You are a very lazy person.
You just lost your job.
Well, maybe "lost" isn't the right word.
They were cutting back due to lost revenue. But you're a very essential employee, and they assured you that they might be able to hire you back again in a year or two.
You know, when the revenue stream picks back up.
Since you have enough savings to live off of, you decide to wait until the job is made available again rather than diving into the job market.
It's not because you're such a lazy person.
It's just because the job market is so awful right now.
And because you don't really *need* the money.
[[Enter your unemployment...]]So as not to be completely irresponsible, you put up your CV in a few places online, looking for some simple work you can do from home.
(text-style: "subscript") [(Mostly just proofreading.)]
Then you decide to settle in and wait.
There's no point in leaving the house.
You'd just spend money.
Besides, you have such a backlog of books to read and games to play and shows to stream.
And your house could use a good deep-cleaning.
And maybe you could sell off some of your old junk.
You spend the rest of the day playing video games, but [[you go to bed feeling pleased with yourself.->choice 1]]It's a nice day outside.
You should probably go for a walk, or maybe go to the park and read a book in the shade of a tree while listening to the rustling of the leaves and the sound of the geese in the lake.
On the other hand, those geese are a freaking menace, and there would be no place to sit that wasn't hip-deep in goose doots.
Forget the park.
[[But you could still go for a walk.]]
[[Or you could stay home and not do that.]]You get all ready to go out walking in your neighborhood.
But you know, there's that lady across the street doing gardening, and you still haven't forgiven her for the way every single one of her house guests either parks directly across from your driveway making it almost impossible to get a car in or out of the driveway or they park directly in front of **your house** and if you went outside right now she might try to talk to you and she doesn't seem to *get* how annoying her guests are.
Not to mention that you never bother with things like gardening (note to self: you should probably do that at some point in the future) and the plants in front of your house are kind of running reckless and looking generally unkempt.
(text-style: "subscript") [(At least you have someone who comes in and mows your lawn for you...)]
And now that you think about it, there are a lot of people out walking their dogs and what if one of them tries to talk to you?
You still haven't lived down the embarrassment from the last time that happened.
You end up deciding not to go for that walk after all.
You spend the day making plans for all the good, purposeful things you're going to do tomorrow while streaming the three seasons of *Grace and Frankie* you were behind on.
[[But you're sure you'll be up to something fun tomorrow.->choice 2]]You spend most of the morning listlessly trying to figure out what you want to do.
You toy with the idea of trying to write the great American novel, but decide against it: American novels suck.
You think about trying to write the great British novel, but figure that would be an awfully pretentious thing for an American to attempt.
Instead, you write a blog post about how much you plan to accomplish while you're waiting to be rehired.
[[You go to bed fairly sure that you wasted the day, but confident that tomorrow will be better.->choice 2]]It's a gloomy day, overcast with forecasted drizzles of rain. Definitely a day to stay at home.
Not that you have anywhere to go anyway.
As you lazily eat your breakfast (about an hour after you would have been arriving at work if you still had work to arrive at) you try to decide what to do today.
[[You could try to write something.]]
[[You could go exploring on the Internet.]]After spending most of the morning trying to decide what to write, you decide to write the ultimate Greek mythology novel: the deep and passionate, tragic love story that is at the heart of the longest and most enduring of the Greek myths. It will be a look at the Trojan War that no one has ever taken (you lie to yourself), and it will explore every facet of the most powerful and poignant of all mythological romances.
The novel derails before you can even finish plotting it, because you cannot figure out for the life of you just ***why*** someone as wonderful as Patroclos would be in love with such a cruel and capricious man as Achilles. (Surely Patroclos wasn't as shallow as modern men to fall in love for looks alone!)
Instead, you write a very bad poem about how awesome Patroclos was to kill 27 Trojans in one sentence, and how very cowardly and pathetic Apollo was to kill him in such an underhanded way.
It is ***so*** bad that you close the file without even saving it.
You spend the rest of the day idly coming up with the perfect cast for your dream Trojan War movie...though you have trouble coming up with anyone you'd want to cast other than Sir Anthony Hopkins as Zeus.
[[Tomorrow will probably be better.->choice 3]]Not the most productive of plans, but it sounds like fun, so why not?
You explore into dark corners of the Internet you've never seen before.
(In fact, you feel like some of them probably have cobwebs on them.)
Eventually, you stumble onto a forum caught up in a raging debate over which is the canonical pairing: Harry/Draco or Draco/Harry.
You enter the argument with a long and stirring post (which is rather without any logical merit as you haven't read or watched any of the canon material in years) about how the only truly canonical pairing is Hermione/Ginny.
