What the… Why’s my dash all full of droids’ rights posts. Are these, like, sponsored ads? Did they force an algorithm-based feed on us in an update? ‘Cause I definitely never followed any of these blogs—well whatever, not important, I don’t care.
Poe and Treeso got in today! Me and Amalia and Poe and Treeso all got pizza and took Bee-Bee Ate to the park and played some sports (we were playing hoopball at first, but the winning team was always just whichever one had Amalia on it, so we let Bee-Bee Ate take her spot and forced her to sit on the bleachers and watch our stuff—weirdly she did not complain about that very much—and then we played frisbee instead with all of us, and that was a lot more balanced).
I’m gonna stay with Poe and Treesie Boy at their hotel room till the wedding, ‘cause sleeping alone in my bedroom is sad. And…‘cause I’ve really missed my friends. I don’t think I really realized how much I’ve missed them, till we all hung out today.
We invited Amalia to sleep over too, but she did not seem to want to for some reason, I don’t know why—ANYWAY, I have to chug a beer now ‘cause I lost at who-can-stand-furthest-away-from-the-‘fresher-bowl, though I must emphasize we all used the honor system to report our scores, so I’m pretty sure the other guys are LYING
DUDE. I got Treeso and Amalia and Poe all on a call together, and Poe was like, “So…strippers, right? For the bachelor party?” And I was like “Ha, ha, very funny, Dameron. Let’s rein it in—” but then Treeso was like “Yeah, strippers! Great idea, Ben’s super into that!” and I looked at Amalia like “Can you believe these guys?” but she just ignored me and was like “Mmmm, yeah, I think we need strippers at Ben’s bachelor party. Extra buxom.” and—UGH—gosh, just—GEEZ. WHAT A BUNCH OF CLOWNS.
For the record, they weren’t being serious. Well…they were serious about one thing. That thing being, making-Ben-go-so-red-in-the-face-you-could-almost-mistake-him-for-an-Imperial-Royal-Guard.
I finally got them to change the subject, but the new subject turned out to be my future married sex life, which was worse. Thankfully, Amalia shut that all the way down, which I was incredibly grateful for—even if her reason for doing so was that “the thought of Ben in bed is gonna leave me in a pool of my own vomit and send me to therapy.”
…Anyway. They are soooo getting extra time in my sandwich-slave-labor-camp for this. And I’m gonna tack on another papier mâché Alderaanian swan for each new infraction. Make them all wear a stupid color…Hutt-snot yellow or something. Ohhh, yes…yeeesss… It’s my day, gosh darn it, and I have UUUNLIMITED POWERRRR!!!
I joined the holocall feeling all weird. All my college buddies are out there being successful right now. And I’m starting to think that maybe they weren’t my college buddies at all. They were Treeso’s, and I was just…there.
They all kept in contact after school, and I drifted away. Even Treeso has a hard time getting ahold of me—by which I mean, I don’t keep in touch enough. But I’ve tried to do better since he’s proposing soon (which was why Treeso assembled us for the holomeeting).
All our other friends have houses or partners or high-paying jobs or flourishing side hustles or meaningful causes, and I sit there wide-eyed and intimidated. Exams were the great equalizer. But we don’t have midterms and finals to gripe about anymore, and I can no longer relate to any of these people. “How’re you doing, Ben?”
What do I say? I guess I wrote a book, but I’m not really proud of it. I guess I had a relationship, but it ended so quickly there’s nothing to talk about. I don’t have any projects, hobbies, or focused interests right now, because I don’t have the time or energy for self-actualization. It’s a relief when I can succeed at the bare minimum.
“Uh, having a hard time,” is what comes out of my mouth.
“Man, you’re always having a hard time,” someone says good-naturedly, and everyone laughs—including me.
But in reality it’s not that funny. Because now I know everyone sees me as the Having a Hard Time Guy. I thought it was only ‘cause of the news coverage of that whole thing that happened when I was a teenager, that people had that impression of me. But no…the guys who saw the real me for two whole years think so too.
After we all say bye, I stay on the call till it’s only me and Treeso.
“Yo, Treese…do you think I’m always having a hard time?”
Treeso fixes me with an easygoing smile. “Hey. Everyone’s always having a hard time, Benny boy. You’re just the only one who’s brave enough to admit it.”
It’s a supportive thing to say, which is why he was my best friend.
The part I forgot to mention is that I called Fannie because I had my interview yesterday, and Fan had been encouraging me for a while to take the job with my mom. Fannie says I don’t function well with nothing to do. Regardless of our nebulous relationship status, I do trust her knowledge of me.
Surprisingly, the interview went well. (Not that it matters, of course.) I did go in feeling like garbage, but once Greer and I sat down I suddenly entered Interview Mode and became a much more palatable version of myself for thirty minutes. I think Greer was a little bewildered, though she tried to hide it. She has almost exclusively seen me at my meh-est.
I talked about my previous jobs, and what I thought my strengths were and stuff. I hadn’t thought of myself as someone with strengths in…quite some time. I said that I care about doing what needs to be done and always doing a good job at it, down to the details. And even if my job was going to be mostly writing comms or whatever, they were going to be some darn good comms.
I’m sure you recognize that the interview had little-to-no bearing on whether I’d be hired. However, it did give me the opportunity to try and prove to Greer that I wouldn’t be a pain to work with. Maybe even that she’d appreciate working with me.
…Of course, that doesn’t mean my mom won’t become a pain to work with, once I join. I do feel a little uneasy about her ability to treat me normal at work, but…we’ll just see how that goes.
Still, once the interview was over, I found myself exhausted. And then on the airbus I was trying to catch up with the group text for Treeso’s engagement, because like next month or something we’re gonna meet up on Naboo to help him propose. And I say we…but it’s more like them-plus-me.
I’m starting to suspect Treeso’s friend group secretly hates me. I used to call it our friend group, but I’ve started to question whether they were really my friends. Treeso says of course they were and still are, I just don’t feel as close with them anymore because I don’t keep in touch. But I don’t think that’s it. I have my own friends that I’m also bad at keeping in touch with, and I don’t feel any less close to them.
Treese named me “Future Best Maaaan” in the chat. And I’m honored…but I also feel so, so awkward. I’m telling you, they should bottle this feeling and use it for chemical warfare: “How It Feels To Be The Future Best Man In A Future Bridal Party Where Nobody’s Even Pretending To Like You Except The Future Groom Whom You Can’t Let Down.”
I think I got lucky with Fannie and Treeso and Poe. They’re all very normal people…by which I mean, they don’t seem to move through the galaxy feeling like they’re strangers to it. Yet somehow, they’re a certain kind of normal that’s compatible with whatever the hell I am. Everyone else in the galaxy feels like some other kind of normal that looks at me once, doesn’t get me, and decides they don’t want to try.
I never felt like I was normal, back when I was a teenager. But there was a year or two after college where I began to feel normal. And I liked it. I liked it a lot. Things generally felt easy and I generally felt happy and my life was beginning to finally look a little more like everyone else’s.
D’ya ever get sick of me airing my existential crises?
Well…too bad.
I caught up with my ol’ college bud today. Treeso Wonga. He was the first friend I made when I transferred into UNaboo as a junior. We were roommates for two years, and then he had to move back to Otoh Gunga to take care of his grandma, which was why I invited Fannie to live with me last summer and—well, anyway—
Treeso’s gettin’ married.
Yeah! My Treesie boy! Mr. Stacks of Dirty Dishes. Sir Hungover on the Couch. The dude who’d slorp live roaches off the bathroom floor with his tongue. (He’s a Gungan, to be clear, but still.)
He’s twenty-five now, which I guess isn’t a weird age to get married. (Ew. I can’t believe I’m, like, old enough to be peers with people who get married.) It’ll be a while out, though. He asked me if I’d help him with his proposal. To which I said: “uh, heck yeah, buddy!”
