Yet Another Vacuous Hello And I'm Still Alive

 Hello starfish(es?)

Hope you’re all well. I am once again informing you I’m not dead. As before, I’m not attempting to butter you up in preparation for taking your kind patronage, just checking in, honest.

(There won't be an audio version for this message I'm afraid. Took my mic out onto the balcony to record it, and have finally busted the cable. God speed, big, strange cable type I don't know the name of.)

This is going to be a bit of a one-sided conversation as per usual, I hope you don’t mind. I’ll start with clerical stuff. I’m working on three scripts at the moment, and all of them are trying to barge through the door at the same time. I’ll ruin the mystique: one is about Buddhist cosmology, one is about the hard problem of consciousness, and one is about how it might be braver to live and die in a mysterious universe rather than trying to impose human explanations on the thing. 

A while ago I used to wonder why the hell folks on YouTube took months to upload stuff sometimes. Now I get it. Because when you're the one making stuff you know once it’s out there you can never patch up the mistakes or fix the music or word something better. It encourages whatever the unhealthy version of perfectionism is. I do sometimes worry a bit that you assume I’m sat on my arse sipping margaritas most of the time. (I won't lie, it happens occasionally.)

I promise this isn’t another Youtuber Whines About Work diatribe. 

However. A somewhat relevant story I may’ve told before: 

Several years ago I was working on a video, I forget which, and ran out of coffee. The shop downstairs had just opened for the morning so I went to buy some coffee, had a brief chat with the lady at the checkout, went back upstairs, carried on editing. The video wasn’t working at all, none of the jokes made sense, etc, I was going nuts. Felt very sorry for myself. Come late evening I was into proper self-pity mode and went downstairs again to get some bread from the same shop. And the lady I’d been chatting to that morning was still working, 10, maybe 12 hours later, looking exhausted. I’d just spent all day pushing words around on a word document for the lols. She’d just spent 12 hours on her feet serving idiots like me. That was quite humbling to say the least, and I promised then that I’d never consider writing for a living anything less than the insanely lucky privilege it is, and complaining about it, even when it didn't work, was gross. 

Anyway. It’s been an exciting month. Some friends and I rented a car, drove across the country to the seaside. The car was quite shit, but we didn’t realise how shit until I pulled out onto the motorway, and upon changing up to third gear felt the gearstick come off in my hand while cars were shooting up behind us at 90mph. 

FUCK, I yelled.

WHAT? my friends replied. 

FUCK FUCK, I yelled. 

WHAT WHAT? they replied. 

I brandished the gearstick. 

FUUUUUUUUCK, I yelled.

FUUUUUUUUCK, they replied. 

It’s quite amazing they let someone with only one working eye drive in the first place.

In other news I hung out with a group of friends some of whom developed covid. Obviously I went and got PCR tested. I was negative, but I only mention it to say that the test really isn’t that bad, and a few moments of relative discomfort are quite preferable to not knowing one's covid status. (Really, the test isn't that bad.) The folks who were positive are fine now, I add.

Other than that the feline is well (pictures below as always), and I hope I am too. And I hope you are also.

Let me make some recommendations if I may, because I’ve bumped into some stuff I really liked recently.

Filmwise, Sputnik really got me. It’s a recent Russian sort-of-horror. The concept itself won’t blow you away, but the main character is extremely compelling, and the story carries the thing – it’s great, big recommend. DO NOT WATCH THE TRAILER. IT WILL REVEAL EVERYTHING. 

Plus, if you can get to a cinema safely, this is the golden age for film screens – every time I’ve been to the movies of late there were about 5 or us in a several hundred person capacity room. Amazing. Saw Tenet a few days ago. Went to see it again the next day. I won’t spoil it, but the central idea is – as far as I’m concerned, totally, totally unique. First time I’ve had that ‘awe’ feeling at a movie in ages. I hope you like it too.

