You haven’t seen me in a while.

I’ve had this feeling of ageing a lot more lately. I’m aware how silly that can sound - I’m twenty-two, I’m far from done - but I have a lot of reasons, however superficial, to feel like I’m growing up. For the last two years (or thereabouts), I’ve been navigating a relationship that has taken me to places (literal and metaphorical) that I never thought I’d experience. There are less emotional processes, too, that have begun to shape me - I’ve started my first salaried job, which brings with it this odd level of stability and permanence (even though it’s a fixed contract and part time). It’s been a few years since I’ve undergone any major upheaval, and I have a lot coming at me at once.

I looked at a few old photos and videos the other day, too. Of course there are the really old ones, like the one on the left up there. I’m fifteen there. I have spots, and by that, I mean a few - if you zoom in (and I recommend that you don’t), I’m in the midst of an acne bout that’s only really dulled by the fact that the photo was taken in Scotland during the winter. And the hair. (I wore really bad shirts, too, but that’s another story.)

But I can’t wrap my head around the difference in my face. It’s hard to get past, initially - you identify with your own reflection the most, and always underestimate your own age - but seven years is starting to look like it should. It’s not just understanding when a haircut’s overdue; my cheekbones are more pronounced than my cheeks now, I have a jawline that feels a lot more pronounced, and at such a stupidly young age I already have crow’s feet.

That other one was taken shortly after I started university. It’s a bit more recognisable, but it still looks a lot softer. Less weathered. The Chris in the photo on the left is about to go through a lot of secondary trauma, trying (and failing) to navigate the crippling mental illness of others at a painfully young and inexperienced age. He’s also yet to understand what really being in love is like. The Chris on the right has come out of that, and is starting to make sense of it all, but he has his own anxieties and depression to come. But he has the space to flourish again - to engage in a load of projects, to forge new friendships and relationships. He’s fresh off the back of a trip to Florida to meet someone he’d only ever spoken to online, and by this point has spent a fortnight with no friends or family in the centre of Marrakech.

The Chris at the top still has mental issues, but they’re softer, background annoyances rather than day-to-day nightmares. He’s getting married in a few months. He’s fallen in love again - something the Chris on the right would probably scoff at. The next couple of years are probably going to change his face a little more. There’ll be peaks - and if trends are anything to go by, a steady increase in them - and troughs, and more experience to integrate. Something else to add to the autobiography.

Maybe in three years’ time I’ll have stopped thinking about myself so much.

Read/reading: Lord of the Flies, Things Fall Apart

Lord of the Flies was an odd one. There were points where it hit me pretty hard, but also long swathes of boredom. It’s impressive, I think, because of how honest it feels, but to achieve that it has to be written in quite an uneven, simplistic manner. To say I liked this would be a stretch, and if you’re looking for something that’s simply written and showcases the dark underbelly of the human psyche, Heart of Darkness is much better, but I can see why it’s seen as an important piece of literature simply because you can read a lot into it, regardless of whether it’s there or not.

I think I might read something silly after the next one.

Also coming up.

Spot the odd one out.

Coming up.

Inspiration.

Played: Deadlight

Observations:

• This game was very pretty. Seriously, look at those pictures. That’s not another ugly platformer. It’s funny - I just came off the back of playing The Cave (which I need to do another run of before I do something like this, owing to the game needing multiple playthroughs before you can really say you’ve completed it), and that game doesn’t even touch on this one in terms of prettiness.
• The story, on the other hand - and, yes, this is just a platformer, but in a world with Trine even pretty platformers have to try when it comes to narrative - is utter bollocks. That’s a shame, because it has the elements of a good story - unreliable memory, beginning in media res, and a not just pretty but interesting backdrop - but it ends up being a little rushed. Blaze through this, and you can probably finish it in about four hours.
• The balancing was a bit off. There were areas I’d fly through in seconds, and then others where I’d keep dying over and over until I wanted to throw my controller on the floor (I didn’t. I’m not one of those people). The controls aren’t as fucked as people claimed (or they might have been tightened up since the XBLA release), but there’s a lag to get used to and a lot of very tight jumps.
• The items you pick up along the way were a nice touch - especially the ID cards. Zombie fiction - The Walking Dead aside - rarely dwells on the deceased, so it was nice to see it dealt with quietly but effectively. All they needed were names, and it rounds out the world a little.
• Worth playing for the prettiness, but the fact that they included a Nightmare Mode is kind of hilarious. Oh, and if you get it, make sure you don’t pay full price - it’s a £5 game at most.

At Arden’s recommendation/request, I’m watching Neon Genesis Evangelion. It’s surprisingly mature, very pretty, and isn’t fucking with my narrative preconceptions for once. It might have sold me on the medium.

There’s a sitcom on television in this country now called Great Night Out. It’s very formulaic, given that it follows the misadventures of four woefully inept men who have a knack of ruining relationships in supposedly knee-slappingly hilarious ways. There have been two episodes so far, both of which have involved the unsuccessful attempt to have a great night out. I’m not sure if it’s going to stick to the premise indicated by the title for the entire series or not.

It isn’t funny. I haven’t laughed once. It’s the sort of nudging, winking, laddish comedy that I could never wrap my head around - like The Inbetweeners got jobs, girlfriends and mortgages.

Here’s the weird thing about Great Night Out, though, despite the fact that it’s a comedy that can’t make me laugh: it’s set in Stockport, which is the town where I’ve spent all twenty-two years of my life. Stockport is wholly unremarkable. Stockport cultivates depression - all of those gritty, bleak realist film directors tend to come from here. Dominic Monaghan, easily the whiniest character in LOST, came from here. More importantly, not much comes from here - it used to be a town whose main export was hats. You think I’m kidding. I’m fucking not.

So to see streets and locations that I’m incredibly familiar with immortalised on TV feels odd. There’s this misplaced sense of local pride. The protagonists boo at the signs that welcome them to Manchester whenever they enter the (neighbouring, far more interesting) city. One of the characters is continually criticised by his partner for not being adventurous enough, and while he is casually made fun of for this fact, the show always rests on its laurels and sees it as an adorable trait. Why would you ever leave Stockport? That’s the constant question.

I get conflicted about this town. On the one hand, it’s useful. Any local amenities are five minutes’ walk away. I can catch the train to the apparently-loathed city of Manchester every fifteen minutes from the station just outside my house. We have a few burglaries and car thefts, but violent crime is pretty low around here. We’re (I think) the largest town in the country that isn’t a city (we failed a bid a few years ago to become one). It’s so fucking boring here, though. One of the reasons that Great Night Out isn’t funny is because it stinks of defeat - the characters have accepted that living in Stockport is an inevitability. As a future emigrant, that’s depressing as hell. Cemetery Junction, this is not.

The acting’s quite good, though. And the tall one’s quite endearing. Not funny in the slightest, but you can scrape out a bit of empathy.