A Day With Surprises

Yesterday I was running late for work, and didn't stop to look for a belt. Within an hour though I realized that had been a mistake. The jeans I had on used to fit well, maybe even a little snug. But great googly moogly, without a belt they were loose, droopy, and dang near falling off. When did this happen? I mean I knew I'd lost some weight since moving out of the house, what with eating less sugary foods and climbing the stairs to my apartment 4 or 5 times a day, but damn. Time to do some shopping, I guess...

Second surprise was when I was driving down the highway to pick Taylor up from her acting class. Suddenly the battery warning light comes on, and at the same time the air conditioner dies and the power steering goes away. Oh, crap. Means I've lost the serpentine belt, and the car is running off of the battery. Also means I'm not going to make it all the way into Austin and back before the car goes completely dead. So I turn around and call Brett and explain the situation. I'm so glad she was able to drop what she was doing and go get the kid. I managed to limp home on what was probably the last few amps in the battery, and then spent most of today finding a place to service it and arranging for a tow. Damned inconvenient, but it could've been a whole lot worse.

Third surprise, and by far the nicest, was something a friend said in an e-mail to me. It was completely unexpected, and made me feel really good inside.

Progress, Maybe

Went over to the house last night for the first time since "breaking up" with Brett two weeks ago. Taylor needed to choose electives for 7th grade, and since there were some possible ramifications for what she'd have to take in high school, it kinda mattered.

So, there we were at the kitchen table, the three of us, sharing information and preferences. And at the end Taylor said "this is what I want to do" and she filled out the form and we both signed it. It was all okay and non-stressful, and after I said goodnight to Taylor, and Brett and I exchanged an affectionate hug, but no more than that, and I said goodbye and I left.

Being able to work with Brett as Taylor's parents is so important. I hope that last night is a sign that this will continue to work out as well as it has over the past six months. For everybody's sake.

And, at the same time, Brett and I were able to respect the line I drew between us. Hopefully, that will continue as well.

The Flip Side

Okay, so a few days ago I muttered about how I felt my raidiing guild was becoming more hardcore than I would like. At the same time, I am finding myself feeling more casual. I'm having a real time management problem, and I want to cut back on Warcraft in a way that doesn't leave me feeling ... deprived, for lack of a better word.

Currently, AC raids Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday. My RL friends night is Thursday. Friday night I pick Taylor up from her acting class, and typically she's with me until 8 or so Saturday. (Although if she has social plans or something I sometimes take her home earlier - which is fine, but typically I don't know more than a day or so in advance.) Which leaves one night a week without anything regularly scheduled. And that's just not enough, I'm finding. Particularly since now that I'm on my own, I'm responsible for dinner and cleaning up every night, and the dog needs walking several times a day, twice in the evening.

So what to do? Time with Taylor isn't compromisable. Last week I cut back on raiding by not signing up Wednesday night, and I plan to continue with that. I'd rather not drop the RL friends night. I'd kinda like to cut back to raiding one night a week, but I'd have to check with the GMs about that - policy is you're supposed to be available two nights a week. 

If something is important, you take the steps to make it happen. Even if they aren't easy. I want to have a life that includes social time with other people, in the real world as well as the virtual. So, I got to make that happen. Which figuring out where to cut back.

Wanted To Reach Through The Internet And Smack'em

I really like my Thursday night Warcraft sessions with my long-time real-life friends. I do, I really do.

But the insistance of some that we all be on the same vent channel, even if we're doing two different things, can be annoying. Especially when five of us are in a dungeon and I'm trying to explain the next fight, but I can't because the two guys doing quests together won't stop talking for two minutes. "I got three, how many you got? I got five now. Where do we turn this quest in? Is it Here? No I thnink it's at that other place."

OMFG, STFU ALREADY.

Okay, done ranting. And I still love them. Just wish they took the game a little more seriously, and a little less like a cocktail party. Particularly when I know how bent out of shape those two particularly noses can get when things aren't to their convenience.

Grrr.

Really done ranting this time.

Warcraft, Guilds and Raiding

Last night my raiding guild, Aetherial Circle, killed Malygos, the last remaing 25-man boss in the game, until the next content patch. I hadn't signed up for the raid - after 5 weeks of raiding, I wanted a night off. I thought I would be disappointed if they did kill him, but it turned out I wasn't. Just didn't seem like that big a deal.

