07/16/24

    Before I left for work, I grabbed Haruki Murakami’s Dance Dance Dance from the shelf. I bought it two summers ago and had yet to read it. I’ve been adamant about not enjoying Murakami’s novels after putting down Norwegian Wood. His writing is much different than what I remembered—more enjoyable and inspiring. Every sentence made me want to stop and write.

    There’s a scene in chapter four in which the main character describes sitting on a train heading to Sapporo. He’s looking out the window, the sky is clear, the sun is bright, the glare becomes too much, he needs to look away. "I didn’t see another passenger looking out the windows. They all knew what snow looked like."

    On the usual post-gym train ride home I got off at 59th to transfer to a local train and found myself up against a 20 minute wait time. Rather than steaming alive in the station I boarded an express uptown to then take a local downtown. This took half an hour. I read my book. No local downtown. Express back down to 59th. No local uptown, only express.

     A train conductor informed me that there was a power outage at Lafayette, which happened to be the station I had come from. Usually at this point I would have left the station and grabbed a cab but I was practicing restraint. I could only be glad I wasn’t on the train when the power outage occurred. So, I got on an uptown 1 train. A group of young ballerinas got on with me. I sat with them and continued reading. Getting off at my stop, the air was grim. An ominous wind blew through the station doors. Outside, the sun faded through shades of pink. 

9 pm

    With the heat still bearing down, the 3-block trudge home felt like an eternity. 

    Lying on the living room floor, I watched a video essay on games that could no longer be played. 

    When the release of Halo Reach was announced, the online servers for Halo 2 were set to be shut down. Players discovered they could keep playing under certain conditions and so they pushed on. Interesting enough, however, why would the release of Halo Reach prompt the shut down of servers for Halo 2 when Halo 3 was released before Halo Reach? But what do I know. In the end, before the servers were finally taken down for good, one player had remained. The video goes on to bring home a point about finality and enjoying the moment but I was too tired to register it. 

That night I had nightmares.

Playlist

Dearly Beloved - Yoko Shimomura

Delirious - Yoshimatsu Terui

Shissou - Last Alliance

Automatic - Red Velvet

Dream Puppy - The Sweet Enoughs

Pianissimo Epilogue - Akira Yamaoka

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