When Sloth and Ambition Collide, Game Betrayal, Celebrity Assistant Fever Dream

I am officially On Vacation for the next week or so, and I’m veering wildly between the twin forces of sloth and hyper-activity as I try to squeeze in as much “relaxation” as possible while also trying to mass-produce diamond painting videos for my aforementioned channel for a go-live in January, and study for an upcoming professional certification exam. All of this is on top of recovering from a traumatic Christmas season that coincided with the one-year anniversary of my mother’s death and caused me emotional anguish while trying fruitlessly not to be sad during this time of seemingly mandated joy for Christians. It’s been a lot to contend with, folks. I’ll be glad when December is over.

I cleverly subverted my grief by diving head-first into yet another farming sim game, a new release called “Luma Island.” It’s pretty much gaming crack for me—it has a unique and beautiful art style, it’s extremely relaxing, it’s full of adorable, fantastical characters, and it’s very colorful and, forgive me, whimsical. I was having a great time solving relatively easy statue-turning puzzles and growing my highly cute fruits and vegetables for my chosen profession of Brewer, when I was suddenly blind-sided by a series of terrible, horrible, twitchy mini-games that require the visual acuity and hand-eye coordination of a commercial airline pilot. It felt like such a betrayal. I was going along doing fine, making money, decorating my beautiful farm and listening to the lovely game music, when bam—the next level hit and it was suddenly a series of hair-pulling, heart-pounding, fist-gnawing twitch games that require a surgeon’s precision and a level of persistence and fortitude that I simply do not possess. Why do game developers do this??? Why, after all of these years, have they not gotten the memo that people who enjoy chill farming games do not, as a rule, like, nor are in any way good at fast-twitch precision speed games? I guess I shouldn’t have been blindsided, but I was. I resolved the issue for now by simply refusing to participate. I stopped going to the temples for all of the good loot and animals, and instead decided to just stick to the homestead and advance towards my Master Brewer title. All I need to get there now is 500 melons and some jungle mud. Master Brewer trophy, here I come!

One shining light in all of this December darkness has been, at last, the opening of a new gym that I have been waiting on for over six months. It’s close to our apartment and brand-new, with glorious modern equipment and machines that are so advanced they will count your sets for you and time your rest periods. And they have five Smith machines, a highly-coveted piece of equipment that was always taken at my old gym that had only one. After navigating a hair-pulling series of hoops, I got finally got signed up and went this morning. I got an actual proper workout for the first time in months and for once I felt semi-normal again. (I’m going to be really sore tomorrow.) Now here is where I get petty: I’m not going to name this gym because while I like their equipment and their locale, I do not like this company or their policies. Signing up was an epic pain, they are not customer-friendly and they have made decisions that I disagree with, but—it’s all I have and I’ll take it over my other available options, which are too expensive, too loud, or too basement-y and over-crowded. But at least I finally have a reliable place to work out and I can get back into the groove and maybe shave off some of the pounds I gained after multiple months of gym displacement. Hooray!

Finally, I have no idea what this says about my state of mind, but I recently had a dream that Julia Roberts was Mr. Typist’s personal assist and was doing spy missions for him. I wouldn’t say I “confronted” Julia Roberts, but I did tell her that, as she could imagine, I was not happy that she, Julia Roberts, was my husband’s personal assistant. In response, she flashed me a huge smile and told me that she could teach me to be as fabulous as she is. I think I raised an un-waxed eyebrow at her, but I can’t remember if I actually took her up on her offer. Probably not. Anyway, that sums up my December. Here’s to the coming new year and the journey out of Seattle’s long dark—and hopefully, the long dark of my heart.

--Kristen McHenry