On the eve of the Great Recession, with the full conviction of conventional wisdom behind me, I bought a townhouse. Four-and-a-half years later, the macroeconomic tides have pounded 30% right out of my home value, and, well, you know what they say about hindsight. They say, “Fuck you, hindsight,” and that’s about the color of it.
But my story certainly isn’t unique. Heck, I find company in pretty much anybody who invested in real estate in the prior decade and failed to walk away from the table before the table itself was repossessed. The real crime is I haven’t been taking full advantage of what I bought. There was a time when I invited people–other living, breathing human beings–through the front door, effectively transforming these walls from abode to a place of entertainment.
Restoration is in order, however, before this townhouse can reclaim its full competency. I’ve made progress, but it wasn’t until this week when I kicked it into high gear. Tomorrow night, I’m selling a complete speaker system to my boss. What will make this transaction unique is I’m experimenting with the “pay what you want” model that’s been gaining traction in the indie games industry. Whether this model translates well to terrestrial goods remains to be seen, but the quest to acquire empty space is on.
I don’t know how saints become saints, like whether there’s an Academy Award-esque nomination or some such, but Pound Cake gets my vote for patron saint of sociability. Last Thursday, we discussed my intention to sever ties with the alumni association. Tonight happened to be the annual holiday party, and although I had paid for entry, I certainly hadn’t planned on attending.
In fact, I pictured myself standing on a precipice, a single foot already stuck deep in a morass of my old anti-social ways. But then Pound Cake appeared in my mental picture to pull me back from the abyss, telling me to put myself out there. I relented, grudgingly, and decided to regard the event pragmatically: if nothing else, it’d be an opportunity to increase my social capacity. It would be a test.
The holiday party is the big to-do in the year’s event lineup, so it lent itself perfectly to this. This wouldn’t just be any test, though. It’d be more like a final exam. And you know what? I crushed it! I crushed it. We aren’t in Sunday school here, so modesty is the last thing on my mind now. Whenever you scan a party, you can tell who the smooth douchebags are, and the goal has been the ability to become one of those. Everything that led up to this party–the small talk, the capacity, the blazers, the liquor–operated in thrilling concert.
I was one of those douchebags tonight. Confident, collected, steady hand on the small talk, sometimes engaged, sometimes aloof–I was fuckin’ holding court. There was empirical data, too: people wending back to the table, handshakes, hugs, and trace amounts of chick glitter on my face. Nothing sleazy, promise. It was more than a night out. It was validation that I had options, an exhilarating sense of freedom–a narrow concrete corridor suddenly opening into a far green field. And normality, I realized, isn’t something you have to find. It can be made.
Just like that, in less than a day, I claimed the ping-pong championship title, only to promptly lose it, a shame surely as great as the ball is plastic. I had it–held it, in fact, and placed it on my desk for a scant few hours. The physical manifestation of this honor is a garish trophy of a pewter fellow wielding a pewter paddle, the face of which had long since snapped off. What you are left with, then, is a pewter dude in pewter shorts gripping a pewter handle in a heroic pose. But it was never about the object itself. It was about the idea behind the statue.
In retrospect, I won game one in all my matches, fizzled out in all my game twos, and then eked out a victory in game three, except for that third match. Was it overconfidence? Inability to sustain focus? I’m leaning more toward the latter, but the fact remains I lasted for only three matches: one to get the title, one to defend, and one to screw the pooch.
I’ll tell you this, though. The pressure changed the contours of the game and enhanced my enjoyment of it substantially. I’m hooked. Even when I was in the deepest, darkest point deficits, my internal dialogue merely confirmed the fact that all this was a heck of a lot more engaging than a plain vanilla match. I think I just like the competition. More importantly, I need the mental toughness that can only be cultivated in this crucible. I want a rematch! And I want to dominate. None of this “everybody’s a winner” or patchouli-laced bullshit of that nature. I want to crush you, then fashion a paddle from your bones.