Furamo

stories about this and that

I just got a new haircut. Half my head is nearly hairless.

It is a look that has always appealed to me. In high school I used to shave half my head clean and various random jerks on the street who didn’t like my unusual hair wanted to start a fight. Now the society has probably evolved enough that I won’t have problems like that.

If you look at me from one side, I look completely different than from the other side.

Like:

A couple of times lately I’ve been asked for an ID when buying stuff at the grocery store. It feels soo good. Like, it makes you feel youthful and fabulous. It is the most amazing compliment for a relatively old guy.

On the other side:

I bought a book and the store clerk put two flyers between it. I thought it was a nice gesture, maybe the flyers are for something good. Later when I got home and looked at the flyers I was flabbergasted, I was dumbfounded by finding out one of the flyers was for a discount on school supplies for kids, and the other one for a kids’ haircut.

I must have looked like a dad to her. I wondered – was it my dad bod, my receding hairline, or some other feature that got me stamped as a father and possibly interested in those kinds of flyers?

Those ridiculous, insulting pieces of paper flew straight to the trash.

I hope the next experience of this kind will be someone asking for my ID again.

I am constantly tired. Constantly lacking energy. Sometimes I am just lying down somewhere, just being there, unable to move at all.

I want to get up, to do something, but I just can’t. I can’t move my body. It doesn’t respond to my will. I am just so tired.

To get out of there, I have developed a trick.

I will start by focusing on moving a finger. I’m not trying to get up, I’m just trying to move my finger a teensy bit – to get out the complete stillness that has enveloped my body.

After I have managed to wiggle my pinky finger, I can use the momentum to add movement to the other fingers, to the hand. Eventually the wave of movement will move up my arm and to the rest of my body, and I can break out of the stone statue spell.

I have realized that the same finger-moving trick applies to other situations too.

Is there something to do – but it is hard, insurmountably hard to get it done?

Just don’t have mental nor physical resources for it?

Well, start with the smallest of actions. Do just a little bit. And the momentum of starting it will carry you on from there.

It will still be hard, but it will get done.

Or at least progress a bit.

Got any tricks of your own for getting things done? Let me know, I sure could use them.

Sometimes when you read (or watch) something that makes you feel really strong emotions, you feel weird for days after finishing it.

You feel weird mentally, you feel weird physically.

There’s this strange tightness in your body, like the essence of the thing you read has permeated your whole physical being.

All the things around you remind you of some details from the literary piece.

You can’t read anything else, because nothing else would compare. Reading something else would be akin to sacrilege toward that one masterpiece.

But in a few days, the feeling fades.

And you set out, hungry for more, looking for another story that can make you the same again.

Those kinds of literary works are the best.

(I read some random Korean comic that I liked)

My comfort zone has recently shrunk to only the size of my apartment and the bar where the pub quiz takes place. So I thought I would expand it a bit and go to a different pub quiz that takes place at a different bar.

The different quiz in question is quite new. It has only been held once so far, and the previous time it had a whole round dedicated to video games and other games. So I was excited for today. Hoping that topics relevant to my interests would reduce my discomfort from being in a new location.

But just now, only a couple of hours before its start, the organizer casually mentioned that he had removed the games round from the quiz.

I mean, I get it. You get lots of random people show up at your quiz and they might be weirded out by a whole round about games, especially if they are some of those people who think games are a huge waste of time and life. So you would want to cater to a more wide audience by only including topics that everyone can appreciate, like medieval thrusting weapons.

But at the same time, leaving out that round is similar to the time when I stopped bleaching my hair and permanently removed my lip piercings. Sure, it will make you more socially acceptable, but it will also destroy your precious bits of individuality, personality. Make you bland. A sheep. One of the masses. Unremarkable.

I too have the old people disease that I am still listening to the same music I was listening to as a teenager.

And I just found a Spotify playlist that includes all my favorite bands. It is called “Dive Bar Anthems”.

I wasn’t familiar with the term “dive bar” so had to Google what it means. The Wikipedia description for it perfectly described the bar where I used to go every day back then.

It was a successful day – found an amazing playlist and found out how to call the kind of bar that I used to like.