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tjkiahgb · 6 years ago

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Episode Recap: 2.19, “Andi’s Choice”

The episode begins with a cold open that’s a solid instructional video for good oral hygiene. Which is important. Take care of your teeth, folks. Always remember to floss.

It really has nothing to do with the plot of the episode, though, other than to inform us that Andi’s breath probably doesn’t stink in any of the scenes that follow.

Bowie and Jonah hang out at the music store talking about how Jonah didn’t go to the high pressure music audition. Jonah talks about how something came up and worries Andi doesn’t like him anymore. Bowie says last he heard, Andi thought he didn’t like her. But now Jonah really likes her. And Bowie wants to know if she knows that. And the answer to that, Bowie, is nobody knows. Maybe? Probably? Maybe.

Jonah says he bought her a gnome, and Bowie says “A gnome is nice...”

Counterpoint:

No.

Bowie knows something Andi would like, though: writing her a song. It’s also easy, he says. Just sing your feelings. Jonah says feelings? He says he doesn’t talk about his feelings, coming oh so close to really nailing the problem but still coming up empty.

If it makes Jonah feel better though, that doesn’t disqualify him from a successful career in music. There’s more than enough room on the market for another singer doing meaningless, catchy songs about nothing. Whoa. You didn’t come here for jokes about the state of the music industry, but you got ‘em anyway!

Bowie presses on. Talking about liking someone and them liking you back? That’s feelings! Bowie asks Jonah for a word that rhymes with back. Jonah says quack. Bowie asks for a non-duck word. Jonah says plaque. In fairness, Bowie didn’t stipulate that these words be any good.

Andi heads into The Spoon when Walker facetimes her. Andi explains how Buffy’s moving in a few days. Walker says if she can, get a bubble machine, it makes you happy.

But listen, I want to warn anyone considering this: rent, don’t buy a bubble machine. First, no one ever factors in the cost of maintenance for your bubble machine. But, second, the happiness bubbles give you reaches a level of diminishing returns very quickly. Sooner rather than later, you’re making excuses to use it just because you have it and you feel you need to. You take it out to the yard and turn it on, but the happiness is never the same. The bubbles float down to the earth and pop like so many unrealized dreams. Eventually you stop using it all together. It gathers dust in the closet. Things pile up on top of it. One day, you accidentally come across it and sigh. Where did the spark go? That old adage is an adage for a reason: the two best days of a bubble machine owner’s life are the day you buy it and the day you sell it.

Andi says she’s already got a bubble machine, and I think the fact we’ve seen how little use it gets throughout the course of this show proves my point.

Over at The Fringe, Bex is covering the store with sticky notes for free makeup appointments she’s got coming up.

Brittany tells her that they can’t do free makeup appointments anymore, things have been too slow around the store. Bex says she can’t just start charging for them, but, Bex, yes you can. Obviously you can. That was the point of getting your certificate of completion from the beauty school: to get paiiiiiiid. Frankly, it’s sort of nuts that you were going to do all of those for free. That’s so much makeup and time to just give away.

Hey, listen, I know I got in some trouble last week for talking about people’s choice of expression, but I have to say something again.

I hope those are earrings meant to look like screws and not real screws. The thought of Brittany jamming a real screw through her ear hole is making me wince. Do you twist it in? Could you use a screwdriver to do it? (Phillips head, clearly.) Also, she has to realize if she bumps the side of her head into something, she’s going to stab herself in the base of her skull. The risk of it all! I’m just going to assume they’re earrings. I need to to move on.

Brittany was close to laying Bex off, but she won’t now that Bex is the top rated cosmetologist on Whelp. Whelp: it’s the “Property” of internet review sites.

Property: Now With 40% Less Lead™

Brittany thinks Bex has left all those fake positive reviews for herself to increase her status among the local cosmetology ranks, but Bex hasn’t. Bex realizes Celia must’ve done it.

Buffy joins Andi and Cyrus at The Spoon with a box full of stuff they’ve left at her house.

She presents Andi with Noodle, which is clearly a stand-in for Tamagotchi, which made me wonder, do you kids still know what Tamagotchis are? I had one when I was a kid but only because we didn’t have smartphones back then that had whole worlds of much more interesting stuff than a stupid pixel-y digi-pet that would whine all the time and die constantly. I wouldn’t guess there’s any way a child of Andi’s age would’ve had one.

Andi realizes Noodle’s dead because she hasn’t fed him for seven years. A moment of silence for Noodle please.

♪ ♪ In the arms of the Angel ♪ ♪

Buffy then takes out a letter of recommendation Cyrus’s mom wrote on behalf of Cyrus when they were in the second grade, which is embarrassing, sure, but it’s also a strong letter. After reading that, I’d definitely consider adding him to my friend group. I’d need to see his résumé, first, of course, but a good letter of rec goes a long way.

