Random Word Generator Story Time: Dive

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(I learned this from Paul Robalino on the behind the scenes of Game Changer. He talks about using a random word generator and then writing from that word. The word I got was dive and I’m going to write the first thing that comes into my mind.)

Every step terrifies me. Maybe I wouldn’t be so scared is if around the pool it wasn’t hard concrete but instead like a padded floor. I think that it would still hurt to land on that but it wouldn’t be as bad.

I’m at the pool at my school and I’ve been staring at this thing since I was a freshman. I’m about to graduate and I need to jump off of it. I don’t know why I have to face this fear. Maybe it’s something about a mental block to starting the rest of my life. I have to close one chapter and start on another.

I get to the top of it. It takes me a while to lift my leg up and get onto it. I feel myself slip a little bit. I grab harder to make sure that I don’t fall. I get onto the diving board. I finally see over and I freeze. I’m so high up. How does this high dive exist inside a gym? This is insane. I think I see some people standing by the edge of the pool before I scramble to the ladder. I don’t go down it, I just hang onto it for dear life. I don’t know how to get back onto it. There’s another way down but there’s no way in hell I’m taking that way. I guess I’ll just have to wait for a hunky fireman to come by and grab me.

I think I hear people calling for me. I think I saw people when I looked over the edge of the diving board. I didn’t get a long enough look to know who they were. I hear someone shout “no running” and that’s it.

I look at the ladder again and soon a face appears there. It’s Molly Anderson. Dark chestnut hair, fine features and blue eyes. Of course she’s the one to find me cowering up here. She’s always such an asshole. She’s made fun of me since we got to high school. Maybe I wanted to do this to prove that I was as good as her. Not that I’d ever admit that to her. Not even now.

She looks like she’s worried. It’s probably a trick.

“Hey, are you okay?” Molly asks softly.

“Doing great,” I say.

“You look like you’re scared.”

“Why don’t I save us some time and say that I am and you can start making fun of me.”

“Not up here. If you’re scared, I want you to get down safely. I only make fun of people on firm ground.”

“Why do you make fun of people all the time?”

“You make fun of me too!”

“Because you make fun of me!”

“Who made fun of who first?”

“You did!”

“You did!”

Now that we’re talking about this, I honestly can’t remember when I started to hate her. Here at the end of my life, I’m starting to think about how I actually enjoy our verbal sparring. Oh shit, she’s starting to talk again.

“The fact of the matter is that I was right where you were the first time I came up here,” Molly says. “My first meet, I saw a girl fall off the high dive and get hurt. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

“Thanks for letting me know that. Good glimpse into my future,” I respond.

“That’s not going to happen as long as I can help it. Do you want me to help you down? I can come up there or stay down here and get you on the ladder. I won’t play any tricks on you or do anything. I just want to make sure you’re safe. You can trust me.”

I do trust her. I remember there was one night when her and her friends found my best friend, Stacy, crying after her dipshit ex broke up with her. He had made fun of her and bragged about cheating. Molly had taken care of her because I was out of town. She told me that she had been a bit drunk and they had made sure she got home safe. They had listened to and comforted her. She wasn’t that big an asshole now that I thought about it.

“Why are you up here?” Molly asks.

“I was scared to do this and I wanted to prove it to myself that I could do it,” I reply.

“Okay, do you want me to talk you through it? Let’s start easy. Take a few deep breaths. In through your nose, out through your mouth.”

I do as she instructs. I do find myself calming down. My heart stops beating in my ears.

“Good, you’re already looking calmer. Now, put your feet on the diving board. Slowly. Feel it under your feet. Don’t let go of the railing. Take your time with it under your feet.”

I do as she instructs me. I twist my legs so that I can feel the rough plastic under my feet. I decide to skip to the next step. I stand up.

“There you go,” Molly says. “Can you turn towards the edge?”

“Yeah,” I say.

I turn my body so that I’m facing the edge. My fear is waiting to swallow me up.

“Okay, if you’re going to jump, the best way to do it is with your arms at your sides and feet pointed down. Don’t try and dive, just take a big step off and think about how the water is going to swallow you up,” Molly says. “You’ll hit the water and swim back up.”

