zx3 @zx3@driveinsaturday.org

thank fuck it's not Gozer again.

i have...i'm gonna say, dozens of obsessions. i live in a cloud of delirious mania that may be laser-focused in about seven different directions at any given time. i have never once chosen a single lane or mainlined one hobby to the point of "getting gud" or monetizing projects or specializing in the intricacies of a thing at an expert level because there is *too much* and none of it ever stops, and being like this can be bloody exhausting.

you'd think that at least i'm never bored, but i frequently am, because depression and anxiety make *doing the thing* complicated and tiresome and sometimes painful.

i am finally, slowly getting back into Elite: Dangerous because my new PC setup is finally complete, i can use my HOTAS controls once more, and it's taken me multiple sessions to relearn the basics of the game and tweak keybindings and watch tutorials about stuff i used to have memorized and shit what's that trigger do [phoot] oh right, it launches a heatsink, just like the last seven times i forgot what that trigger does. but i'm getting back into the groove with it to where i can lose myself a little bit in exploration and zone out in that kind of "Dark Star" headspace, which is what i love about it. some people drive trucks for a living and come home and play European Truck Simulator. same deal.

but none of my obsessions right now are deep or interesting enough to dim the anxiety of being out of work, or to numb my mind against the grinding tedium and crushing disappointment of the job hunt. it is everpresent and all-pervasive. it's in the air and water. it's making me medicate myself to sleep.

i found myself wishing tonight that i could just dive head-first into a fandom of my choice and ride that mania to a plateau of lysergic bliss. find an RP community like the old days and find a mask to staple over my face and just stay like that, in a state of creative play, for days at a time. retreat inward and be someone else, somewhere else, far far away.

"let's have some music in here, Boiler." "sure thing."

https://youtu.be/eTa2vXL7FI8?si=-tGCik70ZephjXhG

sending a rejection notice to a job applicant on the same day as their interview should cause the sender an immediate sensation of nausea and intense groinal pain, because that's exactly what getting one feels like.

this MAIL...is making me...POPFUL

remember, if you don't set your clocks back an hour tonight, you *will* be eaten by Langoliers. i don't make the rules here, people.

tonight's Culture Ship name:

GCU Bizarre Gardening Accident

(currently pictured: cognition processing cores 17 through 372)

just had a technical interview for a job i really want. now, all i need to do is wait, and figure out how to turn off the part of my brain that won't stop screaming.

we close the (heavy, creaky) door on another spooky season. happy Samhain to those who celebrate.

remember to leave a glass of champagne and a goblet of claret out on the stairs for Vincent Price and Elvira, who have been out carousing with bois and ghouls.

https://youtu.be/E7s7_tIzX40?si=FZH435Ch_w5ehB0t

the Infinite Arcade awaits.

what shopping is like right now: it is not christmas yet, it's not true, that is bullsheet, it is nahhht.

oh hai santa

right about now, if a shift as winter caretaker for the Overlook hotel opened up as an unpaid internship with nothing but the promise of a reference letter come April, i'd already be in the car.

#diesirae
#youvealwaysbeenhere

it's October. summer's corpse has just begun to turn.

Went to Cahokia Mounds Historic Site today and climbed Monks' Mound. pictured is St. Louis, and i also got a good view of the smokestacks of Alton IL, where my father's family first lived when they arrived in the States. somewhere in the tractless wastes between is where i live, and to the left of that somewhere is the Weldon Springs site--two earthen monuments separated by a short distance, vastly different in composition and intent.

i meditated briefly at the top and thought about place and permanence, how the indigenous people would have thought about time before the arrival of European colonists, about how they might have seen the universe in permanent cycles with change being an occasional anomaly; their world ensconced in an egg of eternity. i'm probably wrong about that. all i have are quasi-educated guesses.

looking out at the city in the distance, it occurred to me that this would be a great place to be to watch the nukes rain down. i'd have, what, three seconds of watching the bulidings crumble into ash and the Arch twisted up like a paperclip until the blast wave hit? what an amazing three seconds that would be...of course, knowing me, i'd be looking at my phone trying to pull up the "Koyannisqatsi" soundtrack, unable to remember if VLC sorted Philip Glass under "P" or "G" and i'd miss the whole thing. fwoosh.

and now your Sunday Night Song:

https://youtu.be/RtJ_3_y3KQ0?si=Otxfkj-6-sNBElF0

#knower