The guild doesn't feel the same as it did last spring and summer. A number of people have moved on or quit the game for various reasons, and a lot of those who have joined aren't as ... well ... fun. There's a lot less silly banter in gchat than there used to be. When we raid, sometimes it feels like I'm just there for the dps'ers to show off their e-peen. A big part of this is the changes in game mechanics that came with the new expansion, but I've also noticed that damage meter reports are being thrown up after a lot more fights. To many, this may feel like healthy competition, but to me it feels like they're in it for their egos, not the guild. And back when we were preparing to resume raiding, there was some debate on the guild forums about when to start, and several people expressed rather contemptuous attitudes towards those they perceived as holding up the show. I must say, I did not take kindly to being called a slacker, however indirectly, for not spending as many hours playing a video game as others.

It's not all bad, by any means. There are still many people in the guild I like, and who I have fun playing with. It just isn't feeling like home, these days.

This week, my Death Knight Vyp joined BBB's guild, Sidhe Devils. SD is not a raiding guild. Some of the members raid, and enjoy it, but Bear has very deliberately chosen to focus on making sure the guild is a relaxed, friendly place. Means they'll never probably never see Malygos on heroic setting, much less kill him on the second night, but like I said, that doesn't seem to matter to me the way it used to.

Not making any decisions, right now. I'm going to keep raiding with AC, at least two nights a week, and I'm going to play my DK, and get her to Northrend and try running some instances with SD. And oh yeah, I still got this orc warrior I like to play. So, I guess I'll see how things go, for now.

Feb 14

Just another date on the calendar, same as the other 364.

This Week's Learned Lessons

1. The time to buy candles is before the power goes out.

2. If the can says "Shake Well", it does not mean "Open first, then shake well".

3. A sofa hauled out and left next to the dumpster will violate my dog's sense of the universe.

4. It is not a good idea to buy popsicles if you won't be going home for another couple of hours.

Updates

Broke up with the wife. She took it hard. So did I.

Taylor got a major role in her acting class' new production. Which means a lot of extra rehearsals on Saturdays - 40 minute drive each way. But worth it.

Still haven't cleaned the apartment.

Why Is Everything Wet?

Doesn't rain much in Texas under normal conditions, and this past year has drier than usual. So Buffy still doesn't "get" rain. Our walk this morning went something like:

This is interesting

*shake*

This is still interesting

*shake*

Why am I so wet?

*shake*

Not sure I like this anymore

*shake*

*shake*

Can we *shake* go back *shake* now?

LET'S GO! LET'S GO! LET'S GO!

*shake*

*shake*

*shake*

*shake*

*shake*

*shake*

Well, I Can Say It To Myself

Question is, can I say this to Brett?

Our relationship is broken. This has been clear to me for quite some time. What wasn't clear was if it was still fixable, or if it would turn out to be permanent. If so, then I believe it would be best to accept this and move on, rather than tear ourselves apart, becoming increasingly bitter and resentful.

It's now been six months since I moved out. In that time, neither of us has taken any steps to address what is really broken in our relationship. I feel that this indicates that, regardless of what we may want or tell each other, we both feel inside that this is not reparable. I don't want to point fingers or cast blame on you or myself; I think it's just how things are.

At this point, I no longer wish to try to maintain the level of closeness that we have both been seeking the past few months. By this I mean lunch dates, dinner dates, me hanging out at the house to watch tv or do laundry or sleep or have sex. These things are all comforting and familiar, but they are not helping me any more. I have been feeling torn and stressed the past couple of weeks, as my heart and my brain tug me in opposite directions. So I have decided to bring it to a close, to make it easier to move on with my life. This is distressing to me, and I expect it will be to you as well, but I feel it is necessary.

This does not mean I wish to end all contact. Obviously we are both still Taylor's parents and act together for her benefit, and there may well be other items where need to interact. But contact just for the sake of familiarity, or to keep loneliness at bay, is not something I am okay with anymore.

Yeah, That's Pretty Much What I Learned In School

The inhabitants of Egypt were called mummies. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cultivated by irritation. The Egyptians built the Pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube. The Pramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain.

The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinesses, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, asked "Am I my brother's son?" God asked Abraham to sacrifice Issac on Mount Montezuma. Jacob, son of Issac, stole his brother's birthmark. Jacob was a partiarch who brought up his twelve sons to be partiarchs, but they did not take to it. One of Jacob's sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites.

Pharaoh forced the Hebrew slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He
fougth with the Philatelists, a race of people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of David's sons, had 500 wives and 500 porcupines.

