What I’m doing
Suffering without internet, that’s what
Well, here I am in the beautiful city, the Windy City! Which, by the way, did you know Chicago is named the Windy City not because of blustering winds but because back whenever — I dunno I’m not Googling it you can do that — politicians would run their mouths blowing wind out of their mouth holes, not keeping promises I must assume!
Anyway, wouldn’t you know it, all my problems didn’t get magically solved when I moved cities. You’re still the sad sack piece of shit that lived in the other less cool city. Fascinating how that works, no? Picking up and moving across a body of water to a metropolis doesn’t immediately lift the fog of depression and make life seem sparkly and renewed with possibilities. In my defense, I did know this, but was there a sliver of me that thought, well maaaaaybee… tee hee~
There were a few days there where I did have this feeling of slight euphoria and wanderlust as I roamed around my new neighborhood. There’s a bookshop around the corner from my apartment that I already spent $80 at. And a corner diner that I’ve already eaten at four times and have basically become a regular. I like my little two-story grocery store that’s on the way to my gym and sits equidistant between there and my apartment. There’s also a little coffee & boba tea shop I frequent to use the internet because I’ve been living without internet.
I won’t bore you with the details on how AT&T simultaneously gave me a rip-roaring deal that I simply could not refuse and also ruined my fucking life, but the TL;DR is that I won’t have internet in my apartment for another week, and I’ve already been living without internet for two. What does one do without internet? Well, go to bed at 9pm for one thing!
I’ve been reading a lot more, which has been enjoyable to get some wrinkles in my brain that’s as smooth as a chicken breast — shout out those Ashnikko lyrics. I read Brat by Gabriel Smith, which was an interesting experiment in form and auto-fiction; it’s a quick read and by god do I simply love a quick read. It wasn’t as “horror” as advertised, but it certainly was as experimental as advertised, which I appreciated. Before that I read Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash, which I would describe as Quite Substantial. It’s a pitch black comedy that takes a look at the modern day family, blowing it to smithereens and then cobbling its pieces back together. Both of these are debut novels, and I can’t wait to see what each author does next — yay!
I’m now currently reading the first installment of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series — recommended to me by many, it’s already been picked up for an adaptation on Peacock which I’m guessing will be similar in style and tone to that network’s Twisted Metal series. The book itself is fun! It does at time feel like it’s written for children or maybe specifically man-children with a lot of the humor simply making me not even crack a smile, but I do like the mechanics of the world-building being a mash-up of video games and Dungeons & Dragons. I’m a nerd, can you believe! Anyway, it’s lowkey Hunger Games for boys and swaps out political corruption for corporate corruption. Will I continue to the next installment? Maybe!
What I’ve really been missing is MOVIES AND VIDEO GAMES HOLY SHIT HELP 911 — luckily I’ve had a few movies already d*wnloaded onto my desktop computer to view at my leisure, and I should really get my ass to the theater to see Toy Story 5 and Leviticus. Also the World Wide Web awaits my viewing of The Sheep Detectives and Blue Heron. And I’ve been enjoying my Switch 2 in ways I’ve never enjoyed it before — wow, what a magnificent piece of handheld hardware.
GTA VI is also certifiably a real thing! I honestly, truly, really can’t even believe it, and it has unironically refueled my will to live. The fact that Playstation is basically doing an unofficial collab with Rockstar over the release is also Very Funny to me. What’s also Very Funny to me is the announcement of the Steam Machine, which is an overpriced console without the perks of a console or an affordable PC without any of the perks of being a PC. Who is this for!
Anyway, that’s all from me… reporting live from this cute little coffee & boba tea shop. Perhaps one day I will once again be online…
the turbulent ups and downs of your new analog life