Rag and Bone

It's ten days past my birthday, which is significant, and I'll get to that in a moment. But, this is a birthday post, so I'll talk about my birthday a bit. I'm 33, now. I think that becoming an adult is one of those things where few people actually feel like they are one, but at some point you look back and realize you have at least landed in their territory. Kind of like how you never really notice yourself tanning, or when the day was where your hair grows so long that you can part it, it just kinda happened along the way. I don't feel very adult, still, but I realized this month that I am deep in enemy territory.

I am looking at my Jeep and wondering if it's smart to trade it in for something more reliable and less gas expensive. This is not a thing I came to wonder on my own, but rather was forced on me by the Jeep itself. Given my way, I'd just have this Jeep forever, or until it rattles apart. But, things are getting more expensive, gas is going up, and my effective salary went down (taxes yay). So when faced with the choice of wtf to do, the car comes up.

In addition to that, I had to visit the doctor on the 7th, with my birthday being on the 8th. The diagnosis was that a minor internal infection had spiraled out of control mostly due to the poor attention I give myself. Again, something I would have happily continued doing if I was not forced to consider alternatives. Instructions: ten days of no alcohol due to the antibiotics, but DOUBLY so due to the dehydration. So no coffee either. And probably best to avoid anything sugary when drinking. For awhile. So that meant I got to go through my birthday sober - an interesting experience. Something I'd recommend everyone try at least once, but probably no more than that.

Pic I saved from my 30th

A lot of folks came by the house for my birthday, which was technically a two day affair. The party was Friday night, on the actual day, Folks came over and we shared the party with Claire, who had recently turned 30. This particular major milestone was stained by the loss of one of her dogs, sadly, so I don't think she was in much of a celebratory mood even a week later. I think back to my own 30th birthday, and that was one of the first things I had done with Claire and how it was really great to have so many friends out just having a good time. I don't suppose you should wait for certain special occasions  though, to make memories like that. But, it's just better that way (or easier) sometimes. So to lose an opportunity like that sucks. It's something you don't get back every again - it is permanently written that a particular milestone passed that way. No do-overs.

So with all that in mind, it was good to see several folks I hadn't seen in awhile then. We're not all best friends or even really close anymore, but it's fine. Not all your friends can be people you can trust to hide the bodies. It's good to have people you just know and like well enough. The world doesn't have to be a roster of people who only fit on a roster of "perfect human being, through and through," or "enemy of all things right and noble".

The next day was a full day marathon of all three Lord of the Rings extended versions. Ben, Nikki, Stephen, Tony, and Brenna came over. Ben, Brenna, and Tony couldn't stay all day, but the rest of us muddled through.

I don't know why I don't write about Stephen more. Maybe I'm afraid I'll jinx it. I should put it down somewhere so I don't forget, I guess. That's the point of these things. Stephen was there, things were good. Two days, and the Sunday after, I think. It's hard to remember as the whole weekend was a bit of a blur. It really feels like the birthday stretched out over three days. Maybe it did. Maybe this is the big one that I thought 30 would be. The whole "adult birthday".

I was sober. This is not a good omen. But I was aware of everything, kind of like adults are purported to be. I knew what was happening, and I wasn't trying to just pretend shit was ok and everything would work itself out - the car, the house, personal stuff, work. I was perfectly aware where it all was, and I was okay with it. The things that are good, I'm happy for. The stuff that needs work, I can work on. The stuff that has to go is making itself very obvious. And that's alright, too.

Definite Definition

Pictured: Drunks and idiots carefully infiltrating adult society.

So, Christmas and New Year's have come and gone. I try to avoid the wrongheaded idea that we can mark our lives in chapters that easily line up with certain regular events like the end of the year or a birthday or whatever. However, these things are a good time to sit and reflect to see what has changed and is still changing (or remains the same) since the last time we stopped to take a moment and survey our lives. We ended 2012 with a small dinner party at the house, largely orchestrated and supplied by Kim, with me cleaning and acting like all the help I could be while not getting in the way. Everything I needed to ever learn about teamwork was taught by some person shooing me out of a kitchen and then telling me to come back in and help at alternating times.

It was a little weird having this very adult moment - people sitting around drinking nice wine out of expensive crystal while eating carefully prepared food. Of course, the moment was not exactly as it seemed. In between asking about where the wine was from or what spice or cooking method was used in what way, there was a lot of talk about dicks. So much dick talk. Probably asses, too, but who can keep it all straight anymore? I'm in no great hurry to brand myself an upstanding, responsible adult, but I think this is probably the apex of ascent to adulthood for myself and most of my friends. They're having children, which is alarming, because they're still doing things like wondering what would happen if one was to pee on particular things. God only knows they might even encourage their children to do it, since that's slightly more acceptable by society. So that's us, as adults - being mature enough to not piss on things ourselves.

