Control: Ignoring Quality Advice and Loving It

I love doing the wrong thing. It feels so good. I have ignored quality advice today. I, Dalton Lewis, author of the one-copy selling Teenage Nightmare Chronicles, talked for an hour with my friend yesterday. It was the one from the website, whom I’ll rename Phillip. Phillip is a friend of mine who wins wargaming miniatures tournaments. Phillip and Hamilton regularly win everything at these things. Phillip spent a long hour going over lists for me yesterday. He gave me good advice about playing space marines, and which marines to play. We decided on the right marines to play -White Scars, with a knight. 25 or so models in the entire army. It sounded like something which would inflict maximum damage.

I didn’t play it. Why? I wanted to play necrons. I needed to play necrons. They are dead inside. I feel dead inside. I feel them. They blaze with fire to me. They are magnetic to me. Dead robot aliens. I feel like a dead robot alien more than a space marine with a quality gun, saving the world from the undesirables. Hell, I’m schizophrenic. I’m an undesirable. The necrons are almost impossible to kill. I have lived thirty-eight long years for some strange reason. I don’t know how. Necrons are amazeballs. Do you know why? I like them and they are effective. I don’t really like the space marines very much. The necron army is also very large, and the white scars army is a few elite units. I do better with a lot of guys.

Enough about that. I’d like to talk about Phillip. Phillip wants to win every GT there is. He and Hamilton got first place and second place and no one at Gencon could ever beat them. Phillip helps me play. It doesn’t seem to help. I don’t seem to win that often. I won two games at gencon which was an improvement. Phillip struggles with unhappiness. He wants to buy a home. He works at IT or something involving computers and wants to write for a living. He can’t make a living at it yet. He has worked for years to build an audience. I am just starting to build my own audience, he says.

I can’t understand why none of us is dating anyone. Why isn’t Phillip with someone? I don’t understand. I thought he was with someone, but he isn’t right now. Hamilton is young and goes to Penn State and is smart and a bodybuilder. Why doesn’t he date people? Why does Finnegan date attractive people all the damned time? I don’t understand. I don’t understand at all. I don’t know what to say.

I annoy Phillip sometimes. I switch armies. I ask him to forgive me, and he feels uncomfortable. He isn’t one of my parents, he says. I agree. I sit there, and I look at my necrons, and they are better than my white scars. They are an excellent army.

I look at my life. I have often used my wargaming armies as a metaphor for my life. I apologize if you don’t like it. I work hard to explain how fucked-up the real world is — how broken it is. If that’s not your thing, by all means, read an advice blog. There are plenty.

Thanks, and take care, fuckers.