Little Thoughts
A collection of vignettes and musings from the mind of an iAutist.
I like to incorporate as many senses as possible when I’m reading. I was recently reading a book about the frigid winters of the Eastern Front in WWII, so I woke up early when it was freezing outside and sat out there with a headlamp and my book on the back porch. I also played the fantastic Aindulmedir record Star Lore for some atmosphere, and smoked my pipe with a rustic, woodsy blend. Shivering in the cold listening to the perilous stories of trucks and boots stuck in the freezing Ukrainian mud as Soviet armor raced to encircle a group of conscripts was thrilling. In the book, the last night is one of slaughter as the Soviets descend on the nearly encircled and lethally fatigued reserves, but German armor arrives just as the sun rises and breaks the encirclement. Watching the sun break over the horizon after reading for about 30 minutes was quite rewarding.
As a kid, I had trouble expressing my emotions. I didn’t smile with teeth in photos until I was about 17, looking like a POW in various Christmas, prom, and family gathering photoshoots beforehand. I didn’t like admitting I liked music (despite running “Layne_Staley”), I had trouble saying “I love you” to family members, I tried to not have a personality at all.
It was only as I entered college that I saw people who, for better or worse, were acting as themselves (like Mike below). Say what you want about the freshman guy playing guitar with a cig in his mouth on the quad, at least he’s himself. Me? I’m not a stone cold killer. I like music, art, and even some poetry. There was something liberating about allowing myself to express emotions near strangers.
Studying the Ancients and Medievals, and their love of poetry and zeal for life certainly helped.
Be Like Mike
I met a guy in college that meets quite a bit of the criteria for “Ubermensch” or whatever. He effortlessly became a leader, effortlessly got anyone to like him, effortlessly succeeded at basically any task.
Freshman year, he was on my hall. One of the first things I noticed about him was a branding on his shoulder, a now-puffy outline of a saber from his military academy days. He and I were on the Rugby team together that year too. Where I half reservedly / half autistically melted into background character status during summer training camp, he quickly bubbled to the top of our class. Even during the hazing, it felt as if he was in on it. During laps on the field, he’d yuck it up with the seniors. Afterwards, when I limped back to my dorm for a nap, he’d go out and party with them. Imagine the charisma you need to be a freshly minted 18 year old kid partying with 21 and 22 year old men. His social media feed was filled with long nights out, immense amounts of alcohol, and a parade of women.
The same cycle repeated during Frat rushing. I made really good friends with a girl named Jenny (I was into her but she didn’t know that btw) that he was also into. So, he hung out with me a lot. I was aware of their intentions, but oddly didn’t seem to mind that he was hanging around me to get to her- a girl that I was into myself. I just liked spending time with him. Anyway, in high school, I was the “gym shorts Nike shirt” kid, and some of that made it to college. So, he and Jenny took me shopping at some place where the store is just the dude’s name. Still, I only felt a little embarrassed. Maybe because he (I’ll just call him Mike) was always impeccably dressed. Not in the “wears tuxedos to class” kind of way, in the “always has exactly the right outfit for the situation” sense. Again, effortlessly. He taught me a lot about style, about little things to look sharp without appearing like a try hard.
A couple more Vignettes about Mike:
During frat rushing, he was required to box another freshman. Instead, he demanded to fight a senior. They picked the toughest guy, a huge 6’4 300 pound goliath, to try to teach him a lesson about staying in line. Mike beat the shit out of him, even knocked several teeth out. Mike was the scrappiest, most fearless, ruthless fighter I’ve ever seen. It was like seeing a switch flipping from suave extrovert to primal animal. In these boxing matches, you’re not really trying to hurt one another. But, Mike didn’t see it like that. He rained down blows on the big dude like he was trying to kill him, and when he was pulled off by a couple other guys he had no animosity, nothing but good will. It was like the switch was flipped again.
