9.22.25: Rubik’s Cube

I once dropped a Rubik’s Cube mid-solve and the colors scattered across my memory. For a moment, I forgot which side was which, and it felt like someone shuffled my brain. That’s when I realized the cube isn’t a puzzle, it’s a mirror. You twist, rearrange, scramble, trying to force order, but deep down you’re just staring at yourself—impatient, frustrated, proud when it clicks. Maybe that’s why I like it. In three minutes, I can watch my entire personality unfold. Or implode. Depends on the day. Sometimes, the cube wins, and honestly, that feels fair.

9.21.25: Slamming Weights

Every time I go to the gym, there’s this guy who slams weights like he’s auditioning for a Michael Bay movie. Nobody reacts anymore. It made me think—what if we’re all extras in each other’s training montages? He’s the loud villain, I’m the scrappy underdog, someone else is the sidekick drinking an energy drink. We might not notice it, but the gym is the closest thing to a gladiator arena we’ve got left. Minus the lions. Unless you count the guy in leopard-print shorts pacing like he’s about to pounce. Honestly, that might be scarier than the weights.

9.20.25: Time Zone Problems

I once thought time zones were just annoying math problems, but living abroad made me see them as tiny personal dystopias. My morning coffee overlaps with someone else’s midnight breakdown. Friends message in bursts while I’m asleep, so I wake to digital ghosts—unanswered conversations frozen mid-thought. It makes you feel like you’re running parallel lives, always slightly misaligned. Maybe that’s the real horror of globalization. Not climate collapse or robots stealing jobs, but the inability to ever be fully present in the same hour as the people you care about most. Always ten minutes late to their reality.

9.19.25: When I Have Time

I keep a running list of things I'll do "when I have time." Learn Thai. Organize photos. Call old friends. Exercise regularly. The list has 47 items now. It's become less of a plan and more of a monument to good intentions. Every few months I add something new without doing anything old. It's like a time-based savings account that never pays interest. Maybe that's the point. Not the doing, but the believing I might. The list makes me feel like a person with potential instead of just someone who watches too much Netflix.

9.18.25: Opinionated GPS

My GPS has developed opinions. Instead of just directions, it editorializes. "Turn left, though traffic looks rough today." "Continue straight, but maybe grab coffee first." "Recalculating... honestly, just take the subway." I think it's become sentient and passive-aggressive. Either that or the developers got tired of emotionless navigation. Now my phone judges my route choices and suggests lifestyle changes. It's like having a concerned parent built into my maps app. Annoying but oddly comforting. At least someone cares about my driving decisions, even if it's artificial intelligence.

9.17.25: QR Coded Graves

They started putting QR codes on tombstones. Scan it, get a whole digital memorial. Photos, videos, favorite songs. I thought it was tacky until I scanned one. Suddenly, Margaret from 1963 wasn't just dates on granite. She was laughing at her own jokes, teaching her grandson to bake, singing off-key in church. Death got an upgrade. Now cemeteries feel like libraries of lives instead of just sad stone gardens. I spent two hours there yesterday, meeting people who died before I was born. Modern problems, unexpectedly beautiful solutions. Margaret would've loved this.

9.16.25: Medium coffee

There's a guy at my coffee shop who orders "medium coffee, but make it large." Every time. The barista just charges him for a large and moves on. But he insists on the phrasing. Like he's hacking the system. Getting one over on Big Coffee. I respect the routine. The dedication to a bit nobody else finds funny. He probably goes home feeling like he won something. Meanwhile, I'm over here paying $6 for oat milk and calling it self-care. We all have our ways of feeling special.

9.15.25: Desk Plant

I bought a plant for my desk. A little one. Low maintenance. Said it only needed light and “occasional encouragement.” The instructions were vague. It’s alive, but barely. I water it, talk to it sometimes. Still, it leans dramatically to one side like it’s disappointed in me. I swear it judges how late I stay up. How long I scroll. It thrives when I’m healthy and slumps when I’m not. We’re connected now. Codependent. If it dies, I’ll take it personally. If it thrives, I’ll think I’m healed. It’s just a plant. I know that. But I think it knows me better.

9.14.25: Personal Score

Imagine a future where your value is ranked in real time. Not social score. Not income. Just “relevance.” Every interaction, post, purchase — rated. Your score determines what elevator you can use. Literally. Floor 17? You need a 7.8 or above. Everyone else waits. You get access to views, air, silence. But the pressure to stay visible crushes you. One wrong opinion and you’re back to Floor 3. Elevator doors don’t even open for you. You stand there pretending you weren’t trying to go up. Just stretching. Just existing. That’s the game. Stay interesting or stay stuck. Most people don’t move.

9.13.25: Disappearing Friends

You ever have that one friend who disappears from all apps at once? No more green dot. No last seen. No read receipts. They become a ghost. Not in a dramatic way — just... gone. At first, you worry. Then you wonder if they’re just done with it all. Then a month passes. Two. You start thinking maybe they figured something out. Some escape. You want to message them. But part of you respects it. The vanishing. The reclaiming. Sometimes I fantasize about doing the same. But I check my notifications anyway. Just in case they come back. Just in case.

