate the dish you made last night. And it all suddenly becomes so... very... overwhelming. And you find yourself fighting back that feeling in your throat, where it constricts and you try to swallow through it, but you can't—not really—and that feeling works its way up to your tear ducts and starts squeezing little beads of fire into your eyes that just pool on your lower lids, threatening to carve salty crevices into your cheeks if you dare to blink. But you don't blink, because now you're staring at a coupon for Coke, trying to comprehend what the deal is. 7,50 złoty for 2 1,5 liters? Is that... good?
\nAm I going to be able to figure this out?
\nI can't even navigate a fucking website. How am I going to do reality?
\nWhy can I buy Resident Evil 9 from Żabka, but not lemons.
\nAnd so you look into this whole Żabka situation a bit further and quickly realize that Żabka is a convenience store chain. You buy your conveniences here. Your hot dogs. Your snacks. Your piwa. Your, lol, Resident Evil 9, I guess. Okay. Cool. You're lying on your couch at 6am on the verge of tears about the Polish equivalent of 7-Eleven.
\nIt's gonna be a long three months.
\nYou haven't even listed the house yet.
\nThere's no harm in building some familiarity, but embrace the uncertainty. No amount of tapping around on street view is going to prepare you for the real thing. Though you do realize that there is an Aldi a couple blocks away. You recognize that name. That's a grocery store. You tap into the website. Polish everywhere. Not even an English-UK toggle. But the carousel at the top of the screen quickly flips to the next image. A bunch of lemons. You'll be able to make that dish you made last night. It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay.
\nIt's going to be okay.
\n"Cytryna." In hindsight, that one feels pretty obvious. ↩︎
\nI'm not gonna do the thing. You know the thing. The thing where I post on my blog after a months-long hiatus and I'm all like, "Oh man, lol, I just remembered I had a blog ha ha!" We get it. Life is life. Sometimes all you can do is get through every day in the best way you know how, and otherwise protect yourself from the bullshit. And let's be clear, the last year has been chock full of bullshit. I struggled to navigate it, too. Struggled to find even a semblance of joy while being bombarded by the bullshit some days. I know how it feels to try and come up for air, only to choke on a thick cloud of putrid farts. You can't breathe farts! That's science.
\nI think this might be the first time in my life where I actively felt the allure of writing fade and spent my time exploring new projects, and I haven't publicly or privately flagellated myself for not sticking with the writing in the first place. In the past, I would've become so despondent as a result of my inaction, that it would provoke not only further inaction, but encourage a profound and violent internal revolution, making me question what my purpose as a human being is! An Ouroboros coiled so tightly it would shatter diamonds, let alone my sense of self, which was about as resilient as balsa wood.
\nNeedless to say, that lionization of my written output goes against what I wanted this blog to be in the first place! And I have to say the mindset shift alone has helped me repel any sort of guilt or shame or whatever other feelings of overwhelming inadequacy followed me in the past.
\nI call that a fuckin' win!
\nBut to that point, I can't help but admit that a large part of what caused me to ease up on writing (aside from the aforementioned fart cloud) was the wholly self-imposed compulsion to only write if it carried some sort of immeasurable weight to it. Like if I wasn't decoupling from past trauma or participating in some sort of deep introspective journey, that it somehow wasn't worth putting out there.[1] WHICH LET ME POINT YOU TO THE PARAGRAPH THAT JUST HAPPENED, WHERE I SAID—AND I QUOTE: "That lionization of my written output goes against what I wanted this blog to be in the first place!"
\nSo, yes, I can celebrate my character growth while also being completely bewildered by the asinine restraints I continue to put up for myself.
\nI.
\nContain.
\nMultitudes.
\nWith that in mind, I am here to talk about how despite everything, last year was actually pretty cool for a number of reasons, and the more that I can dwell on those moments of joy, the more life not only feels meaningful, but inevitable. Because if we can still find time to appreciate each other and the things we create to make sense of the world around us, there is simply no reality anyone else can try to impose that would make me not want to be here.
\nIf you only consume this blog via RSS[2], you might not even realize that I started a podcast. I am notoriously bad at marketing things! But I did. It's called Friendship Material, and it stars me and my good friend, Halsted, who one day, as a complete stranger, randomly reached out and said, "When are we doing a podcast?" To which I replied, "Uh, what should we talk about?" And she said, "Becoming friends!" While that is an oversimplification and may not accurately represent how it all went down, you get the idea.
\nWe bonded over some remarkably similar life experiences, followed by remarkably similar perspectives on the world that sometimes feel scary just how similar they are, and while I don't ever recommend befriending me on principle, I am truly glad Halsted's stubbornness helped bring this idea to fruition. What we've made is something that I think is fun, sometimes funny, often relatable, and, most importantly, an authentic representation of who we are, how we think, and how our friendship evolves as we get to know each other better. We talk about serious things, not-so-serious things, and laugh a lot in between.
\nMaking this show has been a fun creative endeavor for me, but it's connecting with Halsted, becoming the close friends that we are today, that has made the entire endeavor so rewarding. We started out taking a risk, making something because we thought it might be cool??? And we've come away with what I believe will be a lifelong friendship that will long outlive the show. I couldn't be more grateful.
\nIf you follow video games at all, you're probably already aware that 2025 was, like, the year. Regardless of what you like to play, you had examples of some of the best of the best that developers have ever produced. As an avid (lower-case G) gamer, I have a hard time remembering a more exciting year. I was introduced to genres and experiences I never anticipated having, with some truly incredible, touching stories that showed me possibilities in the medium I hadn't even considered prior.
\nAnd while I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate[3] ranking things, I've put together a list of my 10 favorites.
\nWithout being hyperbolic, I think this may be the very best open-world RPG I've ever played. It is engrossing, beautiful, and rich with intricate systems. It is so full of wonder and encourages experimentation and exploration in a way that reminds me of the golden age of Bethesda games (sans wizards and what not). And on top of that, it tells an engrossing tale with some of the best characters, side quests, and dialogue I've ever experienced in a video game. There's a level of maturity and seriousness in how they approach writing that is remarkable, considering the sheer amount of dick and poop jokes that they spew out in between. A true achievement, and one that I've thought about nearly constantly since finishing it early last year.
\nI've never been a JRPG person, so leave it to the French to make me a Je-RPG person. Clair Obscur was a blast from beginning to end. While it does have gorgeous visuals and truly top-notch turn-based combat (including a god-tier parrying mechanic), the real winner here is the writing and the soundtrack. It's a haunting, heartbreaking, and beautiful meditation on how we use art to process love and loss and grief and trauma. How we connect with the world through it, and how it helps us heal in the process. I absolutely adored everything about this game and could not get enough. Also, I cried multiple times.
\nMaybe one of the most intricate and special puzzle games I've ever played. I've never experienced anything quite like it. It starts off as sort of a roguelike deck-building sort of experience that quickly teaches you that almost every single thing you see is a clue to a much more intriguing puzzle. Like the two games preceding it, it was one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had playing games, let alone this year, in large part due to how fascinating it was to peel back all of the layers of puzzles hidden within. Not only that, but it offers an emotional gut punch that damn near rivals a game like Outer Wilds, and I do not say that lightly. ALSO CRIED PLAYING THIS.
\nA third-person shooter extraction game set in a future Earth where robots have taken over. Stunning sound design and visuals, great gunplay, and enemy AI that sets the bar for what we should expect from video game combat encounters. It is dynamic and exciting in a way that few shooters ever manage, and on top of it all, created some of the best emergent moments with random players. My wife and I played this for hours, and we had so many incredible stories of narrowly escaping with our loot and our lives, not to mention the fleeting bonds we made with complete strangers as we dodged hordes of robots. Incredible shit. No tears, but 10 out of 10.
\nYeah, yeah, I know the dialogue around this one has been marred by the ongoing technical issues that seem to have no resolution in sight, despite what Capcom claims. That aside, this was the game that finally made Monster Hunter click for me, and a game that I lost dozens of hours in as my wife and I fought giant beasts, crafted beautiful armor, and learned the ins-and-outs of some of the best weapons ever seen in gaming. I keep looking forward to getting back into this.
\nI enjoyed the original Hollow Knight. I know some people say it's their favorite Metroidvania (or Search Action game, whatever you wanna call these things), and I'd say it's up there for me, but maybe not as exciting as something like the two Ori titles. I dunno. Regardless, Silksong finally showed up after seven years of development, and it blew me away. The fast and frenetic and (sometimes) frustrating combat. The beautiful art. The intricate world design. The THERE ARE NO WORDS TO ACCURATELY CONVEY HOW GOOD soundtrack. I adore this game.
\nI really enjoyed Death Stranding, and Death Stranding 2 was more of that, refined, with a bonkers-yet-somehow-restrained narrative that felt (a bit) more parsable than what Hideo Kojima was doing with the first entry. It's hard to describe this game. It's beautiful. It's ambitious. It's got a killer soundtrack (starting to sense a theme here) with one of the greatest songs of the year that opens the game and sets the tone for what you're going to experience. Wander across the wasteland. Deliver packages. Help connect the world and rebuild humanity. A wonderfully meditative journey that connects you with other players in unique and beautiful ways.
\nFUUUUUUUUUUUCK. This game is so good. I cried multiple times because of the music alone. Why did I do that? How is it so beautiful? How does the soundscape feel so responsive? Is this what doing drugs is like? Should I do drugs???[4]
\nI was so excited for this game that I reviewed it on a completely different website. If you're a fan of what I do, there's more where that came from.
\nYou ever play 1,500 hours of a game that you think you might hate, but somehow can't stop? Hi, that's my experience with Tarkov. I don't know if I've ever played something that basically the entire playerbase characterizes as a punishment rather than a video game, AND YET, I can't escape it (ha). I am enthralled. It's rare that I put more than 100 hours into a game, even when I love it. This has WoW numbers for me.[5] It's a gun game for gun nuts. I am not a gun nut. Why do I keep playing this. Why do I love how much I hate it? What the fuck is wrong with me? DO NOT PLAY THIS FUCKING GAME. YOU PROBABLY WILL NOT LIKE IT UNLESS YOUR BRAIN IS BROKEN LIKE MINE IS.
\nAnyway, 2025. Good year for games. Don't know how 2026 or any other year can possibly compare. Feels like a once in a lifetime sorta thing. We could only be so lucky to experience anything quite like it again.
\nAgain, hate ranking yada yada. This is especially true for movies, which feel so malleable and wholly dependent on my mood at the time, how many times I rewatched it, etc. etc.
\nI am a sucker for quiet character-driven dramas about generational trauma and connecting with people through art. Sue me. Performances here are absurdly good, especially, ESPECIALLY from Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, who is a powerful and captivating force in every single frame of the film she is in.
\nMaybe one of the most propulsive films I've ever seen? It's immediately captivating and doesn't let up for its entire runtime. It's funny. It's infuriating. It's got one of the all-time great car chase scenes. And it made me think, "Hm, okay, maybe I am into Jazz?"
\nThis is one of those films that lives or dies by its final scene, and, honestly, the simple, straightforward story leading up to the conclusion might end up just making you feel bad. But that final scene. The way everything culminates. I was sobbing. Some of the most striking cinematography of the year. Great performance from Joel Edgerton. Jesus, I love this film.
\nI just... look. I dunno. I never anticipated enjoying this film as much as I did. I might even go so far as to so I was anti-excited for it prior to its release. Comic book movies have really worn out their welcome for me. But James Gunn does something tremendous here that is greater than the sum of its parts. This was my most rewatched film of the year. I watched it so much I just stopped tracking it on Letterboxd, because it felt obsessive. It's my new comfort film. Something to put on and feel good watching when I've got no other ideas. And it's full of themes that we desperately need at this moment. Love it, love it, love it.
\nThe first time I watched this, I felt like I missed something. I was convinced going into it that I was going to love it, and I didn't. That was weird! So I watched it again and guess what it turns out I was a big idiot because this film is as incredible as I thought it was going to be the first time.
\nI've kinda turned into a Steven Soderbergh stan? I dunno. After Presence in 2024 and then this last year, I went back and rewatched some of his older films and realized, "Holy shit, Soderbergh knows what's up." Black Bag is, and I hate saying this I'm so sorry, a taut and sexy spy thriller. It is so intimate you might be forgiven for assuming its about some background extras in a bigger blockbuster, but Jesus Christ, everything about it is so compelling. The tension it elicits. The pure glee of watching spies do spy shit. Definitely more on the Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy side of espionage stories, but even more contained. Just terrific.
\nEnjoyed Barbarian, Zach Cregger's first feature. Loved this. It tries to tackle a lot, and I don't know that it all works, but the imagery. The creepiness. The wild direction it takes. The creativity! Cregger's take on horror reminds me a lot of Jordan Peele, in that you go in expecting one thing, and come away with something so bonkers it leaves you breathless. If you aren't cackling by the end of this film, I don't know if we can be friends.
\nI think 75% of this movie rules so hard, and then it wraps up before the other 25% has a chance to show itself. One of the rare modern films where I thought it would be okay to pad out its runtime by exploring the world more. But goddamn if it isn't fun as hell.
\nDon't even know what to say about this. It has one of the most visceral and hilarious fight scenes I've ever seen. I laughed at this a lot. The writing is equal parts grounded and absurd, and the chemistry between the two lead dudes really sells it.
\nI've been a Dan Trachtenberg believer since 10 Cloverfield Lane,[6] and this just solidifies for me the fact that he's the real deal. Three Predator films in the last couple years that feel fresh and fun and exciting? ARE FRANCHISES STILL GOOD???
\nWhy do I do this to myself? Why didn't I put 28 Years Later or Bugonia or KPop Demon Hunters on here? They're all good! Also I still haven't seen Hamnet and No Other Choice so who knows.
\nIt's true. Through a series of increasingly improbable-feeling events, my wife was granted Austrian citizenship, which has given us the opportunity to explore one of our dreams of living abroad. Initially, we were planning to move to Vienna, but—again, improbably—her job is allowing her to transfer to Warsaw, Poland. Once we sell our house, we'll settle there and start an exciting new adventure for our little family.
\nWe've talked about documenting our journey somehow, so don't be surprised to see something from us in the future. For now, we're both still reeling from how different our future looks. From the uncertainty of 2024, wondering if her citizenship would be approved, to now, mere months away from leaving most of our personal belongings behind to start fresh in a new country, a new continent. It's something I've dreamed about for a long time. Something that always felt unrealistic and out of reach. I am looking forward to the new perspectives, but I can't lie and say that I'm also not terrified.[7]
\nThe beginning of 2025 marked 5 years of marriage for me and Katy. We've been best friends for over a decade now, and she's been here for me in the very best moments, as well as some of the worst. A divorce. A well of anxiety so deep it felt inescapable. Leaving my job. Moving to a new state. Health scares. Homeownership. But it feels like each day we spend together, the brighter everything looks. There's something so assuring about finding the person you can trust with anything. The fear. The ambiguity. The feeling of risk and uncertainty. It all feels so trivial when you know you can look to them and say, "We've got this," and trust that it's true.
\nI think that's why this year felt so good, despite everything. For every moment of despair I felt, it was countered with love and admiration and trust and humor and warmth and empathy. We have each other, and we know that together we'll figure things out. When I think back on how I made it through, Katy is there, like she always is. Reminding me of what my purpose is as a human being. To connect with and love. To cherish. To laugh. To comfort. To find every little ounce of joy and share in it together. To help each other through the tough times so we can truly appreciate the good in the world.
\nLet us all not forget about that one time I wrote about A FORK IN MY SILVERWARE DRAWER. Oh my GOD, get over yourself, Keenan. ↩︎
\nYou're dead to me. Not really, but also ಠ_ಠ. ↩︎
\nhate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate ↩︎
\nHoly god, please no. ↩︎
\nI don't know if that's derogatory. ↩︎
\nI have this weird parasocial thing going on with him because I used to watch the Totally Rad Show back in the day and it's been so cool to see him go from media personality to big-time director guy and just knock this shit out of the park over and over and over. My boy done good! ↩︎
\nAlso I spent 2025 learning German, only to now have to switch to Polish. My brain is fried. ↩︎
\nThe moviefilm Titanic was released on December 19, 1997, and remained in theaters for 54 consecutive weeks following its initial release. For 15 weekends, it was the number one film at the box office. These are just fun facts.
\nMore fun facts:
\nAt some point in 1998—I'm pretty sure after 7th grade started—I asked a girl out for the first time. Her name was Jordan. Actually, for legal reasons, let's say her name was Whitney. Forget I said Jordan. Erase that. Think about a banana or something. Walk through a doorway. What color was your first car?
\nI asked Whitney out after weeks of meekly dancing around the subject with a litany of insinuations in nightly chats on AOL. In the midst of asking very sly and clever questions such as, "Do you have a crush on anyone at school?" or, "Would you ever go out with anyone at school?" and writing subtle Away Messages that implied I was thinking about someone special (I wasn't yet cool enough to listen to music whose lyrics I could use to accurately convey the desperate yearning I experienced), I eventually built up the confidence to pop the question. Which, for an unbearably shy and introverted kid, was one of the most pivotal, momentous occasions I can recall from my childhood.[1]
\nHere is a semi-accurate reenactment:
\nAlienF321: Can I ask you a question?
\nWhitneyHunneyBear: sure
\nAlienF321: Guess what?
\nWhitneyHunneyBear: wut
\nAlienF321: Chicken butt!!
\nWhitneyHunneyBear: lol
\nWhitneyHunneyBear: r u serious
\nWhitneyHunneyBear: is that ur question
\nAlienF321: LoL
\nAlienF321: No.
\nWhitneyHunneyBear: lol wut was it
\nAlienF321: Did you do your homework for Language Arts?
\nWhitneyHunneyBear: srsly??
\nWhitneyHunneyBear: i dont believe u
\nAlienF321: What?
\nWhitneyHunneyBear: thats not ur question!
\nAlienF321: Okay okay.
\nAlienF321: I don't know why this feels so hard to ask.
\nWhitneyHunneyBear: omg wut is it?
\nAlienF321: I dunno. I just feel emberrased.
\nWhitneyHunneyBear: just ask
\nAlienF321: Okay fine.
\nAlienF321: Would you want to, like, be boyfriend and girlfriend?