Mike was one of those guys that has no regard for safety. In drinking, he was pushing it until he almost had blood alcohol poisoning on a weekly basis. While driving, flooring it everywhere and drifting around corners. While playing rugby, he would deliver spine crushing hits regardless of the context. I watched him get a concussion from a knee to the head during a tackle. His head snapped back with a ton of force, and he laid on the ground completely still. Fast-forward to half time (only 5 minutes in rugby) and he had shotgunned a beer (a Stella Artois, if anyone cares) and beat his forehead against the wall before demanding to go back in. The coach said no, and Mike called him by his first name and told him he was going in that motherfucking game. He did. A few minutes in, Mike caught a pass on the edge of the field with only one defender between him and the goal line. A simple juke move or shovel pass would’ve scored. But, Mike ran at the defender. The guy tried essentially getting out of the way for his own safety, but Mike moved with him. Like an Acme anvil chasing Wile E. Coyote, Mike chased this dude down (even running away from the goal line) to body slam him. The guy pathetically ragdolled over his shoulder before splatting on the ground. It was like watching a cow catcher on the front of a train hit a 5 year old.
Once, Mike came over to hang out with Jenny, a few of my other friends, and me at my dorm. We couldn’t decide on a movie, but he had a suggestion: the musical Chicago. Imagine that, the guy from the above story wants to watch a musical. Wtf? Remember, I was one of those guys that “didn’t want to show any emotions” at this age and just assumed Mike would be the same way. But, he was having a ball of a time singing along to every song on the damn musical, even acting out the choreographed dances. I was bewildered. I also saw this guy dance some retarded move I can’t remember the name of after a touchdown in Rugby (called a try btw), he was an extra in the Macy’s Christmas day parade dressed as an elf, he even participated in the Big Man on Campus thing where he wore a skirt on stage. He knew how to experience the full range of human emotions, and I think that’s part of what made him so alluring to women.
Mike often liked to play himself off as a dumb jock, but he wasn’t. He had extensive knowledge about a bunch of weird topics. I had a full, 30 minute conversation with him on the way back from class about pre 1960 WWII movies. During said conversation, he departed almost mid sentence to join a group of girls and ask them what they were up to that night. It wasn’t like he was trying to disrespect me, I guess. It wasn’t intentionally rude.
Mike brought me to my first parties, and helped me with drinking for the first time. Not only was he going to Frat parties before being in one himself, he was going to every Frat’s party, regardless of status with them. He would show up in the sea of people, very patiently walk me through how to play beer pong or something, before disappearing again mid-conversation. I’d spot him 10 minutes later with a girl around his arm. Rinse and repeat about 15 times, with 15 different girls, and you had a night out with Mike.
One fall, he came back to school with a buzz cut and some more muscle (as an already well-built 6’2 210 pound guy). He told my friends and I that he wanted to turn his life around, so he joined the school’s Army club and told the staff there he wanted to join the Special Forces. Basically on a whim. One of my friends was in the Army club, so I asked him and he told me that Mike was a standout at basic training. He was a distinguished graduate, got a few medals (didn’t know that was possible at boot camp), that sort of thing. I asked Mike about it at practice, with a giddy smile he showed me Snapchat on his phone. “See those dudes?”, he asked while pointing to the top of his recent messages, “those were my drill sergeants”. He looked at me with a wicked, unrestrained smile. Apparently, he’d gotten along so well with them at basic training that they went out and partied for days after. I mean, WTF?
For all his strengths, Mike had a lot of flaws. Many of them fit the personality I’m sure you see forming: he was a womanizer, an alcoholic, and a voluntarily poor student. He was the type of guy that could walk into a test on any subject and make a 75, so studying and attending class were basically optional. Homework and assignments brought him down to near failing in almost every class. But, his professors liked him so much that he always found a way to slide past. Mike also had a short temper, and hated being told no about anything. The above example of screaming at the coach to put him in the game (after a concussion diagnosed by the athletic trainer, a move that could’ve cost coach his job if Mike died on the field or something) is an example. Mike screamed at a lot of people on the team, for simple mistakes like dropping a pass or jogging instead of running. He screamed at me too, but I could see in his eye that he always held back a little. It’s not like I couldn’t have taken it, but I was a quiet kid at the time and I think he understood that.
Mike had a pregnancy scare with Jenny, and forced her to get an abortion. Apparently, she wanted to keep it and he didn’t. As if to seal the deal, he cheated on her with her best friend. Another pregnancy scare, another abortion. It was nothing for him.