Walker then shows up and for some reason Andi acts like a horse wearing a hat just walked into The Spoon: surprised and mildly upset?

It’s a weird reaction that gets carried over into the scene after the commercial.

Listen, Walker seems like a perfectly fine young man to me. Charming, if quirky, as artists can tend to be. But I feel like the show’s done him wrong by making some of his interactions play out stranger than they needed to be.

Like, I think the facetime convo from a few episodes ago was not meant to come off as stilted as it did. I think it’s the product of editing together two people who aren’t really having a conversation, especially because his interactions with her in real life were much more natural. (The facetime scene from earlier in this episode was better, but still not totally fluid. They probably should stop doing scenes like that as a general rule.)

And the reaction in this scene? I still have no idea what effect they were going for here.

Even after Walker has introduced himself to Cyrus and Buffy and they’re cool with him and happy to have him sketch them, Andi continues throughout this scene with this body language.

On Mack Chat, they suggested that while Walker is comfortable with Andi, she’s not as confident with him. Is she still trying to get a feel for his personality? I suppose it could be that. My best guess was it being guilt for going on a date with him while still being in limbo with Jonah? But again, I’m really not sure about the whole mood of the scene, at least from Andi’s perspective.

About the actual scene though, Walker introduces himself to Cyrus and Buffy as the caricature artist from the Bash Mitzvah, which, by the way, did we ever get an answer as to why the party planner or whoever hired a child to work a large Bar Mitzvah party? Then again, they also hired what, given what we know now, appears to be a fortune teller with legitimate psychic abilities.

She’s 3 for 3 on nailing Andi’s, Buffy’s, and TJ’s fortunes, and we won’t know about Cyrus’s fortune until he goes to college, so, her track record is perfect as far as I’m concerned.

All that considered, maybe hiring a child isn’t the weirdest thing.

Walker wanted to meet Buffy before she left and wanted to sketch the whole group as a going away present for her and so Cyrus leans in to what’s bound to be a long, uncomfortable pose for that.

At The Fringe, Zoe, a rival cosmetologist comes in looking for a fight. She thinks that Bex is using fake Whelp profiles to attack her business. She reads the fake name on the review and Brittany gasps and Zoe has determined that’s enough to take Bex to court and sue her. I disagree. Seems like flimsy evidence at best but what do I know, I’m only the assistant professor of law at Yale.

At the music store, Jonah rehearses his song for Andi. Jonah isn’t confident but Bowie tells him performing is all about confidence. He says the audience will know if you’re doubting yourself and then they’ll rip you to shreds like a pack of hyenas. Oh, by the way, you’re performing in front of an audience tomorrow.

Again, I’m but a humble professor of law at Yale, not a trained psychologist, but is treating panic attacks by trying to force the person experiencing them into constant high pressure situations a thing? I’m starting to feel like Bowie is not a trained psychologist, either.

Jonah reminds him he has panic attacks and Bowie says he won’t have them because he’ll be playing guitar. Jonah thinks maybe he should just go to Andi’s house late at night and throw a rock at her window and perform it for her like that. Bowie thinks that’s too cliché. I mean, in movies maybe. In real life, it wouldn’t be. It’s actually pretty rare in real life because it more often than not leads to too much broken glass and the police being called.

Plus, Bowie suggests, everything is so much cooler on a stage.

This somehow assuages Jonah of his fears.

The GHC gather to discuss Andi’s two-guy dilemma. Cyrus says Andi’s been keeping stuff from them, but it’s probably more that they haven’t really hung out together since “Perfect Day 2.0″ which was like a week ago in show-time?

Andi says Walker was just one date, but Buffy and Cyrus still think it’s a big deal. Cyrus says Andi’s life is a romcom now and he’s her “sassy friend Cyrus.”

Really feels like there’s an adjective missing there. “Sassy __ friend Cyrus.” Sassy something friend Cyrus. I can’t put my finger on what that word would be.

Buffy argues she’s Andi’s sassy friend. It’s kind of equal parts funny and sad that they both realize they’re the supporting characters of the Andi show. Things are getting real meta up in here.

Andi’s having a tough time figuring out how she feels about both Jonah and Walker. Cyrus says it’s a real job being her sassy friend. Almost like it’s a thing he has to do. Almost like he’s paid every week to be around Andi and get involved with what’s going on in her life. Like it’s a role he has to play. Like everything’s scripted. We’re all just pawns, moving where others tell us, saying words others write for us. This isn’t a house! It’s a set! Are we even real?! I’m freaking out here, man!

Anyway, Bex goes to talk to Celia about her reviews. Celia doesn’t want to take them down even though Bex is worried about being sued. Celia says no one’s going to sue Bex because all they would get is a used motorcycle and a punch card for a free taco, which is just a devastating slam.

