a knight in slightly tarnished armor

Happy New Year - or something like that

2012-01-01T16:56:00.000-08:00

I never know what I'm going to write when I start one of these New Year's posts, but I always seem to find something to say - though, the quality of that something probably tends to vary. I mean, how often can a guy talk about all the things he fucked up the year before and all the ways he wants to fix it in the next year?

Especially since New Year's is such an arbitrary thing, and self-improvement and self-examination should be a constant and consistent process. It shouldn't be something we (I) do just as calendar rolls over to the next year. I mean - really? How many people actually keep their resolutions? How many people make serious and significant changes that stick, just based off a tradition that doesn't make a lot of sense when you look at it empirically?

It's sorta like deciding that you're going to fix everything about your life, one item at a time, one year at a time. If you're actually successful, you might actually have made some progress about the time you're stuck in the old folks' home, mainlining prune juice and praying you can remember the names of all the relatives who never come to visit you.

Hell, even if you make and stick to multiple resolutions a year, it still doesn't end up making sense. Why do people only seem to really want to change their lives as the new year starts? Okay. I get the whole idea of 'starting over with a clean slate' - but you really don't. All we really do is take a deep breath and hope that the next year is better than the year before it, despite that fact that all the problems we had in 2011 are still going to be there in 2012 - along with all the problems we haven't seen yet.

Yeah, yeah - I know. Old man Jayiin doesn't get it. What else is new? I rarely get it.

So, onto the part of this you've been dreading since my last New Year's post. Mostly, because I don't have many New Year's traditions (seeing as how I'm crap at holidays), so I might as well stick to the one I have and enjoy the fact I'm able to write something coherent in this blog once a year.

2011 was a year. I turned 31 and enjoyed the fact no one's taken a hit out on me yet.

I spent most of 2011 sick or injured, or recovering from being sick or injured. I've never been this consistently tired and worn down. Kidney stones, hives, my first real migraines in years, sinus issues and more versions of sinus infections and stomach bugs than I'd thought possible. I have to take an immense amount of Prednisone; I've gained weight and my diet has been so bad even I think it's appalling. I've barely written a thing (again) and I'm more behind than ever.

To say nothing of car troubles, two broken desk chairs (and when the first one broke, it took me with it). I'm deeper in debt, my fibromyalgia and arthritis are worse than ever. I'm terrified than by the end of 2012, I won't be physically able to work the sales floor at work anymore, despite the fact I'm only out there one day a week.

Even worse? I've had to give up drinking tea, coffee and energy drinks, which were my only real defense against the fatigue of the fibro.

I know. I'm a terrible human being because I don't like drinking plain old water. Yes, I should get over it and drink plain water. But I just don't like it. It's boring.

So I've reverted to drinking Sprite and missing Sprite Berryclear Remix. Which is high fructose corn syrup - tasty, but terrible. I don't like most fruit juices and just about everything else I want to drink is just as horrific for me. And being allergic to Splenda, aspartame and a lot of other artificial sweeteners means that most diet drinks are out of the questions.

I'm going to try to learn to drink plain water. Don't hold your breath, though. I'm probably going to fail and continue to find a way to consume sugar-laden beverage in a way that won't cause more kidney stones or make me wish I was going to die.

I feel like I've been surrounded by strife even more than normal this year. There are people at work who make me want to headdesk and facepalm and go on violent rampages - and this is a new thing for working at Dlair. But then again, I've also never managed to learn healthy ways to deal with extreme passive aggression, despite (or maybe because of?) having grown up being subjected to toxic and soul-poisoning levels of it. I've had good friends get divorced, good friends move away. My mother's passive aggressive manipulation of everyone around her started anew with Christmas, just when I thought things had really taken a turn for the better.

Yeah. I should have known better. I should have known she was just biding her time, waiting for the right moment to strike and unbalance us all, putting us firmly back under her thumb.

Here, at the end of the year, I feel like I've lost my mojo. I've lost my focus, misplaced my determination and my brain is drifting away from the rest of my me more often than not. And my temper - my center and my calm - my zen - has been less certain than any other time since high school.

I can hear some of y'all now, getting all riled up at me. I'm always writing negative crap about my life and never talking about all the good stuff. That my New Year's blogs are always cynical diatribes railing against the world around me - a world which could be much, much worse, right?

I could argue that I call it like I see it. I could mutter and grumble about not being an optimistic, positive person. But that would all be a whole lotta hypocritical bullshit, because I'm the guy always quoting my favorite Jedi, Qui-Gon Jinn: "Your focus determines your reality."

So yeah. There it is. My focus apparently sucks. Admittedly, some of it has to do with this time of the year. It's no secret that I hate Christmas and the holiday season and I end up writing these blogs after having been exposed to several weeks of what my brain interprets as deeply negative stimulus - meaning by the time the new year rolls around, I'm a cranky fucking Grinch who wants nothing more than to rant, rave and rail against all that is the western winter holiday season.

Right, then. What happened in 2011 that was good? Well - I'm still with my girl and she's living with me now, away from her family - which is, if anything, so much more psychically toxic than mine that my family actually looks functional and healthy by comparison. This is a thing beyond all awesome - and is the best relationship I've ever been in. I'm sure it says something terrible about me that she's a decade younger than me, but I'm not sure I really care, because I'm happier with her than I've been in a very, very long time. Maybe ever.

I'd go into more depth about how awesome she is, but I'll save that for Valentine's Day or some other arbitrary holiday-cum-utterly incomprehensible socially obligatory occasion.

I reconnected with one of my best, closest friends - my foster brother from middle school and high school walked into the store earlier this year - with his wife! - and I've been down to San Antonio to see him several times. (In fact, I have a lot of friends down here, including one I haven't had the chance to meet in person. I'm very much looking forward to my next trip down there.)

This, also, has been a thing beyond all awesome. I feel like I got a part of myself back; JAH is a guy who knows me better than anyone else, despite not having talked or spent time together for about ten years. He's still a crazy son of a bitch and a mad genius who (if he gets his way) is going to change the entire world.

I managed to need (and acquire) a new computer after my faithful Asus Netbook died, thanks to a good buddy of mine. This new computer, while weak sauce compared to the beast machines most of my friends keyboard jockey from, is the most powerful and reliable computer I've ever owned. (Gateway doesn't always suck. Who knew?)

The 3rd Annual Webcomics Rampage which ended up with my face in a Hijinks Ensue comic. There was much awesome involved in Webcomics Rampage and I really should write about it in its very own blog, but I probably won't. Because (as per usual) I fail.

I also managed to scrape together enough money to buy a new Kindle Fire - which is also awesome. As if my regular Kindle wasn't enough of an addictive time sink. That many books right at my fingertips...it's a terrible, wonderful thing. I can invert the text color and read white words on a black background, meaning I'm reading even more than I usually do. Which may, in fact, partially account for my lack of writing.

I made my annual sabbatical journey to the mystical and magical land of Seattle, Washington to visit my brother and his ladyfriend and spent a good ten days or so doing as much of nothing as I could. It was freakin' fantastic. I came back and promptly was assaulted by kidney stones, resulting in me spending the week of Thanksgiving pissing out sharp fucking rocks and alternating between debilitating pain and being stoned out of my gourd on pain meds.

I've even managed to (somehow) develop an actual social group. I'm not sure if it's a form of cancer or something good yet, but I'm really not used to it. It's been about ten years or so since I've had an actual steady social group. We even do things like go out to eat, hang out on a semi-regular basis and are talking about starting an actual, honest-to-Gork RP group, in which I will be running my Silver Gryphons campaign.

I'm not sure how to balance a social life with everything else I want/need to do, though. I'm having trouble with that, which may be part of why I feel so harried and behind right now.

I've also managed to get my act together enough to start going to church on a regular basis again - which again, is more exposure to people and more social interaction. I'm worried that I'm going to hit some kind of limit on social interaction with people before to long and revert back to my hermit-like existence and ruin the whole 'social group' thing, but we'll see how it goes.

I've also developed an interest and enjoyment of professional wrestling (WWE only) and go to visit Kelly Dawn and her boyfriend for most Pay-Per-View events, which are usually the highlight of my month, because it's the most low-key fun I have these days.

I've also managed to plow through quite a bit of my non-writing to-do list during 2011. I've been oddly productive, actually, and a lot of my tasks are now maintenance kinda things instead of massive projects looming over my head. I still have a few bigger projects, but I feel more confident about being able to knock them out. Most of that productivity was possible because of my girl and her willingness to help me slog through the list and help me not stay on bottom-dead-center this past year. I'm hoping that is a trend that continues and doesn't stop.

Not only did I get a lot of my own stuff done, but my Dad finally got around to getting some of the remodeling done on our trailer...erm, house - we now have a handicap accessible bathroom and shower for Mom and a ramp/deck at the front door. We're looking at some serious re-arranging and re-structuring of the innards of the house, in terms of furniture and who lives/sleeps where, which is both necessary and good, though it is a January project I'm not exactly looking forward to. I've had to request time off work to really get started on it, but I can't say as though it's not something I'll be glad to have done. With any luck, all that work will give me a chance to get some of my other projects knocked out.

I really, really wish I'd had time/energy/determination to write more this past year. I have no shortage of ideas (even a major breakthrough on the Katheryn story - probably the biggest breakthrough I've had on it. Ever.) and I have enough time; I just need to work harder at not letting myself burn away my free time by surfing the internet or staring off into space. I do way too much time-wasting as it is.

What do I want to do in 2012?

Write more. Write like a fucking madman. Fanfic, blogging, reviews, stories - just write.

Finish sorting all my computer files

Finish organizing and sorting my music - including actual playlists.

Try to exercise. Not likely, but, still... (Just like everyone else.)

Work on my diet. (Just like everyone else.)

Finish the last of my organizational projects - there are only a few left

Avoid being sick/hurt all the time. Especially no more hives.

Read more.

Write more.

Will I actually get any of this done? Possibly. Possibly not. Who knows?

Though, on the topic of writing, I've decided to start off 2012 with an incentive to write. My buddy JM and I are in a Word Count Challenge - 500 words a day from January 1 - January 30. Whoever does the worst at the end of the challenge has to pay a forfeit. If I lose, I will have to find the time to go to his apartment, sit down at his computer, and play a MMORPG. In particular, I have will have to create a character for Star Wars: the Old Republic and play for at least an hour after character creation.

Given my feelings on MMORPGs, this is not a fate I relish.

I haven't lost a Word Count Challenge to date; I don't intend to start now. I do hope, however, this challenge will give me the momentum I need to write and keep writing throughout the year instead of just during NaNoWriMo.

So...happy new year? Or something like that.

Sick. Again,

2011-08-07T16:15:00.000-07:00

I'm sick. Again.

I've been getting sick a lot lately. Sinus infections, viral gastrointeritis (stomach flu), migraine headaches (the first one in almost a decade) and now - a massive allergic reaction.

We're not talking the sniffles here. We're taking full-body hives, vomiting, choking, eye-watering, sinus-clogging, skin-burning, life-altering allergies and are requiring heavy hits of antihistamines and prednisone. (Nasty stuff...but it gets the job done.)

I'm not able to take hot showers, get hot and sweaty or even be in place where I'll get hot and sweaty. This is gonna make work interesting, beacuse there's not a day that goes by I'm not drenched in sweat.

I'll make it work, though. I have to.

When you're a kid, being temporarily sick can end up being kind of an adventure. Sure, you feel like crap, but you might just get out of school for a few days and spend the time playing games, reading, watching TV.

Yes, it can still suck and it doesn't always work out like that. It's a crap shoot that depends on parents, doctors and all the stars to align - but there is still the possibility that things can turn out to fun. It didn't often turn out like that for me or my brothers, but when it did, it made being sick worth it.

When you're an adult, it never works out like that. You end up missing work. If you're like me, that means you aren't earning much needed money. And if you're like me, it means you're going to end up behind on your work. You can't meet your obligations and end up leaving people high and dry - and they get rightfully put out at the inconvenience. They may not be upset with you, but they tend to be upset with the situation.

So. Here I am. Sick and messing things up because I'm sick. Not my fault, but frustrating non the less.

I'll admit, I'm frustrated. I went years without getting sick hardly at all. And during those years? I ate and drank whatever I felt like, as long as I wasn't allergic to it. Triple-meat bacon cheeseburger? Anytime I felt like it. Soda? Every day. Massive amounts of it. Ice cream and cake and cookies and - yeah. You get the idea. I was a glutton, feeding my belly and my taste buds whatever fat-laced, grease-soaked concoction sounded good at the time. I did so without a single iota of guilt, let alone a second thought.

Not only did I eat like a fat, happy king, I did so cheaply. Because stuff that's bad for you is cheaper than stuff that's good for you. Universal law, if there ever was one. I had endurance, physical strength and I wasn't even that active. I spent most of my time online. I read, I wrote and I role-played online.

It was a good time in my life.

Then I decided that I wanted to lose weight and change some things about my life. I cut out soda almost completely - now sodas are a treat instead of a staple. I've cut down what I eat and changed what I eat. I've lost some weight and I actually think about my health.

And my health is worse than ever. I'm sure there's lots of arguments that can be made about me reaping what I sowed during those good years. I'm sure there's some comments to be made about me getting older and slowing down. Or I've accidentally omitted some set of nutrients. And I'm sure it would all be correct.

But damn me if it's not frustrating and annoying and a right royal pain in the ass.

There's a lot of things I want to do for my health. Exercise is something I can't do while I'm constantly sick, not if I want to get better. Exercise is already hard enough with the fibro and arthritis, but - after dilligent research and some (painful) experimentation, I have a plan in place. Getting the chance to start said plan? Not yet.

Changing my diet is what I'm in the middle of. It's both harder and easier than I thought it would be. Part of the problem is energy level - I have very little these days. I'm constantly tired and drained, but that has as much to do with the fibro/arthritis combo as anything else. I think once I get my diet stabilized and my exercise started, I can reverse that trend...but for now, being tired means I tend to not have the energy to cook once I get home. Which means I'm tending not to eat as healthy as I plan to - healthier than I used to, for sure.

I'm not giving up though.

As my mother is fond of saying...our family is too stupid to know when we should give up.

Really, self? 16 years?

2011-07-07T17:33:00.000-07:00

Odd, how some things change with time - and they seem, at least for me - to often be the things I didn't think would ever change. I'm not talking about things like religion, politics, health or hobbies. I'm not even thinking of interests or gut reactions or primal urges - not even that deep and abiding hatred of mornings you (meaning 'me') developed as a teenager.

Used to be, when April 3 rolled around, it was an important moment. A day of reflection and renewal of purpose. The whole day was spent with my thoughts drifting back to the same subject - a subject tinged with excitement, exasperation, fear and anticipation. A subject that made me hope and dread at the same time.

This year, April 3 was Wrestlemania. (Go ahead. Laugh. I know you want to.)

April 3 is the anniversary of the Katheryn story.

Not that I really expect that to mean much to some of you. Or even most of you. Just because you occasionally get bored enough to read my blog doesn't mean you know what the Katheryn story is, especially if you're a relative newcomer to my blog or my life.

Used to be, I couldn't stop talking about it. That's another change; at one point in my life, I figured I wouldn't ever stop talking about the Katheryn story. I couldn't. It was too integrated into my personal identity - especially my personal identity as a writer. It still is. And yet, I almost never write about. I almost never talk about it.

Why not?

I mean, this past April, while I was watching Triple H and The Undertaker beat on each other, the Katheryn story quietly turned 16.

Sixteen?! Really? Really? I've been writing on the same damn story for sixteen years?

Well, yeah. Kinda. Apparently, I'm stubborn, tenacious and (very likely) obsessive. (Those of you nodding your heads in agreement with the last one? Not cool, y'all. Not cool.) I don't accept defeat and keep trying, no matter how many times I fail!

(Or, if you want to get technical, I haven't failed yet, because I haven't shelved the project and decided I'm done with it. If you want to get technical.)

Or...or, I'm a lame-ass punk writer who can't get up off his fat ass, dig down deep and write the bloody thing already. (I can hear the 'told you sos' through the cybernetic ether. Apparently, I've been told such before. Who knew?)

In truth, the Katheryn story is hardly the same story it was when I started it back in 8th grade. It's gone from being a cheesy fanfic that won a middle school writing contest (how sad is it that I'm still proud of that?) and has turned into it's own universe, complete with a history that starts before the beginning of time, a deep mythos, and a very complex and (I think) amazing world to play in.

In (further) truth, I might have just set out to write a story that I didn't have the tools, skills or experience to tell. I've had to cut my teeth on smaller projects, less ambitious tales and less complicated worlds in order to learn how to write what I want to write. Which is why I can safely say I haven't been working on for 16 years.

True, it's a rare day that goes by that I don't think about the story. (Stop smiling and nodding knowingly. Obsessions are completely normal. Healthy even. Just ask Freud. Just don't ask him while he's anywhere near that picture of his mother.)

None the less! All asides aside, the Katheryn story is a huge part of my life and has never stopped being a huge part of my life. I don't really see it as some kind of 'magnum opus' (at least not since I graduated high school), but I do see writing it as a goal. I also realize that not everyone (as in, almost no one) wants to hear me babble about the Katheryn story all the time. Or most of the time. Or even as much as I used to.

It's rude to be that guy (or, at least, that form of that guy) - and Real Life(TM) has taken over much of my existence. Varying jobs, schools, chores and other things necessary for the smooth(ish) day-to-day operation of my life take up a lot of time. A lot more time than I wish it took. But, there you have it. Life sucks, takes a lot of time to deal with, and no matter how much I whine about it, no one else will do it for me until I have enough money to pay them to do so.

(Now there's a goal...)

But for the 15th and 16th anniversaries to pass unnoticed? Kinda...bothers me a bit. Mostly, I think, because I realize that they depress me. After working for so long, I have so little to show for it?

That...and I know that of that 16 years, I've been a functional, intelligent writer and reasonable facsimile of an adult for less than ten. I think that's the bottom line of this whole post and whole ponderation.

Katheryn may be turning 16, but she's hardly the same girl she was when I started writing her. And though she defined who I was as a writer for a long time, she stopped doing so years ago, because I am no longer the same person - or the same writer - I was when I started writing her.

Her story is not the same story; her world is not the same world - and I am no longer quite as enamored with what I once created. I now know I am better than I was and know I can do far better than I once did.

And that...is a whole helluva lot cooler than any anniversary will ever be. So I'm good with having spent her 16th birthday watching some rather excellent pseudo-violence and eating awesome tacos with my friends.

Hopefully, the next 'anniversary' is just as good as this last one.

Another boring and pointless blog brought to you by jayiin's bored subconscious. And for anyone who really cares, I'm actually writing on the story, using Camp NaNoWriMo as convenient excuse.

Any resemblance this blog may have to mealy-mouthed self-analysis and carefully considered excuse crafting to avoid accepting responsibility for the fact I still haven't finished it is purely coincidental. Because I'm a grown up.

ad astra per aspera

Random Observations I

2011-06-03T21:09:00.000-07:00

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS I: Random, raw observations and thoughts from the depths of my brain.

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I know people get tired of me talking about feeling productive and getting things done, but I've discovered I have trouble relaxing enough to get to sleep unless I feel like I've accomplished something for myself sometime during the day. I almost always accomplish a great deal at work (though not always the things I want to work on) - it's my own stuff I tend to fall behind on.

I wonder how much of my grumpiness & discontent relates back to not taking care of my little world and all the things that I can do to make it a better place for me and mine to inhabit (or visit)?

I wonder how much less stressed I would be if I didn't feel like I had a giant rock waiting to fall on my head because I've neglected to take care of myself - and to tend to the ordering and maintaining of my space and my life?

And I wonder how much of the chaos surrounding me is because I cannot say no to people and yes to myself?

---------------

I've heard the stories. In the workplace of fifty years ago, if a guy forgot to shave or looked scruffy or acted an ass, another guy - usually another man - would take him aside and tell him so. I think we've lost something in that people don't do that anymore. I think we've lost a level of honesty between people and we've lost a level of willingness to strive to be the best we can be and to want someone to tell us when we could be better and even how we could be better.

We're all so afraid of criticism and so afraid to be told we're not perfect, we're falling short of our potential and we're able to be more.

We're taught to see ulterior and malicious motives in every word given that isn't positive endorsement or unflagging cheerful support. We're taught to be afraid to tell the truth because we don't want to be known as an ass.

We're taught not to want to be a truth-teller. (And yes, Jason, I see the logical direction of that statement and will take it in that direction another time. This is the wrong blog for that.) We're taught to be afraid of things told to us because they might the truth and we're so afraid to fail that we often don't even try.

Boldness of speech or of action is characterized as foolish or ambitious and the only ambition we praise is the kind that gets you on the cover of magazines for money, beauty or power.

We're taught that success is equated to money and to appearance and that if you lack one or both, you are automatically a failure. If you wear the wrong clothes or offend the wrong person or don't get in the right clique. If you don't do something so amazing other people have to sit up and notice and applaud.

We're taught that the only criticism and advice to take is your own or the kind found in a self-help book that gets liked on Facebook and has enough Amazon reviews. We're taught that the right way to change is to sit in the dark and confront your fears and your failings and your misery alone - without 'inflicting' it on other people.

We're taught no one can help us change; no one can help us achieve; no one can help us become more - that we must do it all alone, struggling every day, sacrificing everything of meaning or value along the way and that the empty rewards of success will be enough, because there is always more to be earned or gleaned.

We're taught we are not allowed to cry in public; we are only allowed to cry in the corner of the room, in the shadows where no one can see us hurt - because it might make them uncomfortable. We're taught that the only tears we can have are those no one ever sees. To be human and to be frail and to be vulnerable is to be weak and therefore to be fought against - because if you are weak, you have failed. You become nothing but another number, another statistic in a poll no one really understands.

We're taught that pain is to be a secret and not shared.

I don't think this is okay.

I want someone to tell me when I am falling short. I want someone to tell me when I can do better. I want someone to tell me when I'm scruffy and don't look my best (which isn't much, admittedly, but you have to work with what you're given.)

I want to be told the truth. And I want to be allowed to tell the truth. I want to face my fears in the daylight with my friends and my brothers beside me. I want to be allowed to be human and be weak. I want my accomplishments to matter - even when they mean nothing for money or beauty or power. I want to be heard when I need to speak and I don't want to be afraid to hurt and be afraid to fail.

And I don't want to do it alone, just because our society is afraid of things that hurt. Or might hurt.

I want to tell the truth. I want to help someone else do more and be better. I want other to trust me to tell them when they look scruffy or have food on their face. I want to be strong enough to not be frightened - or scornful - of what might look like weakness. I want to remember and laud the accomplishments of others, because they matter - even when they don't bring about money or beauty or fame. I want to listen when someone else needs to be heard and I want the people around me to know if they hurt or if they fail, then I am still here while they heal or they try again.

I want the people around me to know they are not doing it alone.

Somehow, I think that these desires might be some of the hardest, most frightening things I have ever set out to do.

---------------

Pride is a terrible word most of the time. It implies vanity and arrogance and scorn of others. It implies so many bad things...but pride is at the center of satisfacation (at least, in the workplace.)

To me, it is at the heart of what we call 'work ethic.' Because I have pride in my work - whether it's cleaning out the cat boxes or sweeping the pool deck or making copies of legal briefs or answering the phones or pricing product or coding webpages, my pride in myself won't let me do less than my absolute best.

If I do, I feel the acute sting of personal failure.

I want to be proud of what I do. I want to brag about being the best sweeper or cleaning the cat boxes the best or having elegant code or making perfect copies. I want every detail to be right, every line straight and not a speck of dirt or shit left to mar the task I have undertaken.

Even if only I see it.

I don't know why, but a lot of people I know don't have this pride. They don't mind things they do not being done to the best of their ability. They are content with just being done and moving on to the next thing and the next thing until they get to a thing they enjoy.

They cannot find contentment and satisfaction in the doing - and the doing well. They cannot find pleasure in knowing they have accomplished a thing so well that they can say to anyone: "Yeah, I did that. That was me."

It scares me, sometime, that lack of pride. I wonder if it is that lack of pride, that causes so many of the problems around me. That being indifferent to the quality of what you do and only wanting the quantitative payment of having done it and recieved a paycheck.

I wonder if the dissatisfaction so many have with their 'tedious' jobs or their 'dead-end' positions comes from a profound indifference to how they accomplish a thing.

I've also noticed that the more indifferent a person is to how they do things, the more threatened they are by those who have pride in what they do. They mock, deride and sabotage (not on purpose, usually) and try to bestow their sense of indifference, the liberation of no longer giving a damn about the quality of what you do.

It must be liberating. It must be amazing, to just not care when a thing is done poorly or to know that it could have been far better than it was - and yet be okay with that.

It must be a thrilling experience.

But I'm afraid of that thrill; I'm not ready to be liberated. I'm proud to have pride and somewhat worried that someday, I will forget my pride and just give in to the idea that it's okay to not do your best on everything...because the people around you won't care, either.

Git 'er done

2011-05-04T23:36:00.000-07:00

Getting things done.

I write a lot about this, because it's a constant challenge for me. (Or, I should say, whine a lot about this.) There are a lot of productivity articles, blogs, books, seminars, webinars, college courses, etc out there to help with it. They teach techniques, skills, tools and offer all kinds of advice on finding ways to accomplish tasks.

I'll admit it. I've read some of those articles, books and blogs. I've peaked at notes from seminars and webinars. I even attended a few of those free classes when I was in college (way back when). I've tried lots of different techniques, skills and tools. I've listened to and tried out all kinds of advice.

Yet, I keep finding myself behind. There's always stuff I'm behind on or haven't had a chance to get to. Some of it is mundane stuff - chores, filing, investigating this or that or the other. Some of it is pretty non-essential stuff - gaming errata, gaming itself, fanfiction, etc. And some of it is fairly important, such as research into my health insurance plan or remembering to bring something into work or remembering to pay something on time. (Sorry, ADC!)

The consequences for not getting these things done vary from task to task. Not remembering to bring something into work can make my job harder and sometimes mess things up for my co-workers. Not investigating my health insurance means I don't always know what I can do with it other than throw money down on co-pays when I get the sniffles. Neglected chores leave me with a disorganized, cluttered and occasionally dirty space and the need to be up late doing laundry when I should be sound asleep.

Worse than consequences for me are consequences for other people. Often times, other folk are counting on me to get something done for them. When I do what I invariably do and drop the ball, I let people down or leave them hanging and I hate doing it.

I hate being the guy to drop the ball and I try really hard not to be that guy. Yet, I constantly find myself looking back and realizing I've done it again.

Right now, I've dropped a lot of balls and I've found myself really, really behind. I've been this far behind on things before - and I don't think I've ever really caught up from those other times. I do think it's possible, if I can figure out what I'm doing wrong.

I'm not a procrastinator by nature. I don't tend to put things off. I hate leaving things for the last minute, because I tend to do a crappier job of them. I'm good at crises and crisis management. I'm adaptable (for the most part) and great and improvising solutions. However, I prefer to do things right the first time and do so with enough time left over that if I messed up or if things take more time than I thought they would I have the time to fix things or do them right.

To my credit, I don't often find myself doing my tasks at the last minute. Getting given something to do at the zero hour and being forced by circumstance to jump and work on it quick, fast and in a real damn hurry through not fault of my own isn't anything more than handling a problem.

Being able to jump in and accomplish a task at the last minute isn't true productivity though. It's just crisis management.

Anyone who grew up in my family or around my family knows that one of the skills you get growing up a Rogers is crisis management. Another is cleaning up messes somebody left behind (and usually through no fault of their own.)

Productivity is being able to create or produce abundantly; to cause or bring about. (Productivity on Dictionary.com)

On a day-to-day basis, this means being able to accomplish the tasks you need to accomplish to keep your life running smoothly, do your job and get paid (which, really, is a task to keep life running smoothly in and of itself) and do the things you said you would do for others. In short, being productive is the daily grind. Whether it's getting up before the ass-crack of dawn to milk the cows and plow the fields or it's getting up with the sun to get into work on time, productivity is usually all those recurring tasks or jobs or things you just have to do whether you like them or not.

Okay, sure, there's lots of things in there I like to do and things your probably like to do to, too. Unlike a lot of folk I know, I actually enjoy my job - which tends to make the tedious and not-so-glamorous parts of it more bearable. I also have a work ethic that doesn't let me do anything less than my absolute best at everything I do, whether it's coding up a new page for the website or cleaning the store cats' litter boxes. (Which can sometimes be a roadblock - more on that later.)

Regardless of what you think of the things you have to do, they have to be done.

All the productivity training in the world boils down to one thing: just do it. Just get it done. All the tools and tricks and techniques and tactics out there teach you varying ways to keep track of what needs to get done, ways to manage your time, ways to prioritize and even ways to make some tasks easier to complete.

But at the end of the day, it's just a matter of someone getting down to it and doing what needs to be done. This is a matter of self-discipline. Of having the intestinal fortitude to put aside something else, get up and go do.

I have self-discipline in a lot of areas of my life. I've never been late to my job. In fact, I tend to be very productive at work. I have a reputation with the management of being the guy who gets stuff done (almost always) in a timely and efficient manner. And it's taken some work to get to that point. I'm sure some of my old bosses would say that while I did a good job, I wasn't considered as dependable as I am now.

No, most of my issues with productivity take place outside the workplace.

I could write a lot about how tired I am. About how much I hurt and about how little time outside of work my schedule affords me. But that would just be whining and throwing out excuses. I'm done with excuses. (Until the next time I don't want to take responsibility for myself or my actions. Which happens to us all, so don't point fingers.)

My youngest brother has always given me a lot of crap about my perfectionism. Instead of just getting something done, I try to make it perfect. It has to be done in the perfect order, in the perfect way, at the perfect time with the perfect result. This is partially a result of my work ethic - of wanting everything I do and produce to be of the best possible quality. I hate doing shoddy work and I hate being embarrassed by what I create or produce. However, when taken to the extreme, I get stuck in a self-destructive loop where I can't get anything accomplished because it won't be perfect. Either I keep starting over or I don't get started at all.

I hate breaking up larger projects. I like to get it all done at once so it's not hanging over my head or waiting to be finished. Remember when I said I'm not a procrastinator? Sometimes, procrastination isn't a bad thing. I need to learn that if I can't get all of a project or task finished at once, it's okay to leave part of it for later. If I really do have the self-discipline I think I do, then I'll be able to come back to it later and finish it.

(Yes. This might just be why I have trouble with my longer writing projects.)

I can hear my brother laughing at me and telling me: "I told you so."

Yes. Yes, you did.

I also tend to prioritize things starting with what I want to do the least instead of what's most interesting. The problem is that there's more I don't want to do than there are things I want to do, so I end up not working on the things I want to do - like gaming, writing, etc.

That, I think, is the major problem.

It comes down to one concept. Sabbath.

I saw that. All you folks on my friends list or on my Facebook who are allergic to religion just tuned out. Hell, I bet some of you just stopped reading and went on to something else.

I hope some of you stayed, because although I'm going to talk a bit about religion, the concept is one that's not just religious.

The idea behind Sabbath is rest. Fun, even. Doing something to recharge yourself for the next bout of crap you don't want to deal with. We all need a break from the daily grind. I'm not just talking about vacations or an extra bit of sleep or watching a television show. I'm talking about time you devote just to making yourself feel better.

Without feeling guilty about it.

Writing fic or my stories always makes me feel better. Blogging makes me feel better. Clears out my brain and leaves me more focused. The same for reading a good book or playing an RPG. Or even just going out and about and seeing something new or going to a new place without the purpose of accomplishing a specific task.

I'm really, really bad at this.

A lot of people are, really. For all that America is considered a very hedonistic culture, most of us are really bad at really doing things to make ourselves feel better. I think that's why we've developed such a dominant set of entertainment industries. Did you know that compared to most other 'first world' western nations, Americans take less time for themselves and invest less time in feeling better than almost anyone else?

Sure, this is a concept that, taken to the extreme, can make your productivity go down the toilet.

I think that our tendency to take it to the extreme, though, is a backlash against the culture of productivity we live in. (Yes, we do live in a culture that emphasizes getting things done, believe it or not. But that is a topic for another blog and another day.)

I think that's why Christianity has the concept of Sabbath - and it's a concept I'm just now starting to understand. Understanding it and practicing it are two different things, though. In order to properly devote time to recharging, you have to know what's really going to be quality and what's going to be empty fluff and it really is different for every person.

(And yes, for you Christians reading this, while writing it I suddenly felt a conviction to practice Sabbath. For those of you non-Christians, I finally realized what I'm doing to screw myself and what I might be able to do to start fixing it.)

In truth, I've neglected this for a long time. I spend so much time working and plowing through the daily grind that I set aside almost no time for myself. I thought I was, but I'm really not, and it's messing me up far more than I thought it was. (And this is not the place I thought this blog would end up. It's a bit more relevant than I thought it would be. Huh. Go figure.)

Thinking about it, I don't think I've ever been very good at practicing Sabbath. Part of me has always quietly considered it a waste of time - time I could spend better getting things done.

But, it's fairly obvious I'm not. Time to try it God's way and see what happens, I suppose. (Yes, you folk who are allergic to religion can probably tune out now, unless you like me enough to keep reading. But hey, you've made it this far, right?)

So there it is. Something resembling a plan.

The other part of the plan is just as hard as learning to relax and recharge. I have to learn to procrastinate productively by making myself leave parts of projects for later and start taking things in smaller, more manageable chunks. Otherwise, I'm going to end up really and truly burning myself out.

If you're the praying type, I'd appreciate it. If you're not...just remind me that it really is okay to relax. It's even good for me.

Or so I'm told.

This boring ramble is brought to you by Jayiin staying up to wait for laundry. Irony? Perhaps.

So much for evolution

2011-05-03T22:14:00.000-07:00

You know, one of the reasons I'm not fond of the theory of evolution(1) is fairly embarrassing: it means having to admit the men in my family, myself included, are probably more closely related to cavemen than we'd like to admit.

It would explain a lot of things really. It would explain why, despite our adaptability, occasional (and surprising) calm, our general level of intelligence and our addictions to modern conveniences we seem to have the ability to tap into some primal depth that lets us go longer and work harder than circumstances should allow.

(Was that fairly arrogant? Yes. Am I sorry for it? Not really. I probably should be, though.)

It would also explain other things. That we tend to favor going through obstacles instead of around them. Why we have so much trouble dealing with social niceties like passive agression, dropped hints and small talk. Why we tend to be more interested in getting things done and being practical than making things pretty. (Why worry about interior decorating when there are chores and projects that need doing? Why sit and watch television when there is work waiting? Why play competitive sports when we can compete against others in 'number ot things accomplished in the shortest amount of time'?)

It would also explain why, without any real reason, the reptile hindbrain kicks into a high gear and sets us off on irrational, unnecessarily aggressive protective tears for no rational reason.

For example.

I have a girlfriend. (If you didn't already know that, then you weren't paying attention nine months or so ago when I got her. I wandered around in a daze for about six weeks mumbling: "I have a girlfriend?")(2)

My girl friend has a friend. This friend and I don't know each other very well. In fact, we've met once. The way she functions in life and the way I function in life are completely different.

She's something of a social butterfly (nothing wrong with that!) and tends to be more interested in prime time dramas I've never heard of, reality television and interpersonal drama than with anything I'm interested in. In fact, a day or so after we met (for all of two hours or so) she apparently spent part of an evening discussing me and judging me with a friend who had never met me.

Generally, that kind of thing is enough to make me write somoene off. After all, she doesn't know me, so who the fuck is she to judge me? People who talk about me behind my back like some kind of nattering magpie when we've had such limited contact aren't generally people I want to deal with very much. They bring the drama. And I'm allergic to drama. Gives me hives.(3)

Still, she's my girlfriend's friend, which means there has to be more to her than that. And writing off your girlfriend's friend isn't smart.

(And really, I'm christian now. I can't really do that sort of thing anymore. Forgive, lead by example, be Christ to those I meet, etc.)

Sure enough, she brought the drama.

She gave out my girlfriend's phone number - without my girl's permission (or even bothering to ask if she could) to a guy. Now this guy is someone my girl knew when she was in middle school and he was in high school. And at that time, he apparently had a crush on her. Now, he apparently has a kid. (And maybe still has a crush on my girl.)

The guy texted her and said 'you should call me,' but my girl isn't all that comfortable with new people randomly appearing and saying 'we should have contact' without a)warning and b)desiring said contact in the first place. Needless to say, my girl (who has social anxiety issues and will kill me for this post) wasn't comfortable with the situation.

She was a bit freaked out, felt betrayed and backed into a corner. She didn't know how to protect herself without hurting her friend, maybe even getting the guy upset with her friend because she didn't contact him back. She didn't want to upset anyone or hurt anyone or cause any problems...but she didn't want to contact him back. She was having enough trouble adjusting to working a full-time job that involved 40+ hours a week of contact with total strangers and being surrounded by people most of the day.

People she had to talk to. Interact with. Approach and make contact with.

In some ways, that part of the job was living nightmare for her. But it was a professional thing, where she had the barrier of 'I am doing my job and providing customer service' between her and the people. There was no expectation (aside from a few creepers) of further contact or interaction outside the paradigm of the store. Limited contact for a specific purpose.

This was different - the guy wanted to forge a personal relationship with her, kindle (or re-kindle) a years-lost pseudo-friendship she didn't remember until much, much later. Not only would it be personal, social contact - it would be in situations where she didn't have safeguards in place. She would have to set boundaries (after figuring out what those boundaries would be) and go to the interpersonal effort of making sure those boundaries stuck.

This can be a monumental effort for those of us who don't have panic attacks when confronted by uncomfortable social situations. For her, it was like being asked to climb Mount Everest, without oxygen, after six weeks of privation camping in the Amazon rain forest. Without a rest in between.

She didn't respond to him, but it did eat at her a bit.

Some time later, we found out this person had been making some rather...not cool comments about my girl. Something along the lines of "She's not calling me back because she's having sex with her boyfriend."

Now, I was already profoundly annoyed that someone - anyone - would dare pass out my girl's phone number to a relatively unknown person without her permission. I was somewhat irritated by the presumptuous tone of the text the recipient of her number sent.

Up until hearing that, I'd been able to fight it off. I'd done a rather admirable job of being rational and reasonable about things. In my that other social circle, it might habe been perfectly acceptable to give out someone else's personal contact information without regard for their safety or desires. It might have been perfectly reasonable to sent a demanding text to a girl you haven't seen in years without so much as a 'hey, do you remember me?'

Hearing that, even third/fourth hand, set it off. That unreasonable, primal, irrational instinct to protect. Protect my girl from those people who weren't a credible threat - or even more than an irritation, really.

No. I dropped straight into it - what my mother calls 'caveman mode' - that place where all logic and reason is devoted to the pursuit of a single goal: take care of my girl.

This was not a jealousy thing. I'm not worried my girl would be remotely interested in this guy, let alone him being any kind of a threat to my relationship. But that neandrathal part of my hardwiring was screaming at me.

I can't describe it, really. My entire focus narrowed and all I could think of was: This person. He is a threat. If he had been there in front of my, violence would have almost certainly occurred. (Overreaction, much?) Hunting him down, backing him into a corner and threatening to rip his tongue out with a pair of pliers I had with me for perfectly legitimate reasons?

A good plan!

Getting his number from my girl and making threatening phone calls where I promised retribution most terrible should he dare utter one word about her, think about her or even have a stray thought of 'I wonder if she's still dating the crazy fat dude with the psychotic tendencies?'

A necessity!

He's not a threat. Why would it matter that someone I've never met and my girl doesn't really have any interest in renewing her acquaintance made a tasteless joke at her expense?

Hell. She'd even already gotten a new phone number (on my urging) when she switched cell phone plans. (If giving out her phone number was acceptable for one person, why not others? I didn't want to risk it.) And her friend had agreed not to give it out to him! (She didn't apologize or admit she was wrong for giving it out without permission in the first place, but you can't have everything from a social group with social mores that make no sense.)

But there I was, sitting in my car. I'd dropped my girl off at her place and I was hell bent on getting home, jumping onto facebook, and sending her friend a strongly worded (read: truly offensive) rant about what she had done.

Is this my place? No.

Can my girl take care of herself? Yes.

Should I have done it? Absolutely not.

(Did I do it? No.)

Not that it mattered. I was positive I had to protect her. I had to grab my club and hunt down those members of another tribe who had dared threaten my woman!

From afar. In a way that wasn't really a threat...just kinda rude, insensitive and presumptuous.

Yeah. Real mature. Real grown up.

I've seen this before in myself with other girls I've dated. Or been friends with. Or worked with. Or just known. Or met casually by accident.

This overwhelming, primal urge to protect. My Dad has it. My brothers have it. My grandfather has it. I can only assume my Dad's brothers have it. I've grown up around it.

My father would brook no insult to my mother, even though she was more than capable of handling herself. My mother used to have to talk him out of going to her office to let the people there know what he thought of how they treated her. Especially her male bosses.

Hell, he insisted on him or one of his sons being there when health professionals came to the house for her physical therapy.

How ridiculous is this?

Sure, it comes in handy when there's a crisis and we really do need to take care of our girls. The drive to go to any length, any effort, any expense (and without regard for ourselves or whoever was stupid enough to get in our way) to make sure we protected our girls has, in fact, made it possible for us to handle some fairly tricky and difficult situations.

The feral caveman-mode has made surviving really hard situations possible. The primal urge to be the strongest, best and most productive we could be, no matter what, has served us well (and has gotten us all into trouble).

Hard truth: I know better.

Not only do I know better from a purepy social perspective of 'it is not my place to fight her battles for her, I know better from a christian perspective of understanding that people - especially me - are fucked up and do/say things to/about each other without any real thought all the time. Most of the time, we don't even mean to be assholes and cause drama or hurt people.

Rationally, I'm sure her friend didn't, even for a split second, think she was doing a bad thing. I'm sure the guy didn't really think he was freaking her out. And I'm sure they would both feel bad if they knew the extent of it.

If I were really following through on the christian way, I should have encouraged her to make contact with them, helped her forge those relationships and helped her work through all her hurdles. And done so in a loving, patient, kind and forgiving way.

Yep. I failed.

I listened to the caveman in me and encouraged her not to pursue things; I was going to protect her from the discomfort they were causing by standing between them and her if I had to! I was going to growl and menace and keep them back - even if it meant I looked like (or maybe was being) an overly controlling asshole boyfriend.

Damn the consequences, she would be safe from them! They wouldn't upset her delicate balance. They wouldn't cause her confusion, awkwardness and emotional exhaustion. They wouldn't force her into unwanted social interaction if she didn't want it!

(Or maybe even if she did...I wans't too keen on how they were acting.)

I had no fear of their ire. I had no fear of what they would think or of what they would say. Or of what might happen because of it.

In my more lucid moments, when I was more modern man and not caveman, I even felt a faint shame about it. But the other hard truth is this: I'm not all that evolved, because that faint shame isn't enough to make me put down my club and start using polysyllabic grunts.

I still don't like the situation. I still don't like the way she's been treated. And I know there's a line there I can't quite see...and if they cross it, I'll forget I'm a reasonable, rational person and I'll start saying 'ooga booga, no hurt girl!'

So much for evolution. At least in my case.(4)

Footnotes

(1) This post is not meant to start any kind of a discussion of evolution or the theory of. It was just a lead-in to the actual point of the post.

(2) She is not 'mine.' This post is not meant to indicate possession. The term 'my' is used to indicate 'she is the girl with whom I am in a committed, long-term relationship.'

(3) The person to whom I am referring will see this post linked on facebook, but will probably not bother to read the post. Even if they do, I've never been one to hide my thoughts on such things. One of these days, I will master the art of 'not being an asshole,' but not tonight.

(4) Yes. Long post is long. It is my blog, after all.

Writing Errata and Etc

2011-02-27T20:11:00.000-08:00

We aren't going to talk about my failure to blog these last few weeks. Really, we aren't. Becuase I'm lame and I know it.

Yes. My blog has been suffering from neglect. Sadly, with this post, I will have posted as much in Jan - Feb 2011 as I did all of 2010.

It's not from lack of ideas or inspiration. Or even from lack of time. For the first time in a long time, I can say that I seem to be on bottom-dead-center where my writing is concerned and I can't honestly say there is anything to blame other than myself.

So. Mea culpa. Now what?

Writing one blog post won't do a damn thing to help me get serious about writing again; neither will blogging in general (even if it is good practice). I'm reading plenty, have plenty of creative input and enough free time that I could be plugging away at half a dozen writing projects.

I can say, however, that I haven't been completely useless on the writing front. There are things going in the orbit of my writing that are (slowly) providing me some impetus to get off my fat ass (or should that be 'sit my fat ass down') and write.

• WizardTales, the fantasy fanfiction site I've been part of/on staff of off-and-on since around 2006 has just re-opened it's doors after about a two-year haitus. This time around (third time's the try, right?) we're simplying things a bit and doing things somewhat different. Mostly behind the scenes. Somehow, I've been handed the Red Hat (site admin, for those who don't know MMM parlance). Things are (of course) moving slow, but they are moving. Fanfiction remains a strong inspiration and motivation for me.

• An old friend contacted me early on this year and made me an offer; thusly, I find myself as a member of UK Authors. I haven't been there very long, and the culture and attitude of the people there is vastly different than any other writing community I've been a part of. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet or how I feel about the welcome I've recieved. They don't seem interested in discussing craft as much as they seem to enjoy irritating each other around the boards. The quality of writing is about the same as I've found on other internet forums - some of it is fantastic and some of it is terrible. They have real support and a thriving community of poets there. In all truth, I'm not much of a poet. I've written a few decent ones, but nothing special. And I seem to have lost the knack of it over the years. The jury is still out on UK Authors, bu being there is making me realize how much I need to write.

• the Katheryn story is nearly 16 years old, and for the first time in almost six of those years, the story is starting to make sense. Writing the (first part of the) prequel for NaNoWriMo in 2009 was a good idea. It shook loose some of the cobwebs and helped me see more of what I really wanted the story to be about. Setting it down for over a year was an even better idea, because now that I have some distance, I've started to untangle the knot of issues at the core of the story and started to make some real progress on how I want to write it.

I think I had an idea too ambitious for my skills and I'm only just now really coming into the level of skill and maturity I need to write the story and do it justice. It's taken awhile, but I think I'm finally getting there.

• Forum-based RP has always been something that gets my creative side moving - the same goes for tabletop RP. I'm hoping to make more time for both in the near future. (And, if I can actually keep some momentum, my next post will be about tabletop RP. Someone please hold me to that.)

Hopefully, some of this does something. Because I can honestly say I am not a bad writing. I might even be good.

Recently, a good friend of mine called me up and left me a very serious voicemail.

She had run across an old story of mine that was loosely based on real events, answering the question "what if" about a real scenario. She'd found and read the story when she googled herself (she was in the acknowledgements, because the names had been changed to protect the guily) and thought: "Oh shit. Was I that kind of asshole to him?"

Truth: she wasn't. But the story made it out that way. Sort of. (The narrator was an emo pussy version of myself. He whined a lot and very much had a fatalistic 'life sucks' attitude.)

The story was good enough she was afraid the events were real and she wasn't remembering what happened right. I wrote that story about a decade ago, so obviously - I don't suck if I can write a story well enough that someone who knows better doubted their own recollection of events.

I need to get off bottom-dead-center and write.

If any of my friends out there want to help with that - nag me about writing. Nag me until I'm mad. Ask me about stuff until I have to start writing just so I can make everyone stop nagging me.

Either that, or just keep throwing things at the back of my head until I start writing and stop sitting around saying "I should write."

Otherwise, I will turn into the loser I'm afraid I could be.

New computer is new

2011-01-30T23:02:00.001-08:00

I'm a computer guy.

Some guys are car guys. They love cars. Even if they don't have a 'pimp' car, they know car stats and car stuff and they make psuedo-obscene monkey noises when an awesome car rolls by. For some guys, it's boats. Or guns. Or tools. Or whatever thing it is.

As a little kid, I used to draw computers on the chalkboard in the garage at home. I used to count down the days and the hours to the computer classes we had in elementary school, on old, ancient Apple Computers. I used to handle the 5 1/4 floppies with reverence. My fascination didn't end there. In middle school, I was one of the onlh kids who understood what a network was, much less a token-ring adapter.

My fascination with computers is much like my fascination with other things. It only carries me so far - to the point where I'm good at something, I have a solid base of knowledge with some surprisingly in-depth tidbits and no small amount of technical skill. I'm nowhere near the level of a true IT professional. (Though if you squint at it really hard, my job could make me an IT professional. If you squint really hard.)

Really, my love affair with computers is more about their use as tools. Although we didn't really explore such things in school, we did get a cursory introduction to things like word processing and spreadsheets and databases - although practical and incredibly powerful tools, the teachers stuck with my generation didn't trust or live with computers the way teachers now do. Nowadays, teachers put computers (and the internet) in the same category and reading, writing and math. Survival skills without which you will flounder in the world.

Most of my peers saw computers as a novelty item - or later, a necessity for typing up a reporrt. Or playing games. They were tools, yes - but tools like pencils are tools or rulers are tools. They are things that you use to accomplish specific and limited goals. There was a brief period of time where computers meant more to most people, but that passed with the advent of smart phones and all the rest of the hand-held gadgetry. Already, tech bloggers are saying netbooks are on their way out in favor of touch screen 'phones.'

I guess I'm an anachronism. My phone is still pretty stupid and doesn't always tell me when I've been texted (but I'm still marvelling at the novelty of a color screen on a cell phone! Those haven't been around as long a some folk tend to think!)

I'm an anachronism because I still love my computer. Specifically, my portable computer.

For me, computers were a revelation and have become the single most important tool in my life. Take a guy with a slightly-better-than average creativity, a solid dollop of diction, decent intelligence and a smattering of almost-there skills and you have a guy who would be spectacularly useless.

Put that guy behind a computer, and he can be a genius. When I was a kid, especially in middle school, I saw computers as my salvation. Not in so much as they would give me a lucrative career, but they could save me from mediocrity. A dyslexic writer is a slow writer - until you give him a keyboard and a spell-checker. I'm a crappy artist who can't draw stick figures without a ruler and compass, but I'm a pretty damn good desktop publisher and an almost halfway decent graphic designer (as long as the graphics are someone else's.)

In truth, I'm not good at much other than writing, talking and inductive reasoning. With a computer, I discovered I was able to write, talk to people, enter into communities and even be respected for what I said and did as opposed to dealing with all the social issues I had at school or at work. (Yay for BBS!. And if you don't know what that means, don't tell me.) I could be good at almost anything!

(Many of my peers have long since had this epiphany, but as I had it earlier, I always had an edge in the learning curve/skill department.)

I decided to know as much as I could about computers and I got really good at them. Teachers asked me for help and I had a pretty high level of access on my middle school network, thanks to an awesome SysOp computer teacher. I learned DOS and I learned some coding and I learned how and why computers worked.

With a computer, I wasn't just a geek (and therefore an object of pity and/or cruelty). I was useful.

So one day, I decided I needed to take a computer with me everywhere. I think I was in 8th grade and the thought of having my very own laptop computer was the Holy Grail of Awesome. It's like that boy who loves cars mowing lawns to earn the cash to buy his first junker. In my case, it was slinging french fries and cream gravy at a fried chicken fast food hut to earn the scratch to buy my first bare-bones system.

I bought it out of the classified ads, if that tells you anything. It was a Toshiba with a 586 processor and a 1.3 GB hard drive. (Which, back then, was freakin' enourmous.) It didn't even have a CD-ROM. My uncle helped me install Windows 95 on it. There were so many 3.5 disks. It had wordpad.

But it did have a modem (33.6!) and could access my bulletin boards and that was good enough for awhile. Suffice it to say, I've gone through a fair few laptops in my day. Some have been the luxury sport cars and have cost me an arm, a leg and my self-respect. Some were junkers with Windows ME that I could barely make work, no matter how hard I tried.

My latest computer was a netbook by ASUS. It was a great little machine that did far more for me than the specs or the design said it should. It accompanied me on all my recent travels to Seattle and Dayton and San Antonio. Despite being a tiny thing designed for limited use, it did the work of a full-size, fully equipped computer, handling graphic and web design and lasting through two NaNoWriMos.

It died a couple of weeks ago, and I panicked. I was devastated. My stalwart companion, my trusty computer was dead. I didn't kill computers! I worked them into the ground and retired them when they were at the end of their useful span. My skills kept them going to the bitter end and I could always judge right when it was time to start saving for the next one.

This time, I killed it. I overworked it, I think, and it's poor heart finally gave out.

It took a few hours for it to sink in. My computer was dead.

Hence, the panic.

Oh, I knew my data was fine. The hard drive wasn't the problem, the power supply was - I hadn't lost anything.

But. I didn't have a computer. What was I going to do without one? How would I function? What purpose would I serve without my all-important tool? How could I do my job without one? How could I communicate or, or...or just be me without a computer?

I was in a horrible state for about 24 hours. I didn't know what to do with myself without my computer. It wasn't even the internet (I realized that fairly quickly) - it was the machine itself and all the infinite possibilities and infinite abilities it represented. I tried doing what other people say they do for fun - playing video games didn't work and watching TV has never been my thing. I could read, but...even then, there was this giant, gaping hole in my universe I had no idea how to fill.

Yeah. I know. I have a problem.

I knew I could fix my netbook, but it would take weeks (to get the parts) and cost almost as much as a new netbook. Which was about all I could afford.

So.

With the help of a good friend (who happened to work at Geek Squad), a loan from my father and a cash advance from work, I was able to acquire a new computer. And it was during the process of said acquisition, I realized I had fallen into complacency. Without my friend's help, I never would have known the netbook was a bad idea, because I had no idea that Windows 7 Starter wouldn't have done what I needed it to do.

Nor would I have known why upgrading a netbook to Windows 7 Home was a Bad Idea(TM). Why? Because for the first time in my entire life, I had been running a computer that was two operating systems behind. I didn't even know what the different versions of the OS did!

My shame was almost enough to make me decide to go luddite, but that lasted only as long as it took me to realize that it meant I would no longer be a Computer Guy (if I still was).

I indebted myself all over the place, put my old hard drive in a case to make it an external and bought the new computer. My father fronted me enough money to get the insurance, software and protection I need for it (so that I don't end up destroying it on accident). I got it home and went through that delicious process of setting up the computer - pulling it out of the box, peeling off the foam and turning it on for the first time. Ignoring that small fear that what you bought is really a peice of crap (although this time, knowing the insurance I had on it and the research both my Geek Squad buddy and I had done on it, I was more confident than usual about the computer.)

It didn't take me long after that to realize I was in over my head. Windows 7 and Windows XP were vastly different. It was like learning Windows 95 after working on Windows 3.11.

Almost nothing worked the same! Oh sure, the basics of windows are the same, but the file structure and root directories and startup protocols were different. (No boot.ini file? Wtf is this?)

I hate being ignorant, especially about computers. So I went and bought a thick book on Windows 7; I refuse to let my computer be smarter than me.

Okay, so you read this far and you probably don't see the point of this entry at all. The point is pretty simple: I had never really given much conscious thought to how important computers are in my life and I sometimes wonder if they have the same place with other people, or do others see computers the same way I see the microwave. It's dead useful, but it doesn't occupy a central portion of my identity.

I'm damn glad I have my new computer, even though I'm still not entirely sure I'm comfortable without Windows 7. I think without the computer, I might be in a lot more trouble than I thought.

Very Good Day

2011-01-23T22:56:00.000-08:00

This is my third attempt to write a blog for this week.

The first attempt was a boring and dismal failure, talking about the death of my old computer and getting a new one. Big news in my life, but not really the stuff folk want to read about. I was kinda proud of it, too. It had links to the computer's specs and it talked about how annoying (humiliating) it is for me as an an IT professional, (after a fashion. If you squint real hard at my job) to know nothing about Windows 7 - not even enough to know which version I would need for what I do.

Boring. I still wanted to write about it and I still might, if I can find a way to make it remotely interesting to the rest of you.

The second was about responsibility. A bit philosophical, but boring.

Instead, I'll tell you about my Very Good Day and my Very Good News.

The Very Good News is that by the time I get this posted, I will have been dating (officially) my girl for six months. Yay us! Truth to tell, I never thought I would write something like that every again. But, there it is. Just goes to show that things can work out way more awesome than I think they can.

And before you go hide under your desk from my flood of words, I'm not going to give you a 'how we met' story. Seriously overrated, writing those down. Especially since this one is a lot of me banging my head on my desk saying "Bad me. No treat. Cannot has girl."

When, in reality, I could have. And do.

No. It is today that was very good.

It didn't start that way. I closed the store on Saturday night, which is, in and of itself, not a terrible thing. My girl was closing with me and we had a really cool co-worker closing with us. And I didn't have to do a lot of the painful manual labor, just the painful mental labor. Considering it's been a good long while since I had a regular closing shift, it's kinda my turn.

No, it's not closing. It's waking up the next morning and crawling out of bed early enough to go to church. This is hard enough as it is, because I so rarely have the chance to sleep in that missing church for a bit of extra sleep is really tempting. But I got up and I hated myself for it.

I hurt this morning. I cannot tell you how much I hurt this morning. Everything ached. Including things that haven't been aching lately. I could barely walk; I stumbled around, got dressed and staggered out the door. I've been missing too much church lately, I missed my friends and damn it, I was going to go!

I picked up my girl from her place and we went to pick up my brother, but he was more dead than she and I were, so he stayed home. We went to church, foregoing breakfast. The effort to procure it seemed insurmountable. Insanely so. The effort of parking. Getting out. Walking in someplace. Deciding what to eat - yeah, no. To say nothing of getting back in the car and driving to church only to have to get out again.

Sarcastic? Me? Never. Perish the thought.

Thankfully, some kind and wonderful soul had brought doughnuts. I threw some money in the breakfast pot and had a couple. I also drank the Monster I had with me and wrote a bit, listened to the fun sermon, in which the pastor dressed up like a mad scientist and even had a fake mad science/Late Night TV Product gizmo as part of his demonstration. As I'm nominally on the web/PR team for the church, I valiantly crawled out of my nice, comfy chair and took some pictures. Not that I did that well, really - I couldn't get the flash to turn off until the very last picture.

Yeah. I should have RTFM closer. Because it's my camera.

By the time I left church, I'd been hugged by half a dozen kids, talked to a bunch of people I missed and I didn't hate the world as much. I headed from church out to a very successful meeting with a co-worker where we planned out quite a bit of a project we're both involved in and came up with a couple of new ideas the boss really liked. We made a lot more work for ourselves, but - I think, in the long run, it was a good thing.

Then off to see the Seth Rogen Green Hornet movie.

What a fucking waste of time and money. It was even worse than Scott Pilgrim, if you can believe it. Seth Rogen didn't even try to play Britt Reid. He just played a slightly more heroic version of most of his characters - dumb, lazy, and none too entertaining. They butchered the story and played merry hob with the characters I love (except for Lenora Case. Cameron Diaz was awesome.)

Look - I bet the movie isn't really that bad, just based on the merit of me hating it. But I don't like buddy movie comedy. I don't like parody movies very often and I hate awkward situational humor where the entirety of the joke is one guy is being an ass.

The good part of the day? My girl. She is incredibly supportive of me in so many ways. If you've been reading me long, you know I have an obssession with 'getting stuff done.'

Well, the reason for that is for about two or three years there, I didn't. I just didn't. I sat around on my ass, played forum RP, read and wrote fanfic and tried to figure out my life through the zen art of doing absolutely shit. I wrote a lot of stuff that's pretty much nothing more than extravagant practice, honed my skills at being an online GM for a bunch of geeks who can't let go of dead fandoms and didn't really advance my life much.

Now, I'm playing catch-up from those few years. To be honest, a lot of what I have to do isn't fun. Some of it is learning writing discipline again. (Which is why I'm forcing myself to write this terrible entry, even though it's terrible.) Some of it is just slogging through all the crap I've got to get rid of. I did a lot of that the last two years, but there's still the garage and there's still too much crap in my room.

Some of it is just learning not to leave little things and a lot of it is learning to be better about taking care of little thing - email responses, review responses, writing/calling/responding to people. The end result is I have a long list of projects that have just sat there, and I have tried to make myself get through them from time to time. I start to make progress - I really do - and then I just go back to sitting.

I could blame it on the fibro and the fatigue that comes with it, and while that is a factor, it is not the major one. I could blame it on busy schedule and on priotizing thing, but that wouldn't be really honest, either. I could take the tried and true road and call it a 'combination of factors' or some other bullshit.

Yeah. Not really. I just stop and end up just sitting, staring at my computer and watching the list of crap I have to do grow.

The real problem? I needed help. I needed just a little bit of help to get moving and keep moving. My girl is givng me that help. She's being supportive, affectionate, attentive and is even willing to just sit on my bed and watch TV or play Pokemon while I trudge through the morass of crap I've let build up.

She's read my writing and is encouraging me to write more without nagging. She's willing to sit with me while I sort through things and willing to help me clean out things and willing to help me do some of the crawling around on the floor or moving around of things (despite being very tiny, she's rather tough) that is hard on me physically.

That little bit of help has me moving forward at an accelerated pace. Even before we were actually dating, he helped me a lot - tagging along on errands, helping me in the day-to-day organizing, etc. Just having her there makes it easier for me to do and makes even the most annoying and frustrating errands bearable and sometimes even fun.

And before some of you throw down the line about the 'shiny wearing off' - she's been helping me like that for more than a year now, and the shiny hasn't worn off yet. I know lots of couples who have been married decades who still like to do stuff like that together, just to be together.

So nyah, naysayers. I'd stick out my tongue at you, but you wouldn't see it.

She made today awesome, because even though I was hurting, she helped me slog through what needed to be done and a lot of what I wanted to get done.

When I set up my new computer, I looked at my to-do list and I realized that I had made a lot of progress in the last year. I finally realized how much progress when I realized I was actually starting to look some of the big, nasty projects in the face.

And for once, I'm staring right back at them.

So that's my good day. A day spent being productive and being with my girl and going to bed feeling like it's okay to go to bed for the first time in a long time.

2011

2011-01-14T20:43:00.000-08:00

This post brought to you a week late by computer failure, utter exhaustion and insane amounts of work.

I am thirty years old.

It's odd how much that surprises me. It's almost like I didn't expect I would make it this far - that somehow, reality would somehow stop and I wouldn't turn thirty. I can't even claim I didn't see it coming because eighteen months ago, I was pretty worried about turning thirty.

Why (w)angst over it? Because I'm supposed to! Didn't you know? Thirty is the beginning of 'middle age' and soon that slow, inevitable decline into decrepitude will begin. The fun, good part of life is ending!

Or, so I'm told.

Yeah. I call bullshit.

I once wrote about the new year being an arbitrary starting over point; most age milestones are the same thing. I often call it 'magic number theory' - the idea, propagated by popular culture and social conventions, that having lived a specific amount of time automatically confers necessary knowledge, wisdom and skills.

It's especially apparently supposed to be a bit like leveling up in a video/computer/role-playing game. There will be a cool sound effect, some lights, maybe some sparkles and - boom! - you just suddenly know and understand. When you hit the magic number, you suddenly grok life.

(Of course, when you hit this arbitrary benchmark and you don't suddenly get new knowledge, wisdom and skill, you can't very well admit to everyone else you didn't get your level up, now can you? After all, they obviously did. It is most imperative and important that you pretend, because no one should know you don't have it all figured out yet. But only for a little while, because surely next year will be the magic number!)

Just for the record - thirty is not my magic number.

Thirty may not be my magic number, but it is the first birthday I've ever immediately felt different upon reaching. I don't mean that I suddenly feel more knowledgeable or wise - but I do have the overwhelming realization that I have been alive three decades. I am suddenly hyper-aware of all that I have not accomplished.

I say that - but 2010 was incredibly successful. Last year, I wrote about wanting to live legendary, to go out and do and I've done better about going out and doing in 2010 than I ever have before. I travelled more, met more people, expanded my horizons, taken serious personal and professional risks and even fell in love with a girl. Who, miraculously, loves me back.

On the other hand, I haven't spent nearly as much time with my friends and family here in Austin as I should have - and I have not written nearly enough.

[Insert appropriate dramatic pause of acceptable and dramatic length.]

This is the part of my start-of-year blog post when I talk about all my resolutions to fix the mistakes I made last year. Except, I don't like the word 'resolution.' Congress 'resolves' things. So does the UN. And they are the butt of more jokes than even geek culture and (depending on who you ask) don't really accomplish much. And the point of this post is to talk about what I want to accomplish.

So no resolutions. Instead, I'm going to think in terms of goals.

I have had success at setting goals this past year. I've gotten much more aware of my limitations than I think I ever have been and the goals I've set have been set with those limitations in mind.

I know some of you hate it when people talk about having limitations. Some folk I know get really, really (and wrongfully) upset with folk with disabilities talk about 'working within their limits.' Apparently, (some) folk believe the only way to be successful is to overcome limitations and do more than you thought you could.

I've discovered that this can be a very self-defeating line of thought. You can accomplish more than you thought you could; you can achieve anything you set your mind to - but sometimes, you have to respect the limitations you've been set.

Dictionary.com's first definition of limit is: "the final, utmost, or furthest boundary or point as to extent, amount, continuance, procedure, etc."

There are, I think, two kinds of limits. The kind that are real and the kind we put on ourselves. I have a lot of both. Until recently, I didn't play video games, outside of the occasional bout of Bookworm or Bejeweled to clear my head. I hate being bad at things and I know from experience that between poor depth perception and dyslexia, video games are difficult for me.

Frankly, I suck at them.

My girlfriend loves Pokemon. In some ways, Pokemon is to her what Star Trek is to me. She's been amazing, diving headfirst into a lot of things I'm passionate about, going so far as to read the first five Harry Potter books so she could read HPU and is reading quite a bit of katheryn story. She's visually impaired and reading is hard for her. She's gotten involved in Zoids and role-playing and all sorts of things just to be a part of the things I'm doing.

So when I went to Seattle to see my brother this November, I bought myself a Nintendo DSi and Pokemon SoulSilver. She told me I couldn't buy her anything, much less anything expensive - despite the fact I'd saved up money just so I could. However, she didn't say I couldn't buy myself something nice. So I bought something that would let me share one of the things she's really into.

I still suck at video games, but I can play Pokemon and share something with her - I had to throw off a limit I had set myself because I hate being bad at things.

Yes. I pretty much suck at the game, but it's fun sharing something with her.

I can't play for hours at a time, because it makes my hands hurt - I cannot overcome this limit, because my hands hurting are a warning that I'm starting to damage my joints. (I'm going to buy a DSiXL, which is larger and will hopefully be easier on my hands.)

(A lot of my posts talk about my fibromyalgia and arthritis - it's hard not to write about or think about, because these conditions (even more so than my obesity) define some of my limits, especially my physical ones.)

I need to lose weight, but I can't do a lot of high-impact exercise. I can't afford to join a gym, but I can do low-impact walking and other exercise here at home - and I'm trying. Weight loss will be slower than with exercise better geared for it, but I can still exercise.

I can exercise and get healthier, I just can't do it in what is considered the most efficient and effective method. I respect my limits, but I still find a way to accomplish what I want to accomplish.

Before this year, I lived under the delusion that I could overcome some of the things I can't and when I tried and failed, I was very discouraged and ended up not wanting to try anymore.

When I set goals for myself that respect my limitations, I end up making a lot of progress. I went walking; I slowly cut down how much I eat.

Maybe this makes me a coward for not standing up and saying 'RAWRR! I IGNORE MY ISSUES AND DO ANYTHING!, but I don't think so. I think it makes me wise enough to work around my limitations.

So my goals for 2011? Continue what I started doing in 2010, but write more, see my friends and family more often, and take better care of myself.

