August 2004

This Too Shall Pass
Happy New Year and Anniversary to me! Abstract Thoughts is now six years old. Very cool. Never thought I would get this far but I think having a journal has really helped me keep a perspective on my life. Especially this day. August 1st has become my own personal New Year's day. Lots of changes have happen. This is the day that I reflect on it. One of the best things it has done for me was prove the old adage: "This too shall pass." It has allowed me to truly understand that certain events are not the end of the world. That broken hearts mend, love does still exist and that some friendships are meant to stay while others are meant to go by the wayside.

2004 - Today: I spent the very, VERY early morning with Shane [Some day soon, I must make myself a Seattle cast list for future reference.] in the wake of the werewolf game in Red Square of the University of Washington - which is very pretty, as an aside. Shane had driven me there since it was my first game and I didn't know how to get there. We got back to my home about 4:30am and did that up-really-late-random-rambling talk thing that happens upon occasion after a LARP. He spent the rest of the night/morning in my guest room and I'm not sure when he left to go run NERO. After too little sleep, I got up in time to spent the afternoon with Cynthia, fabric shopping for a Victorian outfit she's making me. I am so very glad she is up here.

2003 - Today minus one year: I became "landed gentry" on this day, closing on my first home. I gained possession of it. I was extremely stressed from the move from California to Seattle and I was still living in temp housing. However, this was a major turning point in my life. I could see the end to some of the moving stress in my life and this was the first official "putting down roots" I have ever really experienced. I had moved to the pacific northwest like I wanted to for years. I had a good paying job and I now owned a condo that I could live in for the rest of my life if I so chose to. Very heady stuff, really.

2002 - Today minus two years: This is the year I first started 'officially' acknowledging the first of August as my own personal New Year's day. I was fostering kittens and I had experienced my first death of a kitten, Sheridan. This hit me pretty hard. I was also just a few weeks out from being whacked by the crush fairy that eventually led me to dating one of the most wonderful men I know today. Yony turned out to be a wonderful support for me and proved to me that there was still love for me out there after all. This is also about the time I met Monte, Thea, Hans, Robert and the rest of the Palo Alto crew who made my last 18 months in California a pure joy - if occasionally an exciting and dramalicious joy. Those who have not moved up to Seattle I still miss.

2001 - Today minus three years: This was the year I decided to do three things to really change my life. First, I was going to really focus on loosing weight. I started with the Atkins diet. While it was successful, I did the yo-yo thing with it. Two, I decided I was going to follow my dream of becoming a published fiction author. I was going to put the effort into writing and submitting work and it really helped. Three, I was going to go out and find a new social group to be with because I felt (rightfully or wrongly) I was being taken for granted by many of my friends at the time. It is what lead me eventually to the Palo Alto group.

2000 - Today minus four years: At this point, I was still really trying to find a place for me that I was comfortable with. I was still looking at my job with Silicon Spice as "transitory" (it was) as well as living with Donna and her son Scott. Also, I was spending as much time as I could in escapist gaming rather than focusing on me and what I needed to do for myself. It's been really hard. This was probably one of the hardest years of my life. I had a real need to be accepted and appreciated. Since I wasn't getting it in real life, I got it in my gaming. I think, it was what kept me sane and not suicidal. I can admit that now. I was extremely depressed all the time and probably needed professional help.

1999 - Today minus five years: My biggest concern at this point was becoming debt free. I was almost there. It had been a long hard road but I had done it between budging and being miserly. The other thing I was fighting with was the concepts of being "nice" or "keeping your word" were considered passé or not good. That is was OK to break a promise and stupid to be nice. This is also the year that the Great Gamer Migration was born. The idea that a bunch of us would move to the Pacific Northwest and get out of the far too expensive Bay area.

1998 - Today minus six years: Abstract Thoughts begins. I was really having issues with my parents beginning preparations to move to North Carolina. While I did not see them very often, they were still my safety net at this point. I was working at ICMS as the only QA person. This is also the year that Johanna first introduced me to "House of Cards" and forever changed my style of LARPing.

Looking back at all of this has also pointed out a couple other things to me. I am not a failure. I have actually accomplished many of the tasks that I have set out to do. I guess, sometimes, I don't give myself enough credit in that manner. I think, I have come a long way mentally and emotionally. That is extremely encouraging in the face of some of my more personal emotional issues. Sometimes, it really is nice to sit back and take stock. Things are better than they seem and I have the proof that I can do what I have set out to accomplish.

Tarot Card for the Day: King of Wands, Inverted

Moments of True Potential
Happy fangirl! I have my official assignment from Sovereign Press. I will be working on the Holy Order of Stars book. I'm really excited. Almost 13000 words to write on the various bits related to the religion of Dragonlance world. I am particularly excited about writing for such a well established world. I will be doing both information collation on the world and world creation. