All my friends are like:

“Have you seen Raven Part 4? It’s based on the Cartouche series that came out originally in black and white and just got reissued with holographic ink?”

Or

“Have you played the new Aggretsuko video game where you have to sing karaoke death metal to save the planet?”

Or

“Have you seen my new immaculatus plant? It’s a Mondolvan dry root species that does best in high west sun and low eastern exposure and I have to feed it mice scraps twice a month to account for the differences in soil nutrition.”

Or

“Have you read the new fan fiction romance about Christine Amanpour and John Kennedy Jr.? It’s all the rage on BRAVO’s Slack so they had to have a company meeting.”

Or

“Have you been to Cheetalia’s burlesque show/staple play fet party? They hold it every other waxing gibbous moon at a vegan collective in Clinton Hill. Like even if you’re not into getting stapled by strangers in non-latex gloves, the whole somatic experience of blinding iridescent visuals and 90’s post post house DJs is super vibey.”

And me, I’m like, “I just want to play with ultramarine blue and talk about Mike Myers movies.”

Back in Tucson I died for stimulating conversation that didn’t involve college sports or hiking Tumamoc or golf. Here in NYC all my friends are specialized nerds in 10 different ways and I feel so basic. If I were a guy I’d be the most basic Quentin Tarantino/Steven Soderbergh/Wes Anderson knock off.

But…

I think I do have niches. It’s just that my biggest niche is studying human beings. That doesn’t really fit into other nerd categories. It’s a somewhat solitary pursuit because you can become tiresome and annoying when you figure people out and they haven’t figured themselves out or they have something to hide. If I’ve learned anything, it’s to keep my mouth shut more often than not. In the past month I’ve predicted more than five things that came to pass just by listening and finding patterns and connecting dots. And then I had to sit on my hands and do nothing about it.

This is why I fall in love with the people I fall in love with. If there are two perceptive people in a room, I’m one of them and they’re the other. And we can skip the bullshit. Meanwhile everyone else is talking about externalities. That doesn’t make me better. It makes me an outsider and a storyteller. Did Aesop fall in love? Did Homer ever cuddle? Did any of the tellers of fables and epics get love of the daily variety?

Asking for a friend.

Meanwhile, tonight I am not seeing The 1975 play SNL live but I refuse to be a baby about it. First, because I got into grad school this week and I want to celebrate that (I buried the lede). And second, because I have to handle some business of a delicate nature. Nikola, Mikey, and I need to have a sit down with a particular guy who isn’t taking my no’s for an answer and it’s time this thing gets addressed. I’d much rather not have to deal with this but them’s the breaks.