What’s Andy Been Doing Instead of Writing a Blog Post This Weekend?

“Only the highest quality content here.”

I won’t lie: this is what I talked about all those weeks ago when I said that I had a new idea for when I ran out of time to write a full post. It’s this. From now on, if I run out of time and/or material in a given week, I’ll either post another chapter of Spectral Crown or I’ll write a brief review of the media I’ve been consuming/actions I’ve been taking/extenuating circumstances that have prevented me from writing a real post. Not to say that this isn’t a real post, but you know what I mean. It’s no giant fish post.

“You should have plenty of time now,” someone in the back is surely thinking. “We’re supposed to be sheltering in place. What could you possibly be doing that would make you busy?” And you know what? You’re right. I should have time. But this week I didn’t for a couple reasons, some of which I don’t want to go into. Suffice it to say, I was helping my girlfriend move, and that took up some time. Don’t worry, we quarantined ourselves and stayed away from other people. We attempted to exist in our own little bubble so that I wouldn’t contract/contaminate anything. And I’m allowed to travel to help family, and my mom says she’s family at this point, so I have the approval of a lawyer, and that has to count for something. That wasn’t everything, of course. But I’m not going to tell you everything now, am I?

Anyway, I shouldn’t have to defend myself to the empty room that I scream at on a weekly basis. I should be free to do things as I see fit, and answer to nobody! I’m a human being, and I’m beholden to no one! And that’s what I told myself, anyways, until I realized that I’m literally beholden to just about everyone right, especially because of the quarantine. And that’s beyond the typical social bonds that I want to build among my friends and family (those responsibilities are by choice, of course, and I enjoy them), the economic institutions that I exist within, and the rules of society itself, all of which are responsibilities which I’m beholden to. Everything’s connected in the end.

Anyway, that’s all my very roundabout way of saying that I didn’t get around two writing a more focused post this week because I was stuck doing three things, besides spending time with people I love and care about; playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, watching the third season of Stranger Things, and banging my head against the wall in frustration as I attempt to write Python code for ArcGIS. And since I’m still reeling from my own inability to comprehend and use the SearchCursor function to pick out some fucking Alaskan airports, I’m going to start with that one.

I have a love-hate relationship with both Python coding and ESRI’s ArcGIS. They’re both very much the same in how they make me feel, and maybe that’s partially because ArcGIS is built on Python, but I suspect the similarities in emotion are mostly because of my trouble using them. For example, when they work, they work, and I feel like a computer-coding genius and/or ultimate cartographer. But when they don’t work, it’s usually because I forgot a set of quotation marks and brackets somewhere along the line, or because I misspelled the name of a function. Except I don’t know what the problem is, and I have to comb through the code and try and figure out what the hell happened. And then functions won’t work like I think they should, or some data is formatted properly, or I just straightup have no clue what I’m doing, and I feel like I’m back at square one.

Of course, I’m never really back at square one because the trial-and-error process that’s so much the heart of both Python and ArcGIS teaches you as much as it frustrates the hell out of you. Every mistake takes a little bit closer to the solution by telling you what works, what doesn’t, and what makes you a big dumb idiot for not figuring it out sooner. It doesn’t tell you that last part, that’s more the extrapolations I make based on how the final code compares to what I had before. But it’s also a bit like a puzzle box, and every try makes you better at it, so by the end, you can really see how much you’ve learned when you finally succeed. And it’s immensely satisfying.

So that’s what I’ve been working on for the past couple of hours. Of course, as I type this I get an email from my professor telling me that I was using the wrong tool the whole time, so I guess sometimes trying to brute force something isn’t always the best option. Work smarter, not harder, I guess? A reason why I miss in-person classes; I can’t ask professors immediately when I fucked something up.

Anyway, now that that load has been semi-lifted from my chest, those other things I’ve been “working on” instead of writing blog posts. Let’s start with Stranger Things.

I watched the first season a couple months after it came out, and then I watched the second season the day it came out, and even considered skipping classes to binge the last couple episodes, but it’s been almost a year since season three came out, and I only started watching it this weekend. That’s partially because I was in Philmont when the third season released in July of last year, and had limited internet access. Although, interestingly enough, a crew of scouts that came through told me that I looked like a character from season 3 of Stranger Things, so I did get some interaction with the show pretty quickly after it aired, which was nice. The fact that I only found out this weekend that they said I looked like the curly-haired Russian scientist who liked Looney Tunes and cherry slurpees is not so nice. But still kind of endearing.

I’m not sure why I didn’t watch season 3 as soon as I got back to civilization from Philmont. Maybe I was just too busy, or felt like I was too busy. But I didn’t watch it for like nine months after it came out, even though it was at the top of my list of things to watch. Maybe it’s because I was worried it wouldn’t be as good as the first two seasons (or first season, really), or that I’d “outgrown” the show, or that I wouldn’t remember who the characters were and wouldn’t feel as invested in them. Well, it turns out that all of my fears were totally unfounded because as soon as my girlfriend got me into watching the show again, I was sucked right back in. And I loved every minute of it.

