Ramblings of A Mad Man

Filmmaker, Writer, (Unemployed)

[almosthomefree-blog]

Model Sheet Monday! Character concepts for Ian Byrd’s “Heroes of Tomorrow”. Follow Ian on @byrd156

[byrd156]

Mar 25th, ‘21

Haven’t been on here in a while, it seems like that’s what I do with this site. Use it off and on for a month or two and go back to whatever else is occupying my time. This site just doesn’t hold my attention. I’m always trying to procrastinate, but here it just doesn’t do it for me.

In other news, I started another new writing project again BUT this has been going kinda well. I’m back in the swing of it, at the very least, brainstorming and writing ideas if not outright typing words onto the “page”. 11 full pages is a rare sight, dialogue and all. 

As for the emotion side of things, I feel fine. Still a little agitated and stressed about reality but I think that’s status quo for me. Not really angry or spiraling any more so I think that’s a win. I feel so different even though its only been a few months. Still trying to get vaccinated but being in bum fuck Kansas isn’t helping. Still in the early phases and they keep running out of needles. Still need to do taxes, car MIGHT be fixed and I’m in the process of finding a place in LA. I cannot wait to move. I need this so badly. I’m so close to getting my life back. So that’s about it. Things are fine, seems decent enough for now.

[byrd156]

Dec 23rd

“What would make you happy?”

I hate that this is a question directed at me. I hate that I have to think about it. I hate that I don’t have an answer. I wish I knew. 

[byrd156]

Dec 14th

Got my Christmas gift for my mom. I don’t think I’m gonna see anyone or go visit KC this year. Fine with it, really don’t want to do anything any way. Car is still broken too so I can’t leave even if I wanted too. I hate the holiday season. I don’t want anything that anyone can just get me at the store. Things that I want can’t be bought. Well a proper living situation but that’s besides the point. I feel so unstable right now. I’m trapped. Physically and emotionally. I need work and emotional connection, I need these things back in my life.

This whole BS time of good will towards your fellow man rings hollower and hollower each year. I’m so disillusioned with the world. I’m struggling to enjoy anything in life without thinking about mass suffering on a global scale every day, how we do nothing and the world continues to fester and rot? I should be doing something right? I feel a rabbit hole deep dive coming on. Gonna go lay down or something.

[byrd156]

Dec 9th

I’m exhausted. Another day, another emotionally draining fight. I swear I look worse each passing day, stress is literally aging my face. My facial hair never stops no matter how much I shave. My eyes are going to be replaced with permanent black holes, I look like I got my face punched in. Plus this haircut isn’t doing me any favors. I really need to start working out properly again. Physically I am disgusting, emotionally I am dead. My outside is finally catching up to how I feel on the inside.

The only thing giving me joy at the moment is that I have been doing some writing consistently, Cyberpunk is almost here and the new cover of Never Fade Away. The music for this game feels so fucking good. This song is an emotional rollercoaster that almost gets me to tears. Setting it on loop and ready to disappear for awhile. Also made some more twitch emotes. Nothing else to say.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4bKZT_Eg4A&ab_channel=Cyberpunk2077

[byrd156]

Dec 4th

Another long break from writing here but not writing in general which is a first. Why is it so damn hard to keep up with this? Journaling just isn’t my strong suit. A week has passed this time around.

I’ve been trying to make time pass, trying my damndest to shift the clock face. Sleeping a lot in an attempt to time travel into the future. It hasn’t been working, if anything the days feel even longer now. Waking up at 3-5 AM and going to bed around 9-11 PM, unnatural times for me. 

Cyberpunk is almost here, yet all I can think of what happens after? I’ve been using this release date as a shield. Hoping that it will somehow bring some semblance of good into my life. It’s a game. It’ll be fun, bring content for streaming, new narrative that I crave and so on, etc etc. but I’ll still be here in Burlington. I’ll still be trapped here. I’ll still be alone. I’m becoming complacent in my own life. I don’t feel that anger anymore, it’s been replaced with a twisted version of acceptance. Nihilism is back in fashion. I need a new north star, Cyberpunk was that. I need something real this time. Something to get me out of here. Something back in reality, the real world. 

I started another new project because I can’t ever commit to just one. Committing to literally anything else is easy, writing is the one avenue I can’t. There are so many stories I want to tell, things I want to say but the second I can’t figure out how to say what I want to say, I move onto the next thing. The cycle continues and the frustration/inadequacies grow as the wheel spins. I’ve told myself all year that I just needed to finish one script. 1, just one single fucking script. I was able to pump out a 40 page pilot in an evening during film school for our final project. I can’t finish an 8 issue mini-series in 2 years. Can’t do a sci-fi feature in 3 years. Can’t make a horror-comedy script in 1 and half. What are you doing? I have nothing but time yet nothing to do in this head of mine. I’m losing my ability to say what I want, what I feel, how to be. This is why I journal, to try and reclaim it, to be better and write....something.

I think I typed enough. I’m gonna go.

[byrd156]

Nov 27th

Forgot to write in here..... again. But I have been actually writing on a couple different projects. Doing fan fiction as practice as well. I don’t feel like I do voices and dialogue very well. Hopefully doing a bit of this will help me out.

As for actual writing, got another page and a half of my horror-comedy feature and stared at some other projects with the blinking typing line. Progress is progress.

Got 2 emotes now for my Twitch channel and 8 subs away from adding another. Started an XCOM 2 playthrough. Really should finish a previous game like Arkham City, Squadrons or RE4. Probably will do AC and XCOM tomorrow. 

Want to get back to watching Cobra Kai and The Last dance. Still need to watch Russian Doll, Queen’s Gambit and the newest episode of Mando. (Also on a random note I started playing chess again, no real details just something fun.) I have nothing but time yet I’m always behind on everything. What do I even do with my time?

