Letters to the Void

[Baldanders]

I just finished reading the whole blog and found it pretty touching. I really hope things get better for you, and I think that I'd be doing a lot worse if I was in your situation.

I've never been to America and only really know about it from the internet, so your descriptions of everyday social stuff are very interesting for me.

Also, if I may ask: You seem to be pretty untypical in your tastes and attitudes compared to most of the people on these websites, so how did you find your way to/end up posting on Amarna/TBC?

[Jeremy]

4/5

I had a bad dream and woke up super early and figured it would be cool to take a walk as the sun came up, but I wasted too much time on my phone getting out of bed and by the time I left realized I didn't have enough time to take a real walk. I kept going for a little bit by telling myself it would be worth it but it was pretty humid and I realized I would just keep thinking about whether Dinesh would notice, so even if I kept walking I wouldn't be able to enjoy. I did have enough time to enjoy a big bowl of Lucky Charms before I left, though. 

It was overall a chill day until Dylan posted a picture of what looked like some kind of busted milf with a ridiculously large butt ordering at Chipotle. It wasn't even close to attractive it had to have been some kind of genetic thing. Lamar replied to it with "Damnnnn" and then Dylan immediately replied with another picture that showed it was a man and not woman, which made Treshawn do his thing where he posts a ton of laughing emojis again which was whatever, but then Dylan posted a picture of his Burrito with guac and queso in it next to a bag of chips and a side of queso which he captioned "didn't pay a dime," which another new guy named Juan replied to with a bunch of skull emojis. Maybe he deserved it but it really made me feel bad for Ethan. I won't pretend like it wasn't his fault to a large extent but Dylan really was taking advantage of him. That order including the fountain drink I assume he got was easily more than 20 dollars, which is just way too much for a work lunch. I almost just added Ethan to the groupchat but decided it would be better to just follow my plan and check with everyone first. Just as I was typing out my message Patrick started laughing and said "watch this," then added Ethan to the gc. He said something really gay like "greetings gentlemen" and nobody replied to him. 

Our next job was complete bullshit. We were supposed to finish a vapor barrier in a crawlspace that had already been finished as far as we could tell. There was a tiny little bit of dirt exposed around some of the vertical beams but that didn't seem like something we would've been sent out for, and Miguel and the homeowner both refused to answer their phones. Patrick wanted to leave and say we fixed it, but I wanted to just patch the holes to be safe. Before we could get into a real argument I just said I'd do it myself, but as I was getting ready to go back in I realized Patrick had bought the wrong kind of plastic at home depot and I wasn't going to take the blame if someone noticed, so I told him he needed to do it, which obviously made him pissed. In the end it didn't matter because we were interrupted by Dylan calling Patrick and cussing him out for adding Ethan to the gc and yelling about how he'll get everyone in trouble. Patrick kept repeating that Ethan can't see the history but Dylan kept insisting "that's not the point" or "that's not the fucking point." Eventually Patrick said it would be "good content" or something like that but it just made Dylan angrier. After like ten minutes we heard Ethan ask what was going on in the background and Dylan hung up, which made Ethan text me why Dylan was so mad and if it was about him. I couldn't take hiding it any longer so I sent him screenshots of Dylan bragging about it. He didn't even reply to me, he just left the chat. The best part was that Dylan blamed Patrick for tipping Ethan off and they both got too mad at each other to realize it was me, although I'm sure they will eventually. 

I kind of fucked myself over when I got home from working by staying up too late to wake up in the middle of the night but falling asleep too early to really sleep in. 

4/6

I woke up in a really angsty mood and wanted to download Tinder again but when I went to the kitchen to heat up a breakfast sandwich I realized I had the apartment to myself, which was a great lottery roll. At first it was just a hunch but I checked the parking lot and saw Ethan's car was gone and didn't hear any snores from his bedroom, which I would if he or Mackenzie were there, so instead I just heated up a second breakfast sandwich, had a beer, and played smash for a while. It wasn't my greatest session but I definitely won more than I lost so it worked out, and they didn't get back until I was leaving to hang out at Patrick's, which was another good roll. 