• WRITE MORE: Time and energy are limited. I'm not setting myself a goal like blogging every night or writing 1000 words a day that would either mean sacrificing all the other things I've worked for or end up being impossible on the nights I'm feeling horrible.

Instead, I plan to blog at least once a week and write on one of my stories at least once a week, even if it's just for half an hour or so. Though this is not the pace I need to set to be a professional writer, it's a start - and it's better than setting an impossible goal and not writing at all. Which is pretty much what I've doing this past year.

I'm going to try to journal more and jot more notes down as I go; I get lots of good ideas when I can't do much with them, but I can start writing down enough thoughts on the ideas that I don't lose them. This one will be the

• PEOPLE: This is probably the hardest goal I've set for myself. I don't really have a day off anymore, since I started taking my mother to her appointments on Wednesdays and I go to church on Sunday. However, I can try to call people more, find times during the week to hang out for just dinner or a movie or just meet at a (blech!) coffeehouse and catch up. Most of my friends live in far south Austin or San Antonio, whereas I live just north of Austin. I'll manage - but gas money and time will be a real constraint.

At least once a month, I will find time to see someone I haven't seen for awhile. If I have to save my pennies for a couple extra tanks of gas or skip out on something else I want to do that costs money, I will.

I'm also going to get better about reading and commenting on people's blogs and facebook - it's not the same as face-to-face contact, but it's a good step. Social contact is hard for me, for a lot reasons, but it's something I need to do. I have a lot of people who are good friends to me, but I haven't been a very good friend to this past year. Sorry, y'all.

• ME: There are a lot of things I need to do to take better care of myself and a lot of them are small. I can find time to walk more, do more exercise at home, buy/cook less food, pay more attention to my physical condition - instead of just assuming I'm going to feel like crap no matter what I do, I'm going to assume at least some things can be made better.

Also, I need more sleep. That's probably going to be the hardest thing I try to do this year.

Compared to my posts for the last two years, this one seems weak and boring - but in a lot of ways, it's just as profound. I can say that I did do what I wanted to do in 2010 - I dove into life and did a lot more with myself than almost any other year I can remember. I went to Seattle twice, visited my best friend in Dayton, was a counselor at a pre-teen camp, and got a girlfriend. (Yeah, I know, mentioned some of this stuff already, but bear with me, okay?)

At the beginning of 2009, I was a disorganized mess - not so at the beginning of last year ot the beginning of this year. I've gotten rid of even more stuff, gotten more organized, and even paid a bit more on my debts (though, I still owe people and organizations massive cash).

I'm much better at getting things done and keeping myself together. I'm better at realizing when I've set unrealistic expectations for myself and taking things in small parts instead of just setting a crazy goal and assuming I'll be able to reach it without a plan.

I can honestly say that I've made progress and have actually managed to make some of major changes in my life that I've wanted to make over the past couple of years.

The truth is, now that I'm thirty, I really have no idea what I want to do with myself for the next thirty years. For the first time in years, I'm writing a New Year's post without feeling desperate, frustrated and feeling like I'm standing still. For the first time in years, I'm not looking back at the past year and saying 'I fail at life.'

That's worth something, I think.

I know there are things I want to do - game, write, hang out with people and continue to go out and do. I'm still living by the credo: "Fuck it. I win."

Even when doing something means I fail. I'm not as scared of failure as I have been. Hell, I've already submitted a story to a contest this year. If that's not a good start, I don't know what is.

Life isn't perfect, but it's pretty good. Why resolve to change what's working?

As for what I haven't accomplished - well, when I think about all the things I have done in the past thirty years, I realize that I have the ability to do twice as much in the next thirty. Many of the things I wanted for myself when I was 20 or even 25 are not the same things I want for myself now and I think I would have been unhappy to have accomplished some of the things I thought I wanted.

Like I said, I'm a little unsure of the things I want for myself now. I know I want to publish my writing, I want to write amazing stories, and I want to continue in the awesome relationship I'm in. I want to have a job like the one I have now - full of variety, challenges, and constant learning and growth. I want to keep expanding my horizons and I eventually want to go back to school - but when the time is right, not just when it seems convenient or easy or when everyone around me tells me I'm supposed to.

So the major goal for 2011? Figure out what my next big step is and start working towards it.

I will keep to what I said last year and live legendary.

And if you read through this without the cheese factor making you nauseous, congratulations.

Once again -

Fuck it. I win.

Oh. And happy new year.

The Trenchcoat Mafia Goes on Vacation (part II)

2010-05-11T18:21:00.000-07:00

Thus continues the story of my journey to Dayton, Ohio. I suppose I should call this a disclaimer, because there will be religious/spiritual stuff in here and I have now warned you of such possibly annoying content. If you're just reading to get mad at me for having Christian spirituality, you're welcome to post mean and nasty comments. Won't hurt my feelings any!

Yeah. I know this has been a long time coming. Still, things have been busy. The last few weeks, I have worked enough hours that they literally had to cut entire shifts off me - which I then had errands, chores, and other sundry crap to do instead of write.

Frustrating.

Still, I figured I'd best get this written now, because I am about to take another trip, this time to Bellevue, WA for the Grand Opening of Dragon's Lair Comics & Fantasy® Bellevue.

I'm pretty stoked. Gonna stay with my brother and his fiance and help usher in the first Dragon's Lair Comics & Fantasy® franchise!

But since I'm planning on writing about that fairly extensively and even taking a camera with me on the trip (*gasp!*), I'd had to be an entire trip behind on writing.

(I do seem to be taking a lot of trips lately, don't I?)

The Trenchcoat Mafia goes on Vacation: Part II: The Knights in Slightly Tarnished Armor Enter the Basement!

Before I continue on with the tale of the trip, a few random thoughts I've had on the subject of vacation. I never really understood the purpose of vacation as a kid, except in the abstract, because we really didn't go on many (and the one time we went, I got horribly sick. I've been scared of Houston ever since!)

Really? The purpose of a vacation should be clear to everyone, even in the abstract: escape from your real life and go visit a fantasy life for a little while. Go see people. See places. Do things you don't normally get to do, even if it's just laze around the house in your underwear and scratch yourself while you watch way too much television and eat like a college fratboy.

The truth is, no one really wants to hear about someone else's vacation unless it's in a coffee table book, a travelogue with pretty pictures or comes complete with gratuitous and salacious gossip. I'm much the same: why do I want to see slideshows of places I can't go to or of people I've never met?

I also believe vacations are journeys - miniature walkabouts, side quests and tangential experiences in life that usually provide pivotal insight, restoration, or even a goal to reach in everyday life. If I work this long and save this way, I can go to this place.

It's those journeys, revelations and insights that I think are what fascinate us about travel stories - what was learned, experienced, gained? (Or, if you're a RP'er - what was your XP and loot?)

So that's why I'm boring you with vacation entries; because it was quite a journey.

I chronicled the journey from Autin, TX to Dayton, OH. Ben and I had made it to Dayton in one peice, albeit tired, sore, hungry and in desperate need of a shower.

The last few minutes of the drive were like something out of a movie: great traffic, beautiful lighthing and a sky that cannot be described; so many colors of blue and gray backlit by the sun, mottled by cotton-puff clouds that looked like they had been carved out of boiling foam and hung in the sky at the absolute perfect angle for casual artistry.

Despite being tired and sore and smelling like I'd been in a car for hours, I swear I could hear the hopeful soundtrack playing in the background as we drove over the bridge from Kentucky into Ohio and from Cincinnati into Dayton.

Ben was practically bouncing in his chair as he drove. I thought he was gonna make a mad dash for the bathroom. Even though he was quivering like a kid waiting to attack Christmas presents, he still kept up his running commentary on Dayton, pointing out landmarks and historical houses and various places we might or might no go.

We pulled up outside Ben and Bri's house, and I was once again struck by something: there was snow. Piles of the stuff. All over the place. It was wet and cold and the novelty had certainly worn off by the time we climbed from the car.

The house was a neat little old house, looking like it was probably built in the 1940's - Ben and Bri had painted it charming blues and reds and left it looking all together cheerful and quite like it belonged on a street full of such houses - which it was.

Oddly enough, this is the kind of place Ben has lived a lot; he's from a small town in Texas called Marble Falls and is country boy at heart. Though he's emerged as an idealist and something of a mystic, he's grown up with a family life and circumstances that fits the American Dream like a glove. In a lot of ways, he's still living it.

Now, don't get me wrong when I say that. It's fantastic. Every time I get to step into his world for a little while, I emerge the better for it. Cleaner, wiser, seeing the world as a brighter and better place than I did before. I always walk away from time in Ben's world with a feeling of hope and optimism.

Why?

Because his life is like it is. Because I know there are people for whom every day is not a financial struggle or who live well; who live simply and with joy in the small things. People who know how to take pride in how their house or yard looks.

For me? That's something I could never get joy out of. I never did find the joy in fixing up my house - just the very idea of it makes me ache all over. I'm not mechanically or artistically inclined, at least not that direction. I can fix almost anything, given time and research. But to paint a house? To renovate a house, as they've done?

I would hate it. It would make me miserable.

The very idea of a Homeowner's Assocation fills me with fear and rage.

Yet, it probably wouldn't bother Ben nearly as much as it bothers me - if at all.

Visiting Ben's world reminds me of all the things I love about my own life, as well as reminding me that just because someone lives in a neighborhood where what your yard looks like matters doesn't mean that there isn't joy to be found there and that such aspects of life aren't just horrid obligations sucking the fun out of life - as they would be to me.

We got out of the car and I staggered around a bit, getting feeling back in my legs and dealing with the fact that there was hole in my boot. I'd discovered it in Nashville, TN and though I'd duct taped it, melting snow was still seeping in and freezing the side of my foot.

Ben got out of the car and made that mad dash I was talking about. Not to the bathroom, but to his wife, whom he hadn't seen in weeks, while he'd been in Autin job searching - she was waiting for him in the doorway. Leaving me, the born-and-bred Texan who knows nothing about snow, to somehow navigate the two entire steps up the walkway to his front porch. (Yes. His house has a covered front porch, and it is awesome.)

So what do I do?

I fall flat on my face. In the snow. My cell phone flew out of my shirt pocket (and though I didn't know it at the time), so did my iPod. WIth as much dignity as I could salvage, I picked myself up, wiped my phone off on my ragged pants, and stumbled, slipped and sort of skated the rest of the way to his porch and into the warmth of his house.

The first thing his wife says to me? "Take off your pants." In her defense, she also told me to take off my boots, because was a bit wet from my faceplant.

Not as awkward as you'd think, if you know Bri. She's a great balance to Ben, who's brain is always running away without the rest of him, leaving him racing to catch up with it before it gets into too much mischief without the rest of him there to enjoy it, too. Bri is very grounded, rooted, and practical.

Greetings could wait. I was dripping on her floor.

Have I mentioned I don't travel well? I don't. It took me awhile to get settled in, including finding a good place from which I could write/be online/do work.

Yeah. My vacation had a bit of work associated with it, but my job is such that I don't currently have a trained backup person, meaning even when I go out of town on vacation, there are still things - some of them daily - that I needed to be doing. The Dragon's Lair Comics & Fantasy® Dispatch, for example. Or site updates. Or the GAMA 2010 Power Retailer Awards Submission.

Still, compared to normal, that was a light workload that I didn't really need to sweat about. I was able to get online, call a few folk and let them know Ben and I had made it in safe and step outside for a smoke.

Smoking on someone's classic front porch is actually pretty freakin' cool.

It was freezing outside, but I was warm enough - Ben had given me a nice pair of leather gloves and a pair of warm houseshoes, so smoking outside was no hardship.

We had a pleasant dinner (home cooked!) and went to bed; it was colder - much colder - than I was used to, but I slept like the dead. Sleeping in was wonderful. I woke up stiff and sore and frozen, but I figured a long, hot shower would cure that.

Normally, I would have been right.

However, Ben and Bri's house, having been built back in the day, didn't have what you would call an ample supply of hot water, so there was no long, hot shower. Instead, I frantically showered as quickly as I could before the hot water in their shower ran out.

If there was one thing I would have changed about that vacation, it was their shower. (Though, I get the feeling they would have changed it out, too!)

None the less, Ben had a solution for his frozen Texan; lots of wonderful hot tea - Ben is a Tea Snob and has lots and lots of absolutely fantastic teas - and a hot, home-cooked breakfast of bacon, eggs, and toast definitely set the right tone for the day.

Then Ben dropped it on me. The News. The awesome, excellent, fantastic new that I would get to sit in with his gaming group.

That's right. My first full day in Dayton? I was going to get to role-play. Not only that, I was going to get to play with a system I hadn't gotten to use before - Paizo's Pathfinder. Pathfinder has been out for awhile and is basically a revision of the old D20 system from D&D 3.5. It's been advertised as D&D 3.75.

Yeah. I was excited. I rarely get to game in person anymore - and though my online gaming group is pretty much awesome, I've missed having a real tabletop game.

Unfortunately for me, I had several hours between the morning and gaming. How was I supposed to wait all day to game? I've been a gamer since my age could be measured in single digits - gaming is one of those things that I'll go out of my way to get to do, burning money, gas, time and energy with wild, reckless abandon for.

(Why yes. Yes, I am a geek. Thanks for noticing.)

So Ben decided to distract me with a museum. I was suffering from Epic Writer's Clog and his friend Angela (from his gaming group, now known forever in my brain now as the Dayton Irregulars) was at loose ends.

You know how most folk collect things? Coins, games, cards, cars, stamps, seashells, etc? So does Ben. However, Ben collects people the way I collect pens. But Ben is very selective about the kind of people he collects - he only collects interesting and fascinating and odd/off-the-wall/out of ambit and lost in the in-between that sits in the middle of completely nucking futs and boring, mundane members of a semi-productive society.

This is not to say Ben doesn't interact with/like/befriend people all across the spectrum - because he does. But there are some of us who gravitate into his sphere of influence in some strange sociological analogue of quantum physics - it doesn't make sense, unless you just decide that it does and work backwards from there.

Angela is one of those people.

Softly spoken, quietly sparkly, subtly intelligent, unobtrusively sophisticated, gently sarcastic and utterly awesome. She's a fantastic artist and a gifted hostess (who treated us to amazing Earl Grey tea in awesome teacups) and managed to not only put up with Ben and I for several hours without backup or shiny distraction, going gamely along with whatever approximation of a plan we concocted.

And if you know the two of us well at all, you should now feel great sympathy and respect for this brave woman.

I like museums. I don't get to go very often anymore, so when I do get to go, it's a special treat - and the Dayton Art Institute was a lot of fun. I got to see some amazing bits of art, wander, talk art, philosophy and pretty much be an academic for a few hours, which is something I don't get to indulge in much these days.

We saw some amazing examples of glass blowing (which I want to someday learn) and got to see some fantastic oriental weapons and armor from the Edo period and I got to explain to Angela the reason katana swords are shaped like they are and how they worked in actual combat. (Not the way you'd think, given their media popularity.)

After, we once again bravely braved the slush and ice and cold and headed out to the Ohio Coffe Co., where in I had weak hot chocolate (though, in their defense, they make coffee, not cocoa) and one of the best chocolate chip cookies I have had in a while.

This started a trend of amazing cookies on this trip.

Now, you have to understand that my drinking coffee is a new thing that began just before I left for Dayton and will, in fact, be the subject of another long post no one will want to read. But it was not the coffee - or even the amazing cookie - that made the Ohio Coffee Co. stick out in my brain for all time.

It was a geek coffee shop. It was full of Star Wars posters, including a Boba Fett cardboard stand-up (I know there's a name for such things, but I do not recall it as of the time of my writing this.) They had Sisko and Picard action figures on their counter and a wide variety of other pictures and paraphenalia and definitely declared them a caffiene den suitable for habitation by geeks.

Once Ben had his coffee fix and I had consumed cookies (there are many reasons I am a fat man. Chocolate chip cookies are some of those reasons), we took Angela back her to place where we would prepare for gaming.

Did I mention Ben was wearing his kilt the entire day? I should mention that, because it was awesome.

I then met Angela's other half - Bryan. Bryan, like his girl, is insanely creative and is very detail oriented, which makes him an excellent GM. He gave me the specs to create a high level character (this game has been going on for years) and talked me through a bit of Pathfinder. Since Pathfinder is basically a revision of a system I already know, so I was able to rather quickly create a character - I recycled a name and created a half-elf Sorcerer/Fighter with a lot of emphasis on the bow.

Professional Geek Moment: (If this were a textbook, this whole section would be in a shaded box on the side of the page. So ignore it if you don't care about gaming or my opinion gaming.) Okay, so I didn't think I would like Pathfinder, because of some of the issues I have with D&D 3.5. (Broken, power gaming, etc.) However, Pathfinder fixes the problems I had with skill in 3.5 and made every class balanced and worth playing, even the much abused fighter. I got a huge kick out of the Sorcerer's optional powers and the Fighter's feat progression. The game play was pretty much a streamlined version of 3.5 and many of the house rules my gaming groups have used for years to balance things out were included.

Since these guys eat pizza, and tomato-sauce is good way to ruin any day, much less a vacation day of gaming, Ben and I ran through a Wendy's to get me sweet tea and bacon-cheeseburger goodness. Once my unhealthy repast was acquired, we drove out to the Place of Gaming.

Which is a basement.

A basement in a house owned by parents.

In more than twenty years of gaming, this was the first time I had ever gamed in a basement. Let alone a Parentally-owned basement. But this basement has been converted into sort of a geek-cave. It's not bachelor enough to be a true man-cave, but it is certainly a geek cave, complete with a large TV, good internet, a gaming computer, couches, bean-bags, bathroom, beer fridge, unused exercise equipment doubling a dirty clothes storage and a fold-out gaming table.

In short? The kind of plcae I wish I'd had to game at when I was a kid.

The Dayton Irregulars are a motley crew with a wide age range, though most of them went to school together and gamed in high school. I was easily the oldest (and fattest) one there, but neither was a real surprise to me.

The game was fun. Angela's lesbian tiefling hit on my poor and the group was experiencing the fun of becoming accidental crusaders through a steampunk maze of clockwork cockroaches, parasitic demi-metals, classic video-game traps and puzzles and mysterious beasties who really, really wanted to kill us in creative and unusual ways. Some of them even used rifles.

The end result?

I had a blast.

I left laughing and grinning and excited about the idea that I was going to get to go again that next week and a bit sad that I wouldn't be able to game with them every week.

After a nice smoke and cup of tea wherein Ben and I (once again) had the kind of discussion we can't have with many other folk, sharing thoughts most people roll their eyes at, I went to bed.

And slept.

More in part III (because this post has been FAR longer than I thought it would be!)

The Trenchcoat Mafia Goes On Vacation (Part I)

2010-03-04T13:04:00.000-08:00

My Living Legendary in February marked a huge change in my life - bigger, I think, than I knew at the time. In reality, this started in September with my decision to travel to Seattle to meet Abi and spend time with my brother Iridanum. This entry is the start of a new kind of blogging for me - that of a serious writer and as an industry professional - as well as the odd religious musing. Livejournal will remain my blog for day-to-day bullshit and randomosity, but anything I consider of import will also be mirrored on Blogger and my new Wordpress account. I've dabbled with serious blogging in the past, but this is the first time I've actually had, you know, a plan. Some of you will think this silly or arrogant...well, too bad. I'm a writer, and you can't be a writer without thinking you have something of substance to say.

None the less, I acknowledge the chances of anyone reading this entire thing are slim to none.

Preface: Back in 2004, my life had a significant change when my fiance left me. This turned out to be a good thing, for both of us, despite the unpleasant drama that resulted. Soon after, I was given the moniker 'The Trenchcoat Mafia' and associated with the Republican party. A lot has changed since then - I'm not Republican (or a member of any party) and I'm no longer so desperate for social interaction I'll go with any group that will have me. Although I now think of myself as a member of the Knights in Slightly Tarnished Armor, I am still the Trenchcoat Mafia and tend to use this in posts when I go walkabout.

So without further adieu -

The Trenchcoat Mafia goes on Vacation: Part I:

Two Knights Ride on Dayton

I had no idea what I was doing. I never do, when I leave Autin. I don't travel well - food allergies, (being) fat, fibromyalgia and a lack of desire to be out and about with people make me a cranky and unfun traveling companion. Yet, there I was - two weeks off work, my bags packed, only two pairs of pants without missing buttons or holes in unfortunate places, very little money and a two-day car ride staring me in the face.

The afternoon of Valentine's Day, two Knights in Slightly Tarnished Armor climbed in our faithful steed Hondo, the Honda CRV that probably didn't want to.

My traveling companion and native guide, Ben, has been one of my closest friends since 2003. We met when we were both working as accomplices to legalized murder (at the Attorney General's Office in Post-conviction Litigation, which included death penalty appeals) and a couple of years ago, he and his wife Bri moved to Dayton, OH. I've been trying to find a way to get up there and visit them ever since. I've always been able to come up with the money to travel up there, but not get home.

Finally, everything fell into place. Ben was down in Austin for a few weeks doing some job hunting and was going to drive back to Dayton. His plan was to kidnap me when he left and Fed-Ex me back to my boss (who would send Orange Ninjas to kidnap me if I didn't come back.)

The plane tickets home were bought, I had a bit of cash in my pockets, time off of work and we were on the road.

As we started driving, two weeks seemed like an eternity in which to rest, write and catch-up on some of my reading. I would get to relax, not worry about things like shaving, combing my hair, or getting up on time. It wasn't much of a plan, but it was a plan.

I should know better than to make plans. Or to think I could really just sit around and do nothing. I am really, really bad at doing nothing. I'm always doing something, even when it's not what I should be doing.

Doing nothing is probably a skill I need to develop.

* We drove out of Austin listening to a Celtic band from Dayton; Ben was excited to get to see his wife again after a month apart. (Ben is proof that my theory about adult love and teenage love are different only in what adults will let themselves express has some basis in fact.) However, as with most adventures I have with Ben, our course wasn't a straight line - it was a journey with a few stops along the way.

Our first stop was in Temple, TX to see Ben's old buddy Homer. One of the few friends Ben has had since middle school, Homer is a character. He's had a varied career which included being a highly-paid and highly-trained painter of vehicles. I'm sure there's a real title for that job, I'm just too ignorant to know it.

We met at a Chili's and had dinner with his friends Ani and Tim. Conversation over dinner was pretty intense, full of Ani's stories of growing up as a Romanian in America and her family's hatred of Gypsies and of Tim's time in the army serving in Iraq. (What of it he remembers; a pretty severe head injury involving an IED has his recollections a little fuzzy.)

After eating way too much, we decided to head to Homer's place to hang out for a bit, where Homer, Ani and Tim partook of some (surprisingly) legal herbal intoxicants and we met Bruno - a huge black lab with an impressively small brain. This dog was very affectionate, very large and very dumb, but was one of the sweetest dogs I've met in awhile. Bruno made me wonder if us humans aren't missing the point, sometimes. He didn't mind jumping at shadows, playing with toys, and generally begging for affection. I wonder what life would be like if we all decided to play games we think are fun, regardless of what everyone else thought, ask for hugs when we want one, and cuddling with our friends when we felt like it.

We might all be a bit happier, even if awkward moments would happen more often than they already do.

I rode with Ani and Tim to Homer's place, because I wanted my after-a-huge-meal smoke and they let people smoke in their car. During rambling conversation, Ani revealed she was a closet comic fan who missed comics - and couldn't find a shop near where she lived. I offered to find her one and send her the address.

After Ani and Tim left so Tim could sleep off his booze and herbs, Ben, Homer and I discussed Homer's recently finalized divorce and the ensuing drama (she got everything; he got to start over with nothing but a computer in Temple). Homer is one of those guys who feels everything intensely, does everything passionately, but never had the drive or desire to pursue business or college or anything like it. He's a good 'ol country boy metalhead with no delusions about his life; he started over, spent his money on things he wanted, and just kept plowing forward, no matter how much his life sucked.

Hell, a year ago, he was sleeping on the floor, because he didn't have a bed - just an empty apartment. Now, he's got furniture, a job he almost doesn't hate, a dog, and a huge TV.

What's important about this interlude, you ask? It's the realization that I met, interacted with, and had fun with a bunch of new people. A couple of years ago, I wouldn't have wanted to; as a general rule, I don't do well with new people. Also, as a general rule, I'm not interested in meeting groups of new people.

This time, I didn't even think about it. I don't know if it's my new philosophy, being on vacation or Ben's influence, but I just - went with it and a good time.

Good for me.

We got back on the road, and the fun started.

We realized Hondo had a headlight that couldn't decide if it wanted to stay on or off (and we saw more cars with one headlight out that night than we normally see in a year) and a heater that only sort of worked.

Let me tell y'all - it started a theme for the vacation: being cold. I'm not used to being cold. I'm from central Texas. I'm used to being hot, sweating like a fat man, and finding every excuse in the world to get back into the miracle of air conditioning.

I don't even own any long-sleeved shirts.

That night, I found myself bundled up in my trenchcoat, huddling down for warmth, occasionally shivering, and wondering why the skinny boy next to me was warmer than the fat man.

You know what? I'm spoiled. Austin is a college town, with several four-year universities, a huge community college, a round dozen reputable trade schools, and any number of not-so-reputable trade schools. As such, Austin doesn't really ever completely close down. No matter the time of night or day, you can always find some place that's open, has wifi, and won't look at you strange for being up at odd hours of the morning.

Well, a few hours of Temple, we needed to stop. Aside from an urgent need to find a bathroom, we needed to make plan for our visit to Nashville, TN, where we were going to visit some friends of mine. By that time, I was having trouble staying awake and Ben was getting bored talking to a half-awake, half-frozen co-pilot who was more interested in doing the pee-pee dance than making coherent conversation.

We tried to stop a few places. But Panera Bread was closed. Coffee shops were closed. Eventually, we found a McDonald's attached to a gas station. After violating their bathroom, getting gas, and buying token pastries to munch on, we did what ever self-respecting geek would do: we whipped out our computers and got on the internet.

I also learned that Ben sees McDonald's the same way he does Wal-Mart - as a
representative of the bad of corporate culture. This was our first conversation on the trip when I realized just how deep Ben's idealism runs. More on that, later, though.

Not sure when on Monday we would roll into Nashville, we did our best to figure out a place that would have the all-important wifi, the slightly less important food, and wouldn't be too offended by the fact we hadn't showered since Sunday morning. We settled on Panera Bread, since Ben likes it and because it had wifi. I hadn't ever been there before, I it sounded acceptable. And what's a road trip without the chance to eat someplace new and have my food allergies make me wish I could die?

Fortified by cheap pastries, caffeine (and in my case, nicotine), we were back on the road. By this point, the novelty of being cold was wearing off, and I was really wondering how people kept warm.

We drove for awhile longer and I managed to stay awake enough to provide almost interesting conversation, even though I did keep drifting off and dozing on him, despite my best efforts not to. We crossed in Arkansas at some obscene hour of the morning and discovered a most wonderful smell.

It smelled like the state had farted on us. I'm dead serious. No matter how far we drove, everything smelled like fart. Really serious 'I had way too much cheap tex-mex for lunch' fart. It was pervasive and pretty much disgusting.

So what were a pair of tired, punch-drunk and kinda grumpy guys to do but pull over and take an outdoor piss right on the state that just farted on us. That it was right outside Bill Clinton's hometown was just an added bonus for me. (Republican or not, he's pretty much my least favorite president. After all, he did try to change English grammar to get out of being caught getting a blowjob from an intern.)

However, this reminded me just how much I dislike the outdoors. I am an avid indoorsman, because I like being able to control my climate and avoid allergies and generally sit in my fat man chair and not have to worry about bugs and pollen and other things nature brings.

However, not even cold can keep a fat man off his feed. Not 30 minutes later, we were pulling into a Waffle House for breakfast. At about 3 AM or so. Now, despite being a southerner my entire life, I had never eaten at a Waffle House before.

This one was...cold. So very cold. It was sub-freezing outside and these crazy folks had the air conditioner on. I think they were trying to cryogenically freeze the customers to re-sell our organs on the black market. The coffee got cold almost as soon as they poured it, and the grease on the food congealed faster than anything I have ever seen. I could scrape it off with a fork.

Now, I'm no stranger to greasy food. But this was a bit ridiculous, even for me. None the less, it was food. We ate our cold food quickly and bailed. The food did little to revive us. It sat in our stomachs like slimy rocks, churning away as our guts did their level best to digest what we had unfortunately consumed.

By then, even Ben's strength was waning, moving us inexorably towards sleep. Somewhere outside Nashville, we found a gas station where I went in for an energy drink (unfortunately, it was Red Bull) and Ben took a nap. I smoked and froze and marveled at the white stuff on the ground and tried my best to wake up enough to help keep Ben awake.

I felt by that time like we had fought our way through a war. Despite it being a fairly easy, smooth, quiet drive, I felt like we deserved a medal for all that we had been through and for my frozen, shivering body.

After about half an hour, we were back on the road. We made it into Nashville just after sunrise (and seeing sunrise from inside a car while half-asleep and half-frozen is not nearly as much fun as it is from your bedroom or back porch) and we found another McDonald's to get me some coffee at.

I drank coffee and Ben napped. We finished our trek at Panera Bread and sat down for food (it took me awhile to find something cheap I could eat) and internets.

We could not log on to their internet. So after we ate, we trudged down a frozen sidewalk, through falling snow (cold white ice falling from sky! It looks prettier from inside the car.

Starbucks internet was just as much of a pain; after buying a Starbucks card and working with one of the baristas, Ben was finally able to get some internet access and get us the information we needed. We chatted with my friend Crystal and came up with a plan and a place to meet and went to our hotel.

We set our stuff down.

Then promptly took naps until it was time to go out for dinner.

Feeling somewhat better, though still tired, we visited Five Guys Burgers. It wasn't bad for having such a limited menu, but was the first bacon cheeseburger I'd had since leaving Austin more than 24 hours before, so it was a good thing.

It was awesome seeing Crystal and Matt again; I hadn't seen them since 2007 when I'd gone to Nashville for their wedding. (Why, oh why, was it colder in February than it had been in December just a couple of years ago?)

Even better was meeting Sariah, their daughter. She's a beautiful kid; very curious, very intelligent and very stubborn! She ran Ben, her parents and I around the
restaurant like a pro - she didn't eat much, but I think that was because she was way more interested in trying to steal sips of my coke (which she never managed to do) and trying to drink all her Dad's lemonade.

Also: she is the warmest baby ever. I was carrying her as we walked outside and she was like a little heater! After eating, we drove out to Crystal's parents' house to hang out for awhile after. Just in that drive, we got all the bad weather we'd been thus far avoided. Snow came down heavily, traffic was backed up, and visibility was a joke, but Ben is skilled in the art of driving in that kind of crud and got us through with ease.

Just like last time I was in Nashville, I felt completely comfortable and at ease there; I sat in the same place in their den I did before and chatted with her brothers and father like I had never left. Alan Rhodes is an amazing man who can tell a tale and talk with anyone about anything.

Since everyone was watching the Olympics (which haven't interested me since I got old enough that the women's gymnastics stopped being full of hot girls and started being squicky), Ben and I ended up sampling Alan Rhodes' homemade beef jerky, drinking tea, and chatting about faith, God and following God. Once again, I was reminded of some of the conclusions I came to while I was up there the first time: that Mormons can be Christians, too (not all Mormons are Christians, just like not call Christians are Christians.)

It was a great evening. Ben and I headed out for our hotel, grabbed me a couple of cokes at a convenience store, and after chatting for a bit and letting me get an internet fix, we crashed and slept like the dead.

The next morning, we were off again. We had a much better experience and much better and much warmer Waffle House. After a brief stop to see a few sites in Nashville, including the Grand Ol Opry. I was more awake on this leg of the trip and, with the sun being (sort of), out and I could see the sights. The Arkansas farts and Tennessee's lack of internets behind us, we drove through Kentucky and through to Dayton. (Really, Kettering, but the Dayton area is kinda odd in that it's all these little towns.)

If you feel bored, tired and a little drained by the time you finish reading this, then you have an idea of how we felt when we arrived.

Live Legendary

2010-02-02T12:58:00.000-08:00

So. The first month of 2010 has come and gone. It was quite a month. In fact, it's been quite a long time since I've had a month like this one. Maybe later in this post I'll find a place to bore you with a nice list of everything that's made it quite a month.

I haven't hurt this bad in a long time. The sudden and sharp weather shifts feel like the planetary rotation comes to a screeching halt and I hit it at full velocity, face-first. The world then comes back around for another swing. Mother nature is using me for pells.

If my science is all screwed up there, we're not going to talk about it. Just like we're not going to talk about my utter and complete failure to blog every day until NaNo began.

But failure is okay.

That's kinda the point of this blog. (Only, tangentially so. I promise it will almost make sense at the end!)

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time (which, by the way, congratulations for extraordinary patience), you know that at the beginning of every year I try to sit down and ponder a bit about the past year. I'm a month late, and the New Year's horse is already dead and decomposing, and here I am beating it with 2x4.

Bored with New Year's ramblings? Don't read. Or, stick with me, because I've got a point to make, and I like my point. You should like my point, too.

Last year I wasn't too happy with myself. I'd spent 2008 as a lump on a log, doing very little of value and generally coasting along in a half-aware haze.

I decided 2009 would be different.

It was.

I have dubbed 2009 The Year of Fail.

In 2009, I got involved in a lot of things - I worked at anime and comic conventions for Dragon's Lair; I visited friends in several other cities, including Fort Worth and Seattle. I got off my butt and exercised more. I cut my soda down and I cleaned up my diet a bit. I got involved in an online writing community (that failed). I joined or tried to join several gaming groups and started a game of my own. (I refer, of course, to table-top role-playing.) I quit an online RPG I had been a part of for a long time (ASR), and I got more involved in my church. I cleaned out and gave away a HUGE amount of my stuff.

I met and adopted my Padawan. (Say hi to the nice people Aloyran. You can go back to hiding in a minute.)

I even managed to get some writing done. On the Katheryn story even.

Really?

Looking at my post from last year, I did a lot of what I wanted to do. However, I can say that in 2009 I grew a lot as a person.

You know what that means, don't you?

It means 2009 was an interesting year. Full of opportunities to build character.

Yeah.

You get it.

Truth is, about 2/3 of what I tried to do last year failed. I didn't get much progress on either of the stories I wanted to really dig into. That writing community thing I tried? It failed. Trying to really get back into ASR? That failed. (I had the chance to take command of the USS CIRCE, too.) I tried to get into a gaming group with my co-workers. That failed. I tried to build friendships outside of work with my co-workers. That (mostly) failed.

I tried to lots of things to get involved at church, but most of those failed. I'm still teaching the kids and there is the potential for much more on the horizon (though, it came up in 2010, so it doesn't count for 2009.)

My room still isn't re-arranged, though I have less stuff, and if all goes according to plan, I'll have even less stuff over the next few months. (I'm really on this kick of slowly whittling down the amount of things I have. Except books.)

I have to be honest: my job has been an unmitigated success. My boss has shown her financial appreciation of my work and has also shown her appreciation by giving me a promotion into a position she created especially for me. I'd like to think I have done well in that position, showing that not only is it necessary, but that I have taken the ball and run with it. With her blessing (and the assistance of one very special colleague) I have worked to re-establish Dragon's Lair's community involvement through charity and volunteer work.

I will continue this through 2010.

It seemed that through 2009, everything got in the way. Despite my best efforts, the fibro and arthritis have gotten progressively worse. I even had a few weeks where I was terribly emo about being less than two years away from being 30 years old.

Yeah. I'm over it now. Feel free to laugh.

However, one thing came out of 2009 that I'm particularly proud of.

A new life philosophy. Really, it's something I've dabbled with from time to time.

Live legendary.

I asked for a week of leave from work at the beginning of November for NaNo - I do that every year I'm working. My boss, in her Awesomeness, gives it to me every year. (I do ask months in advance. Like...March. Or, in this case, I asked in December 2009 for November 2010. Advance notice is key to time off.)

And Abi offered to help me get up to the Seattle area to finally meet her in person. It involved a fair major expenditure of money for both us, a huge commitment of time and effort from me in terms of travel and fibro/arthritis angst and the risk of interfering with NaNo - which is my Big Thing for the year. (Really, Christmas? Not my thing. New Year's? Not my thing. Easter has Jesus and chocolate, so I like it a lot, but NaNo is my thing.)

I agreed to her plan, because it sounded awesome. I would get to go see Zinou and my brother Iridanum and I would get to meet Abi, who has been my close friend for years now.

Then I started to have second thoughts. Did I really want to go? Was it really worth going?

One morning in September, I was vacuuming the store before opening, pondering these things as I sucked cat hair, debris and fingernail clippings off the carpet, and I realized I was full of shit.

*Waits for Chelsea to stop laughing.*

What was I thinking? Why wouldn't I go?

I realized I was thinking of all the things that could go wrong, instead of all the things that could go right.

Qui-Gon Jin said it: "Your focus determines your reality." (And if you didn't think I would bring this back around to fandom, then you're obviously new to my blog. So welcome. Don't throw popcorn at the monitor. It stains.)

My focus was all wrong.

I started thinking about it, feeling all nice and sorry for myself, wallowing in self-pity as I chipped dried skittle off a shelf.

Somewhere in there, I realized that I was being a coward. There was so much to gain by going. It was, actually, one of the things I wanted to do with my life - go meet my online friends.

Why was I being such an emo-twit about the opportunity to be just that?

I thought about it a good long time while I cleaned the bathrooms. I needed something to keep my mind off what I found in there.

All the really cool people we look up to in life go out and do. In stories, characters are always doing things, even when they get mud on their faces and have to apologize, admit they were wrong, or just plain fail.

Yet, at the end of most of the stories I like, the characters end up as living legends.

So, what would a legend do?

Just that. A legend would do.

I went to Seattle. I'm glad I went. It was an awesome, exhausting, brain-boggling, soul-stirring, thought-provoking and amazing trip. Even though not everything went according to plan, I met Abi, spent lots of time with my brother and Zinou, got a few cool souvenirs (one of which I left there). I came back to Austin and promptly got deathly ill.

I was right.

And I decided I was going to be become a living legend.

Corny, yes? Well, get over it. Because I'm right.

I realized I'd been dabbling with doing this all of 2009. Whether it was Fictales, or going to Fort Worth to meet MuggleMomma or jumping into the Communications Coordinator job.

I hadn't really been trying at it, though. I was picking and choosing and letting circumstances dictate a lot of it.

Not any more.

All my life, I've had disabilities and disadvantages. All my life, I've heard all the reason why I couldn't or shouldn't do something. I've watched lots of my friends, particularly Musuko and his wife do awesome things and have awesome stories.

Sure, I got arrested in Mexico once, but that was years ago. What have I done since then worth talking about?

I think flying across the country to meet an awesome girl who I've been friends with for years on a whim is a good one.

But there's a few logical consequences to doing. For one, some of the time, I'm going to fail. Things don't always work out. But that's okay.

Really. It is. Because at least I went and did instead of just sitting on my enormous ass and saying "I could have..."

One of my personal heroes, James T. Kirk said something that has been in my brain for a long time: "Risk is our business."

Risk is our business. Life is about living. Life is about doing. Doing things that have risk means we're doing something more than just crawling along and making sure there's nothing in our way before we take that next, tiny little step.

It doesn't matter what we do in life, it's going to be hard. It doesn't matter what we do in life, there will be things that knock us down, get in our way, and cause problems.

We deal with it and we move on.

So why not move on in big ways, significant ways.

Fail, get up, and do something else. Or try again. Just don't stop. Don't stop moving forward. Don't stop trying. Don't give up.

There is also this: choose what you do. Don't let it be chosen for you. Don't be stupid about things; don't get involved in things you know are bad for you, just for the sake of experience or just to say you've done something.

Think things through, be deliberate and be purposeful.

There is a spiritual element here, too. (This is where you guys who are bothered by religion should tune out until the end.)

Christianity is a faith about action; doing just one more thing to make the world a greater place. Like the Zoroastrians, we know we're going to win; God doesn't need us to win. However, what we do - it contributes to and helps shape His creation. Each action or lack thereof creates ripples and helps shape what He has made for us. When we do we can either turn to Him or use, other, more limited resources to do. By turning to Him, whatever it is that we do adds what He wants to the world; but turning to ourselves, we end up adding something that is more full of our own imperfections and failings instead of being full of His Grace and power.

When you go out and do, do it with Him; for Him. Doing is how we grow and how we become what He wants us to be. God made us in His image; that means there is something of Him in us. To me, that means we are designed to transcend our limitations and our obstacles.

In fact, that's why I think a lot of things are put in our path; God is giving us the chance to grow and to become more than what we are; he wants us to transcend them, to turn to Him and to have him lift us up and help us move over, around or through what's in our path.

Of course, in my indelible style, I have, using over 2000 words, said just this: My new philosophy on life is: Fuck it. I win.

Seriously.

Fuck it. I win.

Fuck can't.
Fuck reasons why not.
Fuck the people who say I can't.
Fuck everything in my way.
Fuck everyone in my way.

Fuck it.

I win.

So for 2010? Hold my beer and watch this.

For those of you who are interested or who are just bound and determined to somehow slog through this wall of text, the events of this month, in bullets:

Four people I haven't talked to in years are talking to me.

One of my long-time friends has discovered the joy of Star Trek.

I'm getting a second class to teach at church.

Somehow, I've ended up as a counselor for a pre-teen Christian camp. (You can laugh. It's okay. Really.)

Musuko is in town. This is Epic Win.

I had male bonding time with my Boss's boss. (More on this in a separate entry.)

I might get to go to Seattle and somewhere in New Jersey for work.

I had breakthroughs on more than one story.

I've managed to get caught up at work.

I'm tutoring again.

I've managed to have a social life.

Despite the fibro/arthritis

I've found my discipline and focus again.

I'm writing. And have ideas. My muse is still a dirty, filthy little whore.

I have several more blog posts plotted. Hey, why are you all running away?

I have a new fandom and new friends.

I can finally drink black coffee. (Yes. Another post forthcoming.

I'm going to Dayton.

I'm having a good fucking year so far.

Fuck it. I win.

Lost?

2009-06-09T21:21:00.000-07:00

Post delayed due to having to work on newsletter and such for the store. Will post later.

This is the first time I've come in this close under the gun, knowing if I stop to blog, I'll miss both deadlines!

Exhausted. But successful?

2009-06-08T20:23:00.000-07:00

You know, I think if I were a bit worse at doing my job, I might be less stressed.

That said, my guts are better, I've dug somewhat out of the hole, and now seem to have found a backhoe as opposed to a shovel. Go me?

Today, I managed to sort through the major, uber-urgent items, but I haven't managed to get to the 'get organized' part of my plan. Still, I'm not drowning as badly as I was. Progress is progress, even it's measured in inches instead of miles.

I think I'm a bit too successful at the new job. For each thing I attempt, I create three new things to do. In terms of PR, I don't have money to work with. Let's face it - Dragon's Lair is a small business. While growing, we're not there yet. My job is to get the store exposure. My major tools? The website, my writing and my brain. Traditional PR tools for a business are advertising in various mediums and word of mouth. The problem with a niche business like Dragon's Lair in a city like Austin is that we have more competition for our niche than most niche businesses. There's only one store in town that specializes in fixing electric razors, for example. There are two or three vacuum stores in Austin, but they aren't all in the same geographic region.

However, Dragon's Lair has three direct competitors all in the same region of the city.

I can put stuff up on the website, send out a thousand newsletters, post up flyers, even get small mentions on the radio, but if no one is visiting the website, then nothing I do matters. I think the trick of it is actually going to be community. Some niche businesses have communities surrounding them, but very few are actually built around an existing community. Sure, a Janitor's Union might decide they like one vacuum store over another or a group of sharp-dressed businessmen might prefer going to the Shave Store more than buying from a large retailer, but there aren't really communities built around the use of vacuums or electric razors.

Gamers, comic book readers, manga and anime fans - these people, by their very nature, form communities. Without those communities, the interests or hobbies could not thrive. Playing games by yourself is not nearly as much fun as playing them with other people who are just as passionate about games as you are. Reading comics is fun, but discussing comics with your friends is even more fun. Same with anime and manga.

Gaming groups, comic reading clubs, manga and anime clubs - these communities exist with or without Dragon's Lair.

(Yes, Dreamsaint, the whole community thing did not escape my notice. You can stop chuckling at me anytime.)

I need word-of-mouth advertising to work for us. I need us to be a presence- a positive presence - in these communities. I need us to be the first place people think of when they think of gaming or comics or anime and manga. I need us to be the place people start and end at when it comes to providing them with the product and customer service they want. The problem with this is that Dragon's Lair is not a part of these communities. The other gaming/comcis stores? They are. They sponsor and host big events, such as Staple or their customers write internationally published and distributed gaming modules.

Why are they able to get this kind of recognition and we aren't, when we have more resouces, more longevity and more collected experience in our industry than any other store in Austin?

Because they have been able to reach out to and become a fixture of those communities.

I know some people argue that Dragon's Lair is too professional, too much like a big chain in policy and procedure and dress code, but that's a fallacy. Barnes & Noble is a major chain, but where ever they are, they are plugged in to the local community. The host signings by local authors, allow writers' groups to meet at cafes and allow writing seminars to be held in their stores. They provide a venue and support for these events, and the people who attend these events buy books and want to keep patronizing the locales that provide their particular group a place.

And big chain stores like that have smiliar policies and are even stricter about uniforms than we are.

So if both big-name chain stores and smaller gaming/comics stores can manage to do what I think we need to do, why can't we?

Inertia.

The First Law of Motion. Sir Isaac Newton defined inertia as this: A body at rest stays at rest, and a body in motion stays in motion, unless it is acted on by an external force. Dictionary.com also defines inertia as a lack of activity.

In order to correct the problem, I need to figure out why we have inertia. Why we're a body at rest instead of a dynamic force moving forward. Okay, so part of it is a lack of resources. Part of it is that we're sitting on our laurels. We're one of the oldest and most established game/comic stores in central Texas. For a long time, that's been our selling point. We're stable, we're steady, we're always here, so people can rely on us.

I like that. It's a good starting point.

It's time to get us moving again. The problem with being such a large and established presence is that getting us moving means I'm fighting physics. (Not that I haven't attempted to thwart natural laws before.)

I have to work carefully, slowly, and with great deliberation. I have to build us into communities, and I have to do it in ways that don't require money. Well, where money can open doors, so can hard work, persistence and follow-through. It's a lot of work. A commitment of time and resources.

Most of those resources are me.

Good thing I'm stubborn.

However, I think I can do this. I'm going to be going to YomiCon on Friday and I'm going to present some information to the Fandom Association of Central Texas' board on Saturday. The only snafu there is that I'm supposed to be off and spending time with Musuko.

And at some point, I'm supposed to go visit MuggleMomma to have lunch and pick up some software I need for the new computer.

The fact of the matter is that I'm able to start building these connections and integrating myself - and thus the store - into these communities and using those connections to reach out to other communities. I just hope I can actually make this work instead of falling on my face.

A lot of this is harder than I thought it would be. Some of it is easier.

I think, though, that once I dig myself out of the hole I'm in that I'll be able to do more than just frantically keep up. I'll be able to be more pro-active than I am now, and I'll be able to start integrating the San Antonio store into their communities. First, I have to figure out what communities there are in San Antonio and contacting them.

There's so much work ahead of me that it's daunting, but I can't tackle it all at once. I have to take it one thing at a time, one process at a time, and I have to get organized so I don't drop the balls I'm juggling.

That's my current goal. To get myself set up so I can juggle more, better, faster. I have to have an infrastructure to support what I want to create.

On a different note, I switch back to religion for a moment. Just a random moment in time that left me shaking my head in wonder at how God works. The Men's Lab at the Well has just started reading Wild At Heart by John Eldredge. I took one of the store cats to the vet today, and was reading the book while I was waiting for him to come see the kitty.

When he came in, he noticed the book! Not only is the vet a Christian, but he's probably fairly close to the Wellian ethic (if such a word can be applied to our way of doing things). He wants to chat a bit about the book when I finish it (he's apparently recommended the book to a lot of men he knows). I think I'm looking forward to that chat. That's a relationship I never expected God to work on, especially not like that!

Considering how much resistance we've had to starting the study, I'm not surprised God started using it within ten minutes of my starting to read the book. I wasn't actually going to participate in the study, mostly because I feel out of place at the Men's Lab, but after getting a prod from the Holy Spirit and having my father, of all people, ask me if I was going to participate and then seeing firsthand how much resistance there was to us doing this, I had to take part.

If only because thumbing my nose at anything that tells me 'you can't do this' is really an avocation for me.

(I was serious before: when dealing with serious Christians, you either have to decide we're crazy or decide we're on to something.)

Though I still have no real idea how I'm going to dig myself out of this hole and accomplish the things I want to accomplish for myself, I think it's at least possible for me to do so now.

Hey two posts in a row with actual content. Who saw that one coming? (And this one didn't even have bullet points. I almost miss them!)

Because failure is not an option

2009-06-07T21:51:00.000-07:00

Bullet points, because they work so well. And I'm a fan of lists. One of these days, I promise to write real entries with real content that might have some relevance to me other than venting the pressure cooker that is my brain.

My innards have issued their demands for my surrender, most of which appear to be a drastic change in diet. I think I am going to have to quit soda almost completely, at least for awhile. Tea, water and juice appear to be all I can drink if I want to not have issues. Also, eating more than tiny amounts of food (not even a regular-sized meal!) sets my guts off. I think this is a combination of a stomach bug and stress. I haven't ever had a reaction to stress like this, but I also haven't been this far behind at Dragon's Lair before.

I know what this is. I thought I had avoided this fate. I'm nearly 30 and it hadn't struck me down yet. But it runs in both families. It was inevitable, I suppose. I mean, I got most of the other bad genes, why not IBS, too?

The new laptop is the first new computer I have owned in five years. Transitioning to a new PC has been harder than I thought it would be, mostly because I have fine-tuned my old machine to the point where it's all set up perfectly for me. There's more sentimental attachment to this old machine than I thought I had, too. I almost feel guilty putting it out to pasture and switching to the new computer, but I know it's necessary. Although this old laptop can keep trucking for awhile yet, I think I'd feel guilty if I worked it to death. Odd, the kind of attachments people develop, isn't it?

Musuko is coming into town at the end of this week. This is made of awesome and win.

Have I mentioned I'm behind on a LOT of things I need to do? This isn't just stuff I want to do, these are things I need to do. I have utterly failed at my job this week, more than I ever have at this job. I can't do that. I can't be like all the other people who have been promoted into awesome positions at the store and then developed fail. I won't be like them. I refuse.

I don't think I've even talked about my new position at work yet, but after whining about how far behind I am for the past four days, I think it's an overdue blog.

So! Storytime!

When I first started at Dragon's Lair, I had trouble getting into the groove. I was part-time and I don't do well part-time; I prefer working full-time, because I feel like I actually get things accomplished. I had left the pool job, was going to ACC, and my training at the new job was practically non-existent. I would say that for most of my first 90 probationary period, I was unsure about the job and they were unsure about me. I was asking a lot of questions, all the time. I was asking how and what and when and where and who and most importantly why. I wasn't sure I was comfortable with the store manager - AB - because she seemed to be very quiet, where the other two managers, PB and JK were very loud and vocal and present.

PB was my trainer. He's an awesome guy. He's the guy everyone, even me, wants to hang out with. He is one of the three or four most charismatic people I've ever met. He's smart, attractive, very fit and is able to talk about anything to anyone for any length of time. He own any conversation he's a part of, and is pretty much the most brilliant salesman I've ever met. He's also one of the worst teachers I've ever had. He was a Marine until circumstances forced him to leave the Corps. He threw me into the deep end with barely any training. He would give me a sketchy outline of what needed to be done and then leave me to my own devices.

I found out later that some of this was because there was no established procedures for a lot of things and that I was starting on the heels of a major personnel upheaval. The store was in some serious flux and most of the institutional knowledge had left. Not only that, the people I was replacing were the kind of people you don't want doing more than mopping floors under close supervision.

Now, I'm a smart guy. Once I realized that the lack of direction and supervision wasn't going to change, I had to change tactics. My last few jobs had taught me how to deal with micromanagement and exacting expectations from very present and involved management. Since Dragon's Lair was the exact opposite, I realized I couldn't count on my bosses to help me out. I started doing things my own way. I could say I took the initiative, but that sounds too self-promoting for what I was doing. I was trying to swim in the deep end of a business I didn't understand. I knew role-playing games, had a sketchy knowledge of comics, and absolutely no knowledge of miniature gaming, let alone the artistic side of miniatures. I had a growing knowledge of manga and anime, mostly in terms of finding out how much of it I really, really didn't like.

I'm horrible at math, and was expected to do some important money-math every time I closed out a register I was barely trained on.

So I did what I'm best at. I read. I read every comic I could get my hands on. I spent hours on wiki learning about the things I didn't know, so I could function with them. I read the help files on the point-of-sale program, which I found on the internets.

Without direction, I took the daily checklist as the Holy Writ and spent hours every day dusting, straightening and sorting the store until I could tell you where something was without looking. Whenever I got the chance, I got customers to talk my ears off about their favorite games, comics and manga.

And like I said, I asked questions. I discovered who could and would answer questions and who wouldn't. The manager I had been least comfortable with I discovered was anything but soft. Instead, I discovered a retail chess master - the Grand Admiral Thrawn of comic and games stores. Quietly, with a nudge here and a nudge there, she was shifting us all into positions and duties where we were best suited. She and LR, the office manager, would answer my questions with endless patience and with as much information as even my vast brain could hold.

In essence, I got trained by the highest levels at Dragon's Lair and came to even more realizations. PB and JK were dropping the ball, on a regular basis, when it came to the clerks. AB had noticed this too and quickly promoted slim_frame to manager. slim_frame is small, fierce and one of the best managers I've known. Where AB is quiet and nudges, slim_frame pushes and jabe and gets in your face about things.

By the time my first 90 days were up, I realized how little structure there was for clerks, mostly because of the previous management. So, I cheated. Everyone knew I AB and LR were telling me how they wanted things done. I just started telling everyone else that the way I was doing it was the way it was supposed to be done. Most of the time, I was just repeating what AB was telling me, but some of the time, I was creating systems and organizational structure on my own, applying my gift for organizing chaos. (A gift, which, it pains me to admit, I got from my mother.)

That got noticed.

AB started giving me additional duties. First, it was handling returns - sending damaged and overaged product back to distributors. I was asked to run a few errands here and there. Then I was asked to take over shipping. Somewhere in there, I staged a coup and got to take over newsletter. JK was doing it, but he's not a writer. I pointed out to AB that some customers had complained to me that the newsletter was full of errors and fail, and she basically said: "if you think you can do better, then do it."

I did.

Over the course of a year, I refined and changed newsletter. I still have more I want to do with it. Same with the website. Somewhere in there, I ended up becoming a training mentor and the Opener five days a week. As my job duties changed, I've ended up working a Monday - Friday schedule that is generally set around the 9-5 model.

Recently, I went to AB and basically told her I was thinking about leaving the store, because I wasn't making much money and was feeling like there wasn't potential for advancement. I wasn't needed as a manager (and wasn't sure I wanted to be a manager), but I wanted more. The stuff I would be really good at, the PR, is outsourced for the most part.

AB and I had a long talk and she basically promoted me from clerk to webmaster. I have more control over the web page, more time to promote the store online and in venues our outsourced PR person can't or won't promote us through. I also get to run most of the errands, and visit the San Antonio store.

I have more time to focus on shipping and returns and all the other duties I had been assigned. Like when I first started, there's not a lot of official direction - I have a set of goals and things I know AB wants, but it's up to me to create it and make it happen. It's up to me to make this work.

This is a rare opportunity for a guy without a degree. To be able to work PR and web for a successful, established business and to create my own niche job and job duties. I can define what my position at the store is and show them how many ways I can be useful.

Only this past week? I've dropped the ball. Partially because I'm sick. Mostly because I'm sick. And partially there are some bumps in the road in terms of transitioning to the new position; my co-workers, many of whom I have trained, are used to me being out on the floor, on register and able to back them up. I'm still able to back them up and available as a resource - after all, customers always come first. Dragon's Lair is what it is because of our customer service. However, as I'm moving into the new job, I realize how much some of my co-workers take what I did for granted. They're used to me being there at 9am to open the store and being on register...so if they're not there exactly at 10am for the first shift, it's oaky. Because I would be there.

If they wanted to wander off and talk to friends or work on projects that take all shift, that's okay, because I was there. I can man the front, help the customers, do my own duties. the checklist, and whatever the managers had for us that day all by myself. If there was a rush of customers, I would always call them up to the register and let them go back to their project when things slowed back down. I could always be counted on to skip my break to make sure someone else got theirs. I could always be counted on to schedule breaks, make sure everyone got everything done, and keep things flowing at the front. I would write notes to everyone else and keep abreast of what was changing in gaming and comics.

Because that's what I did.

In all fairness, I would have done just as much of that had my co-workers not done their own thing. Nor are most of my co-workers lazy. Almost all of the folk I work with on a regular basis have a solid work ethic and feel comfortable working on their projects (most of which are assigned to them) because I'm at the front, and even my extra duties (things above and beyond the daily checklist) are things I can do at the front end as opposed to in the back and on the sales floor. Nor does walking the floor, helping customers or doing daily chores throw me off those duties. Nor can any of them be expected to have the same level of multi-tasking I do. I've been working a lot longer than most of them and have carefully trained and cultivated my ability to multi-task over a series of years. It was a deliberate and careful training, too - multi-tasking is a learned skill, one I've honed for a long time. That they took advantage of my skills to make their jobs easier is not a mark against them. Rather, I think, it's something they should have been doing. Why shouldn't they let me do what I do well while they do what they do well? It's a mark of a good team, I think.

I could never manage sections the way some of my co-workers do. JW is the mistress of the DVDs and manga; AK is the mistress of Vertigo and DC. RL and MR handle Marvel, board games and the CCG cases. LP handles the miniatures, even though his job is Events Coordinator.

It didn't hurt anything if they were a bit late, because I was already there. Most of my co-workers have two jobs, are college students, or are working parents. That extra few minutes grace was something I could - and did - give them because I understood that they had a lot more on their plates than I did, even with my work at the church and the occasional tutoring job.

Now, I can't give them that level of support. Getting stuck on the floor for any serious length of time sets me behind. Having to do someone else's job as opposed to my own - which now encompasses a great deal more work than I expected - sets me back.

So part of what's happened is I've been set back and set back and set back - and then I got sick. Now, I'm in a hole. I think I can dig myself out of it, but I need a bit of time and space to do that, and I'm not getting it.

Mostly, my problem right now is that being sick meant I was too tired to work effectively. Part of is that I'm not organized. I'm not on top of things like I need to be.

Hence, a plan. First off, I need to get some urgent things done and out of the way so I can make way for just enough space to update my calendars, update my to-do lists, and figure out a plan of attack for the rest of it. I need to finish getting my new computer up and running as soon as I can so I can shift over from my laptopt to the new, more portable and less space intensive computer.

Then, I need to show AB that I'm worth it. That she didn't make a mistake by letting me basically write my own ticket.

It's going to be a helluva a hard week, especially since it'll be a short week.

But I haven't failed at this job yet. I haven't failed at Dragon's Lair yet.

I refuse to accept failure now.

As an end note, I want to thank everyone who's been commenting on my journal and supporting my personal blog challenge. Your involvement has been invaluable; knowing people are reading this makes it easier to blog every day.

I think, by the time I crawl out of this hole, I'll be ready to tackle my own writing again. Maybe sort out just that much more of my life.

Because I am so very, very tired of failing at life.

Nothing to say

2009-06-06T20:27:00.000-07:00

Nothing to say because I have accomplished nothing.

I am no longer sick (or at least, no longer so sick I can't function), but the end result is that I haven't done much but take care of myself. I'm going to be so far behind come Monday that I don't know how to dig myself out of the hole.

But I'm not sick.

I still have to spend a night away from hom to avoid getting Mom sick, though.

*shrugs* Not sure what to think about any of it, really, except that I'm still behind, stuck in transition between computers, and really wishing I could get a few things finished.

Really? Really?

2009-06-05T21:55:00.000-07:00

More bullet points. Maybe some real text. Because I fail at my own blog challenge just like I seem to be failing at life right now.

I'm so stressed I can barely see straight. I need space and time to work on things, but I'm not getting it. My family won't leave me alone long enough to work on anything, and I can't think my way through getting dinner, let alone getting anything done. People need to talk to me about things before scheduling them.

My brand-new computer may as well be a paperweight at home, because the wireless adapter is too advanced to connect to the home network. Ergo, I cannot has internets. I can't download anything. I can't chat. I can't get on my websites. In a word? Fail.

I got sent home from work sick today. I thought I would go home and work on things and start getting caught up. But no. I ended up in the bathroom for a time. Then I slept. Why do I always feel guilty for being sick? Some days, I almost wish I had the lack of work ethic my 'peers' seem to.

My innards are still staging their insurrection. They have yet to deliver demands for my surrender.

Instead of sleeping in on a Saturday, my only real day off during the week, I am not getting to sleep in. I am not getting to work on things. No, I am taking the dogs to a 9 AM vet appointment. Why is is people schedule my time without talking to me first? I know I have no life. I know I'm supposed to serve others. I know being a good person takes sacrifices. But really? People could talk to me, so I can arrange all the things I'm supposed to do for everyone to make sure it all gets done.

And really? I don't want to hear from most of you about taking time for myself or doing things for myself. Because the things that would help me or would let me do that, most of the people I know are either unable to unwilling to do, so unless you're one of the people who actually read the things I write or have helped me when I've asked for it, don't go there. (And if that comment makes you feel guilty - don't. Either you're able to help or your not.)

I fail at newsletter this week. By all rights, my boss should write me up. I'm frustrated because I schedule one night a week to be able to do newsletter, and when I don't get the stuff on time, it crams me up pretty bad, but I still should be able to do it because I'm supposed to have time at work these days. If only I could start chewing through my list again. If I don't start getting a handle on things, I'm going to fuck things up again.

No, I'm not overcommitted. I'm sick and crazy things keep happening to get in the way of me getting things done. People keep having emergencies.

It's 11:30 at night and I have (sort of) had one meal today. I should try to eat, but cooking is too much damn trouble beacuse as soon as I leave my room, Mom wants to talk to me about things. I'm not allowed to be cranky, frustrated or stressed, because it makes her feel like she can't talk to me. I have to be a fucking cheerleader for her all the time. I can't be frustrated with Dad beacuse then he wants me to explain it all to him. No one wants to either just do the things I ask or get out of my way so I can do things. They all want me to explain everything, which takes more time, and then offer ideas, solutions and criticisms on what I do. I could go out and spend money on fast food (again), but really? Why can't I be allowed to function in my own home?

I want Mom to turn off the TV when she wants to talk to me. I can't talk over it. I can hear it through my headphones.

I have a cell phone full of contacts and a list of people who say 'I want to help', but no one can talk when I call and want to vent. But when someone else needs/wants me, lord help me if I'm not there. How does that work?

Why can't the TV be off for even an hour or two? Just long enough for me to let my brain collect itself. I could go out to the garage, but then I have to be miserable in the heat. People wonder why I can't stand to watch television. That's why. It's never turned off. It's never silent. Ever. And no, I can't ask her to turn off the TV. That opens up a whole new can of worms I want to deal with even less than I want to deal with the TV.

So much going on, I had to use bullet points

2009-06-04T21:53:00.000-07:00

David Carradine passed away. I'll miss him. He was one of the few actors I liked enough to notice.

God works in strange ways.

I am so far behind that I can't see the tunnel, much less the light at the end of it. And yet, people keep asking me to do things for them. Is it because I'm just that good with advice and insight and help, or is it because everyone knows I never say no?

My innards are staging an insurrection. No longer content with the brain running the body, my guts have decided they are now in charge. My intestines are winning the war.

There is a cosmic conspiracy to prevent me from sleeping in during 2009. I have to help take the dogs to a 9AM vet appointment on Saturday morning. The morning after gaming, no less.

I have yet to do set up the new computer, aside from a few very basic windows tweaks. This annoys me.

I have a lot I want to say, but I can't afford to take the time to say it.

I am so tired I can barely focus on anything.

Did I mention my guts hate me?

I'm teaching this weekend, and am hardly prepared.

If I'm not able to start getting caught up, I'm afraid I'll drop the ball at work. I can't afford that. Especially not right now. Why can't (some) of my co-workers do their fucking jobs instead of being lazy? Be lazy at home. Don't dick me out of my best chance to do something awesome as a career because you can't bother with paying attention to the details of your job.

will be in town soon. This fills me with glee.

Really? My guts can stop with the rebellion now. They win! I promise I won't feed them food I don't know anymore! No matter how mad it makes the people I hang out with and around.

The things that annoyed me in high school still annoy me. Cliques, bullies, enforced social standards with no use, no purpose aside from sucking money, and no real form and fucntion (fashion, TV, etc) still piss the hell out of me. Does that mean I was on to something as a teenager, or I haven't managed to grow up yet?

I need a vacation away from everyone I talk to in person.

Don't wanna be sick

2009-06-03T20:58:00.000-07:00

I should be writing newsletter for work.

It's not hard. Just time consuming.

I should be working setting up my new computer.

I should be doing lots of things.

What am I doing?

Battling with my guts.

Ergo, your regularly scheduled ramble by Jayiin is rescheduled until the insurrection in my innards has been put down.

Intense day

2009-06-02T21:19:00.000-07:00

I went to Dragon's Lair San Antonio today.

It was interesting, excited and you really want to hear all about it. But if I tell you, I'd have to kill you. Or they'd have to kill me. Or maybe both. Either way, there would be a dire need for a backhoe and a mop, not necessarily in that order.

I got to (finally) meet Soror in person, which was awesome. We've emailed each other often enough about work-related things that putting a face to the email was good, and having a better working relationship (and hopefully a friendship) with someone from the San Antonio store is going to be a goodness.

The trip was fun; getting to hang out with AB and just chat about things both work and non-work related was fun. She and I have always gotten on well, and she's the best boss I've ever had. Every promise she's made me has been kept and everything she's tried to do with either store, she has so far accomplished or has made great strides towards accomplishing.

It was just an early morning, a fairly long time in a van, some heavy lifting, some crazy, some drama, and then more time in the van, more heavy lifting and then going home.

I found out that is just as insane as I knew she was. And that her Vision is going to become real, very fast. We're going to have some awesomeness soon. I also found out I am far more behind on everythign than I thought I was.

My new computer was there when I got home. It's been five years since I had Now, the case needs to get here.

It's been five years since I got a new computer, and I'd forgotten how much work went in to setting one up and getting it ready for use. I'm not nearly done - in fact, I've barely started.

I'm pretty excited, but I failt at blogging tonight since I'm so bloody tired.

I think I'm going to go to bed and catch up as best I can tomorrow.

Wish me luck.

Epiphanies, Visions and the Insanity In Between

2009-06-01T19:59:00.000-07:00

"Eventually, when dealing with Christians, people have to decide one of two things: either you're delusional or you're on to something."
- - Dreamsaint

Okay, yeah, that's a paraphrase, But 'tis fairly true, I think. The quote struck me today, both because of the lack of comments on my last blog, and because of something someone said to me today.

I know I' m not delusional. I know I'm not crazy, either.

Insane? Well...that one's open to debate, now isn't it?

Have you ever met someone with an Idea? Has someone you know ever come to you with something so outrageous, so inspired and so freakin' insane that you wanted to laugh at them...and then watch and see if they could pull it off?

Has someone ever told you a plan and made you wonder if they were standing on the edge of greatness?

Greatness. That's right. I went there.

Greatness. It's a good word with a lot of meanings, such as "unusual or considerable in degree, power, intensity" or "extraordinary powers; having unusual merit; very admirable" or even "of noble or lofty character" - to say nothing of "distinguished; famous" and "important; highly significant or consequential."

