My new roommate brought a bigger TV, and with it, the new Grand Theft Auto.
Eventually this is going to be a big problem.
I suck at overly realistic open sandboxes but I love this game. I love it like a priest loves alter boys, which is to say, for all the wrong reasons. You know all the warnings parents give their kids about violent videogames instilling bad behavior, anti-social tendencies, a violent disposition and all that other bullshit that Penn and Teller disproved? Well unfortunately, when it comes to GTA, and only to GTA, they definitely apply to me.
Let me repeat, I suck at this game, suck at it but rather than correct this, like I do when I'm roleplaying literally anything else, I revel in my unbridled recklessness. I have the option to punch out a hooker? Great. I can crash a car into a helicopter off a 50 story building? Bring it on? Kill a random pedestrian with a drive by purple dildo beating while listening to Christian talk show parodies over my stolen Volkswagen's radio? It's a date, man. It's a date.
While the game definitely encourages this kind of behavior, I still feel weird about it because in between it I'm supposed to be doing missions and learning about the (very well written) stories and world. That's usually what I love about videogames in fact. They reward your efforts to beat them with some truly beautiful writing in an incredibly versatile medium. Usually my Dramatic Literature boner is at full mast. But for some reason with GTA I don't give a shit. It's like if someone gave me escargot, and rather than eat it I choose to put it down the waiter's pants. Sure it's fun, but I feel like I'm disrespecting the effort gone in to make the meal.
I think it's because GTA is a very good simulator of what it's like to be a scoicipath, or at least how I imagine sociopathy works. The people in the world around you respond within what's expected, but you don't see them as people even when there are truly moving 'scenes'. It also encourages you to be a reckless sociopath due to the sheer amount of weapons. And prostitutes. And incredibly steal-able cars.
I dunno. I'm probably worrying for nothing. Maybe I'm just being a snobby gamer with my notion that the 'correct' play style is one in which roleplaying must be done in character and to the benefit of the story. I probably should just enjoy myself.
Besides I heard this one is based off of LA and I want an excuse to blast The Game (a west coast rapper for you squares) while shouting NIGGUH NIGGUH COMPTON.
But let's be real, though. I occasionally do that anyway when I think no one's looking.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
You wake up.
You wake up early in the morning because you want to go to the gym.
Your first class is at 11:10 AM and your body tends to get up at 7:00 AM, no matter how long you've slept or where you are, but you're a very slow riser so the annoying alarm on your phone becomes a necessity rather than overkill. Besides you have some work you haven't done, and although you have a four hour gap between classes to do it in, it's always better to be safe than sorry.
So. You get up.
You're roommate's still asleep as you search for your gym clothes even with all the commotion your making but you've since learned that he sleeps like the dead. The muttering dead. He talks in his sleep. In fact he says something now and you wonder, briefly, what he's dreaming about and you wonder if your restlessness has influenced his dream.
You put on all your clothes. You pack everything you need for class too. You have four hours. You're about to go to the gym but you have plenty of time because you are prepared and well adjusted this morning.
And then...And then...
And then you don't move. You don't get up. You don't and you don't and you don't and you crawl back into bed because the world seems a little too vast and you've taken on a little too many commitments at once. The gym is new. The blog is new. Your brewing some other new projects as well. Besides you have four hours, right? Four hours. You tell yourself this as you curl back into bed.
After the first hour you berate yourself. You must be lazy to be so scared of your own potential. You're making your life better not worse, richer not poorer. Why are you so stupid?!
The second hour is the worst because you gave in and went to sleep. You don't want to think about the second hour.
The third hour you get up. You are going to the gym. You will not let anxiety beat you...After you watch the new episode of "Looking" on HBO.
"Looking" is okay.
After it's over there's only an hour left and you haven't eaten, and you haven't reviewed your reading for the 11:10 class and you're so disappointed, and disgusted with yourself that you just don't want to go to school at all today. Why bother, right? You fail your resolutions immediately after making them so isn't class wasted on you? Why no accept you won't amount to anything?
You go to class. You had to force yourself. It was hard and you were about to have a breakdown. Also the weather outside is what you imagine Hell to be like, if there were a Hell anywhere else but inside you.
However, class is fantastic! You always forget how much you like to learn until you're learning. You're classmates are making intelligent arguments about the text and, a little to your surprise, you are arguing, counter-arguing, extending, and circumnavigating them like a professional scholar. You're annoying classroom know it all voice comes on and you don't care. Nether does anyone else for that matter since they've got their's on too.
You love college.
After class you go to the Gym. The Gym is intimidating.
