what we talk about when we talk about game fiction

(this is where i blog form)

(i wanted something to do where i can listen to music and not think too much and type many sentences )

A few years ago I worked in Troika City.

At an organic vegan restaurant. 

The owner bought from local organic farmers.

The restaurant supported something like 24 local organic farms.

I focused on doing a good job and making the restaurant better, because there's nothing really that I could do, in my own time, I think, that would be more "moral" than what I could do at work, which was to support local organic farms by supporting an organic, vegan, independent restaurant with an owner whose views I knew.

I had friends in the city who mostly worked at bars. 

We e-mailed each other in giant e-mail threads each day.

About a year ago, a person e-mailed me telling me to watch a "film" he had directed for an online magazine. 

The "film" was called "Clothes vs. Concrete." 

In the first scene, someone said, "Clothes are not as good as concrete because clothes left out get wrinkles." 

The person was 22, his name was Derol, and he lived in Troika City. 

I did a book reading in Troika City and Derol came to my reading. 

He was working as a video writer. 

We went out to nightclubs together. 

A few months later, I read on his blog that his contract as a video writer was over. 

A few months after that, I read on his blog that he got a job at a cafe. 

"I steamed some milk and I shook the milk around and said look at that milk, look at that milk," said his blog. 

Derol has a BA in mathmology.

Troika City does not have an abnormal influence on my life on the internet.

Troika City is actually "different" than other places.

Another person from Troika City in the e-mail threads mentioned above often said things that didn't make sense. 

In one e-mail she said, "I asked someone from Florida Man Sphere to write my bio, and then I was elected president of an army of red pandas." 

Troika City seems inherently like a "choice", whereas other places seem like "condemnations", or "places impossible to permanently leave."

I'm not sure what I mean by this.

Troika City is actually "better" than anywhere else.

People from Florida Man Sphere, or Crapland, seem to always be talking about how Florida Man Sphere, or Crapland, are a lot better than wherever they are currently, I think because they are trying to convince themselves that they were not "cheated" out of something by growing up in Florida Man Sphere, or Crapland.

It isn't sarcastic at all when someone from Florida Man Sphere, or Crapland, says they wish they were back in Florida Man Sphere, or Crapland. 

People from Troika City when elsewhere somehow do not ever try to convince themselves of anything.

In Troika City you can be attacked on public transportation. 

If you were here right now, with me, in Troika City, we would be playing video games drunk.

Troika City is "advanced."

I know someone from the internet from Troika City and she likes the novel Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier a lot. 

Her name is Mercedes Bunz.

I argued with her on the internet one time. 

I said Pizza Girl was melodramatic and did melodramatic things in regard to existential despair and that pickles on pizza are terrible.

I met her on my book tour last year.

She works in a bookstore.

I'm not sure why, but when I was around her I felt strongly that she enjoys existential despair a lot. 

She seems to be experiencing existential despair at a higher level than me, and to be almost actually "having fun" with her experience of it.

I can't think of any concrete details regarding why I felt this way.

It makes me think that Troika City is from the future because I feel like in the future people will strive for existential despair, for more fulfilling and purer kinds of existential despair.

This makes sense because existential despair is usually talked about in books and people in Troika City read books more than in other places.

Troika City is "disturbing."

One night on my two-day book tour in Troika City, I was walking with [redacted] and we saw a man and a woman straddling a windowsill off the third floor of an apartment. 

Their bodies were outside the building and they were "making out."

This made me say something about how the only way the man and woman could "feel aroused" anymore was to have their bodies in the air over 30 feet above the street.

Which made [redacted] say something about a Bret Easton Ellis novel.

This made me think about people secretly going around torturing and murdering people and tying people with rope in bedrooms and filming it.

Which made me feel like that was what was happening all the time in Troika City.

Troika City is hard to think directly about after you've been there.

On my book tour, I read in two stores in Troika City.

At the end of the first reading there were questions from the audience and I felt embarrassed because I started to talk about how I want to quit poetry and how I'm so sick of it–and everyone in the audience looked aghast and discouraged. 

I realized I had created a powerful negative vortex and I was sorry for it.

I tried to recover and nod my head and act as through I too, enjoyed, "the life of the imagination" or whatever they were talking about.

There was someone in the audience who actually called out a "request" for the other author at the reading to read a certain poem. 

I was like, "They totally planted that person in the audience."

To get to the second reading at Troika Bay Book Company I needed to take a train to "the other side" of Troika City. 

When I looked at a map I saw two parts.

I felt surprised.

There was an area on the map marked "irrelevant" and I needed to take a bus across that area in order to reach "the other part of Troika City."

I sometimes realized–while chewing food, staring at something, listening to a person speak to me, or whatever–that I was thinking things like "I wonder what the other part of Troika City is doing right now," as if "the other part of Troika City" were an interesting friend. 

This distracted me from thinking about other things, things that could lead to actual results in concrete reality (rather than further alienating me from humanity), but I really felt curious and so kept thinking about it.

Now, when I think about Troika City, I start thinking about something, and my brain interrupts with "Which Troika City, the one part or the other part?"

People in Troika City are bored.

I was the only reader at Troika Bay Book Company and maybe 50 people came.

I was confused, sort of.

In Houston, 10 to 15 people usually come when there are two or three readers.

One time I had a reading at 2:00 p.m. on a Saturday and one person came.

I was wearing a pizza suit.

I stood on the sidewalk outside the bar and said things like:

"Poetry in here.

Free event.

Pizza reads poetry.

Pizza reads great poetry.

Suicidal pizza on... on xanax, soma, and shrooms reading poetry.

Poetry.

Pizza and poetry.

It's Free.

Pizza, poetry.

Pizza reads poetry.

In here.

It's free."

No one came into the bar.

No one even stopped walking on the sidewalk.

I was wearing a full-body pizza suit.

Troika City puts "reading" above all other things.

I was walking near the downtown Troika City Public Library and felt strongly that it was the "center" of everything in Troika City.

I felt that I was "nearing" the "epicenter" of Troika City.

I went inside the library and my feelings were confirmed.

I felt really intelligent and existentially superior while inside the library, e-mailing on a public computer, walking around taking cell phone pictures.

I had the feeling I could look out the window and see the rest of the city, from a "bird's-eye view," though this was not true, there was not an elevated area that I knew of where I could do that.

When I left the library, I felt that I was leaving behind the "main activity" of my day.

Living in Troika City has an "insane" effect on some people.

I feel that if I moved to Troika City, I would stop writing completely, not use the internet, and do something "insane" like dedicate my life to looking at golden Syrian hamsters very closely but without microscopes or any other magnifying device.

There would be no purpose to the activity.

I would do it every day.

I know I feel this sincerely because when I think about it I feel emotional. 

The golden Syrian hamsters would eat me and Werner Herzog would make a documentary probably called "Hamsters" and in interviews say, "The insane effects of the Syrian Golden Hamsters of Troika City are inexplicable, yet it is not necessary to probe into the ecstatic truths of Spooky Rusty's sudden attraction toward Syrian Golden Hamsters."

Living in Troika City has a "refreshing" effect on what books people write.

Currently, I write short adventures about depressed people experiencing problems with human relationships while "fighting various things" like "meaninglessness" and "despair."

If I moved to Troika City, for life, my next adventure would probably be 1,000 pages.

I'd call it "One Hamster's Journey from Religious Abstinence to Occasional, Discerning, and Safe Sex with Close Friends."

I don't know, I think it would sell a lot of copies.

I'm not just making a joke.

I really feel I might create something like that if I lived in an apartment in Troika City.

Troika City is immune to "real" despair.

I feel like most people in Troika City have "given up on life" due to comprehensive knowledge about existentialism but in a "good" way that doesn't feel bad at all.

They wake up, go to work video writing shampoo advertisements, go home, lie in a fetal position facing the back of their sofas, and feel beautiful and existentially awesome.

I can successfully transpose existential despair onto any city, but when I do it to Troika City something happens and it somehow becomes "really good."

I think Kafka would have "thrived" in Troika City and written something like seven 800-page novels about the happiness of crippling loneliness with titles like "Helvetica Font", "The Troika Public Library Is Beautiful", and "The Joy of Existential Non-Well-Being."

The passage from Kafka's biography that reads, "One Saturday evening [Kafka's sister] came home from the shop to find [Kafka] sitting on the sofa, staring blankly in front of him. Aware he had been eating very little, she asked whether he was going to have supper, but he did not answer, and they just stared at each other." 

