I’ve been watching Steven Universe with my younger sister over the last few months. For the most part, it has been a few episodes at a time becasue she’s even busier than I am, but since July, when we went on a group vacation with one of our siblings and a couple of our friends, our watch sessions have grown less frequent but longer in length. After all, the first few months of watching were all of the light-hearted early days of the show. After our trip, we’d moved into the emotionally complex and somewhat difficult portion of the show, where the bad stuff starts to pile up and Steven goes from being a happy-go-lucky young kid to the responsible, serious leader of the Crystal Gems. We have another session coming up (a couple days before this posts) where we’re going to finish Season 5 so that, on her birthday, my sister and I can watch the movie and then Steven Universe Future in one go. I’m even driving out of the state to visit her so we can watch in person with our sibling and maybe some of my sister’s friends.
Continue readingWatching
My Latest Lunchtime Video Occupation
Recently, during my lunch breaks at work or when I need to put on something in the background while I’m working at my computer, I’ve been watching a lot of Drawfee on YouTube. For those unfamiliar, it’s a funny show of varying length, usually about half an hour, where two or more artist participate in a drawing challenge, sometimes as they record themselves talking through it with the other present hosts (they have a stable of four regular hosts these days, with occasional guests or missing hosts) or as they talk over a sped-up video of them drawing something in the past. The format of the video tends to vary based on the specifics of the challenge, and there are enough different styles of video that I don’t think I’ve watched them all even after about a month or two of lunches spent watching these videos mostly selected at random. Despite the lack of dependable form, it is a pretty safe bet that you’re going to enjoy just about every video that might pop up from their channel.
Continue readingDigital Object Impermanence Ruined Streaming For Me
I don’t watch a lot of movies. Or TV shows, for that matter. I live alone and don’t really have a lot of people who show up in my day-to-day life and share my interests in a way that would motivate us to watch the same shows across a distance (one exclusion being my younger sister, whom I’ve convinced to watch Steven Universe with me), so most of my leisure time is spent on video games, books, and the occasional TV show. It’s not that I don’t enjoy TV shows or movies, I just don’t think of them. Most new media exists only as a digital icon I can interface with through a streaming service, so I honestly just forget most of it exists. I have the same problem with e-books and audio books. I just forget they exist. I think the only reason I don’t have that problem with podcasts is because I keep my podcast app open on my phone all the time and listen to more podcasts than music these days.
Continue readingWatching, Waiting
Last night, I watched the moon.
I stood outside and waited for it,
From the first glimmers of starlight
That beat down on me,
Cold and isolating
As they spoke of size
And depth and space
That were beyond me
And my little life,
To the bright corona of light
That told me the moon was sitting
Behind trees that stood tall,
Proud of the ground
They held against
The rising tide of Humans
Clearing ground for fields
And planning subdivisions.
As the moon rose above the trees,
Full and gargantuation in context,
It threw its light into the sky,
Reminding the stars
That they would fade
Before its brilliance
And that it shone
Only for we Humans
And our little lives,
And smiled down on the world,
Bright on a cloudless night
To lift the veil of nightfall,
Showing the sparse trees
For the sentinels they are
Of a world long lost
That humans chose to respect
In all that remained
Of its wilderness.
I sat and watched as hours passed
And the moon brushed away
The canopy of pinprick stars
That tried to drown it.
There is nothing up there
And nothing down here
That can stop its journey.
All we can do
Is sit and watch and wait
And let it push or pull us
Like a nightly tide
Of human emotion.
When it finally came time
For the sun to share the sky,
The moon slowly gave way,
Fading to a pale disc
With no light to share
Until it almost vanished
In the pale blue
Of the morning.
I took comfort in knowing
The moon was still there
As I went through my day,
Sleepless muddled thoughts
Fueled by extra coffee
And the knowledge
Of the moon waiting,
Hanging on the horizon
Despite the heavy glare
Of the unfeeling sun.
Maybe I too can stay my course
Despite the inexorable feeling
That I sometimes fade away
To the point of being overlooked
By anyone who doesn’t care to search,
That little feeling
Of having gone away
Without having left
And being somehow less
Than I know myself to be.
I claim no special kinship,
At least not one beyond
What anyone could claim,
But I do know it holds a place
As high in my esteem
As it holds in the sky
And I am tidally locked
To its influence.