2026-08-22 14:30:38
Recently, I've started transferring away from Gmail and moving to other, more trustworthy, providers woohoo, new leaf. During that time, I scoured every website and emails to transfer. That's when I stumbled upon X (formerly Twitter, and I prefer to call it that).
And man oh man does it suck.
I remember this once being a platform with real people sharing real things to each other. I still remember meeting the artist that inspired the beginning of my journey when I was younger, though sadly I can no longer find a trace of them there anymore.
But now, there's just AI, porn, checkmarks, checkmarks, porn, Grok... Oh man... The entire thing is basically corporate, attention-grabbing, and all the other terrible adjectives out there. I've honestly never seen a place that accurately describes hell in my life.
Look how they massacred my boy :'(
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2026-08-22 12:41:00
Jake Gyllenhaal 演的《Demolition》在我的电影清单上躺了很久。今天终于看了。一直对这部电影很好奇，是因为主人公身上表现出的情感解离，和我自己身上的某种麻木似乎有点像。
电影里，Davis 是在妻子突然离世之后，才诚实地意识到自己的麻木。现实中，我意识到自己的麻木是在 2018 年 5 月。那天，婆婆去世了。
我至今记得那个早晨。阴雨连绵的密西根，空气里透着寒冷。我坐在校车里，头靠在车窗上，看着玻璃上的哈气和缓缓滑落的雨滴。美国校车的座椅就是两个很硬的平面，外面裹着一层皮子，又冷又硌，让人浑身不舒服。
周围的同学叽叽喳喳地讨论着《创造101》——谁昨晚熬夜给哪个成员刷了票，哪个成员最好看。
他们真的很吵。我不喜欢。
我没有想象中的难过，也没有大哭。只是流了几滴眼泪，望着窗外掠过的芦苇荡，心里觉得无比地空。心情当然是低沉的，可那好像又不是悲伤。我的心就像死了一样。
那一刻我觉得自己像个冷血的怪物，甚至暗自庆幸身边的老师同学没有人知道我家里发生了什么。不然，他们会怎样看我呢？
这个状态一直持续到上课。直到周围突然再次变得聒噪起来，我的脑海里才终于浮现出婆婆的样子。
婆婆走之前其实已经病重很长时间了。之前有次视频通话，她说，她要争取挺到小斯斯放假回国。我当时心里莫名就有一种很不好的预感。所以，也许是因为潜意识里，我已经做了很久的心理准备。
就像 Davis 后来开始怀疑自己和妻子之间是否真的有过爱情，那时的我也开始反问自己：我是爱婆婆的吗？
答案当然是肯定的。
我至今仍然能回忆起和她经历的很多细节。小时候陪她逛菜市场，我非要一个人拎两个大购物袋，不肯让她拿任何重物。买完菜，我喜欢和婆婆一起坐三蹦子回家。她和司机讨价还价的样子很飒。我会给她写很多温暖的、表达爱意的贺卡；陪她一起看《养生堂》，然后假装自己是医生，给她写病历、开药。
2017 年，我高一。婆婆因为低钠血症短暂失忆。我从学校赶去医院，发现她不认识我了，于是躲进医院的厕所里哭得特别伤心。我的记忆里，那好像是我哭得最伤心的一次。也是那一次我才知道，原来人极度悲伤的时候是哭不出声音的。只是难以控制地把嘴巴张开、撇得很大，呼吸仿佛停滞了一样。原来心脏真的会疼。
所以，我是爱她的吧。
可为什么现在她去世了，我却哭不出来呢？
我依旧清晰地记得她的模样，依旧会在看到一些东西、做一些事，或是去到一些地方的时候想起她。
但也只是想起她。
也许，在回忆里不断挖掘那些细节，就是我爱她的方式？还是说，因为我的理智知道，婆婆继续活着只会遭受更多痛苦，所以对于“死”这件事本身，我其实并不为她感到悲伤？
我不知道。
当然，我的“麻木”应该还是比电影里 Davis 的“麻木”好上很多。在很多事情上，我依然有能力感知幸福和悲伤。
至少，我自己仍然这样认为。
说说电影吧。
看《Demolition》的时候，我总是不禁想到《局外人》里的默尔索。
两个故事的开头很像。Davis 和默尔索都有一种很强的情感错位：他们不是完全没有情感，而是他们的情感反应和社会预设的剧本对不上。妻子死了，我“应该”悲痛；母亲死了，我“应该”哀悼。可他们没有表现出社会认为该有的感情。
不同的是，默尔索似乎并不觉得这有什么需要解释的。他不会怀疑自己是不是不爱母亲，也不会努力寻找一个符合爱情的答案。他只是拒绝伪造情感。反倒是社会非常在意他有没有表现出“正确”的情感。他自始至终就天然地不太进入那些社会已经替我们规定好的意义。阳光、汗水、海水、身体的不适、别人说话的方式，他都看得很清楚，但对于这些东西“应该意味着什么”往往没什么兴趣。直到最后面对死亡，他才真正意识到并接受世界的“温柔的冷漠”。
Davis 不一样。他是真的不知道自己为什么会这么冷漠，他很困惑。
妻子的死对他来说是一个 anomaly。按照他原本的理解，他过着一套世俗意义上看起来完美的人生。那么妻子突然去世以后，他理应非常难过。可他没有。
这个反应让原来的那套意义结构失效了。