Without the Greeks, we wouldn't have history. The Greeks invented three kinds of columns - Corinthian, Doric and Ironic. They also had myths. A myth is a female moth. One myth says that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until he became intolerable. Achilles appears in "The Illiad", by Homer. Homer also wrote the "Oddity", in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses endured on his journey. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of thatname.

Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock.

In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java. The reward to the victor was a coral wreath. The government of Athen was democratic because the people took the law into their own hands. There were no wars in Greece, as the mountains were so high that they couldn't
climb over to see what their neighbors were doing. When they fought the Parisians, the Greeks were outnumbered because the Persians had more men.

Eventually, the Ramons conquered the Geeks. History call people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long. At Roman banquets, the guests wore garlic in their hair. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March killed him because they thought he was going to be made king. Nero was a cruel tyrant who would torture his poor subjects by playing the fiddle to them.

Then came the Middle Ages. King Alfred conquered the Dames, King Arthur lived in the Age of Shivery, King Harlod mustarded his troops before the Battle of Hastings, Joan of Arc was cannonized by George Bernard Shaw, and the victims of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks. Finally, the Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged twice for the same offense.

In midevil times most of the people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the time was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verse and also wrote literature. Another tale tells of William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son's head.

The Renaissance was an age in which more individuals felt the value of their human being. Martin Luther was nailed to the church door at Wittenberg for selling papal indulgences. He died a horrible death, being excommunicated by a bull. It was the painter Donatello's interest in the female nude that made him the father of the Renaissance. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented the Bible. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.

The government of England was a limited mockery. Henry VIII found walking difficult because he had an abbess on his knee. Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen." As a queen she was a success. When Elizabeth exposed herself before her troops, they all shouted "hurrah." Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo.

The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespear. Shakespear never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He lived in Windsor with his merry wives, writing tragedies, comedies and errors. In one of Shakespear's famous plays, Hamlet rations out his situation by relieving himself in a long soliloquy. In another, Lady Macbeth tries to convince Macbeth to kill the King by attacking his manhood. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Writing at the same time as Shakespear was Miquel Cervantes. He wrote "Donkey Hote". The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote "Paradise Lost." Then his wife dies and he wrote "Paradise Regained."

During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe. Later the Pilgrims crossed the Ocean, and the was called the Pilgrim's Progress. When they landed at Plymouth Rock, they were greeted by Indians, who came down the hill rolling their war hoops before them. The Indian squabs carried porposies on their back. Many of the Indian heroes were killed, along with their cabooses, which proved very fatal to them. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.

One of the causes of the Revolutionary Wars was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their pacels through the post without stamps. During the War, Red Coats and Paul Revere was throwing balls over stone walls. The dogs were barking and the peacocks crowing. Finally, the colonists won the War and no longer had to pay for taxis.

Delegates from the original thirteen states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin had gone to Boston carrying all his clothes in his pocket and a loaf of bread under each arm. He invented electricity by rubbing cats backwards and declared "a horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.

George Washington married Matha Curtis and in due time became the Father of Our Country. Them the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the Constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.

Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. When Lincoln was President, he wore only a tall silk hat. He said, "In onion there is strength." Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg address while traveling from Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope. He also signed the Emasculation Proclamation, and the Fourteenth Amendment gave the ex-Negroes citizenship. But the Clue Clux Clan would torcher and lynch the ex-Negroes and other innocent victims. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. The believed assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposedly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.

Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltare invented electricity and also wrote a book called "Candy". Gravity was invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the Autumn, when the apples are falling off the trees.

Bach was the most famous composer in the world, and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian and half English. He was very large. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.

France was in a very serious state. The French Revolution was accomplished before it happened. The Marseillaise was the theme song of the French Revolution, and it catapulted into Napoleon. During the Napoleonic Wars, the crowned heads of Europe were trembling in their shoes. Then the Spanish gorrilas came down from the hills and nipped at Napoleon's flanks. Napoleon became ill with bladder problems and was very tense and unrestrained. He wanted an heir to inheret his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn't bear him any children.

The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. He reclining years and finally the end of her life were exemplatory of a great personality. Her death was the final event which ended her reign.

The nineteenth century was a time of many great inventions and thoughts. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick Raper, which did the work of a hundred men. Samuel Morse invented a code for telepathy. Louis Pastuer discovered a cure
for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturailst who wrote the "Organ of the Species". Madman Curie discovered radium. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx Brothers.

The First World War, cause by the assignation of the Arch-Duck by a surf, ushered in a new error in the anals of human history.

A compilation of excerpts taken From Richard Lederer's Anguished English