Two years past, two steps back

It’s funny how a guy will turn down the music when he’s forced to concentrate on watching for certain street signs and exits off the freeway.

I sit here with similarly down-turned music (and a contrastingly-high blood alcohol content), having just finished reliving the recent years of my past as chronicled on this very blog. It's time to concentrate, and to write.

Holy shit, I miss some of the old me.

The thing is, nobody I know or have ever heard of has looked back on their past selves and said “They’ve got it figured out, much more than I do right now!” The benefit of hindsight is 20/20, which is an ironic presence of the number 20, considering we’re often looking back at our 20s and wondering how the hell we were ever so naive and innocent!

Anyways, it’s been 729 days - nearly two years to the day - that I last uploaded an entry to this blog. I started out so strong, wrote things I was and still am immensely proud of… Then it fell apart. I quit writing because I was writing for the wrong reasons. I shouldn’t write verbose, self-aggrandizing bullshit that only ends up being a wordy way of saying “Hey everybody! Look at me! I exist!” Writing for validation isn’t the right reason to be writing at all.

It’d be a lie to say that I miss it, though. The validation, that is. Three years ago, I found myself at my lowest weight in recent history, skinny-dipping with hotties at midnight, sucking at the teet of validation just enough to keep me afloat. I’ve since dialed back on all that, retreated myself to a more safe place, not content to continue the habits that led to such success and excess.

But whatever, fuck it, I’m back at my keyboard, typing away now. I suck back at the bottle not because I’m digging for courage or answers at the bottom of it, but because I genuinely love the taste of an India Pale Ale now. I’ve been at my lowest weight, I’ve gained it all back, and yo-yoed again since those halcyon times. I’m currently on the rebound, but don’t pat my back yet.

Who knows what this summer will bring? Maybe I’ll get to relive the adventures of ‘13, maybe I’ll get to even get to be set up with a girl I’d love to be with (had we not been two different people) like the summer of ‘15. Maybe this year, my latest crush will become more than that and I’ll finally have someone who’s not my brother to share a tent with, up on that island on the Canadian border!

Whatever transpires, we’re still in the grasp of February, and while El Niño has been blessing us with a mild winter, there’s still plenty of time to mold myself - both physically and mentally - into the person who desires and deserves a summer of love, a summer of excess,  a summer of adventure.

I’m not promising to write anything more. While I’ve had literally hundreds of burgers in the meantime, I don’t think I’m meant to be a cheeseburger power ranker like I once attempted.  But I’ll try to write as my mood affords. Whether anybody cares to read, I don’t care.

I’m not writing for your validation, anymore. Now, I’m writing for my confirmation.

The Brick Yard's Breakfast Burger

I’ve been near terrified of any menu item using “breakfast” as an adjective for food that is typically not served before 10:00 AM. There once was a time, in my younger and wilder days, that closing down the bar and heading to the 24-hour gas station for a breakfast pizza was ritual. Those little personal pizzas were always hot and waiting for Tweak and me. We would usually split one, but my last one was an enthusiastic whole pizza to top off a stomach more full than usual of sugary, brightly-colored shots. Since that gastrointestinal adventure years ago, breakfast pizza has become a trigger food for a gag reflex.

Enter The Brick Yard’s Breakfast Burger. Legend reached me of its grandeur, praise enough from friends that it earned my patronage, despite my personal history with its nomenclature.

The Brick Yard Bar & Grille is Hibbing’s hot-spot for college students looking to pick fights and get laid. Every Friday and Saturday night, the dance floor is busy, the bouncers are busier, and the cocktail waitresses are busiest. But during the day the Yard takes on a much more casual tone. Even with the Olympic men’s ice hockey semifinals match between the USA and Canada on one of their large projector screens, the Yard doesn’t draw a huge lunch crowd. This worked out as 12 coworkers and I were easily able to move some tables around and all of us get a good view of the game. The service there is almost always on-spot, though I’m regular enough that it may earn me special treatment. The Brick Yard has daily specials and a relatively new Cajun menu on Thursdays that keeps it a head above other eateries in town (keep an eye out for a future review of Ragin’ Cajun Thursdays!).