I lost my virginity in college. Mike was the only guy I’ve ever met (still), that I felt like I could share some of the more intimate details with. He was a veritable sex scholar, and could ask me such vulnerable questions as “Did you make sure to do [X technique]?” in a way that wasn’t weird at all. It was like giving me tips on shooting free throws. I mean, I get that it sounds weird writing it out, but at the time I was completely new to the world of sex and so enamored in the girl that I felt like I had to ask him. All of this was done in the communal showers before class, adding to the weirdness. Still, Mike found a way to make it seem perfectly natural. He had a bag of tricks for women that he clued me in on, some of which made it into the "Talking to Women” guide I wrote earlier. He never once made me feel awkward about asking for “tips”, and could maintain a conversation with my girl without the slightest indication that he knew all of these intimate details about her through me.
To wrap this one up, I hope you’ve met someone like Mike. It would really tie the whole story together. I told him, a few months before he died, that he reminded me of Buck from Call of the Wild. He was a wealthy kid, and died when hitching a boat to a truck at his parents’ lake house in Lake Tahoe. Apparently, it rolled downhill and pinched him- basically impaling him. He accepted that compliment from a bookish, middling 19 year old with grace. Moreover, he’d read Call of the Wild and knew what I meant. He thought he was like Buck too.
I need Snapchat and my camera roll to stop showing me highlight reels of people who have chosen to depart my life. It’s honestly really depressing and hits me at the worst moments. I was showing someone a QR code on my phone for work when my stupid photos app was like: hey, remember 3 years ago when you spent that summer with the girl you thought you’d marry xD? The awkward feeling of holding in an autistic implosion is like having to sneeze, except the sneeze is a ball of emotions that burn white hot in my chest. Awful feeling.
Looking back at the faces of those people is like seeing a graveyard. Its haunting, in a way. It makes me appreciate family and the steadfast friends that have survived the plunge from childhood to early adulthood.
If someone tells you they’ll love you forever, and then you go your separate ways, did they ever truly love you? I don’t know.
My gym routine has always been a little unorthodox. Until a few years ago, I never drank caffeine, listened to music, or wore particularly “gym” outfits. I was one of those “built diff” mfs that showed up in jeans or baggy basketball shorts and a T shirt.
I’ve also never had much luck with “getting angry” or entering “beast mode” lifting. All my PRs have just come with a resolute demeanor, knowing the trial ahead. I’m also always aware that something could go wrong, that this could be the last time I ever stand upright by my own power. I can never shake thoughts of hernias, slipped discs, broken bones, dropping dead while running, heart attacks, even stuff like testicular torsion when I’m lifting. Despite never having a real lifting injury. IDK.
On a similar note, my biggest fear is my life being a waste. I don’t want to not matter by the time I die. Call it vanity, call it hubris, call it anything, I want to have a reason to live on in this world after I die. Even as a kid, I’ve always felt that way. Other kids thought I was a scaredy-cat when I didn’t do dangerous stuff, but I was always thinking about how I could never achieve my legacy with broken legs or one eye, or blown out eardrums. I just don’t want to pass through this world without leaving my impression on it. Even just for another 75 years or so as my children remember me fondly.
I’m terrified of having retarded kids.
I wouldn’t abort them, but I don’t want it. I tell God that all the time. I’d rather not have kids than have a severely retarded kid, certainly not a super retarded kid. Like, one of those kids that needs a full time care taker.
If God gives me a retarded kid after all my prayers otherwise, I can’t say I’d be too happy. Signing up for a lifetime of changing diapers and cleaning drool from someone that will never be your equal or surpass you sounds awful.
Being Accused of Lying Sucks
Have you ever been wrongly accused of lying? Being accused of lying when you’re telling the truth is one of the most awful feelings ever. When I was about 15, my mom and I got into a huge spat. It ended up with me storming off to my room, which was the same direction she was going to get away from me after I started yelling. Well, she thought I was coming to beat her ass or something (despite me never laying a hand on her) and screamed bloody murder. Her eyes darted around the room, looking for something to fight me off with.
I panicked and tried darting past her to get to my room, grazing her and causing her to wobble a little. I debated reaching over to help her up, but she started crying and dashed for the phone to call the cops. Keep in mind, I had no prior violent encounter with her, ever. I wasn’t a particularly badly behaved kid, so its not like she was basing this off a prior history.