Without spoiling too much of the show, Stranger Things is a bit like what would happen if you crossed Stephen King’s It, the SCP Foundation, a healthy sprinkling of Cronenbergian body horror, and a synth-powered soundtrack. It’s an 80’s nostalgia trip that gripped not only myself but a lot of the damn internet too, and hasn’t really let go since. I love this show, and I’ve always kind of gotten depressed when I finish a season, and season three hit me especially hard. Part of it is because I’ve gotten invested in these characters and storylines and worlds (yes, worlds) and feel some genuine attachment to them, only to have them be ripped away from me as I’m repeatedly reminded that they aren’t real, none of it is real, and you’ll never really know them. And that’s all true, but this time was especially bad for other reasons.

It was especially bad because, of course, of the quarantine. After helping my girlfriend move, I had to say goodbye to her, and because of the shelter-in-place order and the relentless onslaught of news around the virus, I still have no idea when I’ll get to see her again. Will it be in two weeks? After April 30th, when the Illinois order is lifted? Even after that? Who knows? I sure as hell don’t, and neither does she, and it’s deeply distressing. My world was upended by this virus, after a fashion, and though I’ve been pretty lucky it could have been a hell of a lot worse for me (I guess it still could be), my life has been altered in a way I couldn’t have foreseen. Everyone’s feeling this, so hopefully you can all relate to that. This are weird.

Stranger Things is as much a love story as it is a horror story, so the ending of season three resonated with me on a level that the other seasons couldn’t have before, or even wouldn’t have nine months ago, and it hit me pretty hard. I either watched it at the exact wrong time, or the exact perfect time, but either way, the outcome was the same. It made me feel sad. I felt genuine, real emotions at the close of this neon-bathed death metal cover of the Goonies. And so, so much of that has to do with the aggravated emotions I’m feeling now.

One of these days I’ll get around to writing a review on Stranger Things, just like I keep promising I’ll get around to writing a review on Channel Zero. But that day is not today. No, instead I’d like to move on to the final non-movement related activity I performed this weekend; playing Animal Crossing. And, as I’d like everyone to know, I’m part of an Animal Crossing meme page on Facebook, and even the quarantine can’t take that from me.

In some ways, as many have already pointed out, Animal Crossing is the perfect antithesis to the shelter-in-place orders, social distancing, and uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus crisis. It came out on March 20th, just a couple days before Illinois ordered their stay-at-home commands and many weeks or even months into the quarantine tactics of other countries. And I think that the game came out at just the right time. Because, as much as I love DOOM Eternal, and as much as I’ve already played the hell (heh) out of that game, and as much as it came out on literally the same day as Animal Crossing: New Horizons, I think that Animal Crossing is such a better fit for the new world virus order.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is, at its core, a life simulation game. You play as the only human in a world inexplicably populated by talking animals, and the only goals in the game are the ones you set for yourself. You can catch fish, pop balloons, plant flower gardens, take out loans on your house, build bookcases, talk to your neighbors, invite your friends over for dinner, go outside, and several other things that you probably can’t do right now. The game is immensely freeing in the power for change that you, as a player, have on the game’s world, which is thus immensely cathartic in a world where it seems like we have no power. In a time when everything’s up in the air and no one really knows what to do, having a small, virtual world that you can escape into and call your own is deeply satisfying. And while that’s one of the reasons that Animal Crossing has always been popular, I think right now it even more scratches that itch we all have.

The reason that finishing a TV show makes me sad is that I never had any direct interaction with this world that I so much wanted to be a part of. But with video games, it’s the opposite; I’m almost always satisfied after I finish playing a game because I feel like I’ve had some sort of impact on that game’s world, even if it’s vicarious and doesn’t amount to more than ones and zeroes. But even if its just smoke and mirrors, I can see the flowers that I planted as they grow, and talk to my neighbors in this game as they build their houses. I can take a plane to distant islands, and my friends can invite me over to see their houses. Video games, like any form of stories or fictional media, are all just illusions, but the true power of illusions lies in their ability to make you feel like they’re real. And right now I find Animal Crossing to be just the thing that I need. And I’m definitely not alone in that.

Well, there you have it. A brief-summary-that-ended-up-not-being-so-brief about how I’ve been spending my life in the moments where I am not hooked up my computer, spewing words onto a page for the entirety of creation to see. And, as it so happens, I generally spend my time hooked up into other devices seeing what the entirety of creation has to offer. Huh. Maybe there’s something I should change about that. But hey, it makes me feel better to know that most of my weekend wasn’t spent doing these things. A majority of my time was still spent with people I love, and spent with people I love while being outdoors. Because for as much media as I consume, nothing can replace true human interaction.

I just wish someone would tell the virus that.