\nAlienF321 signed off at 9:17:36 PM.
Despite my attempt to poof the consequences of my question out of existence by immediately signing out and pretending I hadn't actually asked it, the next time I logged into AOL, I was greeted by a YOU'VE GOT MAIL! An email from Whitney that said, essentially, "Sure."
\nThus began our months-long whirlwind romance that was punctuated by:
\nDespite being IRL boyfriendgirlfriend, Whitney and I mostly interacted with each other online, where we could chat for hours in the solitude of our instant messenger window. We talked about kids at school, and teachers at school, and classes at school. I told her, "I like you." She told me, "I like you, too." We were 12.
\nI told her about how I had seen Titanic in the theater five times and she said she thought that was impressive. I said I wanted to see it again, and she said she would like to see it, too. So we decided to go on a real date and see Titanic together... with her friend, Chrissy, who we'll call Melissa.
\nThe three of us met up at the Geneva Theater on a Saturday afternoon, and my dad bought our tickets for us since the ushers weren't selling them to kids under 13 without parental permission due to the brief depiction of nude boobs.
\nWe entered the theater and sat in the middle of a row toward the back of a pretty full auditorium. On my left: some fuckin' dude, I dunno. On my right: Whitney. On Whitney's right: Melissa.
\nFor three hours and 14 minutes we marveled at James Cameron's epic, technological feat of cinema. A story of a completely unfathomable romance between a rich British lady and a hot street urchin, set aboard one of history's most well-known tragedies.[5]
\nFor three hours and 14 minutes the three of us watched as the bond between Jack and Rose strengthened as they stood on the bow of the ship, as they twirled around in the underbelly faster and faster, as Jack drew Rose's naked boobs, as there were naked boobs and I suddenly became very self-conscious about seeing naked boobs sitting next to my girlfriend, as the two of them did something that created an overabundance of humidity in the back of a car, as they desperately clamored over detritus and through gushing water in an attempt to survive the horror of their ocean liner plunging into the icy Atlantic, as they miraculously survived the burbling whirlpool created by the mass sinking into the ocean, as they floated off into the night, Rose aboard a remarkably buoyant door, Jack hanging onto her, unable to lay beside her without sealing both their fates.
\nFor three hours and 14 minutes I agonized over whether or not I should try and hold my girlfriend's hand in the theater. My little idiot fingers unable to penetrate the barrier wrought of embarrassment and shame that lay between our armrests. Until finally, I realized my hands were up at my face, instinctively trying to shield myself from the gaze of Whitney, of Melissa, of the fuckin' guy next to me. My body slowly contorting itself into a weird little ball, as if trying to force some unlikely implosion. So no one would notice that I was shaking uncontrollably as I watched Rose realize Jack was gone (Whoops! Sorry! Titanic spoilers).
\nAs she choked out, "I'll never let go, Jack," I quivered in my seat, doing my best to choke back the heaving sobs.
\n"I'll never let go."
\nBut she does. She does let go.[6] And at that moment, so did I. I relented. I couldn't hide it. I cried. I cried watching Leonardo DiCaprio's lifeless body sink into the black. I cried listening to the haunting, ethereal vocals of "The Hymn to the Sea" as they reverberated amongst the theater walls. I cried as Jack and Rose were, decades later, reunited on the ship that held their love for so long.
\nAnd as I dried my eyes while the credits rolled, I looked over and saw Whitney and Melissa looking at me, their faces frozen in—if I'm being charitable—looks of bewildered concern. I sunk lower into my chair, waiting for the fuckin' dude next to me to get up and leave.
\nAs we exited the theater, I walked behind the two of them. They talked and laughed—about what, I couldn't hear. I quietly came to terms with the fact that I had probably seen Titanic in the theater for the last time.
\nI don't remember how much longer my relationship with Whitney lasted after that. Its inevitable demise was never attributed to me losing my shit over a movie.[7] Let's be real: we were 12! We held hands at Funway! It was never gonna get more serious than that!
\nNeither one of us were emotionally ready to hold onto that bond until we saw each other once more at the bottom of the sea.
\nNext to losing my virginity in a movie theater while watching Eight Legged Freaks, but we're not gonna get into that. ↩︎
\nSeems pretty fucked up and problematic in hindsight! What was that dude's deal?? ↩︎
\nA ring? A necklace? Maybe a bracelet with her name spelled out on blocks woven into it? Who's to say! That detail is lost to the ages, like a pebble tumbling down a river until it dissolves into nigh imperceptible grains of sand. ↩︎
\nLike, weird flex but okay, Noel, lmao. ↩︎
\nAnother Titanic-related tragedy is that the runaway success of the film partially inspired Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor, a movie which portrayed a love triangle set against the backdrop of one of the deadliest attacks on U.S. soil. LOL! Why'd ya do that, buddy?? ↩︎
\nYES, I KNOW SHE MEANT FIGURATIVELY. ↩︎
\nThough, years later, I would hear from Melissa that the one thing she remembered about that experience was looking over at me in the theater as I did my best to hide myself from them. Devastating news at the time. ↩︎
\nZach poked his head into my inbox the other day to offer a suggestion: What if we traded blog post titles? Included in the email was a link to a post he had read that inspired the idea.
\nWriting has felt like a particular slog lately, and so it didn't take much for me to acknowledge that this could be a fun exercise.[1] I told him yes, I want to do that. He told me, "Cool. Your title is 'To fluctuate is to exist as a human'," and I thought, Cool. That sounds like it's kinda totally my shit.
\nSo here I am. I got some Woodkid caressing my eardrums. I got some candy in my tummy.[2] I got a sleepy puppy curled up on her bed like five feet from my chair. Life is good.
\nLife is also not so good. I think that's one of the shitty things about life: there's a lot of stuff going on in it, and sometimes it's hard to separate the good life from the bad life. Sometimes I feel guilty even thinking about the good amidst the bad.
\nA popular refrain for the moment: "Pursuing joy is an act of rebellion." It's hard to disagree with that, and so I've been doing my best to limit my exposure to dreadfulness. I know what my capacity for it is. I know what the anxiety feels like to drown in. I know what the rage feels like to stew in.
\nSo I choose joy. I rebel. I decide when enough is enough. No one gets to have autonomy over my ability to do what's right for me. I pick my battles every single day in the hopes that I make it through this unscathed. I focus on the things I can control. I make things. I choose joy. I alone can't save the world, but I can make living in it a little bit more bearable for the people around me. Anything I do with that in mind is worth it.
\nI am disappointed by my inability to stick with a project. That familiar gnawing, that voice telling me that I'm stretching myself too thin. We were starting to hit a groove, my brain says. Now you want to write a screenplay? Now you want to take a sewing class? Now you want to start a podcast? What about the writing? Have you no shame? So much, Brain.[3] So much.
\nI am rejuvenated by the flurry of new creative energy. I made a new friend. I made a new friend in the midst of some of the most overwhelming loneliness I've felt in my life. Just months ago I was worried that I'm too old to even make them anymore. And poof! Now here she is. And poof! Now here we are. Something new. Something fun. Something nice. A bit of joy. A bit of making the world a bit better.
\nYou ever gonna fucking grow up and settle down? Shut up. I belong in flux. The worst times in my life were when I let my fear keep me from embracing change.
\nMy wife and I are planning a move to Europe. We're learning German. We're scared of what it'll mean to be somewhere so new, so different. We're more scared of what it'd mean to stay the same. Go now and see if it was all worth it rather than stay and wonder.
\nLife is good.
\nLife is not so good.
\nLife is good.
\nLife is good.
\nLife is good.
\nAll of it's true.
\nWhich is only a partial lie. I did experience a momentary bristling at the thought, mostly because I suddenly felt weirdly precious about taking a title from someone else? Like my Very Good Blog is some infallible tome that I am wholly responsible for? I dunno. It's hard to discern what exactly was happening in my brain. I had a weird human response and then a more rational human response-response. Point is, sometimes it's worth just sitting with something for a second and interrogating why you had the initial thought and if it's something worth going to the mat over. Like, Christ, I started this blog writing about fucking foldable phones and how stupid Steve Huffman is. Something I quickly pivoted away from because I never want to write another fucking tech blog ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever again!!! So, yeah, please, dear god, dumb brain, let me just say yes to stuff. This blog can be fluid and flexible and fun. It doesn't need to be a goddamned trove of deep, personal reflection every single time. NOT WHEN THE MOUNTAIN DEW REVIEW EXISTS. ↩︎
\nAnd I'm only mildly regretting the fact that I have, once again, had, like, one more piece of candy than I should have, and the ephemeral delight of chewy nougat covered in milk chocolate in my mouth isn't quite worth the persistent ache in my gut. Why do I always do this to myself! ↩︎
\nAlmost wrote "Brian" here. "So much, Brian. So much." Lmao. ↩︎
\nI have held off writing about this, but I don't think I can, in good conscience, sit with this dark secret any longer: I don't name my forks. This is a fact that exists despite growing up constantly bombarded by the classic adage, "A named fork tines times."[1] Is there any axiom more significant to modern society? If so, I am not familiar with it.
\nI understand the above admission might elicit strong feelings from deep within. You may even feel so compelled to reach out and try to convince me of the error of my ways, and I beg you: please do not do that. I have been chastised enough over the years for my willful disregard of cultural norms.
\nMy grandparents were adamant. "Name your forks," they said. "Don't make the same mistakes I did." They died rich and happy, and, look, I fully understand the problems inherent to anonymous utensils, but I have been—likely always will be—someone who ardently opposes tradition. I am quietly rebellious by nature, and so sometimes I (often subconsciously) disregard sage advice in an effort to fully own my reality. "Paddle your own boat, before your boat paddles you," like my spoons say. I listen to them. Sometimes I wonder if their little bowls serve a purpose other than storing wisdom and milk.
\nNow, I'm not completely heartless. I still appreciate the utility of a fork. I still, you know, marvel at its gentle curvature. The spacing between the little pokeys where my food sits. I like that they stab okay and scoop okay. They are versatile, there's no denying. I'm not a monster. I do have love in my heart.
\nExample: when I was doing the dishes the other day, I was once again drawn to our most, hmm, enthusiastic fork. A special lil' guy whose head curves with such severity, I have to wonder what force on Earth could've possibly bent it. While its siblings are all unique in their own stupid ways, none of them manage to exhibit flexibility the way that this one, in particular, does. To use this fork is to render your arm into a meat backhoe, shoveling from plate to gullet. Take care whilst chomping, for it is perfectly shaped to stab your soft palate. There's no gentle way to say it: that would fucking hurt. It's a curious little inhabitant of our kitchen, this fork. I often catch myself marveling at it. How did you get this way? Why don't I dare try to bend you back?
\nYou seem so happy.
\nIf I were to name it, I would go with "Curvy McBenderson," because of how it is.[2] But I have committed so long to not carrying on the wisdom of my elders, and I don't think I can bring myself to deviate now. And, in fairness, my elders were responsible for Ronald Reagan, so I don't think I'm way off base here.
\nBut with that defiance comes wonder. Is there a life I miss by purposely avoiding what's in front of me? Does this conviction serve me beyond the personal satisfaction of adhering to some sick, spiteful dogma? I gain nothing by insisting, and yet I can't not.
\nThis itty bendy boi. Just happy to be here. It beckons, little fingies curled, granting wishes without condition. A small pal here to feed. It is not a metaphor; it is a fork. A fork I got from a friend in the midst of my divorce. Now it is bent—which is a statement I make without full knowledge of the sequence of events that led to its current shape. I did not immediately scrutinize the uniformity of my newfound fork family upon its bestowal, which would've been rude. I accepted the generosity with grace, like a well-adjusted person does when they receive free silverware. It is only in recent years, as I become more acquainted, that I notice its idiosyncratic appearance.
\nAnd I imagine its life with us ends here. One day, sometime soon, we will replace it. But for the time being, I will smile when I pull it from the dishwasher.
\nAre you different this time? Tell me. I didn't think to measure you.
\n
I remember the cornfields, how each stalk would tower over you by August. I remember the narrow roads that stretched into the distance over countryside so flat it felt like it was taunting you. I remember bonfires. I remember midnight walks with Anne, talking for hours and staring at all of the stars that weren't visible when I lived closer to the city. I remember riding in the bed of John's dad's Gator, how he'd drive it so fast down the hill in his backyard and then take the turn so quickly that I had to press my arms into either side of the bed to keep from flying out. I remember almost fucking dying in the drive up to Rockford to see Lucky Boy's Confusion, and laughing with Kristin and Joe and [the other person who was definitely our friend and was definitely sitting in the backseat with me, whose name I definitely remember I'm just choosing not to tell you] as we brake checked the dipshits in the red pickup who almost ran us off the road a mere 30 seconds prior.
\nI remember Kat.
\nI've been looking for her for years. Not consistently, mind you. I've resigned myself to the idea that she's essentially a ghost now. But every once in awhile I recall a detail I think might finally crack my search wide open. That it would lead me to a Facebook profile, or Instagram page, or an old LiveJournal, so I could cross-reference that username with a username on an abandoned DeviantArt profile littered with anime pencil sketches from 2003 that serve as yet another artifact. Proof that she existed beyond my memory of her and what she gave me. That she's not merely a name (Jenn), nickname (Kat), and a plan for the future ("To never see another cornfield for as long as I live") printed next to an empty spot where her Senior photo should've been had she taken one.
\nDespite how all that might come off, I wouldn't describe my search as desperate. I'm not losing hours or days scouring the web. I'm not afflicted by the malady of longing. More than anything, I'm driven by a quiet gratitude, a curiosity, a fleeting desire to know: "Hey. Do you remember?"
\nWhich is weird, 'cuz I'm not really a "Hey. Do you remember?" sorta person,[1] but I want to say, "Hey. Do you remember?" And have her remember, because I do. I remember. I remember my parents moving me to a small town in between Sophomore and Junior year of high school. I remember being a new kid in a school that housed fewer than 300 kids, bussed in from 5 different towns around the county. A school small enough where everyone knew everyone else's name. Small enough that it was a big deal when a new kid showed up. Where suddenly 275 kids knew me, and I didn't know any of them. And that was made all the more complicated because I didn't even know me. I remember the opportunity I had to reinvent myself in front of a bunch of strangers who were all quickly deciding what that transformation looked like before I had a chance to make any of those decisions myself. More than anything, I just hoped I wasn't going to be the same dork ass loser who had their sack tapped by the kids in the hall[2] as I walked by like at my old school.
\nSo I immediately developed a crush on the first girl who was nice to me, Becca,[3] and I ended up just kinda following her around because I was shy and didn't know anyone else. Being relegated to lost puppy status, I was someone Becca could bring around and introduce as her friend, The New Kid.
\nFor a couple weeks, I felt special. I was intoxicated by that rush of excitement when you're hanging out with someone new and you think it might go somewhere? At least I thought so at the time. It was hot on the heels of my relationship with my first girlfriend falling apart because her mom found out we had sex and accused me of being a predator, which was, um, a lot to contend with at 16. What I'm getting at here is that I didn't know fuck about shit when it came to relationships, but life had been throwing a lot of curveballs at me and it felt nice to get attention from anyone, so I latched on.
\nOne day, Becca invited me over to her house to meet her mom, and it was there that I learned she had two sisters. One of them was Kat, who was a year older than us, and someone I recognized from school. My brain could hardly process that the two of them were related, they couldn't have been more different. Becca adhered to the popular high school girl fashion of the time. Spaghetti strap tops. Skirts. Hair always done. Makeup always on-point. Real femme.
\nKat, on the other hand, wore baggy t-shirts adorned with band logos in weird fonts. Big jeans. An array of, like, those thin plastic bracelets that some people wore so many of they could be mistaken for sleeves? At school, she lacked the bold, outgoing personality of Becca, keeping mostly to herself while she listened to her headphones and sketched in her notebook. And let me tell you, that was a vibe I could relate to.
\nThe three of us ended up hanging out for hours that evening, talking about... stuff, and... things... I think. Honestly, I can't recall—I was trying to play it cool in front of Becca while at the whim of my teenage hypothalamus, and that guy was like, "Yo, dawg, play your cards right. Things could totally work out between you two."
\nAnd let me tell you, things did not work out.
\nBefore Kat and Becca drove me home, I got both of their AIM usernames, and over the next couple weeks, I chatted with each of them separately. Two different windows side-by-side. In one, me trying to play it cool with Becca while quietly wondering: Does she like me? Am I messing this up? Did I say the wrong thing? Why isn't she responding as much? Oh no, maybe I totally screwed it up.
\nIn the other, me confiding to Kat about Becca: Does she like me? Am I messing this up? Did I say the wrong thing? Why isn't she responding as much? Oh no, maybe I totally screwed it up.
\nEventually, once the conversation between Becca and me had essentially dried up, Kat wrote: I'm really sorry. This is just what she does.
\nWhile the familiar sting of rejection did reverberate deep within my sensitive, dork ass soul, it was softened by the realization that I had a cool new friend who, but for the grace of god still seemed to want to talk to me, despite the fact that I had spent essentially the entire time we knew each other opining to her about her fucking sister.[4]
\nAnd so our conversations turned away from Becca, away from romantic ruminations, focusing instead on something we both could appreciate: our love of music. We talked on AIM about tracks we found on Kazaa. We traded mix CDs and listened to them together when we hung out. We bonded over feminine rage, and now, every time I scream FUUUUCK in the car while listening to "Vulcan" by Snake River Conspiracy, I think of her.
\nYet, despite the anger that was the foundation for most of the music we listened to together, there was an inherent gentleness in how we talked to each other. As we got closer, we discussed where we saw our lives going after high school. About how we both wanted to abandon the cornfields, to run away and truly be ourselves. She talked to me about how much she loved and idolized her mom, and how conflicted she felt about the thought of abandoning her. She couldn't bear the thought of leaving almost as much as she couldn't bear the thought of staying.
\nI confided in her about my insecurities, and she was someone who always seemed to know what to say to make me feel better about myself. She was a kind, compassionate, optimistic person who helped me through a difficult period of transition. During a time where feeling safe or relaxed was uncommon at best, she elicited that from me.
