Yeah.

I've got till the end of the month to either find a way out of China and ideally back to America, because my visa is about up.

Or, I need to extend my visa by about a month (should be doable) and figure out a place to stay for that time, because my school will in all likelihood kick me out of the apartment I'm staying at.

I've got grad school beginning at the last week of August, but at the same time, I'm not feeling too good about going back to America at all and risking my health. So may just take my fellowship money, take a plane to Thailand (or some other country) and kick it at an AirBnB and hope this all blows over.

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I can relate to that. Insomnia every night. And when I do finally pass out (because my body physically can't stay awake anymore) it's already day light and noisy out. Anxiety and Depression. Those are more important problems for me to overcome than injustice in another country.

Doing okay. Saving a lot of money, I'm so surprised how much we are saving now. It's not like I spent money willy nilly but practically the only thing money goes towards besides rent, insurance, etc. is groceries and even that is really low.

One thing I do find weird is that my drive is kinda low for stuff now. Since we practically have to stay inside, my wife and I are pretty tired of our few together choices being either video games or watching a movie/tv. It's kind of depressing at this point almost 4 months along. Not even chores need doing since I do them a lot of the time lately.

I wouldn't necessarily say yes to any of those things but hey I could be worse I guess. I'm not alone and my gf makes me feel better so in the sense of "I'm only okay because of her" that has been a reoccurring theme for a while now, I'm okay. Horrible sleeping habits, incapable of staying asleep a decent amount of time no matter how tired, terrible anxiety about all kinds of things, existential dread to fear/worry about the unknown such as what happens after death or many other things I can't explain about my experiences and what it may or may not mean not only for me but for everyone potentially, bursts of discontentment with my life and myself in many regards and worry about how much worse it could get if my luck runs out and my perceived powerlessness in it, frustration at a lot of things, feeling bad for people in really bad spots right now I know but have no one to pull them out of it and I can only do so much, worrying about what may be making me like this, general concern about everything happening in the world lately, worrying about what I'm gonna do if certain people in my life die and if I'll go insane or worse without even if I somewhat get my shit together. ect. Honestly if I sat here trying to think about all of the thoughts and feelings buzzing in me coming and going and I were much less vague this would probably just go on and on and on.

And I wouldn't say I'm in "good health" either but eh.

A plus is that it's very hard for me to even feel suicidal because my fear of the afterlife and from that remembering that death is even more pointless than any supposed negative reasons or pointless lack of reasons to life and aside from grander contemplations probably influenced by my feelings in the first place, my inability to often not feel I have a sufficient personal structure and worth in it and also more pointless than feeling like my life is ultimately waste or worse. At least I'm here doing something and meaning something to someone.

I expect nothing from saying this though, and I will continue on as I am with the caveat of trying to once again figure my shit out and see some professionals.

Hanging in there. Just wish Ruby teh Lizard would come back on here.

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Jesus, there's a lot of mental anguish going on here.

Seems like COVID-19 is imposing some pretty bad mental strain on all of us. I suppose we could all use some productive outlets, even if its just branching out socially.

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I will spare you the details of my particular mundane anguishes, but yes.



Personally, I have doubled down on music. Currently waiting on a set of Yamaha 3-way bookshelf speakers to be delivered in order to fill out my stereo system. I've been thinking about doing album reviews, band reviews or some other form of music spotlight in vlog format.

Honestly don't think it's very related, it honestly didn't change up my life that much beyond some heightened worries. The fallout of the murder of George Floyd actually probably disturbed me more but it's really not at all just related to any of these events.

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I've been feeling really nihilistic lately. Life is lacking purpose. Nothing really matters to me. And I've been trying to drive that into a form of optimistic nihilism but it's just not coming to me. I really don't care about the planet, the people, or the fate or origin of the universe. And every single night, I literally can't fall asleep and I end up staying up until like 6-7 in the morning. Apathy is my default setting.

