Baby Steps Review

Sep 23, 2025

I spent an entire real-life hour trying to reach the top of a boulder, repeatedly positioning and clenching and adjusting and stepping and grunting and hoping… and then falling. And falling. And falling. To an onlooker, this experience must have appeared a veritable deluge of the same be-onesied body, limp and hapless, sprawled and slippery, slick with mud and (probably) a little piss. To me, though, it conjured a poignant question, swirling about amidst the ephemera of my troubled mind: am I just a stubborn asshole?

My goal was to trek, by foot, to the top of a mountain. My goal was to reach the castle. My goal was to wish to “the angel” to whisk me away back home, away from this hellish Ouroboros absolutely riddled with fantasy detritus, to see me placed safely upon the sofa in my parents’ basement where I could marathon One Piece in peace, punctuating episodes with bong hits, and live the rest of my life slowly dissolving into the cushions under the sheer weight of yet another pizza delivery. However, despite the clarion call, I found myself once against distracted by my arch nemesis.

Peaches.