Okay so I haven’t been writing on this here blog so much
lately. And yes, a lot of that is school-related. But there’s another critical
factor that I haven’t mentioned, due to addiction and its related shame: I’m
obsessed with Sudoku.
It started about a year ago when I began finding it too
physically taxing to print out crosswords from the New York Times and found I could play Sudoku online. It escalated
once I realized that there was a free Sudoku app. It reached critical mass when
I found myself playing Sudoku during boring lectures, while watching TV, and
while using the bathroom (even just to go pee). I’ve probably played 300 games
of Sudoku on my phone this week while “watching” Chopped and Family Ties
reruns on Netflix. It’s taken over my life, like so many other things have in
the past. I guess I’m an official addictive personality. But such a sad, lame
one.
When we were kids, we weren’t allowed video games at home.
But I would spend the night at Em’s every week or so, and while she and James
played Nintendo, I played on their sweet-ass, vintage Pinball machine. Video
games have always scared me because I hate being chased. Every time I picked up
a controller, I started to panic and sweat, thinking a mushroom or a turtle
would attack me or I’d fall in a hole. So I didn’t really try, and let myself
go down in the first moments, because the stress was too much to handle. I
think that’s how I’d behave in real life if I were being chased by a bear or a
mugger: I’d run really hard until the panic started to get overwhelming, and
then I’d lie down in the fetal position and cry. (This might not be a horrible
strategy for the bear scenario.) Solitary games that had little to do with
dexterity have always worked best for me: Pinball, Solitaire, Oregon Trail, and
crossword puzzles. And now, Sudoku.
It’s a disease, though, really, because I devote so much time
to it. Nights when I should be writing or drawing, instead I’m trying to beat
my Expert Level score while countless episodes of Family Ties play in the background. It’s mind numbing. Initially I
thought: hey, I’ll never get dementia! I’m playing a brain game! But now I
think that once again I’m just really bored.
 |
| All the things I might be doing if not for Sudoku. |
It gets worse: sometimes I see that I’ve gotten three
answers wrong. If you get four answers wrong, you’ve essentially “lost the game”
and you’ve ruined your track record. So when I continue playing after already
getting 3 x’s, I feel like I’m really living life on the edge. Just writing
that sentence is so profoundly sad.
Tell me about your addictions so I feel better about
myselves. (Freudian? I meant to write “myself” but wrote “myselves.” Hmmm…)
*Okay, so I have two quotes up there. The first is Norman Mailer. The second is John Waters. I will always lean toward John Waters, WHATEVER THE ISSUE, but Mailer has a slight point as well. Eh?