When you're not breaking down, you're an extrovert so normally people around you give off energy. However in the gym no one talks to one another and everyone judges their neighbors. While you have a very nice body, it's desperately, hopelessly, out of shape.
(Or at leasts that how it seems to you. While you're still in a fairly good mood from your class, you've learned not to trust how things can seem to you sometimes.)
So you get on the treadmill and run for thirty minutes with a four minute and three minute cool-down on either end. Even so your are sore, but good sore. No pain no gain, right? (You've never really understood what that means).
After that comes stretching, and after stretching comes pushups and crunches and after those comes a little exercise a friend gave to you by text-message (a most effective way to coach) it's over. Very quickly. Almost painlessly, although you are still sore. There was never anything to be worried about.
But you worry. You should stop doing that.
Your first class is at 11:10 AM and your body tends to get up at 7:00 AM, no matter how long you've slept or where you are, but you're a very slow riser so the annoying alarm on your phone becomes a necessity rather than overkill. Besides you have some work you haven't done, and although you have a four hour gap between classes to do it in, it's always better to be safe than sorry.
So. You get up.
You're roommate's still asleep as you search for your gym clothes even with all the commotion your making but you've since learned that he sleeps like the dead. The muttering dead. He talks in his sleep. In fact he says something now and you wonder, briefly, what he's dreaming about and you wonder if your restlessness has influenced his dream.
You put on all your clothes. You pack everything you need for class too. You have four hours. You're about to go to the gym but you have plenty of time because you are prepared and well adjusted this morning.
And then...And then...
And then you don't move. You don't get up. You don't and you don't and you don't and you crawl back into bed because the world seems a little too vast and you've taken on a little too many commitments at once. The gym is new. The blog is new. Your brewing some other new projects as well. Besides you have four hours, right? Four hours. You tell yourself this as you curl back into bed.
After the first hour you berate yourself. You must be lazy to be so scared of your own potential. You're making your life better not worse, richer not poorer. Why are you so stupid?!
The second hour is the worst because you gave in and went to sleep. You don't want to think about the second hour.
The third hour you get up. You are going to the gym. You will not let anxiety beat you...After you watch the new episode of "Looking" on HBO.
"Looking" is okay.
After it's over there's only an hour left and you haven't eaten, and you haven't reviewed your reading for the 11:10 class and you're so disappointed, and disgusted with yourself that you just don't want to go to school at all today. Why bother, right? You fail your resolutions immediately after making them so isn't class wasted on you? Why no accept you won't amount to anything?
You go to class. You had to force yourself. It was hard and you were about to have a breakdown. Also the weather outside is what you imagine Hell to be like, if there were a Hell anywhere else but inside you.
However, class is fantastic! You always forget how much you like to learn until you're learning. You're classmates are making intelligent arguments about the text and, a little to your surprise, you are arguing, counter-arguing, extending, and circumnavigating them like a professional scholar. You're annoying classroom know it all voice comes on and you don't care. Nether does anyone else for that matter since they've got their's on too.
You love college.
After class you go to the Gym. The Gym is intimidating.
When you're not breaking down, you're an extrovert so normally people around you give off energy. However in the gym no one talks to one another and everyone judges their neighbors. While you have a very nice body, it's desperately, hopelessly, out of shape.
(Or at leasts that how it seems to you. While you're still in a fairly good mood from your class, you've learned not to trust how things can seem to you sometimes.)
So you get on the treadmill and run for thirty minutes with a four minute and three minute cool-down on either end. Even so your are sore, but good sore. No pain no gain, right? (You've never really understood what that means).
After that comes stretching, and after stretching comes pushups and crunches and after those comes a little exercise a friend gave to you by text-message (a most effective way to coach) it's over. Very quickly. Almost painlessly, although you are still sore. There was never anything to be worried about.
But you worry. You should stop doing that.
Monday, January 27, 2014
The First Day
This is the first day I write with some consistency. I think it's a good idea for my own mental self organization to get my thoughts down and, maybe someday, other people may want to read about them? I don't know.
Besides I like writing. Ostensibly I'm even a writer. But while I've cranked out some very good plays, poems, essays and short stories in my time I haven't sat down and submitted to the raw endurance gauntlet of mashing keys daily. Also I've never kept a diary. For someone who doubts as much as me it strikes me as a surprised that I don't often write about myself.
So here are some things about me, dear reader, if you're interested and out there.
-I'm a college student. 21, studying Dramatic Literature.
-I'm going to be late to graduate. If you didn't know this, surprise! I assure you it doesn't give you nearly as much anxiety as it does for me.