I had that moment today.

A friend of mine presented an ambitious, insane and absolutely brilliant plan to me, and all I could do was start laughing. The more she talked, the more I laughed. All the while, another quote ran through my head...this time (no surprise) from Star Trek.

Risk is our business!
- - James T Kirk

Truth? This plan has nothing to do with money. Nor is it anything people haven't tried a thousand times before. Or thought of a million times more than it's been tried. Nothing new under the sun, right? No, this plan has to do with something near and dear to me, something embedded soul-deep in the most primal aspects of me.

Writing.

Fanfiction. Original fiction. Star Trek. Harry Potter. Babylon 5. And more. So much more. Only, instead of doing what everyone else has done, my friend wants to do more. She wants to create something greater than what has come before, something more lasting, something more enduring, something more powerful.

More than an archive.

More than just an internet library. More than just another fanfic site.

She wants to create a community. A community the likes of which I haven't really heard of before.

How can an internet community be great, you ask? I was part of Metal Machine Music for just a few short years, and it was a profound, exciting, energizing experience that still rides with me. The friends I made there are friends still.

Internet communities are about connection through common interest and are generally easier to create than 'real life' communities, because it's easier to find such things online.

And writing? Well, stories are such a integral part of our world, such a deep part of our society, our culture, our history...and there are writers everywhere.

It could work.

It really could.

The greatness would come when we actually succeeded, and we actually created a community people want to be a part of, that people seek out and join and jump into. It's possible. Hard, but possible.

Anything worth doing is worth doing well. It's worth it to try to fly if you fall of the cliff, because what do you have to lose? Even if we don't make it, even if we fizzle or we can't make it work, we'll have tried to do something awesome.

I think, at some point, every person is given an opportunity to be a part of something truly awesome. Something great. I don't think that necessarily means it has to be something world-shaking or of such huge import even a hermit like me would hear of it, but I do think anything great makes an impact, makes a difference and does something to make the world a little better than it was.

I think this idea, this vision she's had is something that could do just that.

Lots of people don't take fandom seriously, which, I think is a mistake. They don't take fanfiction, fanart, RPGs and the like seriously. Again, a mistake. How many lives do these things touch? How many people have to read and write and be interested to support the millions of fan communities that are out there?

What if someone dared to try to bridge communities, bridge original and fan?

Yep. I know. Been done.

How many of them had serious resources - maybe not serious money, but domains and server space and technical skill? A few, I'm sure. Places like Fanfiction.net.

But how many of those place are really built around the idea of community? I'm sure there are many, but I've never seen one that functions like what she had in mind, and I've been on fanfic boards, archives, RPGs and communities most of the time I've been on the net. So have a lot of you on my LJ flist.

But the opportunity to build someplace like that from the ground up, to be able to construct and design it and structure it to do what we want it to do, take an already existing 'seed' community and use to reach out to thousands of other like communities, and maybe, just maybe, bridge gaps that don't need to exist?

Yeah. Sounds crazy. Sounds hard. And maybe to some of you, it doesn't sound worth doing.

It does to me.

Worth doing? Totally.

Even if we fail? Utterly.

Are we going to try?

Damn straight.

So, once again -

Hold my beer and watch this. Succeed or fail, it'll be fun to watch.

Jayiin and the Crazy, Awesome, Very Insane Day

2009-05-31T23:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I tried to parody the title of the book Alexander and the Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (I probably got the title wrong) and failed at parody. Does anyone else remember that book? I want to find a copy of it, but I never can.

I remember it being awesome when I was a kid.

So. I have less than an hour to write, edit and post what will prove to be one of my more complicated posts. Why will this post be more complicated? Because it's going to be my first real religious post, and that will open up a huge can of worms for me.

Really? My spiritual walk, my faith, my church - these are important, vital and central to my life. Blogging every day and not dealing with these topcis isn't something I can do - because of that, there will be posts centered on that. I've thus far managed to skirt it, even in posts where those factors played major roles. Mostly, I haven't touched on them much because I'm a coward. I haven't wanted to have religious debates on my blog or deal with some of the questions that might arise.

Until I now, I could get away with it beause I was a fairly casual blogger. However, at least until October 31, I'm a fairly serious blogger. Though most of my first few entries have been short on substance and long on failed wit, not all of them will be. I am not going to friendslock any of my blog challenge entries because that feels a little like cheating.

So. Read at your own risk.

I'll put most of it under cuts, so no one has to read. Those of you following on blogger or a blog reader that doesn't support cuts - you have been warned.

Today's service at church was one of those services where the Holy Spirit was working overtime. Usually, when a month has five Sundays in it, the Well has a contemplative prayer service. Usually, this combines mystical, liturgical, prayer and praise and is focused around directed personal time with God. Dreamsaint will lead off with an explanation of what we're doing and why, open us in prayer. We'll sing a bit and then get started. At the end of the service, we'll have Communion and break for lunch before having a Baptismal service.

This week, we already knew two of the kids were being Baptized. I've have had the privilege of watching several of my students accept Christ, which as been an awesome, humbling experience.

Today, the service was an Ignatius Examen, except instead of focusing on a single day, we focused on the first six months of 2009.

I wrote a lot in my journal and had some profound revelations about where my head is at. A lot of it, I liked - I needed to realize that I am doing better at focusing on Christ and acting as Christ than I thought I was, but I also needed to see the places where I have failed utterly or need to work on more. There's a lot more of the latter than the former, but that comes with the territory - none of us perfect. We're all broken in some ways. Damaged goods. No matter how hard we try, no matter how hard we work, how much we do and how far we go in our walk with Christ, we will never reach the pinnacle of what we are capable of, let alone reaching the goal of living and acting as Christ.

That's where Grace comes in. We don't have to. If we truly believe in Christ, then we're going to try. We're going to fall short, we're going to fail...but we're going to keep trying, because we believe it's the right thing to do. Because we believe, because we love Christ and because God keeps His promises, we're already forgiven. It's not about the end result - that will work itself out, one way or the other.

Except...once you've given yourself to Christ, once you've truly decided to believe and truly decided to follow Him, you know what the end will be.

But that just means the journey is that much harder, because once you set your feet on the path of Christ, then God will direct you, and sometimes it's harder to follow Him than it is not to. We follow, not because we're earning some Heavenly reward, but because we know it is the right thing to do.

Sounds corny. Sounds too good to be true. Just believe, and be given eternal life with God? To be promised Union (if you want to get Evelyn Underhill mystical about it) all because you believe?

Yeah. That's all there is to it. Except, it's hard to admit you're broken and you can't make things work on your own. It's hard to admit you're wrong about things in your life, that you can't succeed, you can't become all you need to and should become without God. It's the most brutal, visceral kind of humility and it comes on you like a metric fuckton of acme anvils hurtling from the sky as if they were meteors on a crash course for an extinction-level event in your brain, heart and soul.

It doesn't matter if it's a slow, gradual thing like it was for me or a blinding instant of realizing - for a moment, you're standing naked in front of the Creator of the Cosmos and you realize how small, frail and hurt you really are. You're buried under the weight of everything horrible you've ever done. Drowned in all the things you can't do. Crushed by the undeniable and utterly horrific fact that you are empty, alone and there is something awe full and awesome missing.

For that moment, it's just you and God.

There's no words to describe God. There's no words to describe that moment - and conversion is the greatest Mystery in faith, I think, because it's so different for every person. So personal and individual that no writer or artist or poet or philosopher is ever going to codify it any more than we can truly codify people. There's no way to explain all the factors or moments or decisions or thoughts that push and shove and nudge a person toward that moment where they accept Christ. It's a cosmic Butterfly Effect so personal and powerful and unique that you almost never see it coming until you don't know what to do about it.

Accept Christ. Now there's some hard words to write about. You accept Christ is real. You accept God is real. You accept you are broken. You accept you are flawed, imperfect and unable to ever escape that. You accept Christ loves you. God loves you. God not only loves you...God likes you. He wants a relationship with you because you are His creation, you are His child. He wants you in his existence. He wants to know you, to talk to you, to listen to you, to help you. You accept that love as something bigger, greater and more consuming, more powerful and overwhelming and incomprehensible than you can ever grasp.

You accept God knows more than you ever can understand. You accept God's leadership, guidance and authority over you. You accept the only way to make being broken truly livable, the only way to be free of it, to face it and to make it better is to accept God's love. God's sacrifice.

You accept God is right and you are probably wrong about how your life works, where it should go and what you should do with it.

Talk about hard. No one likes to be told what to do, least of all me. I hate havig people in charge of me, telling me who and what I should or shouldn't be. I hate rules that say what I can or can't do, what I can or cannot be.

You've all heard me say it at one time or another.

But.

I am broken. I am flawed. There is more wrong with me, more ways I am a horrible, no good, terrible, very bad person than I can ever write or speak or tell in any way.

God still loves me. God still likes me. God still wants me around.

God.

The Creator of Heaven and Earth. The beginning and end of all things - alpha and omega. The being, force, power, Prime Force - the center of the universe, the all-encompassing ineffable, indescribable, incomprehensible, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent Lord and Master of All Things loves and likes me. The fat, stupid little geek who spends too much time writing and reading fanfic who can't get out of debt and can't help but fuck up everything he does.

Today, I got to see that moment on the face of my brother and on my friend.

At the end of the service, right before Communion, Dreamsaint did something he almost never does: he offered an invitation for people to stand up and say: "I need Christ."

I know the invitation is pretty much tradition in most churches, but the Well doesn't usually do it, because we don't work that way. We try not to push people, pressure people or put people on the spot. We don't want to make them feel uncomfortable or like there's something wrong with them if they aren't ready to stand up in front of the church and deal with that moment with dozens of strangers they might not want to have to talk to about it.

But Dreamsaint said he was 'under orders' to give the invitation today, so he did. He said his piece, almost in tears because of the sheer presence of the Holy Spirit being there, working on us all...but my brother stood up.

So did my friend.

My brother has been coming to the Well for a couple of years now, off and on, and has been moving towards this for awhile, I think. My buddy has been dancing on the edges of this for a few weeks, too.

We already had the robes. We already had the service planned. It was the easiest thing in the world to add them in the line-up.

Off to Barton Springs spillway we went. Now, I know some people don't hold with the idea of Baptism, because once the decision has been made to accept and follow Christ, the act of Baptism is just a formality, a ritual - a public confession of faith (which is necessary for accepting and following Christ, but that's a topic for later). There are lots of ways to publically confess, lots of rituals and symbols and formalities.

It's true. Once the decision is made, that's it. You're a Christian. You're a follower of Christ.

But there is something truly transformational about Baptism, and it has to be important, because otherwise, why would it have such a prominent place in the Bible? Baptism is part of the mystery of conversion (and conversion happens whether or not you're raised in the church. Every Christian is born again and a convert.) Baptism is part of that process. What part is plays...I'm still working on that. It's different for every person I've talked to. For some, it was just a formality, like signing your name to a contract or shaking hands when you meet someone. It didn't do much for them...but other things did.

For others, Baptism was a profound and life-altering experience with profound consequences for their Christian walk.

I'm glad I was there when my brother was Baptized. I'm glad I was there when my buddy was Baptized. I don't know what role it will play, but I'm glad was there. I'm glad to have been there when my students were Baptized.

It was humbling and inspiring and full of awe. Did I mention humbling?

(Just for the record: I claim no part in their coming to Christ. It was all God working his miracles. If I did play a role, it was incidental at best.)

I will say, however, that Baptizing in public like we did was something of an experience. We do things this way for several reasons. For one, we aren't going to hide who and what we are, and people seeing folk being Baptized and seeing how we treat it, seeing us - as normal people, with kids in swimsuits playing in the water. Seeing us drinking sodas, smoking, laughing and enjoying hanging out, just like they are...but also seeing us as Christians.

It's a way for us to be incarnational and to try to be a part of the community.

It's also practical. It's free and convenient. We don't have much money and we don't have space of our own, so we have to find a way. The Barton Springs spillway works as well as anything we've tried, and better than some.

None the less, it's not easy for me. I am not an outdoorsy person. I know, a lot of people scoff when I say that, and think I'm not appreciating nature or think it's because I'm fat or lazy or just don't care to try to enjoy it.

Maybe they're right.

Then again, maybe not. I'm allergic to nature, for one. I have fibromyalgia for another. It's painful to walk down the trails to the spillway, and it's no picnic navigating the rocks and wet out there. I'm hot, sweaty, itchy, hurting and generally miserable. The water is cold enough to make me hurt when I get in, and the amount of energy walking down there and walking back up take is simply staggering.

Needless to say, I've ended up with hives, a limp, and a bit of a sunburn.

Not too high a price, really, for getting to be there.

I have, however, finished re-writing CH6 of HPU.

I still need a haircut.

And I still want my new computer to come!

Because I can't thnk of a title

2009-05-30T21:04:00.001-07:00

First off, congratulations to Ozy for finishing Torch Song in time for her to get in for printing with the NaNo winners' offer from last year.

And yes, that sentence made sense to me. If it doesn't make sense to you...I'll probably edit it later.

Also, congrats to MuggleMomma for finishing her TwiCon fic. I beta'd said fic today, so that was one thing off my to-do list. Which, really, makes it sound like it was a routine thing. I've been looking forward to beta'ing that fic for a few days now.

I'm getting a new computer. It's been shipped. I feel like a little kid waiting for Christmas!

Really? I'm not sure what to blog about, because although I had topics earlier, my brain has deleted them for some reason.

Today has been made of fail. Most of what I wanted to get accomplished, I didn't.

I didn't finish the rewrite of CH6 for HPU. Or start CH36. Or post a chapter. Or clean the bathroom. And I still need a haircut.

You get the picture.

That's it. I need kids to make this thing more interesting.

Anyone got any I could have cheap?

New computers and vampire poo

2009-05-29T22:12:00.000-07:00

So. Today. A recap? I think not. Too easy. Too simple. Too boring for me, because I already lived it. Instead, you get the highlights.

First - random. Barack Obama likes Jalapenos on his cheeseburger. Why is this important? I have no idea. But I've seen it on two different sites tonight. So, it must important. The internets told me so.

*sage nod*

This morning, I went to work. Surprised? If you are, you obviously don't know me.

At work, I have a co-worker. She is a Transient Being, an abstract concept made flesh by the combined will of all living beings. She is the embodiment of a terrifying Idea, brought into existence by a terrible act of the cosmos.

She is the Little Sister.

She can find your weakness, your kryptonite and will find a way to push every button you have. She will slime you with hand sanitizer. She will poke you at in opportune times. She will make the dirtiest jokes in the cutest voice. She will torture you with things you never wanted to know existed.

And she will tell you about vampire poo.

Yes. Apparently, vampires poo. Always diarrhea. And it would be sparkly and metallic, because they would strip the useless minerals from it. And like vampire bats, they would have to pee while they feed.

Talk about takikng the romance out of vampires. "Sorry dear, I peed on you."

Also. I bought my new computer today. A netbook. The Asus Eee PC 1000HE. I can hear the outcry now. I wasted my money, I should have saved more and bought a 'fully functional' laptop or whatever. But here's the thing: I don't play computer games. I don't do much more than write, do basic web design, surf, and listen to music. And the netbook? Will have three times the ram of my current, five-year-old laptop. It will have almost three times the hard drive space, and a similar processor.

It will be smaller, have an awesome battery life, and not be five years old.

Don't get my wrong. My Dell laptop is awesome; it has lasted me five years and is still going strong. I could get another couple of years of life out of this thing, easy. But it's time for me to upgrade a bit, and to get a portable computer I don't have to plug in to use.

I'm really excited about this. I read lots of reviews, did lots of research, talked to several IT professionals who have one, and really? I think I made an awesome purchase.

I also bought a carrying case and a 500 GB external HD. It'll all be here next week, and I will be happy.

I hope.

Yeah. Boring post is boring.

I need a haircut.

Finally - you know it's a good day when you can give your boss a hummer.

(In this case, a remote-controlled Hummer for her nephew. Pervs.)

Video games are cool. Who knew?

2009-05-28T20:35:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in darkjediprincess's living room, waiting to go pick up fuds. I have to do newsletter for the store, but as I have my computer and internets where I am, why drive all the way home and not be able to inflict my running commentary on someone in person?

I went over to her place because I had the dumb this morning and forgot to bring her DVDs with me to work. DVDs I've had, mind you, for over a year. We keep missing each other when I try to get them back to her. Or I forget. I brought them over and made myself comfortable in her living room and she started showing me this game called Mass Effect. The game is pretty damn cool.

Strip clubs, politics, lesbian sex, courtesans, lesbian sex with courtesans, gratuitous violence, cool sci-fi settings, fast ships, hot blue chicks, lesbian sex with hot blue chicks...

You get the picture.

Did I mention there's lesbian sex?

I think I finally understand why so many gamers sit around on their couches and play these games. They really can get almost everything they need from video games, including a virtual fuck.

(And to think I was worried about what I would blog about tonight.)

Okay, really, today was boring. Busy, but boring. I mean, who wants to read about me fixing the girls' toilet or hear about me being alone at the front during the busiest part of the day - again? I figure people get tired of hearing the same old stories from me time and again. Hell, I get tired of that story.

It's sad that I don't have much else to say, I think. But, I manged to blog.

Though, I will also say some of my co-workers don't know me very well. When they pulled my books last night, they didn't pull the Star Trek Omnibus.

I'm still watching her play the game, like a stoner watching a disco ball. I can't look away and have the random urge to say: "Whoa. That's freakin' cool," about every ten minutes. I have no desire to play the game m'self, but I sense it has a story.

I want to know the story. All of it. Right now.

But I can't, really, because the story shifts subtly every time she plays the game, or so she tells me. It looks like it would get boring after playing awhile. Grinding is not for me. Repeating the same action time and again is not for me.

I know the arguments that D&D is the same. Find yon ancient ruins. Invade. Kill the inhabitants and steal their stuff. Save the world. Lather, rinse, repeat. I think the difference is in the human element, the interplay between the characters that is lacking in video games.

And why, I think, I'm still not interested in playing. But watching while I try valiantly to make my brain focus on writing newsletter? That, I can do.

Also, there's lesbian sex.

Standing Witness

2009-05-27T21:05:00.000-07:00

Today, I played a small role in a big event.

Long story short: last summer, my friend JK adopted four kids - as a single mother. Four siblings, actually. J, S, A and R. Over the course of the last year, I've gotten to watch as they became more and more of a family. I've spent time with the kids both in and out of church and have gotten pretty attached to them. There's an earlier post, , where I talked about going to R's school for the 'bring your dad/uncle/brother/male family friend' to snacktime.

It's a powerful thing she's done. A powerful statement about who she is and what she wants to do with her life. She's a social worker for CPS, which means she deals with hurting kids all the time. I've watched her play Aunt to about half the kids at the Well. JK is a woman with an endless capacity for love and an iron will.

Today was the connsumation hearing for the adoption. JK had asked that as many people who could be there. Dad and I went; it took some wrangling, but we both managed to get the time off and get Mom situated enough she didn't need us for the afternoon.

When I first set out to write this blog, I figured I'd say something like 'today I say a family being created', but that's not true. They've spent the last year creating their family, and JK spent years before that preparing to have a family.

Even saying that today made it 'official' isn't right, because what law or proclomation or signature can make real what already exists? It can merely acknowledge, through ritual, what is already there. During the proceedings, JK accepted parental rights and responsibilities for the four kids, but - she'd already done that, long ago. She's been their mother for a year now. They call her 'Mom' and they've been using her name.

All the judge could do today was acknowledge what all fifty or so of us who came to support her already knew.

Yes, I did say 50 or so. Dad and I weren't the first or last to arrive, and as we sat in the chairs set aside for fat people (comfortable armless chairs set against the wall), people kept arriving. A few here, a few there - more and more people trickling in to be a part of the legal ritual.

People do love their rituals, don't they? We have rituals for almost everything. Physical expressions for abstract concepts, rote routines created to symbolize and commemorate moments and events and milestones. Rituals permeate our culture; we're fascinated by them, both the ones we understand and the ones we don't. We're flattered and honored when we're invited to take place in them, and we get offended when other people don't take our rituals seriously.

"What we hold sacred gives our lives meaning," - yeah, it's a quote from Babylon 5, but it's been a few posts since I used sci-fi to make a profound point.

Today was a moment, I think, that will define the meaning of 'family' for those kids for the rest of their lives. Even if some or most of the people who came to the courtroom drift away, or they outgrow the memories of today, I think knowing that many people came to support them as they were officially adopted will leave it's mark.

It was an amazing thing.

Small towns in Texas are places out of time, combining hints of modern with the past. The courthouse was no exception; it was beautiful and old and steeped in history. The seats weren't made for people my size, but there were some modern chairs off to the side, behind the jury box, that worked well for it.

The judge walked in and we all stood. When it came time to swear in the witnesses...the judge was flabbergasted that he would be swearing in the entire courtroom. More than fifty people stood, raised their right hands, and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

The attorney questioned the placement agency representative, presented an affadavit from CPS, questioned JK - and then questioned the other witnesses. The rest of us. All fifty of us. We answered yes - JK was the right person to raise those four kids.

Question after question, a ringing, echoing chorus of 'yes' reverberated through the high-ceilinged room, leaving the judge smiling and the attorney grinning. (The attorney had been forewarned about the possible turnout - the judge had not.) The attorney questioned the kids, and then the judge brought them all up to bang the gavel. Each of them got to bang the gavel.

Of course, the youngest banged it the loudest. *grins* RK is still my boy.

It was over faster than I thought it would be, but I think the statement was made - no matter what happens, JK and her kids won't be going it alone. They have a whole community behind them, willing to be there for them and with them as they go forward, officially a family.

One saying I've heard all my life is "you can't choose your family, but you can choose your friends," and the older I get, the more I think that's a lie. JK chose her family - and the rest of us chose to be her family, too. Families stand together and stick together.

Friends, you can walk away from. Family, you can't.

Awkward. (And happy birthday xdrumrboi

2009-05-26T23:11:00.000-07:00

Why yes. Yes, this is a backdated post.

It's not cheating, because I haven't gone to bed yet, even if the calendar changed from May 26 to May 27. I'm still awake because xdrumrboi and I went to see a late showing of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Happy birthday, bro.

So, I've been thinking about this blog challenge I've set myself and all the things I'm doing to make sure I keep it. Blogging before I surf the net, keeping a list of back-up topics and taking it one day at a time instead of thinking about just how long it is between now and Oct 31.

I'm not thinking about all the things I have to get done between now and then.

A list of 'backup topics' you ask? Why yes, yes, I really am keeping such a thing. Most of them are boring rambles, and some of them will 'expire' after awhile. None the less, I have them for days when I have nothing else. But so far, I seem to have a lot more to blog about than I thought. In fact, my brain seems to be writing the posts as I walk around during the day. Hopefully, I don't need to tell you that everything sounds much better in my head and I can never remember how things were worded when I finally sit down to pound on the keyboard.

The problem with having more to blog about than I thought? That means my lack of blogging in the past wasn't due to lack of content, as I've been pleading for years, but intellectual laziness, which is more than a little embarrassing.

*clears throat*

Enough about that. We can explore all the ways I humiliate and embarrass myself in later posts. There's plenty of time between now and Oct 31 and there's no reason to rush into things, now is there?

I thought not.

But since I think it's cheating to have an entire post about blogging about about my challenge, I figured I'd find something more interesting to say. I could review X-Men Origins: Wolverine or any other movies/books/comics I've partaken of lately. I could talk about birthdays and what it means to pass milestones and get older and get gray hair in your beard. (Not that I know anything about that.) I could talk about family traditions, hanging out with my brothers, or even about being a comic geek going to a comic book movie.

All kinds of good, psuedo-deep stuff that would make me feel intellectually superior and make me think I'm actually saying something important.

It's way too fucking late at night for that kind of intellectual masturbation, so I'm going to tell you about Madi instead.

Awkward moment was awkward.

So there I was. At work. (No one die of shock, now.) A customer comes in the door. Obviously female; has all the right curves. Has boobs. Nice make-up, if a bit much of it for my taste. Earrings, pale green nails. Headed straight for the yaoi manga.

Yep. A girl. Probably the annoying kind, too.

Nope. Wrong. A guy dressed as a girl. Now, this doesn't bother me. I work in Austin, TX. Normally, it doesn't even phase me or make me think about it. I do the customer service thing and move on. Well, Madi wanted to rent anime. After I gave him/her excellent sage addvice on what to rent ("go ask someone who knows what they're talking about. I don't like much anime, let alone watch it."), I gave her/him a rental form to fill out.

She/he does. (Sorry about the pronoun thing. I really don't know the etiquette here, and no one I've asked has ever explained it logically. Since I don't know what pronoun she/he prefers, I'm erring on the side of caution.)

I check the ID and the credit card. The name? Not Madi. A decidedly male name. Definitely his/her ID, though.

So I look again. I get that faint throbbing right behind my eyes that always happens when I have to have an awkward social moment with someone because they've done something that means I have to cross one of those invisible lines people aren't supposed to cross in the social context of retail clerk and customer. (I never get the headache in non-work situations. I suppose because I'm only making me look like an ass outside of work. At work, everyone else looks like an ass, too.)

But I have to tell him/her. It's policy, after all.

The name on the ID, card and form must all match. I tell Madi so, apologetically. I don't use the 'sir' or 'ma'am' I normally would, because - pronoun confusion. Since the ID indicated an age less than mine and I have gray hair in my beard, I pulled rank and used 'Madi' instead.

When I told Madi she/he had to use the other name, the look her her/his face was so hurt, crestfallen and disappointed I felt like a right and utter prick. But it wasn't my fault this time! It's store policy! We have lots of people with odd nicknames they go by. Toaster. Pumpkin. Bumper. They have to have their real name on official documents too!

Madi, to her/his credit, didn't argue. Just changed the name and signed with the correct name.

I hate making people feel bad when there's no reason to.

Like I said. Awkward.

The Rule of LAW

2009-05-25T21:16:00.000-07:00

The Rule of LAW is simple: He (or she) who writes the fewest pages buys the beer.

'tis a good incentive to write every month, really. Especially when you make as much (read: little) money as I do. LAW, of course, stands for Lazy-Ass Writers. It's a writing group started by a former Dragon's Lair colleague of mine - The Red Haired Ninja.

No. Really. She's both a red head and a ninja. Just ask her and she'll tell you Hopefully while smoking a cigar. (Which is a story for another time, I think.)

Regardless, I attended my second LAW meeting tonight, and did not have to buy the beer. The (former) Bounty Hunter, the Red Haired Ninja's fiance, had to buy the beer. It's good to get into a writing group agian, especially one where I'm not The Guru or the Newbie. It's a good fit and a lot of fun to have a nice dinner, some cheap booze, and talk about writing until long after we all should have gone home and gone to bed, especially considering we meet on Monday nights.

It's a very writerly thing to do, really. Especially since it's just a 'we'll meet on a Monday roughly every three or four weeks'. No set date. No set schedule. Keeps us on our toes, because we never know when, exactly, the next meeting is, so it's hard to schedule a serious speed writing session. It's kinda like NaNo-lite all year long.

Oddly enough, it seems to happen the Monday right before payday (I get paid every other Tuesday).

It's a helluva lotta fun. Oddly enough.

And to my dismay, fanfiction doesn't count. Because really? If it did, I'd never have to worry about losing. I could just keep churning out HPU and steamroll everyone. I mean, the story is over 500k words and I haven't even gotten them to Hogwarts.

Also: yes. Anyone bothering to read this is NOT imagining things. I am blogging two nights in a row.

Why, you ask, am I tormenting you with more drivel about my boring, geeky life? After all, you've gotten by just fine with my quarterly epics for some time now, avoiding having to pretend to care about my existence for most of the year.

Well, bad news. I'm going to try to blog every night between now and October 31, 2009.

I'll fail, of course. You know that. I know that. But it'll be fun to try, while adding another level of delicious, self-imposed stress on my already strained brain. I figure it's both good training for LAW, NaNo and in brevity. Because if I dole out my life and thoughts in a miserly manner I am unaccustomed to, I might have enough almost interesting, psuedo entertaining thought vomit to make it from now until October 31.

My inspiration for this noble quest? Aggiebell90 has blogged every day since September 2008. I figure if she can do that while managing Phoenix Song, ringing in a couple of handbell choirs, singing in a choir, working a full-time job and raising four kids, I should be able to churn out a post a day.

All sarcasm aside, it's been awesome to watch her dedication to her writing and to be part of her cheering section.

(Considering the absolute flood of comments I've gotten on the last two posts, I'm sure I'll be cheered on.)

(So much for putting sarcasm aside. Sorry!)

I've got a few ideas on how to do this, other than not writing everything that comes to mind every time I blog. I can blog before I start surfing the net and checking my sites, because then I won't be distracted. I can blog right when I get home, before my body has had time to realize how tired I should be. And I can take my copious notes about the world and use them as blog material. Because talking about myself all the time?

Well, there's a reason I normally blog about once a quarter. I'm boring.

Now the rest of you? Are just good material.

Or, at least, I hope so. Otherwise, I'm gonna end up buying the beer.

Pouting & puppy eyes make me do bad things

2009-05-24T20:24:00.000-07:00

Yes.

A meme.

Ozymandius Jones pouted at me and gave me puppy eyes, so my will power and meme-shielding collapsed. So, without further adieu, I give you Ozy's Writing Meme.

Under the cut (or not, if you're reading this on Blogger) is a list of my current writing projects. Ask a question about something. Ask anything about any idea listed here, and I shall attempt to answer it. I reserve the right to not give away Important Plot Points, but otherwise...have at it!

Major Works

The Katheryn Story - I haven't written on this for far too long, but I am untangling the story and have had several good scenes and revelations pop into my head in recent days.

Starfire Quest - not much written on this but one NaNo draft that will forever be condemned to the depths of my hard drive and LOTS of notes. Story has lots of potential, if I can only figure out what the actual plot it.

Other Works

Semepr Fidelis - written for a contest a few years ago. Won Honorable Mention. But it wasn't quite good enough, so I'm re-writing it before November.

In Absentia - sequel to Semper Fidelis. Will be this year's NaNo.

Worlds Asunder - old novel idea. Still has potential. Needs to be re-written.

Path of Thorns/Path of Tears - same as above, but needs a lot of work.

Addictive Community - a non-fiction peice about smoking and smokers' culture

Fanfiction

Harry Potter & the Unforgiven - finished CH35. Gotta work on the re-write of CH6 and starting CH36. Epic Harry Potter fanfic.

Zoidsfic - post NC0 fic about the powers controlling the Backdraft. Started.

Voltron Fic - a Keith/Allura fic about what would happen if the Galactic Alliance wanted to take Voltron for it's own. Started.

One Moment - a semi-erotic little HP ficlet about one moment in time. Not started, but fully plotted.

Ascension's Shadow - semi-abandoned Buffy fic. Would need a serious re-write before I could do anything with it.

So ask questions. Or pass along the meme. Whichever strikes your fancy.

Happy Mother's Day

2009-05-10T06:54:00.000-07:00

Happy Mother's Day to all the proud Mommas on my friendslist! Y'all do more than you know, working a more impossible job than I can ever know.

Thank you.

Happy birthday day to em2mb. I can't believe you're already 21...or that we've known each other this long. Normally, I know I'm supposed to call you on your birthday, but you called me. *grins* A fact which I may even let you live down one day.

A happy belated birthday to fancifulreality. You're gettin' there, kiddo. You're gettin' there. Not too much longer and I might have to start telling you half the things that go through my brain.

A post on Star Trek and the new movie to follow at some point in the relatively near future.

Missed Milestones

2009-04-20T20:57:00.001-07:00

So, I've been getting those poking feelings in my skull. You know the ones. Where people poke you when you don't post in your blog.

*rubs head* Some folk got sharp fingers. Just sayin'.

I should totally be better at this blogging thing. I have so many random thoughts, running narrations and absurd moments in my life that it should be easy to keep a daily record of all the things that go through my head that I really shouldn't share. Somehow, I never get around to writing them down.

Some people would think this is a good thing.

Some people would bug me to get on twitter. Which isn't happening. Because I would post nonsense. And follow no one of any import. Or ignore it completely until people with sharp fingers poked me.

Which really? Some of you should trim your nails.

(I am in a really strange mood tonight. I'd say ignore me, but some of you wanted me to post.)

Milestones. I thought about going deep and emo with this, but I decided instead just to comment on two missed milestones. My car - which used to be 's - finally broke 100,000 miles, and I completely missed it happening. Poor thing.

And on April 3, Katheryn turned 14.

Don't judge me. I'll finish the damn thing someday. Before I die. Or after. Lots of authors have finished stories after they die. JRR Tolkien did it. Twice!

To punish myself, I'm going to do a writing exercise. (Someone said it was a meme, but I don't do memes. That makes it a writing exercise.)

Concept

One of your OCs is being interviewed. Make up a reason why, if you really need one.

Rules

You must choose only ONE of your OCs. Do it again if you wanna use another OC.

Your OC must answer every question as truthfully as possible.

When you're done, tag as many people as you want.

Have fun!!!

If this were really just a meme, I could get away with writing it with questions and answers as opposed to writing a quick scene. So, I'm going to write a scene.

The girl sits across the white marble table, in front of the windows. The sunlight spills around her in a halo - a spotlight she'd never want. She is a tiny thing, with the delicate features of a child. Her pale skin is washed out against the stark, unrelieved black of her clothing. High-collared and military cut, it makes her seem even smaller, even more striking against the bright white marble and the golden sunlight.

It's hard to believe this girl is the one they say will save us all. At least, until you look into her eyes. Her eyes are dark blue, flecked with violet and streaked with silver. They are alien eyes that remind you who her mother was. It makes you think maybe, just maybe, she really does have Immortal blood running in her veins.

She smiles, but the expression doesn't quite make it to her eyes. Her mouth quirks into a half-smile, charismatic and knowing and enigmatic while seeming to share a private joke. It's hard not to like her, despie the distance she tries to keep between herself and everyone around her. She's alone in the room; she wanted to answer questions without anyone else around.