The best slams on this show always seem to come off-handed.

Bex wants to succeed on her own. Celia will take down the reviews if Bex lets her help in other ways. Bex doesn’t want it, but Celia tells her she won’t get anywhere if she doesn’t think big and take action. She wants to know what’s next for Bex but Bex leaves.

Hey, I have a question. Why is The Spoon populated almost entirely by loose children?

Do none of these kids have parents who eat? Is The Spoon a daycare center?

Cyrus and Buffy continue to razz Andi about picking between Walker and Jonah when Jonah shows up to invite people to the show that night.

He tells the GHC about the open mic and invites them. He says he’s performing a song and everyone seems surprised. Andi didn’t know he sang or played guitar, but Jonah says he didn’t know either. As of a week ago he hadn’t ever picked up a guitar and now he’s performing original music on stage. Oh what a week it’s been!

At The Fringe, Bex has run out of sticky notes to make appointments on when Celia shows up in time with a day planner. Bex thanks her for the gift, but Celia says she has another gift: The Fringe. Bex is rightfully confused, but Celia says the business wasn’t doing well and it wasn’t even that much. This store is mostly full of the cheap stuff you win at a carnival and the walls are made of papier-mâché! I bought it with the loose cash I had rolling around in my purse!

Hey, where is Ham? Is he ok? I wonder how Ham feels about this. Buying a small, failing business. In this economy. Looks like they’re delaying traveling the world for another year.

Also, Bex couldn’t figure out to buy a planner for herself. She kept filling up the store with sticky notes until she ran out of them. That was her long term plan for that system. Anyway, here’s a small business to run.

Celia wants Bex to take action and this is action. Bex asks if Celia remembers promising to let Bex succeed on her own, and the way Celia says “No.” is perfect.

Also, she didn’t.

At the music store (Red Rooster Records, I’m going to try to commit this to memory eventually), there’s an accordion girl on stage and she is, no lie, killing it.

They say accordions are only for old mustached men to play at romantic Italian restaurants and Weird Al Yankovics, but don’t listen to them. I love what you’re doing. You go, Accordion Girl.

Jonah, intimidated by the other acts, heads backstage to talk to Bowie. He’s nervous, but Bowie says he was nervous before performing, too. He got over it by finding Bex in the audience and singing to her.

Jonah asks if he should look at Bex while he sings.

“Explain this to me as if I was a Golden Retriever in a boy suit.”

“What?”

“Nothing. No reason.”

Bowie tells him to look at Andi and that he’s got this.

Meanwhile, on stage, Accordion Girl finishes with a heck of a flourish and not a single philistine in the audience throws her a damn rose. Shame on them all.

Bowie comes out and introduces Jonah. Jonah gets out there with his guitar and sort of sits around awkwardly. Things are looking bad.

Then he starts playing. It’s going alright, but then he looks at Andi and does start getting into it.

The GHC start realizing this might be about Andi.

(The song is actually pretty sweet. And Asher performs it well.)

The performance goes well and Jonah gets applause as the open mic ends. People start filing out. Buffy touches Andi’s shoulder and I’m thinking DON’T DO THAT!

You’re going to rip the pearls off!

Jonah asks Bowie how it went, but Bowie directs him towards Andi for his answer.

Andi walks up to Jonah, grabs his hand, and gives him a kiss and the episode ends with them smiling at one another.

So... I guess this is going to be the worst thing I ever say on this blog, but... I didn’t hate that.

If you aren’t a Jandi fan, I wouldn’t panic too much. I very much doubt this is the final iteration of that relationship.

The show is about change and growth. First season Jandi obviously wasn’t going to work because both Andi and Jonah weren’t in an honest place. Andi was trying to change herself too much to make Jonah happy. Jonah was everybody’s friend, carefree Jonah Beck who doesn’t have labels.

This version is better, but still not quite there. Jonah still has trouble confronting his feelings and is definitely leaning too hard on a relationship to fix things. Andi, at least, is more comfortable being herself with him.

But for things to advance anywhere plot-wise, this needs to happen. They have to figure out what works and doesn’t work: with relationships, with themselves. Maybe this will be the beginning of the last version of Jandi, or maybe it’ll eventually return and be endgame. Who can say? But the only way to know is to try.

As much as I joked about Bowie pushing Jonah too much, too fast with the music, there’s a certain wisdom to the idea of just getting on stage and going for it. There are certain things you don’t learn until you test the idea yourself.

