the easier softer way

playing old school starcraft with luc from 11 till well past midnight, then walking home...

it's not exactly "high on life" but it's a start - it's not stumbling about the wrecked/remorse hamster wheel - it's the easier softer way - neils suggested, if you don't know how to pray, just pray in gratitude, for whatever gold you can dig out of the day-to-day mundanity - i'm grateful i didn't poison my body yet again, and trash my soul, and muddy my mind, and trample my dignity, yet again, so soon after - oh, now i'm sounding so solemn and spiritual, which makes me a little sick, but it's true, i guess

and i'm grateful i got to play starcraft, and forget about wanting a drink, and go on a bit of a nostalgia trip - and we nearly died after the zergs rushed our base, we were down to two burning buildings - whereupon, i would have quit, but luc, god bless him, wouldn't give up, he's into tactics, and he likes that the terran buildings can fly, so he flew our last two buildings onto what turned out to be an island! luckily... so we built up a base, and found some minerals, and immediately set up air defense turrets with our mineral wealth, and held out against the air attacks and attempted invasions, and even expanded to a new island! and decided it was time to go on the offensive, so we did a little recon, and scouted out a landing place, because our resources were running out, and we needed more cash

so we went on the offensive, it was a gamble but it seemed to be working, we nabbed a vespine gas mine, upgraded our technology, started churning out wraith ships and siege tanks, repelled the attacks on our landing zone - but it was an all-or-nothing point, we needed to go on the offensive, attack and take over or get squeezed out eventually - so we went on a daring raid, 12 wraiths, 12 tanks, with marines and a mix of units in reserve - wasted vast swathes of zerg territory, but then the attack on the land base came out of nowhere, blinsided by the zerg army - our reserves were wiped out - our land base destroyed - a miscalculation - we rescued as many SCVs as we could with the dropships, but we'd blown our chance - evacuated to the islands where we held out for a while - i made the metaphor of japan's final days in the pacific war - we laughed

yeah, i remember when i used to have fun playing starcraft - back then i would have thought that drugs were for lunatics and losers - and i guess i would have been right - but i can't be snap and solemn and judgement and still be honest - i know the serrated e'edge of the see-saw, there's something beautiful about it, about hacking reality, about tweaking and fuzzing out - something beautiful and many many things ugly, and i'm in the process of conditioning myself to think that i'm sick and tired of being sick and tired - am i? i'll say that i am