\nI think that's the thing I remember most about her: she was someone I didn't have to hide around. I could be honest. Be myself. No transformation. No pretending. And she was there for it. She was someone who, by her qualities alone, taught me what to look for in my friends, and I always find myself excited to meet others who exude the qualities she did then.
\nSometimes you click with people. Sometimes it's an intrinsic force that causes reality to ripple for a moment, and everything you wish you could show everyone is laid bare. They know. You know. It's magic for as long as they're there, and it lingers well after they leave.
\nKat left after high school, and as life often decides, we lost touch. Before she moved away, she gave me a mix CD that included what I didn't realize would be one of the most profound, touching songs I'd ever hear: "Wish You Were Here" by Rasputina.[5] I remember how emphatic Kat was that I listen to it, and I love it today like I did then.
\nThe sound of my search is the swell of cellos. The crunchy, thudding march of a bass drum. The gentle pulse of an ethereal vibrato as it trails off almost every other word. Almost as if each word aches to say, but it would ache even more to hold it in.
\nHow I wish, how I wish you were here
\nWe're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl year after year
\nRunning over the same old ground. How we found the same old fears
\nWish you were here
I've been looking for her for years. All of this time wondering if she remembers me. All of this time wondering if I mattered to her like she mattered to me. All of this time wishing I could, at the very least, thank her. All of this time hoping that we've both been able to be ourselves, overcoming mistakes and insecurities, living lives that make us happy, with people that make our world one we're grateful to inhabit.
\nBut if I am being honest with myself, I don't need to find her. Don't even really want to. In the depths of loneliness, of course I want to rekindle old friendships. There's a comfort in reminiscing about the people who make us feel seen and safe. I'd like to believe that she would appreciate the sentiment, but I don't need to know that to know that she already showed me what matters most.
\nIn fact, I am a decidedly anti-"Hey. Do you remember?" person. So much so that my childhood best friend became a ghost when I decided to stop reaching out to her after we moved away, because any time we hung out all she would want to do was talk about memories from our past and I really didn't know how to handle that. So I just ran away. I still feel bad about it, 20-something years later, but I feel like it might be a little unhinged to track her down and tell her I'm sorry I wasn't more emotionally capable of setting up healthy boundaries as a teen. ↩︎
\nLike the actual kids in the hall of my school. Not The Kids in the Hall, the Canadian sketch comedy group. I don't think Dave Foley would have punched me in the dick, which is a sentence I never really anticipated writing. ↩︎
\nShout out to all my insecure, introverted dweebs who felt like aliens amongst their peers. ↩︎
\nAnd it is here we need to take a moment and recognize the real ones: the friends who stick by us despite the emotional labor involved in listening to teenagers obsess over their fucking crushes. As someone that has been that friend too many times to too many people, I know how exhausting it can be. ↩︎
\nIt wasn't until years later that I would even learn it's a cover of a Pink Floyd song, and I'm just going to say that, for all intents and purposes, it's not. It's Rasputina's. ↩︎
\nToday, I sat in front of this stupid dumb iA Writer window and stared with utter contempt at this gorgeous light blue cursor for what felt like three fucking hours, and by the time I closed the window, it had left but two paragraphs in its wake, one great and one a true monstrosity. It's in these moments that I question why I try to write anything at all. I question what I have to say. I question my existence. And if it sounds like we're veering hard into wow, Keenan, that feels, I dunno, maybe slightly hyperbolic territory—YEAH, OKAY, I AM ALLOWED TO HAVE MY FEELINGS.
\nI don't know of a better, non-super-reductive way to say it: shit's been bleak, fam. I know it. I've felt it. Felt the byproduct of it daily. Sequestered myself away. Made myself smaller. Made my world... smaller. Hoped for reprieve. Set my sights on what I can do about the future, in the future, when everything big doesn't feel so big, like that's a thing that ever even happens. On good days, my creative output felt tumultuous at best, and the days don't feel particularly good right now. Navigating The Internet the past few months feels like walking on eggshells in a minefield. I wish the people who felt so determined to share in the collective agony understood how much it hurts to trip and have the explosion of anxiety wash over. I wish they understood that the news still finds me. I don't need any more! Really!
\nBut it's not my place to say.
\nI used to have such an appetite for The Fight. Hours in the trenches of Facebook and Twitter. Novels worth of words published perfectly[1] articulating my stances. Hours of rumination and anxiety following. None of it moving the needle. None of it making me feel better. Tricking myself into chasing a resolution that never came. What glimpses I see of it now, I recoil. I can't subject myself to it. Being loud and right and loudly right. What did it ever get me?
\nIf not The Fight, then what? What good am I? Do I relent? Let it envelop me? Breathe it in? Soak it up? Suck it down? Lose myself and everything good I've tried to find in me? Would it be worth it to burn with righteous indignation?
\nIf not The Fight, then what? Is that what we need? More ire? More anger? More fury? More pain and anxiety and the pursuit of illusory catharsis? What is it that will finally soothe?
\nIf not The Fight, then who am I? What purpose do I serve? Why waste my time? Why kid myself? Why worry? Why push?
\nMeandering through the pages here, my dismay over what little I've had to say lately hangs over me. A noxious undulating cloud, darkening and darkening. It's impossible to ignore, and I wonder if it might be better to let it win. I've already let everyone down. I've already let everyone down? Get over yourself, dickwad. Who reads this shit anyway?
\nSomeone, perhaps. Someone who hadn't the day before. Someone who was a stranger before they told you they had. An apparition coalescing into a person. Someone who doesn't realize their words would mean as much as they did when they tell you that what you made meant something to them.
\nAnd now, an irrevocable connection. What you did mattered.
\nIf not the fight, then what is The Fight? How do we win? What do we do? What other purpose do we have?
\nThe Fight isn't merely fury. The Fight is opposition, and opposition is creating what they don't have. Cultivating quiet. Taking space. Making peace. Relishing in the most importance aspects of our humanity, our love for each other, our creativity manifest. In what ways do you defy expectation? In what ways do you express yourself?
\nHow do you bring that out in others? Share the light. Champion their curiosity. Praise their bravery. Listen. Listen. Listen.
\nBe vulnerable. Let them see. Let them take it all in. Find the ones that connect and hold onto them. You've just made your world larger. You've just made yourself larger. You've just ensured that even when you're gone, you're not.
\nFor I do not write imperfect words, duh. ↩︎
\nDisclaimer: I reference imaginary violence and very real health anxiety triggers in this piece.
\nWell this is fucking embarrassing to admit, but here we go: there was a period of time in my mid-to-late-20s or so where I would fantasize[1] about getting into fights. Physical fights. Not, like, random arguments, no, there were plenty of those. I was no stranger to verbal sparring. My first marriage was super healthy!
\nI'm talkin' fights. Fisticuffs. Punchy, kicky, oh god is that a knife?? Blood blood. The sort of spontaneous brawl that we may witness in a film when we need to be shown that our hero is actually a secret badass on a quest for justice. And as someone admittedly obsessed with justice, this was one of the ways that obsession manifested.[2]
\nThe scenario was, invariably, as follows: I'd be walking on the sidewalk or down an alley—I lived in Chicago, a city absolutely littered with alleys, because where else would you put your trash[3]—minding my own business, and some fuckin' fool(s) would start shit and I would, miraculously, persevere, fending off my adversaries with a series of dodges and dips and ducks and dives and dodges, followed by a jab to the kidney, a trip, a flip, and a quick tip of the toe to the temple. I dunno what the hell a haymaker is, but I had one of those, too, wound up and ready to go for the jamoke who had the gall to get back up for more. If need be, I could also grab him by the shirt collar and ram his head into a dumpster and then, finally, stomp his ass until his fingers stopped twitching.
\nYou know... Justice!
\nAnd, naturally, in this fantasy, I would emerge unscathed—physically and emotionally—because I suppose a secret Batman lived deep within me, ready to step in and commandeer my body to complete his dark objective when it was needed the most: in the unlikely event I became embroiled in a physical altercation.
\nBecause, like, let's be real for second? I've never been punched. Never thrown one. And if I was ever involved in a situation where either of those things happened, I would probably fucking die. I'm not being self-deprecating for comedic effect. I think anyone who has ever met me would put money on literally anyone else winning a fist fight in which I was involved.
\nIt's honestly something that I still find particularly baffling about me, considering how so much of my consciousness is dedicated to coping with anxiety as it constantly yells at me about all of the horrible ways I'm going to die. My tummy hurts. Cancer. My back hurts. Cancer. My poop weird. Cancer. Flying in a plane? Crash.
\nMy mom recently joked that I'll probably live until I'm 90, worrying that I am going to die every day. Which, like, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Very funny and also fuck you.
\nBut getting jumped in a dark alley? Somehow, in that scenario, my brain thought I'd come out on top. Out of shape. No training. Just pure instinct and a will to survive (and I guess all of the cool fighting moves I learned playing video games??) would be enough to carry me to victory.
\nI would like to reiterate that these were the thoughts of a younger, dumber person. I don't experience them anymore; my fighting days are far behind me. But I was rendered momentarily incapacitated earlier today when I had a brief flashback to my younger self, reminiscing about how I used to think about these things, and, like, what the fuck was that all about, ya weirdo???
\nAnd while I have to imagine that some of it was partly mid-20s feelings of invulnerability getting super cozy with a propensity for catastrophizing, I think the more likely culprit was that I just didn't have a healthy emotional outlet during much of my teenage years into young adulthood. Growing up, it often felt like I was the only person in my family who was actively shamed for experiencing heightened emotions. And that was a trend that carried on into my late teens through my early-30s, when I was in a relationship with someone who didn't have much patience for me when I wasn't actively reigning myself in. My excitement could get annoying. My joking too embarrassing. My anger, something to tuck away. It led to me feeling, a lot of the time, that I had to suppress my emotions for the sake of those around me. That the last thing I should ever be for anyone was too much.
\nIf you're thinking, "Oh, no, Keenan, that sounds like a recipe for a self-perpetuating cycle of outbursts of rage followed by immense shame that then slowly bubbles up into yet more rage!" Uh, yeah, you're right![4] It was a bad time! It's extremely difficult to know what to do with yourself in those moments. When you're grasping for any semblance of control. When you're desperate to feel like your anger is justified. When all you need, more than anything, is an outlet.
\nActually, I wonder if that's what drives people to take up things like boxing? Just thinking out loud here. I dunno! I'm sure it's way more complex and unique to each individual. I don't want to oversimplify something I know next to nothing about. Regardless, I never really considered real combat as an option. I was always too scared of getting hurt. That's why I fought people in my brain, where I was impervious, and adept, and, you know, super attractive. In what situation could I be any more justified to experience big feelings than when some (imaginary) dickhead(s) decided to roll up and try to (imaginary) kill me (in my head)? These were scenarios tailor-made for me to feel self-righteous, justified, in my anger.
\nLooking back, I recognize that these fantasies largely subsided as I was able to take the time to work on me, to come to terms with how I experience anger and rage, which, in turn, made it easier to experience unpleasant emotions, to sit with them, rather than force them to simmer under closed lid until everything eventually exploded and there was no hope of reigning them in.
\nA lot of my insecurity and doubt and anger and frustration with myself dissipated when I didn't have to pretend like those feelings didn't exist. And when I'm not shaming myself into submission because of them, they don't have the same power over me. I can recognize them. I can experience them. And I can let them pass, like any other feeling. They're not gone, by any means, but they don't take hold of me, like secret Batman, and control me the way they used to. As a result, I've had to fight my thoughts a hell of a lot less, which is really all I could ever ask for.
\nI dunno, y'all. Therapy is great, don't get me wrong. But it's also worthwhile checking in and seeing if you spend a significant amount of time trying to appease those around you. How much of yourself are you sacrificing for their sake? Is it worth beating yourself into a pulp so you fit into their world?
\nFantasize? Is that the right word? I dunno. It's not like I was lusting after it. I wasn't, y'know, secretly horny for this little brain deviation to come to fruition. I know that a fantasy isn't inherently a sex thing, duh, I've imagined winning the lottery, but, like, this one feels horny-adjacent? But it wasn't, is the thing. This wasn't a Henry Caville throwing me around a bathroom situation, which, for the record, I would love. ↩︎
\nThe other way was winning every single argument I ever had in my head. ↩︎
\nANY THOUGHTS, NEW YORK CITY??? ↩︎
\nAre you a licensed therapist? What insurance do you take?? ↩︎
\nTable of Contents:
\nI was tagged against my will[1] by Robb this morning on Mastodon. Looped into a conversation stemming from a simple inquiry from Sia:
\n\n\nDoes anyone provide audio versions of their blog posts? Was thinking of doing this. Maybe just recording myself reading it and describing any graphics.
\nI have no ideas on best practices here for recording or delivering and optimizing audio if anyone wants to share
\n
And Robb was all:
\n\nWhich is very nice and very British. And he's right, I do, in fact, have an audioblog. I'm, like, the target for this question. So why do I feel so fucking weird about offering any sort of guidance?
\nThis, naturally, got me thinkin' about how I do the things I do, the knowledge I've amassed over the years, and how I often feel weirdly inadequate or ill-prepared to discuss my process. But, like, if I'm being honest with myself, I've recorded and edited many, many hours of podcasts over the years. I produce audio that sounds pretty good to my ears. And—Christ!—I am a professional voice actor. I have recorded audio for real companies and they have paid me actual money dollars to do so! All from my home studio. Surely, surely I can offer at least some practical guidance for people who want to get started. I mean, we're all having fun here, right?
\nTo answer a rhetorical question: Indeed.
\nI think my biggest issue[2] is I have this obsession with being as thorough as possible. I don't know if any of you who have read my writing before have deduced this yet, but my propensity for digging in could be accurately classified as an affliction, and it often prevents me from completing anything because I am so concerned I may not cover every single little facet that it leads someone astray, or, worse, I get yelled at by some mean turd who knows more than me.
\nSo, in an effort to grow as a person, I am going to try my goddamnedest to push through and offer insight on how I, personally, handle operating an audioblog. With tips for beginners to just get started,[3] as well as more advanced things you can indulge in should you choose to do so. It is not a comprehensive, immutable tome. It is not a tutorial, per sé. But it should give you enough to think about so you can lower any barriers you may be placing in front of yourself.
\nLet's give this a go, shall we?
\nOkay, quick and dirty. Here's my workflow for making an audioblog episode:
\n<audio> tag. (I optionally styled my <audio> in CSS to make it look better and have a better user experience.)That's basically it. Write. Record. Export. Upload. Embed. Easy!
\nSure. First off: practice reading your words aloud before recording.
\nI find this to be unbelievably helpful. I read my words aloud all the time. I read while I write. I read them once I'm done writing. I want to get comfortable with how they flow, how they sound, how they feel in my mouth.[4] Where do they trip me up? Do I have a typo? Have I said the same thing over and over and over again and now it's just feeling very redundant and repetitive and similar?
\nReading your words aloud helps you practice and can also generally makes the editing process better. The ol' one two word punch, as my dad never said.
\nAlso, read more slowly than you think you should.
\nA common pitfall for people when reading aloud is they try to read too quickly. Whether it's nerves, or they hate the sound of their voice, or they're feeling so comfortable with the words they've written that they just kinda fly through without thinking about it.
\nI'm here to tell you that you are probably reading too quickly. And that will either make life harder for you as you try to record, harder for your audience as they listen, or both!
\nSpeed, like tone, intonation, volume, etc. are all tools you can use to add dynamism and personality to your reading, but going too fast for too long will wear you out and lose your listeners.
\nHi. We are friends. And you know what friends share? Secrets.
\nSo let me share a secret with you, friend (pretend I'm whipsering): You probably already possess everything you need to record audio that sounds pretty good.
\nIt's true. By all accounts, most modern laptops or phones come equipped with good enough microphones that make the initial investment into recording equipment practically zero dollars. Whenever someone asks me what microphone they should buy, I ask them back, "Do you need to buy one?" An unnecessary, almost antagonistic way to respond, sure, but I think, for all intents and purposes, valid.
\nMore often than not, the quality of your recording is not a question of equipment. It is a question of space. Where you record is typically more important than what you use to record.
\nAre you sitting at your kitchen table, bare-walled, floors be-tiled with a material almost specifically engineered to reflect sound waves? Are you huddled in your bathtub, showering your microphone in unnecessary reverberances? Don't do that!
\nInstead, consider putting your recording device in a space where the sounds emanating from your face won't bounce around as though they were taking direction from a hit Sugarcult song.[5] Simply: find a space with materials that will naturally absorb errant sound. Clothes. Curtains. Fabric. Towels. Carpet. Rugs. Mattresses.
\nYou will be shocked at how much your audio quality improves when you record in a space that isn't battering your microphone with sound reflections.
\nHere are some examples of places I have recorded in a pinch that sounded better solely because of the existence of sound dampening materials, rather than fancy equipment:
\nNo expensive room treatment. No soundproof recording booth. No studio.
\nAnd most importantly: no expensive microphones! Frankly, if you buy a fancy microphone and record in a shitty space, the audio will still probably sound shitty. Not only will you be disappointed by the quality, you'll also be disappointed by spending a lot of money for the privilege of it sounding like hot garbo.
\nSo before dropping $500 on a microphone, spend that money instead on, like, six dozen eggs and tape the cartons to your walls.[6]
\nYes, you can absolutely go overboard with sound treatment. If you wrap your microphone up in a sweater, or fill your room with mattresses, or squeeze yourself into a closet that's way too small, it'll likely start to sound a little boxy, dull, lifeless. There is a limit here. Play around with the space. Do some test recording in different parts of a room or closet. What sounds clean and rich and vibrant? If it works and it sounds good, it's good!
\nIf you're really in a place where you want to level up your sound with some new recording gear, there are a plethora of options for all voice types, hardware setups, and, most importantly, budgets. It really depends on a number of factors. A microphone is a personal choice.
\nI'm being deliberately evasive here, because it's been a long time since I've experimented. My old go-to recommendations would've been the Blue Yeti or AT2020 for USB microphones. But Blue was purchased by Logitech awhile back and the AT2020 is discontinued. I know people scoffed at Blue's sound quality back in the day. I always liked it, and I thought it was a perfectly serviceable microphone. I never tried the AT2035, which is the successor to the AT2020. I imagine it's similar in quality, but at $150, I'd probably look elsewhere first.
\nPersonally, I've had such a great experience with my RØDE setup, I would likely look to them first. I hear their NT-USB Mini is great and simple. $99 is a solid price.
\nLook, if we're talking about editing an audioblog here (which we were, if I recall correctly), I think simple and free is the way to go. I got my start editing podcasts and voiceover projects in GarageBand on a Mac. It's not as straightforward as it used to be, but it's still possible to do everything you need to.
\nI've used Audacity a little bit on PC. It's not my favorite, because I think it's kinda ugly, but I know a ton of people who rely on it. Again. Free. Good.
\nSpending money on software for projects like this probably isn't going to drastically make your life that much better. The only reason I use Logic Pro X now is because I used to work for Apple and I got a free copy as a result. Does it do a lot more than GarageBand? Fuck yeah. Do I use 99% of its capabilities, therefor making it worth the expense? Lol, no.
\nAt the end of the day, use the tool that is the most accessible to you so you can build familiarity with it. If you can split and trim your audio file, you've got most of what you need. If you build some muscle memory around it, especially around its keyboard shortcuts, you'll start moving pretty quickly through your audio files, depending on how much editing you want/need to do.
\nI mentioned way back about messing with things like a compressor or equalizer (EQ). These are plug-ins you can apply to your audio tracks to make your voice sound richer (equalizer) and normalize the audio to mitigate fluctuations in volume (compressor).
\nThese (plus things like noise gates, deEssers, limiters, etc.) can be helpful ways to round out the quality of your audio, but they're also things that need to be adjusted based on a number of unique factors, such as your microphone, your recording space, background noise, the overall tone and quality of your voice, etc. They become very personal, is what I'm getting at.
\nTo that end, I'm just going to punt on this, because there are so many guides out there that have already been written. I got my start relying on this old guide from Jason Snell. Even though it's written for an old version of GarageBand, the principles largely remain the same, and I think you can take small suggestions here and apply them to your own software setup to help clean up your audio. Start experimenting and find a sound profile that works best for you and your voice.
\nTo be clear, if you are considering recording audio versions of your blog posts, I think the best thing you can do is start. Just start. Do it because it sounds fun, or because you want to make it more enjoyable for people to read your blog in the way that best suits them. You likely already have access to everything you need to record, edit, and publish your work in audio.
\nYes, you can tinker and fiddle and spend money and try to get it right before ever jumping in. Fine. You do you. I'm not your mom.[7] But, personally, I think trying to check all of the boxes I laid out here (and then whatever other boxes conjured up out of the bowels of the Internet) is just setting yourself up for disappointment. Start building a skillset and layer on new things as you need them.
\nI'm mostly saying all that to me, because of my broken brain and how it sets up impossible hurdles to overcome. I often need to remind myself that I am a product of everything I've done and learned along the way, that I didn't just sprout out of the ground, ready to go, all of my skills set and a clear path before me. I'm in progress. I'm figuring it out. I take every experience with me to the next.
\nAnd that honestly sounds pretty good to me.
\nI'm not being passive-aggressive to Robb or any person who tags me in a social media post. That's how these things work. I am just recognizing my complicated feelings about how these things work. You're minding your own business, and then suddenly your phone yells at you and you react to that in whatever way seems fit for the situation, heavily dependent on your ability to self-regulate. And then you perhaps spend an inordinate amount of time scrolling on your phone or devising some huge, elaborate response that you then realize really isn't appropriate for social media? Not in the sense that you shouldn't say certain things publicly—WHICH YOU SHOULDN'T. PLEASE STOP SAYING SO MANY THINGS PUBLICLY. NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE FARTED OUT INTO THE WORLD. But, rather, in the sense that maybe a platform dependent on brevity isn't the best format to expound in great detail. Does the world really need another post 13/300 miles long social media thread that ends up being the UX equivalent of slip-n-sliding down a very long sheet of sandpaper? So, no, I do not begrudge the player of the game, I begrudge a system that inflicts a rigid structure and widely-agreed-upon communicative norms that then lead me to a series of ruminative thoughts about the best way with which to respond, rather than simply responding. Do I blow up people's timelines with a multi-toot epic? Do I do the sensible thing and take it to a private channel more suited for long-form communication, such as ELECTRONIC MAIL??? Or do I decide to write a very long blog post where I can indulge in whatever weird tangent I want in the fucking footnotes? I DON'T KNOW, DEAR READER. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT I SHOULD DO HERE??? Sorry. My coffee has fully kicked in. Look, it needs to be said that Robb was just being fucking nice and considerate and trying to help. I AM NOT MAD AT ROBB. NO ONE SAY I AM MAD AT ROBB. ↩︎
\nlol, I mean, like, in this particular moment. Not, like... ever. I'm sure we can all agree! ↩︎
\nDon't be like me! Please just do the thing! Learning is fun! I am a bad example, but please listen to me! I know I am right! ↩︎
\nBoy, I sure did hate writing that! Gross! ↩︎
\nNo. I won't workshop that joke. ↩︎
\nTrue story: my most recent commercial demo was recorded in small loft closet where the walls and ceiling were lined with egg cartons. The guy who recorded and engineered the demo makes his living out of that space. He's a professional voice over artist and sound engineer using spare egg cartons for sound treatment. Shit works! ↩︎
\nOr maybe I am. In that case, I'm proud of you, honey. ↩︎
\nAfter months of deliberately denying myself a daily coffee due to tummy reasons, I have recently ventured back into the realm of making my morning bean juice. Prior to the aforementioned tummy reasons, I would make a batch of cold brew that lasted me a few days. Now, I find myself—shockingly![1]—sticking to the classic pourover method, and after tireless experimentation, I've developed a routine that is not only soothing in the way that rituals can be, but also consistently produces some of the best cups of coffee I've ever had the pleasure of drinking.
\nI thought it would be unfair to withhold this knowledge any longer, so here is how I make the perfect cup of pourover coffee.
\nNote: I provide links to products on this page. These are not affiliate links, but I do charge a finder's fee. The cost is $1 USD per click. Please be mindful of which link(s) you click and how many times you click them. Maybe have a little notepad next to your computer while you browse so you can keep accurate records of your link click history. Payment is due within 14 days of first click, and the methods I accept are cashier's checks and/or tinned fish. Failure to remit payment in a timely manner will result in me literally calling the Internet police. There is nowhere to hide. They will find you. They lust for nothing other than blood and justice. Do not test them.
\nFor this method, I rely on the following:
\nI (mostly) love these tools (the coffee grinder and vacuum canister are fine), but I recognize that when it comes down to it, the most important elements for making the perfect cup of coffee come down to...
\nA truly terrific cup of coffee is contingent on two things:
\nWe buy our beans from Sightglass. They offer a seasonal subscription, so we're almost always delighted by a blend from a new location. Each bag ships directly to us on a timeline we specify and comes labeled with the country of origin, as well as the tasting notes to expect. There are few things more exciting to me and my wife than receiving a new bag of coffee so we can open it up and get that first smell. We lead a simple, boring life and this small moment of joy is something we look forward to every few weeks. It makes the walk to the mailbox worth it.
\nThe water is, admittedly, a bit harder to replicate, but is an absolutely crucial element. Ours is sourced from a spring tucked away in a small clearing in the trees at the back of our 80 acre farm. One day, I was walking the dog and she managed to slip out of her collar, darting away in hot pursuit of a squirrel. To my dismay, she refused to listen to my cries, and quickly disappeared into the forest. I chased after her, toiling with panic and dread, only to find her in the clearing, front paw up, hackles raised, staring at a cat.
\nThe cat, long and lithe, shiny black fur glistening in the sun, sat before us, unbothered by my dog. Instead, she turned her gaze to me and I was immediately filled with a deep warmth, as though the rays of the sun emanated from within, rather than peppering my pale flesh from an unfathomable cosmic gap. The dread I had felt just a moment before was rendered a distant memory.
\n"Oh!" I said.
\nTo which the cat replied, "So you see."
\n"You can talk?"
\nShe nodded.
\n"What's your name?" I asked her.
\n"I am," she said, and then gestured with a gentle glance to the clear water bubbling from a spring within a circle of meticulously-placed smooth rocks. "So you see."
\nI had never seen water so clear, so pure. It gently rose from the Earth and cascaded down back on itself. Its quiet burble beckoned.
\nI knelt down, brought my mouth to the water, and drank.
\nThe cat placed her little toe beans on the top of my head. "For you are now a Chosen," she said. "A Forever Person. A mere glimmer in the Cosmos, and yet an entire Universe all the same. We are one. We are."
\nI swallowed the water. Felt it course through my body. The cold comforted my throat and my stomach and my veins and my heart, the wisdom of millennia infused in sweet nectar. At once, I became peace.
\n"We return when we thirst for knowledge," she said. She turned to glide away, as fluid as the spring itself, before pausing. She looked back.
\n"Bring fish," she said.
\nI nodded, and when I returned the next day I brought fish as she asked. We drank from the spring. We talked for hours. We laughed. We basked in the warmth we gave back to the Sun. We explored the past, the future, the path of enlightenment tangled up in a web of entropy spanning many, many years. We were one.
\nCenturies later, I still return to the spring to see my friend. I bring her fish. Me and I am. We are. A beautiful secret for us to share, the magic of the spring. The water that gives us life and lets us live.
\nAnd it brews terrific coffee.
\nI use this recipe. I like that it automatically adjusts the measurements based on how many grams of coffee I'm using. It's nifty.
\nThat's it! Everything you need to make a purrfect cup of a coffee. A ritual of love I have labored over for as long as time. I hope it helps.
\nMay your bean juice bring you joy.
\nI say shockingly because I just simply do not enjoy a warm beverage. I have always, always gravitated toward cold drinks, and if it weren't for the sheer convenience of making two cups of coffee each morning (one for me, one for my wife), I probably would not disregard my thirst for a brisk brew with such aplomb. ↩︎
\nUpdate—01/28/2025: I know the writing on my site often oscillates between earnest and absurd, but for this post, please know that this is coming from a place of absolute sincerity.
\nI have removed the piece that was originally posted here. A dear friend reached out to let me know that, despite any humorous or satirical intent I had in writing it, the way I chose to end it caused them very real harm. It horrified me to hear that—made all the more horrifying by the fact that I didn't think to consider the ramifications of how my writing, divorced of the context of a very specific moment in time, would affect people.
\nI fucked up, plain and simple. I am truly sorry to anyone I hurt with the words I chose, and I absolutely understand why you'd be hurt by them. I feel ashamed that my ignorance prevented me from considering that prior to publishing.
\nWhatever satirical goal I was trying to achieve is irrelevant. The stakes of our current reality are too high for me to be careless—and wielding the words that symbolize the pain and suffering of so many was exactly that. There are plenty of people worth targeting with our ire right now, and I want to do that, but not at the expense of the well-being of those I care about.
\nI don't think trying to contextualize the moment or explain my thought process further is appropriate here, but if you have additional questions or anything you'd like to discuss with me, I would be more than happy to converse via email.
\nI appreciate those who reached out to tell me that I messed up. I will do everything I can to be more considerate of how my words and actions could impact others going forward.
\n-Keenan
\n", "date_published": "2025-01-22T20:00:00Z" } , { "id": "https://gkeenan.co/avgb/blog-questions-challenge/", "url": "https://gkeenan.co/avgb/blog-questions-challenge/", "title": "I wasn't going to get super meta on here, but the people clamour for more Keenan and who am I to deny them their simple pleasures?", "content_html": "Because both Jarrod and Robb asked so nicely, and (mostly) because I've been feeling super self-conscious about not publishing anything,[1] here are my answers to this little blog questions challenge that has been circling the Independent World Wide Web.
\nHopefully, the rush of publishing this will spark an introspective reckoning that finally leads to my inevitable takeover of the literary world, or maybe I'll just go play more Path of Exile 2.
\nI've got a compulsion, I dunno. For as far back as my brain will allow me to venture, I've wanted to be a writer. This has manifested in myriad ways over the years, but my obsession with digitally rendering my words began when my parents bought a Compaq Presario back in the mid-90s and I began slapping my fingies on its keyboard.
\nInitially, I was drawn to a very special program called Echo Lake, which was a word processor wrapped up in the cozy veneer of a simulated log cabin on a lake—what the kids today might describe as "cottage core"—a UI so devoted to the concept of skeuomorphism[2] that it's almost as if the designers were time-travelers whose interdimensional vehicles were somehow rendered inoperable and the only thing they could think of to save our timeline (and themselves) from its inevitable collapse was to make Jony Ive spontaneously combust at some indeterminate future point. Unfortunately, as of this moment, they appear to have failed and I think that explains a lot about the world.
\nAnyway, the inherent contradiction of being someone who is deeply introverted but also desperate for human connection eventually led me to seek solace in the Internet.
\nThe first "blog" I recall making was a uJournal, followed by a couple LiveJournals. They were, essentially, places where I could drop the E.E. Cummings-inspired poetry (such as my magnum opus, "The Cheese," written under my pen name, Foetus) of my teenage years, as well as, of course, the inane ramblings inherent to a public diary you keep when your brain hasn't fully developed.
\nYears later, I would discover Squarespace, where I kept a number of blogs. One was ostensibly a more adult[3] version of my earlier LiveJournal efforts, but was mostly just a place where I would write reviews of media. Another was an Apple-focused tech blog, something the world had never before seen. It was wildly popular. I was super famous. I loved every minute of it and I absolutely did not have an existential crisis the first time John Gruber linked to me and introduced me to traffic that exceeded five whole digits. Eventually, ennui led to that blog's demise. I was tired of chasing analytics. I was tired of writing about fucking technology. I was tired of maintaining a temple devoted to an identity that didn't even feel like my own.
\nYears later, I'd spin up A Very Good Blog because I realized I needed to write again. But I wanted a blog where I didn't feel beholden to some prior brand or niche or expectation other than me just having an idea and writing about it.[4]
\nHaving finally freed myself from Squarespace's very weak little grasp, my site is now built with Eleventy. I use it because of peer pressure. I had to teach myself HTML and CSS to hand-code much of it. For the rest, I hand-copy-and-pasted from people I respect (Robb).
\nIn all seriousness, it feels good to have a site that feels a bit finicky to maintain, where I can live out my little fantasy of starring in the movie Hackers. There's something really sexy to me about not having a CMS and, instead, just writing Markdown files and putting them in a folder, and then watching the code I wrote magically transform them into words with style. I enjoy writing Diet Code™ and being able to imagine what the words will look like when published on the site. It's like looking into the Matrix, but for a moron.
\nI haven't quite finished my Udemy crash course on Neuroscience, so some of the following details may be inaccurate. However, my understanding is that my brain (what I lovingly refer to as my "thought pot") sends some electrical signals to my muscles, which elicit a little tippy-tap dance from my finger atop my keyboard.[5] All of this is improbably coordinated and somehow results in sentences that are strung together in a mostly coherent manner.
\nThe receptacle for these improbabilities is called iA Writer. I start a new document, paste some front matter, and then let my brain dump. I like iA Writer for its minimalism. I like iA Writer because it syncs my library to the cloud, so if I'm feeling especially stupid, I can write a couple sentences on my iPhone until I get so annoyed with it that I run back to my PC and finish writing the thought there. I like iA Writer because my blog's library is saved as a local folder in the iA Writer interface, so when I'm ready to publish, I just save a copy of the document to that local folder. Then I open up VS Code to push it off to GitHub, which then, not all that dissimilarly to a muscle contraction, gets thrust off to Netlify.
\nOh, also, I read my writing out loud while I write. I'll read sentences and paragraphs with different tone and intonation and speed. I like hearing how everything sounds strung together, and where the flow gets interrupted by a weird word choice, so I can find a different way to express the same feeling. It also helps me identify grammatical errors or typos. It's a great way to edit, and it just so happens to be terrific practice in the off chance I decided to record the piece for the audioblog.
\nWow, this questionnaire should've come with a trigger warning.
\nInspiration and I have a tumultuous relationship, and for the longest time, I would only write when I felt "inspired," as though if I wasn't called upon by some nebulous muse, then I didn't mean the words enough. This led to periods of my life where I let literal years pass by between writing anything creatively.
\nI try to fight that affliction every day. I frequently lose.
\nTo that end, it's hard for me to pin down what/when/why/how I feel inspired to write. Sometimes it's something that annoyed me. Sometimes someone mentions something in Discord that awakens a latent beast. Sometimes I think about songs I like. Sometimes I really just need to unpack some trauma. Sometimes I drink a Mountain Dew that sucks so bad.
\nThere's no rhyme or reason, and I am slowly, but surely learning that sometimes, many times, oftentimes inspiration can kick rocks and I just need to sit my ass down and write words and that's enough. I'm sure I'll keep telling myself that last bit until the end of time, but it's hard to deny that it works, you dumb bitch. Just fucking write. Quit being such a baby about it.
\nIt really depends on how much I cried while writing it. If it took a lot out of me to get it on the page, I'll often let it simmer, maybe get some other eyes on it. Come back to it later to rework parts, if necessary. I'm getting better about being patient.
\nIf it's something that doesn't feel particularly serious, like, say, this fucking thing you're reading right now, I'll probably do a final pass to make sure I don't have any glaring errors (or: "glerrors") and then publish it. I'm getting better about accepting when something is good enough.
\nI dunno. They're all my babies, don't make me choose.
\n\nAlright, fine, gun to my head, it's probably my essay about my cousin. It's very emotional. It took forever to write (most of which was spent just reminiscing and trying to understand what I felt and why), and the end result is vastly different than what my original vision was. I'm extremely proud of it.
\nFor something that probably won't make you cry while you listen to it in the grocery store, I like this very normal piece I wrote about RSS readers.
\nNo. I just want to make people laugh and cry and feel things. As long as that is true, I will keep this shit up.
\nI want to hear from Molly White and Britt. One of them doesn't even have a blog, as far as I am aware, but this is me manifesting. Make it happen, World Wide Weblog Jesus.
