Bicycles, Birthdays, Comics and Cards · 6:57am Nov 8th, 2015
How goes, everyone? Another blog comes this month, and this one is...bitter-sweet, if I had to describe it.
As everyone who knows me intimately knows, my birthdate is the 7th of November, 1993. Thus, on this day, I have turned the crisp age of twenty-two. While my last birthday was, for better or worse, fairly modest, this year was a bit momentous.
To start, a friend of mine, Jdbener, sprung to get me a copy of the original Wasteland on the cheap. Having played it, I can sum my current experience as thus: It's Ultima Meets Mad Max. Then, on my birthday proper, I received a call from my biological father. If you need a reminder, my biological father and I, while not on bitter terms, rarely meet each other for anything more that holidays and milestones. At least, I get a phone call from him, and at best, I get invited to celebrate Christmas with the family. This year, however, he decided to take me out to lunch, at a place in town that's received exceptionally high marks called City Market. Picky eater though I may be, if you're ever in Pell City and need a good recommendation for a family buffet, go to City Market; it's a good place. After that, I gave my father the hint that I'd like to have a Bicycle as my Christmas present.
In something I found refreshingly uncharacteristic of him, he actually decided to take me to the supermarket to help me pick one out as a birthday present. While I wasn't able to ride it steadily, he gave me sagely advice about owning the bike and even helped improvise a lock and chain for me to use to keep it safe. My hopes are to become proficient enough at riding at that I can visit friends and loved ones at my own discretion.
Following that was another stop, this time to a place that, however short-lived it was, was near and dear to me. It was a local comic and game store in town called The Cheshire Cat. On Fridays, Heather and I went there to play Friday Night Magic (a weekly tournament of Magic: The Gathering aimed at a casual audience, mostly playing Standard and Draft). I only ever won once at any of those events, but I didn't mind; I just liked having a place where Heather and I could enjoy ourselves and get out of the house once in a while. However, perhaps due to a combination of poor location, niche market, and the general failings of most local businesses in this economy of ours, it had to shut its doors today. While I did acquaint myself once more with recent friends at the place, I stayed only as long as I needed to. Because most stores will practically give away their wares as they go out of business, I left the store feeling especially thrifty. I ended up buying a Trade Paperback of Superman: Secret Origin, a Hardcover IDW Graphic Novel set in Dungeons and Dragons' Dark Sun campaign setting called Ianto's Tomb, and Box Set for the excellently-crafted tabletop game Legend of the Five Rings for only $21.
I will genuinely miss that store, if only because I felt a genuine connection with most of the folk whom I met there.
By the time I'd made it home, I had yet more gifts waiting. From my Brother, a novelty t-shirt that said "Exercise? I thought you said Extra Fries" (fitting for me, I suppose). From my Mother, I got candles and greeting cards (as well as Gift Cards for Amazon, which I hope to spend in the near future.) And from a friend of mine from 4chan, I got a pizza. Probably one of the better pepperoni pizzas I've had from Domino's, too. Then to close out the afternoon, I reunited with an old German friend of mine for a session of TSR's Marvel Super Heroes game (or as some RPG Nerds may call it, FASERIP), where I played a Mutant named Blackout whose powers consisted of draining people's brains and messing with their senses. While I was majorly late in getting in, my impact was quite substantial, as I managed to incapacitate an umbramancer called "The Never-ending Darkness" via a mind-drain, and contributed to killing a Lovecraftian monster.
All in all, I can say with absolute certainty that this was one of the better Birthdays I've had in my life, if only because I was able to make choices and properly indulge myself a little. My hopes for the future, however small, are not as dim as I may have thought. Perhaps, in getting a bicycle and resolving one of my biggest examples of arrested development, perhaps I may then feel a sense of accomplishment and progress. Perhaps then I might be able to move on, and better my life somehow. Isn't that The American Dream, in a way? To feel that with enough effort and pain and tears, you can achieve great things?
I don't know. Maybe I'm reading too deeply into this, maybe I'm just writing this blog to make up for my crippling, hypocritical laziness, or maybe I just need an outlet for my disenfranchised, embittered mind to vent. Funny how that is; a day of celebration, and even as I finish this blog, I still can't keep from crying. I haven't the foggiest idea of what the hell is wrong with me psychologically anymore. The fact I can cry simply from speaking in earnest about my troubles and worries and still hold myself together just enough to write one of these damned things to clear my mind is a testament to how truly fucked it must be by now. It's half past midnight, now. There's a lump in my throat, my glass of Coke is in desperate need of refreshing, and I'm still not bloody done with the next chapter of Hand in Hoof. I must sound so pathetic to you all right now; I'm an emotional wreck of a jobless NEET whose passions, projects, and accomplishments may yet hold no meaning in the long-term. Every day, I feel burdened by the lust to finish what the fuck I started, and yet my own lack of mental or physical discipline leaves me procrastinating, envious of my more prolific and popular peers. Every night, as I try and sleep, I'm bugged by that sense of self-damaging from not being as productive as I could be because I'd rather entertain myself than entertain others and—
Jesus tap-dancing Christ, I should stop for now. If I keep doing this, I'll never get a damn thing done. Besides, it's not like that many people read these damned things anyway, much less leave a comment.
For those of you who suffered through this like I just did, reward yourself. Get some ice cream from the freezer or whatever you do to get that dopamine high. At least you lot have the decency to listen to a sorry sack of shit like me spill my spaghetti-filled soul across the internet for the umpteenth time. I can't even begin to tell you in how many ways even having someone who cares enough to read half the shit I write in any capacity makes me feel. I don't like to consider myself an attention whore; to me, it was never my intention to have that much attention. For what it's worth, I write blogs and stories for the simple reason of wanting to get something out of my head and seeing what people make of it.
For that, I can say little else but simply, "Thank You." It's all one-hundred-sixty-six of you (and the countless others who seem to mainly favorite my clopfiction) that keep me going day-in, day-out, even if you never say a word. Knowing that more and more people find their way to my stories every now and then fills me with a modicum of pleasure. Even then, I ask for precious little. Hell, my Patreon blog was perhaps the closest I'll ever come to outright begging, and that went absolutely nowhere.
So now, I ask just one thing of you all before I end this damn blog:
Leave a comment. At least one. It doesn't matter where, when, or in what context. I just want at least one of you to say something, anything. That would just make this whole thing complete for me.
With that, I leave you now to brush my teeth and hopefully find solace in slumber yet again. Thank you all for listening to me prattle on another year.
Still Never Beat Cave Story,
AdamThePony
Hmm... if that was the only hobby shop you had access to, perhaps Magic Online may be an option. Certainly, the tech is antiquated and user interface is jank, but consider this
Paper Magic > Magic Online
Magic Online > No Magic
With it, you can at least still draft and play standard with someone out there.