I roll over and notice that I forgot to turn off the light on the way over. I turn away and stand up, ignoring the chairs and joints that creak in protest, before stumbling gracelessly across the room and collapsing face first into my bed. I put my PS4 in rest mode and powered off my monitor before wincing at the miserable, pale-faced reflection that suddenly fills the screen. As future-me, I can firmly say that past me is a dick. Tomorrow’s going to be hell and I guess past-me decided that was a problem for future-me. ![]() All that time spent doing menial tasks for everyone under the sun and now it’s 3 AM and I haven’t even started my nightly Please God Let Me Sleep ritual (Trademark pending). How did I never notice how much of a slog the tutorial phase was before? Seriously, fuck the Greybeards. All my profiles pretty much had all the major quests done, and starting a new file apparently meant you had to spend a few hours doing boring menial tasks before the game lets you do anything. It turns out there’s a reason I’d quit playing after all. I let out a heavy sigh as I held my head in my hands. It sounded a hell of a lot better than going to sleep, at least. Traveling around and fighting dragons with loyal companions at my back seems like just what the doctor ordered. I sank so many hours into this thing, it was hard to believe I’d forgotten about it! I hurriedly set about booting up Skyrim. I smiled, briefly overcome with nostalgia. After puttering about my room aimlessly for a while, I’d discovered my PS4 buried under a pile of dust and loose papers. So, killing time I’d decided, was the answer. I knew I should’ve gone to sleep, but going to sleep meant waking up and having to do it all again tomorrow, and the thought made me a little nauseous. I’d finally finished my long, hard day of self-pity and busy work assignments some time around 10 PM. It seems like every one except for me was born with an instinctive ability to straddle the line between talking too much and talking too little, between making eye contact and staring, or know the difference between being attentive and considerate and being “obsessive” and creepy. People say it’s easy, but it really isn’t. They both tried, being unfailingly friendly, but I’d been myself and missed social cues at every opportunity. It was exceptionally clear to me that what had happened was no one’s fault but my own. I’d had a golden opportunity to finally make friends, good friends, and I’d fucked it up. It wasn’t because they were bad and I wasn’t desperate enough to lower myself them, as I’d consoled myself in the past. ![]() It made it so much worse that Sofia and James where both good people. There wasn’t any passive aggression, no pushing all the work on me, no blunt expressions of disgust at my presence, etc. James was a wonderfully rare combination of personality traits, being jockish and sporty, while also not being an objectively horrible person for no reason, and Sofia had been nice. I’d gotten paired James McAlister and Sofia Pangborn. As a chronic loner, I have a lot of reason to hate group projects, but I had really lucked out with this one. But, today was the final day of the rational expressions project in ALG 2. Lincoln High is basically the quintessential American public school, from the casual cruelty of children, to the world-weary teachers who care about nothing more cashing their check. Not that things aren’t always some degree of bad, but today’s daily tribulations had seemed just that bit extra sucky today. ![]() 3:14, as my PS4’s home screen helpfully informs me. It’s a Tuesday night and I’m still awake far past when I should be. I like to think I’m past that, but there’s still some part of my brain screaming that I’m doing something wrong and I’m going to get in trouble. He hasn’t seemed to for the last few years, so long as I don’t do something overtly stupid in front of him or piss him off, but it’s the little moments like these that never fail to bring me back to how things were in fourth grade. In all honesty, he probably doesn’t give a shit what I’m doing. After about 15 seconds of staring at the door like a deer in headlights, I gradually relax. I know, intellectually at least, that it’s unlikely that anyone even heard the sound, but it’s an old, familiar fear that I can’t seem to shake. I glance worriedly at my bedroom door, half-expecting someone to start banging on the door demanding to know why I’m still awake, before proceeding to launch in to a long rant about my behavior. I shift my body and wince as my office chair creaks uproariously.
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