\nIn no small part due to the fact that after the results of the stupid fucking election in the U.S., I've been feeling pretty down and miserable about things, so I've retreated into whatever escapist bullshit I can to hold onto my sanity, even though I know full well that I would probably feel a lot better if, instead of just sitting with all of my stupid thoughts, I put a bit of effort into getting something down onto the page, because it almost always makes me feel better. Me and ignoring what is in my own self-interest—name a more iconic duo. ↩︎
\nSeriously, one of the wildest features of this thing was when you created a new document, it essentially bound a new "book" for you to write in. The more documents you created, the more books populated the digital bookshelf, and to open a document, you selected it from the shelf and it slid out and unfurled its pages before you. I thought this was so mature and official that the first document I created in Echo Lake was titled "The Journey of Death," which I envisioned being a multi-volume series where I ruminated about humanity's relationship to mortality, what the afterlife was like, etc. I was nine. ↩︎
\n"Adult" like grown up, not like porn. But feel free to subscribe to my OnlyFans. ↩︎
\nIronically, if you go back in the archive, you might notice that some of my first posts I wrote here are your typical tech link blog fodder, lmao why am I like this. ↩︎
\nYou ever think about how fucked up it is that you're basically a sack of water, meat, and bones that move because your thought pot sends invisible orders to contract and relax your muscles to varying levels of precision? It's weird! Like thinking about breathing. Like thinking about blinking. You're welcome. ↩︎
\nIn college, I was a Fiction Writing major. I wouldn't say this was, like, the smartest decision I ever made in life, but I had spent literal years farting around in art school[1], jumping from major to major to major until I finally, mercifully settled on the one that would be printed on my degree. Fiction Writing wasn't accompanied by a ton of perks. It wasn't one of the mysterious and super Bohemian ones, like... Fashion Design, or something... I dunno, which one of you got showered in copious amounts of sex? That wasn't me.
\nI did get to see a lot of writers read, though. That was a part of the work, and it was awesome. Henry Rollins yelling, so much yelling! into an auditorium full of captivated young adults. Irvine Welsh reading in his thick brogue as we packed the Metro theater. Some of the writers were also our instructors! Nami Mun. Joe Meno. Randy Albers. We were surrounded by talent.
\nBut so many years later, the one event that stands out to me the most was seeing Dorothy Allison. Our instructor, Megan Stielstra, took our class to one of the common areas that had been set up with rows of those stacking chairs. The ones made of metal, with their concave plastic backs and seats. I sat with my other classmates, clutched my copy of Bastard Out of Carolina, and I listened. Listened as Dorothy read a story about perseverance, about bravery, about fighting against everything that is telling you to minimize yourself. To scrape by, to survive. To overcome.
\nI'm racking my brain, trying to figure out what she was reading from, almost 20 years later. I hardly remember the words, it's been so long. But I remember how she captivated me with her emotion, how she read in her lovely drawl, how her intensity radiated from the page, from her eyes on the stage. There was a moment where I lost myself, thinking she was specifically reading to me. About me. There I was, alone in the audience, surviving by the grace of her warmth and hope.
\nUntil it was over. We were clapping. We were standing. We were lining up to say hello and have her sign our books. My friend, Tiffany, was looking through her bag when she realized she had left her copy at home. I told her she could have mine. Megan promised she would find a way to get me a signed copy, but I told her that was okay. The autograph wasn't important to me.
\nInstead, I inched forward in line as Dorothy greeted those in front of me, until I finally stood towering over her. She smiled from behind her huge glasses and said hello.
\nAnd with tears in my eyes, I asked her, "Can I have a hug?" Like a fucking psychopath. Who just asks a random stranger—nay! A renowned author!—for a hug in front of, like, I dunno, a hundred other people who just want their books signed??
\nMe. I am that psychopath.
\nAnd without skipping a beat, she said, "Of course!" And she threw her arms around me.
\nIt was like she knew. She saw a quiet little queer kid trying their best to figure everything out. And she knew. It's the love of others that gets us through.
\nDorothy died this week. I met her once, briefly, decades ago.
\nAll of her struggle and her bravery and her warmth, I can still feel it wrapped around me.
\nBuck up, kid. You've got no other choice than to make it through this life.
\nSix and a half years in art school, and my mother is still proud! ↩︎
\nAnnie posted another blogging challenge. For November, she suggested doing AMA-inspired posts. AMA. Ask Me Anything. I love it. I wanna do it. I put out the call on Mastodon, but if you have interesting questions you'd like me to answer, send them my way. I'll answer my favorites throughout the month.
\nThe first question I got was from Annie. Different Annie.[1]
\n\nI'm not a Halloween person. However, I am a disordered thinking person, so I was excited to consider question number one. And, honestly, it wasn't particularly hard to narrow it down.
\nIf there is one internal pattern I could change about myself right this second, it would be I WANT TO STOP THINKING ABOUT ALL OF THE MEAN THINGS PEOPLE HAVE SAID TO ME OVER THE YEARS.
\nIt's excruciating, how much braintime this shit takes up. If I can't sleep. If I'm playing a video game. If I'm driving around in the car. They're there. Gnawing away. The little seeds of self-doubt and criticism and all of the times people made fun of me for being fat or ugly or like I have a little tiny bit of a lisp even though other people disagree and don't hear it BUT NOW I HEAR IT. I HEAR IT.
\nI try so hard to navigate life being as kind as possible to people, and so when, inevitably, someone doesn't vibe with that, it cuts so, so deep. I wonder every single day if today will be the day where I wake up and magically stop giving a shit, like so many adults told me they did once they got old, but I AM OLD NOW AND IT HASN'T HAPPENED YET. WHERE IS MY TREAT??
\nAnd if I were to get hyper-specific about it all, I'd want to obliterate the mean things that were said specifically by people who suck shit and who are awful and who don't matter. People I would never want to associate with in the first place! Like my former colleagues who were talking shit about me behind my back in the Sprout Social alumni Slack. Who does that? Shitty people who suck and who I shouldn't care about, but I fucking care, and I wish more than anything that I could just stop. Those thoughts (and, let's be fair, those people) can get fucked and also fuck off.
\n
\nDeeeeeep breath.
\n
Not for Halloween, but one time in elementary school we had to give presentations on a famous historical figure and we had to dress up like them. I was obsessed with Mr. Holland's Opus at the time, which implanted the idea that I wanted to do my report on Billie Holiday. When I chose this person, I did not realize she was a woman, but when I found out, I was all in. My mom and I went dress shopping at a local theater costume store. I got a really nice red sequined getup, black gloves, a little black feathery hat thing—real 1930s vibes happening—and I wore the shit out of that outfit in front of my whole class while I gave my report and my teacher applauded me for my bravery.[2]
\nAlso, my mother thankfully had the good goddamned sense not to put me in blackface. Win-win all around.
\nOr, I suppose, more accurately, I got my nose pierced.[1] I am not advocating for you to pierce yourself, your friends, your pets, any tubers (aside from a nice potato, just to make sure it's done and ready to mash). It's unsafe. Please be safe when it comes to needles penetrating your flesh, thanks.
\nIs this worth a blog post? I dunno, is anything? Is a blog a blog if I can't blog what I wanna blog when I wanna blog? These are rhetorical questions—DO NOT ANSWER.
\nIt's a funny sort of thing. Brains, I mean. I remember for so long I was staunchly opposed to tattoos... Until I got one, and then I wanted another. And now I've been chasing that high ever since, waiting for the perfect artist to introduce themselves to me so I can get my dream sleeve. It'll happen. One day.
\nSame with piercings. Christ, I was such a dickhead about it to my ex, actually. She really wanted a nose ring and I was all "Yikes, ew" about it. Why did I think that? Why did I care? It was none of my business! But also, why did I care? What was it about the thought of a piercing that made me squirm? I wish I had the good goddamn sense back then to realize how frail and worthless opinions are.
\nAnyway, we split up over seven years ago at this point, and the last time I saw a photo of her, you better believe she had her nose pierced, and I just have to say: "Fucking good for you." Don't let the bastards tell you what to do with your body. I shouldn't have said anything; it was stupid and wrong.
\nAnd then, of course, here I am, 38. Tectonic plates of perception shearing and submerging and mashing together into a brand new range to gawp at. The new sun rising over, the entire vista awash with daylight, renewed. As I take it all in, a little glimmer of a oh! What if? Maybe? Could I pull it off? Am I too old??
\nAnd then, with some gentle, divine encouragement. Fuck it! What have I got to lose?
\nSometimes things change and your dumb old thoughts need to be buried so you can just move on and be you. Sometimes things that seemed so big and important for so long, aren't, actually. Sometimes it's nice to just reconcile with your past self and say, "You know what? Get out of the way. I know better now. Also quit being so fucking serious about shit that doesn't matter. You're making other people miserable. Grow up."
\nGrow up. Pierce your nose.[2] Have fun. It's all passing by so quickly and the more you try and dig in and plan out and dress down and build up this idea of how you need to be, the more of yourself you leave scattered in your wake until you're nothing but a bunch of thoughts that no one needs to hear.
\nListen along with the audioblog:
\n\nThis is the first time I remember crying: It's, I don't know, 1991? I'm four or five or something. Like so much of my childhood, my memory of it is elusive. A hazy cloud of disparate details swirling about, occasionally condensing into a revelatory burst of clarity. What has coalesced about this particular moment is that we live in our house in Elburn. I see my dad sitting on the couch in the living room. I feel sad—so sad, in fact, that I decide to seek solace from him rather than track down my mother. I crawl up onto the couch and sit next to him before being so overwhelmed by that sadness that I start sobbing. He holds me and asks what's wrong.
\nI manage, eventually, to say through the tears, "I miss Sam."
\nSam’s family moved away.
\nAs a small child, I didn't know how to conceptualize the distance between Elburn, Illinois and Tempe, Arizona. I knew that it was far enough that they may as well have moved to a completely different planet. I knew that my cousin—my favorite cousin—would no longer be a part of my life in the same way he had until then. It was my first experience with loss, and it was devastating.
\nSaying that Sam was one of my best friends as a child woefully undersells the significance his presence brought to my life. Our relationship was much more akin to that of siblings. You know, siblings who liked each other. Siblings who didn't share the fraught, antagonistic existence that defined growing up with my younger sister.[1] Sam and I just clicked. We shared similar interests. Similar senses of humor. We got each other. He was someone I was always excited to hang out with. At my house. At his. At our grandparent's. It didn't matter. If Sam was there, I knew we were going to have a good time.
\nHe was also older than me by about three years, so there's a chance that a lot of my perception of our relationship, even decades later, is colored by the fact that I was, in reality, the annoying younger "sibling" who idolized the older one. But if Sam's disposition toward me was that of mere tolerance, I have to say he hid it quite well. We played video games. We watched movies. We made each other laugh so, so much. My childhood memories of hanging out with Sam are wrought of that joy and laughter.[2] He was a dorky, kind, affable kid blessed with the quick wit of the adults in our family—a trait I was desperate to emulate.
\nThe short amount of time we lived near one another was enough to solidify in my mind a deep love and admiration for him. I couldn't have known as I sobbed into my dad's chest that Sam's absence would make the reunions that much more fulfilling. I had to learn that over the course of years, witnessing through photos as he slowly grew into his big buck teeth, hearing how his voice changed when we'd get a chance to talk on the phone, and barely containing my excitement for the holidays or gatherings when he and his family would fly back up and I'd get a chance to hang out with him for a couple days. Even though years would often pass before we got to see each other, when we did, it was like we had just hung out the day before. And I found myself falling back in line, a little puppy following him around anxiously seeking his approval.
\nIt's 1993. Maybe. I'm, like, seven or whatever. We're on a family camping trip somewhere in Wisconsin. My mom, me and my sister, my grandparents, my mom's youngest sister, and, to my excitement, Sam! Plus, his sister, Kim, and their parents. He and his family are having trouble adjusting to the cooler weather since they arrived back north for this trip.
\nBut I’m a Midwestern kid through and through, so I’m wandering around the campsite in a t-shirt, feelin’ great. I'm picking up sticks. I'm hopping off of tree stumps. I'm snacking on those orange crackers that ostensibly taste of cheese with that circular pad of peanut butter sandwiched between them. And by snacking on them I mean I'm carefully separating the crackers, scraping the peanut butter off with my teeth, and casting the crackers off into nature. You know, really livin' it up.
\nUntil.
\n"Keenan, put on a sweatshirt," Sam's mom says. "It's too cold out here."
\nI tell her I'm not cold.
\n"Put one on anyway."
\nI turn to my mom, who doesn't say anything, though she gives me a look that I would recognize years later as the one that means that sometimes you need to pick your battles. I stomp off and put on a sweatshirt, even though I'm not cold, and I wear it, even though it makes me too warm.
\nAt one point, the adults gather around a table and start playing Hearts. I tell them I want to learn how to play, but Sam's mom quickly brushes me off.
\n"Not right now. The adults are playing."
\nDisappointed, I slink off to go sulk in my grandparents' trailer, the one they tow up on every camping trip, where I can at least watch a movie on the little TV.
\nLater, I emerge to see everyone still playing cards—including Sam and Kim. I find my mom in the trailer and break down crying. She asks me what's wrong.
\nI tell her that I feel left out. I don't understand why my cousins were invited, but I wasn’t.
\nThat evening, Sam and I are in the bed of my grandparents' truck. We called dibs on it as a sleeping spot. I can't explain why it feels so cool to sleep on a pile of blankets and pillows back there—actually, maybe it's because it reminds me of the scene in The Rescuers Down Under where they introduce the main protagonist, a kid who we first see sleeping in a hammock under a pile of clothes somewhere in the Australian Outback. This is an image that sticks with me well into adulthood because I guess I always romanticize the idea of some sort of rugged, scrappy life where I'm just barely getting by?[3]
\nAnyway, we stay up late talking and laughing. We bounce around story ideas—we're both aspiring authors. I tell him about a book I want to write—a story about a kid who becomes a famous movie star and eventually can't cope with the stress and kills himself.[4] Sam says he doesn't think the kid needs to die at the end. Sage advice, probably, but I'm disappointed he criticized my idea.
\nThe conversation inexplicably turns to religion. Sam is big time into God and stuff, and he's telling me about how getting "saved" is the most important thing someone can do in their life. If they accept Jesus as their lord and savior, they'll get into Heaven when they die. I think this sounds pretty rad and I want to be like Sam, so I ask him to save me.
\nIt's the middle of the night in the back of a pickup truck in a forest somewhere in Wisconsin when I give myself to Jesus to impress my cousin.
\nWhen the adults rouse us from slumber the next morning, I whisper to Sam and ask him to tell his mom that I've been saved.
\nI think that maybe she'll finally accept me. Maybe it'll help me feel less like an outcast with my family, something that even now my little seven year-old brain can perceive. If I had already been saved, would they have invited me to play cards with them?
\nSam tells his mom. And when we all eventually gather around the campfire for breakfast, my grandma cries tears of joy for my soul.
\nWhen I go back to school that week, I boast to my friends during recess about how I got saved, so that means I can do anything and still go to Heaven.
\n"Even murder!" I exclaim to my captive audience.
\nBefore recess concludes, I’ve saved all of them, just like Sam would’ve.
\nHere are some of my favorite Sam memories:
\nAs a child, riding with him in the back of his parents' station wagon—it was one of those boxy monstrosities that featured a backseat that faced the rear window. I thought that was so cool. One time, Sam's dad got pulled over for speeding and Sam and I excitedly asked the cop to see his gun.
\nThe first time my sister and I ever flew on a plane by ourselves was to go visit Sam and Kim and their parents at their home in Tempe. Sam had started using deodorant at that point, which I thought was very mature.[5] Sam would also introduce me to Star Trek on that trip. We watched a bunch of episodes of The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine and Voyager his family had recorded onto VHS tapes. And I was hooked. I liked Deep Space Nine the best. I don't know why. Don't ask.
\nYears later, riding in his parents' car, Sam would excitedly tell me about all of his amazing adventures playing Ultima Online. I wanted to play it so badly, but I could never convince my parents to sign me up for the subscription, so I just lived vicariously through Sam, hanging on every word of the elaborate stories he weaved about evading guards and dungeon crawling and trying to trick people into following him so he could "PK" them.
\nYears later, when we’re both teenagers, riding in the back seat of his parents' car on a drive back from the Grand Canyon. Sam and I end up talking about the philosophy of The Matrix, for, like, an hour, and how, like, The Matrix Reloaded really expanded on the lore of the world, and actually, those films were super deep and it's kind of amazing how deep they were even though they were sci-fi action movies, and whoa, art is extremely cool and metaphors are good. His mom mocked us from the front seat. "I think what I'm getting from this conversation is that the Matrix is so deep," she said. But we were in the zone and our excitement wouldn't be contained by the disapproval of authority, man.
\nYears later, another car conversation. Sam telling me about how cool World of Warcraft is, how he and his mom were in a guild together and how they'd go PvPing and raid and get all the best loot. I told them about how I'd been playing a different MMO called City of Heroes, and how I was proud because my character had recently won a costume contest. Sam's mom laughed and said that sounded very "care bear"—a new term I was unfamiliar with at the time, but dripping with her unique brand of derision. Sam rebuked her: "That's not care bear, Mom. That's awesome!"
\nIt hadn't totally dawned on me until I started writing this just how often Sam stepped in to defend me against his mom.
\nBoth of his parents were, honestly, deeply unpleasant people to be around. They specialized in mean-spirited ribbing, going out of their way to question, criticize, and mock people. For their opinions, their looks, or their beliefs, it didn't matter. If it could be picked apart, it was fair game. And they were, of course, quick to take offense if anyone pushed back against their mockery in any way, lamenting the fragility of those they picked on. Even if the people they bullied were literal children, like I was in the vast majority of my interactions with them. "You're so sensitive, learn to take a joke" distilled into human form. You know the type—the people who compensate for their overwhelming mediocrity by doubling-down on condescension. Who dig their heels so deeply into the ground at even the slightest whiff of dissent. People so thoroughly convinced of their own infallibility, that anyone poking holes into the veil should be met with vicious contempt. If it was possible to chisel and polish arrogance, my aunt and uncle could produce the statue of David out of it.