I was kind of worried after getting lucky earlier that Patrick would have another gambling meltdown, but fortunately he hadn't placed any bets and didn't bring up crashing the plane. Crashing the plane has kind of become a mini-lottery. Sometimes he brings up it up all the time and other times he completely forgets about it. The fact Ethan wasn't there helped since we were both able to keep laughing about him instead of each other. I still feel bad for him but he brought it on himself and I did try to help him when he brought it up. 

4/7

It was nice to be back at the church I usually go to, although the service felt kind of mid. It wasn't as out there as my parents church but last Sunday was in the back of my head the whole time and it was hard not to notice similarities. Nothing at this church was as extreme but I did kind of cringe during a guitar solo and when the pastor started his long sermon about some hooker he converted when he was in seminary. The small group I went to afterwards was a bit better I guess because it's more discussion focused so it feels more real. Ezra invited me to go to lunch with them but I felt really tired so I just went home and tried to take a nap, although as soon as I got home and saw Ethan and Mackenzie on the couch I realized I'd fucked up. I wound up mindlessly playing Skyrim and drinking off and on until I finally fell asleep pretty early at like 10. I need to start looking for new apartments since my lease will be up in a little over a month, but I felt kind of off and didn't feel like it was the right day to start looking.

[Jeremy]

I just finished reading the whole blog and found it pretty touching. I really hope things get better for you, and I think that I'd be doing a lot worse if I was in your situation.

I've never been to America and only really know about it from the internet, so your descriptions of everyday social stuff are very interesting for me.

Also, if I may ask: You seem to be pretty untypical in your tastes and attitudes compared to most of the people on these websites, so how did you find your way to/end up posting on Amarna/TBC?

I found TBC through a twitter account I made mainly to waste time during the covid lockdowns. I never really figured out what it's deal was but I saw a virtual therapist for a bit towards the end of covid who said I needed to be more open and thought it would be a good outlet since it was kind of obscure and "out there" in a way where I figured I could vent without people getting mad at me for being right wing or trying to give me stupid "life advice," and then someone on there showed me amarna after I was banned but wanted to pick up the blog again. If you ever want to know more about America you can direct message me and I can try to help you out, although as you can tell I'm kind of low class so my answers won't reflect everyone here.

[Jeremy]

4/8

I showed up more or less on time but almost left when I saw the folding chairs and the flatscreen was back out. They did have a little minibar with different little debbie-tier pastries on them, which was better than nothing but still felt somewhat insulting. We definitely bring in enough money for them to afford real doughnuts once a week. Everyone finished showing up nearly an hour later and Pooja gave a stupid warm up speech. I think she noticed when I scowled at her after she asked us how are weekends were and scolded us for not responding loudly enough. A few people mumbled "good" or "okay" but none of them were particularly excited, except Ethan who yelled "Top tier," which is still being brought up as a joke in the groupchat. When we got into the van Patrick said "That nigga said top tier" and I had to warn him they have microphones in the vans, although I'm not sure if they record all the time or just if you get into an accident. I don't think Miguel would care but I could definitely see it as something Pooja would use to not give you a raise. 

The main part of the meeting was Dinesh going over his "performance metrics" while pretending to be friendly, which wasn't a big deal for me personally since my crew was ranked third overall behind Mark and Juan's trucks. You kind of heard people's whispers getting louder until Dylan yelled "You don't know the full story" in a clearly angry tone and was told that "We all need to please be respectful" which made Dylan add "All due respect I don't think you know what you're talking about" and waddle off to the bathroom. Dinesh hurried through the rest of his presentation and warned us that any team a certain percentage behind on so many metrics will be written up and thanked everyone for "demonstrating self control." It all ended with Dylan and somehow Ethan getting written up, which Ethan was obviously super pissed about. He kept begging Patrick to add him to the groupchat so he could whine to Dylan, but Patrick didn't want to put more fuel on feud with Dylan. It didn't matter in the end because Dylan started ranting about how there must be "snakes" in the gc via video messages until he eventually removed Patrick, myself, and Mark, which I won't lie pissed me off. None of this really had anything to do with me. 

It was nice to be able to complain about the whole thing with Ethan when I got home. He said he was going to demand they change his crew tomorrow, but I doubt he followed through with it. Apparently every time he tried to defend himself by pointing out (correctly) that he wasn't the one who disrupted the meeting and he wasn't the one in charge of how long they stayed at jobs or parking lots Chris just repeated that "This is not an argument this is a disciplinary hearing" and "Please be respectful" and stuff like that. Allegedly Ethan starting crying on the way out of the office but managed to save face by diving into the nearest restroom until he got control of himself. 


4/9

I left maybe one minute late but still within the window where I could get there on time with a lucky traffic roll, and about halfway to work I realized that while I'd remembered my vape I'd forgotten to charge it, and the charger was trapped in the wedge between the passenger's seat and the door. I nearly swerved into oncoming traffic reaching for it and decided to wait until a red light, which predictably meant everything single light was green and I didn't have a chance to vape until after I clocked in and had a really annoying conversation with Dylan where he kept trying to get me to tell him someone snitched on him or that I snitched on him, which simply wasn't true. I tried to explain that they have trackers on our work phones and on our vehicles but he didn't want to hear about. I did get the impression he doesn't suspect me as much as he does some of the other guys, though which was nice. When I finally had my first vape I realized what I thought was bad luck with not being able to reach the charger due to the green lights was good luck because it somehow unjinxed the traffic so that I beat the GPS and clocked in a minute early. 

Pretty much our entire day was spent hauling loading an old single bedroom house into a moving truck, I guess because the owner was forced into a nursing home. Watching what had clearly been somebody's home for years be emptied out for good was really unsettling. It kind of felt like I'd killed someone, or at least that I'd watched someone die. I drank a bit more than usual when I got home but it didn't take the edge off the way I hoped it would. 

I just couldn't bring myself to game so I decided to read the Hobbit, which I've been reading recently, which helped a little bit. It was able to distract me in a way Skyrim couldn't, but whenever I stopped reading I started thinking about the empty house again, which kept me up like an hour later than I'd usually fall asleep. While I was heating up a hot pocket I overheard Ethan tell Mackenie he was being gangstalked, which kind of concerned me, so I asked him who was stalking him, and he told me about how Dylan kept telling him "top tier" whenever he asked if he'd done something the right way or if he tried to tell him a story, he heard someone say it on the phone with Dylan, and Patrick mentioned it in a text. On top of that Dylan packed his lunch and didn't stop at a restaurant for Ethan to get his lunch. The only place he offered to stop was a Chick fil a, I guess because he thought that would offend Ethan, but when he pulled into the parking lot he said the truck was too tall for the drive thru and refused to stop for him to get carryout because Ethan "wasn't going to get him in trouble with Dinesh again." He did offer Dylan half of one of the three ham and cheese sandwich he packed, but instead Ethan walked to a nearby Wendy's and had a couple biggie bags. He wound up staying at the Wendy's, which was in a rough part of town, for a few hours as Dylan did the next job by himself. I guess to keep it from Mackeznie, who I assume was in the bathroom, Ethan whispered to me that he actually had to pay twenty dollars for an uber back to the shop after Dylan told him he's "not responsible for anyone who walks away from the job." Miguel isn't willing to make Dylan knock it off probably because Dylan has dirt on him. Dylan has made himself almost unfireable because he has less to lose than Miguel, who apparently has been in financial trouble for a while. 