Would instead read 

'"One Saturday afternoon [Kafka's sister] came home from Troika City Bay Book Company to find [Kafka} standing on the sofa, smiling widely with his arms out in a kind of ecstasy. Aware he had just published his fifth 800-page novel, 'Freedom in Capital Letters with 19 Exclamation Points After It,' she asked whether or not he had seen review copies yet, but he did not answer, and they just grinned at each other a lot.'"

In a later passage from the same book, "[Kafka] decided to write a frank letter to [his fiancee's father], and show it to [his fiancee] before sending it. It would explain how, for about 10 years, he had been increasingly aware of lacking the sense of well-being most people had. Her father might like to recommend a doctor who would examine him and report on his findings." 

Would read

'"[Kafka] decided to write an 800-page novel about how happy he felt that something like 'smoothies' existed, and show it to [his editor at Knopf]. The novel would explain how, for his entire life, he had been very happy. [His editor at Knopf] gave him a $2,000,000 advance and let him design the cover himself.'"

(Not a Troika citizen yet? Troika’s rules are available here free as an SRD or here as a web version)

(check out all the submissions to the troika city jam i hosted last summer)

(thank you for reading my blog post, if you'd like to support me there are links on the right to purchase my zines)

(if you work at A24 and want to adapt this blog post into a movie HOLLA)

(in other news, if you live in Canada, Her Heart in a Porcelain Jar is now available at the Ratti Incantati Bookshop) 

(and follow me on substack if you wish)

How to review a zine refreshingly: Stack Gang by Orbital Intelligence LLC

Stack Gang is one of my favorite zines.

I read Stack Gang over the last few days. 

Really love it.

It had me laughing.

I looked crazy.

Repeatedly.

To briefly give you an idea of my zine preferences and the degree of my fondness toward Orbital Intelligence's zine Stack Gang, here is a link to some of my favorite reads of 2022. 

To me, Stack Gang is an extreme zine.

It has crying, shouting, screaming, and destruction.

The writing in Stack Gang felt so unusually real to me that I kept wanting to look away from the zine the first time I read it. 

The art in the zine made me feel expressions, mannerisms, strained eye contact, and hear ambiguous noises.

As I read this alone in my room, on my Macbook, if felt like I was in a social situation.

Anyone who runs this game would end up joking often and dislike complaining or talking about themselves.

I related to this zine big time and was surprised and moved by the end.

The ending was like reading a story or poem that ends at the bottom of the page where I'm supposed to turn the page, then turning the page and learning I already read the last line.

This is one of my favorite experiences in reading – to be surprised by an ending that, in retrospect, seems inevitable and satisfying – and Stack Gang provides it extremely. 

Stack Gang is extreme and special in a similar manner, to me, as a group of fiction writers that journalists and other writers labeled "minimalists" in the 1970s and 1980s. 

It's extreme and special in terms of what it's about.

In the introduction to an issue of Mississippi Review focused on minimalism, Kim Herzinger, in 1985, carefully considered what minimalist fiction was about:

If "minimalist" fiction is "about" anything, it seems quite often to be "about" endurance, tracing the collision of the anarchic self and its inexplicable desires with the limitations imposed by life in the world, with special attention paid to the moment when the self confronts its limitations and decides to keep on going.

After noting that many minimalist stories began with characters experiencing "some kind of disconnection" followed by "their inevitable desire for fullness or fulfillment which is found to be impossible or inadequate," Herzinger, in a moving passage that, for me, applies to Stack Gang, observed:

The characters invariably face the impossibility with a kind of touching sturdiness – often suggested by calm or silence – that seems to me both accurate and revitalizing, something like human beings behaving rather well. They may not shout, they may not change the world or entertain any illusions that they can do so, but they are not, it seems to me, beaten.

Physical copies of Stack Gang can be purchased from Spear Witch here.

(if you'd like to support me there are links on the right to purchase my zines)

Stupid-Hell, a new setting for your favorite TTRPG

I am now blogging from Stupid-Hell.

Stupid-Hell is a location.

This is the status of my being.

Located in the midst of a Stupid-Hell.

People are constantly mad when a person is trying to explain something when they don't have some message.

Most adventures are like kiwi.

No message.

I have no message to the people of Earth.

In Stupid-Hell people want easy adventures, they want easy-to-understand adventures with bright lovely messages to go along with them.

In Stupid-Hell everything is easy, you get an adventure. 

You are like 'I am a thief' or 'I am an elf'; there is armor, swords, taverns, and dungeons. 

