It’s just gone 11pm. I’m awake now.
Tom is standing just in front of me, killing robots. I lost pretty much the whole day to a migraine so I’m happy to watch him and do very little. “I need to stop this in a minute otherwise I’ll be here all night,” Tom says. He’s doing a sort of tai-chi. His eyes are covered by the Oculus Quest which is sending a 360° artificial digital world into his brain. It kind of fools you into thinking you’re in the game. He’s playing “Super Hot” which makes you feel like you’re Keanu Reeves but makes you look like the bearded dude at the back of beginners Tae-kwon-do in North London.
Unfortunately I think it’s why I had a migraine today, that remarkable machine. I’m not really prone to migraines but even moving today was problematic and I had to close the blinds. I couldn’t keep anything down until about 4pm. Probably because my poor brain had to deal with me putting a screen directly in front of my face for ages yesterday.
To buy one of these things is about £300. I’ve always balked at it as it’s too much for a toy, especially if you then have to buy the software. So Dan lending me this one has opened up a whole world of stuff that I’m going to have to be very careful about engaging with if my head today is anything to judge by. Terrific fun. So immersive. But it’s almost a shock to lift the thing up and realise that you’re still in your flat and there aren’t any robots trying to kill you. As far as we know.
I’m sure there are some lovely narrative games to get immersed in as well – long form beautiful stories with moments of wonder. I know Brian had one called Skyrim but it would make me sick after about ten minutes and the whole game takes hours and hours to complete. I rarely have time to give too long to these things, and I’m gonna have to be super-double careful if there’s a chance it’s going to flatten me the next day as well. At least it’s been a pretty crappy day. It’s worse when you lose a beautiful day, and if it had been too hot in here it would have made me feel even worse.
I’m glad I’ve got a huge bath. And I’m very glad of Deliveroo who brought me easy to eat stodgy food once the headache had retreated to being just a bitter pulse at the back. I’ll probably finish writing this and try to ease myself to sleep with chamomile and books, because any screen right now is pretty wearing. I’ve turned the brightness right down on this. But I’m going to put it down. Phones before bed can’t help the sleep patterns. They’re much better for waking up in the morning.
AlBarclay 