Your Day Off

It's about 9, maybe 9:30. You are exhausted, but it's your day off, so you can sleep a little longer if you like. For a moment you think about how pointless waking up would be, and a growing pit of dread grows in your stomach as your bleary eyes cop your cellphone on the desk besides the bed. You imagine what new horrors have visited the world since you slept. You have a few things you'd like to do today, on your day off. You have a [[new video game]] to try out, you want to watch some more of that [[TV Show]] you started, and you'd really like to do some [[creative writing]]. Maybe you'll even [[hang out with a friend]] at some point. Your back hurts, a lot. Your tooth hurts, a lot. You kinda need to pee [[Wake up]] [[Sleep a little while longer]] (if: (history:) contains "Try Again")[[[Get up and do an edible]]]

You feel like shit, you are tired, your body hurts, but you're awake. Where do you wanna go first? ~~[[Bathroom]]~~ ~~[[Living Room]]~~ [[Grab Your Phone]]

It's now 10:30, and you let yourself bask a little in the comfort of the bedsheets and the comforter. The air conditioner rattles and makes a tick at an irregular interval that makes you grind your teeth - which only serves to highlight how much your jaw aches, you've probably been clenching it for the last 47 hours. ~~Unclench Your Jaw~~ [[Masturbate]]

It's a compulsion you're not really sure how to kick, and it probably doesn't hurt anybody, but you kinda feel guilty about it, maybe it makes you feel weak-willed. You finish, feel good for a few moments, then get out of bed. Where do you want to go first? ~~[[Bathroom]]~~ ~~[[Living Room]]~~ [[Grab Your Phone]]

You sit on the toilet and do bathroom things. The pain in your back turns to a dull ache, and you brush your teeth in a kind of half-alive haze. Maybe you check your phone a couple more times, refresh your youtube feed in hopes of something New to spark your brain into action. The highlight of your morning comes in the form of a fluffy dog trundling into the bathroom and demanding your attention. The dog is old, and you love him very much. Every time you see him you think about how old he is and how little time you have left with him, so every interaction is kind of bitter sweet. He's not even really that old, but that doesn't really stop you from the compulsion. [[Pet The Dog]] (if: (history:) contains "Pet The Dog")[[[Living Room]]]

This is where you'll spend the vast majority of your time. There's a [[PC]], a [[Sofa]], a few more dogs, and a fairly large collection of books, board games, games consoles, and other stuff that gathers dust and makes you feel unaccomplished. Your tooth hurts a little more. You eye the bill from the dental specialist you saw 2 months ago that told you there was nothing wrong with you, and mentally scratch "call the dentist" off of your To Do List. Thanks to all your fucking around, it's almost lunch. You turn on your computer and mentally weigh putting on pants. [[Make Lunch|Distracted]] [[Check Some Sites Real Quick]] [[Start Watching the TV Show You Want To Watch|Distracted]] [[Buy That Video Game You Want To Play|Distracted]] [[Message Your Friend|Distracted]]

You have more notifications than you want from places you'd really rather not bother you, and barely any from the places that bring you joy. What do you check first? (if: (history:) contains "Wake Up" and not ((history:) contains "Twitter"))[[[Twitter]]] (if: (history:) contains "Wake Up" and not ((history:) contains "Facebook"))[[[Facebook]]] (if: (history:) contains "Wake Up" and not ((history:) contains "Discord"))[[[Discord]]] (if: (history:) contains "Wake Up" and not ((history:) contains "Tinder"))[[[Tinder]]] (if: (history:) contains "Twitter" and "Discord" and "Tinder" and "Facebook")[[[Get Out Of Bed]]]

Once upon a time you were depressed whenever you opened this app cause nobody ever interacted with you. Now every time you open it you have a vague sense of terror that you've been 'discovered'. That somebody has finally copped to your game, and has dragged you before the public to be judged. You, as far as you know, haven't really done anything wrong (though hazy memories from when you were 15 offer themselves as examples of what someone could 'get' you for.) but that doesn't really change how you feel when you see the 20+ Notifications icon. It's just retweets and likes, mostly for stuff you retweeted. (link-goto: "Return", (history:)'s last)

Christ why the fuck did you click this? A couple messenger notifications from people sending you links or group chats you barely participate in (you feel terrible for this but you also really don't care about anything in them). You clear them then play the weird kind of self-abusive game you like to play where you scroll through the feed until something infuriates you so bad you think about it all day. Today it's a "friend" of yours refusing to engage with the three white supremacists on his post, all of which are patting each other on the back for knowing Good Cops. This is pretty chill compared to usual. At least nobody has posted a pic of your friend being brutalized. Again. (link-goto: "Return", (history:)'s last)