所以我很喜欢电影里拆东西这个设定。Davis 不是突然想通了人生没有意义，而是真的在试图弄明白到底哪里坏了。所有看似摧毁的动作实际上是他在重新检查过去的人生。所以与其说他在寻找意义，我觉得“破解”可能更准确一点。
默尔索没有这个 anomaly。他的反应并不会摧毁他对自己的理解，因为他本来就没有那么相信社会提供的那套解释。Davis 却原本是一个彻底的“局内人”。他不是因为看见世界荒诞所以疏离，而是先在一个框架里活得越来越麻木，直到妻子的死暴露出一个他再也没有办法忽略的矛盾。
Davis 和默尔索所处的世界都有一种很荒诞的地方：充满了虚伪的自我感动，以及一套关于人应该怎样生活、怎样爱、怎样悲伤的现成剧本。
比如 Davis 的岳父岳母。面对女儿的死亡，他们表现出的是一种高度社会化的悲伤——哭泣、纪念、成立基金会、讲漂亮的话。我并不怀疑他们真的悲伤，但这种悲伤又很快被整理成一套体面而有意义的仪式，甚至要求 Davis 一起参与。Phil 急着为女儿的死亡建立意义，却没有真正理解 Davis 为什么根本无法进入这套意义。
从外面看，他们当然比 Davis“正常”太多了，可正常并不意味着更真实。社会判断一个人的内心时，极度依赖这些可以被看见的仪式。于是“按照规范表达爱”很容易被当成爱本身，而一个人拒绝或者无法完成这些仪式，又很容易被理解成“没有爱”。
想到这里，我发现这和自己当年坐在校车上时害怕的事情其实很像。我那时候为什么会暗自庆幸老师同学不知道婆婆刚去世？大概就是因为如果他们知道，我会立刻意识到自己正在被观察。我应该是什么表情？应该哭到什么程度？如果我还是正常上课、说话，他们会不会觉得很奇怪？其实根本没有人在审判我。但我心里知道，一个人面对死亡“应该”是什么样子。
还有一点我觉得 Davis 和默尔索很像：他们看起来都很麻木，但其实都是高度敏感的人。只是顺序不一样。
默尔索一直对具体的感官经验很敏感。他注意阳光、炎热、身体、声音，只是不太把这些感觉继续解释成更抽象的东西。Davis 一开始则是真的麻木。直到妻子的死亡让原来的生活出现裂缝以后，他才突然开始观察周围，观察别人，观察自己以前根本不会注意的东西。
所以默尔索是先敏感，再和意义保持距离；Davis 是先疏离，然后通过重新观察恢复敏感。
我好像处于这两者之间。
从这个角度看，我甚至觉得 Davis 的结局比默尔索更困难一点。
默尔索最后接受了世界没有意义，走向刑场。这当然不容易。但接受无意义本身其实可以处于一个稳定的位置。
Davis 继续往前走了一步。他重新允许世界对自己变得重要，但这也意味着重新允许自己受伤。
那么问题又回到了最开始：
我们为什么如此习惯用悲伤证明爱？
Davis 的经历告诉我们，麻木不一定意味着没有情感。有时候一个人确实在经历什么，只是情感无法被自己辨认。悲伤也不一定非得表现成哭泣。悲伤可以长得不像悲伤。
默尔索则在质疑：也许我们根本不应该预设，一个人在某种情况下必须拥有某一种“正确”的感情。母亲死了为什么一定要哭？没有哭为什么就能够说明一个人缺乏感情，甚至缺乏道德？
而我的困惑是：我是爱婆婆的，可为什么她去世的时候，我就一定应该非常悲伤？
当年我因为没有崩溃而怀疑自己不够爱她，其实已经默认了一个很简单的逻辑：爱得越深，失去的时候就应该越痛。
可我现在不确定这个逻辑是否成立。
如果我知道她最后已经非常痛苦，继续活着对她而言未必快乐，那么对于她的死亡，我是否也可以有悲伤之外的感受？解脱、接受，甚至某种平静，都一定意味着我爱得不够吗？
当然，也许是我在为自己的麻木开脱。我不知道。
可爱的真实性，或许本来就不应该靠失去以后的悲伤强度来倒推。
然后…… “失去”又该如何定义呢？死亡是不是一种彻底的缺席？记忆还在算不算失去？
2026-08-22 12:00:07
I'm not fully sure if that's how the title should be since I've never done a post like this before, but fuck it. We'll do it live.
I first saw Absurd Pirate's post a few days back, which then led me to Chloe's post. Similar to AP it made me want to share my own experience about losing my dad, because I haven't really talked about it properly in the five years since it happened.
Maybe this would help - be it me or someone else - somehow.
Of course, before I continue, I'm going to first offer my condolences towards Chloe. The first few months are some of the hardest, and while I unfortunately don't have an email set up yet to attach to this blog for someone to reach out to, I do hope you're doing as well as you can be during this incredibly tough time.
Big ol' trigger warning for talk about death as we go on.
First, some background context. Da had a major brain hemorrhage when I was ten. He survived the experience but was fundamentally changed. Short-term memory wasn't the best, and every handful of years he'd have a seizure that would require a hospital stay for a while.
