Notes from my first chess tournament (incomplete, but already a wall of text):

1. Chess games in tournaments are very long. Each player in a game is given 90 minutes, with 30 seconds added with each move. Most of my games were at least 3 hours long.

I was skeptical about being able to handle it, but it turns out that you spend all of that time thinking about the game. This is the type of time that just evaporates, leaving you wanting more.

2. I can tell that I'm hooked on something when I need to piss really badly but I still want to do the thing I'm doing. That day, I had a wonderful attacking position, my pieces preventing my opponent from mobilizing his own troops, the possibilities for a successful checkmate seeming endless.

I eventually rushed to the bathroom, but I was so lost in thought that I accidentally entered the women's restroom first.

3. The game of chess, in my mind (and at my level), is a three step war with yourself of figuring out when you're done calculating a line of moves, when you're done exploring new lines, and when you're done figuring out which move to ultimately make. This process is couched in your ultimate knowledge of the game, i.e. should I use the opening I'm more familiar with?, should I play for the tactics or for the position?, what is my plan right now?, etc.

The way I play chess mirrors the creative process I have when it comes to design- my first instinct is to do the cool stuff- sacrifices, tactics, ways to break the rules. I start by convincing myself out of these things until I get to moves that would be more reasonable for the position. But if I do find something that shows a glimmer of promise, I'll defend the hell out of it against my better judgement.

4. Because of how much time you're given, my strategy coming into the tournament was to come up with rules of thumb at the beginning of each game.

For my round 1, my rules were:

- Don't get distracted by the fact that you're playing against a 9 year old.

- Don't get distracted by the fact that you're playing in a tournament.

- Play so that you can learn something critical for round 2.

For round 2, my rules were:

- Take 10 seconds to breath before you confirm each move.

- Play the style of chess that you feel the most comfortable with.

- Don't get distracted by the fact that you're playing against a 9 year old girl.

5. Do not underestimate the aptitude of youth combined with scheduled practice. Children have an accellerated understanding of the language of chess- calculations, principles, tactical and positional ideas. You are simply a plaything in the maelstrom of their creative expression.

But don't forget- children are human. If they make funny faces at you, you are obligated to make funny faces back at them.

6. Sleep deprivation has a equalizing effect on my mind. Ideas, instincts, and doubts are all dampened so that they all feel similar. This has been helpful for me since high school for getting certain types of work done, especially creative efforts where I'm not sure where to start.

Being sleep deprived in a tournament game was a complete fiasco for me. Those instincts and doubts need to stay sharp in a long game, because I kept experiencing the dillenma where certain moves felt good even though I had already deduced that they were terrible. Make sure you get a good night's sleep.

7. I went 1.5 / 4, in an under 1800 rated bracket. I won my first game against a 1290, lost 3 games, and drew my last game after being offered a draw, against a 1190. There was only 1 game a day, I have no idea how people do 2 games a day, my mental stamina felt withered to the bone by day 5. I couldn't think straight by day 4, like I was in a cloud. The tournament was a lot of fun, and I did so much better than I thought I would do. I highly recommend entering a chess tournament if you get the chance.

Devac I'll show the games at request, I'm a little embarrassed/too lazy to put them in lichess after already going over the board with them

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I have less than one month left in Montreal. I don't really have a plan for afterwards, but I secured a really comfy contract, so I can travel. I'm applying to an internship for my favorite podcast, (in the same spirit as applying for Chessbrah), but I can't put all my eggs into this basket. Thinking about going to Brooklyn anyways. Or maybe giving Portland a shot.

Last Friday there was a zine fair. I printed two Lit.cat writing collections and a collection of my own writing. It went incredibly well, I sold nearly all of my stock, and two people posted my writing on Instagram. (also, it is nuts how many people showed up to this fair, like maybe 300 people in a building meant to house 200?)

My favorite teacher in the world was there- my 6th grade elementary teacher! It was his first year teaching a class by himself that year, and I remember him kindly for reaching out to all of us. He said the most validating thing to me after reading my zine: "That 12 year old kid who rambled in class all day- he's still in here. But now he's refined and persuasive.

It was a good day.

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I started playing Cuphead, I found out you could pair single Nintendo Switch controllers to your laptop, and it works well for gameplay, other than a weird glitch that prevents you from talking to characters and progressing.

The music made me forget I wasn't white.

I'm only gonna do one liners today, period. Cause I ran out of pantiliners on the way here.

That joke would make more sense if I was a woman. I'm probably getting only 70% of the laughs I would have gotten because I'm a man.

I've been killing it at open mic comedy for the past few weeks, I recently switched to a one-liners-only style that makes me impervious and flexible to rowdy bar crowds. Man, it feels good. Without really intending to, I've realized it's been my main creative outlet and the only thing I've really gotten better at in the last month.