Some might call that brave, but it seems more like she doesn't want witnesses to what she might say.

"Everyone knows you as the Daughter of the Stars, the Silver Champion. What's your real name? What do your friends call you?"

She shrugs, her eyes following the holo-drone recording the interview. She sits perfectly still, utterly motionless, except for her eyes. She's at ease, calm, relaxed, with the hint of barely suppressed motion. Like a predator. It's vaguely disturbing, but seems to fit her well.

"I'm Katheryn Tariana, gaija of the First Blood of House Neila, Second Blood of House Liera, Heir-Apparent to the High Seat of the Outworlds Alliance. Duchess of the Katarian Holdings, Knight-Defender of the Empire of Terran Worlds, Warlady of the Disinherited." She pauses. "Most people call me Katheryn. Others call me less flattering names."

It's hard to know what to say to that. She's not the most popular girl with the First Blood or the Houses. She did start a war - two of them, actually. She's never so much as apologized for either.

It's also hard not to think she might have been right. What would have happened if she hadn't killed the Eridani envoy? What would have happened if she hadn't led the Disinherited to attack the Combine?

Regardless, no one can deny her tiny hands are soaked in blood.

"You've done so much the past few years, been at the epicenter of so much. You look to be so young, but no one knows for sure. How old are you?"

She shrugs again, putting layers and depth of meaning into the simple action. "I don't know. It's been...15 years, give or take, since Lord Treshair took me from my home and brought me to New Ontario. I don't know how old I was when he took me. I could be anywhere from 20 to 25."

So young to have done so much. To have so much blood on her hands, to have so many lives resting in her hands. On her word, millions go to die. By her decision, our entire civilization rises or falls. It's sometimes hard to put faith in prophecy or Power when you don't walk the Halls or stand with the Houses, but sometimes, it's hard to deny that logic or reason make it impossible that one girl could do so much, be so much without some greater reason.

But who is she?

"You're a mystery, Warlady. You're known for galactic upheavel, epic grandstanding and starting fights other people have to finish. But what does the interstellar heroine eat for breakfast? What's her favorite food?"

She smirks. It's a smirk that's just a fraction of an expression away from being scorn or a sneer or even a snarl. "Simple stuff, mostly. Sandwhiches, wraps. Food you can eat on the go or sit down and enjoy. I grew up eating fancy feasts or field rations, so 'normal' food is a bit exotic to me."

Her answer feels honest, at least. Maybe she's opening up, de-mystifying herself?

"What about a favorite drink?"

She actually looks a bit sheepish. "Herbal tea."

While she seems off-guard, it's time to find out something deeper, something to give people a way to understand her.

"People want to know more about you! Do you have a lover or someone you're courting?"

Her expression changes, becoming unreadable. Her strange eyes grow hard and sharp and her head inclines ever so slightly, her long, dark hair shifting with a whisper of sound.

"Next question."

"There has to be someone! Have you kissed them? Have you had the romance every First Blood girl dreams of?"

She shifts and the air crackles around her in a not-so-subtle reminder that she doesn't need a weapon to be dangerous.

"Next question."

"Right, then. How about another classic? Favorite color?"

Her expression changes and the tension drains out of the air. She relaxes a bit again, the half-smile tugging at her lips. "Not black."

It's hard to remember that she wears black because she's gaija. Tainted blood. A bastard child. Some say she wears it as a concession to the Houses, others say she has other, deeper reasons.

Stick to safe questions for the moment. Let things stay calm. "What about a favorite author?"

She's quiet for a moment, thinking. "I don't know. I don't read much for fun, though I love the works of the bard StarFreedom."

Of course. The bard who set her on her path, who inspired her to stand against what she saw coming. Against the Combine and the Immortals she claims control it.

"What about your biggest fear?"

A smirk again, eyes bright with bitter amusement. "I'm living it."

"Many claim you're a hero. Some claim that you're their personal hero. What about you? Is there anyone you look up to?"

"My father." Her voice is a whisper. Her father is a dead man; a warrior who stood against a veritable army of Treshairi Assassins on the steps of his own Palace. He died with his blade in his hand and the blood of his enemies running in rivers to stain the reflecting pools red.

She continues speaking. "He never doubted me. He never let me want for his affection, his love, even when it was forbidden for him to give my even that much. He stood against a corrupt system, held to his Oaths to protect his people. He gave up the love of his life, his daughter, his family, everything that mattered to him to do what was right. He was killed for it."

Time to press deeper. "Your worst enemy?"

Her eyes flash, flaring bright with luminescence. The air crackles again and the temperature drops in the room as her Power wraps itself around her in a mantle of barely suppressed energy. Silver and indigo burn on the edges of vision.

"Lord Treshair. Treadwell. The Grey Lord." She whispers his names as if he can hear her voice. And it's possible he could; the Grey Lord is the boogeyman in every closet, the knife at every back. Ageless, powerful beyond hope or reason - the last of the Immortals. A remnant of a lost age, the only survivor of a war that shook the foundations of the universe.

The most powerful man alive, some say. A myth, other say.

"He was my teacher, my friend. He was my father's closest ally." Her smile grows, but it is a cold, hungry expression. "He killed my mother so he could manipulate me into being your fucking messiah. He let my father die so I could take his place. I'm going to kill him."

The matter of fact delivery of that statement is enough to make anyone shiver.

"You face things most people can't even imagine, Warlady. You've seen things, been a part of things in ways that defy understanding. What would you do if you met your creator?"

Her face contorts. "Which one? Does it matter? I am already what they made me. I know why I am. I know what I am. I was never allowed to know who I am, because if I know that, they can't control me."

Enigmatic, much like the lady herself.

"What's your worst nightmare?"

She shakes her head, her hair falling around her like a curtain. Her voice is strained. Hoarse. "That everyone is right. That I am a savior, a messiah. That I have a destiny."

"You say you fight for everyone who can't fight for themselves. Do you have any dreams for yourself?"

"No," Katheryn chokes the word out. "No. I can't. I can't have that hope, because if I do, I might forget the path."

Okay, that sucked. Next time, I spend more time on it. Now, bedtime.

Maybe a bit of reading. I do have a signed copy of Turn Coat to read.

I has a sick (and that meme of Aggiebell90's)

2009-02-23T21:18:00.001-08:00

Yes. I has a sick. As in, I have a virus. I know I was just sick at Christmas, but now I have to be sick again. The symptoms are different, so I know it's not the same thing. I'm not sure if I'm grateful I got something new or if I'm pissed I'm getting sick all the time. When did my immune system start to fail like the rest of me? Time was, I couldn't get sick for the life of me because my allergies were meaner than any bug out there. I suppose as I've gotten older and tamed the allergies, the mean and nasty bugs out there have decided to prove their worth in the natural order of things by destroying the one part of my body that actually worked.

I even had to go home early from work today due to excessive hacking. For some reason, no one wanted me coughing up my innards all over the store. Something about health hazards and no one wanting to share this wonderful experience with me.

Except my boss. AB was also home sick today. She and I both missed something cool, which further proves she and I share the same luck-fairy. One of these days, we're gonna find the little blighter and fire 'em. Litearlly. Just wait. I always have matches. And lighters. I'm a smoker, after all. I'm good at making things burn.

*coughs* Right, then.

So. A meme.

Yep. I got suckered by one. Aggiebell90 got me. My fatal flaw - curiosity!

This was posted on her LJ:

Association Meme: Comment to this post and I will give you 5subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

I couldn't resist! I had to ask her what five subjects she associated with me. After I posted the comment, I realized I would have to reply to the meme and write this post. So *shame*. I am participating in a meme. I can hear homicidalsh33p laughing now.

So, without further adieu - five subjects associates with me. Be warned. I get a bit...well, snarky in places. Maybe a tad sarcastic. I know. I know. Shocking, right?

*That* - Yes. The word 'that.' The most overused word in the English language, in my opinion. I am on a crusade to liberate the poor word from the chains of over-use and mis-use! When used wrong 'that' can aid in the creation of such things as passive voice and construction, excessive verbage, and imprecise language. 'That' is needed less than half the time it's used, and even the times it's 'needed' the sentence an often be re-written in a more active voice without using 'that.'

If Aggiebell90 thinks of me in conjunction with 'that,' it means one thing: I have beta-read for her! I even asked her about it! She said: Every time I catch myself writing 'that', I ask myself, "What would Jayiin say about this?" and either check to make sure it belongs there, or I totally reword the sentence so I don't have to think about it.

See? My great crusade proceeds apace!

Percy Jackson and the Olympians - by Rick Riordanis one of the best YA fantasy series out there. I rank it up there with anything by Tamora Pierce. In short, the titular hero, Percy Jackson is the bastard son of Posideon, the Greek God of the Seas. It's a fantastic series, well worth reading by anyone who likes fantasy, YA books, or just good stories. I discovered the books through a young friend at my church, and in turn helped Aggiebell90 discover them. I even sent her a spare copy of the 4th book in the series. I had bought my own, but was given a copy at Christmas.

WizardTales - WizardTales is, in my opinion, one of the best growing fanfic archives on the web. I've got more history there than any place except maybe FFn. Its one of the few archives I've stuck with for more than a few months. WizardTales was closed for a time, but has recently re-opened. Originally just a Harry Potter fic archive, WizardTales now accepts stories from Harry Potter, Twilight, Lord of the Rings and The Inheritance Cycle.

WizardTales offers something a lot of archives don't: moderated fanfiction without enforced restrictions on 'ship, canon-compliance or any other niggling pains in the ass most places impose. Now, don't get me wrong - there are reasons, and good reasons, for archives that are 'ship-specific or who insist on canon compliance. I respect those archives for providing a safe place for fans to go and read what they want to read, just like a respect places like Dark Lord Potter for providing a place for people who want anti-canon and darkfic exclusively. WizardTales is a place for people who fall in the middle. People like me, who are writing stories that have one or two 'ships that make them ineligible for canon-compliance sites or 'ship-specific sites, but which still hold to trying to remain in character and in line with the vision of the original author. My own story, Harry Potter and the Unforgiven is being re-posted there. Each chapter is being beta-read by MuggleMomma.

With the re-opening of WizardTales, I've found myself with an actual position there - I'm the Associate Director of Public Relations. What that means, exactly, we're still working out, but it does mean I'm on the Executive Board. I'm excited about this - excited enough that I've invited a few friends to post their work there, including Aggiebell90. I beta-read her amazing story Impressions and - she posted it! She's visited our forums and chatroom.

Her story made a huge impression on the people who read it! My buddy Carpelocke got to mod her story, but I got to approve her request to join the forums! She's already been added to our 'featured stories' - and is sure to stay there awhile! Though, I now owe her Neville-centric HPU outtake, because she came to the chat.

Austin - As in the city, Austin TX.

Fun city. Where I live (sort of). 90 square miles surrounded by reality. Weirdest place in Texas. Gay Mecca of the south. Live music capitol of the world and capitol of Texas. That embarrassing rhinestone on the Bible Belt. Home of Leslie. A place where even bums can (and do) run for public office. Home of Eeyore's Birthday Party and other random excuses to publicly smoke pot and otherwise become stupidly shitfaced for not other reason than excessive dumb and the need to express it in a way that offends people with manners, rednecks and most people who bathe. We're a liberal college tourist town that also happens to be one of the most conservative places in the whole country. We're indie, hip, full of new ideas, live music, art and artists, hippies, corrupt politics, dirty politicians and more tall tales than you can shake a weed whacker at. We have rednecks, hillbillies, professors, more colleges than any sane town should have, and enough 'friendly' rivalries to make other places violently riot. We can do mardi gras as messily as New Orleans, upstage Washington with political antics, and produce more than our fair share of Presidents hated by the civilized world. Oh, did I mention we have politics?

We also have local color to spare. We can give any two entire nations their own brand-spankin' new cultures and still have culture and color left over. We have coffeeshops, bars, historical monuments, municipal modern art projects and enough bleeding hearts to fix the world blood supply deficit - except most of our bleeding hearts only bleed when they're getting a handout from someone else. After all, why work when you can be a hippy, bum, or starving artist and have everyone take care of you?

We've had O'henry, pun-offs, Bobby Flay flipping over Flip-Happy Crepes, new agers, vikings, SCA, geeks, and even scientologists hanging out in the same place at once - and no one killing each other.

Truth is, folks - I make a damn poor Austinite. I don't visit the local places to eat or drink. I hit fancy (read: cheap) chains, scarf fast-food at places like Whataburger instead of Dans'. You won't catch me dead at anything having to with the torture called live music (crowds? Me? FUCK no. Not now, not ever. I'd rather have a root canal without novocain than deal with a crowd.) I absolutely loathe most coffee houses. They aren't built for guys my size. I don't drink coffee. I break the second-hand kitschy furniture, or get stuck in cushy couches, and end up spending way too much money on cheap tea or bad fancy soda - when I would have been much happier with an ice cold coke. There's never a power strip outside where a guy can smoke a pipe in peace - so my poor laptop (and thus my writing) get no attention at coffeehouses. Most of which play music I hate, have food I can't eat (MSG and tomato in almost everything. Or, it's all diet with all kinds of artificial sweeteners I can't have) and people who see a fat guy dressed in all black and grace me with well-practiced sneers.

To my shame, there are a few Austin places I couldn't live without. Dragon's Lair, for example. Or, Pipe World. Or all the book stores. So many beautiful book stores. I also seem to know the city pretty well. I'm not a human map like my father, but I can get anywhere I need to be with relative minimum of fuss, as long as I have decent directions. I've eaten at or visited most of the local restaurants (enough to know what they do to my digestion) and have delved the divine dairy goodness of Amy's Ice Cream.

So while my city is a cesspool of many of the things I hate in the world and can barely tolerate most days, I don't think I could live anywhere else. Because I certainly do my part to keep Austin weird.

HPU - Odd, that this one comes up last. I think when people start identifying me with the stories I've written lasts and other things first, they're actually becoming my friends. Scary, that. Before too long, Aggiebell90 will be calling me at midnight needing a favor or having me drive out someplace in the middle of nowhere when she's got a flat just like the rest of you. *grins* But at least she reads my writing. Unlike most people I know.

Speaking of my writing, that's what this part of the blurb is supposed to be, yes? Harry Potter and the Unforgiven. My insane fanfic. I've been writing fic of one kind or another since I was a little kid and was addicted to Star Trek fanzines. I've written papers on fanfic. I've given talks on fanfic.

But Harry Potter and the Unforgiven is my fanfic albatross. Or opus. Or whatever you want to call it. I started it four years ago during one of the darkest and most painful periods of my life as a short fic that would take place over the course of the summer after Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

I read that book and got so mad at Dumbledore and the Order. They had Stupid Mentor Syndrome worse than anything I'd seen! None of the adults in the HP-verse, except Molly Weasley and (somewhat) Sirius, have a leg to stand on. Did you notice McGonagall never apologized to Harry, Ron and Hermione for not believing them in Philosopher's Stone? Where was Remus Lupin most of Harry's life? Where were all the people who suddenly love and adore him and care about him most of his life? Where was Albus Dumbledore?

If McGonagall hadn't liked the Dursleys, why hadn't she gone to check on him a time or three while he was growing up?

Out of sight, out of mind, it seems.

The whole idea of it made me mad, so I decided to answer some questions I had from Chamber of Secrets about the magical bond between Harry and Ginny (I was a H/Hr shipper at the time) and play with a plot bunny I had bouncing around my head.

So I did. And the first draft of HPU was born. From that brief interlude into fanfiction, a character sprang forth - Gracie McCallister. And from her, Harry's journey began. I started to ask myself other questions. What if Dumbledore had a real reason for what he did? What if most of the adults in the HPverse were really as pig-ignorant of the real situation as they seemed? How did magic really work? What about Voldemort and Dumbledore's duel? They used magic we hadn't seen before - and they fought in a very stylized, almost formal way. What if there was a reason behind that, too?

The story began to take shape. The plots began to take shape. What if Voldemort really were as evil as Rowling thought? What if Voldemort had a plan to deal with Harry? What if the Ministry were as corrupt as it was inept?

With each what if, HPU got an added dimension. Except, I wasn't feeling H/G. Not until I read Harry Potter & the Power of Emotion by Melindaleo. Then I was a H/G convert. I read more H/G fic, just letting my brain steep in it.

And HPU really began to take shape. However, I stopped writing it for a year or so, when my life was complete and utter...well, it was bad.

When I took the story up again, I completely re-wrote it, and I've been refining that re-write ever since. I always ended up stuck at the same point in the story, though - right around the middle of the second story arc.

Though, it appears I have broken that particular block, as I have recently finished ch35! It's been a four-year odyssey, but I seem to finally be cresting the hill I've been trudging up for awhile. I think, if I can get some momentum on the story, I'll finally get it done! Maybe the end of next year! (There's a lot left to write).

Okay, so that meme is meme'd out. I shall not succumb to another! (Except maybe the one Aggiebell90 tagged me on yesterday. Because I have to keep being nice to hear until I can write the Neville fic I owe her.)

Also, random moment:

A met a girl with the name Kitiara. Yes, named for the Dragonlance character.

Brain Dump 2008

2008-12-31T22:03:00.000-08:00

Once again, I should be getting into bed and falling asleep, because I have work tomorrow morning at 9 AM. Once again, I'm sitting at my computer, writing.

Every year, I do a bit of reflection about New Year's in my journal, but this year, my hands are hurting too much to write it by hand, so I'm sharing it with the rest of you.

Have you ever thought about how arbitrary New Year's is? Or what it really means? Everyone talks about New Year's the same way they do about birthdays and anniversaries, only - there's less reason for it.

Birthdays and anniversaries mark events that are celebrated. We've lived/been together/done something for another entire arbitrary 12-month cycle. Still, considering it's human nature to impose artificial order on anything and everything, it makes sense. Though, why twelve months?

I know there's a historical reason for it. I might even have known it at one time. Still, here we are. One number up on the
millennia.

Maybe because my birthday and the New Year are so close together, I've never really seen the New Year as a big deal - or that I don't want to go out and get drunk in a huge crowd of people. Because me and crowds? Never a good idea.

Getting drunk in a small group of people? Probably also not the best idea, all things considered. Most of the folk I hang out with these days aren't too keen on getting quietly drunk, and those that are probably wouldn't like a melancholy drunk.

I'm just not much of a partier. No big revelation there.

Getting drunk on my own? That's just lame.

So, New Year's for me usually consists of writing in my journal, avoiding driving, hiding in my room with my pipe, and pondering why everyone else is making such a big fuss over something that's never made much sense to me.

Which is to say, it's much like any other day for me, except more people are drunk.

Somehow, though, I've found myself rather superstitious lately, seeing signs and omens, patterns and tides and tendencies.

I'm sure it says something I took my last dose of antibiotic, got my tax form, and had my mother visit the store for the first time all on the last day of the year.

But I suppose it does me no harm to sit down and reflect on the big picture a bit, no matter how depressed it gets me.

(Huh. Now I think I see why so many people get drunk on New Year's. Thinking too much does that to you.)

2008 was the first year since 2001 I haven't been in college in one form or another, and though I missed it, I think it was good for me to try to break away from academia, at least a little bit. Even though Austin Community College is no St. Edward's, it's not as bad as some folk make it out to be.

I've discovered a great love of comics and the stories therein; which, if you know my love of stories, you know is a huge deal for me.

2008 is also the first year in awhile that I've had full time employment for the entire duration of the year. At the same place, even. I know a lot of folk fuss at me for working too much, but I actually like my job. Dragon's Lair, despite paying stale peanuts, is a fun place to work with decent co-workers, great management, and awesome customers (99% of the time).

And damn it feels good. I got my year review recently. Aside from my perfectionist annoyance at not being perfect, I'm pretty pleased with what was said.

And amused. Apparently, I'm a very methodical, detail oriented person. Who knew? /sarcasm

2008 also saw me get Baptized (in a hot tub, no less) - I know some of you want pictures, or even the illicit video someone took, but I'm probably never gonna post that stuff online. Now, I'm on Church Council at the Well, teach a kid's Bible class (really young kids, too), have discovered a talent and affection for dealing with babies, and I have yet to burst into flame or be struck dead by lightning from Heaven.

Which goes a long way to proving God's infinite forgiveness in my book. I woulda' smote me a long time ago.

I've lost weight, learned that I still have the strength and endurance to hold down a job even with the fibro and arthritis. Managed to even start getting up on time without needing a cattle prod.

While these are all laudable things, and things I'm proud of, truth to tell - 2008 has been a total and complete failure of a year for me.

Talking about the big picture here?

I'm 28 - closer to 30 than not - and I'm working a job that doesn't pay a living wage, living with my parents, still being partially supported by them (and yes, there are many extenuating circumstances, not the least of which is my health and my mother's health), still without a degree for all my troubles and money on college.

It bothers me more than a little.

Looking back at my life, I also realize that I have no idea where I wanted to be when I was this age. Marriage was always a vague idea, but considering my luck with women and having seen the hell my parents' marriage is, I never really considered it a serious option.

Kids? I don't know if I'd be a good father until I get at least one book published. Seriously - I think I would resent the amount of time a kid would take and how much effort and pain taking care of a kid would cause me, to say nothing of passing my genetics (fibromyalgia, arthritis, and everything else) on to another human being...

Yeah.

A bigtime job making lots of money, with a fancy car and a ritzy place to live? Never wanted it. I never saw money or status as worth all that much. Money buys me food, books and a place to live. Other than that, it's just a lot of math and a lot of misery to earn it. I'd rather have my job that pays nothing and the contentment that comes from it than a job I hate that pays well.

Been there. Done that. Got the baggage.

Worse yet?

I haven't really succeeding in much of the writing I wanted to do this year.

Why not, you ask?

Discipline.

Back before college, I had lots of it. I could discipline myself, make myself write even when what I wrote was crap. I was able to sit down and just pound out a few hundred words every day.

Not so much anymore.

I used to be able to stay organized, stay focused, and make myself do what I needed to do, when I needed to do it, without whining, bitching, moaning or ignoring it. I could do chores, keep my commitments, and still have time for a read and a wank before bed.

Not so much anymore.

This year, I've missed opportunities to do great things, dropped the ball on commitments I've made, and left some folk hanging in a lurch; friendships have faded, with little to take their place. I've missed opportunities for what could be great friendships (or, at least people I could help out a bit), and been unable to step up all the times I needed to.

And that bothers me, more than a little bit.

The shift hasn't happened overnight, or even over the course of a single year.

I partially blame it on college. Going to Stedwards was a good thing for me, because I learned a lot, discovered I had fibro, got engaged, got dumped, got voted off the island, and discovered I really just might have the skill to be a successful writer.

But going to Stewards required a different kind of discipline than I had used before. When I was living at home, my parents didn't ask me to do chores - they asked me to do homework. My grades were fantastic and reflected my academic discipline. It was okay to be a bit frazzled and a bit disorganized.

Not so much anymore.

I really sat down and noticed it a few weeks back, right around Thanksgiving when I had some time off work, and I didn't manage to get a single freakin' thing done.

So I tried to figure out why. At first, it was easy to say I was resting and recovering from work, and I was tired and hurting. But even though I was, I still had energy to go play and read fanfic and watch B5 DVDs and read books and generally slack.

Which really? Isn't me.

So I took a look around, and what I saw disgusted me.

My room was a mess, disorganized and cluttered. My desk was messy, and my books are all over the place. My writing notes are scattered, and I haven't been journaling the way I need to. I've got plans-a-billion, but no action or execution or even plans to get my plans moving.

I didn't even have a 'to-do' list or an active calendar. My whiteboard was blank. My laundry was piled up, my room covered in dust, and I was drinking more soda than tea again.

Some of it is complacency on my part. Sitting on my fat ass and getting falling into a routine of feeling sorry for myself because I don't make much money and I'm always tired and always hurting.

Wah. Woe is me.

I'm better than that.

So I pulled out a fresh notebook and set about doing what I should have never stopped doing. I wrote down everything I needed to get done. But instead of doing what I've always done before and color-coded it or
categorized it or anything else fancy, I just wrote it down in pencil.

It's a fairly extensive list, and every day, I notice something else I need to add to it. But then I realized, a lot of things on there were things that I've let slip by or things that I should have been doing all along.

I also realized it's been over a year and a half since I re-organized myself; every six months or so, I used to spend a couple of days just putting myself back together. Clearing out
detritus, clutter and shit I didn't need, doing a deep-clean of my room. I would sort out my papers and files and books and would re-prioritize.

This sounds so corny, I bet. And I know my brother is sitting there shaking his head and laughing at me. My 'resets' always annoyed the fuck out of him - and for good reason.

In truth, most people do this to a certain extent; I was just more deliberate about it. They way I taught myself to deal with my learning disabilities was to control my
environment. If my brain wouldn't accept the outside systems already in place, then I would just create and impose my own systems.

Resetting those systems was a good way to keep them from falling apart around me, streamline them, and keep me from going crazy. Spring cleaning for my brain. See, part of my problem is that my brain doesn't process information the way a 'normal' brain does. It's the whole dyslexia/dysgraphia/dysplaxia thing. Most people have a mental filing cabinet, with folders and labels that are mostly organized (to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the person).

I don't.

Things don't get filed unless I force my brain to do it; and even then, small things build up in piles around my mental office, things I miss or forget or just don't need to worry about. In order to clean all that out, empty the mental trash cans, I have to consciously do it.

It also helps control the depression. Changes things up a bit, keeps me from falling into the complacency and bad habits that I've developed. Helps me take stock of things, notice tendencies I've developed and take steps to correct them.

The problem?

I can't do the physical part of it by myself anymore. I need help to get in a move things to clean and I need help to figure out where I've gone wrong, because I don't always see it.

Getting that help is the problem. I could probably recruit one or two people from the church, but honestly? They'd end up spending as much time talking to my mother as helping me. She's something of a figure of mystery and interest there, because most of them have never met her, but they have heard about her.

And the Well is about people - and my mother isa person in great need of help.

So I can't really blame them for that or ask them not to do what God may ask them to do.

Still, I have a list. I have plan. Get back on top of the day-to-day crap first. Then figure out what I'm going to do about the rest of it.

So there's 2008. A waste of an arbitrary 12-month cycle.

The good news?

If I'm going to put any stock in omens, portents and symbols, the last day of 2008 has given me a few to think on.

When I woke up this morning, I felt like shit. I hurt, I was exhausted beyond belief, the depression was kicking my ass in a bad way, and I had no idea how I was going to get through the day without breaking down.

It was so bad I even posted on LJ. If you only read my nonsense on Blogger or Inksome or who aren't on my LJ flist, you missed it.

(Thanks to everyone on LJ who commented on my post this morning. I needed the support.)

Yet, today went well. Good weather, so my pain got a bit better once I started moving. My co-workers pitched in and we kicked ass on getting things done. The store looked good when I left.

I got to go home early, even. Not for a great reason, mind, but I still got to go home early.

One of our customers, a lady I'll call B, asked to read the Katheryn story and actually overcame the Curse. She brought in a printed copy with notes on it this afternoon. She and her boyfriend ZD are awesome, and I think might end up being friends outside work.

Hell, she even wants to check out HPU and read some of the Katheryn story history.

My muse was awake today, and gave me plenty of thoughts for both of those stories, especially once BL and I chatted a bit about the Katheryn story.

She came in specifically to see me and talk to me about the story. She lives very far south and didn't have to drive all the way - but she and ZD did.

After I got Mom settled tonight, I went out to my favorite place to eat - Whataburger. I'm friends with some of the people who work there, and one of them hooked me up with her discount.

I got gas at the Valero next door to Whataburger and filled up the tank of the Mazda for $15. I accidentally gave the cashier too much money and didn't notice it - he could have easily taken the extra $20 I gave him and pocketed it and I would have thought I'd lost it somewhere.

Instead, he gave it back to me. Seems silly and incidental, but good service and good deeds seem to be in rare supply these days.

Tiny things, but - good omens, I would think.

And right after the New Year starts, I'll get to see a couple of very good friends I don't get to see often at all. I'll spend a whole day chilling with a guy who can always help me get my head on straight.

People talk about resolutions around New Year's, but I think I would prefer to talk about plans. Resolutions are what I've been making all year, and it's gotten me nowhere. I'd much rather have a plan and know how I'm going to get back on track.

Time for me to figure one out, I think.

In all truth, I don't know where I want to be this time next year. I think making those kinds of plans for me never work out; instead, I always end up someplace I never expect to end up. The long term goals are still the same - write, get published.

Instead, I think I'll focus on smaller plans, plans that will help me take things step-by-step to get to the larger goal.

I can still point to 2004 as being one of the worst years of my life; 2008 is nothing more than a blip compared to that.

So 2009? Just another arbitrary 12-month cycle that will see me writing another boring brain dump as it, too cycles out.

Hopefully, my brain will be in better working order, though.

The First Lady of Star Trek

2008-12-18T21:38:00.001-08:00

Today is a sad day for me.

I don't know how many others on my flist will feel the same as I do, but I know a few of you will.

Majel Barrett Rodenberry passed away today.

(Yes, this post will be cliche, corny, and melodramatic. You have been warned.)

This lady was married to one of the great visionaries of our time - a man who dared to have hope for the human race, and dared to share that hope with everyone else. I can't imagine what it must have been like, or what kind of a woman she must have been to capture him as totally as she did. Nor can I imagine what it must have taken to keep his dream alive and moving after his death, nor what a heavy responsibility it must have been to try to carry on with that dream.

I can only say that Star Trek shaped much of who I am, and I am very sad to see her go; though I know she has re-joined her husband and she now flies amongst the stars with the Great Bird of the Galaxy.

All's Well

2008-12-08T20:52:00.000-08:00

I want to thank everyone for the prayers and support while my mother was in the hospital; it really did me good to see all the comments and get all the phone calls.

Thank you.

My mother is back home, and is doing better; she's on the mend, but it'll be a long trip back to where she was before this. But we're going to be able to make that trip, so I think we're heading in the right direction. As usual, the hospital visit was hard - North Austin Medical Center performed to thier usual sub-standard of fail. The internist who treated her after she was admitted ignored a direct request from my father that he request my mother's GI doctor come see her.

See, without the attending Doctor's permission, Mom's GI doc couldn't come see her; it would have been considered assault.

So, the attending doctor (read: raving worthless fuckwit) decided not to do as my father asked. Because obviously? He knows better than the GI doc who's kept her alive and functioning in the past. Obviously, he is so omniscient and skilled that he didn't need the assistance of a specialist when dealing with a woman who has more medical problems than a med school textbook. Obviously, with only the barest of medical histories, he was fully capable of diagnosing and treating a woman with delicate and complicated health issues.

Because's he's just cool like that. He's a third-party doctor, one a service sends to the hospital to help with the admissions and such. Obviously, he's fucking Gregory House or Leonard McCoy and can avoid making stupid mistakes, like giving my mother, a chronic pain patient, a medicine that flushes all her meds out of her system and putting her on a pain med that doesn't work for her. Or giving a woman with a damaged, dysfunctional and disabled digestive system a full course of stomach-rending meds the evenning after she's been admitted to the hospital because her vomiting and dehydration were so bad she couldn't get out of bed. Or, taking eight fucking hours to get her an IV of fluids and such. To say nothing of antibiotics, because someone on two or three immuno-suppressive drugs wouldn't need those, oh no. A compromised immune system in a hospital full of germs? Why would that be a worry?

Instead, he stick a catheter in her and leaves her sitting in a room for a few hours. Admittedly there was an emergency where he was needed, assisting the on-call GI doc.

The on-call GI doc? Was my mother's GI doc.

Or, instead of being patient and getting a nurse capable of putting an IV in a patient with damaged and small veins, he just had a ham-handed intern tech jab her with a needle until she's covered with bruises the color of rotten plums smashed against a whitewashed fence by a sledgehammer. The spread pattern even looks similar - you know, all over her freakin' arm?

The emergency room floor was covered in debris - syringe caps and other, less idenfiable bits of plastic that may or may not have, at one time or another, been inserted in a human person.

The tech that moved my mother from the emergency room to her hostpial room almost got himself curbstomped into yet another stain on the floor when he was raising her bed. It had a foot pump and he was stomping on it like he was doing some insane white-boy dance at a geek fraternity rave.

One more foot pump that made her wince in pain? And my brother and/or I would have given him an urgent need to see a doctor. Luckily for him, the Fuckwit was around. I mean, with Fuckwit's careful and concerned care, he'd get well in five or six years. If he didn't die, first.

The clincher? The last time this happened, Mom's GI doc had her out in 23 hours. This time she was in three days.

She never saw her GI doc. Her GI doc was never informed my mother was in the hospital. On the night she was on call.

Mom's GI doc is a very aggressive, take-charge kind of lady. I get the feeling she's gonna staple fuckwit's balls to his stethescope.

Austinites, if you ever end up at that particular dungeon - erm, hospital - and you get Steward McKenna as your doctor, demand someone, anyone else. Say, a records clerk. Or a janitor. Or the janitor's pet monkey. The pet monkey will only bite you, give you raibies, and fling dung everywhere.

Much more helpful than fuckwit.

On another note, fuckwit gave my father his card. If you know my father at all, you realize that giving him a peice of information like your name, contact info and place of employment is tantamount to giving him a loaded gun with a pre-labelled bullet.

Dad isn't going to do anything so prosiac as sue. See, malpractice insurance takes care of that, and all we'd get at the end was whatever the lawyer didn't claim. Instead, my father is going to make his life a living hell with complains to anyone and everyone who has authority over him. Like the state board of medical examiners. The hospital director. That sort of person. The kind of person who just loves hearing about a doctor that fucked up a simple thing like 'please let my wife see the doctor who treats her for this condition on a regular basis.'

Still, Mom's okay, and that's what's important. Next time she gets admitted to that hospital (which is the only one her GI doc practices at), we're going in force. As many people as we can get. Dad can take care of Mom and I can do what I do best.

Be a royal and utter pain in the ass.

