The Domain of Steven

Apologies in advance for obscurity.

There used to be a time when people would crowd into my room to watch Ninja Warrior and The Colbert Report. It was a time when Papa Johns was frequent and delightful, when we had to schedule hangouts on the weekends to accomodate my work schedule, when it was predicted and feared that seawater and the searing sun would cause my skin to have fits. A time of firsts: sleepovers, karaoke, banter, bunnies.

Those were not the most notable features of the time, though. It is more distinctly remembered as a time when memory foam was thoroughly appreciated, when strong tones were not, when steam was constantly recirculated in a futile attempt to make sense of it. It was when the borders of your mom expanded to gleeful smiles and rolled eyes, when you were young was fussed over and grown to be loved, and when Catan was played cooperatively. When talks would be long, frequent, and grandiose.

But that time is best remembered through the moments that caused me to lose more of them. Can I really say that I’ve gotten better if I often replay them in my mind? That I’m no longer affected by something I look back on with such nostalgia?

I moved off the reservation solely because of the hope that maybe I could relive some of those times. But it’s never that easy to forget. You never need to tell someone what you think of them, and so you don’t. It is always their intent to hurt you. They are always trying, but they’re not the ones who end up hurt.

Some people miss the good ol’ Calvin and Hobbes days. I just miss Hobbes.

The Sims is a series of award-winning games that let you control simulated people, each with their own needs, desires, relationships and futures. Some players choose to build elaborate houses, giving their characters a dream home and letting them roam free to do as they pleased.

I, on the other hand, played The Sims very efficiently. I built rooms only as large as they needed to be, with items strategically placed to minimize the space they took up and the time to travel between them. I did not decorate the interior of the house, because pretty scenery really only mattered when they left the house to go to work, and indoor decorations would not help that. I did not buy a full-length mirror because a square hanging mirror served the same purpose at a fraction of the cost while not taking up any space.

I built bachelor houses that were essentially very large cubicles, with no extra money spent on walls for the bathroom because no one would ever see him and it would never be an issue. I did not buy a lounge chair or sofa because it would not double as an eating chair, and which I would then have to purchase separately. The house had one chair. It was the chair in which my Sim ate, watched television and learned skills from. I spent money making it extremely comfortable, because that chair and the bed were the only sources of rest I provided my Sim. When he needed comfort, I did not let him simply sit down, I would top off his fun need by also making him watch TV. If he was already at full fun, I would discontinue TV watching and make him read a book to learn a skill.

But hermit Sims have stunted job progression because later promotions require you to befriend your neighbors. To accomplish this, I had a systematic way of rapidly maximizing a relationship level. I did not bother with most of the interaction options like backrubs and pranks, I did what I needed to do in order to get where I wanted to be, and then I sent them along their way.

I would talk to them until our relationship level rose a bit and then mixed in jokes, all the way until when a hug became the best option to increase relationship points. I chose these because they were efficient and reliable, but also because they raised fun points as well.

Talking, joking, and hugging were fun. With just those three, my Sim no longer felt the desire to watch TV. As long as he could keep talking, he never wanted to read a book, or play games on his computer. To keep the game understandable and not needlessly complex, the developers generalized a Sim’s need for recreation into a single quantity that rose whenever something that could be construed as fun was accomplished.

It doesn’t work that way in real life, sadly. Given constant exposure to something, we grow tired of it, and we are not as affected by it. Conversely and notably, the absence of something can make us profoundly affected by its reappearance.

For the past year I have been in the presence of amazing friends and socialization. I love being with them and have made shockingly large changes to my plans for next year in order to keep being with them, but they are not everything that I am. They don’t do everything that I like to do. And so sometimes, as much as I want to spend every moment with them, I also want to spend moments relishing the comforts that I enjoyed so dearly before I met them.

Yet even with the best of both worlds at my fingertips, each having done nothing to dilute each other, I can’t have everything I want. I am always missing something, missing someone, neglecting someone.

But given the choice to be everywhere and do everything with everyone, would I take it? Would it only make me tire of everything faster? Maybe it would. But at least I would never have to apologize.