#Andi Mack #Jonah Beck #Cyrus Goodman #Buffy Driscoll #Bex Mack #Bowie Quinn #Celia Mack #Walker Brodsky #Brittany #Accordion Girl #Andi #episode recaps

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topicprinter · 6 years ago

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I originally posted this as a blog on medium - for some context, I'm the founder/ceo of a social media app for making plans with your friends. Odds are, you haven't read my first blog post detailing the story of my startup inception-launch. If you have a few extra minutes, the link will be in the comments - it provides some useful context for the things I’m about to write about. That said, reading it is not required to be able to learn something from this post.1: Discipline and focus are muscles.Until I started working on my app, I was not a disciplined person by any stretch of the imagination. I was diagnosed with ADD in 10th grade, but I view it more as a label more than a diagnosis — it’s not a label I’ve resigned to, but instead is something I recognize and actively work on. One my ADD tendencies is needing near instant gratification in order to preserve my interest. It doesn’t help that we live in a world where attention is currency and companies profit from manipulating your brain into releasing as much dopamine as possible.The best benchmark for my ability to focus is how much I rely on music. Before I began working on my app, I needed to listen to music in order to focus on a task. The fundamental part of ADD is being easily distracted — my prefrontal cortex is simply worse at filtering out external stimuli than the average person (which I’m honestly grateful for, but I’ll get into that more in a future blog post). If I wasn’t listening to music I knew well enough to predict what came next, I would become distracted by novel stimuli (especially sounds) without consciously realizing I was now thinking about something else.Now, a year and a half later, I rely on music much less. I have a coding playlist that started off being mostly instrumental music (shoutout Ratatat), but grew to include more music with words as I became better at ignoring the words to focus. I still prefer to listen to music while I work, but it’s not a necessity to prevent myself from being distracted. This is mostly a product of habitual meditation.I set hourly reminders to do some quick meditation by focusing on 10 breaths — this means turn your music off, close your eyes, sit up straight, and take deep, slow breaths. This should take at least a minute.It took me less than a week to notice a dramatic difference in my general mental state: I was more aware and present with my tasks, which is one of the parts of ADD I struggle with most. I also felt generally more at ease throughout the day, and I could calm my mind more easily and fall asleep faster at night.Another ADD tendency is hyperfocus — when I’m in the middle of something (especially coding) it’s hard to tear myself away and do nothing except focus on breathing. This is because the less conscious part of my mind (the one that makes impulsive decisions) views meditation as high effort and low reward. I’d rather continue programming because when I finish a task, I get a dopamine release. Meditating is not only hard, it’s boring — and there’s no real immediate reward. However, any work I’d get done in the minute break doesn’t compare to the higher quality work I produce over the next hour because I took the time to step back and become more present with everything I’m doing.2: Be honest with yourself.This requires removing your ego from most things. If you can’t admit your shortcomings or learn from your mistakes, you’ll stagnate, and to stagnate is to fail. Attempting to preserve my ego by deluding myself into believing I can focus just as well as everyone else with the same level of effort is only going to hurt me in the long run.When I had the idea of an app that helped you make plans with your friends my freshman year of college (Spring 2016), I didn’t get very far. Despite having a strong background in tech/comp sci — I’d only written two lines of code in a project folder called munchr before giving up.Why did I give up? It was easier to blame the fact that another app for making plans (DownToLunch) was blowing up than to admit I wasn’t disciplined/motivated enough to get to a point where I could make progress.My motivation to build the app (at least, in that stage of my life) primarily revolved around the end goal of me being a famous CEO worth hundreds of millions of dollars. As it turns out, the fantasy of the view from the summit of CEO Mountain was not a powerful enough motivator to keep me climbing — nor would it have ended up fulfilling me as much as I expected anyway. You have to work on something because you love the process, and I did not yet love the process of creating, because —and this may come as a surprise — it’s pretty fucking hard.3: You are your best asset. Invest in yourself.I read somewhere that as a founder, you should value your time at $500 an hour. If you break it down, it’s not all that outlandish a theory — if it takes you 4 years at 50 hours a week to make a startup worth $10m, each of those hours were worth almost $1k.You should do everything in your power to make your time as productive as possible. This means sleeping at least 8 hours, eating healthy, and exercising. Get up and walk around at least once an hour. Your success is not measured by time spent, but by your output. Your output has diminishing returns with how much time you spend working.Invest in your developing environment. In terms of your output, there are two types of friction — mental (how fast you can move ideas from your head to the real world) and physical (how fast your computer reflects those ideas). There’s a lot I do in my developing environment to cut out both types of friction, but I’ll get more into that in a future blog post.On my 2015 MacBook Pro, saving a file and having the iPhone simulator recompile my changes took about 5 seconds. I was lucky enough to land some investment money from family and friends in January of 2018, and my first purchase was a 2017 MacBook Pro with pretty beefy specs. My shiny new MacBook Pro refreshes changes in less than 2.5 seconds. On average, I save and recompile 5 times a minute. Over the course of an 8 hour day, that’s over an hour just waiting for my changes to be reflected. At $500/hour, the cost of my new MacBook was made up in less than a week.I am very privileged to be in a position where I can afford expensive toys like that, and I recognize not everyone else shares that privilege. However, the point still stands — your first priority should be to cut out all the friction involved in your output that you can.4. Do things that make you extremely uncomfortable.I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it many times — starting up is by far the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever done. In the 1.5 years I’ve been working on my app, I’d estimate I’ve grown to be a new version of myself four times. It did not happen easily — growth is more often painful than not. There are three major things I’ve done that serve as benchmarks for personal growth.4.1: I raised