I sat in my room, flush with anxiety, until the evening when I heard my dad’s car roll into the driveway.
His boots slowly thumped throughout the house, I guess he already knew the “situation”. The boots thump, thump, thumped down the hall to my room, where he sat in silence for about 30 seconds. “[Layne], come to the kitchen”, was all he said.
There, my mom sat across from me, eyes still frantic. My dad sat down, head in hand. Mom put her head on his shoulder and wrapped her hands around his bicep, as if for security near a caged animal. The single light dangling over the table gave the room the appearance of a police interrogation from the movies.
“Did you menace your mother today?”
“No.”
“Then why is she saying you did?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you calling your mother a liar?”
“No?”
“Then why is she telling me you knocked her to the ground and threatened her today?”
“I tried to get past her to my room and bumped into h-”
“That’s a DAMNED lie!” came the shriek from my mom.
I just sat there.
“Your mother called me today, crying. I had to step out to my car to hear about how you waved your fist in her face and threatened her”
“What? No I di-”
His stoic demeanor shifted, betraying an anger he was barely keeping in check. “I don’t want to hear you call your mother a liar.”
Again, I just sat there. More puzzled than anything else.
It wasn’t looking good for me. My mom was a slight 5’2 120 pounds. At 15, I was already 5’9, 180ish pounds of solid muscle from several seasons of football workouts. And shaving.
Finally, came the only threat I ever received from my father, delivered in an icy, stone cold tone: “If I ever hear about anything like this again, you’re going to get the thrashing of a lifetime. And then we’ll send you off to a military academy”.
He was about 6’3 210 pounds at the time, lean “old guy” muscle from decades of dedication in the gym. Dude was hitting 225 on bench for multiple sets of 10 at 45 years old. Despite being a big kid, I would’ve been no match for him. The way he looked at me was how one man looks at another, not a shred of remorse or sympathy in his eyes.
I had no idea what to do. I was cornered, and the look on my mom’s face was as if she knew she was hamming it up a little, not knowing it would go this far.
It was all too much, I put my head down on the table and started crying tears of frustration. After what felt like hours, I felt a vice grip on my shoulder. I looked up, past the snot and tears, to see my father’s cold gaze. His eyes locked onto mine as equals, and not in a good way. He squeezed my trap muscle so hard it brought me up out of my seat. I looked around, my mother nowhere to be found.
“Do you think it’s cool to threaten women? You think you’re a tough guy for threatening to hurt your own mother?” The words hissed from his lips like venomous snakes, he was trying to keep his voice down. I just shook my head no, completely overwhelmed. There was no point in trying to explain myself.
“You’re not going to like finding out what happens if we have this conversation again, I promise you.”
I just nodded, anything to make it stop. I’d never seen either of them like this before.
He shoved me towards my room, and I literally sprinted down the hall, nearly wiping out in my socks on the wooden floors.
A few days later, I got home from football practice to see some pamphlets for military academies left rather deliberately on the counter.
I never enjoyed parties much in college. I went to about 30, I suppose. That might seem like a lot, but that comes out to about 8 a year which seems right. I’m not a wallflower, although I did orbit near my male friends most of the time. But, I just didn’t really enjoy them, and I had to accept that it didn’t make me a Redditor to not like going to parties.
They were always something to grit my teeth and grind through, like the last lap in a race.
A Brush with Death
I almost died once, while swimming. I pushed myself way too hard to swim out to some freshwater island, got about half way and realized that I didn’t have the energy to make it to the island or back to shore.
I was pretty far away, maybe 600-800 yards. I was far enough away that my girlfriend at the time couldn’t hear me yelling, she and my dog were specks in the distance. I could see them only after the rough, choppy little waves broke over my head, like windshield wipers in the rain.
I tried floating on my back and paddling with my feet but ended up going in circles.
There wasn’t a soul nearby that could help, and nobody could tell that I was even dangerously fatigued.
I had to choose to survive, unironically. It might sound like I’m exaggerating, but if you’ve ever pushed yourself to literal exhaustion while swimming you know what I mean. There was no side of the pool to hold onto and catch my breath, no cell service even if my girlfriend saw me go under the waves.