Spring break isn’t anything remarkable to blog about this year. I didn’t decide to to go some island with wonderful weather or abroad to some place with lax alcohol or drug use laws. Despite this, this spring break needs to be one of the most remarkable. The past few weeks have seen me at my most unproductive and most unmotivated, behavior that would only lead me back down a well-beaten and much-hated path, and I need to elicit change in order to keep me on a more desirable one.

Becoming a morning person would be exactly the change I need. Or at least, stop being a night person. It just isn’t working out. Many nights recently have illustrated that very point. I love the worker’s high that I get from being productive, from coding and seeing things work, from poring over and finally understanding concepts. I used to associate these moments of heightened concentration with late nights illuminated by my monitor and my desk lamp, but recent experiences have proven contrary. They’ve left me at the wee hours of the morning with little to show but a pile of fatigue on my eyes.

But I randomly decided to rest my eyes a couple weeks ago, and as with almost all instances of me resting my eyes during the school year, I didn’t wake up for some time. This particular nap was particularly lengthy, and some would even call it sleeping. Yes, I think there’s an unfamiliar but more fitting term for it, sleeping early. I slept at 8 and woke up at 4.

Now even for a normal person, waking up at 4 is like what the fuck are you doing you crazy bastard. I surprisingly didn’t feel that way at all. I felt…energized. Refreshed. Better than I had ever felt even with 10 or 12 hours of sleep. I worked and coded in perfect contentment. It was a sight to see, and it is a sight I want to see again.

It will mean I will have to abandon all those late night friends, forsake all those late night conversations. They were what perhaps cemented me in my role as a night owl. I enjoyed the company, the support, the mutual understanding of our situations and the comraderie forged because of our similarities. Does this mean that I’m trading friends for sleep? If so, here’s to the nights we felt alive, and here’s to goodbye, because if all works well, tomorrow is not going to come too soon. It’s finally going to come right when I want it to.

She once told me that if we were to be together, she would probably have an argument with me and break up with me after only a few months. She had told me more than a few times that I couldn’t handle her temper, that no one could, that I was only inviting disaster by asking for full disclosure.

I am reluctant to admit that she was right, but she was.

Yet things were completely different for me when I was instead just a friend. I was able to bear the brunt of an attack the likes of which I’d only seen once before, one that had been a giant blow to my sensibilities. I was able to push past thoughts of her being with other guys, to embrace her as eagerly and passionately as I had done hundreds of times in years past. I was able to learn of things that I would not have thought I could tolerate. I was able to put myself and my own needs above those of other people.

That last note is the one that gives me pause, for that selfishness is exactly what was enabling me to function so well in the presence of difficulties. I have sometimes said that unlike those who treasured independence, I loved being dependent. I loved having someone to whom I could dote on, who would appreciate the details I paid attention to and fuss over.

But I was not always able to meet expectations, and my need for their approval ensured that I always felt it. It is in the dissolution of this dependence that I became more resilient. Perhaps only ever so slightly, but noticeably.

Is the improved defense worth staying single, worth putting myself before other people? Is this, in contrast to how I have lived my life all these years until now, perhaps the better life for me after all? I can already see Cristen telling me that to lead such a life would cause me to miss out on life itself.

Or perhaps I have simply underestimated myself. Perhaps my being unscathed should be attributed not to being selfish, but to simply knowing when I need to back down. Perhaps my tolerance is owed to an understanding of new rules.

The one thing I do know is that being godlike is not all it’s cracked up to be.

Here’s to a semester where I wasn’t ashamed to tell people how I was doing in school, where I didn’t habitually cut classes, where I was proud of my work and myself, where I lost friends and met new ones, where I entered more contests than I’ve ever entered, where I won more contests than I’ve ever won, where I realized the path I should be heading along, where I discovered even more about myself, and where I finally picked myself up off the ground.

Here’s to success. Here’s to motivation. Here’s to foolishly fighting the fight and forgetting to fascinate. Here’s to falteringly forgiving the forgotten. Here’s to obfuscation.

Here’s to the one semester I would not have done any other way.

