Email from Indy Drake

I went to staples today. They had called me earlier to let me know that all the copies of my resume I requested they print were ready and I had to come pick them up. While I was there I struck up a convo with some guy next to me, I snooped at the document he was printing, it was a rules/guidebook for this table top game he was developing for his friends.

One of them works in a water park and another works in a theme park, so the board game was based on those sorts of things. He was really passionate about explaining it to me but we kept getting interrupted by the clerks trying to just do their jobs and not have to listen to us free ranging assholes who didn’t have to be in a red shirt behind a desk looking miserable with the incessant background radiation of printers and old people who are incompetent with computers.

Fair enough I suppose.

As I walked back home I thought about how I wished I had friendships like those, the kind where we get together and play board games, perhaps even make board games for eachother.

“To have those sorts of friends, you need to be that sort of friend, and you aren’t.”

Also fair enough.

Usually when Im walking I put my head down, and veer out of the way of anyone else coming down the side walk. I don’t know why I do that so much, whether I’m afraid of them, or want to signal that I’m no threat, or I don’t want to contaminate their lives with my being.

I looked up for a moment and saw two individuals who seemed familiar. It took a few seconds but then I remembered. They were a couple, I’d seen them at a bookstore Shania and I went to last week. They seemed very sweet on keen on each other.

I wished I had a relationship like that, I thought, and again a response came

“You are not truly willing to be the kind of person who could be in such a relationship.”

Its true! Again.

I walked into my apartment and took in the messy kitchen, and my nearly empty living room.

A potentially dead tree, several books I have yet to finish reading, a long board, leaves from said dead tree on the floor, dirt, wine bottles, wrapping paper from christmas (the one with moths on it) peacock feathers. All lining my window sills, nothing in the vast center of the room itself.

I thought about how they say your living space is a reflection of your mental space.

“Mine looks empty, but the reason I refuse to get any furniture is because I’m convinced I’ll die soon and I don’t want to leave a lot of work behind for anyone that has to clean up after me. Also, I plan to move soon, and don’t want to make any extra work for myself when the time comes.”

(I’ve been thinking like this for years)

“So, I would say, the empty space is actually inhabited by my preoccupation with death, and my refusal to commit to anything, seems accurate.”

I smirked at my cleverness. I thought about how its not good for me to spend nearly every waking hour alone, and how I should get a roomate when I leave, and also how I hate living with people, and it makes me want to kill them, and their slop disgusts me, and I wanna fucking stab them cus they fucking piss my off so much CLEAN YOUR GODDAMN DISHES AND CHANGE YOUR CATS LITTER FUCK

Then I looked at my own full sink. I was right to change my mind about getting a cat perhaps.

A few hours later I would open instagram and see a post from a friend growing ever more distant. They’d written a particularly angsty caption and I thought, “oh my god youre soooo emo”

I was suddenly overcome with the knowledge that several of my friends and in fact many people who just stumble upon anything I make have had that exact thought, so it’s hilarious that I’d chuckle at someone else for it.

I spent the rest of the day playing a monster fucker porn game, drinking arizona and eating chocolate donettes I got from Walgreens where my favorite cashier flirted with me, she said I should be a model, I did the usual trick of reversing the compliment on to the person, and then applying more pressure. Its math, clockwork, no feeling behind it really, just something I’m good at I suppose. I thought about how I would judge and chastise any of my so called friends who told me that’s how they spent their day.

After about 6 hours of exploring dungeons and breeding for certain monster traits I stumbled into my bedroom and looked through my emails, where I noticed I’d gotten an email from a reader. It read,

“I think next month I am going to quit therapy. Not because my therapist is bad, or some grandiose ego masturbation that I'm too smart for therapy — but rather I think I am fully incapable of being truthful about my emotions. Having spent so long running from any semblance of pure and uncriticized emotion,”

and

“I usually don't think about her. When I find myself alone, isolated in my room and reminiscing about how I failed everyone in my life, she appears.”

and also

“I think I am running away again. I'm suffocating in this loneliness. She won't solve my loneliness, I know that. I just wish I wasn't so nervous and shy around new people. I'm running away from society, from my future, from expectations.”

I read all this and concocted some canned reply, full of phrases like "

“I think, therapy might be the only place you could be truthful without social consequences or repercussions, I think it’s important to have that space if you can afford it. It seems to me like, if you can’t be honest with your therapist, then you don’t trust them and you’ll either have to build that trust or find one you can trust even if it means starting over yknow?”

with a cute spin such as

“One idea that did help me cope at least was that the grief is equal to how much love there was, so in a way I was glad to be grieving so much after all this time. Maybe think of it that way.”

As I wrote it, the taste of my hypocrisy became very palpable in my mouth. Saying all these things as though I didn’t quit therapy to aid my continuous decline, to run away from the bitter medicine. As though I wasn’t crying over my ex and being angry about the whole situation STILL. more than a year later. “The grief is good actually” kill yourself lmao.

I wonder if that’s my most consistently defining characteristic: huge, massive, gargantuan hypocrite.

It takes real effort to be a decent person. To not hold grudges for perceived slights you’ll never communicate, to not be mad at your friends for forgetting your birthday even though you don’t remember theirs at all, to not lead people on, to not jerk off to degen shit. To not drink yourself to sleep, to not spend money you don’t have. It takes a lot of work.

Whew, well anyway I feel fine actually. I feel numb rather, my brain isn’t letting me be anxious about not making rent this month, and not paying my utility or credit card bills, and seemingly not being able to find a new job. I wonder what would happen if all that cascaded upon my head.

So! With tonight’s navel gazing, mastubatory diatribe out of the way, how will I spend another solitary night? I wish I had more emails from you lot to read, would you send me more please? Pretty pleaaaaseeeee! It’s effectively my only human interaction these days. I’ve stopped texting first, and also stopped responding to texts. I’ve retired from social media outside of posting the let’s plays, I’m out of wine…. OH GOD I’M OUT OF WINE. Well, I’m proud I managed to go through all of disco elysium so far without letting my character fall back into alcoholism.

Now, walgreens is open for another 2 hours, it’s 47 degrees out, hmmm

I have no money, though.

Drat! hahahah

Drat!

People need to start sayin that sort of thing again.