3/26/2022

Friday had me working in Ocean, not Monmouth. I'll be working Monmouth on Monday but that means next Friday I'll be in Ocean again which is fortuitous because I have an event happening that evening and I won't have to drive back-and-forth. But how exactly am I going to waste four or more hours until the event?

Work was bearable, the load was light, I finished a little after 2 p.m. Leah asked me to come over to help her bring in a bookshelf then she gave me a dish of pigs in blankets which was good. Also I drank a liter of seltzer. I pet all the cats before I left. Kinda proud of myself at how I carried the bookshelf inside since Leah described it as being heavy. I pulled it from the back of her car, hoisted it up, rested it upon my shoulder then carried it inside to its resting place.
Such a feat was enhanced because earlier in the week someone remarked upon how my arms felt muscular. I'm glad there's something to hefting 15-25 pound deed and mortgage books all day after nearly three years in this line of work. Heck, I kinda realized it when I grab a deed book, flip it around while making copies, then replacing it one-handed with minor effort. Only downside being a spate of serious shoulder pain a few months ago potentially stemming from a stressed rotator cuff from holding deed books over my head and sometimes doing reps in the air while waiting to use the photocopier. As of right now, my shoulders are pain-free.

Back home I fucked around online then played Disco Elysium some more after a two-week break from it. What I discovered is the depressing setting of Revachol, the capital city of the country Martinaise in Disco Elysium, was deeply affecting me. Looking out the western window of my room, watching the sun set while Harry DuBois performed superstar cop stuff while pondering the implications of communist socio-economics I felt a sense of unease, desperation, and loss for my own life. Working a job that seems to pay well, but not well enough in order to support my life. I don't want to live an ostentatious lifestyle in a penthouse condominium with a late-model German luxury sedan with a girlfriend and a comare hidden away in her own apartment while partying away weekends in New York or Atlantic Cities.
Merely an apartment with two or three cats. Or a small house with a few cats. Maybe a girlfriend.

I'm intrigued by Disco Elysium because when Jaybird bought it off Steam for me back in 2020, he mentioned there was a part of the game which reminded him of me. Flash forward to Friday evening, i.e. yesterday, and I'm talking with OnlyWednesdayMu about the game while wondering what happens if I don't have enough for a hotel room and the clock strikes 2 a.m. He responded, "Try it and find out." But also I told Wednesday that there was something which happened in the game which made Jaybird think of me, Wednesday paused and responded after I sent a few more lines of text to say, "I think I know what he was thinking of."

Now I'm curious and vanity is driving me to play the game, pay attention, and hopefully bear witness to this mirror of pixels and digital audio files bearing an uncanny resemblance to me.
Of late I've been feeling disassociated from reality, how certain things are repeating in my life which are beyond my control, e.g. people having the same names but different bodies, making me wonder if this is all a simulation. If this life is a simulation, then what the hell is stopping me from pulling all the crazy stuff Harry DuBois would pull and realizing the repercussions are minimal compared to the rewards? Maybe I'm subconsciously transferring my own agency to other people because I don't trust my judgement? Is all this thanks to my lack of self-confidence?
I mean... at the end of the day I'm the only one to blame.
The buck stops here in the immortal words of Harry S Truman.
Or maybe I'm just crazy?

Compounding the existential ennui was a brief glance at Facebook and creeping up Edna LaMontagne Voegele. What the hell was I thinking back in 2017? Who the hell is this woman anyway? Why does she still fascinate me? When will I stop? Regardless of the answer to those questions, I still tore the scab off my soul by chasing this red dragon in my head then stopped.

I thought about my friend S., her situation with being newly separated and my extending an invite to tag along to a college newspaper reunion at Leah's on Saturday. She's going to be out-of-state but said she'd totally go if she wasn't. Sure she'd be around strangers but she's a personable woman and the gathering would serve as a distraction. Plus I am fond of her after a fashion. I don't have any base designs upon her but I am curious about her personality and character beyond what little she's shown me over the years. S. is a very private person.

There is a little hope as I may meet up with my new friend on Sunday, weather permitting.