I used to be his wingman, like at parties and stuff. It worked out great because I wasn’t into girls back then, so I was more than happy to redirect them all to Treese (not that the women always liked that). So this is kinda like my final service to him, I guess.
When we got off the holocall, though…I started feeling sick inside. Treese and I graduated the same year. But he’s got a subaquatic civil engineering job with the city, and he makes good money, and he was talking about buying a house (???), and now he’s gonna have a wife and crap—in other words, he’s a Grown-Up Grown-Up, and I’m just…an overgrown kid.
A house?? What the… I’m not even off my parents’ data plan yet…
It just…leaves me feeling like I missed something. Like even though I tried my darndest to keep up with everyone else who wasn’t groomed by a raisin man, somewhere along the way I screwed up and now even though I have a college degree I’m gonna wind up thirty-five in a dead-end job living with Mom and Dad…
…I said thirty-five, because…well…I’m honestly having a hard time envisioning myself any older than that.
…
…Don’t tell Mom I said that. Definitely in the category of things that’d freak her out.
I wasn’t planning anything for my birthday. But someone else was, and that someone else was Poe Dameron, and that something was inviting over my best buddies behind my back.
I came home from work around five-thirty. I did think something seemed a little off, ’cause I heard laughing inside the apartment, and then a bunch of shushing, and I was like, oh, great, Poe has “company” over, I’ll just change into my not-work clothes and make a sandwich and go hang out somewhere else—
—and then I opened the door, and Treeso and Amalia were there, along with Poe and Beebee-Ate, and they all shouted “Surprise!”
And, I was very much surprised indeed.
“Oh my gosh!” I said, or something like that—I’m not really sure what I said—and Treeso and I bro-hugged, and Amalia nodded and smirked at me, and Beebee-Ate started playing a little beepy birthday tune while Poe clapped me on the back.
I was shocked to see all three of ‘em in one place—Amalia, Treeso, and Poe. They don’t know each other. They’re all kind of from different times and places in my life—from my time at Luke’s school, from my college days, from my post-grad era. But I guess Poe figured out who all my best friends were and how to contact them, and here they all were now, and I had just been planning to be alone all night and pack for my move…but I guess it was more fun this way, hanging out with my buds on my birthday.
They all had fun, too. Roasting me and swapping embarrassing stories about me and generally giving me a hard time seemed to be the main event of the evening.
What can I say? I’m just that great at bringing people together.
The most interesting moment occurred when I was blowing out my candles. Poe and Treeso insisted on having exactly twenty-four candles on the cake, even though Amalia called them both idiots and said they were gonna burn the place down. But Poe and Treeso together proved to be an unstoppable force of unhinged chaos, so, twenty-four candles it was.
“Let’s all wish for Ben to go on his first date before he turns twenty-five!” said Treeso, clapping his hands.
“What’re you talking about? He’s already got a girlfriend,” said Poe, lighting the last candle.
“Not anymore—they broke up,” said Amalia, tipping back a bottle of beer.
And then they all looked at me.
“Bro, you got a girlfriend?” asked Treeso, stunned.
“You broke up with her?” asked Poe, surprised.
Amalia just looked at me and dipped her finger into the side of the cake and licked the frosting off of it without breaking eye contact.
“Had a girlfriend. Don’t have one anymore. Story’s over. Cake! Now,” I said, and blew out all the candles, and grabbed the cake cutter.
“Dude, you never tell me anything!” complained Treeso.
“I live with him and he never tells me anything,” remarked Poe.
“Stalk him online. It’s the only way,” advised Amalia.
Poe took the cake cutter and started cutting two slices (one of them was for Beebee-Ate, so he would “feel included”). “Well,” he said, “if I had known you guys were broken up, I sure wouldn’t have invited her.”
I choked on my cake. “Wait—what—is she coming?”
And, for a second, I was terrified. But, two seconds later, I felt this intensely powerful ache of hope—that I might see her again, that she’d be at the door, that the daydream I’d been having over and over might come at least a little bit true.
Amalia looked at me, and then looked at Poe. Poe looked at Amalia, and then at me. Treeso looked at the slice of cake he was cutting that was almost like a whole fourth of the cake. Beebee-Ate looked at all of us, his head swiveling around.
“Uh…no,” Poe said. “She’s…she’s not coming.”
“But—are you just saying that, or is she actually not coming?” I demanded, my heart pounding. “If…if she was…already on her way, or something, I—I don’t want you to tell her not to come—”
“Ben, she’s not coming,” Amalia confirmed. “I messaged her this morning. She’s still on Ryloth.”
I turned to look at her. “Why’d you message her?” I asked.
Amalia shrugged. “Wanted to check on her. It’s your birthday. Thought it might be hard for her. Didn’t know if you two had plans together, or something, before the breakup.”
“I didn’t think you two were friends,” I said, kind of surprised.
“Why not?” Amalia shrugged. “I can be nice. Sometimes.” She started cutting her own slice of cake. “But, you’re right—it’s easier for me and her to be friends, now that you and her aren’t together.”
“Well…glad it was good for someone, at least,” I said bitterly. And, suddenly, the cake didn’t taste so great anymore.
“Uh…sorry,” I muttered. “I’ll…I’ll be right back.”
I pretended to go to the bathroom. But really, I just sat on my bed in the dark, and tried to very politely ask the sinking weight in my chest to leave, so I could do my best to enjoy my birthday and the fact that all my friends were here.
Well. Not all of them.
The sinking weight swelled up in my stomach, and reached yearningly down toward my toes.
I found myself tugging at the friendship bracelet around my left wrist, feeling the warp and weft between my forefinger and thumb. The colored threads were becoming muddy with dirt because I tugged on it a lot these days. I blinked rapidly, trying to keep my tears at bay. It wasn’t bedtime yet—the tears would have to wait. I swallowed really hard a couple of times but I couldn’t really get the lump in my throat to go away.
…What are you doing, dear?
“Thinking about you,” I whispered under my breath. “Like always.”
My. You do think about me a lot, don’t you?
“Every day.” I licked my lips, and choked out, very quietly: “Do you think about me?”
Well…ah…I’m not sure, Ben. I…assume that I would. It seems like I would. Do you think that I would?
I shrugged, and rubbed the bracelet between my fingers some more.
An imaginary hand graced my shoulder.
Love…please…you shouldn’t be sitting all alone in here, thinking of me. Your friends are here—they came all this way to see you. Truly, I’m flattered…but you know I wouldn’t want you crying in the dark. Not on your birthday. Well, not ever—but especially not on your birthday. And especially not when three of your dearest friends are all here to celebrate you.
“I wish you were here instead,” I whispered. “I know I shouldn’t. But I do.”
Well…perhaps we will celebrate another of your birthdays together. Only time will tell. But…for now…do you think you could please try to focus on the present? On the things you do have, that you are fortunate to have? And not what you don’t?
I sighed heavily and smeared the palm of my hand across my forehead.
I know, love. I know it’s very hard. But, you are very brave. You are very strong. I know that you can. Please. Don’t waste this time. Not on my account.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay. Okay.”
And I held my hands out in front of me.
And for the very first time since the end of August, I untied the bracelet of green and pink and blue.
Held the full length of it in my hands, stretched out across my palms.
Looked at it, and thought about how long it had taken to wind the strings together, and imagined her fingers working the strands.
Pressed my lips to the woven threads.
Then…rolled it up very carefully, and put it in the box on my nightstand where I keep all my earrings, and took in a deep breath, and let it go…
…and then walked back into the living room, with one hand in my pocket, and the other running through my hair, and my very best attempt at a smile.