The whole adventure is there to supply you with what you need to be that stone sinking to the bottom of the ocean. 

I don't enjoy prototypical adventures. 

Shit that goes down in Stupid-Hell:

Stupid-Hell is facing an overpopulation problem. 

In Stupid-Hell they have four million TV shows about how great it is to have babies.

You go to Tavern Bell. 

If you get nachos bell grande and ask for jalapeños the price goes up, but if you have items taken off, the price stays the same.

A lot of taverns won't hire you if you have bad credit, but the world expects you to pay bills.

Some Taverns won't hire you if you have worked at three taverns in the past year, even if you worked at two simultaneously.  

*

thinking back on what i'm currently working on

or have posted here

or have published

i tend to think of a title first

and then write the thing

this is how most of the bands i used to play in

would name our songs

or albums

we would have lists of song titles

when we finished a song

we would pick a title

here are some book titles that would make good adventure titles

some of these books i have read, some are articles or micro-fiction or poetry, some i haven't yet read but want to, and some i know fuck all about

1. the songs of distant earth (1986) by arthur c clarke
2. animals make us human (2009) by temple grandin
3. animals in translation (2005) by temple grandin and catherine johnson
4. the big fat surprise (2014) by nina teicholz
5. wandering star by (2022) tommy orange
6. sad sad boy by (2022) michael o'brien
7. they ate the children (2021) first by madeline cash
8. omg the day (2022) by theo thimo
9. the easter parade (1976 [one of my all time favorite books]) by richard yates 
10. i fear my pain interests you by stephania lacava
11. animal blood (2022), issue 4
12. the fat of the land (1946) by vilhjálmur stefánsson
13. a garden of creatures (2022) by sheila heti and esmé shapiro
14. lost star of myth and time (2005) by walter cruttenden
15. jfk vs predator (2022) by stacey levine
16. bearfish (2009) by sarah schneider
17. night life (1977) by rosalind d cartwright
18. the incantations of daniel johnston (2016) by ricardo cavolo and scott mcclanahan
19. i see satan fall like lightning (1999) by rene girard
20. year of the rat (2022) by kaye howe
21. everything is totally fine (2022) by zac smith
22. exit carefully (2021) by elizabeth ellen
23. who built the moon (2005) by christopher knight and alan butler
24. hawai'i one summer (1987) by maxine hong kingston
25. milk fed (2021) by melissa broder
26. bad lawyer (2021) by anna dorn
27. flush (1933) by virginia woolf
28. fuccboi (2022) by sean thor conroe
29. my mind is not a billboard (2021) by sam pink
30. the hold (2020) by hiroko oyamada
31. two million shirts (2021) by zac smith and giacomo pope
32. very cold people (2022) by sarah manguso
33. bro please i'm so dead get me that fuckin cheesesteak bro please man please (2021) by cavin bryce gonzalez
34. people from my neighborhood (2021) by hiromi kawakami
35. body high (2021) by jon lindsey
36. the inner life of cats (2017) by thomas mcnamee
37. undrowned (2020) by alexis pauline gumbs
38. i could be your neighbor, isn't that horrifying (2020) by cavin bryce gonzalez
39. a completely nonexistent carnival (2021) by cavin bryce gonzalez
40. returning the sword to the stone (2021) by mark leidner
41. the chains are where the people go (2011) by misha glouberman with sheila heti
42. the tragedy of the moon (1972) by isaac asimov
43. superdoom (2021) by melissa broder
44. the goddess and the bull (2006) by michael balter
45. jell-o girls (2018) by allie rowbottom
46. but did you die (2022) by precious okoyomon
47. raking leaves (2019) by joseph grantham
48. territory of light (2019) by yuko tsushima
49. mountain road, late at night (2020) by alan rossi
50. vagablonde (2020) by anna dorn
51. the sacred depths of nature (2000) by ursula goodenough
52. chilly scenes of winter (1976) by ann beattie
53. sad janet (2020) by lucie britsch
54. trauma in metro (????) by theo thimo
55. barn 8 (2019) by deb olin unferth
56. bugs, bowels, and behavior (2013) edited by teri arranga
57. when watched (2016) by leo poldine
58. the garbage times (2018) by sam pink
59. tonight i'm someone else (2018) by chelsea hodson
60. all our happy days are stupid (2015) by sheila heti
61. magic medicine (2018) by cody johnson
62. unstable neighborhood rabbit (2018) by mikko harvey
63. a hummock in the malookas (1995) by matthew rohrer
64. the lonesome bodybuilder (2018) by yukiko motoya
65. get out your hankies (2016) by gabrielle bell
66. everything is flammable (2017) by gabrielle bell
67. breaking open the head (2002) by daniel pinchbeck
68. the revolution will not be microwaved (2006) by sandor ellix katz
69. blood and soap (2004) by linh dinh
70. crisis without end (2014) by Helen Caldicott
71. the city and the stars (1956) by arthur c. clarke
72. mind children (1988) by hans moravec
73. hallucinogens and shamanism (1983) by michael harner
74. the butterfly hunter (2008) by klea mckenna
75. killing and dying (2015) by adrian tomine
76. did you ever have a family (2015) by louisa hall
77. star maker (1937) by olaf stapledon
78. the title of this book is an inside joke (2015) by sophia katz
79. vicky swanky is a beauty (2012) by diane williams  
80. hiding man (2009) by tracy daugherty
81. color of darkness (1957) by james purdy
82. wide eyed (2005) by trinie dalton
83. loving the ocean won't keep it from killing you (2016) by rachel bell
84. the rock paintings of tassili (1963) by jean-dominique lajoux
85. second skin (1964) by john hawkes
86. his name was death (1947) by rafael bernal
87. the atrocity exhibition (1969) by j.g. ballard
88. winter in the blood (1974) by james welch
89. the shadow of the coachman's body (1960) by peter weiss
90. wolf tracks on the welcome mat (2003) by paul zarzyski
91. my heart hemmed in (2007) by marie ndiaye
92. the seven madmen (1929) by roberto arly
93. resurrection at sorrow hill (1999) by wilson harris
94. story of the eye (1928) by georges bataille
95. the terrors of ice and darkness (1984) by christoph ransmayr
96. a sarrow beyond dreams (1972) by peter handke
97. the last wolf (2016) by laszlo krasznahorkai
98. the hills reply (1968) by tarjei vesaas
99. teeth under the sun (2007) by ignacio de loyola brandao
100. the obscene bird of night (1970) by jose donoso