It’s still hard to imagine my parents as people who once had lives like the one I’m leading right now. To me, their lives had always started with…well, me.

It’s when tidbits about their past are fed to me that I start to get curious about what their lives were like before they settled down. My father offhandedly mentioned that he actually entered Polytechnic University as a chemical engineer major, only to discover that he didn’t like chemistry. It was then that he turned to silversmithing, and finally deciding on mechanical engineering.

My father, the man who loved his job so much that he set up a drafting table and work environment in his basement, actually thought he wanted to do something else? I can’t imagine him as a chemical engineer, and I didn’t even know silversmithing was a major!

My parents actually bought a house in Brooklyn, on 70th street and 20th avenue. They had intended to move out from our 1-bedroom apartment in Queens, away from all the relatives that lived above us or within a few minutes drive of us, away from the routes and venues and nuances that I know so intimately. I wouldn’t have gone to Montessori, Renaissance, and maybe not even Mega Academy. I would have lived a mere three blocks from my friend Sally, who currently lives two hours away by train.

But for whatever reason, they didn’t move out. My dad drove there during the fall to sweep the leaves in front of the property and in the winter to shovel the snow. Eventually my parents realized that they weren’t going to move there, that taking care of it was too much of a hassle, and that they weren’t strict enough as landlords to make money off of it. They sold the house at a loss just to be rid of it.

When I hear about my parents’ pasts, when I learn about how they stumbled, when I realize that they might be perfect parents but were not always perfect people…through learning about their failures I find the courage to face my own. Not everything fell into place the way they wanted, but I can’t imagine them falling any other way.

Strangely, the closest I came to crying over her was when she was being cursed out. As with all instances of tearing, I was split between wanting to embrace it and suppress it.

It all came about from a thought that had been stubbornly persistent: if I could go back one year, would the knowledge of one outcome change my behavior? Would I work harder towards keeping us together, or would I be resigned and bitter? Would I do nothing and simply appreciate our time more? If so, what would happen when the last day passes uneventfully? Would I assume that the same events happened and call her a liar?

No, I never assume the worst of people; instead, I fear it. Every action would be laced with hesitation and restraint, every hug less heartfelt, every kiss reminding me of the things she did and might still do. The changes in my behavior would be the same reasons why I couldn’t take her back.

Change is what everything boils down to. What would I change? What has changed? Could I change? Could she?

I have always honestly believed that people can be anything they want to be. That they could change themselves to be whoever they wanted to be. I do not, however, believe that you can change someone else; it has to be purely of your own volition and desire. At the end of the day, you are the only person there who can tell you to keep trying.

So no, I don’t think I would try to change what happened, because I did nothing wrong. I did not give the relationship my all, but I gave the relationship everything I was willing to give. I did not always put her over everyone else because I needed to have a life apart from her, and the presence of that life was kept a particular rift from closing. What happened was not something we had any control over; it was simply a result of how we were.

Given the chance to relive that year, I would do everything the same way I did it, up to the day where it was done, and would once again be done. Would I be able to say all this while in the comfort of her arms? No, but that’s exactly why I wasn’t.

Defiantly, exasperatingly, but resolutely choosing friends once again. For once, I’m going to douse a bridge.

She always told me that she wanted to make me confident in myself. She wanted to make me believe that I was as smart, sweet, witty and cute as she thought I was. I had always thought that somewhere out there, there would be someone who did find my jokes funny, and my quirks cute, my attempts at romance charming. And somewhere out there, there’s someone who really does have the same balloon fetish you do, or thinks that the huge tumor on your forehead is actually pretty damn sexy. In each of my relationships, I had been propelled by sheer excitement. Someone actually liked someone as strange as me? Someone honestly wanted to spend time with me, and just me?

It was possibly the ultimate compliment. It made me feel secure about myself, made me feel that I could be myself and still experience that mystical feeling called love. That there would finally be someone I could pour all my effort into and have them reciprocate in full, that someone would notice all the little things, make me feel all the things I’ve wanted to feel and maybe a little more. And as doubtful as I had been all my life…she actually succeeded.