He had a medication change in early 2021 and it made him a little... dazed. More so than usual. It all came to a head when he had one of the previously mentioned seizures and ended up in the hospital while they tried to pin down what the issue was.
The day before he died, Ma and I went to visit him. Covid restrictions were still in place then, so he could only have one visitor at a time. I walked Ma up to his little room, said hello, and he asked where I was going as I moved to go back down to the car and wait until visiting time was over. "Rules say it's only one at a time," I'd said. "I'll see you tomorrow. Love you."
Those ended up being the last words I said to him.
When Ma left that day, he was in a good mood. He'd been improving and was even eating dinner when visiting time ended. We went home, did our usual daily routine, and went to bed. I was woken up the next morning by Ma shouting that we needed to get to the hospital ASAP, that she got a call, and that something had happened.
We get there, and the doctor takes us into a quiet little room. The kind where every outside noise is muffled, like you're underwater. I think something deep in me knew then, at that point, what had happened before he told us. During the night Da had a second seizure, but this one was bad enough to cause such a massive brain bleed that he couldn't recover in any way. It was just a matter of time until he stopped breathing, and we needed to call the family.
Ma broke down right there, in that little room. I... went into some sort of dissociative state? I don't quite know how else to describe it. I just knew that Ma couldn't handle any of the things that needed doing at that moment, so I did them on autopilot. I called her sister first, who told me my cousin would come up for me so we could go find family that didn't pick up the phone. Then I call Da's side. The script is the same: "This is it. It's a matter of time. You need to be here."
Family starts pouring in slowly over the next hour or two. Da had eight siblings, and Ma had twelve, so there's a lot. Covid restrictions suddenly don't matter anymore as everyone hovers around my clearly distraught mother, taking turns to go in and see Da and say whatever they want to him. I leave with my cousin to briefly return home and inform our neighbors who'd want to know.
Then we go back to the hospital and play the horrible waiting game. Waiting has always been something I've hated, be it for a phone call, in some sort of line, or in a doctor's office waiting for my name to pop up to be seen. But here, in that moment, time seems to slow to an absolute crawl.
