Me, In Real Life

Within the past few weeks, I’ve heard very bad news about a couple of friends I know/knew. Both with cancer. One had passed on. The other is in the midst of yet another round of chemo but the cancer has upended their life to the point that it all just seems Sisyphean in the end. One step forward, two steps back.

I’ve read the remembrances of the first friend on the socials. I struggled with my own. I didn’t know this first person super, SUPER well. We just met up yearly at a con, that’s it. But they were clever and kind, and larger than life in more ways than one. A person I would’ve been proud to have called a friend, if that’s what they’d consider of me as well. I don’t know. I’ll never know. I just know that I didn’t realize this last con would be the last time I’d see them. And now they are gone, and all I feel is that void that people leave when they die. That there’s something in my personal world that’s missing, that’s lessened. And everyone else who knew this person, I can see the loss in the way they interact with me.

Anyway the latter is still around, but I honestly don’t know what to do or say to this person, or if they even remember who I was. We had run through the same online RPG circles back in the day, when HP was all the rage and JKR wasn’t outed as a huge transphobe. We had fun together and eventually real life meant I didn’t have time to RP much anymore, and my connection to this person weakened. I still follow their socials, which is how I know about the cancer and the struggling and I feel a little guilty about not knowing what to do. But then, what can be done? I don’t live close enough to help physically. I just remember how much fun we had for those few years we knew each other, and now that’s all in the past. And those interactions really affected and influenced me to being a better person overall. To work with others, to take a compliment, to leave them regularly, and it all gave me a sense of self and accomplishment that I hadn’t felt before.

But now that’s all the past, and well, 20 years later, what’s left? Except a few pithy words on a comments page? A like? A heart? A hug emoji? It all feels performative and not enough. But this person is still here. I just don’t know what to do about it. And I feel selfish and wrong and helpless.

It was another oddly humid day in the Bay Area, but J had prepped the house to hopefully keep cooler by opening the windows at night and shutting them during the day. He also drug the portable AC unit out of the garage and set it up in the hallway, and then stuck a fan in front of it so it could carry the cooler air into our bedroom, where we had sequestered ourselves because it’s where our entertainment stuff is: his gaming PC, my PS5 and our big TV. I spent some of this afternoon building up my Ineffa in Genshin Impact. I main Chasca (because I am a weirdo and I like how efficient her playstyle is. I saw that Ineffa was suggested as working well with a Chasca team so I decided I should get my little robo maid to 90. Still working through that, however.

I also started watching the last season of The Bear, which continues to be a fascinating look at some broken people who decide to try to fix themselves (maybe) by running a restaurant together. But it looks like the resstaurant is on its last legs if Uncle Jimmy can’t figure out how to sell the property. Anyway, again, it reminds me a bit too much of my real life work at the high-end grocery store which will not be named. So I can only watch a few episodes at a time. The fact that this season is all one evening, however, feels like the anxiety is slowly ramping up. I got through a few episodes, and they’re just about to open the house. Knowing how many nights I’ve had to close at work with not enough people on my team, I can’t really handle seeing another version of that anxiety for too long.

I’ll finish it up, eventually, though.

I also caught up with My Adventures with Superman. I delight in the whole anime-ness of it all, and dang it Jack Quaid as Clark is as perfect a casting choice as I can think of. He’s just so…dang…nice lol

I also took a couple of hours to unfuck some of my paid webhosting stuff, reminding myself that I have a blog I should use more often, and also setting up the SSL for my domains. I can’t run a website without having it secure. Webhost stuff is always a struggle for me, but I think I’ve figured out most of it, so far.

Dinner was leftover pancit, which I’d finally learned how to make after years of thinking that I should learn how to make it. I added the other half of the cabbage i thought I didn’t initially need because the recipe I used only called for half of one, but I like my pancit with lots of veggies anyway.

Tomorrow starts another workweek, and I think we’re still understaffed because someone is still on vacation, but at least busy workdays go by fast.

This is a test to see if I can get my blog to play nice with blorbo.social