nathan > Recent Status Updates

I was both a kike and a whore, so her words did not even bother me. And I was so in love. That was all I could focus on. It was like this now, all sound had become background noise. All human interaction outside of what I had with Ariel was now interstitial, plot points, a way to pass time.

You cannot force it. Instead, you must show kindness, grace. So let’s follow Ariel’s as she bravely tries to make him love her. Let’s follow Ariel’s on her quest. Read on, man.

She needed to make him love her. And this was one of the most difficult trials of her quest so far. Because you cannot force someone to love you. Even if you have the skills of a knight and the beauty of a princess who sits in the highest tower.

A part of me thought it would be nice to be the girlfriend of a man of God.

For now, she needs a name. We must give her a name before she starts her quest in earnest. Because a hero needs a name. Because this will be tragic. Because when you are twenty-three you can fall in love with anyone and this is a terrifying and true thing. Let’s call the girl Reality. Reality Kahn. Let’s follow Reality on her quest.

Here is the quest: to be the greatest girlfriend of time. The very best there ever was. Here is why: because her heart was ready, Jesus Christ, it was so ready. She didn’t even know it at the time but it was. She didn’t even realize it but she was ready, she was ready, she was ready.

I have to tell you a story first. 13.8 billion years ago. The explosion of a tiny, dense fireball. The accumulation of particles. The accumulation of stars, of asteroids, of galaxies. Suddenly, a big blue rock. Suddenly, a pool of water. Plankton circling the drain. A plankton you might even say was in the shape of a girl.

"What happened to diversity of thought?"

But I was grateful for my insignificance..

I glanced around my room at all the pears and apples; it felt like they’d brought a whole orchard and left it in my room. A housewarming present of sorts. I felt wrong that I was eating the hard-earned fruits of my parents’ labor when I’d failed to produce any such fruit myself.

While people always sang about idiots in love, in reality, everyone was doing calculus before allowing themselves to fall in love. After all, stupid love today was painful love tomorrow—regretful and embarrassing.

“Why is everyone—” My voice was becoming shrill. Frustration surged through my veins. “Why is everyone so selfish? Sometimes, a person just wants to be left alone. Why can’t you people just let me be? And you wonder why I invented an invisible man?”

…“putting food on the table.” Why did people use that phrase so often? Did people eat to work, or work to eat?

I couldn’t understand why anyone would film themselves for others to watch. Who started this trend? And why? Was it just a desperate plea for attention, a need to feel acknowledged in every aspect of life? Where would people draw the line? And just as puzzling as the people who made these videos were the people who watched them.

..our lives had diverged and were now running parallel to each other’s, separated by an ever-widening gap. Realizing what the future had in store for us, I could feel my heart start to sink inside my chest. Eventually, the gap between us would become too wide to cross, and all I could do was hope for some more time before that happened.

..graffiti became known as street art, art on the frontier.

That’s how graffiti was born, not as some form of art, but as a fragment of the landscape.

“But Basquiat puts copyright marks on his graffiti. He says it’s an expression of his pride as an artist.”

Perhaps that’s the only way people get on with their lives. They can’t live if they don’t forget.

The protests failed in the end. I was amazed at how fast everything became mere reminiscences. All those people went back to their own lives to live only for themselves.

The protests failed in the end. I was amazed at how fast everything became mere reminiscences. All those people went back to their own lives to live only for themselves.

Sitting there alone, I made a promise to myself never to forget this moment, when I was alone while everyone gathered in the plaza. Most of all, I wanted that moment to remain nameless. I didn’t want it to become a memory of the collective but a lonely fragment of a beautiful panorama that I’d keep for myself.

“And then I started falling behind. One rejection after another. And all the while, I was throwing my money away on English lessons and Starbucks. And when I did finally get hired at a subsidiary of yet another large company. So here I am, sitting in front of you, pretending that my working here longer makes me more qualified, while I talk about how I’ve failed to become part of the mainstream.”

People say that the universe is all made of dust. But I’ve never felt happy about being called space dust.”

And everyone was talking about the end of the world. People were losing their minds, talking about the Rapture and ‘rising to the clouds to meet the Lord.’ The same thing happened in 2012. But here we are. I guess the world is more stubborn than people give it credit for.”

I could see six empty beer bottles on our table, but I could hardly remember a single thing we’d talked about. We were just existing, speechless and in a dream state, letting the tune trickle in and out of our ears. Sometimes, when the music, alcohol, and emotions were just right, no words were needed.

Everyone’s so obsessed with pointing out mistakes.

When you really thought about it, there was no reason—not even a bad one—for people taking a swimming class together to know each other’s ages or occupations.

As for me, I am just one of the many unfortunate souls whose farewell to youth came during this era.

Injustice is still the law of the land, and the promised era of ordinary people never came. What we got instead was the exact opposite: a world in which ordinary people are forced to follow the crowd while simultaneously being expected to use every method to stand out from it, desperately screaming at the tops of their lungs, begging to be noticed.