I ordered the Breakfast Burger with waffle fries and seasoned sour cream – a favorite side dish among my friends and me. However, you may just want to order the burger by itself. The burger is presented as a cheesy, egg-soaked blanket of ham pieces and hash browns as thick as the large beef patty it covered. Now, I’m not a fan of my egg yolks broken on my burgers – recall the rotational technique for soaking the yolk into the bun I instructed in The Oasis’ Egg Burger review – but when there’s this many hash browns to soak it up, it left the buttered and toasted bun dry and structurally sound. Thick slices of bacon crossed between beef patty and hash browns as if they were crushed railroad ties in an old collapsed mine. I layered my pickles into place and enjoyed it without ketchup, though by the end, once all the excess hash browns dropped onto my plate, it did start getting a little dry.

This is a good burger as a whole, but it’s only the sum of its parts, and the ingredients felt a little bland. The beef was generic and the hash browns could have used some seasoning as well. Perhaps next time I’ll sprinkle some pepper on the burger before digging in. Once constructed, it stands a little too tall. Maybe next time I’ll get less hash browns, or scoop some of them off in lieu of a side of fries. One way or the other, this plate had way too many starchy carbs on it for my liking.

The burger with the fries and sour cream (usually an upcharge from regular fries) was less than the pitcher of Nordeast I bought the table, and my total was just over $20. It’s still early in my cheeseburger ranking process, but I think this one gets into the playoffs, though like the US Men’s hockey team, whether it earns a spot on the podium is hard to say. There’s a handful of local burgers I’ve not yet reviewed that could take it down, but I promise you it’s not going to be as crushing a defeat as Saturday’s bronze medal game!

The Oasis in the Distance

“Oasis”

Not the British rock band, but the real definition of the word. When applied to a bar, it inspires images of an in-pool, swim-up bar offering paper umbrella mai tais and rum cocktails served in half a coconut husk; a watering hole paradise amidst miles of desolation and desert. However, the Iron Range doesn’t lend itself to such biomes, and you won’t find any fat, hairy, shirtless retirees sucking on crazy-straws, or any champagne supernovas, at Britt’s Oasis Sports Bar & Pub.

Somehow, though, the bar crafts its own definition of its namesake hideaway, nestled amid the pines in a cozy little side road just far enough from Highway 53. You take Biss Road off of 53 north of Virginia, then the 2^nd right to Peel. The Oasis shines through the dark trees a large, welcoming bar and restaurant with plenty of parking for your vehicles or snowmobiles. The pictures on their Facebook page will show the crisp, clean interior that reminds you you’re at the edge of the Superior National Forest that brought loggers to Minnesota. I wouldn’t have guessed that they recovered from fire last year as the place looks homely, lived-in yet kept-up. A separate restaurant room is smaller than the bar area, which frequently hosts live bands. I’m not sure I’d try to watch a football game there, though, as their TVs are just a tad too small to be viewed from across the bar.

We were welcomed in as the visiting 9-ball team for our first time, and co-owner Megan made us feel like regulars. Megan and her fiancé Matt own both the Oasis and Wink’s, in Virginia.

My favorite quirk – one flirting with unsavory potential – is their chalkboard-painted restroom doors. A cup of colored chalks sits near the sink, and a warning is scrawled along the top of the door: “Remember: kids read this!” This particular Monday night the door was wiped clean, and while we didn’t get very creative at all with it ourselves, I could see hints of past scrawlings, complete with juvenile “For a good time, call…” and the flowery script of a girl or two who snuck into the men’s room. The door saves the rest of the bar from any permanent graffiti, leaving even the bathrooms comfortable and clean.

Though I hadn’t planned on it, I was roped into buying their Egg Burger. You see, frying an egg for a burger is just right in my book, but it must be done with care. A dangerous precipice one walks when frying an egg for a burger – too little and the burger is a sloppy mess, too much and you lose style points. The mere mention of “egg” and “burger” in one sentence is enough to sell me a second dinner (or breakfast, or lunch…). I was in for one.

Now do me a favor, dear reader, and take a moment to recall a very certain sound, one not heard often in restaurants or bars & grills. Imagine that familiar smack of a hand-shaped burger patty, that thick thwack-thwack-thwack of meat against your palms. Hearing that sound from the kitchen is like Sam Elliot pulling up a barstool next to you, ordering a sarsaparilla, and assuring you that you can abide.

The burger was presented and Megan got a tad bit worried. “I’d have gotten you better chips if I knew you were going to take a picture!” I assured her that bottom-of-the-bag chips were not a concern; I specifically didn’t order their thick-cut waffle fries (as good as they looked in Shoppa’s basket, it might have been a mistake). I just wasn’t hungry enough. In fact, the burger was more food than I planned to eat anyways! Our hostess made one request: “I’m the sort of person who puts ketchup on their ketchup, but try at least a bite without ketchup on it, please!”

On the way home, Shoppa proclaimed that any burger you can eat without ketchup is a good burger. Our ketchup bottle remained untouched.

The burger stacks up. A soft, lightly-toasted bun was thick enough to hold the patty, fried onions, pepperjack, bacon, and egg yolk. Because here’s the important part of an egg burger: the bun must maintain structural integrity while simultaneously absorbing as much yolk as possible. And that’s the catch with the eggs: they must be prepared just well enough that some of the yolk is cooked, but enough of it still runs out to soak the bun. The way you handle an egg burger is important as a diner, too. The first satisfying squeeze of the buns should break the egg, and one must slowly rotate the burger before the yolk drips down onto your fries or chips, ensuring maximum bun saturation.

The mountains on the glass turn blue when you pour a cold tapper!

The first bite is the best, they say, and this one was no different. The Fabroni’s bacon was just thick enough to be subtle. The Oasis knows that the bacon plays second fiddle to egg on an egg burger. In fact, I’d learn, all their ingredients are locally purchased, and their hamburger comes from Zup’s in Cook. That thick, hand-formed patty was cooked perfectly through, showing definite skill on the grill. The no-filler hamburger provided a perfect textural counterpoint to the egg. Just as the gooey egg slides down your throat, the pepper jack cheese announces itself. Real pepper jack is featured here, not that tamed down deli slice you find on meat and cheese platters. This stuff’s warm enough that even my ghost-pepper-seasoned mouth could enjoy the sizzle, though not enough to make an amateur sweat.

Oasis has your regular domestic tappers, and I was impressed to hear how willing they were to order new liquors. They had a bottle of 2 Gingers ordered on customer request, so Deuce (being the whiskey hound he has become) got to enjoy that. I think another bottle – Wild Turkey honey perhaps – was special ordered for another customer, and Shoppa helped polish that off. It’s good to see a bar willing to cater to their customers like that.

The burger and 2 beers was $12.75 (though ordering with fries would probably be a buck or more).

All in all, I promised Megan and the Oasis a positive review, and I believe they earned it. Not many bars my 9-ball team visits are worthy of it (often time we’re eager to play quick and get the hell out of there), and the Oasis made fans of us all. Between good eats, great company, and an inviting atmosphere, this Oasis proved more than a mirage. I definitely foresee another visit in the near future – and not just because I forgot my credit card there! Next I’ll tackle their “Big O” burger, but for now their egg burger earns high rankings in my book, and will definitely make the list of top burgers in Northern Minnesota.

(Hopefully not empty) Promises for more content!

It’s very frustrating to be told your whole life that you have a gift with words but you just can’t find things to write about. Disappointing family and friends who praise your talents is never easy. However, most of my early blogs stagnated. Sure, I had a lot of personal growth over the last year, and writing about it helped me sort out important lessons I learned and put them into a permanent reminder of my progress, but who the hell else wants to read that? Everybody’s just looking for the next funny story about my house being put up for rent on Craigslist!

My bro-from-another-mo Frank (@mnskinny) has encouraged me to just write. He’s a writer by training and in his free time runs MNskinny.com. His fledgling blog (back when it was published under the un-copyright-able name “Kinked Slinky”) struggled for content as well, but his agenda to publish one food review article and one personal article a week cemented his ambitions and has provided almost a year’s worth of steady reading for his “Bored at work” crowd. Now, when I accompany him to his favorite restaurants, we hob-nob with head chefs, enjoy free deserts or rounds of shots, and generally pretend like we’re minor celebrities.

I figure I’m going to take his advice now. I’m not sure if it’s going to be just food; I may review music albums, tourist destinations, the news and politics (because that’s what everybody needs – ANOTHER ill-informed opinion on politics!)… I just need to write more and not about my personal life as much.

Copping Frank’s Twin Cities Cheeseburger Power Rankings, I think I’m going to compose a top 10 list for the Iron Range. Sure, the metro area supports a top 25 list, but there’s enough competition up here to make the fight for 10 an entertaining scrimmage, and just like MN Skinny, I’ll dip down as far south as Duluth/Superior. I’ll start by writing a few reviews over the next few months, and hopefully by summer I’ll have a comprehensive list complete!

If anybody has a burger to suggest, feel free to tweet it @boymeetsgin and we’ll try to set up a date. Be sure to check out @MNSkinny (mnskinny.com) on Mondays and Thursdays for his weekly updates. Take particular note of my beautiful husky Juno smiling at you from the sidebar, as well as a bevy of my friends pointing at food!

Virtual Boot Camp

It came back to me immediately, just like riding a bike again.

Look ma! Positive K/D ratio!

Summer of 2013 was a special summer, one that I’ll try to replicate again and again. My one rule was to not buy a replacement PS3 and instead spend my summer doing anything that wasn’t playing video games. While I kinda cheated the system a bit – Magic cards, Cards Against Humanity, a very light dabbling into Star Wars: The Old Republic – for the most part my game-less summer led to days at the beach and nights throwing bags and knocking back cold ones with friends. It led to being told I look very Jack Johnson with my disheveled swim hair and dark tan (she playfully twirled my chest hair with her fingers as she said this to me). It led to girls and midnight skinny dipping.

December was a bitch. Usually we expect the worst in January and February, and for Jack Frost’s sake we live in Minnesota, we have to take the bad with the good! But December joined the wicked winter club and I had to buckle. I bought a PS3.

Even though I’ve had it for weeks now, I’ve only been replaying some single player games (the Metal Gear Solid series – highly recommended if you’ve somehow lived under a rock and avoided playing them so far in life!). However, at Thor’s suggestion, I recently fired up Black Ops, strapped on the Bluetooth, and dusted off the old clan tag.

Here’s a twist though: since I had just come from a day with a work lunch meeting (16 Pizza Hut boxes lined the back of the room) and then the local bar and grill’s chicken wing special, I knew I couldn’t just waste my evening away. I needed to get some cardio in. After all, summer 2014 will be here, ready for it or not, and I hope to be less the person (and more the man) I was last year when I go skinny dipping again!

So while I was waiting for the latest Black Ops update to download, I strapped on my running shoes and warmed up on my elliptical. By the time I got through updating, fiddling with pairing the Bluetooth, and signing online, I had a good warm feeling all throughout me. When the loading screen for our first match appeared, I stepped up the pace.

First map I’ve played in Black Ops in probably 2 years? Firing Range, the training ground for new black ops agents. How fitting that I was simultaneously training myself for a future 5k on this map.

I ended with a 22 – 8 Kill-Death Score. Thor was right behind me on the leader boards.

Balancing on the elliptical while holding a PS3 controller proved slightly difficult. I’m sure my pace dropped significantly as I turned focus to the game, but I didn’t stop moving at all. I did slow down to a walk between rounds and noticed I was not out of breath, but breathing heavy and my heart rate was up. Thor mentioned how he could hear the elliptical squeaking with each stride over my mic. I couldn’t adjust my mic any lower without turning it off completely, so he had to deal. I had the next round timer ticking down and stepped up my pace.

Same map. Better K/D Ratio.

At this point, I was going for two 10-minute rounds. Twenty minutes at a jogging pace, with a minute slow-down between rounds. I played half the 3^rd round in a cool-down walk, but I jumped off and sat down to finish my night out.

I don’t know if the new map for round 3, the change in game play modes, or what,  that made the difference, but maybe it was the decreased blood flow from sitting down.  I did horrible, and continued to do horrible for the rest of the night. I jogged one more round but was quickly losing enjoyment. I called it early and started composing this little summary before the adrenaline from my exercise wore completely away.

I was up this week to 312 pounds. Two years ago at my heaviest I was 355. Three months ago I was 293. Those twenty pounds crept back on over the holidays and I needed to punish them, and myself, for letting that happen. So while this winter might be longer and harsher than we’ve had lately, there’s no excuse for me to stop working towards my goals and building a better beach body for June!

I highly suggest anybody looking to squeak some cardio into their day to go look for something they can put in front of the TV. You don’t have to have a full treadmill or elliptical; you can find a second-hand pedal stand that sits in front of your chair, just an axle with bike pedals on either side. Sit there, play your PlayStation, and keep your legs pumping throughout 3 matches. Bam! There’s your 30 minutes of exercise a day! The time goes by so quickly when you’re playing a deathmatch on Call of Duty! Iif you can afford, using something that gets your whole body moving is probably better. Besides, you’re goal is to work up a sweat, and you don’t want that soaking into your favorite lazy boy recliner!

Thor works tonight, he says, so if I decide to slay some virtual terrorists again, I might be flying solo. Anybody who wants to join me, tweet me your PSN handle to @boymeetsgin and run to a second-hand exercise store to find something to work out with while we play!

I came out of hibernation and shaved my legs for this?!?

The bastard maples that surround my yard like an enclosing phalanx laugh maniacally at me, I imagine, as they hold onto their arsenal of dead and wilted leaves into might-as-well-be November.

Joke’s on them: I probably won’t rake my yard this fall anyways, regardless of when they unleash their crunchies.

Joke’s back on me: I’ll have to rake them when they are soggy and mixed with 9 months of dog shit next spring. The trees know this.

The mental image of a classic Roman phalanx wielding an arsenal of modern missiles makes me giggle harder than the joke I just made. It’s a shame when no one believes me when I tell them I’m funny.

Like the little arboreal nutrient factories have done, my urge to write anything has become drained and exhausted.  Maybe it’s the season of death and decay, maybe it’s the lessening sunlight and accompanying Vitamin D deficiency, or maybe it’s the Viking’s losing season and loser quarterbacks and loser coaching staff that is turning good quarterbacks into loser quarterbacks.

What my writing inspiration lacks in chlorophyll, I’ll harvest via chloroform – meaning I’m going to take a deep breath and incapacitate myself until I’m spent. That is supposed to be some sort of deep, profound metaphor for conquering writer’s block, but it will probably just turn into a thousand words of what it seems like: a masturbatory experience that not one of you won’t regret walking in on.

Welcome to Gallagher’s show! Oh, you have front row tickets? This way please. I hope you brought a rain coat.

Lack of literary ambition mirrors my seeming lack of social outings. It’s not like I’m a homebody any more than I was before: I shoot pool on Monday nights, sometimes Tuesdays, meet up for chicken wings with another group of friends Wednesday nights, and sometimes play cards on Fridays. It just feels emptier, I think, without the trips to the beach with beautiful women in sexy bikinis (or in nothing at all) that had turned up the heat on a meteorologically disappointing summer. Hell, I was even told I looked positively Jack Johnson this summer. I WAS Jack Johnson this summer, you know, minus the copious weed smoking and amazing guitar skills and millions (thousands? hundreds?) of dollars he has.

I had a tan and the wispy unkempt hair resultant of a recent swim and no combing afterwards.

Ladies, contain yourselves.

No, the nights these days [Editor’s Note: the great part about editing my posts myself is that I get to say things like “the nights these days…” and not have someone tell me how stupid it sounds] are instead filled with streaming media and online gaming, the latter of which I had sworn not to do until the snow flies and I’m starting to wonder if I shouldn't postpone that until the snow melts as well. Five hours of Doctor Who over dinnertime, the time I should be doing my laundry, the time I should be doing the dishes, pause to let the dog out, and bedtime make the eternal darkness outside stretch into -oh shit, I used the word “eternal” back there so I can’t say eternity now… um- infinity. I rarely text anyone, and even rare-erly [Ed: really?] receive any.

Work is the tits. Oh fucking auto-correct, I meant “the pits”! It’s actually not, but what else am I supposed to say when someone else brings up their crappy job?! “Sucks to be you! I make enough to pay my bills and my mortgage and inject cardboard crack straight into my carotid!!” At least when people complain about the weather they are complaining about a shared experience. Unless the person they are complaining to lives in San Diego. Because go fuckyourself, San Diego! California should quit stealing all my friends!

So yeah, that’s my sob story: a not-so-grand tale of First World Problems. Not exactly enough substance to write a Linkin Park album but surprisingly close HAHAHAHAHAHA LINKIN PARK EMO JOKES ARE STILL FUNNY!!! It’s not exactly like I’m a starving Ethiopian HAHAHAHA MY NETFLIX SUBSCRIPTION FEE COULD FEED HIM FOR A MONTH!1!

I’m such a dick sometimes. At least it makes it easier to write these exhibitions of autofellation.

The end to my woes is only as far away as the cute bartender with cleavage wider than the gap in her teeth at whatever bar has a karaoke night going on, I know. That can be expensive, though. Stripper+blow parties in the backseat of an Aston Martin and a credit card zero-balance are mutually exclusive at my pay rate. I could maybe skip the car and host the strippers at my house and still make my mortgage, but first I’d have to clean it up.

I disgust myself sometimes. What’s more disgusting to you, dear reader, is that this isn't one of those times.

Eureka! I’ll hire strippers to be my house maids!

That’s a much better idea then when I once tried to hire maids from a seedy motel to be strippers… Hey! It was totally consensual! Right up until the point I gave them the green card I promised them!

I don’t know who this little blog post is going to piss off more: my stripper friends, my maid friends, or my mother.

I almost went out for Halloween 3 nights ago. I got like 3 hours’ warning that hey, the bars have to celebrate tonight because Halloween’s on a freaking Thursday as if that’s the scariest day of the week at all (Someone get that Gregory guy on the phone, I have a bone to pick about his calendar). I always want to do some witty pop-culture reference from the past calendar year, but I didn’t have a fox costume or NBA jersey, nor the time to make up an Obamacare 404 webpage costume, or the idea to dress up as the zombified Jeff Hanneman.

Funny aside: when researching the funniest celebrity death of 2013 for that joke, the pictures Huffington Post used on their website for some recently deceased folks were instead blank with the words “The Image License has Expired”. You can’t make this shit up.

I think I will dress up, though, in what in the nerd kingdom is called “cosplay” (and what everyone else calls “a flashing neon sign telling women to stay thefuck away from this weirdo”) for the Doctor Who 50^th Anniversary feature-length episode. And I’ll probably do the same for the next Star Wars flick to reach theaters too (maybe as Goofy, Jedi Master). It’s kind of fun to make something up and wear it proudly. And there’s enough nerds out there that do the same thing that I can find acceptance from them and feel good about myself. And they all have horrible acne and social skills so I can feel superior to those lonely virgin nerds, too.

Ok, I’m getting pretty close to disgusting myself now.