“I’m trying my best but I’m not quite there,” I tell her.

“Girls!” Molly shouts. “Give, Jackie some motivation!”

I hear the girls below me start to cheer and call my name. I feel the fear start to dissipate. Eventually, fuck it.

I walk the short distance and then what’s below me just disappears. I snap my legs and arms together. I have enough time to think, “Shouldn’t I have hit the water by now?” and then I hit the water. I slam into the luke warm water and feel my heart jump for joy. I did it. I survived. I swim to the surface. My head breaks out and I look around.

I hear someone yelling above me and Molly slams into the water. She swims towards me with a smile on her face. She hugs me.

“You did it!” she says.

“Holy shit, my feet hurt,” I say.

“Yeah, that happens.”

The other girls jump into the pool. They swarm me and tell me that they’re proud of me too. A firm voice suddenly calls out.

“Hey girls, what’s going on?” the voice belonging to Coach Taylor says.

“Sorry, coach,” I say.

“We do have to practice, Jackie. Could you give us the pool?”

“Sure, sorry.”

I climb out of the pool vowing to come back later. The girls climb up on their blocks. Molly stops me as I start heading for the locker room.

“Hey, you did really good,” Molly says.

“Thanks for helping me through that,” I tell her.

“No worry.”

“You know maybe you’re not such an asshole.”

“I thought the same thing about you.”

“See you around.”

“Yeah, see ya.”

Tomorrow we might be at it again. But maybe we both don’t have to go so hard.

Am I lazy?

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I had this discussion with my therapist last night. It’s something that constantly pops into my mind. Mostly because there are some nights where I don’t really do much of anything beyond doomscrolling on my phone. I’m not one of those people that thinks you need to be on that 24/7 365 grindset or you’re a waste to society. I know that the body and especially the mind needs rest.

The question I wonder is am I getting too much rest to the point of being lazy or am I getting the right amount?

Now, the thing is that I think part of this is the race conundrum. There are people further along in the race of life than I am. They’re married, they’re making more money than me or they’re just doing something that they want to do. I’ve achieved some things but it doesn’t feel like enough when I compare myself to them. So, that’s something that I have to deal with.

Then there’s the goal oriented anxiety. There are things that I want to do like start a Youtube channel, there are novels that I want to write, I want to learn to make amigurumi, I want to travel, I want to read more, listen to more new albums or podcasts and then there are so many other things that I want to do. When I stare up at that mountain, I get intimidated and once more, I do nothing.

Well, last night, I think I finally came along the way to solve this. It’s called the footpath. Don’t stare at the sheer cliff face and wonder how you’re going to climb it. You have to find the little way up the mountain. I’m going to take that list of things and introduce each footpath.

I want to write more- start with a single sentence a day.

I want to learn to make amigurumi- start watching the instructional videos so you have an inkling of what you’re getting into.

I want to travel- There are interesting places in this state and other states surrounding mine that I can travel to that doesn’t require much effort to go to

I want to read more- Novel too much? Start with a fanfiction, poem or short story.

I want to listen to more podcasts and albums?- Find a short podcast or start with one song from an album that you didn’t know.

Wait for one of those things to hook you and bring you along. I know that part of this is dealing with depression but this can help with that. I’ve found that when I’m depressed, I do something even if I don’t want to do it, eventually the joy of doing it starts to come along. You have to remind your heart of the things you love. Like calling a friend that you haven’t talked to in a long while.

    Dragonball Super Asks an Interesting Theological Question: What If You Could Punch God in the Face?

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    Okay to be fair, in Dragonball and all its different forms, the god that Goku punches is not the Almighty. He’s Beerus the god of destruction and he looks like a purple kitty man.

    He shows up and tells the main characters that he’s going to destroy the world unless he can fight the Super Saiyan God. Goku achieves it as he does everything in the series and manages to fight him. He still loses the fight but Beerus decides to let the earth survive.

    Dragonball constantly offers that any problem with enough effort, the heroes can overcome it. It’s a pretty hopeful sentiment. There’s nothing that you can’t get over.