I noticed my freshman year of college that I approached people with confidence, raised up and cushioned by the fact that I had someone to run back to if a social encounter ever failed. It made me more confident and outspoken around everyone, and I really do have to thank her for that. It made me unafraid of sharing my hobbies, my jokes, my self…and I had a better idea of who that self was. She reinforced that in me, that my real self was so close to the one she loved, such that I embraced it and let it fly. She helped me define me, even while she herself was so unsure.

But the dip in the Styx wasn’t perfect, and the qualities that perhaps made her cling to me so readily and lovingly were the ones that have left deficiencies in me. Would I ever be able to find a girl that didn’t make her interest so obvious? Would I ever be able to ask one out, or make one see me as a lover and not a friend? Would I ever be able to keep one?

Which is why I have posts like this. Thoughts, dreams, nights, days like this. Just optimistic enough to hope, too rational and risk-averse to substantiate. It rarely affects my attitude towards people…but that doesn’t keep it from affecting me. But I’m still here. I’m still hoping. And perhaps one day I’ll start trying and things will start happening. Because now I know what I want to reclaim, match, and exceed. I have her to thank for making me sure like never before of my reasons for defying reason.

Rising Stuyvesant sophmores used to be required to take Drafting 1, and were then required to take either Drafting 2/Honors Drafting or Introduction to Computer Science.

For once in my life, I went past the call of duty by not only taking Honors Drafting, but Intro to Compsci at the same time. To top it off, I took an optional compsci course at the same time, and followed both drafting and compsci course paths to full completion in later years. AP Compsci, both of the senior-level compsci courses, Technical Drawing, and Architecture were what padded out my remaining years at Stuy. Choosing to do the extra work and stick it out with both course paths turned out to be one of the smartest things I’ve ever done, because despite my major being computer science, I was totally prepared for both of my internships, especially my current one at JDP Mechanical.

Transitioning from CADKEY to AutoCAD was easier than I expected. I was already familiar with how CAD drawings are handled and manipulated, so all it took was a little experimentation and direction to find out which command I needed to enter to do what I wanted. CAD work is actually quite fun, and while I’m very efficient, I’m still amazed at how fast my dad can mold his drawings to what he sees in his mind.

Unfortunately, drafting is only half the battle, and the lower-paying half at that. The reason my father gets paid the big bucks (big = only slightly more) is because he is able to solve problems. The primary problem is that New York City is brimming with people, Manhattan in particular, and every cubic foot of space is precious. Given the choice between making the machine room comfortably big and squeezing out a couple extra hundred thousand dollars isn’t really a choice at all. Landlords will always choose to make the extra money and hope that their AC and heating units will fit in the little niche carved out in the basement. And therefore, landlords will always need companies like the one my father works for. He coordinates with all the other contractors, trying to make sure that his water pipes can fit alongside the gnarled masses of the electrician’s cables and the plumber’s sewage lines, while making sure he isn’t getting in the way of the gigantic ducts strewn across the ceiling.

My father is paid well because it is difficult to compensate for human error while minimizing costs and working on a deadline. It’s a difficult job that requires an intimate knowledge of the industry and its conventions. From a purely practical standpoint, it’s the best career for me to jump into. It is such a niche field that experienced, dedicated workers are far and few, which means companies are more willing to train and cultivate workers. I already have a great foundation of CAD knowledge, and I found that my mind easily warped to decipher schematics and reconstruct them in my mind. To top it off, I have one of the best draftsmen in the industry as a personal mentor.

But the best worker and father I’ve known also gave me one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever heard: “Do something you love, because if you like it, you won’t mind putting in the hours to become great at it.” It summarizes very well the key to his success, but it also summarizes why I’m so hesitant to take up what would otherwise be a great opportunity. I know I could be good at it, but I don’t know if I would be willing to put in the effort to become great. I remember happily spending hours coding up my first programming project, making a freakish monstrosity easily two or three times the size of everyone else’s projects. At least a third had been handwritten during my free time between classes and on the train, without ever wondering or worrying about the amount of time I was putting into the project. Programming was fun, and still is. Debugging is frustrating but ultimately rewarding. Difficulties are exciting challenges, not hinderances.

That’s the attitude my dad wants me to have, because while he would love for me to follow in his footsteps, he wants me to be happy most of all. My job is going to be somewhere I spend 8+ hours a day, so given the chance, I ought to spend all that time doing something I love. I want to keep being able to say that I love my life and have never regretted the choices I’ve made.

So I’m going to go for it. I’m not going to settle; I’m going to keep dreaming and desiring, so that one day I’ll be able to do. If I fail, it is not going to be for lack of dedication. But if I succeed, it will be.

Instead of writing what I would like to think about, perhaps I’ll write about what I am thinking about. Which, in fact, is nothing. Nothing at all. I’m feeling more listless now than I have all summer. My mind doesn’t think of quips, it doesn’t think of comforting words, it doesn’t think of conversation…it just doesn’t think. It doesn’t process information. It forces laughs when they’re prompted, it forces eye contact when it’s prompted.

And yet I’m not sure what triggered it. My first day at work was spent being excited, nervous, and cheery. I talked to each and every customer with my usual gusto, left work happy, and met up with friends. And sometime between shopping with them at Bed Bath & Beyond and getting home, a part of me just stopped trying.

Perhaps I’m just tired. I dealt with a lot of people today, and had to wrack my brain for solutions to their questions. I know that I have a low quota for social activity, and I often appreciate alone time after going out with friends. But this isn’t quite a need for alone time, because not even watching TV or checking my RSS feeds provided me with any satisfaction.

I originally attributed it to loneliness. Playing with Bunnie vividly reminded me of the lack of physical contact in my everyday life. As strange as it sounds, I had never missed it before she entered my life. I had appreciated it but never felt a desire for it. She was the one who showed me what I was missing, showed me of the power she held over me. I know that simply by hugging me tightly and not letting go, she could make me forget about my deepest and most entrenched worries. Strange and unnatural for someone who relies so heavily on reason.

But now, there’s no one to go to. This is one of those rare occasions where I actually don’t know the answer to my own question. Perhaps there is an answer out there, but honestly, I don’t even know if there’s a question anymore. And there’s no one to notice that I’m not there asking or answering. The freshmen here are looking for the easygoing friends that they can become lifelong buddies with. My sophmore friends are in their own little worlds, and I suppose I’m in one of my own. The difference is…I’m not so sure I want to be in it by myself. I may have people here with me, but I certainly don’t feel like it. I feel too awkward to call attention to myself, feel embarassed when I do get attention, and yet complain that I don’t get attention?

Maybe I’m not lonely. Maybe I’m just regretting.

Back in Stuy, there was a saying that often wormed its way into speeches or closing opinion pieces in the school newspaper, like that joke about laxative* that stopped being so funny after you’ve heard seven different comics say it in a row. (I am surprised neither was anyone’s yearbook quote.)

Welcome to Stuyvesant High School. Choose two of the three: grades, friends, or sleep.

The Friday before my Astronomy class final, I powered through a monster seven-hour study session with three classmates in preparation for the final. In doing so, not only did I fry my brain, but I finalized my answer to that joke in the process, an answer which I was leaning towards my junior year and had solidified by my final year of high school.

I choose friends. It doesn’t matter what else I have. Without friends, being well-rested just makes me restless and bored. Without friends, the time spent studying seems even lonelier, and the grades feel hollow and pointless. Yet with friends, I can feel energetic and motivated even when I’m running on empty. A dollar spent with friends on five fried dumplings can feel more rewarding than any meal I’ve eaten alone. Friends can make me feel like I have a place in the world, a niche that no job earned by good grades could ever fill. Friends is the only choice that will comfort me when I don’t have the others.

So thank you, all of you, for showing me this unique facet of the world: one where school isn’t everything, where a simple piece of molded plastic can provide infinite enjoyment, where money is no longer considered squandered but merely spent for a good cause. As much as my future clamors for more attention, thank you for grounding me in the present. Thank you for showing me that even though the most enjoyable things are often ephemeral and a waste in the long run, a life not lived is the worst waste of all.

