Existential Dread, Excess Fun {2025 Week #19}

Hey. How are ya? I'm doing fine. This week has been a little too exciting for my taste. Lots of train rides and socializing, I'm feeling real drained. Monday went pretty well. I went to my little secluded spot with my newly obtained picnic mat. I had a really nice lie down in the grass before my class started. 

Read a bunch, I'm finally reading The Outsiders (even though I've seen the movie lots of times I'm only reading the book now). 

Isn't it whimsical?

My little mat.

My little area!

Class itself was good but I'm not going to lie I snuck my e-reader out every spare moment I had between exercises or breaks to read some more. When I got home I was pretty tired, plus it's been getting warmer. I started Karate Kid Part 3 and my mum joined me, she was strangely into it. It's not a good movie at all. Later at night I watched Sixteen Candles. It sucked big time!

On Tuesday I got up early to finish up a new quiz I was making for my site. I put it up but as usual something went wrong and it didn't work. Capitalization! Always remember capitalization when you're doing anything in JavaScript. I was going to go to class but I suddenly got an ache in my stomach so I stayed home, I worked some on my site. 

Everyone had a nervous breakdown later in the day because we watched Big Fish again. Don't watch Big Fish unless you're ready for the consequences. My sister's was probably the most existential and heartbreaking. She's in tears because she realized she's going to have to be there when we all die before her. She's nearly twelve years younger than me and nine years younger than my brother. If you do the math right, there's probably going to be decade when we're all gone... and she's not. I couldn't calm her down about it, we all tried, but there's really nothing to say. She couldn't stop crying and she was in a lot of pain from it so I was too. Of course I told her she wouldn't be alone, she'd have friends, a partner, maybe kids of her own but these people don't exist to her right now so she wasn't having it. We tried to joke about suicide pacts, or maybe she'd get hit by a bus or something, or future tech that's gonna keep us living forever. Yeah, it's something I've cried myself about too but her position is even worse, she's the youngest. She'll really be the last. There's really no right words about this but I wish I had them. She was really scared and there wasn't anything we could do about it. You can't really talk the fear of death away.

Jesus. Dark, huh? Well, it happens to everyone. I can't even think of a time when my cats won't be around... nevermind my mum. Ah, forget about it. Spit! It's a Slavic thing. When you said something bad could or will happen, you imitate spitting so it doesn't. I ain't superstitious but I ain't taking chances either.

Wednesday is a day off from classes. It was pretty uneventful because I still wasn't feeling totally well due to whatever stomach bug I had yesterday. I did draw whatever it was I wanted to for Mermay. I'm feeling the most art-block and insecurity ever... it gets kind of hard to keep working through it when you think you're making trash but its not like I'm gonna stop. I haven't stopped drawing since I was 6 or something and I sucked the entire time, so why stop now? 

Thursday was a holiday and I mostly just stayed home, I finally finished all of Cobra Kai. It is so stupid. Like when Kwon falls on his own knife and dies, I actually laughed. Some of the production is so bad. The weird exchange between Amanda, Daniel, and Tory at the very end was so forced and just so awfully written... But honestly, I still love this dumb little show.

Friday was pretty normal, nothing much of note except I finally finished reading the Outsiders. I really breezed through it, it was so good. I haven't read a book this fast since I was 14. I used to just go through the things back in the day, especially when I was in Battle of the Books. Man, I'll tell you, I was a real nerd. I was in BoB (that's Battle of the Books to ya), Model UN (always the science committee!), the school band (third trumpet), and yearbook club. Seriously... 

Saturday was a really exciting day. I went to my first Pride ever! Ever, ever! I never lived in a country that celebrated Pride (except Finland, but I wasn't there in June). In fact in most places I lived in, Pride was straight up illegal. For some reason the Pride in Agen happened on the 10th of May. Not sure why but Tom said it may be because June is too hot for big events like that now. You can't pray the gay away, but maybe you can heatwave it to an earlier month. Anyway we took the lunch time train, here was the party: Tom, me, Mo (my brother), Marta (my sister), and Y (my sister's friend). Y is about 17 and she's in a secret relationship with a girlfriend because her family are crazy Christian fundamentalist. So this was a covert operation. The train ride is short but Tom was panicking the entire time that he forgot some cool earrings. He was very colour-coordinated and looked good and totally ragged on us for not being colourful. Well, I like dark brown, I think it's a good colour on me. And my brother... well, let's just say he knows what pants and t-shirts are and that's about it when it comes to fashion.

We got there early to go to a friend's house, the couple I met at his house before, Benedicte and Lolu. It's Lolu's family house and it's enormous! It's a gorgeous house, for real, it was so crazy. Tom had the audacity to say "it's like your house but sort of bigger". Sort of, Tom? I must live in a fucking shoe box if this house is not big to him! 

We went to the area where the parade starts. There was a bunch of local organizers both to do with LGBT issues and just general stuff like worker's unions and Mission Locale. There was a bunch of speeches and Tom checked out because he says they're long. I was sort of practicing my French and listened in. Maybe it kind of shows how wet behind the ears I still am but stuff like that is still important to me. Even general platitudes like 'equality for everyone' and 'queer folk are accepted here' is stuff no one really said out loud to me, on a microphone no less. Basically, don't get complacent if you live in an accepting place. Things can quickly get worse, the smallest progress can be tarnished and destroyed. Trust me.

Start of the parade.

After a while the parade started and some very fashionable drag queens were on a float dancing. I thought most of the music sucked. It was like trap or something, or just charting shit from this year. They did play I Wanna Dance With Somebody and Single Ladies which was fun. Honestly they could have really picked a better track list. 

At a few points we stopped for more speeches. I didn't know anyone there but one guy straight up looked like Sam Seder. We saw gay French Sam Seder. The whole thing finished up at about 16:00. Tom went back with Lolu and Benedicte and we were invited to sleepover but I was way too tired to hang so we went home. We had some sandwiches we packed at the train station, then grabbed the train and went home. 

Weirdly artsy shot I took on accident.

Gay French Sam Seder.

The float.

It was a good experience, I think I'm glad I went to a smaller Pride for my first time. Bordeaux would probably literally kill me. I saw a lot of old people there and it almost made me tear up, like, these are the folks who paved the way so we wouldn't have to live in fear all the time. Really standing on the shoulder's of giants. Y also saw her teacher there and she's pretty shy but I could tell she was surprised in a good way. It was a good time.

On Sunday I went out of my way to not go anywhere or talk to anyone. A single day of people has literally turned me into a raisin. Also I got sun-burnt as fuck. I have two modes: anemic white or crimson red, crispy. We re-watched 22 Jump Street, dumb ass movie. Kind of funny though. I don't really have anything conclusive and interesting to say (Do I ever? No.). But it was a pretty good week. 

Been obsessed with Rome Wasn't Built In A Day by The Jeremy Days.