doitscaredpussy!
For the anxious, avoidant, and aspiring.
when they ask what it's all for, i say for this. -@Vacxnthome on Twitter
“Even if I mess up and fall, that’s totally okay too. I’m fine with any outcome, as long as I’m out there.”
-Alysa Liu
I. on the inside, outside
December 13th, 2025.
The tenmonthsummer Fate Lines Anniversary Show.
The gay people on my phone were realer than they had ever been.
As early as the pregame at a local bar, I was on cloud nine. My AirBNB group along with many others were welcomed warmly by a cadre of faces that have been gracing my Twitter timeline for months now. Some people have known each other for years. Some of them crossed state lines and oceans to be here. Even the band dropped by to meet and greet fans and friends alike.
It was the culmination of not just my two-week trip to Chicago, but of the plans, friendships, and relationships that have been built up since.
Abi. Kait. Stevie. Andy. Eric. John. Sarah. Geno. Nish. Charlie. Jacob. Luci. Ken. Allison. Kelly. Roger. Ellis. Quinn. Astrid.
Everyone.
Every first-time, in-person introduction and re-introduction had me welling with excitement to be among friends old and new to celebrate an EP that has come to mean so much to this gathering of yearners and hopefuls that meant a lot to each other.
Every hug hit like a hero’s welcome, a defiance of the distance that separated us physically and emotionally.
Every drink was another blanket, another flag unfurled atop the pillow fort on the bed of my heart that made 2° a warmer 32 against my thin, California skin.
We were in the flesh, live and unplugged, letting it all out and taking it all in, united in the music that underscored our posts and our bonds, above factionalism and the turmoil of our world, and it was electric.
It was enough to make a twink feel invincible.
All told, I had five drinks (including a Long Island, and my first Chicago Handshake generously provided by a random patron!) and two hits of a communal joint before we even hit the venue. I probably ate once that day, I was so excited for this night.
After dozens of photos, cheers, hugs, “So nice to see you”s, and enlightening conversations of what this all meant to us, I took a seat at the BOOKCLUB’s venue bar next to my friend, John…
All at once, it felt like my consciousness was sucked into a dark void, my eyesight from a dwindling, dead-eyed stare providing the only light from a bulletproof window. I felt my body stiffen before it involuntary slumped over the countertop.
The nausea was unbearable. Any movement of my limbs or non-verbal utterance felt like a vain attempt to wrest control, all the while, somewhere inside me, I was banging at the glass, yelling at myself to get it together. My body felt like it was no longer mine, yet I saw and heard and felt everything: mounting anxiety, embarrassment, regret, and a shame that felt like the worst parts of being Catholic all over again.
John rushed to my side and tried to help me sit up. Whenever he’d reach his hand out, I tried to shove it away and insist I was okay in what amounted to a handful of undead grumbles. His questions were gentle and spaced, carrying a bedside manner and patience that echoed our most tireless healthcare workers.
“You okay, hon? Did anyone make you uncomfortable? Make you drink when you didn’t want more?”
It was all my fault. I just couldn’t say it.
The vomiting began: effortless, periodic, projectile, more than I had ever puked in one night, and more than I had ever puked in the past decade. When it hit the floor before I did, I felt like crying, if my face had any ounce of volition to do so and if my pores had any tears to cry.
At this point, I had given up all hope of piloting my body, stiff as a corpse. Some say I basically looked dead, save for the labored breathing, the aforementioned undead grumbles, and the nodding and shaking of my head for lack of eligible words.
I relented to touch, to being helped to lean against a wall as a large tub was brought in front of my periodic spews. Sarah checked in, followed by many concerned onlookers, many of which were the friends I had bounded about the foyer beside moments earlier.
I managed to non-verbally approve a Lyft home. Sarah fished my phone from my jacket pocket and called it in after finding out where I was staying. As my vision blurred, I heard more voices, echoey in the moment as it is in my memory, difficult to recall in detail.
There were arguments. There were concerned questions. There were assurances I was going to be okay.
John and Andy took to escorting me back to the AirBNB in Cicero and hoisted me up, “Weekend at Bernie’s” style. After some effort and polite chiding, the shambling near-corpse of a drunk began to hobble out of the venue and into the open, eyes aflutter, as what semblance of will I had left began to tiptoe out of the building.
The cold air was freezing again. It felt helplessly lonely on the outside as it did in. By the time the boys got me into the Lyft, I gave up on banging on the glass and just watched as I went in and out of consciousness in the car. I heard a nonchalant conversation about playing Halo and begrudgingly let the world fade away.
The two would give up the show that they had spent money and time to travel across state lines to see, just to pay for my mistake.
I’ve never felt more like a loser.
There’s an inevitability to finding yourself a spectator to a life passing you by at one point or another, like a movie whose outcome you were never meant to decide. Conclusions, foregone and otherwise, celestially appointed or occurring from plain human rigidity, find themselves time and time again outside of the reach of your influence. You think you know what you’re getting into, but get more than you bargained for and much less than what you paid for, simultaneously. You start to weigh the costs heavily before you even get a chance to pay them. The devil you know becomes the only friend you can rely on to fuck you over in only the ways you can expect. You feel like a walking wrong that has to pass off as right as you are able, and any attempt to rock the boat more than you already have feels like you’re disturbing the balance of an already shaky existence.
In this embarrassment, separation becomes a mercy to yourself and others, the void a safer place than the unknown, and surrender the most peace you can afford because it feels like if you do nothing, at least you’re not fucking up.
It feels better not to try.
It feels like it’d be better if you were absent than anyone or anything else.
Why would you ask anything more of the world, after chances upon chances, even as others offer you everything and assure you’re not too much?
Why should you try to salvage what you can only make a bigger mess?
Why make anything of all this?
"I could have built the Pyramids with the effort it takes me to cling on to life and reason."
-Franz Kafka
II. greener somewhere
Much of my 31 years on this earth have been spent thinking of things I wanted to do and thinking about doing those things.
One year in my youth took me from wanting to become a photographer (because Peter Parker was a photographer) to wanting to become an air force pilot to wanting to become a DJ and oscillating between the three, depending on who I was answering to for the age old question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
It took me more than half of my life to decide I wanted to be a writer.
I had hints earlier on that that was something I could do, just as you would have several things that people have told you, either earnestly or patronizingly, that you would make a great something-er based on a modest demonstration of applicable skills or interests.
“You could be president!”
“You will make a great preacher someday. A pastor!”
“Ever thought about being a medic for real?”
What made my writing different from any other craft I’ve dabbled in were the accolades.
In the 2nd grade, my short story “Bunnytown,” an aptly-titled self-insert tale of how I commandeered a legally distinct Blue Eyes White Dragon with Blastoise Cannons to prevent an army of wolves from ruining easter, received the honor of a perfect grade and a “You should become a writer!!!” written with that many exclamation points from Mrs. Caldwell.
In my senior year of high school, I received my first and only standing ovation from my entire church after delivering an emotional sermon on six hours of sleep the day after my prom.
Writing was something I could do, sometimes even be allegedly great at, but it wasn’t the only thing I dedicated time and passion towards; it was just one of several hats.
Having several hats is great! You can choose to put one on or leave them all at home, depending on the occasion. If you outgrow one, if it’s no longer your style, or if the world turns on fedoras, you can always leave your fedora with a custom-print of your then-favorite bible verse on the side to rot in your closet until you meet someone that could appreciate it, maybe as a joke. You could also just pawn it to the Goodwill for a couple bucks and few people will know or judge you for it until you bring it up 13 years later.
What to do with your life is a bit more consequential than what hats you wear. When it comes to making a living, you can only realistically commit to one or two things, ideally what you studied or worked hardest for, with a side job pertaining to one or several of the skills you have some level of proficiency in.
There’s time and investment to what you pursue and the risk of costing both. It was in considering that risk that I had steered away from my intended English degree before I even went to college. Even before the current social media age, the idea of becoming a starving artist was scary, and despite my successes in my academic writing, there was no real way of telling if I would write something someone would deem worthy of reading of their own accord. That doubt persists even now.