*There are some things that you need to buy together. “Should I get the laxative…or the toilet paper? . . . Give me the laxative. Paper bag, please. And yes, I want the receipt!”

**I was tempted to say, “Friends, I choose you!” but I choked and died a little inside. I still think it’s a tiny bit brilliant, so it’s been relegated to this addendum.

Every character in World of Warcraft is allowed to learn two tradeskills, things like blacksmithing or alchemy, though in WoW they’re called professions. Professions are like college educations; they put you deep into debt in order to complete, and they’re near-worthless until you finally do. Once you’ve learned all that you can, you want to put that knowledge to good use, namely to work off those training expenses. Some people tersely advertise “300 engi/alch,” “port to darn/if/sw 1g,” or “arc transmute 5g.” I chose to advertise a little more flamboyantly.

“Like vibrating mechanical objects, but can’t tell the difference between a Mechanical Squirrel and a Sniper Scope? Want to get back at that mage with an exploding sheep? Let Iskar the Incredible Inventor with his 300 Engineering handle all your engineering needs!”

“Have slippery fingers and keep dropping your vials? Whether it’s Swiftness potions or Rocket Fuel, let Iskar the Incredible Imbiber with his 300 Alchemy handle all your substance-related needs!”

“Parents never talk to you about the birds and the bees? I can reenact the story with your Thorium Bar and Arcanite Crystal for just 5g! Come see the Miracle of Life…arcanite bar style!”

“Tired of Aragon the paladin and Gimlii the warrior begging for money? Change it up and have Llegolaz the hunter beg instead! Take a portal to Darnassus for just 99s! Friends ride free!”

“Tired of the contaminated canals of Lagwind and the soot-filled air of Lagforge? Take a trip to the clean, cool, tree-hugging wonderland that is Darnassus for just 99s! Friends ride free!”

I programmed all of these messages into individual “macros” that so I could advertise a particular service to all three major cities with the click of a button. The biggest rewards would be when people would LOL in the trade channel after my advertisement spam. The racier ones often provoke a LMAO or a WTF. Sometimes people would send me a private message saying that they didn’t need a transmute, but if they did, they’d buy one from me. Whatever the reaction, I enjoyed eliciting them and making money in the process, and it’s something that I’ve missed since I stopped playing WoW. I miss the people in my guild, their quirks, their voices, their talents, their generosity and companionship. I miss completely annihilating players that think I’m an easy target. I miss manipulating the economy, perfecting methods of killing a dozen monsters at a time when other people have to slog through them individually. I miss being good at something. The feeling of success is what I look for in a good game, and I stuck with WoW because it provided it so well.

The game has since changed drastically, and made itself dead to me in the process. I was in love with what it had been, not what it now is. I’m sure that I’ve changed in the interim just as the people who I played it with have changed. Even if they don’t remember me as fondly as I remember them, the least I can hope for is for my guildmaster’s words to ring true: “Iskar, no one will forget your macros.”

I didn’t get any work done when I was sick this past weekend. I had told myself that I’d rather be healthy and unproductive than ill and unproductive, but tonight is a night of healthiness and unproductivity, and I found myself wishing that I was sick so that people wouldn’t blame me for being unproductive. That maybe if I had some terminal illness, people wouldn’t expect anything of me. I don’t want to do any of this. Sometimes I feel like watching TV, or playing games, but honestly I don’t know what I want to do. At times like these I want to do nothing. Just play whatever game I’m hooked on, try new ones, make feigned attempts at exercising, sit around and wallow in my memories, sleep.

Resigning myself to a fate would be so much easier than taking control of it. It’s especially hard when I don’t much care where that fate leads me. College will let me go anywhere, but I don’t want to go anywhere. I want to get a mindless job somewhere and live in a small apartment and spend my free time being lazy and doing useless things. Last summer’s routine was wake up, work, load up World of Warcraft, raid, PvP, sleep, and it was great. I want a boring life like that because it isn’t at all boring. It’s filled with small pleasures. It’s contentment. It’s happiness. It’s having nothing expected of you, nothing asked of you, no goals to meet and no achievements to fulfill.