The next one is a bit out there, but I assume you’re all bonkers. On Having No Head by Douglas Harding. It’s a book (the audiobook is great by the way) about….zen, I suppose? He had a realisation years ago in the Himalayas that he literally had no head, that all there was was his consciousness – or his perspective. I’m butchering the thing, but it’s a wonderful Western take on zen and I’m sure you’ll like it. 

And two game recommendations. One is a very satisfying puzzle game called The Room – Three (or 3?), for about 4 pounds on Steam. You can finish it in an evening and it’s just absolutely gorgeous. 

The second one is The Outer Wilds, which I’m still playing at the moment, about a mysterious 22 minute time loop. You also have a spaceship and a whole solar system to explore, so that’s neat. Can’t recommend it enough. (The music is very nice too.)

I also listened to the entire Miley Cyrus episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast and she is wonderfully eloquent, and has a huge vocabulary. I felt like quite the dick having judged her for writing pop music. She’s clearly a very clever lady and I'm in awe.

So that’s that. I’m in a weird transitional stage at the moment where I’m afraid I don’t have anything substantial to show you, everything’s between states. I spend the mornings working on the book and the afternoons on video scripts. Things are getting done and when they’re done, I promise I’ll let you know. 

The book is a strange situation. I remember watching interviews with writers where they talked about how sad they were when a book was finished because they had to let the characters go. I always thought, Oh come on, how pretentious. For the first time in my writing life it now makes sense. I've lived with these imaginary people for almost 3 years now. They feel realer to me than some of the people in my actual life. Christ, I just really hope you like this one. Anyway. Let me change the subject before this starts to sound like overt mental illness. 

Oh! I would very much like to work with some animators. If you animate, or happen to know an animator you dig, would you kindly drop me (or ask them to drop me) a line at: exurb1achannel@gmail.com with the subject “Animation”, or something to that effect? If you (or they) can include an example of previous work that would be amazing too, if possible. 

The weather’s still gorgeous in Sofia at the moment and the birds are all very sing-y. The feline begs for tuna often, this sounds like a shit haiku. 

Again, I’m not dead, just in between a few projects and hoping to finish all of them, or I’ll do my damndest to try. 

Oh. Also, a little crisis I resolved recently that might help you out if you fall into the same pinch. Turning 30 did an absolute number on me last year. I spiraled into quite the freakout. I'd always convinced myself if I hadn't done something Great by 30 then I'd fucked up my life, and not only had I not lived up to that standard, but just turning 30 alone was bizarre in itself. Suddenly one isn't Peter Pan anymore, and telling people one's age in conversation elicits an "uh huh" reaction rather than the look one gets in earlier years of, "Ahhh, you're still young, you'll work it out." 30 is a weird nether-age between young and getting older. I think that's why it's so odd. 

It took quite a lot more panicking, but the thing solved itself a few months ago while hanging out with friends. Most of them are my age or a bit older, and it hit me that, wow, everyone around you gets cooler as they age. They get deeper, weirder, more interesting, with better stories and - above all - wiser. They listen better, think more carefully - the game changes. One's thirties really aren't a wasteland, it's the beginning of a silly new adventure, trite as it sounds. I'm only just wrapping my head around that, but for when you get here, or if you already are here, I sure hope you stumble on the same realisation I did and calm down a bit. What's that line from the Baz Luhrmann song? The race is long, and in the end it's only with yourself.  

As ever, thank you so much for the support on Patreon, not a day goes by when I’m not grateful. These days I would only really ask for help when I can’t get hold of software or footage by myself, and for now I’m able to do that so I thought I’d just waste your time with this update instead.

Hope you’re doing well wherever you are, hope the weather’s gorgeous and the birds are sing-y, and if you have a cat that they are afforded ample tuna,

Ex.

Edit: Apologies, the feline photos attached aren't dowloadable for some reason. Have tried reuploading them, no avail. Might be a Patreon thing. Please give it a few hours.