Your argument is so empassioned that it wins you some lifelong devotees among the Hermione/Ginny shippers, and the lifelong enmity of pretty much everyone else on the forum.
As you find it very unlikely you'll ever be in that particular corner of the Web again, you don't really care.
[[But hey, who knows what tomorrow will bring?->choice 3]]It's very stormy today. High chance of thunderstorms. Better not use anything electronic that's plugged in.
Cut off from all video games (other than hand-held), you're at something of a loose end in planning your day.
[[You could do something crafty, maybe.]]
[[Or you could read a book.]]You think about doing some resin work (you have so many molds you haven't even used yet!) but it's too hot outside to open the windows to let out the stink of the drying resin, so you quickly decide against it.
Then you wonder if today's the day you should dive into your plans to make a boxed room. You have some air dry clay around here somewhere, and some foam core. You could make the walls out of foam core and then coat them inside and out with the airdry clay and cut lines in it to look like bricks...
...but that sounds like a lot of work.
And very, very messy.
Besides, even if you made a boxed room, what would you fill it with? Miniatures are expensive, and you don't have a job right now, remember?
You stare at the airdry clay for a while and wonder if there's anything you actually want to make with it.
Then you turn on the TV and stream that new anime on Netflix everyone's been talking about on the Internet.
It turns out they were actually talking about how bad it was...
What a waste of a day!
[[Tomorrow is sure to be better.->choice 4]]The book you've been reading comes to an unexpected and abrupt end as the heroine strangely decides to fall in love with the hero (despite how much she's been flirting with the other female lead all this time!) and throw herself into a volcano just because it might convince the volcano god to cure his mysterious and deadly illness.
Ugh. ***Why?!***
Feeling entirely frustrated, you get out one of your hand-held consoles and pop in the most violent game you have on it.
You pick a female character to play and lay waste to every male enemy you can find while leaving the female enemies alone.
It's cathartic, and yet strangely unfulfilling, possibly because there are so many female enemies that you keep getting game overs.
[[Hopefully, tomorrow will be better.->choice 4]]Nothing concerning about the weather today; no storms, no sun, just clouds and clouds and clouds. Not a day you really want to go out into, even if there's nothing wrong with it other than the heat.
[[Maybe it's a good day to just play video games all day.]]
[[You should try to clean up around here.]]You're still in the middle of playing that modern remake of an old Super Famicom party-based action RPG, after all. You should try and get through that. (It's a SNES game. How long can it be?)
Even though you're enjoying the game, it's also pretty frustrating.
They've changed the names of several of the elemental spirits from the entry in the game series that you're most used to, and it keeps bugging you.
And for some reason the game is insisting on giving you "panty shot" views of the character you're playing, even though she's wearing what is essentially a leotard. (Not to mention the grossness of the camera wanting to show the player the crotch of a teenage girl! Fifteen thousand shades of wrong!)
But it's a fun and colorful game and you're not *too* bad at it, so you're basically enjoying it.
Until that one boss decides to spam his nearly impossible to dodge group attack that keeps interrupting the animation as you're trying to heal the party, and wipes you out.
You're so pissed off that you turn off the game in frustration and binge the entire new season of *Aggretsuko* in one sitting.
[[Please say tomorrow will be better than this!->choice 5]]Yup, this place definitely could use a good cleaning.
There's still that pile of empty boxes over there where you got lazy about dealing with them after getting the goodies out whenever a package arrived.
And a pile of junk mail that needs to be sorted into trash and recycling.
And now that you think about it, several of your trash cans are all but overflowing...
...not to mention the dust gathering on everything in your collections, and the crud on the sink, and...!
Yup. This needs doing.
You get the boxes broken down and recycled.
You put that pile of mail in a paper bag to make it easier to sort it.
You get the trash cans emptied...
...and you are now thoroughly exhausted and a little bit sweaty, so you decide to take a nice long bath.
[[Still, at least you accomplished something, right?->choice 5]]Your utility bills are going to come due soon.
You'd better get those paid lickety-split!
Fortunately, that's so easily done that you don't need to put it off, even with being as lazy as you are.
You log into your bank's website and arrange the epayments for your utilities. (Yeah, you should probably use the mobile app, but what if you lost your phone or someone stole it? Then wouldn't they have access to your bank account? That would be unthinkable!)
Since you're online with your computer (instead of your phone, you lazy thing), you decide to make the most of it.
[[You should find a new place to post your CV to look for work.]]
[[There are a lot of forums you haven't been to in a while...]]You look up a few more business-type sites that connect freelancers with potential clients.
Most of them seem to want you to post a photograph of yourself.
If you were into posting your photo online, you'd be all up in the social media crap like everyone else.