I'm the most stubborn person I've ever met. There is no beauracratic system invented I can't stubborn my way through. It hasn't been invented. God gave me a gift to put my head down and charge right in, making a right mess of things until people do what they need to do.

Dad can take care of Mom. I'll get the morons to let her see the right doctor. They won't even know I'm conning them until after Mom's doc has handled the problem.

/angry rant

On other, more random notes - the last two blog entries have usurped my blog on the Twilight movie. It's almost done.

I fit into three of my old, smaller shirts. This makes me happy.

Barack Obama is a smoker. For some reason, I like him better now. People best lay off him 'bout that, too. Yeah, yeah, bad example for the kiddies and all that but, shit. It's not like the man isn't about to start a stressful job or anything. Better he take care of his stress with nicotine instead of, say, bombing someone.

(Says the conservative. Go figure.)

Long Day is Long

2008-12-03T22:55:00.000-08:00

Wednesday morning started like most other mornings: I woke up. I scratched, I peed, I checked email and my Dad told me he was calling the ambulance to take my mother to the hospital.

Okay, so it's not like most morning. Just some. It's always morning when these things happen. It was morning when I found out Mom was moving out - I hadn't even gotten to fully wake up for that one. It was morning the last two times Mom got taken to the hospital.

Have I mentioned I am not a morning person?

So I pulled on pants and shirt and I stood outside and waited for EMS. I listened to the sirens as they got closer, and I realized I hadn't even gotten a chance to go look in on Mom myself. The problem didn't sound bad. She just couldn't get out of bed. Too lethargic, too sick, too much pain. That sort of thing.

It's happened before. Muscle spasms cause a migraine. The migraine causes nausea. Nausea causes vomiting. Vomiting means her meds don't stay down and her blood sugar spikes. A blood sugar spike causes the gastropareisis to act up and her stomach shuts down.

Sucks balls when that happens.

So, we take her to the doctor. Only this time, she couldn't get out of bed.

It started late Monday night. The vomiting, anyway. Called her doctor, got some anti-nausea meds. She seemed to be getting better on Tuesday, until late in the night, when she started vomiting again. Enter Wednesday morning.

And me, standing outside, waiting for the EMS. I listened to the sirens getting closer, as they navigated the maze of the community we live in. I saw my next door neighbor giving a concerned look as he realized why I was standing outside.

I was calm when the fire truck got there. They grabbed their gear and came in, and started the process of getting her read. Blood pressure, meds, medical history, etc. Not four minutes later, the EMS showed up. I wasn't much help, because Dad was handling things, so I got a coke from the fridge. Odd, how normal this all seemed to me. I drank my coke, printed off more med lists (she takes A LOT of strong meds). One paramedic talked to Dad and took down information. Two others were in with Mom and were asking her questions she wasn't coherent enough to answer, so I went in and gave them answers. They paramedics were surprised at how on top of things Dad and I were and how we were able to give consistent, informative answers.

Impressing paramedics with your ability to handle complex and dangerous medical situations? Not sure how I feel about that, really.

They loaded her in the ambulance and said they were going to give her an IV. Knowing that could take awhile, I drank more coke, called dreamsaint and my brothers. Dad got her meds and some other stuff ready to go and followed them to the hospital. They took her to the hospital we trust least because the doctor we trust most works there.

No, I didn't go.

I do well at hospitals, especially when I'm needed. When I can answer questions, help Mom, help the doctors. Otherwise, I'm just a fat guy who's in the way. All I can do is sit down somewhere and read a book until someone needs me to go buy a soda or grab lunch.

I suck at sitting and doing nothing. I would have to say of all the varied and often useless skills I have, sitting and doing nothing is perhaps the thing I am worst at. I have patience. I have calm. Hell, sometimes I even manage zen. But sitting and doing nothing?

Fuck that. I have to be doing something.

Luckily for me, I had something else I needed to be doing. A most welcome distraction, and a task I've been looking forward to for awhile. I had taken today off work, because I was going to snack time with a four-year-old at his Head Start class.

A friend of mine from the Well adopted four kids, all siblings, recently. As a single mother. She is, perhaps, one of the few people I know who are more insane than I am. You wouldn't know it, even talking to her, but kids are her calling and her passion. Her job is to protect them. She's always helped raise her friends' kids - and trust me when I say there are a lot of them. About, oh...15 or so. Conservatively. Kids, that is.

She adopted her four; they're roughly a year apart in age. Two boys, two girls. The youngest (a boy) RK, is the one I went to see. His class was having this 'bring your father/brother/uncle/favorite adult male to snack' thing this week. RK asked for me to go. I was his first choice - and I was glad to do it. Flattered, even. I mean, how many times in life can a single male with no intention (or prospect) of having children can claim that they're that loved by a kid?

So I got the day off work and I went. Driving out to Bastrop was, to say the least, an adventure. Though I'm somewhat familiar with the area and the highways out there from the Kallven days, it's been awhile. So I got directions, climbed in the car and off I went. As some of you know, with the fibromyalgia and arthritis, driving is painful. Driving all the way out there? Very painful. And directions and I? Not always the best of friends. I can get lost in my own room, to say nothing of unfamiliar back country roads with signs you don't see until you've passed them.

But I made it there. On time, even.

RK was glad to see me - came running right up and wanted to be picked up. I probably shouldn't indulge him (or his sibs) as much as I do, but I couldn't say no. He stuck with me like glue the whole time I was there - he got shy and wouldn't talk at first, but there was a little girl (BK) in his class that seems very fond of him. She also, for some reason, clung to me. RK didn't want me to leave, actually - it wasn't until his class was over and he was in his after-school care program that I had to go. I could hang out with him, but the rules were I couldn't mingle with the other kids. BK wasn't happy about that.

I left him with his after-school care people and went on my way. I had to physically hand RK over to his teacher; he was very unhappy with me. BK, to my surprise, cried when I left.

It was a fun afternoon; it was hard balancing giving RK most of my attention while not ignoring or hurting the feelings of BK - but I managed. RK's teacher is an awesome lady, and very brave, teaching a room full of four-year-olds. It's not so much controlled chaos as it is purposeful chaos. She had a masterful hand with the kids, able to maintain discipline and keep control without being mean or nasty. I learned a lot just watching her for an hour or so.

I drove back home. Stopped at convenience store on my way back in for more coke. I needed the
caffeine by then (eating a snack meant for a four-year-old is not enough to give any kind of energy to man of my prodigious girth, especially when it's the only thing you've eaten that day). One of these days I might even write something about why I like convenience stores so much. Especially highway convenience stores.

I got back home, called people. Called xdrumrboi again, because I know he never checks his messages. Talked to Dad. Rescheduled the video shoot I'm supposed to be doing, picked up xdrumrboi, grabbed
whataburger, and battled traffic to the hospital, met with Dad and saw Mom. Ate lukewarm fast food (which, trust me, I'm regretting right now).

Everyone knows my mother and I don't often see eye-to-eye. Most people don't even realize why. A lot of the time, I don't understand why. I think it's because we don't see the world through the same eyes. I don't think we can.

But no matter what, she share a bond no one else in the family does - we share some of the same diseases. I learned to cope with what I have by watching her...often times, doing just the opposite of what she does, just because that's the way things have always worked. What works for her doesn't work for me and vice versa.

It seems like Mom and I aren't close at all, to most people. Oddly enough? We are. I'm probably closer to her than anyone but Dad. I took care of her for a long, long time. Did you know I drove her to and from work for years? That we worked in the same building for almost two years? That she's the one who convinced me to go to St. Edward's University? We talked every day, multiple times a day, about everything for years. She always gave advice, a lot of it bad, some of even with good intentions.

She's been trying to fix me my entire life, since before I knew there was anything wrong about me. Before I'd had the great revelation that I, for whatever reason, see the world so differently than most people. Since before I knew had I depression, since before I knew I wanted to be a writer. Since before I knew I could be a writer.

She taught me to read. Honestly? I don't think there's any greater gift she could have given me. Even now, I chew through books and reading material at a rate that astounds even me. Arrogant to say, but deal with it, folks. I can go through four or five novels in a week, to say nothing of fic, comics, and things people send me to read. I remember sitting on the floor, leaning against the foot of the waterbed, in the house in San Antonio, her bribing me with M&Ms to read word after word. I remember crying, I remember the headaches, the mental pain of trying to make the words hold still on the page. To sound out each word. She taught me using phonics, like she was taught.

She made me do it. I hated it. I hated her. I even hated the fucking candy after awhile.

She never let me give up. The only things she's ever wanted me to give up? Being a writer. Being me. Small things, really.

Well, KH, if you read this, there you go. A bit more insight to me and my mother. A tidbit or three that might give you some of the answers you want.

I told you if you read this thing, you'd get hints every now and again.

All the times she's been sick? I haven't been this worried. No matter how serious it was. No matter how bad she was. Because no matter what, she soaked up the attention. She loved being the center of attention, having everyone worried about her, thinking about her, changing up their lives to take care of her.

This time, it's different, and it scares me.

She didn't want anyone there with her.

Big change. Scary change. I wonder if it's because she's realized how serious it is, for once...or if this is worse than it ever has been.

If you're the praying kind, I'd appreciate the prayers.

For now, I'm going to try to sleep. Or, at least, lay in bed and read until my alarm clock goes off and I have to go to work.

NaNo November Ruminations, HPU and other worthless bits of my brain

2008-11-25T01:18:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the latest installment of 'Jayiin thinks too much.'

I should be sleeping, because I have book pull tomorrow, but instead, I'm blogging. This is the post that should have gone up where I had 'Placeholder.' JH, your patience has been rewarded. I hope this is worth the wait.

This post has been brewing in the back of my skull for awhile now - two or three weeks, really, but as with most of my writing, it needs time to gestate. As a further - and somewhat random - note, I have a new blog (which, for the moment, will just be a mirror of this one) over at Inksome - it's a fandom friendly blogsite using Livejournal's open-source code. The ever-wonderful mackzazzle got me an account there.

So, for those of you who read on LJ, a Friendslist-friendly cut! Because long post is long. For those of you reading on
Blogger - well, you're stuck.

Most of you who know me, know every November, I participate in NaNoWriMo. Most of you know, this is my yearly thing. I spend hours in front of my computer (well, more hours than normal), eschew activities I might otherwise participate in (okay, so there's a chance you'll find me doing something else other than writing. I do occasionally visit the outside world. Just not often, and not without protection.) and otherwise focus in on a new story.

I'm good at NaNo. I'm good at writing. Usually, I blaze through NaNo like a hungry teenage boy through free pizza.

This year was no different. There was a brief period at the beginning of the month where my work schedule and my writing met and clashed and didn't work well together, and I actually fell behind most of the people who watch me blast past them in word count. I whined like an emo schoolgirl and my boss, being gifted with compassion, patience, and a sense of humor, patted me on the head and moved heaven, earth and the rest of the cosmos to re-create her carefully crafted schedule into something where I could write.

There aren't many bosses who would do that. Lots of folk I know bitch at me about working too much, giving up too much of my time/energy for the store, wearing myself out, etc - well, what AB did for me with the schedule was better than a raise or a prize or anything else of the sort. Very few people in my life are willing to do as much to help my writing and very few of those willing to help are willing to face down a horde of geeks whose precious 'sit and do nothing' time would have to be rescheduled for two whole weeks. My boss did.

I didn't waste the time she gave me. I won on the 17th or 18th of the month, and after validating tonight, I got this shiny new picture that says I'm a winner.

I have never lost NaNo.

That said, this year was hard. I had lots of ideas, some of them better than others. I chose one that I thought would be fun, but it sucked. The story was flat, the characters were 2-dimensional, and the plot had more holes than rotten cheesecloth. Yet, in the spirit of NaNo, I went ahead and kept writing until I hit 50K - and then promptly closed the document and left it alone, because I hope I never write anything that crappy ever again.

Why was this year hard? Because I was writing crap. I understand the idea behind liberating yourself from your internal editor and just flying with literary abandon. I get it - and normally, I revel in it during November. But I've never written this kind of crap before. I know I quote Anne Lamott a lot and babble on about how every writer writes shitty rough drafts. But this? This went beyond bad and into the realm of absurd. It's so bad I couldn't even salvage it by turning it into a farce.

Unsurprisingly, November brings up all kinds of thoughts about things I already know, at least about writing. First and foremost, writing is a discipline. Just like any spiritual discipline, physical discipline or lifestyle discipline, it takes effort, will and determination to make it work. Bum glue. Glue your bum to the chair and write.

I think I finally learned what that means. To just push through and keep writing, even when it's crap. I don't like it.

I think of writing as a craft; just like carpentry, blacksmithing or any other craft. There is technical skill and then there is artistry. A person with technical writing skill can create a well-written, grammatically correct, correctly spelled and logically sequenced piece of writing, just like a carpenter can create a functional, sturdy and usable chair. However, a craftsman is always trying to make things better, to make that chair or that piece of writing more fun to use or to read.

I fall into that category. People often ask me why I can't write all year like I do for NaNo, and the truth of it isn't some kind of horrid mental block or any of the other dime-store psychological platitudes people dish out to me when I talk about why I get stuck with writing. It's a completely different dime-store psychological platitude.

It's craft. I want to craft my stories - build them, work with them, make them work. Every time (aside from NaNo) I try to write without working on craft, I end up stuck. The times I do my best work are the times I sit down and am willing to craft every sentence or paragraph or agonize over words. When I'm willing to go back and play with a chapter or a scene until it fits - when I'll scroll back over a hundred pages to change a single thing to makes sure everything is consistent.

If I'm really called to be a writer, as I've theorized, I need to treat what I do with respect and irreverence at the same time. I need to take the idea behind NaNo - writing the story, telling the story, no matter what and synergize it with the idea of crafting the story as I write it. Even though a well-crafted rough draft will still be shitty compared to the final product, it will be something I can feel comfortable with having written.

I don't know if I'm an artist or not; I don't think of myself as one, but I know there is sometimes artistry in storytelling or character or even a turn of phrase. Some folk, like homicidalsh33p have it fairly often. Sometimes I even think I do...but I'll leave the final decision to my eventual readers when I get something substantial published.

Strangely enough (or maybe not), it was HPU that led me to that conclusion. Oddly enough, most people on my LJ Flist haven't read HPU, even though I've been working on it off and on since 2004. For that matter, most people on my LJ Flist haven't read the Katheryn story, either, even though I started writing it in 1995. These stories are a major part of my life, and some of what I'm going to say won't make sense if you don't know those stories. So, for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, time to tune out and go back to the rest of your regularly scheduled internets. For the rest of you who have a clue and still give a damn, read on!

Writing HPU has been an adventure in self-discovery. I could rant about the fanfiction aspect of HPU and spend a lot of time defending fic, but I won't, because most of you have already heard it already, read fic, or stopped reading at the last paragraph. HPU is the first story I truly gave free reign to and it's turned into a monstrosity. Over 760 pages, 220,000 words...and the story is not even to the halfway point. It's got a lot of writing I'm proud of, a few places I want to cleanse with fire, and some bits and pieces I know I could do better (and will eventually tweak). But I've learned more about how to tell a story through HPU than through anything else I've ever written, just like the Katheryn story has taught me how to build a universe in such a way that I don't drown myself or kill the story with the details of cosmology.

Frankly, I'm not a good enough craftsman yet to tell the Katheryn story, but if anything will get me there, it'll be HPU. If you think reading this entry has been hard, try making an admission like that. I'm not good enough to tell the story I most want to tell.

I will be, though. Even if it kills me.

For the most part, everything I've learned about writing, I've learned on my own. There are a few notable exceptions to this, most of them coming from random places. Anne Lamott taught me about letting go of false expectations in Bird By Bird. One of my professors at St Edward's taught me a new way to think about writing.

Everything else? I've taught myself. Mostly, because getting people to actually read is very hard. Getting people with my level of knowledge and who are willing to sit and discuss is even harder.

The other night, I was writing a bit of HPU, and I realized that, despite what I'd been telling myself, I was stuck at the same place I always get stuck. The last two weeks of summer, after Harry has woken up from the attack at the gym but before his return to Hogwarts. I can't get past this same place; I get bogged down because there are so many details, so many things to reveal, so many things to build and to put into place to make the rest of the story make sense. When I stopped trying to limit chapter size and stopped trying to keep other characters from having a strong voice and role in the events, I was able to start moving things forward.

Then I got stuck again. The only way to get unstuck, I think, is to push through like I did with this year's NaNo. Only, slightly different. Instead of focusing on quantity, I need to focus on quality - I need to make sure to spend the time crafting and building these chapters instead of rushing through them to get to the 'meat' of the next part of the plot. Patience is a major part of good craft, I've been told.

I have patience, just not with myself.

It all comes back to the Basic Speed Law, as applied to life. Which is to say, you can only go as fast as conditions allow.

Not too long back, back, I was driving to Dragon's Lair on a Wednesday morning. That particular morning was beset by fog - fog like I haven't seen in awhile. It was thick and horrid stuff, like cold steam. When I was a kid, I learned fog was just a cloud that had settled close to the ground - if so, then this was a particularly aggressive and stubborn cloud that refused to be the wispy fog we central Texans are used to.

The frustrating thing about this fog wasn't the inability to see a whole car-length in front of me, or even the need to drive to work. It was the way the other drivers seemed to be ignoring the fog. Now, I'm not usually one to bitch about traffic. I leave that to my father and Iridanum - they're much better at it than I am. But that particular morning, the other drivers were beset by a particular and special kind of suicidal stupid.

It reminded me of learning the Basic Speed Law in Driver's Ed all those years ago. I remember Mr N browbeating us with it. "Only drive as fast as conditions allow." It was on every test, every quiz, and, if you got that question right on the final, you were sure to pass (if only barely).

As much as I hate the dumb 'life as a road' metaphor with all the deep, dark and unpleasant parts of myself, it works here. Everyone has goals - things they want to do. Ambitions, hopes, dreams, etc. We have thousands of movies and stories about people achieving their dreams, just because it's something everyone can connect with. Because there's no one in the entire world who doesn't have at least one impossible thing they want to accomplish before they die. (Impossible, of course, being relative to the situation and person.)

You can only get there as fast as conditions allow.

Even as I write that, I hear all the outcry, the screams and the rants and the lectures about that being a horrible excuse for letting things get in your way or slow you down, and while there's some truth to that, there's a lot more truth to this: sometimes, there are things that get in the way and you have to navigate them with care. Sure, you can claim obstacles are just excuses, and they can be - but only if you're not trying to get around them. Moving slowly and carefully around an obstacle so as to not make more of a mess is different than using an obstacle as an excuse for not doing something.

To say nothing of how your goals compare to what other people think your goals should be - but that's another post. Probably my next one. Maybe. Maybe not. I'm learning not to make promises about my blogging, because - let's face it. The blogging fairy only pokes me one and a while. *cough*New Moon blog.*cough*

In my case, I have a whole host medical issues - fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis among other assorted minor problems, to say nothing of the varying forms of dyslexia I have (which is pretty much the whole set). This means it takes me three times as long and three times as much effort to do normal, every day things.

Such as remembering which way doors open. Or which faucet has the hot water (when they aren't marked). Or finding my way around a room that's been recently re-arranged. However, some of my issues mean I don't have as much energy to put into effort as other people. That means I have to choose what I do and when I do it and how I do things very carefully. I live my life in a constant state of discipline just to make it through one day to the next.

Everything I do is very deliberate, very purposeful. I've discovered I work best when I apply that to the rest of what I do. Another HPU lesson. When I'm deliberate in my writing, I do better - but I can't plan too far ahead (IE - outlines!), because there's no way to predict things or plan for things too far out. In life, that means I might not have the energy to run to the store after work to get food I can cook, but I can plan to eat dinner after work. Sometimes, that means cooking. Other times, it means hitting up the usual.

Recently, a few things have happened to make me think about my life, its direction and the goals I have in it.

My boss, at the beginning of November, sat down with me and had a chat with me, because of a personnel shake-up at work. Suffice it to say, JKA - who I helped train! - got promoted to manager. At first, I was a bit upset about this, mostly because I felt overlooked. Truth to tell, I don't want the job he has. I'd be miserable, because it would take all the fun out of my job! But my boss, showing wisdom, patience and compassion well above and beyond the call of duty, made sure I understood what was going on.

I hadn't been overlooked. In fact, I'd been considered. However, my talents and skills are of more use elsehwere. Truth is, I'd make a poor manager. Hell, I remember not being able to handle being a safety patrol lieutenant in elementary school, and I've not grown up enough since to get past some of the stupidity that makes me a bad manager.

Still, being an irrational creature, I got upset. I'm proud of how I approached the situation. Instead of throwing a fit, I was able to feel happy for my co-worker's promotion, and actually approach my boss about it rationally and calmly and talk to her. I'm glad I did. (Though, a couple of hours of praying about it before I did anything had a lot to do with that bit of maturity).

I can't reveal much about future company plans, but suffice it to say (yes, I like that phrase. I'd say 'sue me', but I have nothing of worth), that Dlair is a franchised chain now, and if I play my cards right, I could be the press agent/medial relations guy for the chain. Not just one or two stores...but a lot more than that. I could be a part of something pretty big. Not a huge corporate chain or a major force in the comic publishing industry - but I could be part of growing a small homegrown business into something more substantial.

All I have to do? Prove I can do it.

Okay, so I've proven part of it. I can do the writing part of the job in my sleep (and, considering when I write most of the store newsletters, I sometimes do). The press agent the owner had on contract for awhile didn't do much writing - she just stole the articles I wrote for the website and used them as press releases until I said something about it. Then, people just had me write the press releases.

Now, her contract ran out and I have a chance to show folk I can do all of her job, not just part of it. Here's hoping I can pull it off, yes?

Considering I'm something of a professional failure so far, I'm pretty sure I have a fifty-fify shot of fucking this up royally. Which is to say, I'm going to try, going to try to discipline myself enough to get the job done while trying to untangle the rest of my life.

It won't be quick or easy, because most of what I need/want to accomplish with this are things that take time and require me laying groundwork. Here's hoping I manage to get it done before the owner and my boss run out of patience with me.

In the mean time, I'm going to keep slogging through HPU.

And hopefully, get enough sleep to function tomorrow.

Yep

2008-11-21T06:44:00.000-08:00

Placeholder

2008-11-16T23:22:00.001-08:00

Yes.

I know I said I would blog today before I went to bed, and lo - I did try. Yet, my brain didn't want to cooperate. I've spent most of today trying to write something or another and failing miserably. It's like trying to wring water from a stone - it doesn't happen without a supercollider and quantum mechanics. And since we all know how good I am at math, it ain't happening.

Hopefully, I'll have better luck tomorrow.

Playing Catch-Up

2008-09-29T17:51:00.000-07:00

I was recently reminded by JH, the author of Insert Title Here that I haven't been blogging (again) and there are people far and abroad who are supposedly interested in my life and thoughts.

I figure those folk have got to be bored. So very, very bored. None the less, here I am, blogging for their amusement and mine. Mostly, a long and boring series of thoughts, events and ponderings that, I'm sure, will make you long for your previously scheduled boredom.

First and foremost, my brother and partner in crime, Iridanum has traveled to the Emerald City to be with Aderangedhyena, which means he's actually smiling for once. Whataburger, the dogs and I shall all miss him.

For those of you waiting for commentary on New Moon, patience. I'll have my first blog on that up before too long; hopefully mid-week.

Now, as most of you know, I live in a quaint little trailer park in the twilight zone between Austin and Pflugerville (yes, it's really spelled that way) and, thusly, all the big and important people don't want to sell things to us. Folk like Ye Olde Cable Company don't want to come out here and sell their services to us. As such, we aren't in the middle of the unfortunately amusing little fight with local Austin station/NBC Affiliate KXAN.

It also means we're stuck with one of the other guys for cable. Now, this isn't so bad, normally, considering the infinitesimal amount of television I partake of. However, four and a half months ago, our house was struck by lightning. It shorted out a few things, including my mother's most precious possession - her TV. The Great TV Quest was embarked upon, and my father spent an inordinate amount of money on a new HD flat screen TV for her. Not that we get HD channels (see above cable company), but it was a nice TV.

Only, the sound cut out. A lot. So he traded it in for a new one. The sound cut out. A lot. So after some work with the sales folk and customer service folk at Circuit City, we got a third new TV. And the sound cut out. A lot. Throughout this process, there was much experimentation, including putting my new and mostly unused TV in place of hers, an old analog TV in place of hers, and a few visits by the Not-So-Friend Neighborhood Cable Repair Man. (He's definitely not a super-hero, unless he's spreading the cranky and annoying).

Okay - long story short. One brand of TV had a bad run and the sound sucked sweaty donkey balls and the picture would flip out whenever we ran the microwave. However, the second brand (and third actual TV) my father brought home worked great. (Also, the Firedog Installation guy was out so often the dogs got to know him, if that tells you how much of a pain this has been.)

Last night, push came to shove and the sound was cutting in and out every two seconds. My father counted. And decided the Repairman needed to come back out and fix it, which sparked a discussion between him and my mother. Let me tell you - my mother has been remarkable patient, reserved and not-cranky about this considering how much she loves/thrives on/needs TV to live. (Please note: this is a relative statement, which means there was only the occasional screaming fit and self-pity marathon as opposed to her normal behavior, which often resembles a grumpy emo two-year-old with hemorrhoids.)

In the process of this discussion, it was revealed that the Repairman has been treating my mother like a sick, doddering old woman with the mental capacity of a senile flobberworm as opposed to an intelligent person who's disabled because of physical problems, and thusly, her opinion on dealing with the repairman again was: Do Not Want.

My mother and I do not get on, not really. Long story. Complicated relationship. Etc, etc, etc. Yes, she has memory issues, thanks to the drugs she's one.

However, I have never once made the mistake of thinking my mother was too stupid to notice a problem, nor that she had the powers of deduction to figure out what the root cause of said problem is, especially when it comes to her own comfort and entertainment.

Nor do I like it when people treat my mother with disrespect when she hasn't earned it. My mother has done many things to earn disrespect, many of which I cannot and will not defend. However, there is a certain level of customer service that is required when one is in a customer service job.

This past month, there has been a customer service contest at work, because it is our Customer Service Awareness Month. Yeah, okay - sounds hokey, right? Right. It is. But we're geeks. Hokey is kinda what we do. But it's made me think about what customer service is and how to provide good customer service. Frankly - it's fairly simple. All you have to do is Give A Damn or act like you do. I may write more about this later, but suffice it to say, my father and I decided to have the Repairman out today, while I was here to deal with him.

We wanted him to do one simple thing - replace a cable outlet/box thingie in our wall that transmits the cable signal through the co-ax cord to the TV. After all, we've only asked him about this ever time he's visited us over the past four and a half months. He merely tells my mother that the box is not the problem. First, it was the TV. Then, it was the house wiring - a deduction based on the microwave making the picture spaz.

However, we applied the process of elimination and the scientific method - skills most folk learn in elementary school - and were able to determine that no other cable connection in the house had the problem, the new(est) TV didn't have the microwave issues, and we were four TVs in - all of which had the sound problem on that particular outlet. (New co-ax cable didn't fix it either.)

What does that tell us? Simple. Logic. The outlet has issues. His meter says the signal strength is fine. Great! So?

The Repairman came, fifteen minutes later than he said he would. First thing he said was 'Changing the box won't fix it' and proceeded to tell us why. He was rude. He was brusque. And he didn't listen. However, my mother might not be up for confrontation anymore, but I am. I explained to him why his logic didn't work (lack of information on his part made his assumptions wrong) and then I told him we were going to pay to have the outlet/box thingie replaced.

He replaced it. He stormed around outside, scared my dogs, chased my mother back into her room, and slammed our front door.

I decided being an ass to him wouldn't solve anything - I wanted him to concentrate on doing his job, not proving his cock was bigger than mine by telling me how much I don't know about his job. Beating him senseless would have been counter-productive, if satisfying, and calling him out on his rudeness would have been counter-productive. So I sat in my father's chair, read a book, and stared at him the whole time he worked inside.

It took him about 45 minutes to do the job. Then, as he was leaving, he had to get the last word in edgewise over us poor trailer park folk, and decided to tell me in a quite patronizing tone of voice that we should get the wiring of the house looked at, because of the microwave problem.

I smiled, told him we hadn't had that problem since we got the new(est) TV, and bid him a good afternoon.

I'm probably an ass for getting the last word in, but - that was some of the worst customer service I've experienced in a long time. Iridanum will tell you that I'm the luckiest SoB when it comes to customer service, because I usually get the worst of the worst. It's kinda like the Curse of Katheryn, only not as amusing.

If I ever treat a customer like that, I hope they slap me upside the head with something heavy and blunt for being a dick.

But speaking of JH and TV (I know, I know - a brilliant segue from a brilliant writer. Stand in awe, folks, stand in awe.), I did two unusual (for me) things this past week. I went out and did something social at someone else's house and I watched TV. With people, even. Not just when I've got writer's block so horrid I watch TV instead of practicing self-trepanation.

I went over to JH's apartment after work last Wednesday and, after chillin' with him while he edited a neighbor's audition video, we watched the new Knight Rider - which, in our uneducated opinions, was awesome. It, unlike the failed Team Knight Rider from the late 90's, captured the feel and spirit of the original show - which was much more awesome than people give it credit for and was David Hasslehoff's best role. And came way before Baywatch. Even if the Guinness Book of World Records says it was the most-watched TV show of all time. (No surprise - I've never seen an episode.)

We watched the awesomeness of Knight Rider on a massive TV, which, really, is a wall with an identity crisis. Only, the HD didn't work. That didn't bother me any because I've never watched anything in HD, but JH was a bit annoyed.

Following the show (and an excellent impromptu dinner by KH, JH's lovely wife), therein followed more work on the neighbor's video, helping KH grade papers, and a discussion about that most boring and uncomfortable of topics - me. Apparently, KH has an interest in me, and knew all of the random and awkward questions to ask me to make me talk about all of those things fanficfulreality has been trying to pry out of me for years.

Now, the filter in my brain that tells me not to say something offensive, rude, dumb, or painfully insightful to someone else never works. The filter that keeps me from talking about myself in any serious or meaningful way is usually in good working order and almost always stops anything important from coming out was out of order that night, because I said way too much and told them things I'll probably end up regretting when my rare good mood evaporates and is replaced by my normal cynicism.

None the less, we plan to repeat this experience this coming Wednesday, where hopefully his HD will be working, and I can be awed by the awesome that (apparently) is HD. I think I'm being social. This disturbs me on a very visceral level and amuses Starrybluepoet, who informs me that I am no longer able to retreat from the world and be a hermit, as life is very much less colorful when I am not around.

I would argue and say that is a strange thing to say, as I wear monochrome, but fancifulreality said much the same thing later today. Never argue with tiny women. They always outnumber you. When two of them agree, run. Especially since both of them are armed with pixie-dust.

Still, considering Starrbluepoet is writing things again, I cannot vanish again. If I did, she would stop, and I would be sad.

Ahh, writing. That subject near and dear to my heart. National Novel Writing Month is very close at hand, and I am getting myself back into the writing shape that will let me write 100k again this year.

On another note, I re-joined ASR, because I missed my characters, I missed the people I wrote with, and I missed the momentum and pressure having to post gave my writing. So Shay is on Starbase SAIKAI and Tigria is still on CIRCE. (And yes, their pages need updating and lots of work. I will eventually get them fancy HTML web pages up again, but it will take me time.)

Also, Carpelocke is joining CIRCE. This makes me happy and excited, because he's gonna get in on things right before we have a massive fuck-off of a space battle with insurmountable odds that very well could kill us all.

Again.

I think I'm finally over whatever hump it is I have on HPU, because I think I can actually write a chapter in the mid-thirties now, and move past this quagmire point I always get stuck at. I just have to push through and write a shitty chapter or three to make it work. I have lots of ideas for after, it's just some of the interconnecting parts are a bit (very) hazy.

I have no idea which idea to use for NaNo this year. There are too many of them to figure out right now. I may re-write Path of Thorns/Path of Tears or Worlds Asunder in their entirety (as in, use the same basic idea and characters, but not touch the original text. It is NaNo, after all.) Or try for a less abortive attempt on Starfire Quest; disregard everything I've written on it before, and just start somewhere in the middle. I can go back and write the beginning later. Or the HP fanfic about Bill's time at Hogwarts - technically, the prequel to HPU, because it deals with Bill's quest to become a Dueling Master.

Though, over-all? I am more behind than I ever have been. I have so many things to read and edit and so many things to write and create that I don't know what to do about it. To say nothing of web work for work and desperately needing to clean the bathroom at some point this week. And other assorted chores, though cleaning the bathroom is important. There is mold growing back, and if it gains sentience, I'm charging it rent.

I'll leave you with a final observation. About two weeks ago, at Dlair, there were some young folk - late teens to mid-twenties - who came in to buy some manga. Four of five of 'em. They all had Down's Syndrome, I think. They didn't call each other by their real names; they called each other by other names they'd given themselves. Goku was the one I remember most clearly.

Some folk, even some of my co-workers, got a chuckle out of that. Being me, I started wondering why that was funny to us, and I couldn't come up with a real good reason, except that we were making fun of them. I'm not sure we should have.

I think there's a lesson in there, somewhere, about accepting people and calling people what they want to be called, no matter what the rest of the world thinks.

Because we all know it could happen. Really.

2008-09-12T00:49:00.000-07:00

So, Hurricane Ike has decided to aim itself in the general direction of central Texas.

Not that I blame it or anything. Shows better taste than some hurricanes - skipping over Louisana and New Orleans (which is oddly inhospitable to visiting hurricanes after that Katrina chick overstayed her welcome). Central Texas is a good place. Lots of sunshine, good food, and if it's lucky, it might get to see Leslie. Maybe pick up a Keep Austin Wierd bumper sticker, though Ike seems to want to pressure wash Houston, first.

Not a bad plan for for a back-to-school vacation, really.

Except for the small fact that I live in a "manufactured home community. *coughs*Trailer park.*coughs* In Texas. In the twilight zone between Austin and Pflugerville. In a "manufactured home" that has all the character flaws of a used car bought from the greasy law school washout brokering lemons from his cousin's third-hand after-market auto shop.