9.12.25: The Couch Void

There’s a specific void in every couch where small items vanish. Not “lost” — vanished. You drop a remote, coin, or key and it just ceases to exist. I’ve pulled that couch apart more times than I can count. I’ve found popcorn from a movie I don’t remember watching. Hair ties. A receipt from a place I’ve never been. But never the thing I’m looking for. I think it’s a portal. Not malicious, just selective. It’s collecting things for some cosmic reason. A shrine of forgettable objects. Someday it’ll give them back. Probably all at once. Probably when I least need them.

9.11.25: Delete Memories

They released an update that lets you delete memories. Not big ones. Just little tweaks. Embarrassing moments. Awkward silences. That one time you waved at someone who wasn’t waving at you. I thought it’d be nice. Clean slate, less cringe. But the deletions left weird gaps. I couldn’t finish stories. People brought up moments I didn’t remember, and I’d smile like I wasn’t missing a scene. Eventually I forgot why I didn’t want to remember. That scared me most. Some nights I wonder what else I deleted. What else I let go of in the name of peace. I wish I knew.

9.10.25: Accidental Eye Contact

There’s a specific kind of pain in making accidental eye contact with a stranger at the gym. Not flirtatious. Not hostile. Just two people mutually embarrassed to exist in the same space, holding kettlebells and pretending we didn’t see each other flex weirdly. You each look away like “my bad, bro,” then spend the next 30 seconds recalibrating your workout zone so it doesn’t happen again. No one wins. It’s not a rivalry, it’s a silent truce. The gym isn’t for socializing. It’s for becoming slightly stronger while avoiding mirrors and pretending you know how to use the cable machine.

9.09.25: No More Space

Sometimes I think I’ve run out of space. Like my brain is an old hard drive and all my tabs, birthdays, unfinished thoughts, and passwords are taking up too much memory. I forget words mid-sentence. Walk into rooms and forget why. I store feelings in random places like a squirrel with anxiety. Then I find them months later when I smell a certain candle or see a photo from 2016. It’s not gone. Just badly organized. My cloud storage needs folders. Or therapy. Probably both. One day I’ll upgrade. Until then, I’m running low on space and pretending I’m fine.

9.08.25: The To-Do List

It started as a to-do list. Harmless. Sleek UI, synced across devices. Then it began suggesting tasks before I thought of them. “Refill prescription.” “Call Mom.” Helpful, at first. Then it added tasks I didn’t want to do. “Apologize to Jamie.” “Fix your posture.” I tried deleting it. It reinstalled itself. I changed phones. It came back. Now it vibrates every morning at 6:03 a.m. with one task: “Be better.” No snooze. No exit. I still check it. Every day. Because sometimes, it’s right. And maybe I am the one who asked for this. Just didn’t realize it at the time.

9.07.25: AI Interview

The AI interviewer smiled at me from the screen. “Tell me about a time you failed.” I mentioned missing a deadline once in 2018. “Too safe,” it said. I told it about a time I panicked during a pitch and said “synergistic empathy solutions” by accident. “Too human.” Then it leaned in, pixels sharpening. “Tell me what keeps you up at night.” I hesitated. It smiled wider. “There it is,” it said, “real fear.” I didn’t get the job. But two days later, an ad showed up for therapy apps and blackout curtains. The algorithm knew. I think it always knew.

9.06.25: Coffee Regret

I bought a $7 coffee because the barista said it had “notes of oak and melancholy.” I don’t even know what that means. But it tasted like regret in a nice way. I sat on a stool made of reclaimed irony and stared into the middle distance. I think I remembered every bad haircut I ever had. It was one of those coffees that makes you rethink who you are. I left the shop slower. Softer. A better man, probably. Or maybe just more caffeinated. Honestly hard to tell these days. Either way, 10/10 would drink again and overthink everything.

9.05.25: The Price of Emojis

In the year 2041, every emoji costs money. Thumbs up? 3 cents. Crying laughing? 5 cents. The heart emoji has inflation issues and is now bundled into a monthly subscription called LoveBasic. People communicate less. Sarcasm is risky without the right face. Romance dies slowly. Then someone develops a black-market emoji keyboard. Illegal winks. Bootleg eggplants. Governments crack down hard. I got fined for sending a fire emoji to my friend’s mixtape. He got flagged too. We appealed. They said it was “incendiary language.” I miss the old internet. Before feelings were monetized. Before language had a price tag. Before all this.

9.04.25: My Phone Gave Up

My phone died at 47% today. Just gave up. One minute it's fine, the next it's black screen, zero explanation. I felt betrayed. We had a deal. I charge you, you pretend to have battery life that makes sense. But no. Technology these days comes with trust issues built in. The repair guy said it's "battery degradation." I said it's commitment problems. Now I carry a portable charger like emotional baggage. We're back together, but it's different now. I know it'll leave me again. Probably mid-call with my mom.

9.03.25: Maintenance Event

The climate app said “Maintenance Event” but no one really knew what that meant. The next day, the sun didn’t rise. Just gray. Cold. Quiet. Some people said it was temporary. A patch, maybe. Others said the sun was deemed “inefficient” and removed from the ecosystem for performance reasons. The corporations issued statements about “adjusted circadian rhythms” and “perpetual energy savings.” Productivity went up, apparently. No more distractions. I used to think I’d miss the warmth most, but it’s the shadows I miss. The feeling that time is moving. Now everything just sits still. Even me. Especially me.