A couple of tags in some servers you don't really check anymore. You feel pretty guilty about some of them, but the idea of interacting with that many strangers gives you heartburn, even if you need to for work. One of the servers makes you feel uneasy even looking at the icon. You tap it to clear the notification, then make sure to move to your own very quiet discord so you don't have to see it next time you open the app. Your own discord has no new posts. (link-goto: "Return", (history:)'s last)

No new messages, a couple of matches sit with that little red dot, refusing to message you like they have for the last week and a half. That cute guy you texted also hasn't replied in a while, so that's probably not going anywhere. You'd really rather not, but you end up swiping for a while, with no new matches. This majorly bums you out, but in a way you can kinda deal with. (link-goto: "Return", (history:)'s last)

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Alright, it's about 11 now. Time to get up. Where do you go first? [[Bathroom]] [[Living Room]]

That's a little better (link-goto: "Return", (history:)'s last)

Despite spending an absurd amount of money on this thing over the years, it still kinda feels janky all the time. It has a really up to day graphics card and CPU, but most of your games have mysterious stutters, even after you reinstalled Windows. It's hooked up to a huge TV you feel guilty for getting, you feel kinda like you pressured everyone in the house to get it, but it's also a budget model that has a ton of problems and looks vaguely shitty. You have put some cool stickers on the PC though, which helpfully distracts from the eternal layer of dust it creates every day. (link-goto: "Return", (history:)'s last)

It's a sectional that you got for $100 from a frat boy like 4? years ago. It sucks, it hurts your back, but every other couch you've ever owned has been worse. Last year you put a mattress in the middle of the sectional to create a kind of cheapo recessed couch, which also sucks, but is also kinda cool. The dogs are sprawled out around it. (link-goto: "Return", (history:)'s last)

There's a new game out today that you've been looking forward to. You have the money to buy it, and you kinda hope it'll make you as excited as Disco Elysium or Outer Wilds did last year. It probably won't, but heyho (link-goto: "Return", (history:)'s last)

You've been watching Sad Detective Solves Murders Series 2 for about 3 years now, and you've been meaning to watch Big Robots Cry for at least as long. You do the maths in your head, and you're pretty sure even with the other stuff you wanna do, you can get 2 or 3 of the 187 episodes of Big Robots Cry's first series before the end of the day. (link-goto: "Return", (history:)'s last)

You have this idea for a wizard battle you wanna write up. You also have an idea for a murder mystery. You also have an idea for a crime drama, you also have an idea for a sci-fi battle. You have an idea for a depressing Twine about anxiety, ADHD, and depression. You might write one of them today (link-goto: "Return", (history:)'s last)

It's been rough, to say the least. Between COVID and your friends moving away, you've been feeling pretty lonely recently. Your brother, your usual gaming partner, has a new job that demands most of his time, and a new fiance that demands the rest. Marcus moved to Nebraska for some reason, Kai still hasn't responded to the last time you asked her to hang out, and the less said about whatever is happening between you and Mo the better. But you're pretty sure Sy is free today, and you both wanted to try out the new EDF together. Fingers crossed. (link-goto: "Return", (history:)'s last)

There's a ton of food in the house, but the idea of actually cooking makes you feel like a boulder dropped to the bottom of the ocean. You look for easy options and settle on a couple slices of meat and some cheese. Maybe you get fancy and put it on a plate, but you just as likely eat it out of your hands. If you're feeling exceptionally fancy, you'll spread some peanut butter and jam on a tortilla and call it a day. Now that you're not hungry, what do you want to do with your Day Off? (if: (history:) contains "Wake Up" and not ((history:) contains "Buy That Video Game You Want To Play"))[[[Buy That Video Game You Want To Play]]] (if: (history:) contains "Wake Up" and not ((history:) contains "Message Your Friend"))[[[Message Your Friend]]] (if: (history:) contains "Wake Up" and not ((history:) contains "Start Watching the TV Show You Want To Watch"))[[[Start Watching the TV Show You Want To Watch]]] [[Check Some Sites Real Quick]]

You doomscroll through twitter. Maybe you post one of the 279 hot takes you have saved in your drafts. Maybe you just browse. Who cares. (link-goto: "Return", (history:)'s last)

You have the money in your paypal account from some work you did yesterday. You have checked with your partner if its ok, and you have the page open to make the purchase. [[Buy the game]]

Whatever you were about to do gets dashed out of your head by an email, a DM, a Discord message, or just an errant thought. Maybe you need to google the name of a toy you owned in 1997, or maybe you want to double check the webcomics and websites you know don't update today. Something comes up, anyway, and you burn an hour doing some nonsense. [[Make Lunch]] [[Start Watching the TV Show You Want To Watch]] [[Buy That Video Game You Want To Play]] [[Message Your Friend]] (if: (history:) contains "Settle In To Watch The Show")[[[Finish the TV Show|Time Passes]]] (if: (history:) contains "Buy The Damn Game")[[[Play the video game you installed|Time Passes]]] (if: (history:) contains "Send the message")[[[Check Messages|Time Passes]]] [[Give in, do work]]

You sit down to watch the show you want to watch, get your headphones on and settle in. The headphones are charged, and connect relatively effortlessly to your computer. You open your list of Shows To Watch and suddenly forget which one you *really* want to watch today. There's a lot of shows on the list, and you know you have a ton of episodes to watch from each of them. It takes you a very very long time to pick one out, and you eventually resort to using a randomizer to pick one. [[Settle In To Watch The Show]]

You message your friend. At least you mean to, but something else comes up, a chore that needs doing, or a small job that demands your attention, NBD. you do that first. It's cool. [[Send the message]]

Suddenly you feel like you need to double check reviews, google some footage, maybe post on twitter about it. You spend an hour doing that. You double check your paypal balance, you consider other things you might want to buy instead - even checking the "Stuff To Buy.txt" file you keep around. Something itches at the back of your brain - you know you were mean't to buy something else with this money, but you can't remember what. [[Buy The Damn Game]]

After a little more time contemplating, you finally hit purchase and are hit with a wave of relief and dread at the same time. You work through the checkout process and hit install. It will take about 30 minutes to install the 150 GB game, a fact that makes you feel guilty for having high speed internet. What do you want to do in the time you have before the game is done? (if: (history:) contains "Wake Up" and not ((history:) contains "Make Lunch"))[[Make Lunch]] (if: (history:) contains "Wake Up" and not ((history:) contains "Message Your Friend"))[[[Message Your Friend]]] (if: (history:) contains "Wake Up" and not ((history:) contains "Start Watching the TV Show You Want To Watch"))[[[Start Watching the TV Show You Want To Watch]]]

The show starts, and the intro begins. You've seen the intro before, so you pick up your phone and check twitter real quick. Nothing really important, but you scroll some anyway and end up missing the first few minutes. No big deal, you put the phone down and start paying attention. ~~Pay attention to what's going on~~ [[Pick up your phone again]]

Without really knowing how or why, you're checking something on your phone again. You cycle through a couple websites and realize that you're missing the show, so you hit pause and finish up your scrolling. [[Get back to the show|Distracted]]

You spend some time figuring out if its a good time to message your pal, and eventually overcome the anxiety and send a message. It's like a paragraph long, jeeze my dude, you're just asking them to play a video game with you. The message remains on Sent for a while and you decide to burn a while being [[Distracted]]

It's now about 3 or 4PM. The stresses of the day and the inability to enjoy it start to pile up, and to make matters worse the sense of wasting your time lashes itself to your inherent feeling of laziness and lack of accomplishment, and now your brain keeps looking for work to do. You have a game to play, a friend to catch up with, a TV show to watch, and shit you're pretty sure there was something else. Can't remember it now. The only way you can feel better is by [[doing some work]]

You open some tabs, send some emails, tweak some spreadsheets. Maybe you respond to one of the half dozen discord messages or DMs you have piling up. You poke your head in a few of the work servers you have and generally make yourself feel useful. You eye the time. It's 4:30PM, and you know your partners will be done working soon, and so your alone and free time will come to an end. You have time to do one thing to enjoy your day. What do you do? [[Watch The TV Show You Promised Yourself You'd Watch|Unsatisfied]] [[Make Some Art|Unsatisfied]] [[Play The New Game You Wanted To Play|Unsatisfied]] [[Eat something|Unsatisfied]]

