Where to Begin... Ready... Go!

15 years ago I made a batman costume nearly entirely out of duct tape. As you can see from the vintage photograph, it was glorious. The photo made its rounds on neat websites like collegehumor.com and fark.com (do you remember those places? I feel super internet old. You know, parents these days will be telling their kids about what life was like before the internet. That’s going to be weird.).

It was my first year at Purdue,I transferred from Western Michigan University, and I skipped classes for like a week to make the costume. It started out as a great idea, but after many rolls of tape and blistered fingers from tearing the tape (not sure why I didn’t think to use scissors) it was complete and it was amazing. But it had two major design flaws.

First: Once you put on, you can’t take it off. So, for one night, I became batman.

Second: The suit was nearly 100% duct tape, which means it was not “breathable”. This flaw wasn’t felt until me and my friends went out to sweaty, jam packed halloween parties. I could barely breathe, I couldn’t pee, and I nearly drowned in a suit filled with my own sweat.

At the end of the night, a friend had to cut me out of the suit, but it was all worth it.

Now that I think about it, I actually started my first blog in that same college dorm room. We’re about to flashback to 2005, again.

Is that allowed? A flashback inside a flashback? From the same year? Probably not, but that’s what we’re doing.

I started my first blog in 2005 which was also 15 years ago, and it was really weird. Hmm. This blog is only a few words long and it’s already weird, so I’m not really sure where I’m going with this.

I don’t remember what the blog was called, but I wrote behind an avatar named “Matter Eater Lad”. That’s the name of an actual DC comics superhero. He was terrible. Like, truly the worst superhero ever created, and I thought that was hilarious.

I think I relished him so much because when I was a kid my best friend asked me one time what super power I wanted if I could have one, and after some introspection I said I want to have the power to be sticky and stretchy.

He said, “So you basically want to be a booger?”

I laughed, and said, “Yeah. Well, what would you pick?”

Without hesitation he said “Telepathy”.

I was all like “Oh, ‘cause then you could do, like, anything, right?”.

He said, “yeah”.

Now that was a proper flashback within a flashback. Which was totally unintended btw.

What was I writing about? Brb. Oh yeah. Matter Eater Lad.

I discovered him through a little research and decided he was the most hilariously bad superhero ever created. His superpower is that he can eat anything. On Wikipedia his abilities are "Able to bite through and consume all forms of matter, including that which is supposedly indestructible like Amazonium or Superman."

If Matter Eater Lad wanted to, he could become a cannibal and eat Superman.

Hahahaha. Matter Eater Lad is in the “Legion of Super-Heroes” and in his character bio on Wikipedia they go on to say “He appears rarely in Legion stories, as the writers struggled with the problem of how to make his power useful in a fight and was routinely written out...” BAH HAHAHA

ROFL!

Seriously. Tears.

I wish I could remember what else I wrote about, but I know that at a minimum I’ll have to do a full on Matter Eater Lad post now, because I’ve grown up, just like Superboy (who was in the Legion of Super-Heroes before hitting puberty and becoming Superman). Maybe Matter Eater Lad evolves into Matter Eater Mike. Maybe the grown up version becomes a superhero that sucks less, still gets sidelined for most fights due to uselessness, but is allowed to “hang out” and eat snacks while watching Superman kick some super villain ass with front row seats.

That would rule.

Scratch that. It would be alright. If it Matter Eater Lad was in the Marvel Universe it would rule, ‘cause then I’d actually get to watch cool fights live, instead of Superman vs. Ben Affleck.

I wish that blog was still up ‘cause I really wanna read it now.

Thinking as hard as I can, I only remember the time I wrote about a magical bowel movement in which I pooped out an ‘m’.

Read that again.

I pooped out an M! Like, the letter ‘m’.

It was one solid piece that loop, swooped, and curled without breaking into the first letter of my name, Mike. It was the kind of poop that when you wipe nothing is on the paper. It was magical. Strangely, I felt weird taking a picture of my poop to show people, so I illustrated it.

I’m sure you can see why that, and only that blog post was easy for me to recall.

I’m not sure if any of what you’ve just read has been intelligible, but the point is, I’m starting a blog.

It may or may not be as completely bizarre as the first one, but it’ll be messy like this for sure. Hopefully it'll be fun and maybe occasionally helpful.

Be fore-warned:

I’m a terrible writer, but you already know that by now. I promise it isn’t going to get better. It’s written poorly intentionally because sometimes I like the way it sounds when words are typed weird, and it’s also written poorly because I do not do well with the grammars.

Second fore-warning:

My writing can get real super fast. I found that when writing or saying humiliating things it’s best to just get them out of the way early. It’s a strategy that I have used on first dates, but I don’t advise you to do that. So I guess by that logic, it's not actually a best practice. Huh.

I have chronic depression, high anxiety, ADD, auditory comprehension disorder, low self-esteem, low self-confidence, and struggle with my Korean-American identity. I read slow, have poor reading comprehension, a terrible memory, am nearly 100% wrong when it comes to sense of direction, and probably other things that I can’t remember right now.

I'll share stories about my unusual life (I keep forgetting how many times I’ve moved but it’s like 15 or so), and some will be amusing, some slightly depressing, but always honest.

This is Tum Tum, aka Tummy Tum, aka Chubby Chub. He’s awesome.

I adopted him this year from a shelter. He’s 8 years old, has FIV (aka cat AIDS), one squished little ear, and makes funny sounds to let you know he needs attention. He’s my Emotional Support Animal (with a legit doctor script), and I'm pretty sure I'm his Emotional Support Human.

He’s super needy. He must haz attention.

This is a train wreck of a blog post. This post is a train wreck? Whatever. It’s almost over, I promise.

I’m sick of feeling down and the coronavirus can suck it. Being alone shouldn’t have to feel lonely, and existing in the world just doesn't do it for me. I want to live an awesome life. So this blog is about having fun, getting weird, and having real talk. I know things are crazy right now, but I don't want to tell myself anymore excuses of why I can't live my best life. That's stupid. I'm gonna have fun (safely), and if you’re down, slap hands (pretend slap hands, duh). This is gonna be awesome.

Mike