4/10

Work was fortunately pretty quiet and we just had to deliver some furniture to a new "luxury" apartment complex and clean up some debris from a mobile home that's being renovated. Ethan called me while Dylan was getting some cash from the bank to tell me that Dylan had fucked up their plan to farm extra hours by forgetting to leave his work phone in the truck when they went to lunch. Luckily for Ethan he caught it in time to keep the lunch break to a reasonable thirty-five minutes. Me and Patrick guesstimated off what we'd seen on the charts that we could get away with a thirty-one minute break and still be within the top half, so we did that at a local barbeque truck. The barbeque itself was really good but there were a ton of mosquitos and they completely ruined my lunch. 
 
I went back to the Wednesday night Bible study, which was whatever. It started alright with an interesting question about modern miracles but after that the discussion turned into everyone repeating how you shouldn't judge other people and eventually confessing to stuff they wanted to get off their chest that proved how hypocritical they were. The abortion girl didn't manage to get a word out before she broke down crying. Eventually an Asian guy I haven't met said something about how you have to balance forgiveness and discernment, which Bryce said "amen" to. I didn't want to expose Ethan since I think some of the people there used to be friends with him so I just requested prayers for "a friend who's having trouble at work," which I think respected the situation enough to be okay. 

[Jeremy]

4/11

A pretty forgettable day overall but when I got home Mackenzie was there and Ethan was in a way better mood than he has been and he told he and Dylan had "perfected" their clock milking strategy. They left their work phones, which Dinesh can probably track inside their van at a jobsite and walked maybe half a mile to a nearby Chinese buffet (not the one that was next to my GameStop) where they stayed for like 4 hours. I asked him whether this meant his beef with Dylan was over, and Mackenzie rubbed his shoulder when he told me to "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" which made me want to throw up. What I can't understand is that Dylan never tried to pull that kind of thing with me. It made me worried he had "hacked" Ethan in a way kind of like I did with the lunch. To defend myself I think the difference is that I tried to make a fair trade and Dylan is always trying to cheat the system. 

4/14

I went back to the main service at the church I've been going to. The sermon was about gender roles and the pastor kept talking about how it was "really controversial" which pissed me off. I get that everyone's kind of woke now but I'm pretty sure most of the people there agreed with it. I was originally planning to skip small group afterwards but didn't feel like going back to the apartment and felt kind of hungover so I just stayed there, which meant I wound up shaking hands with Bryce's sister, who I'd tried to avoid before, on the way out. I realized later it was the first time a woman outside my family had smiled at me since before things went down with Veronicunt or Pooja was trying to pretend not to be a bitch. 

I eventually got sick of trying to find a game to play so I wound up going for a walk kind of late in the afternoon, luckily just before it started to rain. I had this idea about how there could be different lotteries and whether you "win" or not depends on who you are. I was thinking about how Dylan is a loser, but then I realized Dylan probably thinks I'm a loser. I didn't get around to deciding whether it was real because I kept thinking about Bryce's sister. Objectively she's kind of ugly but I couldn't get around the fact she smiled at me. Whenever I tried to really think about my lottery idea my brain started trying to imagine going out with her even though I'm not into her. I know it sounds like I'm in denial or something but I'm really not attracted to her, it was like an intrusive thought kind of thing.

[august]

Mackenzie rubbed his shoulder when he told me to "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" which made me want to throw up.

[...] I wound up shaking hands with Bryce's sister, who I'd tried to avoid before, on the way out. I realized later it was the first time a woman outside my family had smiled at me since before things went down with Veronicunt or Pooja was trying to pretend not to be a bitch. 

[...] I wound up going for a walk kind of late in the afternoon, luckily just before it started to rain. I had this idea about how there could be different lotteries and whether you "win" or not depends on who you are. I was thinking about how Dylan is a loser, but then I realized Dylan probably thinks I'm a loser. I didn't get around to deciding whether it was real because I kept thinking about Bryce's sister. Objectively she's kind of ugly but I couldn't get around the fact she smiled at me. Whenever I tried to really think about my lottery idea my brain started trying to imagine going out with her even though I'm not into her. I know it sounds like I'm in denial or something but I'm really not attracted to her, it was like an intrusive thought kind of thing.

