Lest anyone think renting a room goes poorly, that's not the case. It's the high point of the month, really. Air conditioning, indoor plumbing, (some) free food, friends to hang out with on occasion ... life should be looking up.
And yet, it's been days since I answered my phone. Reading the news is not terribly enjoyable, as, until recently, a fact known to be true today will also be true tomorrow. (As such, it's not just that the news is bad [which it most certainly is]; it's that it's often delivered poorly, and as someone who spent a couple of decades in newsrooms, I feel qualified to make that assessment damn near objectively.)
With Colbert gone, I watch John Oliver as well as the A Closer Look segments from Seth Meyers. So, maybe three segments a week total, and Meyers is still on vacation.
I watched the reboot of Scrubs, which was enjoyable, but for fuck's sake, it's on streaming. Nine episodes at 22 minutes a pop, yielding three hours, 18 minutes of total runtime for the season.
Over on the nonnews side of YouTube, Dosh Doshington (not his real name, shockingly) has been streaming a Nullius playthrough of Factorio, but is taking an extended break to condense the 80 hours so far into an hourlong episode
And yes, I watched all 80 hours, having caught it the day he started, but I can't possibly see starting from the beginning now, as 17 episodes averaging 4 hours and change is a commitment. Hopefully, I'll happen upon the first episode when he gets back into it.
That said, I really can't stand the whole parasocial streaming environment. Having people send money just so Mr. Doshington responds for five seconds breaks the rhythm, and I don't really care about things unrelated for Factorio when I'm watching to hear about Factorio.
The inflation situation continues to worsen. One of my little pleasures has been beef jerky, but that went up by a buck to $4.25 in the past week. Another is ice cream, which is now $7.59 for a half-gallon of the HEB brand, so ... generic (but their house brand is usually better than brand name across the board). Still, my $50 weekly food budget goes less and less far.
I'm not going to explore town in a class 5 commercial vehicle, so I've literally not left the property since moving in three weeks ago. And walking in this heat is a nonstarter.
Until a couple of weeks ago, I'd been using LLMs to get literary analysis, but having gotten through my backcatalogue, that's also fallen by the wayside. I did use ChatGPT last week for the dictation function to remember a dream as soon as I woke up that would otherwise be lost to the aether, but I have about as much interest in talking to a computer as a conversation as exploring the innards of an active woodchipper.
I used to be able to wile away my days on the web, but now I struggle to find anything that keeps my interest. It's not that my YouTube subscriptions have gotten worse; I'm just sick of gestures broadly analysis, given that a story about today's Iran or Independence Day snafus just isn't entertaining anymore.
The serendipity of the web seems totally relegated to history. My meals consist of salads and sandwiches -- almost always the same of each. And as I have my groceries delivered, I have to wait until I've run out of variety to justify the fees. At least where I parked in Austin, I could get a stick of string cheese at 7-Eleven when I got a wild hair, but here ... what I have is what I have, and also no trips to the brewery or hanging out at Church Night, which was great as someone who lived an eight-minute walk away, but it's about an hour each way by car now.
Psychologically, daily life is scarcely different from my van lifestyle. I'm usually on my laptop on my bed. Sometimes, I'll watch a movie or through on a random TNG episode, but new series that interest me and can take up the better part of a day are few and far between. I'm not even excited about Strange New Worlds starting a new season in July, given the quality decline in the last season, whenever the hell that even "aired."
Inspired by the Factorio series, I've logged another 50 hours of gameplay on a non-Nullius modpack that I'm enjoying because I'm exploring optimization in a very complex sandbox. But there's nothing to really show for it, compared with projects that yield tangible results.
I've struggled with depression since adolescence, and this is something completely different. Not hopelessness or despair, just a sense that there should be something more to life than renting a room at nearly 47. The commune plan is still on the table, but many things I have no control over need to happen before the becomes a concrete path forward.
I don't even enjoy drinking a beer anymore. Could be I was spoiled by living closer to Austin Beerworks than anyone else with an enclosed space, but it could also be an inability to justify paying $12 for a six-pack of middling IPAs.
For a couple of years, I had hopes of what life would be like when my van experience came to an end, and instead, it's just the same old thing, day in and day out. I have to check my phone in the morning to find out what day of the week it is.
And then, running out of internet after a half-hour and firing up Factorio.