Eventually, somehow, I dozed off sitting next to one of my relatives. Again, I was woken up by my mother screaming. He'd finally stopped breathing, and was gone. Strangely, I felt a sense of... relief. In the way that I was glad he wasn't suffering anymore, at least.
After that things get... fuzzy.
The following days involving the wake and funeral are a bit of a blur, my memory retaining bits and pieces. I remember helping relatives move furniture around the house to prepare for his body returning home. The first thing I did was take down every mirror, covering the ones I couldn't.
I remember talking to the priest, organizing the readings and hymns to be used during mass. I remember one of my aunts - one of Da's sisters that lives in England - boast (for some fucking reason) that she brought all the family together again in that moment. I didn't confront her about it at the time, even though I wanted to. It wouldn't have helped.
I remember our next-door neighbor, one of Da's best friends, bent over the coffin sobbing about how he'll miss him. I remember another aunt drunkenly divulging the secret that she almost eloped with another man a few days before she got married.
I only remember three things about the day of the funeral itself. How seeing Ma collapse at our front door as Da was carried out broke my heart. How I couldn't help carry the coffin myself because I'm too short. How people kept asking if I was sick because I sounded different. My voice had changed because I'd started taking testosterone two months before all this, and I wasn't publicly out as trans yet.
After that is just white noise. That's not even a metaphor. I don't remember the latter half of 2021, which is... not great, but I've since learned that it's a more common reaction than I initially thought. Even now I'm still not sure how to handle grief. For me, it embraces me in its overwhelming grasp in the quiet moments when no one can see me. And that's fully a me problem I need to work on.
On one hand I'm glad we got the 25 years with him after the initial haemorrhage that could have taken him from us much earlier. But sometimes when I make something spicy, I think that he'd love it if he were still here. I have a playlist with all his favourite songs I listen to now and then. Sometimes I consider adding newer songs to it I think he'd like if he were still around. I felt the loss the most after top surgery, thinking that he should be here and how proud he'd be of me for going through with it. He was my biggest ally since I changed my name sixteen years ago.
... I realise now I'm not really sure how to wrap this up. Thank you if you stuck around until the end. It couldn't have been easy to read. It certainly wasn't easy to write. Hug your loved ones, and if you can't, send a message or something. I'll be back eventually with something less heavy.
2026-08-22 09:09:00
Yes, that's my chest in the header image. No, the cut of my T-shirt isn't flattering.
When I wrote the post Six Months After OBX, I put together this separate post of spicy answers to the kinds of questions people have been asking, but decided to only post it if things got worse.
Things got worse. I will not go into detail on that yet, so I can let victims speak first.
OBX already showed that rules alone are not enough, especially when the leadership is as flawed as the IFPA's. The IFPA operates on precedent a lot, and the current precedent is that a rule is not enforceable if Josh Sharpe would be uncomfortable with it being enforced.
That hasn't changed in any way, and the new rules are just clarifications of what the old, unenforced rules said. We're looking for real changes and accountability, not lip service.
Do you welcome all trans people, not just "the good ones" who pass as their gender and don't make a fuss?
Do you support those who are protesting the IFPA for condoning a hate crime?
Are you willing to put the blame for OBX on the cis men who enabled it to happen, not on the trans people it happened to? Will you demand that Josh Sharpe, Adam Becker, and Kevin Stone be held accountable, even belatedly?
If you can honestly answer yes to those, then you are an ally and you should not be accused of transphobia. The people I have heard accused of transphobia have earned it, because they have done none of these and fought against some of them.
And if your position is "I don't see why it's a big deal that a trans woman was thrown out of a bathroom and threatened with arrest, I just want to play pinball," that is transphobia.
That's called tokenism, and it extremely doesn't help.
You know the IFPA already had rules on safety and inclusion before OBX, right? The responsibility of a TD or an IFPA director is to uphold the rules, even if they are cis.
Seeking advice is fine, but they didn't do very much of that, and they are still responsible for their decisions. They should not have sought a blessing to do nothing about it from the nearest trans woman. A four-word response from an overwhelmed trans woman is not permission to run a tournament that violates IFPA's inclusion policy.
If you consider their words to mean things instead of being meaningless fake apologies: Josh, Adam, and Kevin have all said themselves they are responsible for what happened at OBX. So why would it be shocking for me to agree?
