THE HUB

the start of this era is January 31, which was my first day at a new job. it was at my college in a place called "the hub", where new students came for orientation, but we also had a lot of students come in with other questions, and also to use our computers. i'm not much of a people person, and dealing with strangers has never been my favorite thing, but over the years i've become decent at it. i also had to take phone calls, and i got a handful of extremely angry students, but most of the people were nice. we were still wearing masks at this time (or, at least i was) and it made working just a little bit shittier. overall, i'd give this stint at the hub a 7/10 or so. better than my previous jobs at various restaurants. i got paid close to minimum wage tho, which sucked.

i made some progress in finding who i really was. i have drugs to thank for a lot of that! nothing too crazy, just some synthetic weed edibles. i would take one every friday night, babble to my friends incoherently for a few hours, then ride out the high by listening to music or watching youtube. i would stay up until 6am sometimes, trying to wring out every last second of that high. when i woke up the next morning, i was completely crashed, too tired to do anything, but it was worth it. did you know that weed alters your perception of things? crazii, i know. this was when animal collective really opened up to me. their atmospheric and psychedelic music was tailor-made for these types of highs.

i made some art pieces while i was high. in all of these "highpeaces", i was trying to comb my brain for random bits of memories from my childhood. for some reason, the weed made my memories of childhood stronger. as you can tell, i'm not an artist.

around this time is when i was really exploring my gender identity. i had come out to my friends a few months before, but i hadn't told anyone in my family. i bought a bunch of women's clothes from hot topic and wore them around the house when nobody was home. i loved taking pictures of myself in my black mesh shirts and pleated skirts. the gender euphoria was so strong, and it made me feel so good. i continued to keep it a secret, though, at least for now. but at this point, i knew it wasn't "just a phase". it was me.

i also made my first furry oc, Ash! i made her using remy boydell's character maker thingy. she's a gray catgirl who's an obnoxious shithead stoner. i love her. this started a trend of creating a new fursona every year or so. a part of me still loves Ash the most, because she was my first one. her design is simple but i really identify with it and seeing any art of her gives me great joy.

in march, i got really really into kero kero bonito. i pretty much listened to them exclusively for that entire month. then in may, i got into the velvet underground. i was already familiar with their debut, but i started listening to their other work, and i fell in love with it. in particular white light/white heat. the title track, lady godiva's operation, and sister ray are some of my favorite songs ever. i also loved their self-titled album. loaded was not quite as good but i still enjoyed it a lot. i associate loaded with my trip to charlotte in june of that year, to see my gf. it was a good trip because i got to see her, and i love spending time with her! but i had to stay at a crummy hotel the whole time.

and then, in the middle of the trip, my gf tested positive for covid, after i had already been hugging and kissing her a bunch. by the time i returned home, i knew i must have gotten covid, but i felt no symptoms, and when i took a test, it came back negative. hallelujah! it made no sense to me, but i was thankful to avoid getting it. the next day i went to work and everything was fine. the morning after that, i woke up with a bit of a frog in my throat, but didn't feel bad. that night, i took an edible and chatted in a vc with friends, and i slowly felt myself getting sicker. i then took another test, and it came back positive. like, really positive. the line was DARK. a couple hours later, i had a terrible fever, chills, and was too tired to do anything. having a fever is bad enough, but having it while off an edible is wayyy worse. for the next week, i isolated at my mom's home, just staying in my room the entire time. i had respiratory issues, but nothing too bad, thankfully. i mostly remember being very, very tired. but i was lucky to come out of it unscathed and avoiding long covid.

i basically spent the remainder of that summer going to work and taking edibles once or twice a week. these highs were really mind-opening for me, as it was my first time really experimenting with drugs. i remember drinking cokes during dinner, making sure i had enough caffeine to get through the night. i suspect this probably had a negative effect on my heart, but i didn't really care at the time. eventually, i started to get a bit scared, so i went to a doctor about it. they pretty much said i was ok, so i kept on. this issue would come up again later, but not in this era. i pretty much did weed (or as i called them, "big guys") whenever i wanted to, with no restrictions, and i never had any bad trips. fun!

i stopped working at the hub at the end of the summer. i probably would've worked there longer, but i was a student-employee, and i officially graduated with my degree from college that august. i should clarify that i graduated with an "Associates Degree in Science", which has the sole purpose of transferring pre-requisite classes to another, bigger college. i couldn't exactly just end schooling and go out to the workforce with that kind of degree.

the plan was always to do my pre-requisites at a local community college, mainly because it costs a hell of a lot less than going to university. i was only supposed to spend a couple years at the community college, but instead i spent 3 years there. i felt bad that i was being so slow. i had failed a number of classes, mostly because i just didn't even try at some of them.

but now that was behind me. i officially applied at the University of South Carolina, and i planned to start there in january 2023. honestly, i was dead scared that they would deny my application, for some reason. maybe because of my bad grades at community college. i waited anxiously for an acceptance letter.

in the meantime, i spent the rest of the year with no school or work, for the first time in a very long time. i was a total NEET. as much as i love rotting in my bed all day, it does tend to get old after doing it for a while. with nothing to drive me out of the house, i ended up with the familiar feelings of loneliness and emptiness that i felt during quarantine. i tried to solve this by going to the gym more, which kinda worked, i guess?

what i mostly remember from this "gap" is, of course, getting high as fuck off edibles, again. i remember watching panty and stocking while playing poptropica and listening to animal collective, all while high off my ass. i honestly miss those times.

oh wait, actually, i did have a job. i worked two nights a week at a place called Happy Crab Seafood. what a shitty fucking job. for some reason, the customers were super rude, and every single shift was a struggle. i wanted to pull my hair out every friday and saturday night. seriously, fuck that job. the food was pretty damn good tho...

in december, i took a flight to california to spend christmas with my girlfriend. it was a lovely trip. it was heartwarming to spend christmas with my baby.

on christmas day, we drove up to the mountains. we don't have mountains in south carolina, so it was cool to be up there. it was so remote and lonely... which i loved, for some reason.

afterwards, we drove back down and went to a thai restaurant for dinner. i know it doesn't sound like much, but honestly, this was the best christmas day for me since i was a kid. i remember driving down the mountains while the sun set, listening to separator by radiohead. i felt so... at peace.

i capped this era off by getting drunk as fuck on new year's eve. that was the first time i had been *really* drunk. i literally couldn't walk. i remember falling down on the wet grass outside, laughing my ass off.

i felt damn pretty good. a new, exciting era was coming up. it's what i had been waiting for since i graduated high school. an opportunity to find myself, to expand, to live on my own. i couldn't wait!!

my rating for this era is a 7/10.

nowhere near perfect, but overall it was an era i look back on fondly, and i learned a lot about myself.

and now, some last.fm stats

12318 scrobbles (36/day)

TOP ARTISTS:

Car Seat Headrest (1194 scrobbles)
The Beatles (992 scrobbles)
Animal Collective (703 scrobbles)
The Velvet Underground (544 scrobbles)
Kero Kero Bonito (563 scrobbles)

TOP ALBUMS:

Kero Kero Bonito - Intro Bonito (236 scrobbles)
Car Seat Headrest - Little Pieces of Paper with "No" Written On Them (198 scrobbles)
The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground (182 scrobbles)
The Velvet Underground - White Light / White Heat (178 scrobbles)
Black Dresses - Forget Your Own Face (161 scrobbles)

TOP TRACKS:

The Velvet Underground - Lady Godiva's Operation (45 scrobbles)
The Velvet Underground - White Light/White Heat (39 scrobbles)
Animal Collective - Wide Eyed (32 scrobbles)
Black Dresses - GAY UGLY AND HARD TO UNDERSTAND (31 scrobbles)
Kero Kero Bonito - Pocket Crocodile (28 scrobbles)