I have no ambition. My soul was placed in the wrong body. My wonderful family and girlfriend were meant for someone who wanted to go places, to make a name for himself. He was supposed to make his family proud of him. I should have been born into the family that lived in the middle of nowhere and had no prospects, so that nothing would be wasted.

If I had that life, would I ever want more? I don’t know. I certainly didn’t know I would ever want to be dying and in pain. But as I’m lying here in a pile of failures that would take true ambition to climb out of, I’m wondering if I would even have the ambition to do everything differently if I started over. This semester was supposed to be the one where those habits stopped. I always start out so strong, so resolved! But there are more sentences I could use the word “always” in, and none of them speak highly of me.

I need stronger guidance. I need someone’s ambition to ride along, to direct my focus and make use of it. I need someone to recognize what I can do and use me. After that…all I can hope is that they bring me to the top with them.

For the past twelve hours I have been thinking entirely in terms of Mario Kart: Double Dash!!: I keep envisioning myself blue sparking. Blue sparking around the enemies in the game I’m playing. Blue sparking around the hall. Blue sparking around my kitchen table.

I loved the game the first time I played it. It was easy to jump into, and it gave you a sense of speed not through being faster than other racers, but by the sheer chaos of what was going on around you. Whether you were facing an incoming shell, a pair of racers bobbing and weaving through your path, or a trio of giant pirahna plants ahead attacking riders who came too close, there was always some impending doom that you had to avoid. Because you received more powerful weapons the farther away from the lead you were, there was always a hope for redemption, and always a paranoia about the people behind you. You know, the ones that wielded weapons even more powerful than yours?

I was obsessed with the game when I learned how to blue spark. All the on-screen chaos became perfectly controllable: a matter of judging the right angle at which to slide down the course and around the corner, of how hard to yank my vehicle to dodge an obstacle, whether I was coming in hard enough to snag the item box or not.

The kicker was that I could do it. Heck, I could do it wonderfully. I no longer just held down the acceleration button down a straightaway, I drifted down it like a snake, relying on the continual speed boosts to propel me faster than I could have gone just driving straight. I was constantly in the zone, each successful powerslide a work of art that I brought about with my own hands.

I believe that my mind is using the memories as an antidepressant, an upper. By constantly reliving my successes, I’m kept in a state of euphoria. It instills confidence into me about my skills and my judgement, my ability to predict what needs to be done and then take decisive action. My mind is cheering me up. My mind is a good friend.

For the past twelve hours I have been thinking entirely in terms of Mario Kart: Double Dash!!: I keep envisioning myself blue sparking. Blue sparking around the enemies in the game I’m playing. Blue sparking around the hall. Blue sparking around my kitchen table. Blue sparking around my worries. Blue sparking around my concerns.

When I blue spark, I feel like I can go anywhere and do anything. The problem is when I can’t, and when blue sparking becomes an obsession instead of a tool. I become so overwhelmed with the need to blue spark that I don’t pay attention to what is in front of me, and tumble face first into the problems blue sparking was supposed to avoid.

My mind means well but sometimes does more harm than good. Like my dependence on constant blue sparking, I have become so reliant on my mind’s tricks that I’m not sure how well I could function without them. I just have to keep practicing and hope that one day I can finally obtain the control it makes me believe I have.

I had cried that night.

I was sure that if I kept my mind off of it, I could have not cried, but I wanted to. In breaking up with Cristen, out of spite and frustration and bitterness, I chose to give up. Whether it was because she couldn’t see my point, or because I was trying to remove the tetraskelion, I was exhausted, and just wanted to let it all go. To speed up the recovery time by releasing all my emotions in a successive bursts, leaving me shaken but not stirred. To curl up, only to want to stand up and stretch afterwards.

I had had the romantic notion of crying in the shower, the closest thing I could come to rain, removing the need to open my eyes or wipe away tears or even be seen or heard. I hadn’t intended to tell my mother about it when I went into the bedroom to get fresh clothes, but after a long pause and a concerned look from her, it just came out.