But still, I flirted with writing if only in poetry and letters to people I had a crush on. Every now and again, I’d get inspired by success stories of DIY writers, participating in NaNoWriMo and getting their converted fanfiction adapted into movies and TV shows. An idea spurred on by my life experiences would capture my passion and imagination in stints of several months, only to get discarded for a new idea or an entirely different pursuit.
Sometimes, I’d have entire outlines or pitches written out in pages that were quickly discarded. Most of the time, however, they were just nice to think about and think about thinking about.
By the time you’ve gone around the sun over two decades, you should have an entire graveyard of hopes and dreams, of short-lived passions and projects that never went anywhere, of friend groups and relationships that did not stand the test of time, and of possible futures that you buried with the past. With enough heartbreaks and headaches, thinking about things and thinking about thinking about things become the safest ways to interface with a life that you don’t have.
It’s not for lack of trying to pursue it and see it to fruition that this graveyard is as big as it is. You buy as much land for it as you’ve seen enough failures, fought in enough wars, lost enough people to know where to fence it from the land of the living. Living itself costs so much as it is.
In perhaps more ways than one, you do not live in the same place that you grew up in. The shape of your life is in constant flux. Even if you are where you were when you were born, the world is always changing and evolving. Lifestyles, trends, and public interest are going in and out by the day. Things are costing more than they used to, and often times, you’re getting less than what you got years ago at a higher price.
What you’re into now, be it your career or the music you listen to or the people you spend time with, is shifting in value and in frequency and in availability all the time. The things that came to you so easily when you were young now prompt hard-fought battles that you have to decide are worth the strife or not fighting at all. Steady rhythms and stability have become enviable. Strides to follow your bliss become transactions you have to balance against your resources, if not luxuries you can’t afford.
And looming above your wallet, your bed, your prospects, and consciousness, there are these dreams that you think about. Constantly, even.
You don’t even dream anymore and yet, there are these blurry yet colorful images that dance in your frosted windshield, and prod your hopes and imagination. These are the things that you like or want or are even good at, but to commit to them would be to cross a chasm wider than you’ve ever jumped, riddled with tempest-tossed, empirically-supported doubts. Maybe someone could make it in a movie during a pivotal scene, someone who isn’t you, but damn, wouldn’t it be satisfying if you made it to the other side of all this?
Perhaps the question on your mind, whether you suppress it or not, is this:
Is it worth trying?
December 5th, 2025.
Eight days before the show.
Kate’s birthday.
After our dinner at an upscale oyster bar in Schaumburg, the four of us—Kate, her best friend Kalise, Nick, and I—strode into Union Tap at 9:13 PM CST. What was the setting for Kate’s Snapchats by night, and an inspiration for my modern tabletop campaign by day, was her first haven in the Midwest for three years, and now proudly stands as her place of employ.
Tonight, the bartender was being served.
We came in from the cold, but crossing the threshold lit up the packed bar like fireworks. Everyone, from Nick’s extended family to Kate’s found family to the patrons caught in the middle, got on like a house on fire.
From the moment she walked through the door, she was loved and celebrated, fanfare accompanied by The Beatles’ Birthday, blaring above the ensuing commotion as that love disseminated in contagion, not a frown or cold body in sight.
As the goth birthday queen made her rounds, matching the crowd with the kind of joviality that usually comes with a glass of Prosecco after some ball-slapping sex, Kali, a few inches and many local relationships short of Kate, glided through the room and made her introductions with an equally royal elegance and modern sensibility. She was the kind of woman you’d see from a glass window as you walk the city streets of New York by night circa 1950, singing at a cabaret you couldn’t afford let alone dress for, able to flip from humble Hollywood starlet to hometown sweetheart at the drop of a hat.
Glinda and Elphaba.
Martha and Veronica.
Kali and Kate.
It didn’t take us going to karaoke night at a gay bar nor the car ride from the airport to find that together, they were unstoppable show-stealers.
The two grew up in Austin, Texas together from an age rife with confusion and growing discontent with their circumstances, where through the years, they would lose and find themselves again and again. From then to now, the two were at diametric opposites of each other in aesthetic and personality. Even their star signs warn of how incompatible they are, yet in spite of all this, it couldn’t take entire states and heated disagreements to tear them apart.