I had to tell myself that I wasn’t going to drown. It was like having a debate, where both sides sparred in my head with equally valid points. I floated on the water, panting, lucid enough to know that giving up meant I would actually die. In some massive lake on Fourth of July weekend, I’d be one of those unfortunate souls that always seems to die from something on that weekend.
For a moment, giving up and drowning seemed reasonable. Anything was better than commanding my pounding heart, aching muscles, and wheezing lungs to keep working. It felt like I was debating taking a quick nap or not. I’d taken on so much water, a lot during a brief moment of panic, that I was getting cramps in my stomach from all the liquid.
I had to steel myself, and beat my conscious into submission with sheer force. I’m not going to die, I told myself. Over and over, rhythmically with my muscles that screamed in horrid pain.
I was so tired I felt white-hot jets of sheer pain rippling up my arms and legs, into my shoulders and groin and fingers. My extremities spasmed with every movement.
But, like a veteran sergeant making his phalanx hold shape, I forced my body to submit. Stroke by stroke, meter by meter, I forced myself to swim. I was so tired, so depleted, that the edges of my vision were blurry and I had a pounding headache. The biggest muscle groups in my arms, legs, and core all screeched with sharp pain.
But, I told myself that I wasn’t going to drown. That I’d rather die of exhaustion right here in the water than slip beneath the waves like a bitch. I was scared too, scared of not having done anything with my life because I drowned in a perfectly regular lake on July 4th weekend 2021.
When I got back to shore, I curled in a ball on the beach and cried. My girlfriend had no idea what was going on, she just put her hand on my shoulder and asked what was wrong. I couldn’t begin to share that experience, it was as if I’d put down a rebellion in my own body.
I think about the little debate I had out in the water, about how the situation made a brush with death seem to reasonable, so palatable. I think about how I chose to live.
On the car ride home, only an hour, I was snoring.
I’ve always had a fascination with religion, Christianity especially, since I was a kid. But, I’ve always loathed services. I really don’t know why.
As a kid, in my de facto Protestant upbringing, I struggled to stay awake in the pews. The 15 minute worship service at the start made my feet fall asleep, I would stare at the lyrics at the bottom of the screen during the songs and wait for them to pass. In the pew during the sermon, I’d doodle on the program and try to joke around with anyone near me.
As an adult who attends Orthodox services now, I am (rather shamefully) a watch watcher. It’s a struggle for me to not check my watch every fifteen minutes. My friends who go are always so delighted, so enamored, so ready to go back. Meanwhile, I always feel a little dirty with satisfaction if I end up running a few minutes late. I have to stop myself from thinking oh, good when the priest says “let us complete our evening prayers unto the Lord”.
In college, I basically wasn’t practicing. Despite arguing with retards about religion on iFunny, I only attended church a handful of times in 4 years. Post college, it can still be a struggle for me but I probably attend at least once a week 80ish% of the time. Usually, its a couple times a week tho.
Again, I still don’t know why. I clearly love studying Christianity, I love Orthodoxy. I even love the homily. It’s just something about the service that makes me grumble.
I’ll never forget seeing an iPod nano, it was summer 2007 I believe. I just could not believe that 1000 songs could fit on that tiny thing. A few years later, 2012 I believe, some kid came to school with an iPod Touch, and he played a demo of Nach der Untoten Nazi zombies. I thought he stole it or something. I couldn’t process the concept of an app store where that thing could retrieve demos of games. It was only when some other kid showed me Angry Birds on his iPhone 4s or whatever, that I began to understand the world was changing.
I was a kid that didn’t have a smartphone until about 2017, running iFunny and other apps off of my brother’s goofy ahh android tablet that his school required.
I’m having fun on Chudstack, but there are so many people here that want to act like erudite, enlightened philosophers. They take ages to say anything, every thought dripping in metaphor and psuedo-poetic drivel. I try to be the opposite of that, I just write how I talk.
But, its interesting that people here try to act smart, and people on iFunny try to act stupid. The contrarianism in both of these little ecosystems is a polar opposite.
Mom story was evil. Felt an incel chudrage flow down into my balled up fists.
One time when I was 5 I wanted to be pacman and put 2 coins in my mouth but I ended up choking on them for 3 hours until I threw them up in the hospital