    What if Noah told God that he was going to overthrow the world and Noah was just ripped off his shirt and shouted for God to come down and face him. What if he made up a team with Jacob who was able to wrestle with an angel for 24 hours straight. What would God’s response be? Just to flood the world anyway?

    Of course, Noah did not have the abilities that Goku and his friends do in Dragonball Z. They are gods unto themselves. With the flick of a finger they can destroy a planet or turn a city into a glass floor. It would be interesting to see the world through the eyes of a normal person as Goku and his friends let one of their opponents run roughshod over the planet.

    Maybe that’s the issue, that once you hit a certain level of power it’s hard to see other people as anything but disposable. We see that throughout Dragonball where innocent people are constantly caught in the crossfire. Cities are destroyed or their people are killed. Finally in the Buu saga the bodycount reaches the maximum as everyone on the planet is killed. The heroes revive everyone but they are returned to the planet knowing what happens on the other side.

    If this was the real world, things would change if the entire world was brought back to life. The entirety of what comes next would be shown to the every single person. Religions would change and some would just end. Would people become more or less reckless knowing that they constantly lived on the edge of a knife because of the actions of a handful of individuals?

    It’s a question that we’re not going to get an answer to in the actual text. I guess I’m going to have to find it myself.

    The Secret Weapons of Comedy

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    We mentioned Tim Meadows on the podcast this week and I want to just say that he and Judy Greer are the two best supporting character actors working today. Every time I see that they’re in the cast, I get pumped. They’re liked whipped cream to an ice cream sundae. They’re just going to improve it.

    I mean, who can forget Judy on Arrested Development flashing Michael and screeching at him to “say goodbye to these, Michael!”. She also killed it in Halloween(2018). I’ve put the scene below but she has to pretend to be scared to attract Michael Myers into her killzone. The immediate switch from being helpless to shooting him in the face is tremendous.

    Then we have Tim Meadows who killed it in Dewey Cox by being the main supplier and tempter of Dewey for his drug journey. Even today, my friends will just say to each other “And you never paid for drugs… not once.” Despite being for the most part all straight edge. Two of my friends drink but we always make sure to get written permission from their parents before they do so.

    You know I say that as a joke but I’m sure there are parents that are puritanical that that is something people have to do.

    He was also incredible on the Office, Pop Star and Brooklyn 99. He just enhances everything. The scene I was talking about before is below:

    Once on reddit, someone asked who has the most staying power. I answered at the time Judy Greer but I would say that Tim Meadows exists in that world as well. They’re just going to get better with age. Someone needs to pick up the crown of the Golden Girls and I think Judy has the ability to do so. Tim Meadows proved himself in SNL and he continues to do so.

    Trapped by Accident

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    I am stuck here

    I know the way out

    But I don’t want to take it

    We met y’all by accident

    And now two gals are sitting on my trunk

    They don’t know it’s mine

    I don’t care to tell them

    I’m locked in with silk bars

    I can easily leave

    But I dare not to

    Because when I move

    The rest of us will leave

    And I don’t want to stop

    Laughing in the moonlight

    Teen Girl Talk: Kpop Demon Hunters

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    This week on the podcast my sister and I covered Kpop Demon Hunters. It’s a good movie and you can hear our opinions about it on the podcast. What I didn’t mention was that this movie gets one of the most important things right in animation, which is the food looks delicious.

    Look at it!

    If your food isn’t looking good in the movie, then there is something wrong.

    Evangelion and the Body

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    I was at the gym today getting my swell on and I thought about Neon Genesis Evangelion for some reason. Maybe it was the fact that I was getting gains but it made me think about the way that Evangelion handles bodies both of its young protagonists and their mechas.

    For those that don’t know, Neon Genesis Evangelion is a show about Shinji Ikari and his two… I am legit unable to think what term would best fit for their relationships, friends doesn’t work, allies kind of works, coworkers fits a bit more. As they pilot giant mechs called Evangelions to do battle against the angels. Here’s a screenshot that sums up the show but isn’t actually from the show.