-I'm Black but due to a lot of moves and cultural alienation, real and perceived on my part I don't always feel as connected with the community as I should. It doesn't help (in my mind at least) that I sound like a white radio announcer. Yes I'm aware this is self persecution but I often can't help it.
-I'm bisexual although apparently I read 'straight' to straight people and 'gay' to gay people. I don't really like the term 'bisexual' really. Sexuality to me is a series of actions and desires (verbs) not versus statements of being (nouns). Still the term has it's uses since I believe in community and a community needs self identifiers.
-I'm a lazy bisexual, in that since I barely know how to talk to girls in a romantic and sexual context I basically live a homosexual existence. There's nothing wrong with that but I do occasionally wonder.
-I'm an actor/director/playwright/future restaurant employee.
-I'm a geek largely into a lot of the sci-fi fandom though I love boardgames too.
-I'm a Leather-Baby, not quite a Leather Man, though I'm learning fast. It's only been six months and I've developed a strong since of identity as well as enormous respect for the leather, fetish, and BDSM community in it's members. In fact the name 'Marlowe' is my Puppy name for when I'm doing Pup Play.
-I'm a devoted brother, though I've made a lot of mistakes.
-I love critical theory, philosophy, and different cultural conventions.
- I love the world.
-I'm not very religious though I've always yearned for the spiritual in my life. Recently I've taken up worshipping the Titan Prometheus though. It's complicated.
-I don't believe in fate.
-I don't believe in soul-mates. Or the supremacy of monogamy as a relationship system even.
-I don't believe in a useless life or useless knowledge.
-I don't believe in the existence of altruism, but that doesn't mean I don't believe in love, good, empathy or compassion.
-I suffer from Depression. This one should probably be obvious. Still if I keep active, and keep fighting it with a little help I don't believe in letting it overwhelm me.
So that's the beginning of this. It might have been a tad pretentious. My goal is to try to write here three-four times a week even if the posts are nonsensical or badly written. Because at least they'll be written.
Besides I like writing. Ostensibly I'm even a writer. But while I've cranked out some very good plays, poems, essays and short stories in my time I haven't sat down and submitted to the raw endurance gauntlet of mashing keys daily. Also I've never kept a diary. For someone who doubts as much as me it strikes me as a surprised that I don't often write about myself.
So here are some things about me, dear reader, if you're interested and out there.
-I'm a college student. 21, studying Dramatic Literature.
-I'm going to be late to graduate. If you didn't know this, surprise! I assure you it doesn't give you nearly as much anxiety as it does for me.
-I'm Black but due to a lot of moves and cultural alienation, real and perceived on my part I don't always feel as connected with the community as I should. It doesn't help (in my mind at least) that I sound like a white radio announcer. Yes I'm aware this is self persecution but I often can't help it.
-I'm bisexual although apparently I read 'straight' to straight people and 'gay' to gay people. I don't really like the term 'bisexual' really. Sexuality to me is a series of actions and desires (verbs) not versus statements of being (nouns). Still the term has it's uses since I believe in community and a community needs self identifiers.
-I'm a lazy bisexual, in that since I barely know how to talk to girls in a romantic and sexual context I basically live a homosexual existence. There's nothing wrong with that but I do occasionally wonder.
-I'm an actor/director/playwright/future restaurant employee.
-I'm a geek largely into a lot of the sci-fi fandom though I love boardgames too.
-I'm a Leather-Baby, not quite a Leather Man, though I'm learning fast. It's only been six months and I've developed a strong since of identity as well as enormous respect for the leather, fetish, and BDSM community in it's members. In fact the name 'Marlowe' is my Puppy name for when I'm doing Pup Play.
-I'm a devoted brother, though I've made a lot of mistakes.
-I love critical theory, philosophy, and different cultural conventions.
- I love the world.
-I'm not very religious though I've always yearned for the spiritual in my life. Recently I've taken up worshipping the Titan Prometheus though. It's complicated.
-I don't believe in fate.
-I don't believe in soul-mates. Or the supremacy of monogamy as a relationship system even.
-I don't believe in a useless life or useless knowledge.
-I don't believe in the existence of altruism, but that doesn't mean I don't believe in love, good, empathy or compassion.
-I suffer from Depression. This one should probably be obvious. Still if I keep active, and keep fighting it with a little help I don't believe in letting it overwhelm me.
So that's the beginning of this. It might have been a tad pretentious. My goal is to try to write here three-four times a week even if the posts are nonsensical or badly written. Because at least they'll be written.
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