No trans player has thrown a cis person out of a bathroom and threatened to call the cops on all the cis people, so, no, we have not gone too far.
You're worried about the effect that angry trans people could have on your reputation, or your job, or your family being disappointed in you? First of all, we're not really that powerful. Secondly, trans people in the US have to worry about those things all the time plus worries about being arrested, forcibly detransitioned, or killed.
If you're cis, you're doing this on easy mode. IFPA staff, you can own your mistakes and talk to the victims, and if you can't, you should step down and yield to someone who can.
Wow, I wonder how that happened!
Support pinball tournaments that have nothing to do with the IFPA. If the IFPA has no alternative, there will be no way to hold them accountable, and they will continue to be able to push trans people out of pinball entirely.
I have been glad to see the increase in non-IFPA tournaments of various forms, whether they're simply one-shot tournaments, local leagues that have left the IFPA, or alternative structures like Punk Rock Pinball.
We don't want to segregate pinball. We used to participate in the tournaments that IFPA players were playing in while opting out of the IFPA, and unfortunately, the IFPA took away all of our options to do that. So now the best way to stop segregating pinball is for cis people to play in non-IFPA tournaments.
2026-08-22 07:45:00
My god, this life is exhausting.
Internet-wise, having ADHD is 'quirky'. You see lots of funny memes joking about it. Not only the 'obvious' stuff like forgetting to do something or losing things around the house/workplace, but also on things like 'oh my god I got so much to do and yet I can't get up helpppp'. Which is also played up for laughs bc that's the internet for you, this is how we deal with trauma around here.
The problem with this is, beyond the (grossly erroneous) 'everybody is a little ADHD these days' argument, it makes ADHD sound like it's a quirk rather than a debilitating disorder. Something that is an actual disability.
I haven't been able to work for almost this entire year of 2026, and a huge portion of that is due to ADHD. The other, apparently, is perimenopause (brought even earlier on because — plot fucking twist — women with ADHD can experience symptoms in their 30s and much stronger than women without it).
So I can't work, I can't earn an income, I can't pay off credit card debt, and I just... sit here wondering when this is all gonna end. Waiting for a moment when I'm gonna be able to get up and do stuff. Work. Send out CVs. Do some much needed networking in my area. Go to events. You know, function and pay bills and live.
But so far, I haven't had much luck. You see, the thing is, ADHD is a disability. It doesn't go away because I want it to. And it isn't quirky or funny when you can't afford groceries or cat food or utilities. It's not funny at all. For the folks saying everybody is a little ADHD, I'd ask when was the last time you lost your income because you couldn't move from your bed, that you postponed work for so long you ghosted a client and didn't have the guts to talk to them again, that you lost friends and job opportunities over and over and over again because you literally couldn't move to do what you had to do.
On the flip side, I don't miss people. Barely remember them if they aren't around me. Ops, did I say flip side? I meant fuck side. People get sad and feel hurt by my neglect. And they start resenting me. And here I am, just living, feeling absolutely nothing, when I suddenly receive an email/text/call saying what a bad friend/family member I am, for never reaching out, for taking so long to respond. How can I be so heartless?
Ah yes, how fucking quirky ADHD is.
EDIT
Guys I am medicated!!! This is me medicated! If I weren't I wouldn't be writing anything ever.
2026-08-22 06:35:46
ask any artist what their source of inspiration is, and they'll tell you. what's mine, though?
being alone. in silence. with my thoughts.
yes, really. i strive to be bored and have a quiet moment to process things. in a tech-dominated age of... you know what... it's rare to have a quiet moment anymore. but you should do your best to find one, in spite of everything.
i know what it's like. you're stressed from long days at work or school, so when you get home, you just want to turn on the TV and binge netflix or youtube to have some form of solace. i get that. but doesn't that just make you feel even more stressed? i find that my best work comes from sitting in silence and wondering, "would this be a good idea? or maybe this?"
one need only look at nature. many social animals have schedules, including humans. most of their day is spent resting or socializing, after the couple hours they spend working, foraging, or hunting. what i'm trying to say is that being constantly stimulated is not natural nor healthy. your brain needs time to slow down. it's not "laziness", it's what animals are supposed to do after a long, hard day.
you SHOULD be bored sometimes. don't listen to anyone telling you that being bored is a bad thing.