Is that an updated bio I see👀👀👀. Glad to see you’re still out there forging your own path in life Ben
Dang, you caught me! I didn’t know anyone was still checking my blog after all this time. Haha.
It’s been a while, huh? I wasn’t sure if I’d ever post again, just ‘cause life is busy. But yeah. I work for a news publication on Naboo now, so most of the time people are telling me what to write and how to write it. I like my job, but I was thinking about when I used to run my blog and write whatever I wanted.
I was looking through my old posts and remembering what my life used to be like. The thoughts I used to have. The things I used to be afraid of. Feels weird. Like, was that guy really me? Was I really that kid?
Actually, my roommate Treeso found my blog when we were in college and dude…I swear he will never let me hear the end of it. He walks past me when I’m chilling on the couch or something and he’s just like “Pssst Vader more like Bae-der.” Or we’ll be hanging out with the boys at the cantina and he’s all like “Hey guys let’s do a dramatic reading of Ben’s BLOOOOG!” and I die a little inside.
But hey, I own my teenage self and who I used to be. It’s just part of my story. I guess that’s another reason why I thought about posting again… I feel like the current iteration of me—the guy in his early twenties just trying to make rent and do laundry and figure out what to do with his life—deserves to have his chapter recorded, too.
Ben, did you ever eat bugs when you were younger? Y'know like you were channeling your inner Anakin
Yes. Yes I did. As well as other things. Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is. I don’t know why I did that, but hey, the heart wants what it wants…
Oh my gosh. Dude. Wanna hear a college story? ‘Cause I ate a live bug in college. In fact, I ate five of them.
I’ll set the scene. Good ol’ UNaboo. Junior year. My first year, actually, since I transferred in. A fall semester party. The Osk Trill Osk frat house. Enter Ben Solo, twenty years old, tall but scrawny, still in his ugly sweater era, dragged into the tableau by a twenty-one-year-old Treeso Wonga, his new friend from NHS 101: Introduction to Nonhuman Studies.
“I don’t think my mom would want me here,” Ben says, fear in his eyes, a college junior with a freshman soul. “Is it like in the holofilms? Are people gonna be, like…doing stuff?”
“Relax, Solo,” says Treeso, pushing him forward with a solid hand to the back. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. We’re here to have fun!”
Osk Trill Osk is a co-ed, mostly-Gungan fraternity. Ben, at this time, has mostly only ever interacted with humans and near-human species, and even those he has barely interacted with. We’re looking at a guy who was homeschooled from age five, practically lived in his bedroom till nineteen, and can count all the friends he’s ever had on one hand. And now he’s standing awkwardly in the middle of a loud and crowded room with a bunch of eighteen-to-twenty-two-year-olds, but he feels like he’s twelve.
The others are friendly enough. They offer him drinks and they offer him things that aren’t drinks and one girl who’s maybe already had a bit too much to drink thinks he’s cute and offers him something else. But the looming threat of Leia Organa-Solo hovers over the boy, along with his own anxious inhibitions and fairly cautious nature, and he declines them all.
“I’m, uh, not twenty-one yet,” he says, naively thinking the excuse is watertight, but a rousing chorus of “neither are we!” shatters the illusion at once.
“I mean, I like following rules,” he says instead, with eyes so big you could read the humiliation in them from a lightyear away—but no one else in the room is in a state to be that observant. Nor are they in a state to spend even one of the brain cells they’re all trying to kill off on thinking about what a loser Ben is. But Ben, however, now has many brain cells that have devoted themselves entirely to this purpose, and he spends the next hour stressed-out and sober, thinking about what a loser he is, and how he can prove he’s not.
Enter the blue slug-beetles, which someone suddenly brings in a crate of, much in the same way one would bring in a six-pack of beer. There is a series of cheers from the Gungans in the room.