In their shared journey of discovery, sharpened by trial and tribulation, birthdays and bangers, they navigated a culture that opposed their growing understanding of it until their visions for their own lives eclipsed what their hometown had to offer. As the sun set on their early, post-academic years and the rest of their lives casted over the horizon, it soon dawned that they felt trapped in the 2nd largest state in the US.
So when love and the Midwest called for Kate, she answered, but not without great concern from Kali, leading to arguments and harsh truths not-so easily accepted, but rooted in the earnest belief that she deserved better than what she was getting into. Nevertheless, she supported her vie for freedom, in the harrows of her relationship, taking turns visiting each other over the course of four years; while apart, pining for her wellbeing amidst her mistakes and harrows in a way that empathized with the plight of parenthood.
Kate’s relationship, the catalyst for daring to find a new home, did not deserve her efforts, but ultimately rewarded her bravery and for choosing herself in the end.
“She moved up here for a guy who didn’t deserve it, but in doing so, she met her soulmate and ended up with all this love and community,” Kali told me as we sat at the bar over a pair of cocktails. “She’s a very strong person and very much keeps herself guarded, but since being with Nick, she’s been more willing to let herself open up more easily and it shows. She inspires me everyday through bold moves like that. A lot of my self-confidence is because of her.”
When Kate left Texas, Kali would call into question what there was left for her in the state.
“It became a question of ‘This is her home. Is where I’m living my home? Do I have to accept the conditions she left behind, or can I also choose to do something else?’ It doesn’t really feel like you’re made to succeed out there…”
Similar to my upbringing, Kali grew up in a military family, going from station to station without expecting to belong somewhere. With the onset of her 30s, she felt like she owed it to herself to dare to find a place where she could not only fit into, but proudly call home.
All those years ago, she followed suit with her own departure from Texas, flirting with the blistering pace of New York life during COVID that treated her well before returning for a relationship that lacked the same comfort. At this point in her life, she had lived on both coasts, and so too in the ending of her relationship—with time, self-reflection, and several visits with Kate—the Midwest began to call for her all the same.
“Here seems like a really good place to start…or—I guess, restart,” she later confessed, on the way to her flight back home on the 9th.
She loved the food, the people, the public transportation, and that you could belong here before you even committed to it.
“I’m shooting for January 2027 cuz my lease will be up by then, so I’m living a very careful year to save a bunch of money to get my ass over here comfortably.”
“Thing about here is a thing called seasonal depression,’ Kate chimed in from the front. “It’s BAD. It gets dark at 4 o’clock. It’s cold and it’s ugly—”
“EVERYONE HAS GUNS AND SMELLS LIKE SOUP,” Kali joked as she smiled to herself, looking back out the window at the snow-capped houses she said gave her a feeling of nostalgia for a place she’s never lived in, but could.
“I gotta stop giving a shit, y’know? I have a lot more tools at my disposal and a lot more confidence. I’m not tied down anywhere. I’m not tied down anymore.”
“There’s gotta be a simple beauty in everything you find new and fascinating. A new world every morning.”
-Andy
III. as long as you do it
December 14th, 2025.
After I had greened out, I woke up three times.
The first was when Stevie and Eric returned from the show first to check on me and to pick up Andy, who they had found passed out on the floor right next to my bed. Apparently, he had insisted John go back to salvage what he could of the show for the both of us (unfortunately, not much) while Andy would make sure that I was safe and wouldn’t throw up again in my sleep. The man had flown solo from New Jersey and learned to navigate O’Hare Airport on his own, but still believed seeing me and everyone else made it all worth it. I still remember his goofy smile and upbeat vibes as he walked out the door. He had left his Buccee’s hat behind at the foot at the bed, which, at the time of writing, I still haven’t sent back.
The second time was to my bedside light turning on and a gentle shake of my shoulder. Through bleary eyes, I remember Abi, one of my roommates for the stay, asking me how I was feeling in a voice that felt as warm and as caring as the blankets I cocooned myself in. Even though there were many interactions that night that could’ve gone better, we were reminded of the good times leading up to the show: yapping about being with each other in real life, traipsing the streets to pick up some booze, and hotboxing the little car that could while we talked everything from music theory to guilty pleasures.
