Monday the 16th of August, 2010
Going Analog.
My name is Avery Edison. I’m a little bit famous on the internet. A few thousand people, give or take, know who I am. If you’re reading this, then you’re one of them.
The Internet is not a meritocracy, and any popularity I hold is not due to my talent or skill, but rather it is a testament to the kindness of friends who have linked to me in the past and guided others to my web site, or to my Twitter profile. The fact that I have been so lucky makes me scared to walk away, and leave my followers, fans, friends behind. For all I know, this is as good as I’ll ever have it, attention-wise.
I’m going analog for a little while. As much as you guys have enjoyed the various things I’ve made for you, I myself have never been entirely satisfied. I know I can do better. And right now I don’t think it’s helping me to put every single thing I make online the second after I make it.
I hate melodramatic “leaving the interwebs!” posts like this. But it’s difficult to otherwise get across how oddly affecting it is to say goodbye to the online chunk of my life.
I am so grateful for everyone who has ever supported me.
My name is Avery Edison. I used to be a little bit famous on the Internet. I’m taking some time off to move to Canada, go to college, and grow up.
Tuesday the 10th of August, 2010
Zoloft and Risperdal.
I have these things my therapist calls “doom events”. That’s when I’m like, riding in a car with someone and suddenly I start imagining the car getting into a terrible crash. But, like, everything is super detailed. If I’m riding with you then I usually imagine you getting badly hurt, and me being fine, and you dying, and asking me if you’re okay, and me telling you that it’s all fine. That you’re so happy.
Eventually the doom event starts to feel so real that I start crying, I become incredibly depressed, stuck in this loop, unable to think about anything else. It happens a couple of times a week, and it always ruins my day. We’re trying to medicate.
Since I started the pills, I’ve been having a new doom event. In it, you and I get married. We have a child together. We grow old, and happy, and I don’t have a sad thought about anything the whole time. And, you see, it’s a doom event because that lack of depression means I don’t appreciate you enough, don’t appreciate the life we have together. This doom event is kind of meta, and when it happens I keep trying to work out the loops, and which bits cancel each other out. My head starts to hurt. One time, I had a nosebleed.
Like I said, we’re trying to medicate.
Tuesday the 10th of August, 2010
Fob.
The numbers are disappearing. One by one, or rather, ____ by ____. Do you know how I know? Because of 2010. Because of the year that came too soon.
On December 31st, 2009, I was sat in my friend Harvey’s basement, counting down the seconds. I was on the sofa — an ugly pea green thing that sagged and made me feel like I was about to be consumed by foam — and watching everyone else around me pair up, ready to kiss. 2009 had not been a good year for me. The recession killed all my grants, and I’d had trouble scaring up enough funds to keep more than a few of my stasis chambers running.
My experiments were dying.
“Bring on 201_!” I thought, and looked at the clock, saw those last few seconds count down. 5. 4. _. 3. 2. _. _. 1. And then the calendar on my watch skipped a year, and we were in 2010.
Everyone else seemed unperturbed, like this was what was meant to happen. I asked a few of my friends if there was some kind of leap-year thing I was missing. They didn’t know what I was talking about. I started counting out loud to them, “8, 9, _, 10” but they said I’d had too much to drink. They didn’t remember the year it was meant to be.
I ran back to my lab, and started grouping objects together, checking them off on my fingers. I counted a row of pencils, then added one more, and counted them again. I found the numbers skipping. Where was _? Why did the count suddenly leap from 13 to 14?
I’ve spoken to people about this. Nobody but me realizes anything is amiss. I’ve been holding up well, I think, not letting the strain get to me. Until today.
Earlier, I looked in a mirror and saw my body start to fade. Then I remembered. I’d been born on August 1_rd.
My birthday no longer exists.
Sunday the 8th of August, 2010
Jesus Camp.
The first day at Jesus Camp, they take away your razors and tell you to start growing a beard. Even the girls. Especially the girls. If they try to complain, or explain, say it can’t be done, they just get told that “All things are possible with Christ.”
The girls have an advantage, anyway. Their hair is already long.
On the third day, with the boys’ chins all scruffy and the girls trying to make do by gluing dried grass to their faces, the counsellors walk all the children out to the lake. There’s no jetty, or pier, just water, clear water, stretching for miles. You can see the tops of the trees in the distance, but not the trunks. Everyone is wearing loincloths.
That third day, they’re looking for miracles. They tell the kids to start walking. Anyone who makes it across the water gets extra bread come dinner. You have to do it right, though. They warn the children that parting the lake — like Moses? — that’s doing it all wrong. Wrong prophet, wrong miracle. No bread for you.
Some kids are anxious to do well. They’re the ones who’ve never been to Jesus Camp before, because they don’t know about Bad Friday. That’s just the nickname for it, of course, and the counselors would have you fasting in the forest if they heard you say it out loud. Bad Friday is when those children who have become most like the Lord get to suffer with him. For three hours they tie the unlucky few to crosses in the clearing behind the mess hall.
The kid with the longest beard? The ones who’s done the most good works? He doesn’t get the luxury of rope, if you get my drift.