I’m feeling a bit more normal but I’m so emotionally, physically and socially starved for connection. I need distractions so I thought I should clean up a little bit. Fucked up my haircut yesterday(?) so probably gonna shave it all off. Cutting off a ponytail with scissors and no mirror is difficult. Gonna miss being able to hide my face with my hair.

That’s all I really got for now. Gonna go doomscroll or some shit.

[byrd156]

Somehow It’s The 21st Of Nov

I lost track of the days. Didn’t even notice I stopped writing, it’s so damn easy to drop off. Disappearing is what I want, feel like I’m in a trial run for it at the moment. I’ll joke with friends that when a tiny amount of time passes (5 seconds, span of a conversation, an hour etc.) that “I’m a different person now.” Me and my life a week ago compared to now is somehow exactly the same yet everything is different. It’s all wrong, it’s off. I’m a worse person now. I don’t know how to communicate that so I start to shut down and implode. 

Not really talking to anyone, not streaming as much. Eating is rare, sleeping even rarer and actual writing is nonexistent. I am drained completely. Every aspect of my life, I just don’t have the energy or drive. I just don’t care. I hate this feeling. The last little bit of me that is still active is my anger for myself. Even falling apart at the seams, watching life crumble; my self-loathing will be there by my side. Kinda comforting in a fucked up kinda way.

[daryshkart]

Padme and Vader commission for lovely and patient @karyn-faro It’s illustration for her story - The Ghosts on Coruscant 

[byrd156]

Nov 15th Cont.

"It’s not that I can’t fall in love. It’s really that I can’t help falling in love with too many things all at once. So, you must understand why I can’t distinguish between what’s platonic and what isn’t, because it’s all too much and not enough at the same time." — Jack Kerouac

I really fucked my naming system of these ramblings. This Jack Kerouac deep dive I’ve been on is wild. I haven’t read so much since middle school. Powering through books and basically doing reports on them and Jack himself. I found a lens that fits my way of emotional processing and I’m riding my perceived success at the moment. 

I’m always worried though, when I feel like I learn something about myself or how I feel the way I do about (person, place, thing, etc.) that I’ll forget. I’ll revert. Go back to how I was because maybe how I feel now doesn’t take, doesn’t hold for the long run or the other person in my life leaves. I’m always in it for the long run. Ride or die as the kids say. I want the people, places, things to stay with me. If you are a part of my life, I want to keep you in it. I hold onto the same duct tape wallet I’ve had since middle school, I wear my late dad’s necklace every day, I tried to save a childhood home that wasn’t mine for years at that point, I check in with those I care about a little too much. That’s so selfish, yet so me. At my core I long for love, connection, passion. I am a cold, dead fire pit looking for a spark. Flames consume me, I beg you. 

"So I went up and there she was, the girl with the pure and innocent dear eyes that I had always searched for and for so long. We agreed to love each other madly." — Jack Kerouac (On the Road)

[byrd156]

Nov 15th

I did it. Found the perfect summary of these writings I’ve been doing.

“I had nothing to offer anybody, except my own confusion” ― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

[byrd156]

Nov 14th

“I’m finding it difficult to be helpful at the moment.” - Unknown

Sims stream didn’t feel right. Pride & Prejudice won’t work on Netflix. I’ve been pretty quiet all day and in my head. Nothing seems to be working at the moment.

Finally catching up on my Jack Kerouac. ‘On the Road’ was what I was going to do. Before the pandemic hit I was gonna travel the country, living out of my car and doing some soul searching. A little bit of growing as well as trying to find writing inspiration. I long for the road yet trapped with a busted car. I feel like I live comfortably in a prison of my own making. Each small decision these past 2 years makes for painful window dressing when you really squint at them. 

Glancing throughout the book, kinda cheating my read, I feel emotional. So many quotes and anecdotes that hit me like a train. It’s so pure. Naive, timeless, open to itself and the world. An “idyllic” American adventure that I don’t know if it can be replicated. Love, adventure and connection all for the sake of freedom. It’s a frontier I want to explore with all my heart. I want my own frontier. Too young for competent space travel, too late for the trek west. All that we have, is me, you, us, the frontier of the self. It’s gonna take a lifetime.

There is so much of who I want to be in this book. How do I live that written life in an unwritten world?

Ending on some quotes.

“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.” ― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

“I just won't sleep," I decided. There were so many other interesting things to do.” ― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

“Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk — real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious.” ― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

“Sal, we gotta go and never stop going 'till we get there.' 'Where we going, man?' 'I don't know but we gotta go.” ― Jack Kerouac, On the Road

[anakin-skywalker]

Katee Sackhoff as BO-KATAN Chapter 11: The Heiress | The Mandalorian

[letoatreides]

Bo-Katan Kryze in The Mandalorian Chapter 11: The Heiress

[byrd156]

Nov 13th

Had a migraine most of the day and tried sleeping it away. Didn’t work but I got Chinese so it’s not a whole loss of a day. 

Think I might actually write tonight. I’ve had this romance idea stuck in my head for the past couple weeks and I’m so close to finishing my horror story intro. I don’t really want to stream tonight but I probably will. It’s the routine now. 

Finally set up twitch notifications, next is figuring out a theme/widgets for the channel and emotes. I want to make the Scream video before Christmas, should get on it as well.

[midnightinparis]

rockefeller skating

[byrd156]

Nov 12th

I’m midstream right now. No one is watching so who cares if I ramble now.

I feel even more off. I’m pretty angry today. Cat pissed on couch again, didn’t do any writing, stream isn’t good. Feeling ineffectual and not good enough.

Cleaning and podcasts for the rest of the night.