Whatever it is you settle in to do, you're far too stressed to enjoy it, and you barely have time to really get into whatever the activity before your time alone is up. You gotta make dinner, socialize with your partners, do some of the thousand of microchores that need doing, and sort out a group activity for the evening. The stresses piling up makes you think about the past, about your shitty childhood. You get the internal-screaming feeling that comes when you think about being younger, cause it reminds you that you're getting older. The inescapable ticking clock of mortality makes you wish you were a superhero or an anime protagonist, and you could just punch time till it stopped. You feel desperate, you fantasize about a cure to death, you imagine an eternity of time to do whatever you want and feel worse for knowing it won't happen. Parts of your body hurt that never did before, and you know they'll just do that till you die. Eventually it gets late enough that sleep takes you. As you fall asleep, you imagine how you'll spend tomorrow - working out, doing something fun, feeling love, excitment, doing something fulfilling. You fucked up today, but you can still change. You're not dead yet. Better luck tomorrow bud. [[Try Again]]

Today, today will be different. [[Wake Up]]

The brownie, cookie, sour candy, caramel, or whatever, tastes kinda like weed. You stretch as it goes down and get a glass of water to wash it down. 2 hours pass as you do whatever time wasting felt important at the time. The world seems to churn to a sluggish pace around you, your head is both light and heavy at once, your eyes are pleasently heavy and you feel like eating everything in the world. Your back and tooth stop hurting, and you realize you should do something fun. [[Watch something fun]] [[Play a video game]] [[Hang out with a friend]]

You hit play on something from your To Watch List. Its probably another Episode 1, you may have even seen it already, but its ok, you're pretty excited about it. Your phone lays half-forgotten somewhere in the room and you sort of zone out during the show, but you get most of it. This kicks ass you think to yourself when the show ends. You load up episode 2, and settle in. 4ish hours later, your partner kicks off work, and you comfortably snuggle into their arms. Nothing bothers you right now, there is no dire need to do *something*. You feel guilty, you feel like a drug addict, you feel like you're wasting your life. But at least your back doesn't hurt. [[End]]

You spend a little time figuring out what to do with your time - you're stoned, so anything intense or story driven is probably gonna suck, but you have a collection of roguelikes you love on the hard drive (even though playing them strikes you with a sense of unease at the lack of progress, like you're somehow wasting your time when you should be advancing one of the 50 games you are halfway through). You boot one up, and do a couple of runs. You do very badly. You try an FPS, and also do very badly. Eventually around 4:30ish you settle into one of the games you want to make progress on and get a mission or two done before your partner comes through the door. You both decide to get takeout tonight - a choice that makes you feel a little guilty, and brings immediately to mind your ever-rising weight, but you're stoned, so fuck it, who cares. You feel guilty, you feel like a drug addict, you feel like you're wasting your life. But at least your back doesn't hurt. [[End]]

You send out a couple of messages, and get one or two responses, not many, and nobody is able to hang out, but that's ok. You make plans for later and settle in for a nice bath to yourself. You doze in there for an hour, listening to a podcast or just some music, or scrolling through twitter while listening to music or a podcast. By the time you're out of the bath, had a snack, taken care of the dogs, masturbated, and considered your own crushing mortality, your partner comes home and offers to make something for dinner. This makes you feel very guilty, because you used to cook every single night and now you only cook like, 4 times a week. They work very hard, and you love them very much. They assure you its fine, and start making something delicious. You feel guilty, you feel like a drug addict, you feel like you're wasting your life. But at least your back doesn't hurt. [[End]]

Your Day Off was made by Liam Ginty of @SandyPugGames Thanks for playing

Double-click this passage to edit it.

It starts slowly. The unease at the lack progress, but it builds as you distract yourself and get sidetracked. Every moment theres a yearning to open a document and start The Work. The Work isn't the twitter DMs or the discords, or the emails. It's the word. They bash at the door of your mind like an army arrayed against your defenses, and your walls can only take so much before they crack. Armed men burst into your heart and force you to start writing. Its slow, at first. You check twitter a few times, but eventually you find the groove, and the swords surrounding you disappear. Everything disappears. Time loses all meaning despite your frequent glances at the clock on your computer, just the clack of the keyboard and the letters on the page, your mind races, writing three paragraphs ahead of yourself. An errant thought gets swatted to the page like a bug, an old idea whispers itself to life in your ear. You write jokes, you write seriousness, you write your heart out. A voice tells you nobody will read this and you really don't care. The focus maintains, grows even. Swelling out of control. You write two, three, four pages today, with the background noise of a youtube playlist in your now-sweaty headphones. Your head hurts, your tooth hurts, your back sure as fuck hurts, but you keep going. You skip lunch, you forget to blink. You write. It is 7PM, and your partner is getting a little frustrated. With a concentrated effort of real tanigble will, you pull yourself away. You feel awful. You wasted your fun time, but on the screen is a couple thousand words that love you, and they tell you you matter, and they will never go away. Progress indisputable. Better luck next time bud [[Try Again]]