I decided to re-listen to an oldy but a goody: Nick Cave’s The Boatman’s Call. It was what I used to listen to (and sing-along to) back in the day while grinding for that 100% in the Ratchet and Clank PS3 remakes all while trying to ignore my un-ironic Neo-Nazi roommate’s mid-“sleep” rambling of beating people up and my girlfriend-at-the-time’s attention-seeking texts.

It all made me quite nostalgic for the olden days, so I pulled my PS3 out of storage to replay the Ratchet and Clank series only to be met with disk-read issues and the now-defunct PSN activity message on all of my friend’s profiles “Last seen 10 years ago.”

Holymotherfuck. 10fuckingyears?

One of my friends who was the longest AFK was one I met playing on the PS2 and I randomly ran into during a game of S&D on Array on BOps 1 on the PS3 before re-adding him. His name was Chaos; we first met when I was 12 or 13. 19 years ago…

And of course a flood of people came back from that experience: Sheri, Aaron, Ghost and his wife, Maddog, JMan…

“Last online 10 years ago”… “19 years ago”…

I truly cannot fathom the fact I was alive and interacting with the world at large so long ago. It was a very different world too: flip phones, Christian youth groups where everyone fucked and did PCP, queer was just a passing fad, my pet rabbit Spencer (female, lol, rabbits are hard to sex) was my best friend, driving random fuckheads all across the shore in my (dad’s) truck so I could make friends, being suicidally depressed most of the summer and only awakening from staring-at-the-ceiling catatonia to ensure my AP summer work was done, blowing off classes and walking around the zoo and park, reading webcomics, or trying to break into the school’s computer system.

There are multiple lifetimes of my own I could go on about, but I don’t even remember enough to do so. Every time I go home I hear about shit I used to do when I was young and I can only just nod along and suggest “Yeah, that sounds like me, lol.”

There’s something to be said there about self-narrativization, about distilling experience into an easily digestible form for others (and now I’m realizing, my own) benefit, but that’s a multi-pager when I’m a bit less drunk.

There’s yet another post about nostalgia, oblivescence, and the meaning making of lost consciousness that me and Jaime had conversations about a couple years ago now that I should transcribe before I lose them. “I Will Not Forget That I Have Forgotten.”

But what’s more interesting to me is the lifetimes of the people I’ve missed out on. What have they done since middle school? Yeah, you hold the world record in downhill derby times, you struggled fitting in at the new school, then you became popular and dropped me, but then what? Special Ed teacher? Animal Crossing enthusiast? You hurt me, but I still want more for you. Even if it’s not “more”, I want to know its enough for you.

Anyways, I’ve been listening to Man’s Gin - Smiling Dogs a lot recently and it’s a great album for a Denverite to get into.