Same Angel, Same Demons

 I keep getting these random (AI Generated?) videos popping up in my (social media) feed. Targeting me (I think) because I checked a few particular boxes, Yadda Yadda Yoda. "When 900 years old you reach, in your feed these videos will be" <(- _ -)> Well, I decided to actually check them out instead of scrolling past for once, and what did I find? Many of them go something like this: An attractive, pretty young lady in her early 20's at best, saying, her own peers won't talk to her because they think she's unattractive. I need someone like The Great Cosmic Wie to talk to. Now, older does not mean dumb... At least not all of us. Space cadets such as myself aren't fresh off the turnip freighter. And of course my first thoughts are of an old country-western tune by George Strait singing about Oceanfront property in Arizona. But, still let's say it's true. My kids are about to be 22, 24, and 26. Add about 15 years and we're somewhere near my hypothetical limit. IF (and that's a mighty big IF the size of Rushmore) I ever decide to get involved with anyone, She's going to be someone who's lived and has seen enough for a certain mutual understanding. I'll say it this way: A veteran requires a veteran. (I mean that in a non-military sense) Those of us who know what certain bad situations are like would never do that to somebody else, especially not to someone we honestly love. It's that simple. There are certain battlefields (Also in a non-military sense) that I never wish to return to. Now, I know I'm speaking with bit of a forked tongue when I go on and on about a certain person, but 1, it's impossible to ever happen, and 2, the age gap is only seven years which really isn't bad at all in my book. Also, while I speak with logic above, I also can't exactly change the very illogical way I feel about certain people. Some people you'll never meet and you'll never know. Some people you'll briefly meet as you pass them by. Some people you may get to know a little, even their name. Some people you will remember. Some people you will forget. Then there are those rare souls who'll totally rewire your brain, and you're never quite the same..... again. And for me, of course, there is only one person I can think of who has changed me so. But of course, they'll never know. Ah, love. What a double-edged blade it is. I know you didn't mean to, but what have you done? What have you done to me? (Even though this is not your fault) You never lied. You never deceived. I can not blame you for the illusion that was and is my own. For I know I have been blind to the truth. I can only see a dream, and know I'm just dreaming, though it's that last part of me that can only be real enough to realize the illusion, this very one who knows yet fears to tell me.  As for the rest of me, everything that's left, everything that matters, I can still only see Heaven in your eyes. Oh Angel of this light that has blinded me of all reality, What am I to do now that I love you?  I am this fool who can't see you in any other way. I love you in the way you never wished me to, in the way that I understand I would never wish to bring you the pain of having to repeat that same no over and over again. It hurts you to say what hurts me to hear... Though the truth must be spoken, unbroken. So I sit here in silence, hiding these feelings of these long years, far too many to be infatuation, hiding, biting words I must refrain and restrain. For I love you in the way I can never directly say. And what I could never speak aloud, I can say here now and forevermore... I love you, Angel. I wish I could have been that which you wanted, that which you needed. I wish I could have been that very answer. Love, love, everywhere, beauty all around, plenty to see, but none for me. I almost wish I were blind to it all, for my heart aches for all that I could never touch, for all that can never reach out for me. Still, I could never bring myself to imagine the dreariness of never having seen at all. Would emptiness in ignorance be better than hollow wisdom? Of having seen beyond the horizon of all that was ever meant to be? Welcome to the human condition. We can aspire to the greatest heights, but at the end of the day, we are who we are. Have I achieved my goals for this year? I'm still alive. Some days, I go through the motions, staying on autopilot, just doing what I am supposed to do while trying not to think too much about where all of this is leading to. Still, who doesn't think about the future? Who out there forgets the past or the people who live there? Autopilot doesn't last forever when you're not a robot. While robots are great at focusing on the task at hand, the here and the now, I'm not so great at it. I hate feeling lonely. It is a total bummer. Albeit a fact of life, I suppose. What do you the day after all hope is gone? As Ozzy once sang, Goodbye to romance, goodbye to friends. Due to many factors beyond my control, I have come to the sad but true assumption that such a thing is just not possible, at least not for me, unless I happen to cross a line or three, and I'm not so sure I'd want to. In all honesty, I've never been in love with a real person... Only my image of them... Just a hallucination. And reality is a hell of a thing to wake up to. Or so it was with my ex. These are the times when we wake up to the nightmare. And the nightmare is knowing with near certainty that I will indeed die alone. What about my angel? She's still around, as beautiful and as wonderful as ever. I still love her and I will always love her. Sadly, I would still have my doubts even if she were to fall into my arms right now. (Though such an improbable thing happening would still make me extremely happy) There are just too many factors working against me. It would be my greatest dream just to hold her. Sadly, it remains a dream that I must also wake from. I need to make a serious change in said dreams and my goals for happiness. I need to