2012 itself opened in the middle of difficulty for me and several people in my life. Thought it had been months since Kim and I had broken up, it still felt very fresh and raw. Navigating that through the year could be called "difficult", which is a ridiculous understatement. It's in the same vein as saying a blast furnace is somewhat uncomfortable to sit in. We both did our best to come through this still friends, but it was not easy at any given time.

A lot of my year really seemed to revolve around me getting my feet back under me and deciding what kind of life I was going to have in the aftermath. I put a lot of work into my job at Cornerstone, and I picked up a lot more work with AEG for the purpose of just getting back into the grind of writing constantly. I may have gone too far in that direction, as I realize looking back I shed a lot of my recreational pursuits so that I could work on various projects almost nonstop. Although I enjoy the work I do most of the time (at both jobs), it gets to be a little stressful when everything is an endless series of tasks you handle one at a time while looking at the infinite row beyond the current one.

I think it helped, though. Sometimes you just have to try things and see if they fit, and in this case I don't think it did. But by doing so, I learned to be a lot more confident in what I do and confident about who I am. 2012 was, for the most part, an unsteady walk through unmarked territory. Not a fight, but just an ongoing moment where I kept wondering if I should just turn back.

Overall, it felt like a long year for a lot of people. Not necessarily a bad one, but one where things just kept going on. Change, loss, gain, new directions, new information, different choices, and so on. The year just constantly slapped you in the face, saying, "Nothing sticks around forever, and apparently few things stick around for very long at all, buddy."

One of my most annoying habits - my inability to detach myself from particular moments in time or memories - seemed to come full circle. The feeling that I was always just a short step from going back to any given point in my life, any given friendship, or any given period of opportunity... that seemed to fade pretty quickly this year. Maybe it was when I went back to KC and it felt like I just didn't have the chance to see people. When I went to Jake's wedding and realized some people do just fade out of your life. Maybe it was kicking and fighting most of the year to help keep the office open.

I do have a few goals for the year. I need to get back in the habit of journaling more. I'm going to want to look back and remember things one day, and I'd hate to have so little context for my own life. I need to make sure I make the most of my time but I stop running full speed all the time. I want to really fight to get certain goals accomplished this year, but I need to remember how to just relax and actually catch a damn break more often. I sit around too much thinking "what should I be doing what should I be doing what should I be doing..." and it just brings too much stress. I went ahead and opened up several of my MMO accounts and got a shit ton of Steam games to try and get back to it, but we'll see. Whenever a show says they're "getting back to basics", it's like a death knell, because all they're saying is "we have nothing new to offer, nothing creative, so we're just going to try and retread old shit everyone seemed to like." So hopefully I'm not just getting back to basics, but pushing forward, too. I never really figured out what I was going to do with my life, and I think that's starting to be a problem since I'm still living it.

Or maybe I'm just rambling and no one else will get this.

I think I'll go home and mull this over, before I cram it down my throat
At long last it's crashed, its colossal mass has broken up into bits in my moat.

Lift the mattress off the floor, walk the cramps off, go meander in the cold.
Hail to your dark skin, hiding the fact you're dead again.
Underneath the power lines seeking shade.
Far above our heads are the icy heights that contain all reason

It's a luscious mix of words and tricks that let us bet when you know we should fold
On rocks I dreamt of where we'd stepped, and of the whole mess of roads we're now on.

Hold your glass up, hold it in
Never betray the way you've always known it is
One day I'll be wondering how I got so old just wondering how.
I never got cold wearing nothing in the snow.

This is way beyond my remote concern of being condescending

All these squawking birds won't quit building nothing, laying bricks.

Not Quite Walkabout

So on June 1st, at about 6am, Nikki, Kim, and I piled into Kim's car and drove from Austin to KC. We were going for a great multitude of reasons, not the least of which being Jacobe's wedding and to hopefully see some family and friends. But also, it was important we remind ourselves of just how much nothing is on that long expanse in the middle of the country. It is in fact a great deal of nothing, with construction, truck stops, and porn shops. But mostly nothing.

