I want to talk more about remasters, remakes, and sequels. I talked about it a bit in the past post beacuse I was ranting about PlayStation closing Bluepoint Games. I did not think it got enough ink because of what happened the next day (Phil Spencer ‘retiring’ and Sarah Bond ‘resigning’–from Xbox.) It never fails. Every time PlayStation fucks up, Xbox is determined to one up them. It’s as if Xbox could not stand to give up the limelight for a second, even if it’s for a negative reason.
I’m tired. It’s hard being a ‘gamer’ these days. I put that in quotes beacuse I have never really concerned myself a gamer. I mean, I play games, yes, but I don’t like the whole gamer life. Come to think of it, I don’t like any fandom. It’s not a Groucho Marx thing (does anyone know who he is these days?), but just that I don’t like to conform to other people. I don’t like people telling me what to do, and I certainly don’t like people telling me what to think.
In addition, I can usually see all sides to things, which makes it hard for me to be a team player. Some people say I’m contrary. Some people would be right. Though I’m not contrary on purpose. What I mean is that I’m not doing it to be a dick. I’m not doing it just to be contrary. I just see things differently. I try to keep it to myself most of the time because I know it’s not welcome in polite company.
Side note: I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that I learned at a very young age to hide my true feelings. I buried that shit deep because the reaction if I didn’t was very negative. It’s one reason I live alone. I can’t let my mask down if there is anyone else around. Even online. I put it on so automatically, it’s just a part of me by now. It’s only when I’m at home alone that I can be myself. Or when I had my cat/s. They accepted me as I was (as long as I fed them and gave them love, obviously).
I had never felt as accepted as I did by my cats. They were very different, but they both had positive feelings about me. In fact, I lived with both Raven and Shadow for nine years and with Shadow for an additional seven+ years. I lived with Shadow longer than I have with anyone else. I used to say Raven was my heart and Shadow was my soul.
It’s only in the last few months that I’ve even thought of adopting another cat, but every time, I start casually looking, my heart squeezes and says no. I know some people adopt new animal friends soon after losing one, but I just can’t. I wish I could because I think I would like to share my space again, but I just can’t.
Of course, if I did get another cat, it would be black. I probably would get two. One problem is that its’ so much more expensinev now than it was when I adopted my boys. Of course, that was nearly two decades ago, so it makes sense. And if I found the perfect cat (or two), I would adopt them in a second. But for now, I hesitate. I still miss the hell out of Shadow. Raven has a special spot in my heart, too. But I lived with Shadow on our own for so long. He really was my special buddy.
Back to me being contrary.
Sometimes, I wish I weren’t. I’ve said from time to time that I really wish I were normal. I remember I once said to K that I wished I could do all the normal things like get married, have children, and all that. She looked at me sharply and said, “You would HATE that.” That is true. Me as I am right now would hate it, but back in my twenties, I dearly wanted to want it.
I wasted a lot of time wishing I were normal. I wanted to sand off my edges so I could fit in, but I had no idea how to do that. I was that weird, I mean. it took me decades, but I can fake it pretty well. I have to be careful, though, beacuse if I don’t pay attention, I’ll fuck up. I’ll say shit that I shouldn’t, and then I’ll be too tired to patch it up.
It doesn’t help that as my last therapist said, I talk at a level 4 or 5 whereas most people talk on a level 1 or 2. She said that they literally don’t know what I’m saying. I didn’t really get it because I thought I was pretty basic in the way I talked and thought. But, if I was to be completely honest about it, I really don’t. I surround myself with very smart people, so I can sometimes forget that other people aren’t as smart.
I hate saying it beacuse it makes me seem like a dick, but, well, I am. A dick? No, though I appear that way. I think and talk at a level that is higher than that of most other people. I get a taste of it when I talk to people who are smarter than me about things that I cannot grasp, but that is few and far between.
My brother once said to me in all sincerity that I was almost as smart as he was, and he meant it as a compliment. I pointed out to him that I was smarter than him in some ways. Also, he’s not so much smarter than me that I can’t understand what he’s saying.
I don’t even realize how much I’m filing off the edges as I’m doing it. It’s that automatic, and it’s only when I slip or think about it later that I realize what I’m doing/have done.
I realized that of the three goals I’ve set for this year, there’s only one I have not done anything about. It’s finding a queer/Asian/genderqueer community, online or in person. Probably the former rather than the later. I would like to find one that is Twin Cities-based as well, but that’s not probably going to happen.
I haven’t even really tried to look. Why? I’m scared. See, it’s similar back to when I was trying to deal with my depression. My therapist suggested a bunch of things. None of them worked, or they only worked for a short amount of time. For example, each antidepressant I took lasted for a year, and then it quit working. If I tried to take it again, well, let’s just say the side effects were horrible. One time, I think it was Prozac, I lost twenty pounds in a month and wanted to kill myself. When I told my doctor in response to her commenting that I had lost twenty pounds that it was because I could not eat and wanted to kill myself (because of the Prozac), she looked flummoxed, then stuttered out, “Well, at least you lost the weight.”
I was astute enough to recognize that she was struggling with something to say, but that was not it. Not in the least. I can’t imagine what I might have done if I weren’t as self-aware as I was. At any rate, I changed doctors and never saw her again.
My therapist had one last suggestion–elcetroshock therapy. I put in my back pocket and said I’d think about it as a last resort, but I never really considered it. Why? Because it was a last resort to me. If it failed, then that was it. There was nothing else I hadn’t tried. Now, that’s not true, by far, but that’s how I felt at the time. Depression does that to you. You can’t see that there is a future because your surroundings are so dark.
Well, that went very far from what I was going to write. Oh well. I may get to that tomorrow.