do so much more than move the goalposts. I need to change the whole field and the rules of the game. If I am destined to be alone, I need to find ways to be happy alone. Otherwise I shall spend these waning years in sadness, in sorrow, in suffering. And that is no way to live. No way at all. I want to live my life in such a way where death does not seem like mercy. I want to live my life in such a way where I'll actually be sad to see it end. But, first, I must redefine goals, happiness, and success. I have to find a way to drop the criteria of being loved at least by someone. At least my tombstone won't say, "Here lies the Great Cosmic Wie who never scored". Still.... As I have said and have indeed learned, sex is a lot easier to find than actual love. And if I could have died a virgin, yet have still been held, cuddled, and snuggled to sleep every night, that would be a much better fate in my book. Instead, it's an empty bed and echoes of a relationship long dead. I hate the recurring dreams about being back with my ex. For some reason this latest nightmare involved a zombie apocalypse. It figures. My failed marriage and zombies do have one thing in common. Long dead and would scare the hell out of me to come back to life. I preferred the dream I had later of relaxing at a beach resort with two hotties I have never met. Now, that was nice. It beats dealing with both zombies and my ex at the same time. I begin to wonder just what is my problem that my subconscious wants to throw me back into that relationship again and again. Wasn't once punishment enough? Ah, the ways we pay for our sins. Brutal, so brutal. I so need a reset, a rearrangement, a total reboot and repurposing of my life goals. I wish I knew how and where to begin. That is today's million dollar question. I have still been working on my virtual DOS gaming computer, my own little system for running many different levels of my favorite games. There was nothing virtual about it when I started building it in the late 1990s. Now it runs exclusively in DOSBOX. I have been building on this little system for going on 30 years now. It has been a great help with distraction during those dark days. They say a work of art is never completed, only abandoned. And I'll probably be working on this little project until the day I die. It has made me feel special, even as the outside world makes me feel stupid. Remember when Jobe Smith said that the cyber universe was his, that he was God there? Well, sort of like that. Though I see myself with less divinity and more as a Cyber Wizard when it comes to old technology. Cyber Merlin at your service. Though, lately my quest has been recording demos for every last version of the Freedoom Iwad. I just finished 0.11. Now I am working on 0.12 and 0.13 simultaneously. Mainly so I can celebrate the removal of levels 7, 21, and 27, tough ones I have completed again and again in old versions. You know it's pretty damn cool that so long as this creation lasts, people will be able to watch me play Doom, no matter how long gone from this world I may be. There is some serious gaming history I am working to preserve. My oldest demos in there are from 1997. That was a totally different me. I also have rare demos and levels other people have made. There are other demos for Doom v1.1 that go back to late 1993. I can easily set aside my pride for more ancient demos or simply when others play it better. I have many of the greats like Zeromaster who could run circles around me. My vision is to bring together the best of the best. I hope someday I can find someone who would appreciate and enjoy this stuff just as much as I do. Maybe they can continue my work after I am gone. I am an old Sith Lord who needs an apprentice. Learn to use the DOS side of the force. Anyway, building and creating would be my best chance to not feel so lonely. In addition to my DOSBOX menu. I also have a few virtual computers running some of my favorite old windows programs and games. Then I have these HTML pages that I have been building for about a decade now, bookmarks and gifs, plus a couple dedication pages, to my baby sister, to my angel, and (for some reason) to Khan Noonan Sighn. Then there's my digital collection of just about everything from movies, to games, to music, to pictures, to saved web pages, and way more things to name. 2025 has seen me cross the 8 terabyte mark. And that doesn't include all the files that were Marsha's or my Dad's. I am really in need of those 5D Superman crystals. I'll bet I easily have 10 terabytes with all combined. And I want it to outlast me by at least hundreds of years. I know I won't know the difference by then, but it would be a comfort to me while I still live. As I have said, If I could believe in Heaven, I would.. But I can't. Sorry. People imagine heaven, fluffy clouds, and people dancing on the sky. I find it rather ridiculous. I would want to imagine my loved ones getting to do the things they enjoyed times a thousand. Like my Dad sending radio signals through the cosmos, or my baby sister preforming a role of a lifetime on a celestial stage, Momma painting with the stars.. If I could picture them happy in their own elements. For me it would be watching the things I've built last for all eternity, even though I know they won't. The universe and entropy hate all sorts of organization and especially data. Though we try anyway, don't we? It's sad to say this is all that I have left, but aside from a family home and some family land... It really is. The land is good and the house is nice, memories abound.... But without the people who once lived there with me, there is this emptiness. I am alone. My digital collection is also full of memories, of images and voices otherwise long silent. This is yet another reason I wish to save it forever. I could not save them, but I'll work to my last breath to save their memory. From a thousand ways to show love to merely one: To be a sentry of memory. When