Atop A Cake/You're Not Special Babe

I'm making myself do this. I make myself do a lot of things now. It feels like more than before, but maybe it's not. It feels like a lot of people are making themselves do more these days while other people adamantly avoid doing the bare minimum. I do way too much laundry for someone that no longer regularly leaves the house.

******************************

The road to Houston from Austin is a bumpy one. It has texture. It winds. It's more familiar to me than my own face. It has that familiarity of something you encounter frequently, but not enough to intensely scrutinize (as I have begun to with my unfamiliar face). As with much of my life, it's a path I take less recklessly now. There was a time I had less control over it. The bus days. Those were periods when my heart ached to be going on a trip that is now often one of resignation and dread. When I gained agency I weaved through cars as fast and effortlessly as I could, so somewhere around 85-90, sure I would be aware enough of my surroundings that I would see a cop before they'd clock me (I made the mistake once of coming down an off ramp 15 miles over and vowed never to repeat the cost of that ticket). I'm not sure that's actually how that works. I no longer pretend I'm ever that aware of my surroundings. I remember forgetting my headphones on the 4 hour bus rides with brightly chattering college kids I desperately wanted to drown out. Ignoring my peers became screaming along to songs in freedom which turned into grumbling at the nowhere space where 71 reaches I10 that neither NPR station covers very well.

It's not a road I'll be taking any time soon.

In 2020 the drive made me unbearably anxious. Although, everything in 2020 made me unbearably anxious. And most of 2021. And most of the beginning of this year. It's anxiousness all day every day. I don't even know if it's exhausting anymore because I can't remember what life was like before. I guess 9/11 happened and Obama is not as cool in retrospect as everyone hoped. I'm not a die hard supporter, but I think like Hillary there was just a higher standard that was not going to be met. It's probably never going to be met, but I think the scrutiny they faced was higher. After all, 3 of the last 4 presidents were accused of sexual assault (I think all while campaigning, but I'm not going to look it up). Anyway that's not what this post is about. I honestly don't know what this post is about. I guess I am exhausted, but it doesn't feel worth saying because most people are if they're not the people making things worse.

I think a lot of the problem with my generation is the hope that we were given for things to improve. We were all given so much hope that a good education would guarantee us a solid future and now we're all saddled with insurmountable amounts of debt. I'm not cool enough to be a tiktok celebrity. Hype House has taught me I do not have enough friends who I can punch in the dick or whatever tiktok bros do. I honestly barely understand that show beyond the ho-spirational outfits of Nikita Dragun. So Millennials got pulled out of a recession with just enough time to pretend we could attain success before getting annihilated by COVID. I know this is hard for everyone but the Boomers that can are just retiring early. I don't know what Gen Y is up to, but I never have and there are too many memes about them being ignored for me to start to care now. We were hopeful that a black president meant the country was getting more progressive and a woman would be president soon. I think we were hopeful abortion would not be abolished and climate change did not mean we would all be on fire or drowning soon (or both, the ocean has been on fire before). Maybe that was just me, I do think I can be pretty naive. I think a lot of people wanted houses or vacations, but probably would have settled for a living wage and guaranteed PTO. I think I hoped that our internet overlords would be benevolent, but that is not the case and I shamefully still use Amazon way more than I should (which is honestly not at all). I should be using Etsy more, probably. I know everyone has been encouraged to thrift more lately, but I haven't really been going into stores so that wasn't going to happen. Personally, I hoped to have more time enjoying a new (but not really) relationship. (Aside: I feel like I've been using way too many parenthesis in this post. Perhaps to the point I'm starting to feel I don't know how to use them. I certainly never know if the period should go inside or outside.). Now we keep hoping a Democratic government will help and COVID is trending down, but no progress seems to be made on either end. The young ones have the benefit of never thinking humanity wasn't doomed. They've known from the start that every generation before has almost irreparably ruined their future. The worst part of my generation is probably the irresponsible amount of hope we have that Gen Z will save us.

I think this is all I can muster and I hope to have real thoughts soon.

Irrelevant: I've somehow gotten my YouTube algorithm to suggest mostly indie lesbian music videos. I don't mind.