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Yellow the Lizard is more yellow than ever before {:D}

Definitely stressed and anxious. In relatively ok health, though I suffered from heat exhaustion earlier during the heat wave and while I'm grateful it wasn't heat stroke, it really knocked me out for a few days. Plus allergies. Plus a COVID scare. (So far so good, though.)

Plus my grandmother died, my dad's chemo has stopped being particularly effective, and my relationship has ended. So it's a lot.

But definitely the biggest source of stress is COVID related. I work at a cinema, and we've taken the opportunity to do remodeling of our lobby while we've been closed. And I feel super torn on what to do. I'm furloughed, which means I get unemployment checks, but the cinema is still paying for my health insurance which is good. But the stipulation for UI right now, and that I don't need to show I'm looking for work because I'm furloughed during the pandemic, is that I need to be available to work. We're not open yet, but rates are going up again (go figure). And I'm in a college town so we're about to see an influx in residents soon. So it's safe to assume the rates are going to continue to increase a bit. We're still trying to figure out what makes sense to do as a business when construction is done, but it really doesn't feel like cinemas are a great idea to re-open right now.

My conflict is that, by and large, I've been able to see my family because we've all been able to isolate and quarantine effectively for planned hang-outs. With my dad's chemo and my sister just having a baby, it feels especially important to be careful and diligent if we're going to hang out even outside, with masks, and more than six feet apart. But once I'm working again, dealing with sometimes a couple hundred people a day, I worry that I'll never actually get to see my family again. Unless I can get a couple weeks off, it doesn't feel safe to go from work to my parents' house.

At the same time, if I try to get another job where I can work from home, it's going to be a massive pay cut. (This is sort of the funny thing for me about the desire to stop the extra money on UI. I have to admit, it's been *incredibly* helpful to get myself financially stable after a couple years of home ownership and never really being able to get myself out from holes from projects. Granted, it also helped being able to defer a couple months of mortgage payments, although I'm definitely stressed because the deferments end at the same time the extra $600 ends, and if that doesn't get renewed at any point, that money I had been able to square away is just going to bleed.) What's funny for me is that what I will be getting on UI without the added benefits is actually about the same pay cut I would have to take to get another job. Any job I could possibly get at this point, especially something where I can work from home which would almost certainly be like, online customer service, is going to be almost a $13,000 a year pay cut for me.

So the other stress has been: the GOP wants me to leave my job because it wants me off unemployment, but I'm furloughed. I still get my insurance through the cinema. And I make almost $50,000 there because I've been there for over a decade. Literally every job available right now that I qualify for is starting at between $30,000 or $35,000 at best. Soooo....my options are to stay on UI and stress about money but at least I have insurance and if the cinema re-opens, I still have my $50,000 a year job that I spent a decade investing in. Or I bet on the cinema never re-opening again, give up the possibility of regaining that job, and bust myself down $15,000 to $20,000 a year and start over, and hope my next employer offers me a comparatively decent (even if still inadequate overall) health insurance plan.

And the bank is not particularly interested in letting me defer my mortgage anymore. SOOOOOOOOO I'M STRESSED. It feels like I'm being forced to make choices between shitty awful option A and shitty awful option B, and WHY DIDN'T WE JUST GIVE EVERYONE $2,000 A MONTH DURING THE PANDEMIC AND JUST HAVE EVERYONE STAY HOME FOR THREE TO FOUR WEEKS FOR REAL??? Jesus Christ our incessant need to put band-aids on flesh wounds is frustrating as all hell. How the hell did this country ever do anything like win a war or send a man to the moon or cure polio? But I know a bunch of people who have gotten COVID, and a few people who have died. (A colleague lost his father and grandfather to it in the span of a month.) And I know someone who got it, "recovered," but is still dealing with lingering health issues a couple months after. So even though rates are relatively low by me, it still just feels too risky if I want to see my family, which I very much do.