\nIf there was one difference between the two of them, though, it was that my aunt, at least, had enough self-awareness to feel shame, though it typically took some cajoling for her to reconcile with her shittiness. It was usually Sam who stepped in in these moments to call his mom out and tell her she was being unnecessarily[6] mean to me. His willingness to stand up for me was one of the qualities I appreciated about him the most, since I often felt outnumbered and targeted by our family's "jokes." The times she actually apologized[7] to me were a direct result of him intervening.
\nI do wonder what it was like growing up in a house with parents who were so relentlessly petty and vindictive. As I got older, I was amazed that Sam and Kim emerged from that household seemingly so normal. Perhaps my experience with my aunt and uncle wasn't the norm—though I suppose I would have to actively disregard the myriad stories I've heard over the years from other family members who became the targets of their ire.
\nIn the summer of 2005, my mom and I took a road trip down to Texas, where Sam lived with his parents while he finished up undergrad. Luckily, his dad was away on a work trip somewhere, so it was Sam and his mom who toured us around the area. We visited Dallas, where the highlight of the day was wandering in and around The Book Depository. I distinctly recall needing to pass through a metal detector to enter the museum proper, and the guys in front of us in line had to stop to disarm, placing their guns in a little plastic box so the security agent could reacquaint them after the big metal gate gave them the all-clear. I thought it was 1) weird to be carrying around a firearm and 2) in that place of all places, like, read the room, my dudes.
\nI also distinctly recall how enraptured Sam was with the museum. The events surrounding President Kennedy's assassination. The infographics laid out around the room. The little miniature recreation of that block of Dallas housed within panes of glass so you could get a bird's eye view of the area and the path of the motorcade. We saw the window from where Lee Harvey Oswald fired his rifle. We walked outside and saw three Xs painted on the street, indicating where the bullets hit their mark. From the sidewalk, Sam looked at the Xs, then back up to the sixth floor window. The Xs. The sixth floor window. The Xs. The sixth floor window.
\n"No way," he said. "There's no way. That guy didn't make those shots. It doesn't make sense. No way."
\nI was still coming down from the high of watching Loose Change a year prior, so I nodded my head along in agreement.
\nA notable Sam memory: on that same trip, my mom and I sitting opposite from Sam and his mom at a steakhouse. I can't recall exactly how the conversation veered in this direction—though if I had to guess, it would be because Sam's mom brought it up, seeing as she often operated as though compelled by some dark contractual obligation to be as antagonistic as possible—but the two of them joyfully ventured into discussing, at length, the moral failing of the United States, and how our society was being dragged down by the sin of homosexuality. Sam claimed, with an air of authority outmatched only by his defiant unwillingness to provide any evidence, that every country which legalized gay marriage saw a distinct, measurable cultural decline in the years following.[8] Sam's mom said that if we legalized gay marriage, then it wouldn't be long before people would advocate for marrying animals.
\nI sat and listened and watched as the Santorum frothed at the corners of their mouths. One thing I've never been particularly good at is trying to debate people who are only interested in hearing themselves talk. I hold my own much better in text, when I can take the time to carefully consider my perspective and, subsequently, the words with which to support it. A tête-à-tête has never suited me, let alone a tête-à-tête-à-tête-à-tête. I found myself disheartened as I tried to offer differing perspectives—controversial statements such as, "Gay people aren't bad, actually" or "Dehumanizing people for who they love is wrong"—only to have them dismissed outright in a battering of bigoted statements masquerading as protestations of love.
\nThis conversation exposed me to the reality that Sam had, indeed, adopted many of his parents' combative mannerisms. Conversations with them weren't about understanding. They weren't about learning. They weren't about connecting with other people and expanding your worldview. They were about victory, about dominance. If you wanted to win, you’d better be ready to yell. The loudest person at the table was the most right. And you need to talk and talk and talk over your opponent so that they eventually relent in the battle of verbal attrition.
\nLater, as things pivoted to more savory topics, Sam claimed that the (just a theory) of Evolution was nonsense, and that Charles Darwin, in the throes of the illness that would finally claim his life, renounced it. Flat out rejected his life's work in secret to a nurse. A peculiar and startling notion I had never once heard before. He said it with such confidence that it was hard to refute in the moment, but the absurdity of the assertion rattled around in my brain long after dinner was over.
\nWhen my mom and I finally hit the road a couple days later, we confided in one another our mutual dismay regarding Sam's descent into Conservative fervor. How unpleasant it was to be talked down to like that, and what a shame that Sam was so quick to parrot right wing bullshit just like his parents. It was illuminating for me, one of the first moments I can recall where I realized that perhaps Sam wasn't a person I wanted to revere. A new kind of loss, the moment where you begin to recognize the people you love aren't who you thought they were. It’s a unique betrayal.
\nI asked her why she hadn't pushed back harder in that conversation. After all, she brought me up to be kind and accepting. She had gay friends and gay family members. She had supported me when I confessed to her in high school that I thought I was bisexual. So I wasn't sure why I felt so isolated in that discussion. She said that she had spent plenty of time arguing with Sam's parents over the years. That at a certain point you need to learn when to pick your battles. You could lose your mind trying to change others'.
\nWeeks later, that dinner still gnawed at me, the conversation replaying itself over and over and over. I didn't think I could ever sway Sam from his Christian Love of queer people, but I knew, at the very least, I could determine whether or not some of his "facts" held up under scrutiny. I wrote him an email telling him that I was having a difficult time shaking what he said, and that after some research, I had determined that his anecdote about Darwin was unequivocally false. A lie propagated by critics of Darwin's work.
\nTo this day, his response still surprises me, for many reasons. He wrote:
\n\n\nThe thing with Darwin. I'm really happy you looked into that. It's actually something I recently discovered was yet another lie that was told to me as fact. I did not even remember that I had said it to you or I would have contacted you and let you know. There are many things that the "Christian" church taught me that have been lies. Pardon my French but,[sic] bullshit like this is the reason I don't go to church anymore. I can't speak for all churches or Christian denominations, because I'm sure there are still some good ones out there, but I've found most of them are built on groupthink. Self-deception is the name of the game. The problem is it's been going on so damn long most of them don't even know their [sic] continuing the tradition. I'll spare you the full on rant here, because I could go on for pages. As I said, I'm happy you looked that up and did not allow the bullshit to spread to yet another person. I'm sorry that I said that to you. Over the past two years or so I've had to sift through everything I was taught at church for the first eighteen years of my life. Separating the truth from the lies is not an easy task.
\n
It's 2007. I'm 21. Sam's mom just made a joke at my expense in a public forum with our World of Warcraft guildmates. I respond and defend myself.
\n"Learn to take a joke," she writes back, completely divorced from any semblance of irony.
\nThat's it. This is the moment I hit my limit. I decide to write her an email. To let her know that I've spent years taking her "jokes." Years of pent up frustration at how she's treated me. The mockery. The criticisms. Laughing at me to my face. Behind my back. Mocking my girlfriend's heritage. Accusing me of being a liar. The ostracizing and othering. All of it pours out into a lengthy message because if there's one thing that I am fucking good at, it's writing for a really, really, really, really, really long time.
\nI am sick and tired of how you treat me, I write. You've made it abundantly clear for as far back as I can remember that you do not like or respect me, and I've had enough. If you don't want me to be a part of this family. Fine. I'm done.
\nBut, like, I'm sure a lot longer and with a bit more vitriol. You know, scorched fucking Earth, long overdue. This is the first and only time I’d stand up to her.
\nI click SEND. And then I leave the guild.
\nI spend the rest of the afternoon seething. I play video games on the Xbox until I can't stand being in the apartment any longer. I walk around the city while listening to angry music on my iPod, so I don't have to listen to the splintering multiverse of arguments I have with her in my head.
\nWhen I return to my apartment, I see the new voicemail icon on the screen of my Motorola Q, and a missed call from Sam.
\nI’m trying to recall the message as best as I can, decades later.
\n“Hey, Keenan,” he said. “My mom called me to talk about what happened. She feels really bad about it. I’m sorry she treated you that way. I hope you know that everyone in my family cares about you a lot. I understand if you don’t wanna talk to me about it. I definitely understand if you don’t want to talk to her. But I wanted to call you and tell you how much you mean to me.”
\nAnd then he finished his voicemail with a simple: “I just want to make sure you know that I love you, man.”
\nI love you, man. Those words echo in my skull, relentless reverberations of a disembodied voice whose exact frequency I can conjure up at a moment's notice.
\nNo matter how much time has passed, I can hear him say it. It means so much because I know he meant it.
\nThe seething ceases. I'm back in my body. I call my aunt on the phone. She apologizes. I apologize for losing my cool. We make amends.
\nI rejoin the guild.
\nFor as much as our ideological paths diverged over the years, Sam and I shared immutable characteristics that at once bonded and repelled us. We were forever intertwined in some divine contradictory battle. We had both developed a love for literature and honed our writing. Between talking about our latest video game obsessions, we fawned over one another's talents via emails and IMs.
\n"You know Keenan I think you and I are both very talented people. I know that may sound a little arrogant, but I call 'em like I see 'em," he wrote to me. "We have got to get together and work on something. A movie, video game, book, whatever. We should start talking about a project of some kind."
\nDespite the moral turmoil I felt regarding our conflicting worldviews—the deep apprehension that clawed within as a result of the injustices I experienced when talking with him—the mere thought that he liked me and respected my intellect was, in a sense, intoxicating. There's no better word. It dulled my deepest insecurities. Quieted the screaming of my moral compass, because mine is apparently a special model of compass that screams, a lot. I couldn't help but be enraptured by the notion that this person whose approval I chased for so long, now showered me with praise. He saw in me what it felt like so many others overlooked.
\nBut we both possessed fatal flaws that would ultimately keep us at arm's length. We were both passionate about our beliefs. We were both predisposed to combative written exchanges, disregarding the humanity on the other side of the monitor in the process. And we both found ourselves so overwhelmed by the demands of the present that we'd go weeks or months or years without connecting with people we loved.
\nHe summarized it best in one exchange:
\n\n\nI'm really bad at keeping in touch. I easily get lost in the daily routine and totally forget about friends and family. I haven't talked to any of my friends from Arizona in over a year or something like that. In any case, it's nothing personal, I just suck at life.
\n
The two of us, longing for connection, destined for loneliness because we couldn't look beyond what was right in front of our faces.
\nIt's 2011 when I find out Sam has cancer. Details from my family are sparse. Updates relayed through a series of text messages—from Sam's parents to my mom to me.
\nIn his colon, they know.
\nStage 3A, they think.
\nTreatment, imminent.
\nPrognosis, cautiously optimistic.
\nI'm 25. My 28 year-old cousin could die to the same disease that took our grandparents.[9]
\nWhen was the last time I talked to him? Our last DM was years ago. Long after countless arguments in Facebook threads. Long after I got tired of the constant bickering. Witnessing his reunification with God. Reading all of the ways that Liberals were poisoning America. The condescending, downright mean way he approached seemingly every conversation that wasn't about movies or video games, and those had become fewer and further between.
\nI know I slammed a door on our relationship. I put distance between us to save myself the anguish, the anxiety, the frustration. I'm still angry at him. Still angry at his dad, with whom I had had a falling out two years prior. Still angry that Sam never reached out to me afterward. That the person who used to stand up for me no longer gives a fuck.
\nBut now that anger is supplanted by new emotions. Fear. Sadness. I'm afraid and sad that my cousin could die and the last interaction we had was saturated by the stench of conflict. I can't bear the thought of living with that.
\nI write to him and tell him that I don't know what to say. I know we haven't talked in awhile. I know I'm partially responsible. I know he's probably mad at me for what I said to his dad. For the fights we've had. I apologize for the part I played in our division. I tell him the news made me realize I couldn't say nothing. That I do miss and love him and I'm hoping for a speedy recovery.
\nHe responds days later and confirms a lot of what I thought. Yes, mad about dad, but also recognizes his responsibility in reaching out and trying to move on. He apologizes for letting it fester for so long, but he hopes we can rekindle our relationship.
\nIn the years following his diagnosis, Sam and I would talk occasionally. Every once in awhile we'd catch each other playing Diablo III, though he didn't ask me to play nearly as much as I would've liked. Most of our communication continued to happen in the trenches of Facebook combat.
\nHe would post something. I would refute it in his comments. An argument would ensue.
\nI would post something. He'd call me a brainwashed Liberal. An argument would ensue.
\nAfter cops murdered Michael Brown in 2014, we argued about police brutality. Sam said these situations escalate because black people don't have better role models. That one of the reasons black people and police clash so much is because of the all the gangsta rap they listen to. I said that sounded pretty fuckin' racist. And he did not like that. Apparently, in his mind, being called racist was worse than being racist.
\nRegardless, our correspondences were largely devoid of tact, and every time I saw him post, I felt the uniquely shitty simmering feeling of anxiety deep within my chest. The kind of anxiety where it was hard to breathe. The kind where you want to lock yourself away in a tiny little box and wait out the apocalypse that was surely imminent. At a certain point, when I could accurately name this feeling for what it was, I knew I couldn't continue to let it dominate my perception of him.
\nI sent him a DM to say that I had realized that any time he posted anything, I felt this anxiety, and that I hated that it had overtaken so much of my perception of him that it made it hard to even think about having a normal conversation. I missed how things used to be, the conversations we used to have. I told him I didn't think text-based communication was the best way forward for us.
\nHe agreed, and he told me that he was glad I said something, because he experienced similar anxiety, making it difficult to engage with me. He suggested we try something different. Maybe make some time to chat over Skype.
\nSo we did.
\nIt was nice hearing his voice. Talking to him like a person and not merely a wall of text whose tone, intonation, and intention was largely on me to interpret. It felt effortless, like no time had passed at all. The same two kids laughing into the night in the back of a pickup, now grown up. We talked for—fuck, I dunno, three hours? Covered a lot of ground. Abortion. Science fiction. Religion. Video games. We argued, but in a way that felt mostly respectful. Devoid of the viciousness that punctuated our online discourse. Though I distinctly recall the familiar feeling of him disregarding most of my points as "illogical."
\nAs we wrapped up, he said something to me that still baffles me to this day. "I disagree with your worldview, but you articulate yourself so much more clearly and consistently than someone like Richard Dawkins."
\nLike, okay?
\nSam—like—what? It still cracks me up.
\nI left that conversation admiring his conviction, as well as feeling overwhelming self-consciousness that I was—I dunno, too acquiescent? Hearing him speak so confidently—his assuredness ignited envy within me. Embers that smolder to this day. The older I get, the less confident I feel about anything. The less I want to fight. The less I want to debate. I used to burn so hot. I could argue online for hours. Now, the thought of it makes my skin crawl. It's not that I don't feel strongly, but I don't feel so strongly that I want to spend my days mired in anxiety and rage trying to make people see reason.
\nBut Sam, the older he got, the more he seemed to dig in. Why was he so willing to fight? Why wasn't I?
\nThat was the last time I heard his voice.
\nFor the next couple years I watched Sam mostly from afar as he continued to fill timelines and comment sections with right wing rhetoric. Every once in awhile I'd dip my toes into the waters to question his political allegiances.
\nBen Carson? Really? That guy?
\nBut at least we could agree on one thing: Donald Trump was despicable. Electing him would be one of the worst decisions in American history. I took solace knowing that Sam was firmly in the Never Trump camp.
\nUntil he wasn't. It didn’t take long.
\nShortly after Trump was elected, I realized that one of the biggest factors feeding my anxiety was Facebook itself. So one day early in 2017, I deleted my account and never looked back. It was the first step in decoupling my brain from the pervasive dread that social media propagates.
\nIt also meant that my last real connection to Sam was severed. We had long moved on from playing the same video games. No one used email anymore. He never texted me. I never called him. I couldn't. I didn't want to risk a fight. I had to pick my battles.
\nIt's December 2021 and Sam has been on a ventilator for three weeks. Details from my family are sparse. Mostly sussed out from Facebook posts from Sam's wife, with Sam's own activity in the months leading up to his hospitalization providing some additional context as to how this all happened.
\nAnti-vax, maybe.
\nCOVID, definitely.
\nPrognosis, cautiously optimistic.
\nThoughts and prayers, requested.
\nUnexpected turn. Still hope. Keeping a close eye. Hard decision.
\nMy mom texts me: Sam died today.
\nNot even 40.
\nI don't cry. I want to. I want to mourn, but I feel so disconnected. What happened to us? How did we become strangers? How did I go from the kid who missed their big brother so much that I sobbed until it hurt, to barely recognizing this person?
\nI want to feel sad. But I'm so angry. For the first time, I hate Sam's conviction. How confident he was. I hate the lies that filled his head. Hate whoever was responsible for feeding them to him. I hate that I don't even know who to be fucking furious with. The rage makes me numb. And the numbness. The fear. The anger. It all envelops me.
\nWhere did he go?
\nWhere did I go?
\nIt's 2024 now. It's been nearly three years since Sam died. I think about him often. About the relationship we had. About the person I looked up to for so much of my life. The person I didn't even know at the end.
\nThe anger is still there. But so is the sadness. Finally. I feel it as I write this. It’s so prevalent that it drowns out almost every other emotion. There are still so many memories. So many questions. So much to try and understand. I could write until the end of time trying to make sense of it all, but the reality now is simply that I miss him. I miss my cousin. I miss who he was to me. I miss laughing with him. I miss playing games. I miss our long conversations, even the ones that frustrated me because of how diametrically opposed we were on so many things.
\nI feel guilty. I feel guilty being here. Stuck here, knowing that I have to accept that there will forever be a hole to fill with stories I tell myself, a collection of what-ifs, maybes, and if-onlys. I'm left reminiscing about all of the ways this ghost helped shape me into who I am today, and how much I wish I could tell him, one last time, how much he meant to me.
\nI miss Sam.