[Muskox]

What kind of church is it?

[Jeremy]

What kind of church is it?

It's a baptist church, but to be honest with you I'm not sure what that means other than that they make a big deal out of baptism. It's conservative but in a kind of casual way where they don't enforce standards in the some way really traditional churches do. Sometimes it feels kind of hypocritical because the pastor will go off about how vulgar and "depraved" alot of our culture is, but he also has a weird habit of working exactly one swear word into each sermon. His favorite is talking about excuses people will make for sin then saying something like "Forgive me God, but I just can't help myself...that's bullshit." Usually it's when he gets really angry like that but sometimes he mixes it up and tells a story about how someone called him a jackass or something. I understand that even pastor's can't be perfect, but it's not fair to whine about others cheating if you break the rules yourself. Everybody else is kind of like the pastor where sometimes it feels like they don't take it super seriously. The best example is probably the abortion girl. I don't necessarily think she's faking it, but I also think everybody was probably too quick to believe she had really turned into a saint overnight. I understand not trying to be rude to her, but I even heard people talking about it like some amazing miracle when she wasn't present. I know from dealing with Ethan and even some stuff I've struggled with that it's alot easier to say you've changed than actually change, which is something everyone their seems to ignore.

[Jeremy]

4/15

Instead of cheap pastries this time they had a bunch of microwave sausage biscuits, which honestly weren't too bad. The results were about the same as last week, except that Ethan and Dylan were out of the write up zone and were replaced by one of the after hours crews we never talk to, who weren't there to get written up for it. There's rumors the overnight techs get special treatment because they also help the Rams with their property management and some paperwork stuff they wouldn't trust the rest of us with, but I've never met them so I can't say for sure. 

Patrick had some app coupon and I didn't really care so we wound up going to a Wendy's. I just got a biggie bag. The nuggets and the fries were really fresh, so they all had a satisfying crunch feel to them. The only problem is that as we were leaving Patrick spent like twelve minutes in the bathroom, which meant we had to clock back in well below average. Patrick said we could make it back later in the week, but it's alot better to save some up in the beginning of the week since you'll get more and more fed up later in the week. 

A little after I got home Ethan said he and Mackenzie would be back soon with some pizza and I was welcome to share some, but I took the opportunity to get a few beers from the fridge since I decided drinking them a bit too warm was worth not having to deal with her. 

4/16

Today was one of the most brutal days I've ever worked, including Wendy's. We had to place thousands of ceiling tiles in an ex-elementary school that had been sold to a logistics company. There had been alot of leaks in the roof that led to mold growing everywhere. Some cleaning company had already taken care of the mold problem but I guess because of the chemicals they used we still had to wear these annoying hazmat suits. It was hard to stand even ten minutes inside it, especially constantly walking up and down a ladder. The worst was when you tried to pop a tile it and it slipped onto the floor, which meant you'd completely wasted a trip up the ladder. Miguel kept telling me he would send another crew to help us, but nobody showed up until 5:30 when we were basically finished. 

I played Morrowind for a little bit before just watching youtube mindlessly. I was so exhausted by replacing that ceiling I almost skipped dinner. In the end I got a window to heat up a couple hot pockets while Ethan and Mackenzie went to the taco bell down the street.

[Jeremy]

4/17

I had to get a vape refill on the way into work and I figured I might as well get a bit of gas while I was there, which was a big mistake. The guy behind the counter was really hard to understand, and it took like a dozen tries for him to finally understand what I wanted. Somehow he confused "4" with "5," and when I went to explain it to him he tried to get me to move my car to pump 5 but by the time I got back to my car someone parked there. I was going to just explain the situation to them, but it was an extremely bitchy looking woman in an expensive SUV. It didn't matter in the end because they wanted like fifty dollars more in gas than what I'd paid for and wound up throwing a fit to the attendant, although to be fair to her it was a pretty dumb fuckup for him to make. In the end I got my gas but wound up fifteen minutes late to work, which is a bit worse than average. 