Saying it to her was even harder than saying it to Cristen, because it was no longer an attack, but a loss that I hadn’t fully thought through. But before I speak, I think. And so I thought, and I cried and I ran. I wish that there was someone there in that moment that I could have run into and grasped for dear life, like Cristen once did for me. A person, even uncaring or unattached, would have provided so much more comfort than the tile wall. The warmth helped.

To her credit, my mother let me talk it out with her afterwards, but I didn’t have any more steam to vent. I was just…gone. I had cut my ties, paid my dues, and was willing to try to move on.

But random luck and unintentional conversations succeeded for the second time at bringing us together. I’ve forgotten how the talk ebbed and flowed, but I do know that the small flicker of hope that I couldn’t quell was fed and had begun to flourish. It wasn’t tempered with regret, but instead the ecstasy of comprehension, the contentment of appreciation.

I’m glad that you realized that you wanted to be with me, Cristen, because I want to be with you too.

My hatred toward what he has done to us finally solidified when she told me that she wasn’t sure. I had come close to breaking up before, but this time I snapped. A week from now I might feel sorry for injecting so much malice and spite into my words, but right now, I don’t. For a few seconds I can feel calm, but I quickly remember what I lost and why I lost it. I remember who started its destruction and who finally gave her peace. As many times as I may try to say to myself that it was inevitable, and someone would have filled his role anyway, I still abhor him.

In a way, I hate what she did to me too, but I’ll get over her. I won’t ever get over him.

As we walked on rocky ground, it flashed in my mind for a second that I should stay with her so that the bastard never got what he wanted. I shunted it from my mind because that’s no way to run a relationship.

I wish her the best and I wish him the worst. Her ostracism is so I never hear the details about those two desires conflicting, and so that I have no regrets, because I can’t ever see myself stop giving less than three.

Goodbye, Cristen.

I realize that even when you’re alone, there’s something to be said about having another body next to you. Perhaps not the confession of love, but the sychronization and disembodiment of movement, the comforting display of empathy and sympathy, not the feigned apathy feebly covering up the antipathy of loneliness.

No, that still does not excuse you.

Everything I hear about MIT brims with coolness. Uberness, even. Running around in the middle of the night trying to avoid campus police, climbing on top of the dome, putting a car on top of the dome, creating ingenius works of technical brilliance, dressing up the school in homage to the video games of old…it’s almost like the school is too crazy to be real. MIT seems like this mystical place where the best of the best go, and do things that are talked about forever.

Perhaps it’s (counterintuitively) because I’ve heard such great things about it that I could never bring myself to even apply there. It’s like I’m not sure if I’d be the person I envision MIT students to be. I don’t know if I’m smart enough, resourceful enough, creative enough, motivated enough - heck, I don’t even know if I’m weird enough! Stories tell of MIT students creating programs in their spare time that I’ve relied for years, yet even when prompted I couldn’t create a program I’d use once a month. It may be that I can’t do it, but I think it’s more that I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to create something amazing, or to explore the intricacies of something we take for granted. That’s not my bag of fun. Mine usually comes in annoyingly Starforce-protected form.

I suppose it’s best summarized by my vocal explanation to my mother as to why I might be hesitant to apply to an extremely techy school like RPI, “I’m like ‘Hey, compsci is pretty cool,’ while people at RPI are like ‘OMG COMPSCI RULEZZZZ!’” I don’t think I could ever make the change that characterizes those students, and I’d be alienated. I’d be the kid that didn’t do anything crazy; he just passed his classes, hung out with friends, and played lots of games.

Yet when I read it, I don’t feel that there’s anything wrong with that life. In fact it sounds great. I love friends, I love games, and I even love classes on occasion. I could live that life for four years in any other college and I wouldn’t mind. I could live a 9 to 5 life for the rest of my life, with random socializing and games to mix it up, and I wouldn’t mind. It’s only when I see people doing so much more with their lives that I start to get envious. I’d love to be them, but I don’t want to be them enough to do anything about it. Is it possible to be content yet left wanting? Can I really be content when I feel inferior?

This jealousy is going to drive me crazy one of these days.