money from family and friendsThe very nature of creativity is to be vulnerable — taking an idea and putting it out into the world is to open yourself to all forms of rejection. Pitching my app to raise money from family and friends was the first significantly uncomfortable thing I did. Most said no — this is where being able to remove your ego becomes so important. To take rejection personally and believe you were rejected becauseyour idea is badwhoever you pitched to doesn’t think you’re smart enough to see it throughis more than enough to make most people give up. Instead, view their rejection for what it actually is — humans are very irrational and resistant to change.4.2.0: I started taking ice cold showersAll my life, I’ve despised cold water. It was a running joke in my family — I’d take my sweet time getting into a pool inch by inch, and wouldn’t go into the ocean until August. When I first told my parents I’d been taking cold showers, they laughed hysterically because they thought I was kidding. After months of insults directed at my willpower, my co-founder Alden finally got me into taking ice cold showers. When I say ice cold showers, I mean the coldest possible setting. If it doesn’t make you involuntarily gasp when you get in, and if you don’t hate it the whole time, it’s not cold enough.I’ve been taking cold showers since September 2018, and it hasn’t gotten much easier — as winter set in and the coldest setting on the shower became colder and colder, the only way I’m willing to subject myself to them is by sitting in the sauna at the gym until my consciousness starts dissolving. At the same time, the benefits haven’t gone away either (as someone who is very driven by the ratio of effort to reward, this is important) — if anything, the benefits have become more profound. After the first few seconds of severe discomfort, I literally feel unstoppable. You’ll never feel more alive than the first few seconds of cold shock as your body freaks out and produces an adrenal response in an effort to maintain homeostasis. Why do PCP when you can achieve the same feeling with some cold water?There are countless health benefits of cold immersion therapy that people obsess over, but the benefit people usually fail to mention is what it does to your willpower. The energy required to eat healthy and focus throughout the day pales in comparison to the energy I expend in forcing myself to endure freezing cold water until I’m covered in goosebumps and shivering. I didn’t start out that way — like I said earlier, discipline is a muscle. Unless you’re Drake, it’s hard to go from 0 to 100 real quick (or in this case, 100° to 40°): start by ending your showers cold, or toggling between hot and cold. The more you exercise your body’s ability to maintain homeostasis, the more comfortable you will be in the cold, and in general.4.3: I got rejected, oftenAfter we launched in April of 2017, I ordered a couple thousand stickers. My teammates and I would spend 30 seconds explaining the app while handing them out to people in dining halls/dorms on campus. People would say “I’m not really interested, sorry” straight to my face, or leave the stickers behind wherever they were sitting. I won’t lie to you, that really fucking hurt.Saying “take your ego out of things, don’t take things personally” is a lot easier than actually doing it. As much as it hurt to be told that whoever I’d just pitched to didn’t care, it motivated me 10x more. I became immune to the fear of rejection — if the worst case scenario of putting yourself out there is getting rejected and ending up in the same place you started, fuck it, send it bröther. Odds are, you’ll learn something.5. Learn to say “Fuck It, Send”.I am probably the biggest perfectionist I know. I used to make memes/write jokes on twitter (I'll link a collection of them in the comments). This was before the limit was 280 characters, which was a blessing as much as it was a curse— when I had a tweet idea, I’d sit on it for days or even weeks until I was certain it was written the best way it could be delivered.Here's the joke I'm most proud of, which currently stands at 48k likes and 4.5 million impressions (all organic):Her: when you said "magical in bed" this isn't exactly what I was exp-Me: *holds up 8 of hearts* is this your cardHer: *softly* holy shit At 139 out of the former 140 character limit, I tweeted/deleted 5 different versions of it over two weeks before I was finally satisfied it was in the best format it could be.5.1: MVPMinimum Viable Product is an art as much as it is a science — for example, my app didn’t launch until users had the ability to peek other college’s feeds. In hindsight, we shouldn’t have built that functionality until people started actually downloading it at other schools. It’s hard to have that kind of foresight — I was utterly convinced it was going to blow up immediately and I didn’t want to launch before we were prepared for scale. The only way I found out otherwise was by putting it out into the world, something I would’ve done sooner if I didn’t fall into the One More Feature trap. Having your app/servers crash because they’re not properly equipped for scale is one of the best problems you can have.5.2: One More FeatureIt’s not hard to fall into the trap of thinking that this One More Feature is going to be the difference between success or not. It’s much easier to sit behind a screen and develop more functionality than to put your ideas out into the world where they face rejection. This is where being honest with yourself is so important — is this one thing really what will make or break you? Or are you working on that feature because you’re more comfortable developing than going out into the world and trying to get people to use your product?5.3: Push NotificationsIn the early stages of launch, we sent very few push notifications. I was scared to annoy people — if I sent too many, they’d delete the app, and we’d never get anywhere. However, you have to understand that you don’t owe the people who aren’t using your product anything: the people that are one or two push notifications away from deleting your app are not the people that will be responsible for its success anyway. Obviously, don’t overdo it, but it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.Besides investing in yourself, learning to say “Fuck It, Send” is the best thing you can do for your product — the sooner you get it out into people’s hands, the sooner you figure out why it sucks (which it inevitably will) and what you actually need to focus on to get it going.It also helps you prioritize the right things. Being the CEO, sole frontend developer, lead marketer, and literally every other role besides backend leaves me with much more on my plate every day than I can ever hope to get done. If I don’t focus on what actually matters, I’ll fail. This ultimatum is more a blessing than a curse, and the reason startups are even successful to begin with.These are just five of the innumerable lessons I’ve learned on this adventure, and I will be writing about more of them in the future. If you enjoyed this or learned something and want to keep up with my future blog posts, let me know and I'll drop you a link to my twitter/mailing list.

#/r/startups #reddit

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nerdy-bits · 6 years ago

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Florence and the Death of My Grandfather

It’s not without a significant amount of dread that I finally sat down to write this. It has been nearly four full months since my grandfather’s passing and in that time every pursuit of outlet through writing has been stymied by a stifling sort of existential dread and survivor’s syndrome. Though upon typing that I feel it is more accurately summed up by simply saying, for the last three months I have felt like a failure.

See, I failed to become something before he passed. I have a hard time articulating that emotion eloquently. After all, I am a father and a husband, I have a job, and I do run a little (nearly inconsequential) blog. But see, that wasn’t my plan. I was supposed to have made it. He was supposed to see me, happy, writing game journalism, or voice acting, or making games. For a living. And now he’s dead.

When I sat in the ICU at SLU Hospital, playing a little mobile game was nothing more than a distraction. Mostly for my grandmother, but also a bit for me. My grandfather wasn’t doing well, but the thought of his death in mere days was so far out of my mind it is legitimately hard to tell if I actually didn’t see it coming or if I purposefully looked every other direction. Regardless, I booted up Florence on my iPhone 7 Plus, put one AirPod in, handed the second to my grandmother, handed her the phone, and said, “Play.” Completely unprovoked.

What followed was serene and escapist. We both lost our ability to focus on anything but the music and art of this beautiful experience projecting from the screen of my phone.

Watching my grandmother, no stranger to games, fiddle around while figuring Florence out was endearing. She was a hardcore Destiny player, both titles, but playing touch-based phone games was clearly new. She giggled as she figured out how to brush Florence’s teeth, as she tapped away at Florence’s social media.

—

Video games are a huge part of my family. We threw a viewing party for every major E3 conference this year. Beer, barbecue, dogs, the whole deal. My grandma really started playing in 2012. She had conquered Portal 2, a feat she was immensely proud of, and in searching for a good game to follow that up my uncle, Benjamin, sat her in front of the Xbox and queued up Mass Effect. She was a convert overnight.

Since that time, my grandma has built an impressive resume of completed games. She beat the entire Mass Effect trilogy, Journey, each Half-Life, every Halo, Deus Ex, and put 14 days into the original Destiny. I have always found joy talking about games with my friends, but there is nothing quite like the feeling I get discussing PUBG hit-boxes with my grandma. I brag about it. A lot.

—

Florence plays like a modern take on an interactive storybook. You help move conversation along by fitting together pieces of a puzzle into a text bubble, you place stickers on childhood paintings. Most importantly, you live the relationship of Florence and Krish as it evolves. You watch it spark. Sputtering at first, as you put together five and six piece text bubble puzzles. You watch it begin to catch fire as the puzzles have two or three pieces. You fall in love as the puzzles become one piece thoughts.

Florence is a beautiful game that illustrates the complexities of relationships in this winsome, carefree manner. Florence and Krish’s love is contagious. I distinctly remember looking to my left to see my grandma smiling as she placed the pictures of their adventures on a cork board map. It’s an infectious experience. One that carried us along with it, in shades of blue and golden yellow. Stooped over my phone, sharing a pair of AirPods we played, like a parent and child reading a bedtime story after a nightmare.

—

My grandfather never really got into games. Often times, when the conversation at the dinner table inevitably wandered into chat about Destiny or Mirror’s Edge, he would look at my wife, shrug, and they would start their own conversation. It was like tradition. But we were working on him.

