Only Emojis - 5 Year Anniversary Edition
Can you do it? Only emojis 5 year anniversary edition
Current mood: It's a painting, although, when you either zoom in or zoom out on it, it seems to lose context. At first it seems like something someone took a lot of care and pride in, something that was as cathartic as it was meditative, like if art therapy were a real thing and not another anxiety disease. But it's not. When we zoom out we see it mostly ignored, hanging maybe with a series of other lesser paintings in a coffee shop or a basement gallery, a setting that doesn't make sense that seems to only bring down the original paintings stock. However, if you zoom in something else happens. It feels more like a script, an earnest consideration with intent, something difficult to explain in a meeting when someone wants something to look just like an evenly lit bowl of some farm to table dish from a restaurant with a dimly considered name, tables made of vivisected barn doors that were older than the head chef. The meeting is in this restaurant, you, the rest of marketing, the vice president, the nepotism. The girl taking the photo literally has a tiny expensive ring light she puts on her phone, she has 10k followers, she's insufferable, she's younger than you, she jokes about drinking too much rose and punching her husband in the face, the table erupts in laughter, they'll probably make her the head of marketing. You're getting older, she doesn't have kids. You see your painting, covered with the fat and grease of hanging in this place for so many years that the current round of employees forgot it was yours, and you wonder how you got here.
Relationship status: An emoji of the impossible, a new book by the gottman institute and maybe Alan Watts. People both talk about it too much and not enough, at least not in the right way. You've read the book too, mostly ignored it, tried to write your own version and it didn't work. Finally, when you earnestly considered it, put in back in your bag and just went to work in the world, it worked. It was there in the lobby of a hotel, being read by the most beautiful set of eyes imaginable. You both forgot the book again, but this time you didn't need it. It made it's way into your shared dreams, it became your life and not a goal, the space between the void. Goodnight, I love you. Good morning, my love. Hopefully this time, forever.
Pets: An emoji of the parking lot by Montano's, there's the building where Tokyo used to be, there's the ghost of the "imported" beer you bought there once so your friends could drink like you did in Texas, there's a hidden and forgotten retirement home on the hill, there's also still / never was the spectre of Capt. Party, and also in this lot there's a tiny building where you send and receive packages. To return or send them requires money, to receive them requires a sacrifice. It's both a security measure and an indication of the value of your sacrifice. The inside of the building is nondescript, the commercial blandness of it makes it feel even older than it is, like it was built when Capt. Party was still the only source for tear jerkers before that time we dressed up there as roman soldiers, Jonathan turning to you saying "Remember that time we killed Jesus!?". Inside, you have to prove your identity, it feels like your smartphone won't work in there. You hand the lady your ID she scans it and disappears into the back. You look at your phone, surprisingly it does work. You just stare at the time, waiting for that minute to tick, but, like the seconds in that building, it never does. Then she's back with a box. You sign, finalizing your sacrifice, then leave. Back in your car, in the parking lot of Montano's, you take out a knife. On the side of the knife is a panther. You use the knife to open the cardboard box. Neatly, packaged inside is another box, small, wooden, and ornate. You pick it up, examine it, finally sitting it in your lap. You stare up at the roof of your car, avoiding looking at the box. You definitively thought you lost your heart, in the afterhours of the clinic, in that darkness with him, when he was and wasn't there. But now he's home and you're crying uncontrollably again.
Favorite color: An emoji of camp Powhattan, somewhere in the woods of Virginia, on a lake. There's a spectrum of light ranging from catching Aquanet on fire using flint & steel to the bruised testicle your tent mate shows you nervously asking it's okay after crying because he finished a fight to the uniforms which were always timeless. There's the light that comes through the dream catcher you insensitively made there using actual deer tendons for string, there's the almost chiaroscuro light from the sun coming through the trees that shines down on your bleeding finger as examined by a pensive scout master because you have a blood disorder, and then there's the light at night which is the brightest and darkest of them all. On the same spectrum are other camps, a forgotten 4H trip, holding hands with your best friend in a way that feels awkward in a way you wish it didn't, still unsure if she could feel that or if this night was the one where an older teen attempted to call owls that never came. There are parts to that spectrum which you have always been able to see and parts you'll never will be able to, even though you know they're there, only apparent when mindless picking out clothes for your children or trying to get ready for work.
Favorite food: An emoji of Justine's at night, nervously smoking cigarettes, french christmas lights like stars and fireflies and a framing device for when she approaches in slow motion. Forgetting that for a brief second, that everything is or isn't doomed, forgetting what you even ate, remembering everything is doomed and being greeted by a feral kitten with a bow tie collar upon returning home.
Favorite Animal: An emoji of a show about an english ape who loved the world so much that the only thing greater than his fascination with life, was the sadness over how the rest of the apes destroyed it.
Favorite season: An emoji of that rotating section at Hills department store that sometimes had school supplies, that sometimes had sale items, that sometimes had over sized items, that sometimes has Christmas items, that sometimes has Easter stuff, and that sometimes has two perfect back to back isles of costumes, fake blood, a Freddy Kruger glove, glow sticks, plastic pitchforks, a polyester witch's hat and dress, orange plastic pumpkin baskets, orange plastic pumpkin carving kits, vampire grease paint, fake rubber scars, a plastic ball & chain, a bloody grey plastic axe, a knife that bleeds when turned upside down, almost grotesque masks of mundane things, and a boundless longing and wonder over that section for the rest of your life.
Favorite holiday: An emoji of Georgia Byrd, who looks just like Queen Latifah, an employee in the cookware department at Kragen's Department Store in New Orleans. Georgia is a shy, unassuming woman who longs to cook professionally, and who records her dreams of a better life in a scrapbook labeled "Possibilities". While flirting with a co-worker named Sean Williams, who looks just like LL Cool J, Georgia bumps her head on a kitchen cabinet door and is taken to the store's health center for a CAT scan. There, she is told by company physician Dr. Gupta that she has several brain tumors resulting from a rare neurological disorder called Lampington's disease. Since her HMO plan will not cover the exorbitant cost of an operation, Georgia resigns herself to the fact she has only a few weeks to live, quits her job, liquidates her assets and sets off on a dream vacation at the deluxe Grandhotel Pupp in the spa city of Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic. Free of inhibitions and determined to live life to the fullest, Georgia checks into the Presidential Suite, buys a designer wardrobe in expensive boutiques, makes extensive use of the hotel's spa facilities, attempts snowboarding and BASE jumping off a dam, enjoys succulent meals prepared by world-renowned Chef Didier, who looks just like world-renowned Chef Didier, and wins a small fortune playing roulette in the casino.
Most used emoji: An emoji of a routine in a way that is both the most fulfilling thing you will probably every do in your life and also the most monotonous. To pull this emoji up on your phone you simply need to be able to constantly strive for and want more for the ones you love most but also consistently never be able to give them those things because your fear which was once other people's fear has crippled you. You also have to install an emoji set which features things like desperately wishing you could take your children abroad, a home that feels like home and like you and where you can all be together, never living up to your potential, sleep deprivation, aging joints, failing eyes, creative doldrums, only half the people who love you believing in you, the ever present dream of a flow state where you can just work again, a listless feeling about anything even if it's exciting or profitable, misguided anger because you need people sometimes, the gratitude and guilt of a wonderful woman who loves you regardless of all these emojis, and countless other options for emojis which just contribute from the tyranny of choice that is your life. Fortunately, there is an emoji maker but that app is right next to a game which allows you to only feel alive in the game, till it doesn't.
Occupation: 👻 (still)
Your turn! Just hold your finger on my status to copy.