But worse is the possibility of missing two years of their lives. It’s one thing to delay enjoying someone’s misadventures, it’s quite another to miss out on many of them altogether.

So I came up with a solution.  Every week, I will film a somewhat social section of my life for at least one minute. At the end of these two years, I will edit all of the minutes together into a 104 minute long movie and present it to her as a gift. It’s my hope that this movie will capture the changing lives of Sarah’s friends so that she’ll be able to see them winge about work, school, and brag about their new houses and children.

I’m also hoping this will illuminate a little bit of my own life in the process.

You should join me.

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• There is running water
• There are toilets/urinals that work
• Toilet paper is in good supply
• Toilet Paper is two-ply or more
• Toilets have doors
• Flushing is appropriate
• There is soap
• There is no grime/stuff lying around.  In other words: it is pretty clean.
• The soap/faucet/drying devices are appropriate and not frustrating
• Doors do not pull inward

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These are the seven themes of my life.  Things I strive for whenever I’m not decompressing.

1. Trust.  I’d rather die than break a promise. I haven’t broken one since I was 15.  I have lied many times in that decade. Some of them hurt more than others. I try to minimize my lies.
2. Laugh.  I can’t help but to find everyday things in life hilarious. Sometimes I feel it is my duty to permanently warp the senses of humor of those around me.
3. Friends. My friends matter more to me than anything except for trust and whatever seems funny at the time.  When I’m in a giddy mood, this is bad news, but generally I’m a great friend.
4. Create.  There are things that I can say, do, write, and draw that people must be aware of.  I can just feel it.
5. Genius.  I’m a pretty sharp guy. Some day I hope to do something with that.
6. Chicks.  This is on my list because 13-year-old Pixel would be very sad if it weren’t.
7. Ethics.  I want to lead an exemplary life.  To do as little harm to the people, animals, and ecosystems around me as possible. I have found that my mind too easily justifies my actions on consequentialist grounds even when the consequences turn out to be disastrous. So in order to maximize the positive consequences around me, I lead a life according to duties and virtues of my own devising….  it’s not perfect, but it tends to be much better than what the people around me do.

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I wouldn’t repeat 24 if you paid me, but I’m looking forward to the festivities tonight.  Drink Potluck! Dessert Potluck! White Elephant Gift Exchange!  Huzzah!

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My ten-year high school reunion is coming up pretty soon. Two-and-a-half  years ago, I started working on my lies. Now I’m going to finish them up. As you may know, the secret to a good reunion lie (or lie in general) is that it has to be believable, yet make an impression. Now, I could easily tell the same old, tired “I’m a millionaire super genius married to a super model” story, but then people might quiz me on the taste of caviar and catch me lying. So, to create a believable fake story for my reunion, I’ve crafted a fake life. What do you think?

My (fictional) life story since high school:

• Year One: I graduated high school and entered the local community college, moving in with my best friends.  After failing the first semester, I resolved to not let that happen again only to get kicked out my second semester for plagiarism. Then my roommates got together and moved without telling me: selling all of my stuff.
• Year Two: I started working full-time washing dishes at Pot Belly’s pizza before the IRS audited the owner and shut down the place on account of it just being a meth lab in disguise. I spent a good portion of the year giving depositions and almost went to jail, but managed to get free by convincing them that it was humanly possible to be that ignorant. I left the job and got hired at a video store, which was so great because I got to see every movie that came out.
• Year Three: I finally decided to make it big in life and moved to Las Vegas with my manager. However, after three months of not finding any singing work on account of my looks, my manager left me and took all of my money. I spent the next nine months paying for the debt he’d incurred gambling in my name. I even tried to get into the adult movie business: being in two movies before my first suicide attempt. When I got out of the hospital, they wouldn’t let me get into any movies anymore, so I gave up. It was sad, too, because I had finally built up enough credit to make the switch to heterosexual porn.
• Year Four: I moved back home with my mom and went back to work at the video store. I got a night job as a bouncer in a punk-themed bar. I finally reconciled with my former best friend and began making money. I met a girl at the bar and we started dating, but she got pregnant within two months and we had to have a shotgun wedding. Despite it all, I was happy. The child was born premature and I had to sell my car to pay for the hospital bill, but it was worth it. We named the kid Frank after my best friend who was also the godfather.
• Year Five: I left my wife after six months together after I caught her cheating on me with my best friend. Actually, I let that one slide, but the next month I found out that she’d been contacting sexual partners on the Internet. I tried to leave and take our child, but she confessed it was actually Frank’s and kept it. I tried killing myself again, but failed, so I was in the hospital when the judge awarded her full custody and child support that was two-thirds of my pay check. That was when I went back to living with my mom.
• Year Six: I campaigned viciously for Mike Gravel and, I don’t know how I truly believed he was going to win… even after the results started coming in and Obama was edging close to 270. But that was what I was doing in my off time, for my day job, I “borrowed” my mom’s savings and took out huge loans in my friends’ names, trying to get enough money to invest in some homes and turn them around really quickly. Unfortunately, this was the height of the real estate burst and I lost all of my mother’s money.  Also, since I signed her name, she was legally responsible and the bankruptcy cleared out her retirement and her credit score.  She could have turned me in, but she was heartbroken already.
• Year Seven: I tried to make some money to pay back my mother, but selling plasma wasn’t working – they kept rejecting my blood, even under various pseudonyms.  It turns out, I was HIV+ as a result of my year-long excursion in the underground pornography business four years ago.  I called all of my sexual partners of the past, and the ones that were still alive had worse news for me: they also had Herpes, Syphilis, and a newly discovered variant of Hepatitis.  They told me I should get tested, but I didn’t have insurance, so I couldn’t.
• Year Eight: I fell in love with a beautiful woman who was perfect for me in every way.  She loved me too.  But I wouldn’t sleep with her because I was afraid of infecting her.  Unfortunately, this ended up being a bad move.  She got offered a job in Botswana and took it– thinking our relationship wasn’t going to go anywhere.  I was devastated.  Then, through a free clinic, I found out that I actually did not have anything: not even HIV.  It had been a false positive.  I tried getting her back, but by the time I got ahold of her, I found out that she’d found someone else.  The ensuing devastation was so much that I went on a month-long bender of debauchary and drug-addiction.  Ironically, as a result, I ended up with all of the STIs I had once thought I had.
• Year Nine: I still had to bail my mother out of jail and repay all of my friends, and it was finally starting to get to me.  I got involved in a pyramid scheme that I thought would pay for itself in six months, but ended up losing everything I owned.  So I started selling scrap metal, then selling drugs on the corner.  I was hoping to make my way to the top, but I got pinched shortly thereafter and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.  This year was a bit of a haze.  My cell mate was large and enjoyed non-consentual homosexual sex.  I got really far into drugs, H in particular.  Prison, surprisingly, took me as far away from our home town as I’ve ever been: about two hours East.  It was very exciting.
• This Year: I’ve been squatting in an abandoned apartment since I got out of prison a few months ago.  I shower in the local Wal-Mart whenever I get the chance and get food from the local shelter.  The Red Cross, which comes by every few months, diagnosed me with Diabetes, Malignant Metasticized Genital Cancer, Schizophrenia, HerpeAIDS, Scabies, pathological lying, and bad teeth.  I got the clothes I’m wearing from the guy that used to live in this house.  He had died of massive fleas, so I doubt he needed it anymore.  Why, what have you done since high school?

Note: If this is too sad for you, please wait for another post.

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1. Have a terrible secret discovered (preferrably not by someone malevolent)

   None of you know it yet, do you?  (Please don’t.  It’s ever so terrible.)

2. Be hit on by three girls in one 24 hour period

   This has happened on numerous occasions.
   

3. Be interviewed by a famous magazine, paper, website, or tv show

   I thought I was going to be cooler than I ended up being.

4. Be wooed over

   Happened fairly recently.

5. Change an unjust situation

   Into a more unjust situation….  Man, Future Me is a dick.

6. Date someone famous

   I don’t know why I thought this was admirable.

7. Do the splits

   I’m 105° of 180° there!

8. Experience a deep, personal, life-changing loss

   R.I.P. Kyle Weber.  I don’t know how life-changing it was, but it was pretty sad.

9. Get paid (well?) for my writing

   I think grad school counts as that.
   

10. Get into a fight (and win?)

    Oh, I made him cry.

11. Have a pet

    Hm.  I guess that desire eventually went away.

12. Have a secret girlfriend

    It’s not as cool as you’d think it’d be.
    

13. Have a wish come true

    I wish I hadn’t wished this.

14. Kill someone (justly?)

    … I don’t want to talk about this.

15. Learn to Skateboard

    I halfway did.

16. Learn to whistle

    I halfway did.

17. Live on my own, through my own means

    It would be sad if I hadn’t accomplished this.

18. Love and be loved in return

    Never at the same time.

19. Make a living doing what I love (no pun intended)

    I guess you could say I did that once or twice.  Sadly, it wasn’t what I thought it would be and it made me fall out of love with it both times.

20. Okay, sure, pun intended

    I don’t know what the pun was.  Porn? Sugar Mommas?
    

21. Not let someone down

    Sorry, world.  I always let people down eventually.  Maybe my standards for myself are too high.

22. Predict something eerie

    I predict that Gordon Brown was molested as a young boy by the pope and will seek vengeance in the form of nuclear warfare soon…  That wasn’t what I meant by this, but I think it should still count.

23. Prove something possible to a disbeliever

    I used modal logic.

24. Prove something impossible to a believer

    I’ve made a couple of people lose their faith.  Again, not what I had in mind, but I’ll take it.

25. Read the great books that changed the world (I’m already half-way through with reading the list)

    I read one more title of a book since then.

26. Repair a lost friendship

    Most of my friendships waver in intensity over time, but I’ve never fully won back a friend I’d fully lost.

27. Run a marathon (half-way there too)

    Nope.  But I’m friends with people that have or will have run a marathon.

