Anonymous asked:

that anon saying about being born in 1999 and your response was so 😵‍💫😵‍💫(and interesting too!) I was born in 2005 so i’m curious as to what that was like for you 😛

also ive seen your blogs around for a while but only just followed it recently. you have this sort of nonchalance about you that I feel would make it very hard to brat for you…

 Hm. 2005? That’s a little less vivid… among other things, I was going through a major depressive period around then, and I think I disassociated away a big chunk of the year. But that aside…

• I was a bit more gray by then, and I was beginning to feel more dad than daddy.
• Bush the Lesser began his second term. I don’t loathe him as much these days, because I’ve learned his kind can be dumber, greedier, and far more cruel. He’s at least a polite man, and we’ve reached a point in our bullshit antagonistic society where I’m giving previously unimagined credit to people for exhibiting basic public decency.
• YouTube launched. To this day, my most successful upload has 40,000 paltry views, and I’m disturbed to realize I posted it almost 20 years ago.
• Katrina blew in, and 19 years later, it is shocking how many still-apparent marks a single storm left on NOLA.
• That was the year that Dennis “BTK” Rader basically handed himself to the law in a feat of epic, ego-driven stupidity… he sent the cops a taunting, confessional Word document containing identifying metadata on a fucking floppy. It honestly makes me wonder if Rader was really clever, or if he just got away with it for so long because everyone in Wichita is a complete moron.
• I lined up at midnight for the Xbox 360. It was an impulsive thing on a restless night, so I didn’t have a machine reserved or anything… we just decided to head to the store and see if I’d get lucky. I look back on the 360 as one of my favorite consoles, behind the N64, Dreamcast, and PS1, but ahead of the Xbox OG/PS2/Gamecube/Genesis/NES/2600.
• “Sexting” entered the public consciousness, but I’d been doing it for over a decade at that point. I think we called it “hot chat” or something equally lame back then. Not that “sexting” is much better, but sometimes you stick with what sticks.
• Resident Evil 4 was the first RE I didn’t play at all… and that began an unbroken streak of indifference to the whole franchise that lasts to this day.
• I ignored Guitar Hero when it debuted, and refused to buy in until Guitar Hero 3 in 2007. It promptly became a household addiction until Rock Band was released, whereupon I pretty much forgot GH ever existed. Except for the GH3 guitar, which I preferred to that mushy mess that shipped with RB.
• Attack of the Show! debuted on G4. Some of their bits were paper thin, but once the hosting duties fell into the hands of Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn, there was enough talent on hand to carry them through the misfires. They had a perfect mix of actual information, goofy shit, and hot chicks… it helped that there were women in the writers’ room, so it didn’t turn into a nerdy Man Show.
• Tom Cruise bounced on Oprah’s couch, beginning his Irritating Scientologist Ambassador period. And yes, I made fun of him, because he made an ass of himself. But deep inside I was just jealous that he was taking Joey Potter off the market.
• Carrie Underwood won Idol. And given that her closest competition was Bo Bice, that’s for the best.
• The Office opened for business. I completely ignored it until Carrell’s final season, when the hype at last convinced me to give it a try. And with the help of a keleven —a mistake plus keleven gets you home by seven!— I can juggle the numbers and claim I was a fan from the start.
• Watching Hell’s Kitchen sent me digging for other Gordon-related content, resulting in my exposure to the UK’s Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. This would prove to be a gateway drug for Anglophilia, as our household consumption of British media began a steep and unabated rise.
• Beauty and the Geek, The Girls Next Door, and So You Think You Can Dance launched, providing me with my recommended weekly allowance of Hot & Shallow, Hot & Stupid, and Hot & Talented.
• I watched the first few eps of Supernatural and kinda checked out. Which probably means I’m on Tumblr Double-Secret Probation or something.
• Invasion had the horrible misfortune of being a show about a hurricane that began airing shortly after Katrina hammered the Gulf… it was imperfect, but it gave us 22-ish episodes of solid science-fantasy and introduced the world to Evan Peters and Elizabeth Moss.
• Lucy, Daughter of the Devil and The Boondocks premiered, establishing the talents of H. Jon Benjamin and Aaron McGruder and between them offending every single one of Middle America’s sensibilities.
• 8 Simple Rules followed the Phil Hartman Rule and put itself out of its misery after a single season spent mourning John Ritter, and Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica ended after introducing me to the concept of “dropping the kids off at the pool”.
• Late Registration dropped, and Kanye inadvertently created the most awkward recurring moment of 2005: random white people frowning slightly as they found themselves vaguely distressed at having to sing “but she ain’t messin’ with no broke, broke” instead of what they were really wanting to sing.
• “Haven’t you people ever heard of / closing the goddamned door?”
• Danity Kane was formed, and even the girls in Danity Kane didn’t care.
• Chris Brown is still an asshole, and “Run It!” is still a fantastic fucking song.
• Seriously, 2005 was a packed year, musically speaking. There was something good in every genre… it was like the ‘90s again.
• Movies, OTOH? Ouch. 2005 was packed with tepid, mediocre movies. The top 10 were bland at best, and none of them were memorable. Brokeback Mountain lived up to the hype, and Amy Adams was delightful in Junebug, but… sheesh. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang really was the year’s high point.
• I probably sound extra-bitter because I really, really wanted to love Serenity. And maybe I’d like it more if I watched it again in 2024. It’s possible. It’s not as if the movie was bad, after all… just terribly disappointing.

RE: followed it recently

I’m an acquired taste for refined palates.

RE: hard to brat

You’re correct. Bratting isn’t just something I dislike; it’s incompatible with my personality.

I’m not an even vaguely angry person, and I don’t react to stress with impulsive force and misdirected rage… I just become disappointed. And my disappontment is the high-potency stuff. Despite the ambient sexual sadism and my contempt for their collective ability to function as adults without my guidance, the girls all feel more respected than they’ve ever felt… and my disappointment threatens that. The thought of losing even a splinter of my respect is devastating.

So if she loves me, a girl won’t want to brat. It’ll feel wrong. It’ll feel shameful. It’ll feel like an insult to something she worships. It’ll feel like a betrayal of something far more important than she will ever be.

Bratting with me is like getting in a slap-fight with a cloud that feels like you’ve let it down.