This morning, as I was reading on the train to work, I found myself unable to comprehend the printed symbols: I could tell that my eyeballs were capturing images, but my brain refused to process the contained information. I closed my eyes and tried to snap out of that confusion. In the darkness I spotted a jagged line of glitchy light. I was coming down with a migraine.

When I got off the train, I still had to drag myself to a bus stop, then stand inside, surrounded by dozens of people, until we reached the hospital complex where I work. I could barely process my surroundings; it felt like my brain was trapped behind a few layers of insulation. Performing any task at a human level becomes a huge struggle, so as soon as I sat down at my workstation, I gulped down some ibuprofen and hoped that my senses would return. Once they do, I know that it will come accompanied by a nausea-inducing headache that usually lasts a couple of days, but that’s still better than the experience of looking at words and being unable to process what they mean.

You see, I’m taking beta-blockers due to my heart issues, which should help prevent migraines as well. It’s a testament to how much stress I endured the previous day that the following one, soon after I woke up, I faced a migraine. Yesterday I was tasked with handling the move of a few computers and printers from the first floor of a building to the fifth and sixth. One of those computers was a custom-made workstation used by internal medicine for analyses and whatever else they do. I found myself having to carry a very weighty computer tower upstairs from the fifth floor (which technically isn’t part of my job, but the orderlies could have screwed it up). I also had to set up a dozen or so workstations and ensure that they were connected to the network (which involved visits to the corresponding network racks), that their programs worked, and that they could print through some of the available printers. Such a task involves coordinating with the local supervisor, nurses, and other types of human beings.

I tried to get back into weightlifting recently (I own dumbbells and a barbell, along with plenty of weights). I used to train regularly years ago, but I have discovered that I’m much, much weaker than I used to be, in part surely because of my health issues, and that my heart is prevented from pumping fast enough in case it reaches the rates of 180-200 that it hit during my last episode of arrhythmia. I have never felt comfortable in this body with which I was burdened, but these last few years the decay has gotten to me. I feel old and broken. On the train I have felt myself wishing I could get away with telling someone to give me their seat, because my back was hurting. It’s such a relief to know that life only gets harder from here on.

My lack of energy is also troubling, although expected. By four in the afternoon I’m done for the day, and I must be content with vegetating (browsing the internet, playing video games, etc.) for the rest of the day. It’s a good thing that I don’t have a social life, because I wouldn’t be able to handle going out in the afternoons to spend time with people, and I’d quickly resent them. Also, because I’m extremely introverted, the interactions I’m forced to tolerate at work drain me quickly. I almost feel myself desiccating.

I haven’t written any single word of my ongoing novel in a week or so. To be honest, I have barely missed it. Baldur’s Gate 3 has kept me entertained. The current sequence of my story requires lots of freewrites along with heavy emotional investment, and real life insists on dragging me back to its vacuous mundanity that erodes the heights that I glimpse when I’m immersed in the artistic process. Whenever I feel guilty for stepping away from my “art,” I remember that I write because it allows me to survive reality, but if I’m keeping myself distracted in some other way, I can give myself a break. It rarely lasts for a couple of weeks anyway, until I start feeling like I’m losing my mind.

It’s two in the afternoon on a Friday, and the one thing I’m looking forward to the most is putting my VR headset on, pulling my pants down, and masturbating to some carefully-arranged porn scenario in Virt-A-Mate. Last time it involved Cammy from the latest Street Fighter; a have your cake and eat it too kind of situation. But in matters of the penis, one needs some novelty, or else the old stick can be hard to stimulate. It certainly doesn’t help that the beta-blockers vastly lower my libido. VR aside, some of those kinky ASMR artists do wonders. Oh, if only some MILF could whisper in my ear that I’m a good boy and that I don’t need to change anything about myself, while actually meaning it. In another life, perhaps.

Aren’t you glad you read through this stupid entry? Here’s a creative promotional video that Joel Haver did for Baldur’s Gate 3: