Every night...well, almost every night, I fall asleep listening to old horror stories. Mostly H. P. Lovecraft. I don't watch a lot of horror movies these days. But I still enjoy the literature.

It's been years since I booted up this old computer. Mostly I use my chromebook. But after the boys stopped coming over every day because of Ye Olde Pandemic, I've done some remodeling of the game room. Put up some shelves. Got a VGA to HDMI convertor to use this 39 inch TV as a monitor. It's too big. Or rather, I'm too small. I feel like a child sitting too close to the TV. The words...are huge. Intimidating. I could close my eyes. Type away. Listening to Max Richter re-mixing them sweet Vivaldi tunes. 

All my old iTunes playlists are still here. Still have all the playlists I made for the twins. Feist, Fleet Foxes, Imogen Heap, They Might Be Giants, Sigur Ros, Iron and Wine. I think they liked them. 

I remember getting them a CD player, because I wanted them to play an album all the way through. Interact with the music. Spend some time with it. Not be overwhelmed with choices. 

Oh yeah, I turned 38. How interesting, to be 38. It feels very much like being any other age. And I find that interesting.

In some ways, I'm stronger than I've ever been. In other ways, not as strong as I have been. My knee still hurts when I run, but it's been like that for a long time. Hard to remember when it didn't.

What else...oh yeah, sometimes my lower back hurts. Not as bad as that time I was doing back handsprings in the club and I messed up some disk in my back. At least I think that's what it was; I didn't have insurance so I just kept dancing. 

I don't dwell on it much. I don't really remember my age. When people ask, it takes me a second. Like I said, every age feels the same. 

Ah, the reason I dug this machine out of the closet was for role-playing (roll-playing?) on D20. The chromebook was struggling. Playing "Call of Cthulhu", seventh edition, I think? Putting some of my slumbertime studying to good use. So far I've survived/won every game (of all 3 games I've played so far) but the thing about Lovecraft, and life I suppose, is that if you play long enough you'll run into something you can't beat.

I opened my eyes again. The words don't seem so big anymore. Bright though. 

I thought I had a program on here called Greenscreen or something like that. Word-processor-type program that looked like an old 80's computer. Green letters on black background. I knew them, briefly. Also I worked at an insurance company that had an archive directory that still used DOS.

Dark Room! That's it. Ooh, I still have it. Could be very useful for night-writing. 

In case I ever do that again.