윤

Had a dream the other day that I couldn’t get into a library without waiting in line, and I wasn’t even sure what for, and even when I did, I stayed because I didn’t have much of a reason to enter, anyway. Later that evening, I’d spend our entire time at the harvest moon festival in front of a food truck for a shitty $16 plate of 불고기-topped noodles, prompting me to prayer:

Now I lay me down for the day,
I pray my Dreams take me away;
For Life’ll still suck when I awake,
I pray my Dreams give me a break.

All that I ask is something new,
The smallest change from my Day’ll do;
All that I ask is to be free,
From all the Fears restraining me.

…for good, really, our latest road trip there lets me cross it off places I’m likely ever to return to, which is kind of a good feeling, despite the reason of course being that little time’s left for it to change, similar to how I have fewer things left to eat. Speaking of which, a single Nathan’s Famous chili dog at one of the New York, New York exits (next to a woman manning an oxygen station who told her fellow booth operator that Christmas Day was the worst she’d had yet) now costs nearly ten dollars with tax and no longer even offers the snapping skin. Surprisingly cheaper box of fish & chips at Gordon Ramsay’s place, though factor in the wait, the lack of seating, then the fight through the crowds to get it back to your room warm, and the none of this seems worth the trouble. Bring back the original Star Trek Experience and maybe? I kept thinking of the drive I made once to meet a friend I no longer have and missed an item on the auction house in a game I no longer play, might that have been the wrong life-altering decision? At least the weather cooperated at the Cajon Pass and I didn’t crash the car as I have been in the dreams leading up to and during the trip.

I’ve used highlights from Son in the past, that one as an OBS scene when my former Brawlstars partner would score, but I’ve gotta hand it to him for defying the do-or-die stakes and coming through with a world-class assist to advance. Somewhere out there, assuming the Parkinson’s hasn’t completely taken his mind, 윤대섭 smugly recalls championing his countrymen against the doubts of a fellow viewer of Soccer Made in Germany. I lived to see the advent of Kpop, too.

Not an original idea, but I’m glad to have finally put it to paper for the sake of the boy’s creativity. The script was easy enough to come up with—I say that looking back, but the truth is the pentameter took some tweaking, the 昇龍拳 gag on one of my nightly runs over the bridges—though drawing hasn’t been in my wheelhouse for almost a lifetime, and a first go at inking compounded the challenge. The 0.5-0.7 gel pens I had left either too thick a stroke or not enough of one at 0.38mm, and didn’t erase at all cleanly as advertised. That and the economy of spacing for lettering, one really gains appreciation for the artistry of professionals even on a silly project like this. Not to bore you with other details, but if this wrap-up is to serve as its director’s commentary, I’d also like to add that among my many distractions (such as the lyrics to my next one) was the amusing notion the story could’ve been animated in a single continuous take.

When the fuck will I stop dreaming that I’m still in school? 윤대섭 and I were sharing a small room with flattened carpeting, and I realized I was late to class, took my backpack with one hand and a stack of books with the other, but not before his students began arriving and asking each other if I was his son. No time to look up directions—I had been to the first session so only a vague idea which direction to take on campus would have to do. There were several elevators in the building, and the nearest one open had filled fast; the up and down indicators lit above another across the hall, and I ran for it. Running always seems to require an unrealistic amount of effort (no doubt mirroring the bleak future that is come), but in this unusual case it produced the desired result and the nice old woman at the front of the passengers inside welcomed me. Half the service-sized large compartment was unoccupied, and I walked to the back and knelt against the wall on the empty left side to sort my things. An irascible gentleman who resembled Sean Bean in a red wig and black suit approached and told me that the space was reserved for riders with strollers, despite my taking up very little of it, not to mention a place closer to the others. It should have been quite clear from the expression I returned that he was free to go fuck himself.

Son and I began a rewatch of the series, now that he’s more familiar with the retro music cues, maybe to combat Teen Titans Go! fatigue, and I can’t help but notice the similar theme of outrageous escalation, further heightened because of its comparatively “regular” origins. In fact, I’m reminded of my own forays into fantasizing about escaping from uneventful times, my only scans of which I’ve collected here (and implore owners of any existing hard copies to contribute):

• “The Amazing Zit”
• “Morning Run”
• “The Videogame Conspiracy” Part II

I can’t believe the kind of er, resolve to right-justify each line of this document; it definitely seems to have skipped this generation, probably for the better. One might be tempted to exemplify these early demonstrations of perfectionism—I still remember 짜증난Chris refusing to sleep until he got the “A” on Captain America’s forehead just right—and deduce achievements later in life from similar drive, but that’s the product of astigmatic hindsight or at the very least skewed by tinted glasses to gloss over the nagging agony it induces. Do paragraphs that are aligned to CSS margins (or punctuation) belie exacting content, or vice versa?

I was hanging around with a group of friends, hoping one of them would give me a lift home; seems no app can overcome this subconscious weakness after a lifetime of unreliable transportation. Really, however, I was waiting on my love interest to return and give me the opportunity to end the night with her in the driver’s seat. In the meantime, I was preoccupied producing crumpled currency from my mouth, like that gag with the eggs, surprisingly dry and pocketed each wad for as long as they came. A ten-dollar bill I had found earlier was left in a bowl of dirty plumbing water, ordinarily a questionable place for paper with any intention of reuse, but I presumed it could be dried; when I retrieved it, the ink ran and the color was reduced to an almost transparent outline. (Reminded me of the counterfeit plot at the beginning of the 살인자의 쇼핑목록 drama I’ve been watching; it’s no Koo—then again, neither was the finale of Killing Eve—but there’s a bevy of cuties including AOA alumnus Seolhyun.) Inside the bathroom the door opened and there she was… my wife, hair tied back and makeup-less, sorrow in her large eyes that she was delayed by being invited to the Beatles concert, which I then realized was the reasonable explanation that had eluded me. In my self-absorbed distress, I had failed to appreciate her.