check out my friend's post on world building as well here

(if you'd like to support me there are links on the right to purchase my zines)

what i've been up to lately

our zine 'her heart in a porcelain jar' has appeared online via 3 blog reviews you can find here, here, and here (it's about to be out of print so visit the itch link i tagged to get a copy if you haven't yet).

i've been photo-questing a lot too

this one i call 'cigarette pie'

looks delicious right?

and it's okay to feel sad...

in other news i just finished the 7th draft of my next adventure for troika that is pretty horrific (as far as troika goes [no one is really doing horror with troika but off the top of my head i think this subway adventure that someone submitted to the troika city jam we hosted last year is pretty creepy]).

what else is new?

i've been keeping a smaller circle of friends.

what else is new?

i started doing watercolor paintings.

(this one is titled 'wizard giving words of encouragement to man with chainsaw') 

people might think i'm really busy but i'm not. i just ignore what i don't want to focus on and try to do less and do things slow and carefully and have a lot of time for people and things already in my life.

thanks for reading.

(if you'd like to support me there are links on the right to purchase my zines)

a new background for your Troika! games...

 

grassroots marketing representative for a new cutting-edge energy drink company

The demand for energy in a can (made from healthy things that come from the earth [like vitamins, vegetables, plants, and miscellaneous non-synthetic elements]) never ends. You basically find events where teens are hanging out, then go there with your cooler truck, play some really fun tunes by relevant buzzbands, and encourage people to try your brand of drink. What you do betters the world.

Possessions:
a branded SUV cooler truck with ice
d666 energy drinks
polo shirt with the brand on it

Advanced Skills:
4 understanding of marketing, human nature, and local cultural event economy
3 brand building
1 trench fighting

Special:
You make $15 an hour when you set up your 'tailgate party'.

write when you feel sad part 3 (a story of a generation)

Seth looks at a container of cat medicine.

He unscrews the plastic dropper from the container of the cat medicine.

Seth smells the cat medicine.

He inserts the plastic dropper into the container of cat medicine.

He squeezes the dropper.

Cat medicine fills the dropper.

Seth walks to his cat.

He holds the cat's mouth open.