You send one of them a bitter message about how their requirement of a photo is discrimination against the ugly.
Then you head over to Kickstarter to see if there are any projects going for visual novels or to fund self-published books that sound like they could use your services as a proofreader.
You don't find any that you'd feel comfortable approaching, but you do find a lot of really cool projects...
...but since you're out of work, you only back a couple of them instead of all of them...
...though you feel sort of guilty about not supporting those other projects that look so great just because you're short on income right now...
Well, you marked them for later, so maybe you'll find new work before they're over.
[[You go to bed feeling strangely confident about your future.->choice 6]]You go to check on that one site you used to go to all the time (but especially in November) to see if they've fixed all the ghastly problems they gave it last year.
They haven't. It's still ugly and the forums are designed to be as obnoxious and hard to use as possible. And it still prioritizes their hideous and random cover art over your words on every single old project. And still thinks time-based goals are word-based goals and that you didn't write anything in your last project.
Ugh. Why would anyone ruin a perfectly good site like that? Did they actually *want* people to stop using it?
You're so disgusted that you forget to go to any of the other forums and turn off the computer.
You spend the rest of the day playing video games.
[[You go to bed with the nagging feeling that you meant to do something more today.->choice 6]]The weather outside is frightful. Lots of thunder, heavy rain, and your phone got a flash-flood warning.
Once again, you're cut off from anything electronic.
[[That's okay, there are lots of non-electronic things to do.]]
[[Maybe it's a good day to get organized.]]You could play a board game or put together a puzzle.
You don't actually have that many puzzles, though, and your best table for putting them together is kind of full of crap.
But there's just enough room on the table for a board game, so you decide to do that.
You get out a board game you liked very much when you tried it with your family a year ago and check online to see if there are any single-player rules.
There aren't.
You spend the whole day trying to come up with single-player rules for it.
The first rule set you come up with is too easy and makes it all but impossible to lose.
The second one is much too hard and makes it literally impossible to win.
[[Not the best day ever.->choice 7]]You've been meaning to catalog your collections for ages now. After all, what's going to happen to all your stuff if something should happen to *you*? You like to tell yourself that a toy museum will want at least some of it, but it's probably best if there's a nice record somewhere to make sure they know what each item is and where it came from.
First things first, you'll want to photograph every single item against a blank backdrop.
You set up a piece of plain foam core as a backdrop and grab your camera. (Phone photos won't do for this. Especially because it's too much of a pain to get them from your iPhone to your Windows computer!)
But the camera's batteries need charging, so you have to put the plan on hold, plugging in the batteries to charge.
While you're waiting, you grab a hand-held console and start gaming.
You get so caught up in the game that you completely forget about the camera, and by the time you're done with dinner you can't even remember what that foam core is doing on your table.
[[But you had fun, and that's important, right?->choice 7]]It's a nothing of a day. Partly cloudy, light wind, no precipitation.
You remind yourself that you're supposed to be keeping yourself mentally occupied during your phase of unemployment, so that your old employer will still want you back.
With that in mind, you decide you should do something that will stimulate your brain today.
[[You decide to learn how to make visual novels.]]
[[Maybe rewriting an old novel would be a good plan.]]You go online and download the latest version of Ren'Py, so you can make your own visual novels.
How hard could it be? You're great at dialog (even if you're not so great at descriptions), and it doesn't matter that you can't draw because there are asset packs out there and if you put together a really great visual novel you could always crowdfund to get the money to hire an artist to make unique art for it.
For a test run, you decide to make a cute little program that will give the player a unique literary quote for every day of the year, with snarky or humorous commentary from Demotemena, the Muse of the Public Domain, who you made up just for this project.
You spend all day at it and accomplish very little.
It turns out that Ren'Py is actually pretty complicated.
It would take way more effort to learn it than you're willing to put into it.
[[You have a new respect for the programmers of visual novels, but you wasted the day.->choice 8]]Booting up your laptop, you brush the metaphorical dust off of that series of novels you wrote six or seven years ago. Maybe you can get them polished up and try to self-publish them. That might even (*gasp*) get you some income!
You spend the whole day reading the first novel in the series.
It's actually a lot better than you remembered, but also a lot more flawed.
Huge chunks of it will need to be replaced with new material.
And you'd need to do a lot more research into Mycenaean archaeology, and you're not a student anymore, so you don't have access to the university library to **do** that research.
[[At the end of the day, you tell yourself that you really ought to rewrite those books someday, when you have enough free time.->choice 8]]You're starting to feel listless from being home for so long.
You need to get out of the house.
But preferably you shouldn't buy anything you don't need.
Since you're getting low on groceries, you decide that maybe you should go grocery shopping.
[[Yup, that's a good plan!]]
[[Nah, you're not that low. Besides, not having much food will help you lose some weight.]]You go to the grocery store and buy way too much food.
A lot of it is junk food and frozen pizza.
And you realize you're having trouble making the right small talk with the cashier. (You knew you should have gone through the self-checkout!)
Maybe you need to start going out more.
Or maybe you should just avoid people next time you go out.
[[Eh, whatever.->choice 9]]Feeling nostalgic, you dig out your Gamecube and put in the very first (American) installment of that cute game series about being the only human in a village full of animals. (Because the first one was the best, regardless of all the quality of life improvements in later installments!)
Adjusting the Gamecube's clock repeatedly, you have a great deal of fun playing through about a month and a half of the game...
...until Tangy suddenly moves away without warning, causing you to rage-quit about an hour after you would normally eat dinner.
Realizing there's no comfort food in the house, you order pizza.
(You order several pizzas, in fact, so you'll have lots of leftovers to make up for the fact that the only thing in your freezer is ice cream and frozen taquitos.)
[[You go to bed with a slight stomachache from putting greasy pizza in an empty stomach.->choice 9]]You're feeling listless and bored today.
It's the kind of day that you would have--while you still had a job--wanted to treat with retail therapy.
[[Maybe you can just window shop.]]
[[Better bury yourself in a game!]]To make it easier not to make a purchase, you decide to do your window-shopping online.
You spend the day browsing deeper and deeper through Etsy, finding more and more things you would really, really, ***really*** like to buy.
Fortunately, your Etsy account was suspended due to a credit card mishap, so you *can't* buy any of it.
But that just leaves you feeling even more frustrated than before.
[[You spend the night being tormented by dreams about things you're not allowed to buy.->choice 10]]You decide to spend the day playing through a Metroidvania you've played a dozen times before.
No surprises, but nicely addicting.
[[By the end of the day, you're feeling nicely soothed.->choice 10]]Maybe learning a new skill would help you get out of the doldrums you've been in lately.
You're sure that's the case, and decide to get right on that.
[[You should try to learn a new language.]]
[[Maybe now is the time to learn 3D modeling.]]You try the demos of several different language-learning programs.
Apparently in the decades since you last took any introductory language classes, someone decided that all you needed to know to learn a language was the vocabulary, and that grammar was for suckers.
That must make you a sucker, because you cannot consider it learning a language if you don't learn the grammar.
You're very frustrated and decide to dig out your old high school Latin textbooks. (You might still have the German textbooks, too, but you're pretty sure you tossed the Greek textbooks because they were falling apart. Not that you were ever any good at Greek anyway.)
You look through them, but get the feeling that using them outside a classroom setting will be an uphill battle at best.
Instead, you try to learn a language by osmosis, watching a foreign-languge film with the subtitles off.
[[It doesn't work.->choice 11]]No.
It's not.
It's just not.
No matter how hard you try, you can't wrap your head around it.
(Then again, you can't even draw stick figures successfully, so is that really a surprise?)
[[You spend the rest of the day reading an autobiographical manga about the artistic journey taken by someone who can actually draw.->choice 11]]Today seems like a good day to do nothing.
[[You get right on that.]]Well, yesterday was utterly the most wasted day of your adult life.
You can't let that happen today!
Although you do have pretty bad cramps today...
[[Time for chocolate and a good movie!]]
[[Distractions needed, stat!]]Let's face it, you're gonna end up crying today no matter what, right?
So you may as well watch something designed to make you cry.
Then you're crying because of the movie, not because you're particularly hormonal today.
Right?
Right.
You look over your DVD and Blu-ray collection for movies designed to make you cry.
You have two versions of *Les Miserables*, but the concert one is out because they had an opera singer performing Jean ValJean, and the movie version is out because of about a million reasons. (In fact, after the last time you watched it you found yourself wondering why you had bought a copy in the first place.)
Looking past that, you realize you don't have that many tragic movies other than *Iphigenia*, and that's not really a "make you cry" kind of tragedy. Though you do have the DVDs of *Rose of Versailles* around here somewhere, but it would take so long to get to the tragic ending that it would defeat the purpose. Not to mention that you never finished watching it the first time around, so you'd have to try to figure out where the heck you were and ***then*** binge the rest of the show.
You go scanning Netflix for something tragic but not too melodramatic to watch.
You don't find anything that really grabs you, so you end up watching something light and fluffy you've seen a dozen times before.
[[The chocolate was good, though.->choice 12]]You decide to lose yourself in a game.
Because, let's be honest, that's like half of what you do anyway.
Your first choice suddenly arrives at a brutal and entirely unexpected boss fight that would normally enrage you but today it makes you cry. (With rage, but still.)
Your second choice is too slow to start and doesn't grab you.
Your third choice is so easy that it bores you.
Your fourth choice is just a demo and it's over just as you're really getting into it. (And you end up going to Kickstarter to back the rest of the game. Ugh...more money you shouldn't be spending.)
You decide to watch one of your favorite childhood movies, and end up crying every time the villain is on screen because it's so tragic that the actor passed away.
[[Ugh, what an awful day.->choice 12]]There's another thunderstorm out there today.
[[Maybe you should go somewhere,]]
[[Why don't you text your former coworkers and see what they're up to?]]It's a good idea.
But the question is "where?"
After all, you haven't cut down your spending nearly as much as you meant to. (Darn you, Kickstarter! (And Patreon!))
You don't want to go anywhere you're gonna spend money.
But just hanging around the house is super boring.
After debating for hours, you decide to go on a staycation...
...so you go handheld-mode and play at being a tourist in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world.
You take a lot of digital pictures (love that screen-cap button!) but it quickly gets frustrating trying to avoid any and all plot-related events and enemies.
Still, it ate up a good chunk of the day, so that's a win, right?
[[Of course it is.->choice 13]]It's been a while, after all. Maybe they got laid off, too, and you can all get together, even if only virtually.
Oh, but if they *didn't* get laid off, then they'd still be at work right now.
You shouldn't bother them while they're working.
Better to text them tonight.
You crack open a good book and lose all track of time.
By the time you remember about your co-workers, you're already getting ready for bed.
[[Well, there's always tomorrow.->choice 13]]You wake up this morning with a burning desire to play that RPG you started twice but never finished on its initial release two generations back. The remastered edition has been just sitting there ***screaming*** at you to play it, after all! It was cruel of you to make it wait so long as it is.
[[Yeah, good idea!]]
[[No, you should do something productive instead.]]You're just getting ready to play when a news article on the front page of the console's menu distracts you.
It's announcing the prequel to a game you really loved.
You spend the rest of the day looking up footage and information about that new game, and checking out videos of easter eggs you didn't find or strange and difficult feats you never attempted in your own playthrough of the game.
[[Well, at least that's something to look forward to.->choice 14]]Yeah, you ought to write something.
It's important to keep your writing muscles in good shape.
(Just in case.)
After some dithering, you decide to write a stream-of-consciousness epic explaining (in her own words) all the reasons why Clytemnestra was in the right when she murdered Agamenmnon.
It's going pretty well until you get to her killing Cassandra, too. Then it falls apart entirely because how can anyone justify that? But can you justify changing it so she *doesn't* kill her?
You write five versions of the ending, but none of them feels right.
(You were getting rather punchy by the end, and the fifth version involved a time traveler coming back to rescue Cassandra before Clytemnestra could accidentally kill her, and then all three of them traveling to another world so Orestes can't find his mother to kill her. It somehow ends up with the three of them becoming the goddesses of a race of purple-skinned, five-armed glob-people. Crazy as it is, it's still your favorite ending.)
[[Maybe not the best day ever, but not bad, either.->choice 14]]Today is so not happening.
It's an icky day outside, and you're feeling trapped not just in your own house but in your own skin.
[[Time for emergency measures!]]
[[There's only one way to distract yourself from blues this bad!]]You haven't exercised in ***ages***. You can feel the excess weight building up on you.
Better do something about it.
[[You decide to start jogging.]]
[[You prefer to exercise at home.]]You manage to dig out a pair of tennis shoes that aren't too ancient and decrepit and get yourself all kitted out to go for a jog around your neighborhood.
The skies open as soon as you open the door.
[[You decide you'll start jogging tomorrow, and play games all day instead.->choice 15]]After some debate about the best method, you buy an excercise game for one of your consoles.
You picked it over the others because it includes one of your all-time favorite songs. (A brilliant cover of which is in your absolute favorite movie, and you can't hear the song in any way without thinking about the movie.)
You're enjoying it, but you're already winded by the time you're done with the warm-up.
And it's aggravating that bad ankle, too.
[[You take a bath to wash off the sweat and plan on getting further in the game tomorrow.->choice 15]]Despite all better judgement, you go shopping.
Sort of.
You don't allow yourself to *buy* anything, but you walk around a lot and look at all the pretty things you can't have.
Okay, so maybe you do buy a ***little*** something.
Just a tiny little $20 (or $30) knickknack to sit on your shelf and remind you that your life isn't over yet.
And maybe lunch.
And a mid-afternoon snack.
But basically you don't buy anything.