Yeah, so we're actually ground-set. But everyone knows our luck, right? Bad at best, catastrophic at worst? (Lightning strike, anyone?)

So with hurricanes come winds. Thunder. Lightning. All that jazz.

If there's anything 20 years of gaming and reading cheap fantasy has taught me, it's that storms + wind + rickety housing = interdimensional travel. So if my house gets blown away and y'all get a postcard from the Land of Oz, please send ruby slippers, my pipe, tobacco, and journal back.

I'll likely be in jail in the Emerald City for wearing blue glasses. (Or assaulting a flying monkey. I hate flying monkeys. You think pigeons are bad with the dive bombing?)

You laugh. You think I'm being sarcastic.

Just you wait. I'll end up in some other universe. Only, I'm not skipping, singing, or dancing. I'll play the role of the sarcastic broody guy. I've got lots of practice. (And trust me, I'm not lucky enough to end up with the cute redhead with the basket full of food. I'll end up in a duel the death with the lion, having to try to fix the metal man with duct tape and paper clips, sassing the good witch, befriending the evil witch and debunking the wizard by accident. After knocking over something expensive and irreplacable.)

Captain Entropy, signing off.

Twilight Travails part III: the good, the bad and the ugly

2008-08-31T17:33:00.000-07:00

I'll freely admit, I expected to be blogging about this book for longer than I have been. But I finished it Thursday night and really haven't had time to sit down and write my final thoughts before I move on to New Moon. Why is this surprising? I didn't expect to read it as fast as I did.

Here's the unfortunate truth: I actually enjoyed parts of the book. Yes, I know - shame on me. So, here goes. The good, the bad, the ugly and the final analysis.

The same as last time; not-so-sequential bullet points.

The Good

Meyer wrote a fast, engaging book. The writing wasn't terrific, but I've certainly read worse. It's her style, both in terms of technical voice and in storytelling mode that surprised me a bit. Taken apart with every literary skill I have, Twilight is self-insert Mary Sue vampire fanfiction - which just goes to prove my theory that fanfiction is a literary genre.

Meyer managed to do something I haven't seen done in well before, which is to take a story from a placid, fluffy idyll to action-adventure/suspense in the space of a few paragraphs. She set the scene in the ball field, creating a very surreal feel with the storm and the ball game as a backdrop to Bella's wonder and awe - and later, fear. The arrival of James' coven was sudden and expected at the same time and both well-written and well-told.

The Cullens. The scene where I got really hooked into the story was when Bella met the Cullens. They are cool enough to get their own sub-list and quite a bit of thought.
- On family: the Cullens work as a family for several reasons. The first is obvious - the care they have for each other, which I think is founded both in their shared ethics and their 'conversion' stories. (I hesitate to use the word 'embrace' because it's proprietary to White Wolf gaming.
  
  One thing I've heard criticized is how fast the rest of the family takes to Bella - but I disagree with that. Their reactions to Bella are exactly what jumped out at me about them. Instead of 1) eating her or 2) getting mad about her, they chose Edward's happiness over their own comfort. (Yes, even Rosalie - but more on her later.) If you live with someone long enough, and are close enough to them, you can notice significant changes. The change Edward's connection/relationship with Bella wrought was obvious and dramatic, giving them good reason to open their family to her.
- Esme didn't impress me much at first, but the more I looked at her, the more I got a feeling quiet, understated strength. The kind of emotional strength it takes to keep such a diverse lot together as a family. She's the glue and the heart - she's a mother, through and through. Her acceptance of Bella and her obvious affection towards Edward show that much clearly.
- Rosalie: Some people didn't like or understand her reaction to Bella and Edward, but her reaction made perfect sense. Bella is 1) a threat to her family's dynamic and 2) a possible threat to their safety. If Bella gets hurt, Edward gets hurt - she's also (as is proved later) a giant target for other vampires. Rosalie's reaction is one of anger and fear - but still of love for her family. And after the whole series of events with James, I'm not sure I can blame her for still being angry at/about Bella. Yet, when things hit the fan, she unwaveringly did her part to protect Bella from James - because Edward was family, and Bella was important to Edward.
- Emmet is awesome. Him, I get. He's big, powerful and a very simple person. When James threatened Bella, his reaction was very simple - a strong desire to go and hit James until he was no longer a threat. In the end, I know he and Jasper fought James to the last, but Emmet wanted to take care of the problem suddenly, violently and all over the place. Part of it was because of the challenge of the fight, but some of it was because James was threatening Bella - and thereby threatening Edward.
- Jasper strikes me as the wise counselor. He's wise and old for his years and grasps people almost as well as Edward and Carlisle, in that he can sense what they're feeling. I imagine that's a something of a burden at times, but I also imagine it's a blessing. Jasper stuck with Bella and tried to do his best for her, as well as being one of the two to finally kill James. He didn't let himself be separated from Alice and was equally as unwilling to let Bella into danger.
- Alice is the quintessential little sister. Bright, cheerful, supportive, mischievous, creative and inspired. She can see the future, which is a burden in every story I've ever read or heard; she's Cassandra, though everyone listens to Cassandra. She lived in hell growing up and managed to find her humanity by being a vampire. She's the one who I think empathizes with Bella the most and realizes what Bella is feeling - but I also think, because she's seen the future and knows Bella becomes one of them, she is able to accept Bella easier. She's also more fascinated with humanity than those who remember being human. She's a character with vast potential i want to see tapped.
- Carlisle is easily and decidedly my favorite character in the entire story. He's the warrior-poet, the ethical hunter, the doctor, the shaman and the priest - he's someone who has faced and overcome his own darkness in more than one lifetime. He's a warrior and a hunter and has age and power to go with experience and knowledge. He's the family's father, their guide, and in some ways, their savior - he gave them the good news there was a better way to live. Harder, but better - there was a way they could live without destroying other people. He is living proof that vampires - and by extension - humans, can overcome conditioning and 'nature' to become something more and better.
Best part of the book - Bella's sacrifice. There are three 'sacrifice scene' I love - the first when Sturm Brightblade goes up against Skie and Kitiara, the Blue Dragon Highlord in the Dragons of Winter Night. The second is when Harry Potter goes to be killed by Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows. (I didn't link any of the HP stuff, because - really, if you don't know that, who are you and why are you reading my blog?).

Bella walking into James' waiting arms to save her mother was a perfectly in character for her. She'd already sacrificed a lot for both her parents, trying to make them happy - or, in the case of hurting Charlie when she was leaving - safe. She didn't think twice about going to James - she just did it. She was terrified, but worked her way through it, outsmarted two older, much more powerful 'siblings' and escaped them to walk right into what she knew would be certain and probably painful death.

It was well-written and was the most emotion-evoking scene in the entire book.

The Bad:

I didn't get to see the fight with James. Maybe it's 'cause I'm a guy or maybe it's because I like fight scenes (and the two are not one and the same, thank you very much). He hunted, mindfucked and tortured a character I rather like, and he's a sociopathic ass besides. He needed to die, and I very much wanted to see Emmett go to town on his ass. Frankly, the thought of Jasper, with his emotion-altering powers and Emmett, with his raw power, ganging up on anyone is a bit intimidating - as a pair, they'd be a near-unbeatable team. Jasper makes him feel like the pansy he really is (hunting someone who can't fight back? Really - how brave is that? Big game hunters who go after lions and tigers and the like at least face the chance of getting eaten by a smart one. But more on James in a minute.) When Jasper makes him feel weak as a kitten, Emmett kicks the unlife right out of his corpse.

I felt more than a bit cheated not getting to see it.

James. At first, he's a decent enough villain. He goes from random feral blood-sucker to Big Bad in just a few paragraphs (which was well done and believable) and goes out after Bella. However, his motivations are lame. If he were just going after Bella because Edward wanted her, then he should have killed her when had the chance. If he wanted a thrilling hunt, he should have killed Bella and let Edward come after him. (I would have loved to see James against all the Cullens when they were annoyed. As much as I love a good, long drawn-out fight, I love a good pwning just as much.)

If he wanted a good hunt, he should have kidnapped Bella and drug her across the US being pursued by the Cullens - and maybe the Moons (who are werewolves. Meyer made it obvious).

Instead, he plays with his food like a two-bit Buffy villain and doesn't even manage to do any real torture before falling to his feral instincts (a controlled hunter would probably have had more control) and trying to suck her dry. Only, he fails - presumably because Edward and co. arrive to bitch-smack him for being dumb enough to hunt Edward's pet human. Overall? He was a disappointing, pontificating villain with all kinds of wasted and ignored potential.

The chase sequence. So easy. Good tension, but Meyer should - and could - have drug that out much longer and made it more interesting, especially if Edward and Bella had been on the run together - she wasted that opportunity, too.

Okay, coincidence is fine, but for fuck's sake - James knew Alice's origin? Unoriginal, contrived, and disappointing. Alice should have been more of a mystery for longer.

The Ugly

The ending. After all of that - after Bella accepted Edward for who and what he was, she wasn't upset with him about James, she still loved him unconditionally - and yet? Edward vacillates. His entire family put themselves at risk of exposure or worse, and yet - Edward can't commit. He's spent a book stalking her, being a creepy pretty-boy bloodsucker, and Bella is okay with this and still wants him. She still loves him.

Yet, Edward lays the groundwork to leave her. Whiny emo punk bastard! He's a century old! He should be bloody well smart enough to realize what he has, and fight to keep it. How can he read the minds of so many people and not realize how unusual what he and Bella have is? Come on! Get over yourself, kiss the girl, and try to have a lovely happily ever after!
Bella is an emotionally stunted, painfully shy, disaster-prone girl from a dysfunctional, broken family. I doubt she was ever truly a child, but I don't think she ever really grew up, either. But why does Edward get to walk all over her?

Her mother. Useless creature. Enough said.

The Final Analysis

Edward is still a stalker. If most guys - even pale emo prettyboys - were to stalk a real girl, they'd get a pipe-wrench upside the head, a face-full of mace, and a restraining order shoved up their ass so hard they'd be able to use their teeth as a paper shredder. Yet, Edward gets away with being a stalker (listening to her talk in her sleep?!) because he's pretty and wants to suck her blood.

Okay, so Rose (a girl from Dlair) tells me being stalked is now back in vogue (and is very romantic, thankyouverymuch), and I'm behind the times. slim_frame tells me it's only stalking when the girl says 'go away' and illidanstr makes some points about movie stalkers.

But stalking is stalking. Men are raised from a young age to consider this behavior to be the sign of a sick and damaged mind. It's not romantic, it's illegal and up in the pantheon of sins against women somewhere near rape and public humiliation, in the same vicinity as abuse. And yet, women find this character to be the model of a romantic man.

Is it his slavish devotion? The misty-eyes stare? Or the inability to be without her? (I thought that particular trait was lame, too.)

Yet, Edward is not only romantic, he's sexy. I'm a little disgusted, and once again am starting to see that maybe taking women at their word when they say 'girls don't like stalking or domineering men' wasn't a good idea. Maybe if I'd done more stalking back in high school, I might have gotten laid more.

I get it. Meyer is writing about love at first sight. Transcendent love, that breaks down and through barriers, that builds bridges, topples obstacles, and overcomes all - the kind of love that is often considered to be Great Power. But I have to beat my suspension of disbelief into a corner of my mind with a very large stick before I can buy into it, because there's not real build-up or connection or exploration of feelings.

Then it gets slushy, mushy and gushy.

The lurid language and over-the-top love doesn't make or drive the story; it detracts, and gives me a headache from rolling my eyes so much.

All the folk mad at Harry Potter for it's supposed 'messages'? They should hate this more, because at least in Harry Potter, there wasn't a pedophiliac psychosexual stalker out to (romantically and erotically, of course) suck the main character's blood.

Overall, it wasn't bad. It wasn't good, either. It was the kind of thing I would never read again or really be in a hurry to pick up book two.

Though, there is a part of me who is invested in the character of Bella that really, really wants to know what happens next. I hate not knowing the ending, and this was just good enough I don't hate it.

So I shall read onward and borrow from someone a copy of New Moon. I might even keep blogging, if people want me to.

Twilight Travils, part II

2008-08-26T22:59:00.001-07:00

First off - I was wrong. Bella is 17, not 14. Not that it makes the creepy century-old stalker any easier for me to swallow, but there it is.

And for those of you, who like fairey_queen will call me out on the Buffy/Angel 'ship, I'll state it up front - I was never a fan of Angel/Buffy, for many of the same reasons I'm not comfortable with Bella/Edward. The difference between Twilight and Buffy is that there was more going on in Buffy than there is in Twilight.

Now that I am significantly further in than 50 pages, I have a lot more to say - a first, I was going to try to put this into a semblance of order and make it flow, but instead, you're stuck with somewhat sequential bullet points.

(AB, if you're reading this - read all the way through it. There's lotsa good in with the bad.)

Beware spoilers below.

Meyer answered one of my major questions - maybe the only mystery that really stuck in my head from those first fifty pages - why did Bella move to Forks in the first place? The answer was satisfying and shed light on Bella and her dysfunctional family.

I enjoyed the look into her mother's life and attitude - and I can see why she and Charlie didn't work out.

One moment in the story that stuck in my mind is when Bella realizes her father put snow chains on her tires before he went to work; that little jolt of emotion was the most real the character of Bella Swan has been to me.

She's not very good with emotion from her parents, and in some ways, I think Charlie might be a better parent than her mother. He doesn't push her, but he obviously cares and wants to take care of her. Her mother does, too - but it sounds like Bella did more taking care of her mother than the other way around.

Edward. He frustrates me. First off, he's an ass. I understand that he saw something in Bella that makes her very attractive to him - I'm willing to buy into that, run with it, even. I understand his initial reaction was probably one of hunger and desire for her blood.

What gets me is the way he acted after he saved her life.

He was an ass. He leads Bella through this intricate little dance where he teases, frustrated and mocks her. He stops traffic so a boy can get turn down by her? He ignores her and glares at her and apologizes vaguely by turns? He drops ten-ton hints he's not normal and is a freakin' Great Mysterious Pretty Boy and expects her to just walk away?

Not hardly. Anyone who can read minds and has lived for 100 years and has had, at any point, a functioning brain cell, would be able to tell you how to bait a pretty little girl.

This guy is an ass. He's playing with not only Bella, but her friends - and he either has to be aware of it, or has such a case of such profound dumb that his being in high school after a century of un-life actually starts to make sense.

But Bella has already been hooked by the mystery, and like every single teenage girl I have ever known (bar none - sorry, ladies), she goes for the asshole instead of the nice guy. Of course, Meyer writes the nice guys as utterly useless, clueless (okay, the clueless is very true to life) and generally as endearing as puppies who pee on themselves when they get excited chasing their own tails.

To say nothing of the stalking. Why does he get to be a stalker and be a romantic hero? He's a psychosexual predatory exsanguinist unnaturally selected by parasitic evolution to be unbearably and irresistibly attractive to girls. How can Bella resist him?

But no. He has to be a stalker. Most guys who stalked a girl the way he did would be labeled a creep, possibly get a slap and kick for their trouble, and get a restraining order. Regardless of her penchant for finding trouble and him rescuing the poor damsel in distress, the stalking bit is over the top. At that point, I stopped suspending my disbelief and started beating it back into a corner with a large blunt object.

Seriously, though. I don't get it. Explain it to me. What is sexy and appealing and romantic about stalking the girl? Is it because she's already enthralled by him? Or is it because women actually want creepy?

In all honestly, the only difference between Edward stalking her and say, Mike stalking her is the fact that Edward is pretty and he wants to suck her blood. Because that makes it all okay.

Bella is a strange child, and one I find myself strangely compelled by. She's a fearless little bookworm with almost no idea how unusual she really is, despite her inability to fit in. I wish Meyer would have given us a clearer idea what she looks like, but I'm getting the idea of a petite, pale and delicate brunette. Her constant physical inability coupled with a natural curiosity, misanthropic tendencies and a lack of patience for social games makes her endearing, even when she's being annoyingly whiny and girly.

My favorite scene with Bella has to be her walking around Port Angeles - she's searching for books (which, I can't fault anyone for) and her naivety carries her to wander into the bad part of town. This is very belieable and very real. So is her inability to handle the group of hooligans who herd her to a nice, dark little corner to rape and rob her. (Every thug's favorite R&R). She doesn't suddenly develop a fea response (which, so far, has been absent). Instead, she switches gears and starts trying to figure out how fight back.

You go, girl!

That was an awesome moment. No thoughts of giving up. No thougts of surrender. No panic. Just a fierce readiness to protect herself and make sure the hooligans work for what they get. Then, she gets rescued by Edward, ruining a shining moment for the heroine. I like strong women characters who stand up for themselves - I like that she was ready to fight. I don't like it when the girls have to be rescued by the boys. I think it's because I grew up around so many strong women that 'weak' women, who don't fight their own battles, sometimes bother me.

Which is, I think, why I dislike the relationship with Edward. Bella is passive, there. She's a passive person overall, but in every other situation, she finds a way to exert her will over a situation. Whether cooking for Charlie, setting up all her new friends with dates, or going to Seattle instead of the dance, she' always does something about her situation. (Another reason I like the character, despite her being a Mary Sue.) That, and I don't believe in love at first sight - I do believe in connection at first sight, lust at first sight, consuming interest at first sight - but not love. So that's hard for me to swallow, too.

Yes, Bella is a Mary Sue. She has a pretty name (Isabella Swan? Possible reference to the Ugly Duckling aside, the name is a Mary Sue name.), has guys falling all over her (almost literally) and the circumstances are such that she is the center of the world from the get go - and not just because she's a 1st-person narrator. There are things that happen (Edward not able to read her mind) that seem to happen Because Bella Is Special.

Now, that said - I have no intrinsic objection to Mary Sues as long as they're written well, which Bella seems to be. I just wanted to point it out.

If Bella is so accident/disaster prone in Podunk Nowhere, how did she survive Phoenix, Arizona? And why is the 100-year-old vampire in high school?

I want to meet/read more about Edward's family, especially Alice. I want to see the dynamic between them all, because I want to know how his relationship with Bella is affecting his relationship with his family.

The writing is good enough to keep me reading, but the storytelling is a bit bouncy - some of that may be the 1st-person narration, but a lot of it has to do with things like the random boy she sorta-but-not-quite remembers telling her exactly what she wants/needs to know exactly at the right time. I can buy her believing Edward is a vampire as easily as she does because of the way the character is written so far - and she saw him stop a van about make roadkill pizza out of her with his bare hands. But still - the scene with Jacob was too contrived. Again, I had to beat back my disbelief with a now well-used stick.

Overall, I'm enjoying it, despite myself. I'm invested enough in the characters (especially Bella) that I want to know what happens and how it happens. I'll be done with the book by the end of the week, and if the ending doens't leave me with literary blue balls, I'll probably want to read the second book in fairly short order.

Twilight Travails, part I

2008-08-24T23:46:00.000-07:00

At the request of many folk, not in the least tn_teacher, fancifulreality and, finally, (though by no means least), fairey_queen, I have started to read Twilight by current literary superstar Stephanie Meyer.

(I also promised my boss, AB, that I would read this book.)

Since so many folk have expressed interest in my reactions to this book, I thought I would blog said reactions for posterity and to satiate their curiosity. Also, because I need to start being disciplined in my blogging again, and this is a good way to start.

So.

I borrowed the book from fairey_queen this morning, and sat down to read it this afternoon. I've made it almost to page 50 and my favorite character is the truck. Bella is a slightly emo 14-year-old girl, and having never been any sort of 14-year-old girl m'self, I can't say she's someone I really identify with. Some of her issues, I jibe with: alienation, being left out, etc - but being stalked by the puppy-boy Mike and the painfully geeky Eric is more amusing than anything else.

I feel almost bad laughing at Bella's problems, because it just seems mean.

But that is, I think, the root of the problem - Meyer has created a very real person and despite my not getting all the trauma of being a 14-year-old girl (and to hear the tales I've heard, it's quite traumatic), she is still a sympathetic character whom I find myself mildly interested in - though not yet invested in. So far, Edward isn't all that interesting, even knowing he's a vampire. Even though it's obvious his reaction to Bella was stronger than he expected/wanted, and doesn't quite know what to do with it.

Like I said, so far, the best character is the truck.

There is one part of this that's hard for me to get past. Edward is over a hundred years old - and is a 17-year-old boy who falls in love with an 14-year-old girl? A bit creepy much. I'm not sure I see the romance as much as I see a rather twisted form of pedophilia.

The jury is still out on this one.

Star Wars

2008-08-21T22:14:00.001-07:00

Two blogs in two days? It's been awhile since I did that, but why not?

Also, for those of you who are not fans of livejournal and prefer blogger, I'm starting to mirror my blog at jayiin.blogspot.com now that I finally have my issues wtihi blogger worked out. I still prefer LJ because I like the flist system and I'm comfortable here, having been here for so long. Blogger is less of a personal thing and more of a public thing, so any time I have a 'friends only' post it will be here.

On that note, JH - I know you're watching this blog now, and if you want access to the friends only stuff, talk to me and we'll figure out a way.

Tonight, I saw the new Star Wars: Clone Wars movie. I loved it; it was fun. I came away with no greater revelations about life, the universe and everything else. There was truth there, if you cared to pick it out, but I've been a fan of Star Wars for having bits of truth in it. *tongue firmly in cheek, for those who know what I'm talking about.*

That's it, really. The movie was fun. It was full of spacefights, lightsaber duels, snarky characters and opportune one-liners mixed with some decent CGI, enjoyable music that was a refreshing deviation from the normal Star Wars fare without being too far off what I expected, and some fun new characters. Exuberant displays of derring-do, half-baked plans, running gags, and connections to all six other Star Wars movies filled the moments were the order of the day.

The animation was a 3D version of the style used for the Clone Wars animated shorts - and frankly, that's what this was. A Star Wars cartoon movie. It was not a 'true' Star Wars movie like the two trilogies. It's a movie based on a cartoon series. Take it for more than that, you'll be disappointed. Go in for flash, bang and boom with a flair and flourish, you'll have fun. Expect a deep plot, new revelations, or a redemption of the prequels everyone hates on (which, I'm almost fond of) and you'll walk away, bitter and disappointed in what's really just for fun.

There was no plot, the storytelling was dictated purely by the action, and the only characters who got developed more than they did in the other six movies were Anakin and his erstwhile Padawan (who was pretty much the most entertaining Star Wars character ever - but she reminded me of a Buffy character, which explains why I'm endeared to her.) It's formuliac at best:

Dooku/Sidious hatch nefarious plot to bring down the Republic/Jedi

Anakin and Obi-Wan are the only ones who can save the day. (We're the only ship in the quadrant again?) But first, they need to be rescued themselves.

Intro snarky teenage Padawan Obi-Wan and Yoda trick Anakin into having. Commence derring-do where Anakin and Padawan bond through snarky reparte and mutual life-saving.

Obi-Wan and Anakin + snarky teenage female Padawan in skimpy outfit run off to save the day.

More derring-do. Padawan in reckless. Baby Hutt burps green cloud.

Anakin is a badass pilot. Obi-wan is a badass swordsman.

More lightsaber fighting and amazing flying. Anakin is moody and has anger issues. Somehow, everything comes back to Tatooine. Again.

Padme does something silly and Threepio saves her. There is a flaming gay Hutt with a southern accent. Palpatine is cunning and manipulative.

Anakin fails to learn importan personal lesson and is reckless, almost costing the Good Guys the Big Win.

Snarky Padawan saves the day at the last moment before horrific violence occurs.

Heroic last denounment. Padme manages to steal the spotlight.

On the bright side, there is no horrible mushy dialogue, and we see Anakin as a leader and as a teacher. We see his troops trust and respect him, and we learn more about who he is, other than a whiny emokid.

Overall, it was fun.

Of course, the fact I liked it means it's probably a horrible movie.

If the shoe fits...

2008-08-20T21:42:00.000-07:00

I was gonna write about fanfiction and why I write it as opposed to something more publishable. I was gonna talk about what a failure at life I am and how I need to find a way to fix that before I end up a useless blob wasting away and sucking others dry.

But your regularly scheduled whine has been delayed so I can talk about politics.

I don't often comment on politics anymore. In part, because my views are very different than most of the people on my flist. Also in part because my views are random and selfish enough to not really be all that important.

But yesterday, something one of John McCain's staffers said was brought to my attention, and like so many other gamers and geeks out there, I have something to say about it. Sure, I'm following a trend, but I suppose if I bathe in bleach afterwards, it might not be catching.

First off, a bit of background. The campaign blog entry in question was not written by John McCain. It's even an open question as to whether or not the man has even read it or knows how much it affects a relatively small percent of his possible voters.

The blog was apparently written by Michael Goldfarb in response to accusations John McCain plagarized Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn when telling a story about his time as a prisoner of war. It was a short post, but only one paragraph really matters to me.

It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowdto disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort ofmom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude torespect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf ofothers. John McCain has often said he witnessed a thousand acts ofbravery while he was imprisoned, and though not every one has beensubmitted into the public record, they are remembered by the men whowere there (one such only recently reported by Karl Rove though it escaped mention in any of Senator McCain'sbooks). But as Swindle said, this is a "desperate group of peopletrying to make something out of nothing."

As usual, I'm a day late and a dollar short, as Goldfarb has already posted an apology somewhere. I can find it quoted a few places, but I can't find the original source.

If my comments caused any harm or hurt to the hard working Americanswho play Dungeons & Dragons, I apologize. This campaign is committed to increasing the strength, constitution, dexterity,intelligence, wisdom, and charisma scores of every American.
--Michael Goldfarb

Great. He said he's sorry. I'll get to that in a bit. First, I want to talk about the initial statement, and then I'll explain why I think the apology doesn't do much but put a band-aid on an already deep wound.

Let's be honest, folks. To those of us who are gamers, who have played D&D a long time or have made it an integral part of our lives, the same way others do with sports, TV shows, video games or even gardening, this is a big deal. To me, someone who works in a gaming store, this is Big News. We had someone come into Dragon's Lair and video a heartfelt and painfully amateurish viral video directed to McCain lambasting and guilting him for the comment his staffer made.

Yeah, okay. 'painfully amateurish' was harsh, but I don't think a video talking about how D&D and the gaming community at large is a wonderful thing is really going to matter in this debate, because the very fact the comment was made shows how little the 'big wigs' think of our community and our hobby.

That's pretty much what I want to talk about, actually. Perception. To continue the trend of being a geek, I think I'll quote Obi-Wan Kenobi here. "Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly upon our certain point of view."

Like I said, this really doesn't matter in the long run. It really doesn't matter to most people and probably won't affect the outcome of the election in any measurable way - nor will anyone think to poll people on whether or not someone voted for McCain because one of his staffers regressed to frat boy/high school jock mode and insulted D&D.

Wait. What did I just say? Did I just comment on that kind of comment being something heard from a certain kind of person? I did, didn't I? Bad me. Stereotyping and all that. I'll feel bad about it later. I might even write a half-hearted apology for it in another post where I use rote language to apologize to a group of people whose lifestyle, hobbies, attitudes and ideals I just can't seem to understand.

It's a strange thing, that Goldfarb singled out D&D for his comment. I've followed the links in his post to other blogs, but I can't find anything that points to D&D players as being the source of the plagarism accusations. It might be that some of the bloggers who made the accusations are *gasp* D&D players!

Why bring a person's hobby into it? What does being a D&D player have to do with accusing a presidental candidate of plagarising a disgruntled and grumpy Russian revolutionary literary hero?

I don't know. I reckon some folk out there have theories that might be right. I have a theory, as always, but it's not a nice one.

My father, a surprisingly wise man, often tells me: "if the shoe fits, wear it," when I start to get paranoid people are upset with me. If I really have done something, own up to it - wear the shoe. So what size shoe is Goldfarb's zing?

The attack in Goldfarb's statement was a direct one, and his targets were well-defined: the 'pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd.' Pretty narrow group of folk. So, because I think Obama's an elitist snob with hardly an idea of what I, as a professional geek/aspiring writer want from a president who happens to love playing D&D that I'm not included in his statement? Or because I don't live in my mother's basement?

What about geeks who live in their father's basement? Or their step-cousin's great uncle's best friend's grandmother's basement?

(Oddly enough, in 20 years of gaming, I've never gamed in a basement, let alone lived in one. Nor do I see the stigma there - basements are usually warm/dry or cooler than the blistering Texas heat, insulated against sound, and isolated enough to game in. Folk who just fuck their girl or play video games or air hockey or fooze ball or just get mind-blisteringly drunk in their respective basements don't get the stigma just playing with some pen, paper, dice and imagination do. But, as usual, I digress...)

I think Goldfarb's accusation is a pretty big shoe, because of the qualifier of 'Dungeons & Dragons'. By qualifying his statement with 'the dungeons and dragons crowd,' Goldfarb is implying there's something about D&D gamers that cause them to not respect the sacrifices others make on their behalf. (And I am now spending a willpower point not to make a cheap gamers joke.)

Why D&D? Because Pat Pulling once wrote a scathing article about how D&D is evil? Or because Jack Chick had a tract about how D&D gamers can't separate fantasy from reality and really try to cast spells? Or because we've gotten lots of bad press over the years?

Why not football players or air hockey enthusiasts or snail racers? Why not underwater basket weavers?

Perception and stereotypes. Gamers are the unwashed masses who are out of touch with the world; who live in fantasy and leech of hardworking americans while they while their hours away pretending to be something and someone they're not. Because gamers dress funny, smell bad and singlehandedly support the fast food and junk food industries slowly destroying America's collective health.

It's okay to make fun of gamers. Everyone does! It's just like eating popcorn at the movies, hot dogs at baseball games and coping a feel at a cheesy school dance. It has tradition behind it! Hell, as one of my co-workers pointed out, gamers make fun of themselves as much or more than everyone else makes fun of us. We rarely take ourselves seriously - mostly because our hobby often involves looking and sounding ridiculous, so we learn that if we can't laugh at ourselves, we're missing the joke.

I could list off famous D&D gamers, or dig a bit and find a list of soldiers who are now game designers. I could talk about the cultural ramifications and ripples from D&D. I could talk about the macrocosm of society that walks through the doors of Dragon's Lair every day, but it really wouldn't matter, because, in the end, Goldfarb's comments won't mean a damn thing.

That's the sad part. That's the part that makes me want to write this, that makes me want to vote against McCain. Because one of his staffers got to sit behind a keyboard and gun down an entire sub-culture, call a whole group of folk cowards and worse, and do so right after my boss - a wonderful woman I have incredible respect for - a pro-Obama D&D player, ran a successful Gaming for the Troops event to get gaming supplies to overseas soldiers via the auspices of the USO.

Not many people are going to think about how that comment might have hurt internet-savvy D&D playing kids, or what it might make them think of politics, politicians, or even the military. Not many people want to think about all the gamers who are too used to that kind of attack who are just going wearily sigh, make a joke or three, and move on, because they know nothing they say or feel or do or want is going to change the situation.

If he had disrespected athletes or artists or craftsmen, people would be thinking hard about what those remarks represented instead of dismissing them. What really scares me? Most gamers, geeks and nerds - no matter what makes them a gamer, geek or nerd - are going to dismiss what Goldfarb said. After all, why does it matter?

Michael Goldfarb got to do what lots of high school bullies would love to do: he got to make fun of a bunch of geeks in a national forum and get away with it. Just like a high school bully, he got his hand slapped, got to stand in front of the class and say 'I'm sorry I made you cry," and snicker as he sat back down at his desk, high-fiving his buddies when the teacher had their back turned. Worse yet? Like that high school bully, Goldfarb used his insults to direct attention away from the real issue: nothing he says can convince people McCain didn't plagarize. Either people believe the story John McCain told, or they don't. Either they believe he plagarized, or they believe he didn't. It was quite neatly done, becuase Goldfarb was able to target the one group of people no one would stand up for.

No one with any 'importance' or clout is going to stand up and tell him what he said was wrong. No major newspaper is going to tell him he was inconsiderate or rude. Bloggers might, but everyone knows bloggers are just D&D playing geeks who can't write for real news media.

Obama's people might tell him that Obama supporters recognize and respect the sacrifices soldiers make, but I doubt Barack Obama is going to make a statement about how McCain's campaign shouldn't pick on a group of people because their hobby involves slaying make-believe monsters. Why should he? He has a Harvard law degree and solve the world's problems with pretty speeches and viral advertising.

A lot of people are going to say I'm over thinking this. I'm taking it personally or I'm taking it too seriously. That Goldfarb's opinion of my hobby shouldn't be a factor in whether or not I vote for John McCain. Maybe not. But maybe his reaction to what Goldfarb said should be. I think I should take it seriously. I think anyone who considers themselves a 'D&D gamer' should think about this and take it seriously, because of what it represents.

It represents a fundamental disrespect towards people who imagine life as much as they live it.

Edgar Allen Poe once said: "Those who dream by day are aware of many things which escape those who dream only by night." I think he's right. I think those of us who seek out daydreams and fantasies and strive to give our lives one or two more layers of depth - those of us who choose to revel in story and rejoice in myth and legend and try to become part of those legends have something worth respecting.

The shoe Michael Goldfarb held out doesn't fit, because I know myself - I know gamers - better than to think we dismiss the sacrifices of the soldiers who fight, live and die to protect the ideals we get to live every day. I know a lot of gamers try to understand what that kind of commitment - what that kind of sacrifice - means. Even if we never really do grasp it, I think most of us respect it. Instead, I have a shoe for John McCain and Barack Obama.

If you value everyone and truly think you are the leader who guide America for the next four or eight years, then show that you care about and value everyone, no matter what poorly portrayed mass media high school stereotypes cling to gamers, and stand up at a podium or sit down at a keyboard and prove it. Really apologize for what Goldfarb said or really counter it. If every person (every vote) is important - if, as Barack Obama has said - it is the individual people who will bring hope and change - then say something to the quiet minority no one likes to stand up for.

I hope the shoe fits, and I hope one of them wears it.

/jayiin