    That purple thing in the foreground is called an Evangelion hence the title and that big white thing is an angel. That is one of the more straight forward angel designs because they can vary from geometric shapes, kind of bird looking dudes and literally just a young boy. They’re looking to bring about something called Third Impact that I will get into at a different time. Here it is from the front:

    Let’s set our stage. The Evangelions stand about 200 meters tall. They are insanely powerful and powered by what’s called an umbilical cable that literally is just a giant power cord that even plugs into the back of the Evangelion. You can see one in the above picture that’s not featured in the show. They’re equipped with various weapons like spears, knives and guns. They also have heavy armor but their main protection is the AT(Absolute Terror) Field. It’s a field that the pilot projects from inside the Eva. We’ll get into that in a moment.

    Now where is the pilot in all of this? They’re inside what’s called an entry plug, which is then inserted into the back of Eva’s neck. Like so:

    The entry plug has the piloting chair and controls and is then filled with an orange breathable liquid called LCL. Like so:

    Now that we have all of this out of the way, it’s time to get into spoiler territory for my discussion. If you don’t want to be spoiled, leave now.

    Okay, so the thing is with Evangelions is that they aren’t just giant machines. That metallic thing around them isn’t their whole body, it’s just what’s protecting the body. You can somewhat see what they look like with it in this picture:

    They are giant humans in armor and can occasionally just go nuts and attack things? Why would they do that? How could they do that? Well, it’s because inside of those giant humans is a soul. For Shinji who is the one in the LCL, his Evangelion is powered by his mother’s soul. She died in an accident and was absorbed by the giant robot that he pilots.

    This is where we start getting the way that Evangelion fucks with the concept of mecha in general but more specifically the male power fantasy. In one of these animes, normally getting your mecha becomes this grand thing and showcases the young boy into becoming a man. He becomes that much more capable and beloved for it. Just look at the way that Amaro in the original Mobile Suit Gundam is respected. Many of them have some trouble with piloting but eventually start feeling jubilant towards it.

    Shinji doesn’t get that and part of it is the difference between Evangelions and other mechas. Other mechas are shells that protect their pilot from all danger. Not so the Evangelion, who requires the pilot to sync with it to pilot. Hence, why Shinji pilots the Evangelion with his mother’s soul in it. But the thing is that because of this synchronization Shinji feels everything that happens to it. This becomes horrific in the movie End of Evangelion, where another pilot, Asuka gets stabbed in the eye by a spear. We cut to the inside of the plug and blood is pouring out of her eye socket. The enemies then eat her Evangelion and she feels every part of it.

    From this example, we can see that the power fantasy doesn’t quite match up to the expectation. Shinji just can’t go nuts in his Evangelion without getting badly hurt. Furthermore comes what I mentioned before, the umbilical cable. It’s not just a limiter by making sure that if it gets cut he only has about five minutes before the Evangelion deactivates. From the name, it ties Shinji and the other pilots in a parental fashion to the base. Speaking of umbilical and pregnancy, it’s no coincidence that the LCL fluid looks like amniotic fluid in a womb.

    So, you have this child in the womb being sent out into the world to fight against an unknown enemy. It reminds me a lot of Kurt Vonnegut’s first part of Slaughterhouse Five where he talks about writing his book to his friend and his wife. That she complained that he’s going to make war sound good when they were really just children, babies being sent out to fight. This has different meaning for me now that I’m an adult and could comfortably have a child Shinji’s age. It breaks my heart in a way that it didn’t when I was a kid.

    This show has stuck with me since I was a kid. Part of the reason, I think is because unlike other shows I watched where there was just violence for violence’s sake, Evangelion used violence as a means to emphasize the amazing dialogue and characters. Half the time, the fights just became brutalization and animalistic screams. When I was a teenager, I related to Shinji. Now that I’m an adult, my heart bleeds for him. I’ll get more into him later this week.

    Over the weekend

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    Last weekend marked five years that my father passed away. It didn’t really hit me until I put it into the frame point that it’s been half a decade. We’re coming around to the point that next year, the anniversary will fall on the same day of the week as it was when he first passed. I will as I always have try and keep myself busy that day.

    I spoke about him last night while recording a podcast with my friend, Donnie. About how he was a simple man, not a stupid one. How he didn’t need complicated reasons about race theory or LGTBQIA+ because in his mind, he boiled down everything to “There are good people and bad people and it doesn’t matter what if they’re gay, white or black”. He judged people as they came to him.