<a href="http://s1075.photobucket.com/albums/w440/sethpmason/?action=view&amp;current=2012-06-02_16-38-30_860.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1075.photobucket.com/albums/w440/sethpmason/2012-06-02_16-38-30_860.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

The trip itself wasn't too bad, as we got in about five or so at Lawrence. I've never actually stayed in Lawrence with the exception of a few overnight trips that got me there under cover of night and ended in harsh, let's-forget-about-this daylight as I rocketed out of the town. So I didn't know Lawrence was more than just the KU campus and a few streets around some apartment complexes. Color me shocked. I was, unfortunately, exhausted. Having barely slept the previous few nights and clocked about 4 hours prior to the trip, I made it through the rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, and getting back to the room. It was cool to sit with Jake and bullshit for a bit about work and all that jazz. I was worried it'd be awkward or forced since we hadn't really seen each other much since I moved, but it was fine. I've always been the sort of person who can remain friends (or consider myself one) with folks I don't speak with or see often anymore, but that hasn't always been a two way street. Which is understandable.

Kim wanted to head into KC to meet with some folks, but I was seriously just too wiped to go. Nikki was gung-ho to do something, and I felt bad leaving her to her own devices... but I could barely complete the task of tying my shoes at this point.

When I got up Saturday, it was about 6am, so I went upstairs to get some writing done. We were being put up at a nice bed and breakfast right next to the campus, so after a little while, the staff came in to start the second B of B&B. I talked with the manager for a bit about our trip and the history of the house and business. She served some delicious mofukkin muffins that she said were just out of the box but neither Kim nor I believed that crap. We are on to you, muffin woman, and  your invented bullshit stories.

I was meeting Mom, Alex, Matt, and Marlena in town for breakfast, which was pretty much my only window of opportunity to see the family on this trip. Dad and Sandy couldn't make it, neither could sis, and I only really told Mom and Dad I was coming so Ian was not aware. He would express his extreme displeasure at this after I got back.

Having gotten my fill of second breakfast, eggs, and subtle racism, we meandered the streets a bit and saw there was a nice farmer's market, a street fair because the Queen of England had reached Level 60 or something, and some ok street shops. We killed about an hour before it was time to head back and get changed for the big to do.

I don't have much to say about the wedding itself. It was decidedly short for a Catholic service, but everything went smoothly. I wasn't aware Jacobe's fiance (Brynn) was the daughter of a two star general. If you would ever like to feel well and truly judged, have a uniformed general inspect you as a groomsman at his daughter's wedding. I don't recommend it, though.

Brynn is not a total unknown to me, but I got to deal with her some before we had to depart. At the reception dinner, she and I trounced Kim and Jake at spades, and her speech and dance at the dinner made it pretty clear Jake had chosen... wisely. The dinner was pretty solid, and we waited for it sitting outside in the blessedly mild summer evening weather, sipping bourbon cocktails. I wondered idly why I didn't spend more time on my OWN porch sipping booze and reading or just reflecting on life... and then I remembered I live in fucking Texas. Where I do love the heat, but it doesn't lend itself well to sitting out and marinating.

From the reception to the B&B, I was already feeling a little tired. Kim picked up chocolate covered espresso beans for me to keep me going, as I offered to drive so they could drink at the inevitable Kotei party she and Nikki wanted to hit. We ended up staying out till about 3am at Adam Carey's, where I was literally falling asleep on the couch (getting dog hair on my suit) and also literally had to drag Nikki out by her ear at the end of the night.

The trip back was... not great. We were all pretty tired, and it was a bit annoying to go from the mild midwest heat to the "oh you just opened an oven on yourself" blast furnace of south Oklahoma on our first stop. It wasn't really that bad, but since we were all pretty well wiped and fried, it was horrid.

So anyway, after that I've had a week off. This coming week is the Austin Kotei. Next weekend after that we drive to Saint Louis. Because I hate myself, apparently.

A Quick Lap Around The Block

 

 

I decided to throw myself headlong into SXSW this year. It's something that I've avoided previously mostly because it was just such an immense undertaking to really "do" correctly, I thought. I spend about seven or eight months in advance of GenCon getting everything handled and lined up to carry that off in August each year. With SXSW, it was just constantly something that seemed to sneak up on me and get fully into the way of my awareness only a month before. By that time, it just seemed too close to prepare for correctly. So I didn't bother. And I would tell myself it was just for hipster jackasses who want to go someplace and pose so that they can later talk about how they went and very blatantly hope everyone took that to mean they were enviable.