\nObviously, no offense to my sister. I think if you asked her, her assessment of growing up with me would be described as contentious and shitty. I am quite glad that we've both turned out to be relatively normal adults who don't seem to hate each other. ↩︎
\nOne of my favorites, as an amuse bouche: going over to his family's house and playing World Class Track Meet on the NES. They had the Power Pad and everything, and I'd move my tiny little legs as quickly as I could trying to beat him. I remember us falling over laughing, and then we'd laugh and cheer as our family members took turns. Honestly, it was like something out of a commercial. So much so that as I'm writing it down, I'm beginning to feel self-conscious about whether or not this actually happened as described. You know what? It doesn't fucking matter. I'll cherish it anyway. ↩︎
\nTo this day, I dream of living in rural Montana, growing my own food and living off the grid. ↩︎
\nI was a very serious child, apparently. ↩︎
\nI would get back home in a week and convince my mother that I, too, needed to start using deodorant. ↩︎
\nImplying that there exists a necessity threshold when it comes to adults bullying children—look I was trying to be generous to this person who sucks, but I think we can all agree that bullying is abusive behavior and if you are one, you suck shit, and also get fucked. ↩︎
\nThough I suppose this begs the question: if you hurt someone with your actions, apologize, and then keep engaging in said actions to the point where you end up apologizing for them repeatedly over the course of decades, do your apologies even mean anything, or are you just an asshole? Who's to say! ↩︎
\nWhat does that even mean? How was this measured? Who was doing the measuring?? Doesn't matter! Facts don't care about feelings, and all that. Quit asking questions! ↩︎
\nI don't have to search very far to find the root cause of my health anxiety and why cancer is invariably the culprit of every single ache, pain, and pang I experience. ↩︎
\nI know it just came out today, but I am already ready to declare that there is no greater device than iPhone 16 Pro. I am flummoxed. Bewildered. DISCOMBOBULATED, even. It is the pinnacle of design. Of engineering. And of humanity. Once again, Apple has blessed us with a little pocket computer that instantly renders their previous efforts to the waste bin that is recorded history. iPhone 15 Pro? More like iPhone 15 No! THROW IT IN A BLENDER. Pulse pulse. Drink it up. The nourishing blend of battery acid and precious metals will satiate you as you conjure the wonders of your iCloud backup down into your brand new gleaming monolith.
\nMy god, is there anything this phone can't do?[1] Email! Messages! Photos! Holy shit, three cameras! You can take every picture, and you will love it. I love it. It's my favorite camera ever. Nay, it is my favorite thing. Move over, my wife. Get lost, my dog, Olive, who is adorable. I am now beholden to the slab of glass in my pocket. The great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchild of Steve Jobs.
\nNothing can prepare you for how amazing this phone is. You've never seen anything like it. I certainly haven't. But I know it's great, because it is from Apple, and Apple is great, and I've never been disappointed by them ever. They are the only company who can do this. Hell, they're the only company I want to do this. Can we please just cede Capitalism to Tim Cook already?
\nI understand if this all comes off as hyperbolic, but it's impossible to contain my excitement for something that has already changed my life in literally immeasurable ways. It feels like I've been waiting all of my 38 years just to hold in my hand this perfect golden idol—this Desert Titanium idol. Remarkable! I wasn't expecting to love it so much. (Okay, that's a lie. I did expect it. Oops!)
\nAs a professional photographer, I am absolutely blown away by what I'll be able to do with the 48 megapixel ultra-wide lens, as well as the 48 megapixel Fusion lens, as well as the 12 megapixel telephoto lens. We're talking 108 combined megapixels! But let's break down the technical jargon for the laythey. 108 megapixels is so many pixels and it means your photos will look better than ever, because more pixels equal better photos. My photos look incredible, I bet! I thought I might be bummed out by the fact that I'll no longer have a 3x telephoto lens like I do on my iPhone 13 Pro, but then I remembered that I'm a fucking moron! 5x is more than 3x! Give me more!
\nAs an unprofessional writer, I can't wait for iPhone to write all of my emails and text messages and blog posts. To be clear, I abhor AI, but Apple Intelligence just seems so much safer, more private, and less creatively bankrupt. It has to be—iPhone is at the intersection of Technology and Liberal Arts, after all. I'm very Liberal! I love art! Technology is great! This thing is made for me.
\nI didn't think I could love something like this magical Internet portal. The smooth glass. The buttons—all 4 3/4 of them. The USB-C port. The speakers. The LIDAR thing. The Face ID. Wow. Oh my god. Fuck. Holy shit. Christ! CHRIST! Honestly, I love this lil' guy so much I don't even know what else to say about it. I guess it is proof that there is actually an almighty with a very particular hyperfixation on our overall wellbeing? His favorite creations now receive a gift befitting of the title. A splendiferous object wrought of magic and wonder and—oh wait, one sec, doorbell. I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere!
\nSorry, it was the UPS guy. Look what just arrived! Now I can love it for realsies!
\n![\"An](\"https://avgb.b-cdn.net/img/iphone16probox.jpg\")
![\"An](\"https://avgb.b-cdn.net/img/iphone16prostand.jpg\")
Even before opening the box, I can tell that my assumptions are completely justified. Don't just take my word for it. Actually, wait! Do. I am very trustworthy! Why would I lie? I wouldn't! I haven't. I can't. My integrity remains uncompromised. I am a vessel for truth, a blessing given to me by the Technolord. Her name is Cheryl. We are friends. I am your friend. Believe me. Our parasocial relationship is actually quite normal! iPhone! ipHone! ipHooe!
\nAside from all of the Apple Intelligence stuff they clearly advertise as being a marquee feature of this device. Someone call Lina Kahn maybe, I dunno, lol! ↩︎
\nUpdate—10/11/2024: The essay that this post is about is done. I did it. It's out there. It was worth toiling over.
\nAs I start this document, it is 2:46 in the actual A.M. and I have absconded from the warmth of my bed to bask in the putrid blue glow of this godforsaken monitor. If endless scrolling on a barely lit OLED wasn't conducive to sleeping, I shudder at the thought of what this is doing to me. iA Writer, for all of the beauty inherent in its minimalism, is quite blinding. I can see the little floaties bespeckling my cornea, they dance around with every microadjustment of my eye, little squiggly patches of blur flitting about.[1] Are my eyes dry? Is it allergies? Is it cancer? Am I just old?
\nI am having a really hard time.
\nEye floaties aside. Sleep deprivation aside. Presidential election rumination aside. Could we be moving to Europe?? aside. I'm not currently wearing a shirt aside. The time I experience is dense, petrified, memories seized up into an impenetrable carapace. There's no chiseling any meaning out of it. Just a crust, cruft condensed, coagulated, coarse and incredulous.
\nI started writing an essay about my cousin a few weeks ago. My cousin died and I haven't cried for him. My cousin died and when we were kids he was who I looked up to more than anyone and then we became adults and I didn't even know who he was anymore and then he died. I've been sitting with this for nearly three fucking years, and now that I'm writing everything out to make sense of it, the closer I get to finally finishing this, the further away I feel from understanding.
\nI thought maybe taking a small break would help. Enjoy the wedding weekend in Chicago! Walk around the city. Take photos. Enjoy time with friends. Eat breakfast sandwiches from Loaf Lounge, you putz! You're on vacation. You can write when you're home.
\nYou can write when you're dead.
\nNo, wait! That's the whole point. You can't. You can't. What are you saying? You've got this one chance. He had his one chance. What good are you going to do when you're growing trees?
\nI am having
\na really hard time
I don't even know if it's my story to tell. Is my reality valid? Are these feelings for the world or for me? What am I supposed to do with all of this brain stuff, keep it for myself? I am not a good steward!
\nI
\nam
\nhaving
\na
\nreally
\nhard
\ntime
and I guess I just want to tell him one last time that I love him. That I'm sorry we stopped talking after I quit Facebook in 2017, that I'm still angry at the person he became, the things he believed, the theories that killed him. Is there space for reconciliation or is it too late? Maybe I'll get a chance to ask him when the eye floaties finally come for me. For once, I hope he was right about God. Did He forgive?
\nWhat am I supposed to do now? Wrap it up into a thing and give it to the world and hope that that's enough?
\nI'm trying.
\nI'm trying!
\nI'm trying.
\nTry harder.
\nWhich reminds me, I should make an optometrist appointment so these motherfuckers stop harassing me. ↩︎
\nDisclaimer: I am not an audiophile. I like things that sound good to my ears, and that's about as far down the rabbit hole as I care to go. If you have qualms with the opinions I express here as a result, please file a complaint with your local law enforcement, who I am very sure will give a shit.
\nI don't particularly enjoy reviewing things. Writing comprehensive diatribes about products doesn't, you know, rev my engines. Sure, every once in awhile I'll experience something so indescribably foul that I feel compelled to shoot a warning beacon into the air in the hopes that I can save other people from the torment to which I was subjected. But when it comes down to it, there are plenty of other things I'd rather do with my time, my website, my sanity, than documenting every little think about a thing the thing in my skull thinks.
\nBut I bought the Sonos Ace headphones a week ago, and after spending a lot of time listening to podcasts, music, games, and video stuff, I am, honestly, pretty pleased with them. I like them. I might even really like them! I like them enough that I might have one of my friends pass them a folded piece of paper in Study Hall that says: Do you like Keenan? Y or N (circle one).
\nMaybe we'll go to prom![1]
\nSo, to be clear, this isn't a review of the Sonos Ace headphones, but this is me answering very real and legitimate questions I have definitely, totally been asked in case anyone else might also think they could like these headphones and needs a little big of a nudge in one direction or another.
\nOkay, first question!
\nI've had pretty good experience with their products over the years. The sound system in our living room is comprised of a Sonos Arc and two Sonos One SL speakers as rear satellites. I have had very few issues, and, by and large, I love the sound these things pump out. I'm always blown away by the fact that the Sonos One SL are wireless. Something something technology and magic. That experience alone put these high up on my radar, which I am not confident works as a metaphor, but I am confident you know what I mean.
\nI should probably note that I am not a heavy user of their app, which I understand is a major point of contention with many Sonos customers out there at the moment. To me, the app is fine. I barely have to interact with it.
\nAside from the trust I have in the overall sound and build quality of their products, the feature that swayed my purchasing decision the most was the Ace's alleged ability to transfer audio from the Arc sound bar directly to the headphones and back with the push of a button. That sounded fuckin' cool and exceptionally useful to me! My previous headphones were the AirPods Max, and while I could obviously use those with the Apple TV, the same could not be said for when I was playing the Xbox or PS5. My hope for the Ace was that they would be able to add new functionality, while completely replacing the AirPods Max (and also my SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro headset for PC gaming).
\nLook, I loved my AirPods Max for awhile. I got them when they launched a few years ago, and I've always enjoyed their sound. I thought they were comfortable. I liked that they were (kinda) pink! I liked that, when they worked, they were pretty seamless in switching between my various little Apple devices. The problem is that, with time, their reliability took a huge hit. It wasn't uncommon to put them on and just have them not recognize they were being worn. Or they would simply not show up on my phone, the device I used with them the most. I would often have to plug them in and unplug them again to kick them into gear. When that didn't work, I'd have to hard reset them. When that didn't work, I'd have to factory reset them and go through the whole setup process all over again. This happened multiple times in the last year, and it sucked! It got to a point where they caused more frustration than anything.
\nAlso, it needs to be said that their standby battery life from the day that I got them was fucking abysmal. Apple's insistence that these lil bastards didn't need a power button, that they were smart enough to enter a low power mode when you weren't wearing them is—I mean, uh, what's a polite way to say fucking delusional? So God forbid you forget to put them back in their little case, lest you put them on a day later only to find they were nearly drained of power. COOL.
\nI don't want to talk about it! I was duped into thinking they'd be terrific because of how much I loved their predecessor, the Arctis 7. To SteelSeries's credit, the Arctis Nova Pro do sound good, and the hot-swappable battery rules, especially for long gaming sessions. But the software that is essentially required to install to get them working properly is beyond awful. I cannot even begin to detail the hours and hours and hours of frustration of having to wrestle with the malignant beast that is SteelSeries Sonar, a piece of software that felt specifically designed to piss me off.
\nOh, and if I wore them for more than an hour, the inside of my left ear would start to feel actual, physical pain! WHAT?!
\nIf you are considering buying the Arctis Nova Pro for PC gaming, I implore you: DO NOT DO IT. THEY ARE AWFUL AND NOT WORTH YOUR TIME. PLEASE. They are the Mountain Dew VooDEW Zero Sugar of gaming headsets.
\nSound good.
\nOkay, yeah, I really enjoy how they sound. That's kinda, like, the big one, right? They are pleasing to my ears. I've left the EQ flat this entire week, so the way they sound out of the box is satisfying. Slightly warmer than the AirPods Max. I could see how some people might think the bass is slightly overtuned. Though I tend to be pretty sensitive to overblown bassiness, and these don't bother me in the slightest.
\nI've spent the week with the Sonos Ace listening to songs that I am very familiar with, songs that have a lot of playtime on the AirPods Max, and not once during that period have I missed or regretted replacing those.
\nThey're also extremely comfortable. I never balked at the weight of the AirPods Max, but the Sonos Ace are noticeably lighter, while somehow not feeling cheaper. They aren't so light that I've forgotten that I'm wearing them, but they've come close. And they're comfortable enough that I can wear them for hours with no noticeable fatigue.
\nI'm just gonna say it. I think Spatial Audio kinda sucks. There were certain scenarios where it sounded good with the AirPods Max, but it mostly felt hollow, and think it's actually worse with the Sonos Ace. The head tracking stuff still feels pretty gimmicky, and is only truly useful in situations where I'm stationary, staring at a screen. Unfortunately, I tend to wear headphones around the house a lot, so the head tracking just becomes distracting, and it's kind of a pain in the ass to have to go into the app whenever I want to enable/disable it, so I've mostly left it off.[2]
\nOn the other hand, I am blown away by the Transparency Mode (Aware Mode is what Sonos calls it) and Active Noise Canceling. Aware Mode is, honestly, nearly as good as the Transparency Mode with AirPods. In some ways, it's even better. The clarity and accuracy of sound piped in from the mics is stellar. It does occasionally clip in weird ways with sudden loud noises, like dishes clanking together when I'm unloading the dishwasher. But they're less sensitive than AirPods Max in that situation. I haven't had to put noise canceling on when doing the dishes like I would with the AirPods, because those could often produce unpleasant sound that hurt my ears.
\nThe big complaint I have with Transparency Mode is that the Sonos Ace create a better seal on the ear than the Max, which contributes to a plugged ears sorta feeling when talking. I can hear my voice in my head as well as the sound coming in from the mic. It's the only time where I really notice I'm wearing headphones. Somehow the AirPods Max just nails that, but the Sonos get so close that I've largely adjusted.
\nBut that seal also helps noise canceling excel. This was an area where the AirPods Max began to struggle—they were great for awhile, but with time and firmware updates, their capability diminished. Time will tell if the Sonos Ace succumb to a similar fate, but where they're at now, the noise canceling capability seems better.
\nThe Digital Crown. It feels so good, and was perfect for adjusting volume. All of the buttons on the Sonos Ace are nice. They're very functional, but they don't quite feel as premium and satisfying to use as the Digital Crown.
\nHi, yes, thank you for participating. They have a real case and it is nice, though I worry about ripping off the zipper every single time I open it.
\nYes.
\nNo, actually. And to that point, I'm kinda blown away by how cool the TV Swap feature is. Once I got it set up properly, it really is just as easy as holding down the volume slider button thing for a second and it pops whatever audio is coming through the Arc sound bar[3] on over to the headphones. The quality is stellar, and it solved exactly what I hoped it would—I can play the Xbox or PS5 through these lovely headphones and not be annoying to my wife or my dog.
\nNot that I can perceive. I was a little shocked to read RTINGS review, because in their testing they did notice some distracting latency. This has not been my experience at all. It's been basically flawless.[4] So, uh, your mileage may vary?
\nNot a question! But it's good. Better than the AirPods Max (and not just because some genius put a power button on them). I've been happy with how long they last. No, I have not done any actual tests, because I value my mental health too much. Sonos claims 30 hours. I'm just gonna say that feels right.
\nThe fact that I can't go fully wireless with my Windows PC. The Bluetooth connection on my PC is actual garbage. BUT, these have a USB-C port that I can connect either to the USB-C port or the 3.5mm jack on my PC. The wire is annoying, but dealing with the SteelSeries software was exponentially more annoying, so this is a tradeoff I am happy to deal with.
\n"Never Ever (feat. Susanne Sundfør)" by Röyksopp.[5] I am listening to it on repeat right now and it is very good.
\n$450 is a lot to ask for headphones. The fact that these boast sound comparable to the AirPods Max, for $100 less, is nice. I actually ended up trading in my AirPods Max and knocking $130 of the purchase price. Knowing that I was replacing two annoying headphones, as well as adding functionality to my existing home audio setup, made that easier to justify.
\nIf you don't have a Sonos sound bar, I don't know if I would say, "Hey, yo, run out and buy these." They are damned good, but something tells me you could be equally pleased with something comparable from Bose or Sony for a similar or cheaper price.
\nI think life is full of wonderful little mysteries that we don't always have the answer to. You have to ask yourself whether or not it's worth sanding away every little bit of whimsy just to experience the feeling of superiority of knowing something. I, personally, understand the inclination. I was trained from a young age to look for answers—specifically, the right answers, as though the right answer is a thing that exists in all circumstances. But as I get older, I am often distressed by how imprisoned we are—collectively-speaking, of course—by literalism. Sometimes things can just be, and when we learn to just accept that in those situations there is, in fact, no right. No wrong. No objectivity. I mean, Christ, there are people out there who don't like The Last Jedi. I could drive myself fucking insane trying to convince them that it is the best thing Star Wars has produced since Empire,[6] but the reality is that there's no way to produce any sort of factual evidence for a completely subjective claim. We'd all be better off if we learned to accept that it's not always possible to explain things. Some things just are, and that's okay. We don't need to spend our lives trying to correct perceived injustices.
\nomg do u think we'll get married?? ↩︎
\nWorth pointing out that while I don't mind the Sonos app for managing the headphones, I do miss the fact that these are not nearly as tightly integrated with iOS. Something to be said for first-party peripherals—when they work. ↩︎
\nAnd Soon™ to their other sound bars. Neat! ↩︎
\nUpdate - 07/19/2024: Okay, nearly two weeks out and I experienced the first issue with latency. I was watching something on Plex on Apple TV, then I switched to the YouTube app and the first thing I played had a delay of maybe half a second. More than enough to be noticeable and annoying. Toggling the TV Swap option cleared things up. So yeah, mileage! It varies! ↩︎
\nAlso that music video rules. ↩︎
\nWhich I unironically believed until Andor came out. ↩︎
\nTable of Contents:
\nIt was May 13, 2024 when the sky opened up and the gods deigned to bless us with a grand proclamation: a private equity firm was to swoop in and save Squarespace from the perils of public trading. What news! Private equity! My two favorite words right after frontal lobotomy! It was May 13, 2024 when I realized my time with Squarespace was through. After over a decade of building websites with them. Failed blogs and failed podcasts and failed businesses. Now, the failure of Capitalism made it clear that it was finally time to move on.