I think my favor for seclusion started with the last camping trip of the year, Labor Day weekend before the weather turned and the leaves were still green. Sure, I was with family, but I spent a lot of the weekend in zoned-out space, staring at the fire or napping an afternoon away. One cannot find the same escape during a lazy weekend at home that one finds in the Boundary Waters. That camping trip was a rejuvenation oddly coming at the end of summer as opposed to Spring, the traditional season of renewal. Maybe I’ve just been extending this serenity for far too long. The Dude abides, but you can only write so many post-dated checks for creamer HAHAHAHA ARE THESE ENOUGH NERDY POP CULTURE TRIVIA TO GAIN YOUR ACCEPTANCE PLEASE?!?!?

Whatever it is, it’s a long Minnesota winter and it’s only going to get worse. Anybody is going to have to make sure to fight the sadness of S.A.D. to make it through alive. I’m definitely going to have to clean my house up to entertain people, as it’s going to get too cold to have stripper+blow parties in the backseat anymore (I don’t know if you noticed, but strippers don’t wear effective winter clothing). I’m glad I made it to tailgate at least one Vikings game so far, and with a regular 9-ball schedule I’ll still get out and see folks. And that’s just what you have to do.

Oh shit, the Playstation 4 releases in less than a month?!

Someone come shovel me out before Christmas. I think I have enough supplies to last until then.

Dream Journal

What follows is a sort of dream diary I jotted down one morning. It's not any sort of prose or anything. It's just the thoughts and ideas and feelings I had immediately waking from this dream. I typed it up into a Google Docs file and have since forgotten about it.

I named it Weaver House, because the Remington House is already taken. Most people don't want to hear about other people's dreams. I don't blame you if you quit reading this now. But I wanted to just put this out as a curious study into psychology. When I reread this, I could very clearly recall the emotions and visions I experienced when I first woke up. I didn't use direct names. I even realized that when I said "Victorian" before I kind of meant more "Southern Plantation". But whatever, it is what I wrote when I first recorded it. Enjoy. Weaver House Dream

… river ride, fishing maybe, boats

… out of the way, idk what state

… known place, as in popular, but no governments seemingly care, and some people seem drawn to the place and its mind-altering reputation like a drug or escape

… Victorian maybe... front covered porch opens up to river, three-season porch on 2nd floor above it. rear porch on SE corner of house.

Walk inside, entry way opens onto wide living room. pillars form a wall. walk left, and see recliners and a coffee table against north wall. across from north door is a couple of bedrooms on south wall. (uncle sits in one watching over a lost cousin). Left of the bedrooms are stairs that go up (IDK what’s on the 2nd floor. Get the feeling like an old couple (Cobb and Mal in limbo) is up there. left of stairs is kitchen and back porch.

spiderwebs in the house, even though you know people walked through this way minutes ago. not quite dusty, but unused. dirty windows let no light through. dark and heavy air inside

entering the house, one feels the sense of still oppression. after a while, one senses an encroachment on their mind, but can’t quite put a finger on it. feeling of something gnawing away at the back of your consciousness, but not quite dread, not despair. Just blackness (not visual), void of thought (subconscious pushing through?).

fear the place as you enter

go to bedroom where uncle is sitting next to a bed, cousin laying almost comatose with a lazy lost look in his eyes, like slow to move to whatever stimulus. feverish without the sweat. get the feeling that being here in this state is a last-ditch effort to cure the condition, not cause it.

others around you start to change. some become different people (victorian?) complete with different clothes (possible hallucinations but you don’t know that). the real world is overlayed by some possessed vision. Sunlight (outside) seems to bring people back to themselves, but they never know they were gone.

outside, headcount of group, notice brother is missing. start yelling for him, see him in 3-season above porch (even with the screens, he’s “inside” the house’s grasp) someone in group (former relative by marriage maybe) runs in to rescue him, lays him in the sunlight as he comes to. this hero decides to stay in the illusion (Cypher from The Matrix).