[[And you're feeling much better now!->choice 16]]You put your favorite movie in the Blu-ray player and immerse yourself in the beauty of it all.
The sex scene at the end is especially engaging to you today (though how can a scene of two such gorgeous men having sex *not* be engaging, even if is *is* shot from across the street and way too short?) and you find yourself spending the rest of the day writing yet another fanfic about how your OTP will find a way to hook back up after the movie is over and live happily ever after.
[[Yup, that was what you needed! Mission accomplished!->choice 16]]You want to do something meaningful today.
You're not sure *what*, just ***something***.
[[You decide to make something.]]
[[You vow to clean up your house for reals.]]You get out the airdry clay and start mushing it aimlessly between your fingers.
It sounded like a good idea to make something, but what?
If only you were better at this, maybe you could make stuff you could sell online. (Though you're not quite sure *what*.)
You try to make a cute little figurine, but it doesn't work.
You end up making a clay Lego brick.
That seems beyond pointless, so you mush it back into the package before it can dry out.
[[Well, you tried.->choice 17]]You spend all morning planning the best way to go about it.
The process was so mentally exhausting that you need some gaming to recharge your gray matter.
It's night by the time you realize you lost track of time.
[[Oh well.->choice 17]]You are starting to run out of ideas.
You don't know what to do with yourself every day. You don't even know what to tell yourself that you're doing with yourself every day.
[[Maybe it's time to give up on waiting for that job to open up again?]]
[[You are sure you just need to get really involved in a project to get over the hump.]]You know this is right.
Just because they *said* it might open up again in a year or so doesn't mean they would necessarily hire ***you*** when the time comes. (Sure, it was implied, but maybe they were just saying that because they realized how upset you were.)
You don't have a lot of qualifications, but there must be *something* out there you can do.
And yet the more you think about it, the more you realize there really isn't.
You don't just lack qualifications, you lack experience, especially for a woman of your age.
You buy a lottery ticket instead.
[[(You don't win.)->choice 18]]You decide to write a novel.
Sure, you've written lots of them before, but this one is going to be different. You're not going to pants it this time. You're gonna write a proper outline and you're gonna *follow* that outline, and it's going to be brilliant and net you an agent and a publisher and...
...and you realize you don't really have any good ideas. All your files of potential plot ideas on your hard drive are for fanfiction, most of it fanfiction that could never, ever have the serial numbers filed off to become something more-or-less original.
So maybe you should write some non-fiction instead.
You start working on a comprehensive book of Greek mythology.
By mid-afternoon, you're writing a blog post about what an overwhelmingly complicated task that is and why it's much more than you could possibly accomplish, particularly without being fluent in Ancient Greek.
[[Why does it always turn out this way?->choice 18]]Yesterday was way too depressing.
You need to play games all day today to make up for it.
But which game should you start with?
[[Metroidvania all the way!]]
[[Classic RPG, of course!]]
[[One of those fifty zillion visual novels you bought but haven't played yet.]]You've got a Metroidvania you haven't played yet sitting around somewhere, you're pretty sure.
Wait, do you?
You spend most of the day hunting through your stacks of physical copies of games, then your downloaded games on both current gen consoles, and then on the PC, and you don't see one you haven't played yet.
Well, that was a waste of time!
You decide on a short randomizer playthrough of the most recent one in your collection, but you're still sort of bitter about all the time you wasted.
[[So it goes...->choice 19]]Yeah, you can't go wrong with a classic RPG.
But how classic?
Like, should you dig out one of your old systems and play a true classic you've played before?
Or should you play a classic-like game on a current-gen console?
Or maybe something on the PC? (You always forget about gaming on the PC, despite how many PC games you've bought...)
Looking around at what you've got in your PC backlog, you decide to log in to Kickstarter and see if there have been any updates on the games still in development.
You notice there's a new campaign from the creators of your absolute favorite game in the history of all games.
You ***cannot*** avoid backing this.
Especially since there's a tier with enamel pins!
Of course that tier is $200, but it *does* also come with a physical copy of the game, and a vinyl soundtrack, and...it'll be worth it.
It had better be worth it, 'cause $200 is really more money than you should be spending right now, but you're doing it anyway.
You spend the rest of the day reading the massive comment stream on the campaign page.
[[It won't come out until late next year (or early the year after that) but you're excited none the less.->choice 19]]It's tough to decide which one, of course. There are *that* many.
Then you remember you hadn't finished that one you were playing before, because it was getting really weird the way they mixed the horny-sex-dating-sim aspects into the mass kidnappings plot and it was kind of freaking you out a little, but you really still ought to finish playing it. (Really, you ought to play it about a dozen more times, considering how many CGs there are to unlock.)