it is that last bit of meaning left to you, you guard it with all the heart and soul you have left. For when it is all you can do anymore, you go all out forevermore. If not the way, it is the default path one finds themselves on. Such is the way of the force I guess. Clean cup move down. Meanwhile, I still love my angel. These feelings have not faded and I am beginning to realize they won't. There's not much I wouldn't give. There's not much I wouldn't do, if only she were to ask. It's a bit scary just how far I have fallen for someone who can't feel the same way. This is something I am learning to live with as best I can. I love her and I can't exactly turn off these feelings, especially when every new thing that I learn, just endears me more to her. Damn it. This sucks. As I've said, she could ask me for the moon, and I'd be trying to find a way to steal it from the heavens. Go figure go fish. I have no half measures when it comes to loving someone. In for a penny, in for a pound. I love all the way. My angel means more to me than she could know and more than I can admit. An independent being such as myself has difficulty admitting that in a certain circumstance with a certain someone, I could be led around like a lost puppy. Ah, but such a thing is impossible to the point I have quoted Ozzy... Again, goodbye to romance, goodbye to friends. At least, he had Sharon by his side. Ozzy will always be awesome. I guess it is inevitable when the vast majority of my favorite singers and musicians are about my parent's age, I would be here watching them leave the world one by one. There have even been some my age and younger who are now long gone. My musical interests span a lot of time, mainly because of my parents who introduced me to a lot of the greats. Then there was my own time of the 80s and 90s. The many variations of my playlist (modern day mixtape) would drive a lot of people crazy. The most beautiful part of technology is recorded sound and video. Generations to come can still hear that wonderful music. I dare say that the last half of the 20th century will someday be seen like the Renaissance is today, with the great artists of my time being spoken of like Michaelangelo, DaVinci, and all the great painters. My digital collection is also quite the art collection. I even have high resolution captures of some of those paintings. It's not like having the original canvas on my wall, but I'll never be quite that rich. Oh well. Materially I have most of what I need. If I had in addition, the love of a certain earth angel, then I would have absolutely everything I need. Oh well. Back to diversions. Clean cup move down. Ah, inflation. Using the word "only" in front of any price is sacrilege these days. It's like a gravelly voice replying "Just one" when a kid asks if there are any monsters under their bed. The taxes and hidden charges are like a second monster voice saying, "Way to out us, Jerry!" You know? When I hear the name Beetlejuice, I only think about the Ghost With The Most. Not some weird celebrity. Besides, he's got 600 years of seniority. Then there was that other celebrity who stole BJ's outfit to do that weird live (damn near sex) scene with Miley. I'm not sure if we'd be dealing with an angry poltergeist, or a jealous one. Nope. I'm not sure. Lydia Deetz would seem preferable. Must be that Goth motif. Mornings wouldn't suck so badly if they didn't happen so early. Is it just me or is the absolute best, most addictive, and heavenly sleep always have to happen right before the alarm goes off? I swear, if predawn sleep were a drug, I'd sell it by the gram. Also, check out the hook while my deejay revolves it. I keep misreading a name in the "People you don't know" section as Double Margarita.... Maybe it's the week I'm having? No offense meant to the lady. Might be a cool nickname. A guy at the bar could say, "Ah, Double Margarita, you're just what I ordered!" Drumroll? Clean cup? Move down? There are some people who do not associate with me. I guess I accepted that a long time ago. I can't think of anything I said or did. Could it have been because of who or what I am? I suppose it does not matter. You will never see this space cadet go anywhere unwanted. As it is, I've got my life to live and my work to do. In the end, we have to choose what is right and which battles to fight. And... If the price is too high, be prepared to not pay and walk away. Being a people pleaser will drain your soul if you let it happen. And that (as Forest Gump said) is all I got to say about that. You know? People say one thing and mean something totally different. And I think this whole AI nonsense really makes things worse. First it is so damn difficult to find real people. Secondly, it is damn near impossible to find real people with real thoughts. Unlike many, I find myself wondering if there is a real soul in there. Why? Because  I think a real soul would think just a little bit differently. These reels are really stupid if you ask me.  I get a lot of this nonsense because I checked two boxes (Man) and (Kinda old) and I guess the algorithm thinks I'm stupid. So many pretty faces and girls that are way too damn young for me.  You know? If anyone was just looking for anyone, did not have those perceived standards, just looking for friendship, company, yadda yadda Yoda... Then explain this.  (What the Hell?)  There are plenty of us who stand on at least some level of standard.  There's not many of us living below that particular baseline.  And nobody with any self-respect would want to be option B or C, or whatever down the line.  If you've gotta be slumming to even consider yours truly, then why the hell would I respond at all? If I can't be first and foremost, then I will be one, and one, and one.  I know my worth, even if nobody else does. Remember, my friends.  You are unique. You are beautiful, you are wonderful, and you are worthy of so much more. Never let anyone make you think any differently.