38 night in the woods - cosy rooftop chat with lori m

Dear Readers,

Now that I could climb on more powerlines, I explored the rooftops of the town near the church steps.

I stopped by the statue of the soldier. I thought about the army recruiter that tried really hard to get me to sign up. About 10 guys from my high school class went off to join the army, I guess as a way to be able to afford college.

I passed by Telezoft. The two workers from the first day were standing there, whispering. The one who desperately wanted to leave their job was plotting to puke and then change their clothes so they could go to an interview for a job at Ham Panther. Very messed up this has to happen this way and I hope they get on ok :)

The steps to the church were fixed! I'll go there later. Roof climbing now.

I walked along the powerlines. When I walked past the Telezoft building, someone stuck their head out a window and yelled at me. When I passed Dr. Hank's, a dog barked out the window at me. I didn't give a darn :)

I climbed up on the roof with the spinny wheel thing like the one I found on the roof of the Clik Clak diner. Just like that one, I made a little helicopter thing fly up when I spun the wheel. I remembered something about some kind of scout group setting these up as weather stations. Maybe it was something they just left and forgot about.

I was able to climb higher and higher. I saw lots of graffiti on the buildings too, which means that climbing up here wasn't my quirk alone. Someone wrote "NUKE POSSUM SPRINGS" up here too.

I was able to step on an upturned bucket that was on a ledge for a boost. I had to turn my Nintendo Switch upside down, but I was able to read "PISO MOJADO" on it :)

Lori M was sitting on the very tip top of Dr Hank's building! I said hey to her and sat down for a chat. I said I had to rest as I was getting old, being 20 and all. She was gonna be 15 the following February. I told her I used to hang out up here after school. She was surprised since kids didn't come all the way up here. I said that's why it's so nice up here.

I adore this exchange between her and me :) me actin' all old like I'm a geriatric who climbed up a local hill to the well or something. Also, the graffiti seemed to stop just below us. In real life as a kid I used to climb very tall trees and... sometimes roofs to hang out in a nice quiet place for a while. So much to relate to here :)

I asked her where she lived and she said Chestnut Street, out by the tracks. I told her I lived down on Maple and she said it was the rich neighbourhood, which took me by surprise. I said "What?" Then the poor thing got all panicky, apologising and saying she just meant that it was nice. I told her to calm down and that I'd forgive her if she stopped apologising. I guess she gets panic attacks :(

We chatted more about the tracks. I said I liked the train and that hearing it was one of my favourite noises. She said the train makes her room shake at night and she gets bits of ceiling falling on her. Yikes... After this I got up and said it was nice chatting with her again. She said she was here most days and parted with "Seeya Killer." I still didn't like that name. I'm definitely gonna come back to chat with her again though. The freedom of chatting with regulars everyday in this game is like chatting with neighbours in Animal Crossing :) and this kind of thing is super cosy.

Before I left I brought up the mural in the tunnel that got messed up with graffiti. She said it was pretty funny, to which I didn't respond. Then she said it was very weird and bad. I asked her if she knew who did it and she said she didn't, but that there were many suspects. I agreed, saying this was a whole town full of suspects.

Afterwards her word balloon was of a cat skull and crossbones.

I jumped past her on top of a chimney stack and onto another roof with another weather station wheel thingy. I made it spin to release another helicopter thingy. I still don't know if this does anything. Then I went past her in the other direction to triple jump onto the highest roof, which had cooing pigeons and a sleeping cat. When I was little I thought that when I turned 20 I wouldn't be able to climb this high up anymore, but I proved little me wrong. I made a doodle of the sleeping cat, sleeping on a cloud with "Z Z Z". I wrote "THOUGHT: ROOF CAT IS CORRECT"