28. See the pieces fit together perfectly

    I was really into chess then. Or maybe I thought that this would eventually make sense to Future Me.  It didn’t.  Fuck.

29. Stretch

    *Yawn*
    

30. Write my autobiography

    I’ve written more than I’d care to mention.

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The idea was simple: your enemies, in real life, tend to steer clear of you.  They might harbor feelings of revenge and cut up the cords to all of your office electronics or drive by at night, slowly, to scare you.  But they don’t really take a big enough part of your life for it to matter.

Your friends, on the other hand, do.  And since they’re your friends, they have a way of making their problems yours.  Say your friend is arrested and he needs bail money.  That problem– which you had no involvement in! (that they can prove) – has just become your problem too.  Say they’re dealing with girl drama.  That problem– which you totally didn’t cause– is now yours.

(...)
Read the rest of Some more types of problems (424 words)

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Before

• Be friends.  Let simmer for at least three months, but ideally six.
• Treat your friends and their friends well.
• Sprinkle good experiences throughout.

During

• Don’t cheat.
• Don’t lie.
• Don’t steal.
• Don’t abuse physically/mentally.
• Say what you mean, mean what you say.
• Don’t leave any feelings of hurt linger.

After

• Break up amicably and don’t backslide.
• Don’t move on until at least enough time has passed that they don’t feel used and devalued.
• Don’t ask them for help with a new relationship unless it has been at least half-the-length of your relationship since they have moved on.
• Don’t behave in
• Don’t drunk dial.
• Give them time to move on in their own way.

Throughout

• Enjoy each other’s company
• Admit responsibility where it is due
• Be honest and trustworthy.
• Be a worthwhile person.

If you do each step well and at the right time, then it will happen naturally.  If you fail, you should probably make do with whatever other friends you do have.

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(...)
Read the rest of Hourly Comic Day 2010 (0 words)

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The lists aren’t in any order.  This is on the advice of my No. 2 favorite person in the world. 

Top Five Favorite People

• Jess L.
• Bre K.
• Andrea M.
• J-P V.
• Adriano T.

I wanted to make a top ten list, but it felt more contrived than this list.  People in my top ten list would include my friends Alicia, Daniel, T-Rob, Anson, and probably Sandy.  But while I really like all of those people, I have personality crushes on the top five.  … that’s probably just going to hurt feelings, but I really mean it in a nice way.

Top Fifteen Favorite Huggers

• Suzi A.
• Niki R.
• Alicia C.
• Leonore F.
• Jess L.
• Monica S.
• Felicia R.
• Sara B.
• S. Elizabeth P.
• Karla M.
• Claudia M.
• Jessy S.
• Liz G.
• Sarah B.
• Melissa T.

I’ve noticed that the top huggers list is overrepresented by women that want to jump my bones.   I assume it’s because people that want to jump my bones are also people that are willing to give themselves fully into a hug for as long as it can last.  Or it might just be coincidental because most people want to jump my bones.

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Also, I feel like I’ve gotten lazy in my graphic designing in the three years I’ve been away.  Here’s something I did for a friend of mine last week:

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“I wouldn’t skip any of the adversity I had to face, because that made me who I am today. And I like myself.”

Luckily, I don’t have that problem. I don’t like myself. I’m a tool. I’d love to do whatever I could to change that. Only I don’t know if the problem is that I’ve been through too much adversity or not enough.

Seeing as how I don’t like the things you’re about to do, I might as well take the ‘more pain’ route to future happiness. Who knows? Maybe next year I’ll be able to write that silly trope to you.

So here’s how to really mess up your life in just one year. This includes lots of stuff you will do and some stuff that you just might do.

• Plan to live with lots of people, even if you don’t know who they are or if this will happen.  Money is just a silly fake thing anyway, right?
• If you find a girl that cares about you a lot, act aloof and ignore her.  This will only bring about positive, reasoned results.
• If, however, you find a girl that is distant and pulling away, pay as much attention to her as you can.  Forget all past wrongs, just focus on not losing her now.
• When you think things might hurt people, keep them hidden and lie about them for as long as possible.
• Don’t wear a seat belt: it chafes your mentionables.
• Sign up for every interesting class you can regardless of how much free time you think you’ll have.  This will let you succeed wildly.
• Stick it in crazy.
• Start lots of projects
• Pleasure and business go well together.
• Play video games.  You know, to relax.
• Even if you really can’t do something, fake it for a long time until someone calls you out on it.
• Be nice to strangers.
• You can trust yourself.  Your convictions will never waver, no matter how tempting something is.
• Drink, like, all the time.
• Don’t meet people from outside the department.
• Get attached quickly and fiercely.
• Punch an elderly person.
• Go abroad as often as you can.
• Let things get weird between you and the people you care about.
• Never give up.
• Rob a liquor store.
• Just admit it, you’re probably gay.

Good luck with that.  Seriously.

… I hate you,

– Pixelation Qyw Styx, age 24, ©2010

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Catch up with your previous challenges. Also, draw a really nice hand.

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Draw 250 pairs of eyes

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