But I went, because I love free shows, I love seeing new bands, and I really think that I've spent a few years just turning my nose up at too many things. So I got some info from Brenna and Katie about some week-long lounge type parties that we would need to register for, stand in line for access badges, then stand in line to enter at any given point over the week. I sweated, standing in line (alone, then eventually with Kim, Brian, and Woodrow) to get these damn badges and never use them. Not once did I visit the Fairly Land Hooch House Presented By Kicktoes Super Funk Sneakers and Animal Cyclefuck Music... or whatever they were called. So, lesson learned there.

I spent the week dipping downtown during the weekdays and trying to just figure out the experience of finding interesting shit to do and see. I was not disappointed, though I think in the future I may go with the "less is more" attitude when wandering aimlessly. I got to see Semi-Precious Weapons (twice!) with a handful of people, which went off well. But when it came to just poking around trying to find something to see, having a train of 4-7 people with me seemed to annoy everyone involved. Next year I think I'll just pack a bike on to my Jeep every day and bike down from work.

It was good, though, to just not give a fuck. I decided I was heading downtown and I was going to enjoy myself. I did not give a fuck if anyone else did. I was not running a raid, herding people, or otherwise making myself responsible for other people's good time. "I am going to see that," I would declare (either seconds or days in advance of going to see it) and if people followed, great. If not, great, they had their own shit to do. I had beers down at Ginger Man listening to Onward Soldiers and then I got a few rum+cokes at Rusty Spur listening to Outernational. And other bands. And I got a hat. A little newsboy thing that, coupled with my vests, makes me one bad accent and a walking stick away from a living, breathing stereotype.

I get the sense as the year goes on that I just am shedding layers and layers of self-imposed, needless restraint and concern. It's a good feeling.

Tiny paper worlds.

This is Abby's dice bag. It's relatively small, as are her dice - about 1/4th the size of standard D6s, D10s, D20s, and so on. The unfortunate thing for Abby is that we give her a lot of grief for being Jewish, so upon seeing that, I began to make a comment. She knew what I was going to say as soon as she saw my mouth move. "Abby, is that your pouch of Jew gold?"

It was not. Abby is in my Sunday game, that has morphed several times to now become a Pathfinder D20 campaign that I have set in a city similar to Silvermere from MajorMud. It's a whole smush of nerdery, and I think it'll do just fine. Ben is in the game, and as the only person (including myself) who has had much experience with the system, he's been very patient explaining a few things to us as we go. Kim, Tony, Stephen, and Nikki round out the group, who will be clearing out problem areas in the slums and overrun sections of the city.

I don't know how it'll go - it's going to be largely dungeon crawling with a mix of social/political issues to tackle. In this setting, Silvermere is a great city that has been cut off from the distant Empire that spawned it. It was effectively a miracle of modern magical travel - the Empire was able to establish a remote outpost that quickly grew into a thriving city, due to technological and magical advances. Of course, that all went away in an invasion that turned these marvels against the Empire from within, and Silvermere has been cut off now for two full generations. The power struggles are relatively obvious to imagine. With no greater power to answer to, local laws and certain unpopular mandates become harder and harder for the remaining few (power hungry) nobles to cling to.

The other game I'm running now is a Legend of the Five Rings game on Tuesdays. Ben, Scott, Monica, Brian, and Brenna play a handful of Crab samurai dealing with the Destroyer Invasion and the never dull prospect of working side by side with the Scorpion. This particular part of the campaign is drawing to a close and the players have opted to skip ahead in the timeline to keep up with the ongoing metaplot. Since this was the first time any of them have played L5R, it's going to allow them the ability to roll new characters with lessons learned from their first.

Of course, it also gives me a high incentive to push through as many tragic deaths as possible. Brenna's archer contracted the Taint and is now a thrall of two powerful maho-tsukai who have come into the possession of Black Scrolls. Monica's shugenja has had the misfortune of being saved by a Scorpion giving his life for her, meaning she is now deep, deep in the Scorpion's pocket. Brian's Yasuki has an unhealthy habit of trying to deal with courtiers of all stripes on their own turf - a habit that may cause trouble once they arrive in Bayushi lands to help defend the Scorpion.

Interesting times, as the saying goes.

Excellent work, you didn't die

Monica's birthday was technically Thursday, but this was taken Saturday at her combination birthday/housewarming. I don't think I've been to this particular sort of event, but as I had given the couple a housewarming gift beforehand, I felt secure in simply showing up with a gift for Mon, putting some cornbread on their counter, and then drinking all of their whisky. Here we witness the birthday girl in her natural element - opening boxes of tea, tea pots, and other sundries associated with the general craft of boiling dry leaves and drinking their harvested souls.

