(written over several days)
There wasn’t any sleeping in today after the long day of traveling because breakfast was being cooked and was supposed to be ready by 9:00.
I think I woke up around 7:00, watching a little bit of Castle and eating the rest of my ice cream before heading back over to Chase’s place.
Breakfast was late, so I went into the kitchen to help make it and to help clean up after everything.
Doing work like that is a great way for a shy, awkward person like me to be of use and… hide away. 😅
Chase had been hopeful that my coming might help me get out of the dark place that I’ve been in. In some ways, I have felt better being and interacting with Chase and his family and friends, but at the same time, I also feel… just… done with life.
It’s a huge internal battle that I fight.
I’m still fighting, though. Going to the gym might help improve my mental health as well. Generally, exercise is a fairly significant mood booster.
I tried to do a little bit of work for JustAnswer. It’s getting more competitive, so I can’t just sit there waiting for questions to pop up on my phone anymore. It used to be that I could just wait, and I would at least get the crappy questions that other people don’t want to take, but now I don’t even get the crappy questions.
I’m also keenly aware that AI will be taking over the job I do quite soon, so I need to be prepared for that.
The AI revolution is in full swing, and, in my opinion, The world is going to drastically change in the next decade.
One of the most lucrative careers out there right now, programming, is going to start being done by a very small portion of the population. AI is already doing a massive amount of programming, and in the future, the enormous number of programmers around the world will be looking for other jobs or having to bust their butts to be the best of the best of the best, the ones that innovate and invent, so that AI has new material to draw from.
That said, life is also going to end up being a lot easier, as AI and robots begin to do most of humanity’s work.
Might sound a little too sci-fi, but I fully expect that labor revolution to take place in the next 10 to 15 years.
Our world will look like science fiction.
Anyway…
🐿️
After spending the morning eating and cleaning up and chatting at Chase’s house, we all headed over to the mansion that will double as both our hotel for two nights and the wedding venue.
We spent a fair bit of time unloading stuff and setting things up.
After getting things mostly in order, we just sort of hung out and chilled.
There was enough alcohol to get an army drunk. 😆
Fortunately, there were plenty of sodas, too. If sodas had alcohol, I would have been absolutely plastered. 😆
At one point, Chase and I headed back to his place to grab some things that were forgotten on the first trip over. Chase had me drive from the Mansion back to his house– driving his massive Dodge Cummins dually pickup truck.
After we got back to his place, somebody called Chase asking where the pizzas were. I remembered somebody picking up the pizzas out of the back of the truck when we were unloading everything into the Mansion, so I mentioned that to Chase, and I was absolutely certain that I had seen somebody picking them up as we were unloading.
What I didn’t know is that the person who picked them up as we were unloading actually put them back in the pickup truck bed, on top of Chase’s extra fuel tank, which is above the sidewalls of the pickup truck bed, meaning the pizzas could easily slide off the tank and onto the ground going around corners.
Fortunately, I drive a bit like a grandma most of the time, so when we went out to the pickup truck to load up more of the things that we were picking up, Chase saw the stack of pizzas. Still sitting there on top of his extra fuel tank.
🥳
Hooray for Grandma driving!
Back at the Mansion, we mostly just chilled together. Some of the guys had gone to a… specialty shop for some… uh… colorful gifts for Chase. 🙃
The presentation of said gifts was… hilarious. 😆
At some point, a handful of us sat down to play some poker, $20 buy in–just for fun to goof around.
I didn’t think I’m very good at poker. 🙃 I don’t know that for sure, but I think maybe I go in too big on crappy hands, and I’m afraid to lose money otherwise.
Which doesn’t make sense.
I used to think I was good, but I… don’t think that anymore. 😆
The poker game got a lot more competitive and intense than I was comfortable with, kind of like church ball in my younger days. I get really uncomfortable when people get super serious and extremely competitive/combative.
I used to be super competitive, and I guess I still am (I want to win, be the best, have everyone think I’m the best, etc etc etc), but I don’t like tense situations, drama, conflict, etc. I’d rather lose than be in those situations. I definitely want to win, but I want to have fun and enjoy the experience more than I want to win.
The poker game… ended abruptly. And that’s all I’ll say about that. 😅
After playing poker, I hung out outside and chatted with one of the other guests who was having a little bit of a rough time.
That’s where I’m at my best.
I’ve always been good at comforting and encouraging and inspiring people. I wish I was doing that all day every day. That’s where my heart is. That’s what I’d do if I weren’t so paralyzed with fear and regret and shame.
So much fear.
So much regret.
So much shame.
I wish I could just let all those feelings float down the river and not let them keep me from going out and doing those kinds of things now.
But I do. I feel like I’ve wasted so much of my life. So much disappointment in myself, with feeling so strong, and with hope so faint that I can’t seem to look at the future as something that would allow me to go out and do that for the rest of my life like I always wanted.
I’m just still… stuck. Emotionally and mentally paralyzed.
If I could just break out of this..
[sigh]
Anyway, it was nice to be able to be a source of strength and encouragement.
I hope I was for her, at least.
After that, I think I hung around the mansion house for a while, doing different things, cleaning up stuff, before heading up to the room, watching some episodes of Castle, and crashing for the night.
Oh, a side note… it’s amazing the difference humidity can make to felt temperature. Good. Freaking. Gravy.
In Alaska, I regularly went around with my shorts on, a t-shirt, and a jacket. Regular socks. Regular tennis shoes. No gloves.
Even when it was in the negatives.
Multiple times, I had people say that I looked more like I was from Alaska than the people who actually lived there.
The truth is that the cold in Arkansas is way colder than the cold in Alaska–at least the part of Alaska that I was in (Fairbanks).
Sitting outside chatting for an hour, without even shoes on, was only slightly uncomfortably cold. Really, it was only my toes that were cold, so I would periodically put them in the backs of my knees and squeeze them together to warm them up a little bit.
Dry cold has nothing on humid cold. I don’t know why they say in Arkansas that when it’s 30° it feels like it’s 20°. 30° in Arkansas feels more like negative 15 in Alaska, worse, I think.
It’s crazy. Humid cold goes right through you to your bones.
Not to mention Arkansas is quite windy. 😅
Arkansas cold is brutal.
It’s also really windy. I haven’t really felt Alaska wind yet. The wind is absolutely bitingly cold in Arkansas. Maybe it’s the same in Alaska? I kind of think it probably isn’t, but maybe it is?
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 