You were pretty close to the end, though, so you have to find another one to play after you're done.
That one was yaoi, so you decide to balance it out with a yuri visual novel. (Though you have a lot fewer of those for some reason.)
[[All in all, not a bad use of a day.->choice 19]]You think you read somewhere online that today is "International Streaming Video Day".
So you decide to honor that most sacred of days.
[[You decide to spend the day browsing YouTube.]]
[[You opt to binge streaming anime all day.]]You start out with some classic flash animations that have been brought over to YouTube, then watch lots of snarky reviews and fake movie trailers.
By the time you can feel your brain rotting from lack of anything to do, you look around online and find out that there's no such thing as "International Streaming Video Day."
[[Oops.->choice 20]]Your queue of to-watch anime is, after all, a mile long.
You pick one that's a reasonable length to stream in a single day, and get down to business.
By the time you can feel your brain rotting from lack of anything to do, you look around online and find out that there's no such thing as "International Streaming Video Day."
[[Oops.->choice 20]]You're starting to feel even lazier than ever, and not in a good way.
You need to accomplish *something* if you want to maintain your tenuous grip on sanity.
[[Can't go wrong with writing.]]
[[Purge some of the excess stuff from this house!]]Of coure, you can't think of anything *to* write, but when has that ever stopped you before?
You go online to look for writing prompts, and use them to write three or four really bizarre short stories that make no sense, are not particularly interesting and don't even really answer the prompt.
Still, at least you wrote *something*.
You post the least awful one to your blog and call it a job well done.
[[Okay, maybe not *well* done, but done, at any rate.->choice 21]]The easiest way to reduce the clutter seems to be to attack the bookshelves. You've still got books from classes you took as an undergrad, for crying out loud!
You get through about one shelf, selecting half a dozen books to take to a used book store, before you notice a book you have no memory of.
You start looking through it to see what it is, and end up spending the rest of the day reading it.
Not that it's even all that good, and yet you somehow can't tear yourself away.
But at least you culled six books, right?
[[Just another dozen shelves to go.->choice 21]]You're starting to feel worried about your finances.
You need to find a way to make money while you don't have a job.
[[Maybe you can make videos.]]
[[You just need to look harder for online work.]]You're not sure what you could make videos about, though. You don't really have anything deep or funny to say about anything, you're not good enough at games to stream them, and you sure as hell don't want to appear on camera.
You always fancied yourself a good singer, though. Maybe you could sing covers and get advertising revenue from the videos.
As a test, you use your phone to record yourself singing one of your favorite songs (the one you feel you're best at singing) as you listen to the song on headphones.
After listening to the recording, you swiftly erase it and vow never, ever, ***ever*** to sing in front of other people.
Or possibly at all.
[[You find a nice, no-singing-ever show to stream to purge your mind of the terror.->choice 22]]You look through even more freelancing sites, but you're not coming up with any good possibilities.
You look through forums where people can post that they need a proofreader for their manuscript or game, and come up with even less.
The longer you're at it, the more depressed you get.
You decide to buy a lottery ticket.
[[(You don't win.)->choice 22]]Life is getting depressing and monotonous. The heavy overcast sky outside isn't helping.
[[Maybe you should take a self-care day.]]
[[Better to soldier on through by burying your nose in a good book.]]You decide to take a self-care day.
Though you have to Google just what that entails, of course.
Most of it seems to be things you wouldn't want even if you could have them for free.
But a nice bubble bath seems like a good alternative to a day at a spa.
Good and cheap.
[[You feel relaxed...at least for a while.->choice 23]]It's going well until the day becomes so overcast that it's dark enough inside your house that you have to either turn on the lights or stop reading.
You don't want to turn on the lights so soon after lunch, so you decide to set the book aside and play games for a while.
[[You can pick the book back up tomorrow.->choice 23]]Maybe what you need is some human interaction.
[[Sounds like a good idea.]]
[[Or maybe a pet would be a better idea!]]You decide to get involved in a good cause.
It won't bring in any money, but volunteer work will look good on your CV.
Thinking over your options, you decide to sign up with an environmental charity.
Looking over their site, you see that most of the in-person volunteer work needed is not in your area. And most of the online work has to do with calling total strangers and asking them to donate money.
And calling people on the phone is a lot more uncomfortable for you than for most people. You don't think you can do that.
Maybe you picked the wrong charity for you.
[[You're sure that next time you'll pick one with better options.->choice 24]]Humans can be cruel and awful and are generally terrible more often than not. But a cute, sweet little ball of fluff is always cute and sweet and loving!
Yeah, you should get a pet.
It's been long enough since you lost your previous kitties. You can handle it. You're not going to fall to pieces this time.
