Free game.  Yellow 90's Paris.  Absinthe. Occult books.  unspeakble eldritch horror.  Shellefly.

I swear to you I'm not just going to post links to my blog here. I'm just reaaally focused on spending my time adventuring right now, so what little writing I'm doing...

There will be normal stuff here soon enough. For now, check out the latest post over on ROITS...

Please tell me, in the comments, if you had one power/ability from a myth or fairytale, which one would you want?  No answer is too silly or too out there, go.  

Also, ask your kids/friends/partners. 

Archer's school called at 5:00 AM today to say that they would not be in session. This morning was a blur of shoveling and careful driving and this stomach ache that should not be happening because I took my probiotic and didn't eat any dairy ... crap.  I got a soy chai latte at Starbucks.  Or should I say a "soy" chai latte.  Poisoned by the mermaid ... ain't that a fairytale?

"Say my name
And every color illuminates
We are shining
And we will never be afraid again."  - Florence and the Machine, Spectrum

On Valentine's Day I went to my favorite coffee house, Seven Stones Cafe, alone to write something meaningful in Houser's card.  I ran into a few friends and sat with them for a while, and ended up having a long conversation with a dear friend who is, at the moment, unhappy with Houser.  Most of the conversation was not about that, but that part of it stayed with me.  Most of the unhappiness was due to a series of misunderstandings - yes, he did this thing, but why he did this thing mattered and is more understandable than why you think he did this thing ... what I ended up saying is, "There are a bunch of misunderstandings and the two of you should talk face to face."

"If we can so misunderstand, well then, why have we invented the
word love in the first place ?" -Edward Albee, The Zoo Story

I started thinking about all of the misunderstandings that happen in relationships, in our relationship in particular, and how what really matters is not the daily grind of disappointments and imperfections, but that I am in love with a truly good man who shows that he loves me and our life together with hundreds of good acts, repeating day by day.

I am in love with a man who does dishes every night, who works to make money in a world that rejected his education and experience (graphic design jobs in Philly dried up about 5 years ago and there has not been much of a resurgence), a man who wants to be more expressive about his emotions because I want and need that, a man who does not hesitate to watch our difficult toddler any time I want to go out with my friends and only asks when I am going to be back so he can plan his evening, not because he doesn't trust me.  I am in love with a man who works on schoolwork with his stepson and shows him music videos with great drummers, who teaches our toddler to put his socks on and to speak to people nicely.  I am in love with the most entertaining man in the room, the person who, when he is telling a story at a party, other people drift out of their conversations to listen.  I am in love with a man who doesn't like being read aloud to, but who will let me read to him sometimes because he knows I need that type of communication very much.  I am in love with a man whose father (they are extremely close) is suffering through cancer and who still manages to be productive and present in our home most of the time. I am in love with a man who has devoted his heart and his life to me and to our family without holding back.  I am in love with a man who loves the most dysfunctional cat on the East Coast.  I am in love with a man who has the most amazing laugh.  I am in love with a man who writes well and fluently, who cares about grammar and punctuation.  I am in love with a man who hates musicals and who will listen to Mandy sing if I ask him.  I don't ask him very often.  I am in love with a man who can live with a moody, annoying woman who has too many ideas and not enough time and who overthinks and talks too much and has a strong streak of perfectionism and is probably almost as bossy as our bossy toddler.  Almost.

This is our love.  This is our life together.

Happy Valentine's Day.

http://www.avclub.com/article/adding-strong-bad-takes-uptown-funk-limit-215228

1. He made Honor Roll for the second marking period.

2. He got his first detention.  He was one minute late to Consumer Science Class (Home Ec, basically).  His Mother thought it was a stupid detention, but also emphasized the importance of treating teachers with respect, even when they do things we think are stupid.

3. There's a sound in Sweeney Todd, I call it the "razor scream".  If you've ever seen the show, you know what I'm talking about.  If not, it's in the first three seconds of this video.  It sounds sort of like a human scream, but there's also something mechanical about it, and they play it during the Ballad of Sweeney Todd and also when he slits someone's throat.

Anyway, I have never been able to figure out what is making that sound, not which instrument, but what actual thing in the story.  Last night we were talking about the play and Archer said, "That's the sound of the razors screaming in his head, driving him mad and urging him to kill."

Yep, that's what it is all right.

A breakdown of the trip thus far...

Friday February 6th, 2015

Left northern Florida (JAX) via Southwest. Stopped in DEN and then on to LAX where I was met by my buddy Jason who swept me off to his place to crash. The slight headcold / congestion did very little to dampen the experience.

The Denver stop was a bit of a tease. I have some really great people in Denver and I've been wanting to go for a visit for some time now. So being in their city and not able to visit was a touch frustrating. I, of course, find this to be one of those scenarios where "If that's my biggest problem in life..."

Saturday February 7th, 2015

I had breakfast with Jason and his family at a place called Country Deli in Chatsworth CA. Delightful family place which serves a yummy sausage breakfast burrito. After breakfast we visited local fish/reptile shop because they were looking for some things to fix their aquarium.

Post pet store, I had a planning session with Mark via Google Hangouts in order to go over some of our plans for the first adventure one I'm in the country. First up? Tropical jungle camping/hiking on one of the southern islands of Japan - Iriomote.

Chilled out with Jason and his son while his wife and daughter were off having some girls only chill time. Then the boys made their way to a swanky steak house for a really satisfying meal.

Funny side note: I'm planning on using Japan as a jumping off point to improve my diet. Content of my diet, sure, but the primary focus is portion control. To that end, I was proud of myself for ordering 'only' the six ounce steak. Of course, the the portions on everything else about the meal were so ginormous as to render my herculean effort null and void. C'est la vie.

At the end of the night, Jason and I watched John Wick starring Keanu Reeves. Stop laughing - it was surprisingly entertaining. (And not in a "I can't believe how awful this is..." sense.)

Sunday February 9th, 2015

Woke up fairly early and reduced / repacked my bags in order to get rid of some of the 'excess' that I had collected. Yes, I felt like I had too much stuff with my two bags loaded.

I explained to one adorable little girl and her very awesome brother that "That Boy" would come back soon.

Jason and I made our way to brunch with some dear old friends (Patty and Mike) at a place called Pann's just outside LAX. Patty and Mike are great human beings. They scratch a very specific itch I have for chatting with crazy creative people who also have more than enough brains to support that creativity. While I'm really blessed with so many folks of that particular mix in my life, Patty and Mike have a different flavor to their creativity that I feel like my life would be greatly reduced without. A chance to hang out with them is something I will never pass on. I also got to  consume one seriously yum Louisiana Omellette. 

Once Jason dropped me off at the airport, my check in went easy on a ridiculous scale. My only objection there was the fact that they forced me to check my backpack because it was a couple kilograms over the weight limit. Not the end of the world, certainly, but I work really hard to keep it to carry on only, so this frustrated me. On the plus side, the woman who checked me in and made the request couldn't have been more gracious. I suspect that's a taste of things to come, and frankly, I'm looking forward to that.

My take off was a different story altogether. My flight was originally scheduled to leave at 2:20pm. Due to some technical issues with one of the engines, and the need to replace some component therein, we didn't actually take off until 6:30pm. End of the world? Far from it. It was  a little bit stressful, but mostly from the fact that my brain wouldn't let go of the idea that "there's something wrong with one of the engines". Still - they fixed the part, the staff was gracious and responsive, and eventually we were on our way.

A side note about the staff of Singapore Air flight SQ011 - I don't know if I simply 'lucked out' or if they have some sort of attractiveness requirement for their staff, but pretty much every crew member on this flight is of model level attractiveness. The men are handsome and the women are beautiful on a 'my chest aches just looking at this human' level. None of this really matters for anything, but as it's a first in my air travel experiences, I thought it noteworthy.

More soon from this Aimless Drifter...

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously ruled that people who are of competent mind and have a terminal illness and consistently have indicated their desire to end their life should be able to employ the assistance of a physician in doing so.

This, this is hard.  The autonomy aspect of this is crucial; we don't believe (much) (yet) in this country in sentencing people to life in prison without parole, and if someone has decided that life isn't worth living, that's a kind of life sentence of possibly a very, very long duration.  It also has to be said that without legal assisted suicide, people will end their lives earlier, as they'll have to do it themselves, when they are physically more well than when they'd need to rely on assistance. 

And yet, it's really hard to listen to this whole narrative and wonder why it is that we as a society have made getting old or disabled so unappealing that people want to end their lives, and why it is that we don't devote more resources to fixing this problem.  (Instead, we have wars.  Yay.) 

In particular, a friend pointed me to this article on Facebook, and it notes something that should be obvious in the midst of this whole stupid measles outbreak: the people who are not vaccinating their kids (because they incorrectly believe that the measles vaccine causes autism) are valuing the possibility of their kid getting measles (measles!) over the (incorrect) fear of having someone autistic in their family. 

The narrative goes on and on.  There's the late Harriet McBryde writing one of the best articles I've ever read, about her arguments with Peter Singer about the validity of disabled lives.  There's an almost infinite amount of research that shows that community living makes old people's lives better and makes their decisions about end-of-life care ones that they are more satisfied with.  And so on.

I do think that on balance, letting people make decisions around their own lives is the only reasonable choice.  But the context of our society in which they make that choice?  It's pretty dreadful.

Well, I have a cool job now. And I go dancing when I can. And that leaves... not a metric ton of spare creative energy.

Creativity strikes, but I rarely come home eager to write something epic outside of work. I tend toward the bon mot; the long-form stuff tends to flow at work. This is not uncommon for people in creative jobs.

But, when I read some of my past LJ posts, I am flabbergasted by the outpouring.

I was hungry, and angry, and excited, and amazed, discovering and rediscovering things. Right now I'm in a different sort of place.

That's okay? I guess? For now.

Please?