Letting it Change

Honestly I’ve been stressing about making another post. I think I’m hung up on this idea that it’ll create an image in my head on what this blog should be, and I don’t want this to need to be anything. I tend to put myself in a box with a lot of my projects. I like things planned out and consistent. I’ve used the same pen in my car books for three years now because I don’t want to see the line weight or color change. Even getting the first car book started took me three months longer than I wanted because I hadn’t found the “right” notebook yet.

I think I worry way too much about having everything perfect from the get-go. I’ve been paralyzed by the idea that this needs to be good and consistent for as long as it exists. In the past I would have waited to make my first post until the website was designed completely. Right now it’s just some random WordPress theme. I’m teaching myself HTML right now, so as time goes on I’ll be able to change this site to better reflect who I am. I don’t think I’d have been okay with the slow evolution of this site in the past but I’m trying to get better at letting things be what they will be. I’m sure by the end of Fall Quarter this website will be unrecognizable.

Now here are some things that I like and have been thinking about.

Tahoe No.84 Poker Cards

I found these cards right at the beginning of the Summer. I was at the Salvation Army off of Devon and they were wrapped in packing tape along with three other decks. I’d been looking for a nice deck for a while and these looked perfect. The other packs are irrelevant. The one problem the Tahoes had was their clumpy-ness. It was impossible to fan them out. Even while looking through the cards you had in your hand they’d stick together in groups of 2-3. The cards were made somewhere in the late 70s/early 80s, and I’m sure they hadn’t seen use in years.

It took until mid-summer for me to bring these out for us to play with. I was worried their stickiness would stop us from enjoying them. Eventually I was out with Summer and Eli (I think at Rose’s Lounge) and we wanted to play cards. Luckily a few days prior I’d thrown them in my bag. After that I started bringing them with me everywhere and playing as much as I could. Summer, Eli, and I end up playing the same two games every time we go out: President, and Golf. Summer taught us a new game at the pig the other night. I had a lot of fun because it’s a longer form game, but I can barely remember how to play (there was a lot going on)

They also have a paper-ish feel that I like a lot more than plastic coated cards, even if they are a bit harder to play with. The backs aren’t too exciting but I think they look a lot better than Bicycle backs or the Bee decks I’ve seen around. The faces don’t have much going on either. What I really love about this deck is the box. The colors, the “Tahoe” font, and the Spade with the gold trim in the center make it really stand out for me.

I have another box of these somewhere. I went back the next day because they were only $1.99 for a tape-wrapped pack of four cards. I haven’t been able to find it recently, it must’ve disappeared into my car somewhere.

Pokémon Red for the Gameboy Color
(RIP Gameboy color..)

We had a GameStop five minutes away from our house growing up, so you wouldn’t be surprised to learn I was there more often than not. I went with my friend Luke one day. He was coming over and we probably went there looking for a game to play on my Xbox. While we looked around an older lady walked in with a small paper bag. She had some games to sell, so of course we peeked over to see what she was getting rid of, and of course we lost our minds when we saw her selling a Teal Gameboy Color along with 20 or so games.

Somehow we were brave enough to ask her to sell them to us instead. She let us search through her games and decide between ourselves what we wanted to buy. Among other things, I ended up with Super Mario Land, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, and Harvest Moon. But of the games, my biggest prize was Pokémon Red. Luke already had a Gameboy at this time so he let me buy it off of her. I think in total the games and the Gameboy were sold to me for $35.

When we got to my house we looked through all our games. Luke ended up getting a Pokémon game as well (whether it was blue or red I cannot remember). When we opened up the save on his cartridge we found a completed Pokédex with a max level team. We lost our minds for the second time that day. Sadly, due to circumstances outside of my control, in 2018 my Gameboy Color fell off my nightstand while I was at school and shattered into a thousand pieces.

Luckily I found a Gameboy Advance SP at Half Price Books in high school.

No More Things

I was writing a section about my Greek Antiquities, but it went on long enough to warrant its own post. I enjoyed having a space to write about little things. This was a bit like when you’re too scared to “mess up” a new journal by writing in it. I just had to write down SOMETHING and then it becomes okay for me to keep posting.