It looked like it was going to be an easy day until we got stuck with a terrible junk job at a new apartment complex. There wasn't that much trash, but there was a little bit everywhere, even high up on some of the staircases, which meant we stayed there until like 6 and probably didn't find everything. It really felt like something they should've had multiple crews on. Patrick also gave up at some point and started taking really long breaks and talking about how it was retarded to expect us to finish something like this in the afternoon. I wanted to join him but I also didn't want to give Dinesh a reason to make an example out of us. Patrick is convinced he's just doing it to scare us and that I shouldn't worry about it, but I still don't think the risk is worth it. 

The Bible study was whatever. It was a special event where they had a guest speaker in to talk about church planting, which was interesting but wasn't really what I'd showed up for. Part of me wanted to just walk out halfway through but I didn't want to be rude. It felt nice to slip out afterwards without anyone bugging me since Bryce and his sister weren't there and Tyler left on a phone call during the outro song. 

4/18

Just after I clocked in Miguel asked to speak with me, which made me really worried I was in trouble for something, but it turned out that he just wanted my opinion on Dinesh, who it's pretty obvious he hates. He went on and on about how Dinesh doesn't know what he's doing, which was kind of funny but also got boring pretty quickly. I was stuck listening to him for like ten minutes until Pooja called him into the main office for some kind of planning meeting he was pissed about. 

Dylan added me back to the groupchat, which was nice since it's good to be able to stay ahead of any drama that comes up. He didn't add Patrick or Mark back, though. I thought about telling them but figured it was better to just stay as uninvolved as possible. I also noted that he'd added Ethan, I guess in return for keeping quiet about how he milks lunch breaks, although I could totally see Ethan snitching on him if the right circumstances come up. We actually ran into them at a Mexican place we went to for lunch. It wasn't surprising to see Dylan had already had a few beers by the time we got there, but it was pretty funny to see Ethan was drinking some fancy cocktail which he claimed was a "great sip." I could tell everyone wanted to say top tier but nobody brought it up. 

I'd been drinking a bit but was pretty bored and since Mackenzie wasn't there I decided to watch some movie Ethan was watching about some how some bitchy high school girl had a difficult relationship with her mother. It wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen, but it all felt kind of forced like the new star wars movies. Ethan said he thought it was "challenging" but I was able to change the subject before he could start rambling about whatever he meant by that. 

4/19 

I had to wait like five minutes behind someone who couldn't make up their mind about lottery tickets to get my energy drink, and when they turned around after they finally paid I realized it was Lamar. He recognized me and asked me to "wish him luck" and made a really annoying smile. Overall he's not a bad dude but I definitely felt a sense of revenge when he complained about only winning one dollar in the groupchat. He got kind of mad when Dylan said he was still going to cash it in and called him "fatass," which meant Dylan kicked him out for a few hours. In a way it's kind of ironic that the real lottery only seems to be bad luck, although financially it makes sense. 

The only interesting job today was when we had to put up a bunch of flyers for some carpet cleaning company. They chose all of the busiest intersections for their signs, which meant I had to keep parking the van on medians where it was guaranteed to piss people off and in the end we probably got honked at eight or nine times. On top of that I missed an address which meant we had to drive twenty minutes further from the shop at the very end before we could head back, and when I told Patrick after I'd realized my mistake he just had to start doing the you crashed the plane thing again. I was going to try my rumble strip strategy again but of course we had to be driving on a new highway that didn't have rumble strips yet, which imo was another bad lottery roll. 

I fell asleep for a little bit kind of early but almost immediately had a nightmare about running from wolves at the apartment complex where we had the big junk job and woke up an hour after I fell asleep. It wasn't quite the same as waking up at 2 or 3 in the morning and the dream left me in a weird mood.

[Jeremy]

4/20

I woke up pretty late and wound up going to the Chinese buffet near my old GameStop. Their food sucks and it's kind of overpriced but it'd been on my mind and I didn't really have anything better to do. In the end it was a mistake because I didn't recognize anyone besides Kurt, who stayed at my table for an annoyingly long time pestering me about my job. It was pretty clear he wanted to quit the buffet but I knew I couldn't recommend him without it backfiring so I just said we weren't hiring. He didn't leave me until the owner whistled for him, which I could tell got under his skin. I'm still worried he's going to look it up on his own and apply but I doubt he'd be more annoying than Dylan or some of the other guys they've hired. 

I was starting to browse apartments near me and it really felt like looking for a job. There's alot of stuff that isn't terrible, but nothing that really pops out that isn't out of my price range. I didn't wind up browsing for long, because a few minutes in I got a text from Ethan that Mackenzie and some of her friends would be coming over for a "4/20 party" they'd planned because the person who was supposed to host it's apartment had some kind of electrical issue. I'm not sure I believe him but he said he'd got them to agree to just do edibles and not risk losing our security deposit to weed smell, and he had been good about keeping Mackenzie's friends out, so I figured I might as well give him the benefit of the doubt. It still ruined my mood and I did the thing where I just took a few beers to my room again. It didn't work this time because I ran out way too early and decided to just deal with the "guests" and grab some more. Of course Ethan, who was the only guy there besides this really loud and really fat homo named Brandon, had to start talking to me while I grabbed my beer, which led to him asking if I wanted some of his delta 8 to be nice. I've been trying to not use it anymore but I figured why not since my night had already been ruined. 

The next time I went out to grab a beer Ellie, who has a really annoying voice that's super high pitched and sounds like a man at the same time, interrupted whatever conversation to ask if I wanted to "be Simon." I said "No, I'm Jeremy" without really thinking, which I meant to be rude, but they all found it really funny. The fact they were in such a good mood made me feel bad about and I guess since I was kind of high I said I could be simon for a bit, which she explained was the leader of their simon says drinking game where if you couldn't or wouldn't do the Simon Says you had to take a drink. They'd uploaded a bunch of stuff to a google doc I was supposed to read it out of, like "Simon says point to your emergency contact" or "Simon says confess to something bad you did last week." It was kind of pointless because every time Ethan and usually Mackenzie would take a drink and everyone else would tell some embarrassing story about something retarded they did. Eventually I wasn't really thinking and read "Simon says twerk" and everyone got up and started twerking, except Ethan initially stood up but then sat down and had a drink. I kind of wanted to throw up so I just said I was "too high" and went back to my room. Fortunately I was smart enough to grab a couple more beers on the way because it was a while before I was ready to fall asleep. 

4/21 

I was originally planning to go to church and somehow remembered to set my alarm, but when I went to the kitchen at l to make a big bowl of Cheerios I saw Mackenzie and one of her friends (I couldn't tell who) kind of half sleeping and half making out on the couch. It was really disgusting and without really thinking I just went back to bed. Fortunately everyone but Ethan was gone by the time I woke up again and I was able to eat my Cheerios in peace and watch the news for a bit. I don't take it super seriously but kind of enjoy it as background noise, and sometimes they bring a crazy AOC type on which is usually pretty funny. 

I went for a walk kind of late in the afternoon before it started to get dark and was able to focus on the multiple lottery idea that's been on my mind, which I don't think is really multiple lotteries anymore. I was able to kind of break it down to the basic idea that different people like different things, so the same lottery roll might be a win or a loss for a different person. It doesn't really change the basic idea, but it does make it a bit more complicated. It does explain why some poor people are happy and some rich people kill themselves, though.