Anyway, I'm mostly keeping busy around my house, playing games, and reading. Trying not to spend much time online because I just wind up doom scrolling and it's not good for the health. (Hence I have kinda dropped off this forum. Just popping in for the night to let folks know I am indeed still alive, if that's a thing that matters to anyone. And to see how everyone else is.)

What a wild time to be alive.

"Mental illness" isn't a disease you have, it's a disease society has that you've internalized.



Just wear a mask around them and/or stay 6+ feet apart. This is the way my family's been visiting with the extended family for months.

Also keep in mind this isn't how it's going to be forever. If I'm wrong and it is then it's some kind of chess piece so you might as well say fuck it at that point. Putting family above what you've spent a decade working for isn't worth it, trust me.



Are you not able to pay the mortgage with your UI? How much of a difference is it -- could you cut somewhere to make it?



On the contrary, things just seem to work themselves out over time. Stress is really just a mind game; it's not actually based on reality -- either the environment gets better or you get better, or usually both. Wake up and look at what's actually happened in your life, not the narrative that your emotions are creating.



My advice is just to stay productive. Set difficult goals and stick with them. Do things despite stress/fear/anxiety telling you not to or that there's no point now, or w/e. Make arbitrary decisions to hard choices and stand by them.

@Jet Presto:

I'm very sorry to read all that. Wow. Everything just hit you at once.... I don't even want to imagine.

I am sorry about all your loss and I was wondering why I hadn't heard from you in so long. I'm also deeply sorry you're no longer in a relationship. It must be hard going through all this without an intimate partner to give you the support your surely need. But at least you have other people in your life whom love you, so just stay in contact with them during this crazy time.

While I mostly agree with Xhin that stress is a mental thing... It's REEEEEEAAAAALY difficult to fight it when so much hits you at once. However, he is correct that life will get better for you as long as you keep moving forward. Don't give up. The state of the world won't be like this forever.

And I definitely agree that you probably shouldn't give up on your cinema investment. Not after all your hard work for the past decade. There is a lot you can do once the cinema reopens, by the way. Both in terms of safety and to draw in customers. A lot of theaters are playing older films (I've personally been interested in going to a Drive-In to watch the original Star Wars trilogy if somebody near me plays them). If you're young and healthy, I don't know if giving up a $50,000 salary is worth get half that for any other job.... Unless it affords you everything you currently need in life, that is.

I don't know. I would personally commit to staying away from family during this pandemic and continue with my career choices. I made a decision a long time ago that my career that I've worked more than a decade towards will be my highest priority until I'm established. My art and establishing a business from it comes first, even before my family and loved ones. I DO love them, but I'm not giving up my dreams for them. Time's short. People won't remember me for the family I had. They will remember me for the things I created, though. Then again, I realize making art (in my case video games) is a tad different from managing a cinema theater.

Do what you feel is right. I'm just giving you my perspective. By the way, if you don't feel up to testing my game come September, I'll understand. I wish you well and hope things look up as soon as possible.

The problem is that we have a few members who are especially susceptible now. I have seen my family during my furlough because we've all been able to isolate, or if we go out, it's limited. I feel ok about myself, but it's going to feel scarier when I'm working and again, dealing with sometimes hundreds of people. Especially students. I would want to be able to give myself at least a week off before seeing my parents, so I could get tested just to be safe.



Sure. But my dad isn't going to be here forever.



Ah, see, I come from a big Italian family. Personally, nothing I build means anything without my family. (I'm making that statement personally, not generally; I don't think family innately means anything, as I know a lot of people who have toxic family dynamics or abusive/drunk/neglectful parents or siblings that they want to get away from. For me, my family pretty much is everything, and is a big reason why I've stayed in Massachusetts, especially now with my dad going through chemo and my sister just having a baby.)