Once, while I played Assassin’s Creed Unity, he stopped as he walked past the screen. He recognized the streets. As a boy he lived in Versailles and spent a lot of time in Paris. He sat down next to me, giddy, and pointed me down streets and alleys in search of his boyhood home. That night I sat next to a six-year-old boy in my grandfather’s sixty-year-old body.

In my family, games run deep.

—

Florence isn’t all sunshine and love, unfortunately. The lovers settle into routine, let emotions bottle up, and before you know it the relationship falls apart. There was less joy in putting Krish’s things into boxes to be sent away. There is a moment, in this valley of the game, where Krish and Florence walk side-by-side through the snow. At first they hold pace, but slowly Florence begins to pull forward and Krish begins to fade into the white. The only thing my grandmother, as the player, could do was press on the screen. Florence slows her pace. Krish returns to focus. Each time she lifted her finger Florence would speed up. She kept pressing the screen. “I don’t want to let him go,” she said.

—

When I was a sophomore in college, in March of 2012, I decided to end my life. I was 20.

I had planned how, when, where. The place my depression had taken my mind obscured all other thoughts. I couldn’t see a reason to carry on. I hated my life, I hated myself, I hated that I was a burden on everyone around me. I remember kissing my girlfriend (now wife) goodbye as she left my room. She had no way of knowing what was happening in my head. I had gotten good at hiding it.

I shut the door, turned out the lights, flipped on Comedy Central, and waited for the right moment. Is there ever a right moment?

Before I found it someone knocked at my door. I could have just sat in the dark. It was late enough that no one would have given my being asleep a second thought, but I got up. It was my best friend Kristopher. He held out a copy of Skyrim, said, “Hey, I’m done with this. I think you’ll like it a lot,” and walked away.

I played Skyrim until 9 a.m., went for breakfast, came back and played until he came by to get me for dinner. I put 97 hours into Skyrim over the next two weeks. I forgot to kill myself.

In my family, games run deep.

—

Florence’s world, during and immediately following Krish’s departure, gray-scales. All of the vibrant color washes out almost immediately. Then she stumbles across a set of paints that Krish bought her. She sits and stares at the set for a moment and begins to start painting.

The paint brings color back into her life and slowly but surely she finds happiness in her art.

—

Nine days after my grandmother and I played Florence my grandfather died, his family gathered at his bedside, a bitter mix of disbelief and unfathomable pain. I remember my grandmother petting his head, “Fly away Timmy,’ she cried, “Fly away.” Images from those few moments fly through the View-Master in my head. They are raw and violent and painful. I think they always will be.

There is no way to explain the parallels Florence has had to my grandmother’s life. I spent the next ten days at her side, doing everything in my diminished strength to keep it together. To be there. To distract her.

They were married for 48 years. You don’t just “distract” someone from that.

But as we sat in (t)he(i)r house, now half-a-human-presence quieter, I looked at the art that covers her walls. All but three pieces are her own. I was immediately struck by the image of Florence finding her paints. Before I could say anything about my revelation my grandma quietly said, “I don’t want to let him go.”

It’s common for humans to draw comparisons to things that are far less similar than we realize. Florence’s story is not my grandmother’s story one-for-one, but large pieces are there. My grandparents loved each other. They traveled. They were happy. They argued. Things got rough. She loved his art so much that she didn’t pursue her own. He built her an art studio so she would. He’s gone now.

She doesn’t want to let go. Someday she will have to pack his things into boxes.

But now she has her art. Art that will someday help her move forward. Perhaps not move on, but certainly forward. Away from the gray.

—

When we finished playing Florence my grandmother and I each took a deep breath. There was something strange about the timing of all of this, we both realized. Within an hour, a game on my phone had spoken to us about love, sadness, grief, moving on, and being happy again.

In my family, games run deep.

~Caleb @LubWub Developer Mountains Website

Christy Sawyer's Twitter and Instagram, please check out her art.

#florence #mobile games #florence by mountains

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redeeminggracechurch-blog · 7 years ago

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Photo by HDV Newcastle Al Fresco / CC BY-ND 2.0

What is true hospitality? We all know the Martha / Mary story from the New Testament — Martha is busy running around getting every thing in order to serve a meal, while Mary is instead sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening to Him and spending time with Him. When Cameron and I were first married, I used to think that our house had to be completely clean and tidy before our guests arrived. I became the “Martha” before the company even arrived. I would stress out so much, along with setting up unreasonable expectations of both Cameron and myself, that it was normal for us to get in a heated argument before our guests knocked on the door. Because of this, the time wasn’t as enjoyable because I was stuck in that “Martha” mentality. It took years of Cameron convincing me that it’s okay if the house isn’t perfectly clean! True hospitality is being the “Mary” in this story, as Jesus taught us. Not focusing so much on the state of the house (or meal even), but instead on the people that are in our home — our guests. Spending time getting to know them and serving them. Of course, we will need to be somewhat prepared by cooking a meal and doing some cleaning, but it’s a heart issue — are we more concerned about our reputation, that our guests are going to bring a white glove with them to test our cleanliness and cooking ability, or instead are we praying in our hearts how we might serve our friends / neighbors / coworkers by listening to them and sitting down with them? In reality they will offer to help in the kitchen finishing up whatever isn’t ready, or even helping to clean up afterwards. OR ENTERTAIN OUR KIDS! It’s a difference between my selfish thought process of how my performance is rather than on how I can show love to whomever enters our home.