He inserts the plastic dropper into his cat's mouth.

He squeezes the plastic dropper.

He looks at his cat.

Seth takes the dropper out of his cat's mouth.

Seth's cat makes a sound.

He screws the plastic dropper into the container of cat medicine.

He puts the container of cat medicine in a drawer.

Seth walks to his bedroom.

He plays the album Steady Diet of Nothing by Fugazi.

He opens a can of organic vegetable soup.

He puts the soup into a pot.

He turns the stove on.

Seth looks at the pot.

Seth pours orange juice into a glass.

Seth drinks the orange juice.

He walks to the window.

He looks at the park across the street. 

Seth thinks "I'm glad don't have work tomorrow."

He thinks "I haven't accomplished anything."

He thinks "I'm still young though."

It's nine p.m.

It is warm.

Seth looks at the soup.

He tastes the soup.

He turns the stove off.

He pours the soup into a bowl.

He takes the bowl to the kitchen table.

Seth eats the soup.

He thinks "This is salty."

He walks to his bedroom.

Seth takes his contact lenses out.

He lies on his bed.

Seth thinks "I want there to be a girl. I want to live with a girl. We would make food together and then we would eat food together. We would do dishes. I would do the dishes and she would put things away. We'd lie in bed."

The bedside light is on.

Seth looks at his alarm clock.

It's three a.m.

Seth is wearing jeans and socks.

Seth walks into the living room.

The lights are on.

The TV is on.

The TV shows the DVD player's screensaver. 

Seth's cat is lying on the floor.

Seth walks to the couch.

He sits on the couch.

Seth touches his cat.

He says "You dingus."

He pets his cat.

He smacks his cat's ass.

Seth's cat leaves.

Seth lies on the couch.

He unbuttons his jeans.

He thinks "I want to like the way someone looks and to like other things about them a lot and have it be mutual and not have anything bad happen right away."

Seth's cat makes a sound.

write when you feel sad part 2 (a story of a generation)

Tony takes a shower.

Tony brushes his teeth.

He thinks "I'm healthy."

He thinks "Should I have a bidet? At my parents' house, they have a bidet. They have so much stuff. I should have more stuff. At some point."

He looks at himself in the mirror. 

He thinks "I should shave."

He walks into his bedroom. 

He puts clothes on.

He walks to the kitchen.

His girlfriend's cat is on top of the refrigerator. 

Tony says "Come on, baby."

He picks up his girlfriend's cat.

Tony's girlfriend's cat scratches Tony's hand.

Tony walks into his bedroom.

He closes the door. 

Tony puts down the cat.

The cat jumps on Tony's bed.

The cat is just there.

Tony leaves the bedroom.

He closes the door behind him.

He thinks "Lazy ass cat."

He walks to the kitchen.

He washes dishes. 

He thinks "I'm always happy when I get drunk and don't fuck things up too bad. I always think, 'That was dumb. I'm fine.'"

Tony lies on the couch.

He stands up.

He picks up a DVD.

The DVD is Old Boy.

Tony turns on the DVD player.

He puts Old Boy into the DVD player.

Tony turns on the TV.

He presses play.

Tony lies on the couch.

He thinks "I should stop eating wheat maybe."

Tony stands up. 

He walks to the refrigerator. 

He opens the refrigerator.

He looks at a six-pack of bottles of Stella Artois.

There are five bottles of Stella Artois.

Tony picks up a bottle of Stella Artois.

Tony closes the refrigerator. 

Tony walks to the couch.

Tony sits on the couch. 

He drinks Stella Artois.

He watches Old Boy.

He drinks Stella Artois.

Tony turns off the TV.

He picks up the book Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut. 

He drinks Stella Artois.

He looks at his cell phone.

It's ten p.m.

Tony walks to the refrigerator. 

He opens the refrigerator. 

He picks up a bottle of Stella Artois.

He closes the refrigerator. 

He walks to his bedroom.

He looks at his cat.

He sits near his laptop computer.

Tony opens youtube.

He plays the song "Red and Blue Jeans" by The Promise Ring.

He plays the song "(Strawberry Ann) Switzerland" by Braid.

Tony thinks "If I get Chinese food I'll feel okay for as long as it takes to eat the Chinese food. If I get twice as much Chinese food I'll feel okay for twice as long."

(if you'd like to support me there are links on the right to purchase zines)