The third time was proper, early enough to pack my bags, check out of the AirBNB, pick up my voice recorder that had fallen from my pocket at BOOKCLUB (for which no amount of thanks to the community feels appropriate for making happen), and join a number of people for brunch at Gangnam Market, with a gracious assurance from Sarah that I was still welcome to join.
Present among us were Nish Ahmed and Charlie Edwards, who with Scumdrop, Sam Koone, and Luke Smith, form the band tenmonthsummer (affectionately referred to as tenmo). Making no less legendary their work in the DIY space, their presence, from their appearance at the pregame to the brunch to their numerous interactions online, makes every attempt to break down the monolithic status of a prolific band.
The outfit’s frontman and beating heart, Nish, is a proud Chicagoan with a Masters in Poetry (“It’s why I’m broke as hell.”) and an amazing partner in Mar, who is just as passionate in her own artistic pursuits as she is in the art that inspires her. In the earnest of our conversations, whether it was hear-me-outing Fortnite or paying respect to our mutual friend, artisanal clothing designer, and shiny Pokemon hunter, Luci, he wore his heart on his sleeve, not to prove that he is every bit as human as the band’s listeners gathered here, but to highlight the necessity of that heart while navigating industry and country.
Throughout the entire anniversary weekend, Nish bled his massive appreciation for the band’s history and the connections its devoted fans have made with their music.
“This band won’t last forever, so to have a celebration like this is fucking insane,” he said of the anniversary show the previous night.
From inception, tenmo’s lyricism has spanned the chambers of the band’s collective heart: heartbreak, divorce, melancholic nostalgia, the throes of living in the country’s current political climate, and above all, love. With every release, nothing that weighs on them is left on the table, never wasting an opportunity to speak to the experiences they’ve gone through and the passions that keep them going. Every tour becomes a blessing that their growing legacy is able to make its way another hundred miles from home, and in the midst of divisive times in the DIY music community and the world at large, even one captivated heart resonant with the themes of the music justifies the band’s continued existence sevenfold.
Perhaps their most prominent song from the celebrated fate lines EP, igetityourescared, is more than just a line their fans will reference ad nauseum in talks of mundane, everyday fears. It is an anthemic reminder that what’s in front of you is worth stepping into because of who’s beside you and in spite of what’s behind you.
At the end of the day, the ones for whom swaths of distant yearners made their pilgrimage to Chicago for are ultimately just five close and imperfect friends, clawing their way through hellscapes private and public, able to live a dream day by day.
“It is no small feat to be a band for more than a day,” Nish told me. “I remember when I first found Foxing on Bandcamp, their tagline was ‘Foxing is a band. One day, Foxing won’t be a band.’ So every time a band announces a show or new music, cherish it.”
tenmonthsummer is a band. With many members’ own personal pursuits and responsibilities growing, and with two members being engaged or married with kids on the horizon, one day, tenmonthsummer won’t be a band, but luckily for us, the summer sun is still up and there is still so much more love to bleed onto the page.
Everyone who ever dreamed and stopped dead in their tracks in the face of reality stands to self-sabotage in the pursuits that come after. Talking about talking about things and thinking about thinking about things and even thinking about thinking about doing things distances ourselves from the heart of what we really want from our lives, creating chaff, filler, and roadblocks that stop us from even attempting to near them.
I’m not saying it’s bad to indulge a dream. Dreams and ambitions are very well what can inspire and encourage us as we navigate the pits and slogs that we must trudge through to keep us afloat, but when they become the mainstay of our creative diet without supplementing them with effort, we will defeat ourselves before we can even try, before we even endeavor for the idea that there is more than what we see now, before we can even process what we put into our hearts, and all these dreams will become just what they are: thoughts in an endless sea of thoughts with the rest of them. In relegating them to this fate, we bide our time, stay in conditions and relationships that don’t value us as much as they should by our own surrender, and halt any potential of there being any more to this life than this.
We haunt ourselves with the darkness of night while it’s still light out, yet even in our shortcomings, the long nights on long roads to somewhere that we underestimated, the moon and stars too serve as lights that chide us to dream on.
