consumptions rather than working + a short piece of something

Some quick thoughts on a growing list of things i’ve been consuming

• The Penguin - pretty good, but honestly i’m so tired of batman properties.

• Bad Dream: A Dreamer Story - My therapist recommended and it was pretty good, definitely geared at a younger audience.

• The Ministry of Time - I stopped reading this for a while and picked it back up and then completely wondered why I ever stopped. So far it’s really good!

• Drag Race Global All-Stars - Look I’ll always be an Alyssa fan and am glad she won some season but am just so frustrated that it was in this way. The global stars had such good looks and stories and they just got tossed aside! This solidifies my theory that Drag Race as a franchise is slowly getting more and more boring.

• Survivor 47 - Finally we’re getting some interesting dynamics. I hate Rome with a passion and Lovett being voted out first should have been the warning sign we needed that we were going to lose the election.

• High Potential - l’m so glad Kaitlin Olson is getting work outside of Always Sunny, I don’t think this show is groundbreaking but it’s a fun procedural!

• Diplomat Season 2 - Another Netflix season 2 that should have been a season 1 or extended into a full season 2. Netflix has really lost the plot.

• The Substance - Zach hated the Substance and I loved the Substance and to be completely honest I trust his opinions on culture more. Still, I thought it was a fun campy horror movie.

• The trailer for Squid Game season 2 - The very concept of going back to the games rather than going on a killing spree of elites completely defeats the entire message the first season had. I have nothing but low expectations for season two and 100% believe it’ll show how Netflix doesn’t really care about telling unique stories, just amassing IP.

• The end of Agatha All Along - just…sigh I want the Scarlet Witch to “no more mutants” away all Marvel properties for like 10 years.

• Metaphor - GREAT game. Almost at the end of it and already thinking of a replay. Hard to hear the “Time marches on, and the age of a new king draws near” after the election though.

Something short

At night through the paper-thin walls, I could hear the chorus of soft moans and giggles escaping the men around me. I sat in a discomforting silence, my stomach’s acid matching the churning current of the sea. I worried about running into K here. It was a perpetual worry that often seemed misplaced. Truthfully, there was no reason for him to be here, in the middle of the ocean. He didn’t find this type of thing exciting and his motion sickness made him bad on planes, trains, and most boats. Still, I searched each crowd for his face.

I was over him in theory and practice, but I still craved his respect. In therapy I talked in circles around the concept, often getting close to the reason why but never piercing through the ouroboros of my endless obsession. My therapist, for her part, pointed this out every time. Her running theory was it represented some deep connection to my past, some form of safety mechanism that made me cling to a version of myself that felt overwhelmed and understimulated by the world around me. “Some people,” she told me once. “Have a really hard time breaking old habits.”

Kyle thought it was obsessive, so I rarely talked to him about it. Louis understood, having gone through a similar thing with a man back in college, but still got annoyed whenever I brought it up. Laura wanted me to move on, for my own sake. Stephen told me I should just text him already. Issac thought it was exceedingly simple. “You miss his friendship,” he said. “He was your gay mentor. It’s not that complicated.”