Though a pet means pet food bills.
And vet bills.
And pet toys.
And other expenses...
Okay, maybe a pet isn't a good idea, either.
[[Maybe you can go to that nearby cat cafe sometime instead.->choice 24]]It's such a beautiful day outside that your spirits feel lifted just looking out the window!
[[You should go to a park and enjoy it!]]
[[You should be responsible and take care of your yard for once.]]It's hard to pick the right park, of course.
You don't want to go to the zoo, because it will be crawling with kids.
And the nearby park is crawling with geese. Also with people walking their dogs.
Actually, almost every park in the area will be packed with people walking their dogs.
Maybe you should just sit on your porch and enjoy the day from there.
Or maybe you should just open the windows and stay inside where no one might try to talk to you.
And then you could still play games.
[[You can go somewhere tomorrow.->choice 25]]You get as far as the back door before you shudder in horror at the thought.
Why ruin such a nice day with such unpleasant things?
You go for a nice drive with the windows down, enjoying the fresh air.
[[You can work tomorrow.->choice 25]]Thunderstorms again.
No gaming of any kind, because your handheld's batteries are too low, and your laptop's batteries are low, too.
[[There's still board games, of course.]]
[[You should try to find some stuff in your collections that you can sell off.]]Thats right, you have that whole stack of games you bought while on a "I'm gonna play board games, darn it!" kick, most of which you haven't even opened yet.
You end up opening the one with all the fancy miniatures, even though it doesn't have a single player ruleset.
The miniatures are really drab, though.
You dig up some paints to see if you can paint them and get them looking all pretty.
[[The results are anything but pretty.->choice 26]]Selling your collection would be like selling your babies! What kind of monster could do that?!
(Wait, is *that* why you have so much trouble with the very idea of selling your novels?)
You do identify a few things that you felt like maybe you shouldn't have bought in the first place, but what are you supposed to do about them? It wouldn't even be worth opening an account somewhere to sell them; they'd only bring in a few dollars.
You set them aside and decide to watch the Blu-ray of that ice-skating anime you bought a while back.
[[It's just as good the second time around.->choice 26]]It's not the nicest day, but not the worst, either. Not *too* hot, but just hot enough that you don't want to go outside. Not *too* sunny, but just sunny enough that it's nice and bright inside.
[[The perfect day to write!]]
[[The perfect day to deal with the house!]]You settle with your laptop at a table near the window, so you can look outside and see what's going on.
You end up keeping a running tally of everyone walking their dog past the front of your house.
One guy passes by three times, staring at his phone the whole time.
One lady stops to tie her shoe and nearly gets hit by a car.
One kid spends twenty minutes riding one of those stupid-looking not-hoverboards up and down your street, looking bored out of their skull as they're doing so.
You also do a tiny bit of world-building for that fantasy novel you've been rewriting for the last five years.
[[But not very much.->choice 27]]This is it.
Today's the day.
You're gonna get this house in ship-shape shape or else!
Or so you tell yourself.
You do manage to alphabetize one bookshelf...
...but without trying to merge in any of the stuff from the other shelves.
[[Well, at least you tried!->choice 27]]You're very depressed this morning.
[[You need to snap yourself out of this funk.]]
[[Give in to it. Let the malaise flow through you!]]You buy a cheap, colorful indie game from the download store on your favorite console, and immerse yourself in gameplay that's way too difficult for your meager skills.
That's actually counter-productive, so you stop pretty quickly.
You decide to watch an old magical girl anime instead.
That helps a lot more.
[[You're still not in the best headspace at the end of the day, but better.->choice 28]]You go to Netflix and find a depressing, colorless movie to watch.
It's actually so depressing that it cheers you up, because it's so much worse than your own life.
You end up playing games the rest of the day.
[[By the time you go to bed, you're practically chipper.->choice 28]]Another gloomy day. Not stormy, just overcast and depressing.
[[A time-travel binge sounds good.]]
[[Fantasy is what's called for today!]]You decide to binge some of your favorite television show about a time traveling alien.
You pick your favorite season--the one where his companion demolishes one of those alien pepperpots with a baseball bat--and watch as much of it as you can in one day. (Skipping the depressing story where way too many people die and the companion isn't acting like herself at all.)
You top it off with a screening of *Back to the Future*, just because.
[[A pretty good day, all told.->choice 1]]How many two and a half to three hour movies can you watch in a single day?
You decide to challenge the laws of time and physics and the human ability to stay awake by trying to watch the extended cuts of all six of the Middle Earth movies.
(text-style: "blur")[By the time you go to bed, you can barely see.]
[[That may not have been your best idea ever.->choice 1]]