\nLest anyone accuse me of rampant cynicism (fuck you), let it be known that I have spent a lot of time championing Squarespace while simultaneously watching it morph itself from a product focused on blogs and portfolios into an e-commerce behemoth that wants to be the Internet's business singularity. What used to be a company who filled podcasts and YouTube videos to the brim with ad reads opining about freedom, flexibility, and creativity, has now replaced those spots with calls to action enticing you to monetize your entire existence.
\nSTART YOUR BUSINESS WITH SQUARESPACE.
\nRUN YOUR BUSINESS WITH SQUARESPACE.
\nBURDEN YOURSELF WITH THE KNOWLEDGE THAT A VISITOR PUT ONE OF YOUR PHOTOS INTO THEIR CART BUT DIDN'T FUCKING BUY IT WITH SQUARESPACE.
\nTo scroll through their homepage is to be subjected to an SEOrgasm. An onslaught of big, bold headers, expertly generated to diddle your entrepreneurial spirit. Designed to sell. Grow your business online. Tools to sell your time and expertise. Modern solutions for your brand. Schedule appointments, create courses and tutorials, invoice clients.
\nTruly, Squarespace is the everything platform for anyone whose definition of everything is generating revenue.
\nLook, I spent plenty of time in the corporate world. I can handle some nonsensical marketing puffery business development[1] bullshit. I get it. Company gotta company, amirite? Optimize that funnel. Expand that reach. Make that cheddar. Can't build an infinite cash printing operation charging dork ass bloggers $16/month, can we? Let's be realistic here.
\nAt the end of the day, the product speaks for itself. And, for a very long time, the product was simple, elegant website building tools. Robust blogging capabilities—even podcast hosting baked right into the experience! All of it so straightforward anyone could do it. Surely, they wouldn't let the relentless pursuit of more engorge that product into a chugging, bloated, hostile parasite designed to extract every ounce of value out of every customer and every customer's customer, right?
\nRight?
\nRIGHT?
\nI mean, okay, yeah, when I launched the first version of this site hot on the heels of shutting down the consultancy my wife and I founded, there was something enticing about the thought of having an art portfolio that could also help me dive head first into the world of e-commerce. There was, for a moment, a dream of just selling art and using their myriad tools to help me build a "presence". I had used Squarespace for so long. I knew Squarespace. I was comfortable with Squarespace. I admit, I bought in. Briefly.
\nYes, I thought it was gross that I had to upgrade to the "Business Plan" just to be able to inject custom CSS into my site. Yes, I found it annoying that I had to click through multiple screens, including one that encouraged me to MONETIZE MY BLOG, every. Single. Fucking. Time. I wanted to publish a new piece. Yes, it was slow. Yes, the interface had devolved into an inscrutable miasma of settings tucked away in preposterously unintuitive locations. Yes, the iOS app has a Marketing tab in it that uses their super intelligent machine learning capabilities to "learn about your brand" and produce some of the absolute ugliest social media and email marketing templates I've ever seen in my fucking life omg lmao.
\nYes, nearly everything about the platform felt worse than it did when I first started using it over a decade ago[2], and, no, it wasn't until private equity shattered the glass, lifted the veil, defogged the mirror—WHATEVER METAPHOR YOU WANT TO USE—that I saw, clearly, the biggest problem: I didn't even like tinkering with my website anymore. Once I had built it, I was always hesitant to go in and do more, because I didn't want to have to fight with Squarespace. And if it was bad now, I didn't want to see just how awful the experience got when the new management got a chance to optimize everything for revenue even further. They're gonna squeeze that thing until it weeps blood.
\nSo it was May 14 when I put my intention out into the world:
\n\nMy buddy, Nate, jumped into my replies to tell me about their experience with Eleventy, and how coding a site by hand rejuvenated their own love for tinkering.
\nI initially expressed some skepticism. After all, I didn't know fuck about shit when it comes to coding, aside from the disparate knowledge I picked up back in the Geocities days, honed slightly over the years by styling a Myspace page or after altering someone else's CSS to hack it into doing what I was hoping for on my numerous Squarespace blogs. I never really knew why something worked, just that, with some finagling, it eventually did. But coding my own thing from the ground up? I dunno. It seemed insurmountable. I'm 38, anxious, and stupid. Should probably just stay in my lane!
\nBut the prospect of independence—true independence. The prospect of ownership—true ownership. It gnawed at me.
\n
If I was going to do this, I knew I needed to brush up on some of the basics first. I popped on over to Codecademy and started my journey down the HTML and CSS introductory learning paths to help establish a solid foundation for myself.
\nIt took a day or so to complete those. I was delighted to find what I assumed would be a chaotic mess of half-baked understanding of rules and syntax was actually, like, two-thirds baked! Turns out, I had picked up a lot more over the years than I gave myself credit for, and now I was just filling in the cracks with some of the key fundamentals. I'm sure, had I been starting from zero, it would've been more challenging, but I was surprised at how straightforward these lessons were. They made me feel competent enough to get going and completely skip the Javascript tutorials![3]
\nWith this newly-discovered and not-at-all-misplaced confidence, I set out to make a definitive decision about how I was going to build this thing. Eleventy was, obviously, on the radar, given how popular it seemed to be in my circle. But as I asked around for alternatives, or scoped out the source code of other people's sites, I was presented with a plethora of choices. I could use Jekyll or Hugo or any number of static site generators (to be clear, I barely understood what a static site was). I could go with something like Ghost, or, I suppose, WordPress. I had a friend who was really excited about Statamic. I even got so overwhelmed by all of these choices that I guess for a second I also thought that Wix might be in the running, I dunno, it was a wild time.
\nIn the midst of all this, I read a piece on Nate's blog called The "IndieWeb" feels like coming home, which was not only empowering to read, since they, too, previously had a Squarespace site and they, too, had a similar level of coding expertise, but it also had a really helpful section at the bottom that made it seem like setting up Eleventy would be stupid easy. Four whole steps! Piece of cake.
\nSo I said, "Fuck it!" and installed Node.js on my PC. I downloaded VS Code. And after having to fuck around in the Command Line for some reason,[4] I was finally able to install the Eleventy Starter blog and I was off to the races. And by off to the races, I mean I had to learn how to use VS Code while learning the ins-and-outs of the Eleventy Starter blog project at the same time. I had never even been in a development environment before—there was a lot of stuff to take in! There's a whole suite of plugins I could download. Do I need to download those? Are they plugins for VS Code, or are they plugins for my Eleventy Starter blog? How come I can't seem to get npm start to work? Okay, localhost:8080 isn't working anymore, but I do have localhost:8081. Quit. Restart. Okay, now I have... both? What is happening here? Okay, so where do I save these fonts? How do I get styles.css to recognize these fonts are installed? I'm pointing them to the right folder. What if I do this? No. Okay, what if I try this? No. Okay. Uh. Quit. Restart. Fonts are working. Cool. Okay.
I wonder if Nova is better, I thought. Maybe I should just let my PC be my gaming machine and let my Mac be my development machine. That way, I could code ANYWHERE! I could code on the couch! I could code on the porch! Ooh, Nova has some pretty colors. Okay, let's install the Eleventy Starter blog here. Fuck, I need to redownload the fonts and put them in the directory.
\nWhy aren't these working?
\nIt was when I had to start poking around in the .js files that I realized I might be a little in over my head. Like, I could kinda, sorta understand what some of the words meant—I do read, write, and speak English pretty well—but their syntax was nearly nonsensical. How do you define a collection. What is a moduleExport. What is const. Oh my fucking god, how many curly brackets could this thing possibly need???
Anyway, I was enjoying looking at Nova until npm start stopped working altogether. It would error out and I couldn't get localhost to work in my browser. I had no idea why. But now, I had installed two different coding tools on two different machines. Installed the Eleventy Starter blog two different times. And when I went back to VS Code on my PC, I couldn't remember what the fuck I had been doing there in the first place, so I scrapped the directory and reinstalled the Eleventy Starter blog again.
Then I went to fuck around with the Glitch Eleventy starter app until it dawned on me I was just spinning my wheels. Two days of flailing around without a clue. Nothing to show for it.
\nTo alleviate my frustration, I took a break to play video games and write about killing my blogroll, even though I had explicitly told myself that there was no use in writing anything new for the—ugh—Squarespace site if I'm just going to have to recreate it on the new site. Why invest more time in the platform I'm leaving?
\nBut I am nothing if not a stubborn bitch, so I wrote it anyway. And once I did, the thought crossed my mind that maybe I should just stick with what I know. Maybe I was too ambitious to assume I could do this. Maybe I should just let the Squarespace site renew. Maybe I'm not cut out to learn this stuff. Who knows, maybe the private equity thing won't be that bad.
\nThe momentum of the Codecademy tutorials sent me careening straight into a wall wrought of ignorance and doubt compacted so densely that it shattered my entire spirit upon impact. The egregious mistake of not knowing everything within the first hours of learning.
\n
I was so deflated that I decided it was time to rewatch Station Eleven so I could cry and feel some semblance of optimism about the world.[5]
\n\nSometimes when presented with a formidable existential quandary, the only thing you can do is take a moment to breathe and soak up as much art as possible.
\nI hadn't watched it since it originally aired back in 2021. For whatever reason it had been on my mind for the last few months, well before this sudden onset ennui. Instead of beating my head against the wall, I spent the next week and half immersing myself in this unbelievable story told in ten beautiful, heart-wrenching episodes.
\nIn my mind, Station Eleven was already my favorite show, just based on the initial viewing alone. Ever since watching it, I couldn't shake how it made me feel. How much I cried. How emotionally attached I became to the characters. How much it made me believe in the power of human connection, creativity, and love. Not only did this second viewing validate my original thoughts, it reinforced them in new and unexpected ways. The first go around, it took time to grow to love these characters and begin to understand what was happening, who they were, where their story would take them. The second time, with all of that knowledge firmly entrenched, seeing them all again was a reunion. I knew what was going to happen, so it gave me an opportunity to appreciate the characters for their warmth and their humor, their pain and their pleasure, the way they treat each other in the face of a truly incredible tragedy. Subtle things I missed the first time around were now on full display.
\nIt's a show about the perseverance of the human spirit, about how we find our people and ourselves. I often feel terribly alone, and this, more than anything else I've seen, makes me feel hope. Maybe one day, I, too, will find the people who appreciate me for me. The whole me.
\nWhen I finished the show, I had the foundation for an essay I knew I needed to write.
\nBut I also knew that I could not write it until I had a place that was my own.
\nThe break was over. It was time to do this. For realsies.
\nAs I scoured the web for guides, I found a tutorial that would turn out to be the thing that made this all finally click for me.
\nI opened up VS Code, trashed the previous directory for the Starter Blog, and began a new project.
\nnpm install @11ty/eleventy
\n
One of the things that immediately jumped out to me about flaMEd's tutorial, despite being out of date, as he claims, was how it walked step by step through creating a new Eleventy project from scratch. Rather than loading up the Starter Blog project, which was already full of configuration files, dependencies, and sample pages, flaMEd's approach was to detail every step in the codewriting process, explain what each step did and why. This helped build a ton of context for me as I pieced together .html and .js and .json files. I learned what partials were, how to structure them, and where they fit into layout files. I could see as I wrote the code how things were supposed to interoperate, because I was piecing it all together as I went along, rather than trying to untangle a web of pre-built code.
I can understand how a starter project might be helpful for someone who has done this before when they just want to spin something up and hit the ground running. But for me, when I was brand new, what I needed was someone who understood how to lay the groundwork. And that meant making sure that I had to build these files and folders one-by-one and get them working together myself.
\nSure, there were stumbles along the way where things didn't work as flaMEd described, but the benefit of working through this tutorial was that it meant I could look back a couple steps and see that I rushed through and didn't pay close enough attention when I was coding.
\nThat, or it was a stupid typo. You know, style.css vs styles.css.
Over the next few hours, I managed to build out a basic site with a couple of pages whose inner-workings I actually understood. I reached the end of the tutorial and felt comfortable enough that I could get to styling.
\nI texted Robb to declare my victory, as he had been cheering me on throughout the process, even when I stumbled.
\n![\"Conversation](\"https://avgb.b-cdn.net/img/progress.jpeg\")
I stayed up late that night. Too late, some might say. But I was cookin'. I went to sleep for a bit and shot awake excited to get back to my computer. My new hyperfixation awaited. I couldn't remember the last time I felt legitimately giddy to sit at my desk.
\nThat second day was when I hit my first series of obstacles. A couple weird CSS things that I eventually ironed out—I don't remember what they were—and then, over the course of literally five hours, I tried to figure out how to install my first plugin for the site. I write in Markdown, and I love me some footnotes, so it only made sense that I get markdown-it footnote working. Easier said than done, considering the documentation assumes you know a thing or two, and as I've previously established, I am a moron.
\nHours spent fiddling away in config files and digging through my node_modules folder, testing the build and seeing no changes. Hours searching the web for a Stack Overflow or Github or Reddit thread that could help me. Eventually, I narrowed down the issue to poor syntax in my .eleventy.js file. I think I had put the moduleExports rules in the wrong part of the document? Hard to remember, the day was a blur.
But I do remember the moment when I saved the file, hoping that would produce a change, and then reloading my blog post to verify, and—GASP—it worked! The footnotes rendered properly. Holy fuck. HOLY FUCK. I did it. I figured it out!
\nI felt like a superhero.
\nI experienced a number of triumphant moments as I built out the site for the next week. Some days I'd spend tinkering with little things that probably didn't matter that much. Other days, I'd build up the mental fortitude to tackle some of the big ticket items I knew needed to be completed before I was ready to launch.
\nHere is a brief list of some of the other triumphs and tribulations I dealt with during that week and a half period where I built out the bulk of my site:
\nI came away from this process with a much greater understanding of how Eleventy works, and how all these different elements connect to make a website function. I'm clearly not an expert, and I can't say with certainty, if I were to start it all over again, that I wouldn't make a lot of the same mistakes or be confused about the same things.[7] What I am far more confident about now, though, is that I am capable of figuring it out.
\n
Something I haven't yet touched on is the broader philosophical question behind this website. If I'm going to go through the trouble of rebuilding it, make it exactly what I want. What, exactly, do I want it to be?
\nWhen I first launched my site on Squarespace, I had no ambition of writing a blog. I thought that era of my life had long passed. Instead, I was dead set on focusing on other art forms, with my photography and voice acting sitting at the forefront. I wanted to make a portfolio that was big, bold, colorful. Something that was eye catching and fun. Something that felt loudly, proudly creative. Something that felt like the part of me that was bursting to get out. I liked that site. I liked that dream.
\nHowever, the more time I spent on Mastodon, the more I interacted with folks there, the more I became frustrated and unsettled by Capitalist-techno-bullshit... The more I realized there was a part of me my site wasn't serving. An aspect of my voice that had been dormant for too long.
\nI wanted to write again.
\nSo with very little fanfare or expectation, I launched A Very Good Blog as a way for me to just get some of the shit that was on my mind down onto the page. A place where I could write about what I want, with a challenge of not judging myself for not posting enough, or not writing enough about the things I think other people wanted to read.
\nWhat surprised me was that the more I focused my writing to be an authentic representation of my sensibilities and my humor, the more people flocked to it. Soon, I became known, mostly, for my writing again. All the pomp of my other pages was largely overlooked for a blog that was simply black text on a white background (and some lovely typefaces, naturally).
\nI don't want to give up on my other art, and I have no intention to do so. But I do recognize that my writing is an extremely large, extremely important extension of who I am. My words are big and bold enough that they can stand on their own. I don't need chunky display fonts and walls of color and flashy animations and pizazz. I've got enough of that in my head that comes through when I put those words on the page.
\nMoving to a static site that I hand code myself instilled some inherent limitations that I needed to figure out how to work around. It helped me build a foundation for the future. I can keep building upon this as I learn and get inspired to try new things. In the meantime, I have a much simpler website that feels a little bit rougher, a writing and publishing process that is a bit more manual, a level of ownership I haven't felt in a long, long time.
\nI've always been interested—from a distance—in code, though for whatever reason I got distracted by other things for so long that I convinced myself I had missed the boat. But if this experience taught me anything, it's that there's still a lot of joy and fun left in learning something new. That there are few things more satisfying than building something for yourself and see it all come to fruition. There's such a strange little dopamine hit in booting up VS Code, typing out some rules, and hitting the save button to watch them populate immediately on the local environment. I find myself doing it every day now. Nate was right, tinkering is fun.
\nSo now I have this space I built for me. A place I can feel proud of because I made it. A place that represents me and the way I want to present myself to the world.
\nA place for my voice to shine through. A real home.
\nI say I built this site from scratch, but that's not true. Nothing is created in a vacuum. Everything we do, we're all building upon the knowledge, guidance, and experience of others. That connection inspires and drives us. I know for a fact that this site wouldn't exist if it weren't for some key people, so I want to acknowledge them:
\nOr b-dev, as it's called in the bizzy. ↩︎
\nSomeone with even a modicum of clout should really coin a catchy term that everyone else can repeat ad infinitum until it loses all meaning. I'm not clever enough. ↩︎
\nWhat we in the bizzy might call "foreshadowing." ↩︎
\nI don't remember why, I just remember I had to, like, fix some issue with installing Node.js and some ancient Stack Overflow thread was guiding me through that process. ↩︎
\nIf that sounds like an intense and dramatic reaction, hi, welcome to my blog! ↩︎
\nThis might not sound like a huge deal, but this was something I always struggled with on Squarespace. They boast about how their sites are responsive by default, but in practice, the process for figuring out how to make sites look good on these three different sizes was slow, unintuitive, and extremely unreliable. ↩︎
\nI really probably do need to go back and do those Javascript tutorials. ↩︎
\n