There's two open-mics a week (at the bar I made a website for), and it's been a nice place to hang out. I still don't really know people there, so sometimes I just won't talk to anyone and just go up on stage, but people are recognizing me, and I'm making steps to break out of my shell. I'm kind of making it my goal to get to know people there when I get up tonight.

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I have to sit down tonight because I messed up my feet on an early morning run. I never thought I'd be able to, but I also never thought the police would find my meth lab.

I fucked up my feet on a long walk awhile ago. They've hurt for a whole week and a half now, at least while standing. I'm pretty sure it's because I still keep walking on them. Today is the first day that they've actually felt like they've been healing, so I'm glad about that.

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I just told my therapist that I was going to do stand up comedy tonight. He said, yeah, that's perfect for you, your life is a joke.

A thing about pubskis is that it coincides with when I visit my therapist, so it's like I get a double dose of therapy on the same day. I'm a little irritated at my therapist today though. The theme since I've been seeing him is to embrace my hobbies, even though most of them are online. He's did a complete 180- you gotta stop spending so much time on the computer. I know that he's someone who's a drug counceler, and I don't know, I thought the entire point of my therapy sessions was to relieve myself of guilt so I could spend more time on work, but hell. Alright. The computer screen is cocaine now.

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My favorite city in Alaska is Juneau. It's the place where tourists get off cruise ships and look at the mountains and say "This is it? They have this back in New York!"

Things. I booked a trip impulsively recently, and now I have a ticket to Spokane I won't use, and I didn't buy the travelers insurance. But that's alright.

I got accepted into an innovation sprint for ocean technology in Alaska. It's kind of weird because I'm a designer working with engineers and marine biologists and people more qualified than me, but I'm excited to bust out my college skills again. I do have to stay here for a month.

A friend from the debate team is offering me a digital media job at the governors office in Juneau. Juneau really is my favorite city in Alaska. I'm currently procrastinating from sending him my portfolio, which I really should be doing. I hope I can get my shit together.

It's my new goal to not see my 12 hours on the internet as a compulsive addiction.

It's been a rough 6 weeks since I got fired from my first real job to pursue a giant freelance gig. There was a lot of guilt, avoidance, self-hatred, self-indulgence in this time. I finally braved up and saw a therapist yesterday. I chose the most eccentric looking one I could find and it went amazingly well- he did a great job of handling my convoluted and sophomoric ideas of this psychology graduate.

There was this focus on the looking at the way that I worked, the fact that I work in creative spurts and trouble working regular schedules and doing things I need to do.

I had no idea this is actually a viable way to live my life, what the fuck? I had been having suicidal thoughts lately because it took me a week to send an invoice because I kept playing chess and watching Youtube and am just finding out that this isn't something I should be ashamed of? He told me about his own day, I was one of his two clients for the day, and he was going to play 18 holes of golf in between them. He hates writing invoices too, so he puts them off at the very last minute, recommends that I just do the same with the things that I hate.

What about the fact that I just like being on the internet a lot? I told him about the time I took a 600 level Psychometrics course and had a nervous breakdown while I was doing a paper on internet addiction because I fit it's metrics so fucking hard. Well guess what? Fuck what society has to say about internet usage- I genuinely enjoy all the rabbit holes I fall into. And fuck y'all, I'm good at the work that I do. My websites are fucking poetry, motherfuckers.

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A letter to myself:

Dear me,

You got paid a shit ton of money to do 20 hours of work in 6 weeks and spent the rest of your time pursuing things that actually interested you.

Love, me.

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A dumb thing. I put poetry as comments in the <head>s of my websites. It's really dumb. I wonder if it actually affects the performance of the website.

I don't really have any close friends, and I don't really have a center right now, so my Fridays are unnecessarily stressful and I have to go and rewatch How To Be Alone to try to feel better. Last night I fell asleep thinking about going to a cafe today and using Facebook targeted ads to tell people within a 1 mile radius that I've been feeling really bad and needed a hug. Imagine that showing up on your newsfeed, haha.

Some thoughts I remember having:

- What would I put as the meta-image and meta-description of the Facebook advertisement?

- Would it be a boosted post or a carousel ad of multiple images?

- Would it go cheesy and viral and make me known as the lonely Alaskan guy?

- Is it actually embarrassing or a bold political statement?

- What would I even say to someone? Should I wrap the whole thing under the guise of "social experiment"?

- Would Facebook even approve the ad?

Whatever. I'm feeling shitty, but I'm not actually ballsy enough to do it. I wish I brought some ibuprophen with me to work, because that also helps with social pain. I usually take two before applying to jobs or cold-calling or OkCupiding.

Reading this article made me realize I don't give a shit about the causes. I'm not at that birds-eye level I was in college, where I could quote Bowling Alone and speak about the topic like I wasn't an undergraduate. Social pain hurts like a motherfucker.

Hubski is like the supergroup of the internet. Here's to 2017!