These are a few things that I’ve learned about hospitality over the years — by being welcomed in homes of family and friends, and by hosting a few dinners here:

1. Hospitality doesn’t mean you have to have a perfectly clean home! I always imagined that I would always keep my house spotless, so that if anyone “dropped in” unannounced, I wouldn’t be embarrassed by the state of its condition. Well my clutter habit and inability to organize quickly diminished that hope! In reality, as far as the house is concerned, the one thing I will guarantee is (as long as you give me five minutes notice!), the bathroom will be clean! And maybe the rugs will be vacuumed in the living room. Other than that, consider yourself walking into a minefield of legos, crayons, and any other tiny toy that will hurt if you step on it! And the kitchen counters will probably be at least half full of dirty dishes and there will be evidence of my clutter tendencies on the bookshelves!

2. Hospitality isn’t about having your home exactly how you want it to look!

When I think about home, I picture a sanctuary, a haven, a tranquil place where all who walk through the door feel welcome. When I was young and single, many people opened their homes to me, and I always wanted to have one of those homes where people would feel welcome to come anytime and “the door was always open.” I wanted to decorate in a way that would have a very welcoming feel to it. A quiet fountain would be trickling outside the open window, candles would be glowing, I would have my “perfect music for company” CD playing, and the list goes on! Between now and then, it’s not quite the picture I had in my mind for years, but it’s a work in progress and, in actuality, it may never “look” as I’ve envisioned it, but I have come to terms with that — somewhat at least — and I still want people to come over regardless! Knowing me, it will never truly get to “that point of perfection” but I guess it’s a good goal, right?!

3. Hospitality means you open your door even if you have fears!

Ever since I was in college, I’ve had a fear of undercooking meat (especially chicken!) and making people sick. Yes, something happened to a family member when they ate uncooked meat and I think it stemmed from that. But, rather than “get over it,” I continue to have that anxious feeling even after twenty years! This fear has caused me to always depend on Cameron to double check to make sure it’s done, and it has even prevented me from trying out cooking other meats. And unfortunately, this illogical fear isn’t the only one I have! 4. Hospitality is sacrificial (i.e. you can’t have everything under your control!). I will be the first to admit that I am one of those parents that give my children the “15 minute warning” of when we plan to leave, but end up walking out the door more like 30 minutes later! I have such a good time visiting that I tend to stay long when I’m at a friend’s house. And I crave that adult conversation especially now in the season we are with two young kids. But when someone opens their home, they usually don’t have control over when their guests leave — or even when they arrive. So in this way, it is sacrificial — you sacrifice your own time, privacy, and comforts.

After reading a few blogs on hospitality in the Bible, I learned (as 1 Peter 4:9 talks about) that part of showing true hospitality means doing it without complaining. And interestingly enough, this once again reminds me that the focus should not be on me, but on God whom I want to glorify through serving others in this manner, as well as the person whom I am trying to serve through this hospitality!

5. Hospitality on earth is a picture of things to come in Heaven.

Okay so this one is based on what I’m hoping it will be like, and what I imagine…

I love the greeting cards at Trader Joe’s. They have great pictures on them and they always say just enough — not too long and sappy, but enough to get you started on what you want to write yourself. And at $1, you can’t beat the price!

Last autumn, they sold one that has become one of my favorites. It was a photograph of a beautifully set table, placed outside, under the trendy string lights that transport you to Santa Barbara, Italy, or wherever else you’d like to be. The greeting was “The best moments are gathered around the table” or something to that effect. And that’s how I feel. I love food and I love spending time gathered around a meal. And to me, the photograph and greeting on the card makes me imagine how it’s going to be in Heaven — only a much bigger table and of course there will be no food allergies, intolerances or worrying about portion size! There will be lots of laughter and great stories to share, and the only tears that are shed will be ones of joy!

The last few weeks as Rick has been covering 1 Corinthians and calling it “a beautiful mess,” the same idea flows into this subject as well. Relationships are hard: they are messy. Hosts are messy, guests are messy, life is messy! But laying all this aside, they are also beautiful.

(Contributed by Viv F.)

#stories #hospitality

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