The slug-beetle is a bright blue insect about the size of the palm of your hand, and has the curious distinction of being native to both Naboo and Tatooine, with the ability to thrive in both wetland and desert. On Naboo, they are found in the eastern swamps, crawling in the mud amidst the roots of the pelote trees. They are a Gungan delicacy, and Gungans, with their strong teeth and long tongues, are well-suited to cracking the beetles’ hard shells and slurping up the juices. Treeso and several other Gungans begin to do so immediately, while some of the non-Gungan guests look on, some with fascination, some with disgust.
Ben Solo is not a Gungan. He is, however, an absolute freaking idiot. Through some insane inspiration, he decides that he is going to prove how cool he is by being the first human to eat a blue slug-beetle. He puts his hand in the crate.
It’s alive, first of all. These slug-beetles have been prepped for consumption by the removal of their wings, the stubs of which are clipped off in straight lines and flitter nervously as the beetles struggle vainly to survive another day. But even without flight, Ben’s beetle squirms in his hands, its several legs tickling his palms as he tries to prevent its escape.
This moron, frantic not to embarrass himself by having to chase a slug-beetle around the room, finally gives up on figuring out how to eat it. He settles for slapping his palm against his mouth, throwing back the beetle like a handful of pills. The legs tickle his tongue instead of his hands. In a panic, he champs down on it to end its life, and swallows it, the hard fragments of shell scraping the insides of his throat on the way down.
And guess what? Nobody freaking saw.
Damn.
So then. Of course. What other conclusion is there? He has to do it again. Reluctantly, he reaches once more into the crate of crawling beetles.
Mind you, this buffoon is fully sober. He has nothing and no one to blame for his stupid decisions. He’s just…like that.
He picks up the second bug. Probably, he should have stopped and waved and said something like, “Hey, guys, watch me eat this bug!” (though in retrospect, I’m kind of glad he didn’t), but this dude had pretty bad social anxiety at the time, and such a prospect was unthinkable.
So…Ben Solo eats his second slug-beetle. And again. Nobody freaking sees him do it. Although it does go down a little smoother.
Well. Now he’s committed to the bit. Committed enough to grab a t-h-i-r-d slug-beetle, but for some reason not committed enough to say “hey guys watch me eat this bug” because that would involve calling attention to himself, which is exactly what he’s attempting to do, except no, he doesn’t want to make himself noticed, he just wants to be noticed.
Third slug-beetle goes down—similarly unseen. It’s looking like Ben prayed too hard at the beginning of the party for people not to look at him, because, yeah, that’s exactly what’s happening right now. Sure, he could just call it there and shrug it off and laugh at himself for eating three slug-beetles for nothing, but…you know? The sunk-cost fallacy is one hell of a drug.
He’s getting the hang of it. Down goes the fourth beetle. One of the Gungans looks at the crate and goes, hey, where’d all the beetles go? They went fast, huh? And Ben Solo’s like, oh, someone’s looking, now’s my chance. He grabs the fifth bug and puts it in his mouth and imagines the sweet, sweet taste of notoriety.
Well, he was getting the hang of it. But at this point, this stupid neophyte college boy is sweaty and dehydrated and has nothing in his stomach but hydrochloric acid and five blue slug-beetles and a bunch of social anxiety and his body decides, yeah, okay, show’s over, we’re done here. Pack it up, boys.
So, everyone’s watching when Ben Solo slaps his hands over his mouth and stumbles over to a conveniently-placed garbage can and keels over and…you know, un-eats all the bugs.
“Yooo, I thought you said you weren’t gonna drink!” says Treeso, pulling back my hair while I freaking die, and someone else says they can see why I don’t drink, since we’ve only been there an hour and I’m already losing my guts. And from that point on everyone thinks I’m just, like, the worst lightweight ever.
And? To this day? No one will kriffing believe me that I ate five bugs. Like…seriously?? If I was gonna lie about myself for clout, you really think that that’s what I’d be going with?? Ben Solo, the bug-eater???
Anyway…yeah. I present myself before you. Ben Solo, eater of bugs.