When Camp is over, the parents come and search the hands of their children for marks. They always look so disappointed when they find no rope burns, no dried blood. No punctures.
The kid who gets the nails, his parents are always ecstatic, because you would be, wouldn’t you? If that boy is your child, then you get as much free wine as the water company can pipe to your house. Your weekly shopping trip is now five loaves and two fish. You don’t have to worry about Great Aunt Edna keeling over at Thanksgiving, because now there’s your little boy to bring her back.
Nobody at Jesus Camp wants to be that kid, because life can’t be fun as your family’s messiah. Everybody at Jesus Camp wants to be that kid, because, of course, next year he doesn’t have to come back.
Saturday the 7th of August, 2010
What kind of computer are you using these days?
I recently figured out that from my window I could see into about eighteen other apartments. A couple of carefully-angled mirrors got me up to thirty-two, and just from one spot on my couch. I don’t even have to crane my neck!
So I threw my computer into a dumpster, and I started giving my neighbors nicknames. The tall Portugese woman across the street is Facebook. That Italian guy with the Moulin Rouge poster and the dream catcher, he’s Digg. I spend a few hours a day browsing the Internet like this.
There are some websites I look at more than others. Gmail, for instance, is kind of a bother to keep up with. The owner of that place has a bunch of cats, and it’s kind of distracting, I can’t really maintain focus. I made a joke the other day about buying a BB gun and getting to Inbox Zero. Just a joke though. I’m not into productivity.
Friday the 6th of August, 2010
Science Lesson 3.
The way color works is… weird. Like, check out this table, for instance. It’s brown, right? Well, not really. In fact, it’s every single color except brown, or at least that exact shade of brown that we’re seeing when we look at it.
Because what the table is doing to light is it’s absorbing it — all of it — except that distinct brown. And so we’re looking at this object that is taking in — soaking up — every single fragment of the spectrum but brown. And so that’s what we observe.
When we look at things, we don’t see their true image, we just see the colors that they throw away.
So when I gaze at you, and smile, and tell you that I love the color of your eyes, I am lying. What I love is your eyes’ refuse. Their photogenic trash. I will never know that true color of your eyes.
…
Please don’t cry. You’ll wash away the garbage.
Friday the 6th of August, 2010
The Jonas Clouds.
If you want to understand the current dominance of the design industry by twenty-something women, then I need to tell you about the Jonas Clouds.
Back in ‘10, there was this group called the Jonas Brothers. Now, kids like you don’t really know much about music unless it’s streamed to you by RIAAir, but let me tell you — these guys were no Beatles.
Oh, shit, the Beatles still aren’t digital yet, huh?
Anyway, this band — this Disney creation — was really popular among young girls. Remember hearing about the Insulin Riots of ‘12? Seven year-olds who wanted to be like Nick Jonas. I am not even kidding.
One of these girls — some anonymous 4chan user, back when it was a website, not a principality — one of these girls cracked open a copy of Photoshop one day and, for no reason anyone could discern, merged a picture of Joe Jonas with a cloud. Like, in the sky.
The trolls memed it dry, of course, and it became a little internet phenomenon. There was even an XKCD strip about it — something about the Jonas in question being an air head, and then a bunch of Greek letters. You can find that on page 342 of your textbooks.
Anyway, the picture ends up getting circulated, and suddenly girls around the world are wanting to copy, to make their own versions. The net was flooded with the images, and Congress had to add a “Jonas Clouds” pipe to the Neutral Net Dam.
And so these girls keep making the pictures, and they keep getting better at it, and then you have this whole generation of adolescent females who are experts at Photoshop.
Of course, all this was just a prelude to the Bieber Swamps.
Friday the 6th of August, 2010
Science Lesson 2.
The only type of poetry most of us will ever write is shitty poetry. This is because we do not know what poetry is, only what we think it is. This is wrong.
Sometimes I like to think about a single particle of light. I like to think about how hot it must be inside the sun for that particle to stay warm as it travels across absolute cold. For that particle to keep giving off heat even as it enters our atmosphere, for it to survive our winds, and materials. A single beam of light can cross vast reaches of space, and make it all the way down to me, and warm my hand.
This is nature’s beauty, and it doesn’t rhyme.
Tuesday the 27th of July, 2010
Super Friends
Aquaman is living with my parents. They advertised their spare room (formerly my bedroom) on Craigslist, and a day later he just turned up. Didn’t call beforehand, didn’t even have any references. He just introduced himself, and moved in.
They like him just fine. He keeps himself to himself, and always pays his rent (usually in doubloons.) A couple of times, they’ve taken him to Seaworld. He seemed to really enjoy that.
I’ve talked to him, or tried to, about his plans for the future. I told him that my parents aren’t getting any younger, and that one day he’ll need to find somewhere else to live. He smiled, and said that he has an entire kingdom to call his home. And I asked him why he wasn’t there already.
He didn’t say anything for a really long time, after that, not even to my parents. And he was so sad.
He’s a nice guy. But he smells of fish.