I mean, I have to. The added benefits wound up being just a little less than I made working two jobs, and it coincided with a lack of driving and substantially less take-out. So while I did feel it, it wasn't drastic and I was able to save. Without the added benefits, I've basically got about $300 for food after my mortgage, insurance, car loans, and all other bills combined. (I suppose the silver lining is it's summer, so no oil bills.) So...there's not really a lot of wiggle room at this point. I had been able to save some, and I'll have to tap into my savings for all my expenses. Problem is, the bills that are the ones that actually are a problem are the ones that I can't cut. Like, a $5 subscription to a podcast service is something I can cut, obviously, but that's like deleting JPEGs to make room on your hard drive.

Basically, until either the cinema re-opens or Congress does its job (and I'm honestly not sure which I would anticipate happening first at this point; sounds like construction at the cinema won't wrap up until end of September), I'm going to be bleeding from the savings account. And then before you know it, I'll be getting oil deliveries again, and that's gonna be a whole other story. (I'm also assuming I'm totally laid off from my second job? I've literally not heard anything from them since March... That job was my oil money.)




I dunno, man. My stress seems pretty grounded in the reality of the situation. And we haven't even really touched upon the stress of the election in this equation, too!

But also, stress isn't just some mental thing. It's literally a physiological response. I get that you can alleviate it through various means, including things to focus the mind, but I mean, I was generally fairly able to handle stress and had decent coping mechanisms until everything just piled on top of one another this year. Like, this year has been a 2,000 page history book and it's only just August now. I don't really choose how my body response to scenarios.




Oh, I'm not so far gone that I can't playtest your game. Happy to do it!

I think I've found a flight out of China to get me back to America.

It leaves on August 20th. I have to leave from Shanghai, and I live in Beijing. That's kind of a hassle, but only because I'll have a few bags. I'll probably end up taking a nice high-speed train there, and maybe stay with a friend overnight. I'll get that checked out.

It's relatively inexpensive, only about $1600 right now. Other flights are like $4,000 and at least with this one I'm pretty sure it won't get cancelled.

Once I get back to Grand Rapids, I'll need to quarantine for 2 weeks, somewhere. I can't really do it at either of my parents' houses, nor do I want to. I'm probably gonna have to look for a place to rent out month by month, until, hopefully, Georgetown resumes in-person classes in DC. But until then I'll be doing my super expensive education online.

Not too bad though. Made quite a bit of money teaching online classes 6 hours or so a day for the last few weeks.

Also planning on getting an article published, hopefully, in the next day or two.

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Continuing to lose weight (a good thing). Doing a lot better mentally. External life hasn't improved but that's okay -- more equipped to deal with it.

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Feeling a little bit heavy after celebrating Christmas in Texas. Too much good high calorie food. Hoping to do some intense cardio in the next few days to hopefully burn some of it off.

Other than that I’m doing pretty good all things considered. Not too terribly sure what I’ll be doing for New Years. Restrictions lifted a bit in Guatemala (and I expect the government to double down on restrictions during the holidays) so we will see what I do for New Years.

I’m a little annoyed that we go straight back to work on Monday but eh I’ll prob have my kids chill and work on their project as we get back into the swing of things.

On week 2 of my current job contract as an apprentice. So far being in a union is completely different than any other job I've worked (in a good way). Probably too soon to make judgments on anything, but I like what I've seen of it and the trade in general. Got my first tiny paycheck, should get a bigger one tomorrow.

It has a bit of a commute and sleep is pretty important and I'm also pretty underequipped in a lot of ways, so my life is built around my job at the moment, but I've been spending some time with shatterloop again and will probably hit some other hobbies too this weekend.

When you say “my kids”, do you mean your students, or your offspring?


students. I dont have any "offspring". (well that I know of)

I thought I remembered you mentioning you were single when you were talking about coming back from Central and South America.
I wasn’t certain SOH and sniper of hell were the same guy.
…. …. …. ….
I used to work in an office where I was the only guy who knew for sure that I had no offspring!
… … …
Since then I’ve retired, adopted a daughter, and there’s a person who I might be the biological father of (but probably not).

I wasn’t certain SOH and sniper of hell were the same guy.


yes. We are one and the same. Figured it was fitting to use this name with the new site and and all. We’ve come full circle.