    One of the stories that remains in my mind is that my dad did taxes from January to April. There was an older woman who was on a fixed income and three years of her tax return had been messed up. My father was so angry about the work the guy had done before him. He never took that out on me though, I remember coming downstairs to give him his coffee and he was cursing at the computer. I handed him the coffee, he immediately calmed, said thank you and as I walked away went back to angrily talking about this “Fucking idiot accountant”. My father charged about a hundred dollars an hour for his time but he put the work in. He put in enough effort that he could get people back thousands of dollars and do it in a legal way. I was eating dinner alone when the woman came to pick up her tax returns. I remember sitting at the table and thinking that all the work, about three hours for return, would be a nice paycheck for him. She was over the moon. He had gotten her back so much money. Then I heard him say:

    “Let’s just call it fifty dollars and be done with it.”

    The woman paid him his money and left. He was clearing up his papers when I went into the room. I asked him why he had only charged her fifty dollars. That should have been a nine hundred dollar paycheck. My father took off his glasses, something that always signaled that he was about to talk to me seriously, and told me:

    “Money isn’t the most important thing. She’s a woman alone, Rollo. You have to help where you can.”

    That’s been with me since that day and probably will until I can no longer draw a breath. Another favorite story of his is that my dad told me that he didn’t want me to steal because he would be embarrassed if he had to come to the police station because I got caught stealing a candy bar. He didn’t tell me not to steal because it’s wrong, just to do it in a smart way. He told me that if you can steal enough to retire and never work again and do it in a way that you didn’t have to harm anyone, go for it. Anything else was pointless. That was way more effective and I never thought about stealing little things because what would be the point? I can’t retire on what’s in a cash register. I can’t retire on a Butterfingers. My dad said be Danny Ocean or don’t bother.

    In conclusion, I want to talk about one of the greatest gifts that my mother gave me. One year, she took a video on her phone of my dad wishing me a happy birthday and that he loved me. Whenever I’m down, I watch that video and get to hear my father’s voice. I get to hear him tell me he loves me.

    This is a hard thing I have to tell people and I get asked about the death of my father alot. I’m older and people are seeing their parents get old and becoming infirm. They need someone with experience to get through it. So, they talk to me.

    What I’m trying to tell you is if you’re a parent, you should leave behind something that your children can hear you tell them that you love them. That they can go forward without doubting that. And no matter where you are in your life if you have loved ones, tell them that you love them as a goodbye. You want to make sure that that’s the last thing they hear from you in case something happens.

    Be well my friends. I love you.

    One of the Saddest Things I’ve Read

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    The Tomorrow Series by John Marsden is perhaps one of my favorite anti-war book series that I’ve ever read. For those that don’t know, the series is about seven Australian teenagers that go camping in the bush and when they return home, they find that another country has invaded their home. They then become guerilla fighters and try to fight to win back their homeland.

    The books are incredible and are each titled exquisitely: “Tomorrow When the War Began”, “The Dead of Night”, “The Third Day, a Frost”, “Darkness, Be My Friend”, “Burning For Revenge”, “The Night is For Hunting” and “The Other Side of Dawn”. They are harrowing to say the least.

    But the thing is that it has I think one of the saddest moments when it comes to growing up. Ellie talks about picking up a Barbie and trying to summon the magic of play that she had when she was a child. She just can’t do it. That magic is gone. It’s cut off from her.

    I’ve read a fair amount of anti-war and tales about growing up but nothing has resonated with me like that. It’s the same as someone pointing out that there was a point when your parents put you down one day and they never picked you back up. Leaving childhood behind means that you’ll never be able to do some things again.

    I’m childfree but I figure that this is partly why people have kids. To give them the things back that they can’t get. I always think about when I went to see the first Inside Out movie and wonder why I saw so many crying adults in there. I wondered if it was because they knew that there was going to be a time when they couldn’t make their kids happy. That their children would have to suffer pain. The inevitability of all of that.

    If you haven’t read these books, I highly recommend them. Just be aware that they get very rough at parts. He doesn’t shy away from the realities of it.