We need to stop viewing the better lives we can live as far out ideals that would simply “be nice” if we could have, and more as adventures where, if we trust in the first few steps, can lead us to becoming a person we couldn’t imagine.
"It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique,” spoke Conan O’Brien to the graduating class of Dartmouth in 2011, on the heels of his short-lived tenure on The Tonight Show. “It's not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right, your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound reinvention."
Following a failed magazine and several other creative endeavors that led to estrangement and unemployment, Robert Kurvitz proposed the idea to his comrades of turning their decades-long tabletop campaign into a video game, telling would-be artist, Aleksander Rostov, "My friend, we failed at so many things. Let us also fail at making a video game." That idea would manifest as Disco Elysium, one of the highest rated RPGs of the 21st century and one of my personal favorite video games of all-time, and though the creative team behind it was scattered to the winds in a sea of controversy and capitalist opportunism, its legacy continues to burn bright in the hearts it inspired.
When my friend Anthony, one of my greatest inspirations in writing and humor, stayed behind in Arizona as his friends went off to college, he filled his loneliest hours, making a video series with his family called Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin’? about the games that caught his eye, launching him into a career in the industry and eventually into one of the most popular live-play tabletop podcasts of today, Dungeons and Daddies, doing live shows across the country as well as Europe.
Whenever I call myself a loser, it’s not (MAINLY) for the purposes of self-deprecation, but as a point of pride. To me, a loser is not (JUST) someone who sucks at everything, but someone who has lost and failed at enough things in this life, yet still possesses the willpower to keep trying, keep creating, keep dreaming of a day where the things in their life stand a chance to grow and stay.
In some form or another, all of my greatest heroes are losers, people that have taken and even pissed away opportunities that would make them lose faith in their ability to make something of this life, but in their continued efforts, the adventures in pursuing what gave their life shape and meaning, created things that only someone who has failed and learned could make.
And maybe that’s everything. Maybe sucking at the start is the point. Maybe getting better is how we get to our best.
Our world will inundate us with timers and castle-wall-high barriers to get after the things that we long for. We will catch glimpses, beyond the gates and keepers, of a world rife with possibilities that stand to elevate us. To yearn for it is not a sin. It is a blessed pain to be in want, but we can’t let that rob us from the good we have staring us right in the face.
So maybe there’s a story you want to tell. Maybe you want to go places on your own, but fear the highways you have to drive on and the rooms you have to sit in alone to get there. Maybe there is a love that you push away in the fear that you will hurt in the same ways you have before.
I’m not getting on my soapbox to tell you to disregard your limitations and put yourself at risk for ideas that sound good on paper, but to consider that you have more tools, more confidence, more support and more experience than you think that will take you farther than you once thought possible for yourself. All these failures, these efforts, these losses aren’t for nothing, and when you lean on the best parts of you, your heart, your company, and your tested talents, they won’t have to be.
And when you’ve taken the plunge, when you’ve gone in deep and have failed every which way towards some semblance of competency, if you still want it, this is your sign to keep trying.
The best kept secret of adulthood is that no one really knows what they’re doing in this life, and there are less qualified and possibly less worthy people that have gotten so much more because they kept at it.
My friends, we have failed at so many things, time and time again.
God knows how much time we have left to right our wrongs, how many years we have to be writers, artists, captains of our own fate. Today, we are people with lives ahead of us. One day, there will be no more life to live, but every day we do live presents itself with a new world of opportunities, chances to slip past the gates, break through the barriers that have kept us in for so long, into a life that we can’t begin to imagine, with a love and fulfillment we couldn’t have believed ourselves to deserve.
One call, one song, one anxious plane ride, one story, one step taken in faith can be enough to break the dam and flood the rest of our lives with the waters that will heal us, and may be even nice enough to swim in.
The life we dream of doesn’t even need to be perfect. It just needs to exist.
So let us also fail at chasing our dreams.
It could be the greatest thing we’ve ever done.
Thank you so much for reading. See you for the next one?
you have a wonderful way of illustrating life's great truths through a very personal lens (is there any better way, really?). i'm glad i read this when i did; i think i needed to be reminded of what It's all about. great stuff, max :)
Incredible. It makes me miss Chicago in a way I haven't thought about in a while.