We also got to meet Tiddlywinks, their retired racing greyhound adoption. She seemed a bit tired and skittish, and it made me think of how rough that dog's life had to be. Sort've. There's a school of thought that proclaims dogs in general enjoy any form of bonding and discipline, so being trained to be a race dog would be great fun for the canine in question. On the other hand, it's a very disciplined, low affection environment. The dog seemed to be wary the entire time we were there, and I don't think it was just because of the number of people.

We milled around, Scott showed us bits from the Old Republic beta, and we did a sing along with the Buffy Musical. Between her need to genuinely clap and giggle happily at her gifts and how she flung herself into singing, I shared with her my general opinion of all that nonsense - that she was able to just be unabashedly gleeful about things, and it was a trait others should envy. The two of them together, Scott and Monica, seem to have a general clarity of purpose and vision that escape most. I don't think they're perfect people or some model of anything in particular, but they both seem very keen to find out what they want to do, and just do it. I suppose to someone like me, who gets distracted by so much so easily, that seems like a remarkable thing

Jigsawing comic books

Assignment for AEG is due in a week. I've been buckling down more on it, but there's a bit of a hump I can't seem to get over. It's not so much writing block as a writer's... slog. I know what needs to be written and how to write it, it just somehow feels excruciating to do so. I guess this is what technical work is like.

Plans for GenCon are pretty much finalized. Scott, Monica, and Nikki will be driving up to Indy with Kim and me on the Tuesday before. It's not going to be the most comfortable trip ever, but as the man in Lock, Stock says, "don't knock it, it's cheap." I'm interested to see how Scott and Mon manage the con, since they're definitely interested in the stuff overall, but they don't have a particular hook like Kim and I do. I don't imagine I'll be spending as much time in the card hall this year, but I didn't plan on doing so last year either. Since this trip comes at the cost of delaying our new windows even further, I'm goddamned certain I will have a good time. If I am not enjoying myself, I will start feeding anime cat-girls to the bloated Klingon cosplayers until something amuses me.

Last night was Abby and Rachel's X-Men themed murder mystery party, and it went off surprisingly well. I say "surprising" not because I had a lack of faith in those two, but because from my personal experience, wedging that many people in to a small space and giving them conflicts to resolve (fictional or not) ends ... dramatically. Things were pretty calm, though, despite the 80-degree-and-hey-did-we-all-wear-multi-layered-costumes heat in the house. There were a few people who were sore that they couldn't finish their objectives, but overall everyone seemed pretty happy about it.

I got to play Gambit, which was neat and a little intimidating to me. One, since he's such a Goddamned flirt, I always worry about people taking it a little too seriously and getting creeped out. Two, my Cajun accent is horrible. So hopefully no one would mind I was just going to talk like me. And Wade Wilson. See, I had originally decided to play Gambit as a slow-talking, sly man of few words like in the comics, but we were given backstories and told, effectively, "Look we had to sort've fuck with some histories here to make the game work, please use this information and don't argue with us about comic book canon." Which I totally understood. You had to pull some logical strings to get some of those folks into the field together, and you also had to have connections and goals that worked as a unit.

So, after reading Gambit's history, I decided that he didn't really sound like Remy from the comics. No, he came off, to me, as more of a quick talking dude like the blonde guy from Community. So I went with it. Gambit was pretty much half Gambit, half Deadpool, and a lot. Of. Words. I spent the whole night running around poking and prodding people about what they were up to and trying to get them to move in directions that I cared about. Considering the main thrust of the plot was that someone murdered Erik, and Remy wouldn't have really cared about that, I really focused on about 1/3rd of the group. But hooo boy, watching shit happen after I knocked one person one way and another person some other way was hilarious. Things didn't always go to plan (and it blew up on me a couple times), but that was pretty fun, too.

Also, Dawn and I were a pretty interesting duo. With her as Rogue and the both of us pretty much trading off on helping each other out, it was hilarious. All it takes for us to really bond and hold hands and work together is a fictional superpowered tyrant dying. Who would have thought it'd be so easy?

The costume was my only real regret. On one hand, I'm sad I couldn't find a nice brown trench, but, again - 80 degrees indoors. I also bought a pair of black jeans to wear which turned out to be some weird hipster skinny shit with a faux tribal art stitch on the back. Wayyyyy too douchebag for me, and even too douchebaggy for the newly-smarmy Gambit. Hopefully I can return them today.