Random Observations I

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?

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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.

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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

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.

So much for evolution

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.

Writing Errata and Etc

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

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.

Very Good Day

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.

2011

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.

The Trenchcoat Mafia Goes on Vacation (part II)

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!

The Trenchcoat Mafia Goes On Vacation (Part I)

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.

Live Legendary

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.

Lost?

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?

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

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

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?

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

• 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

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

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

"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

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!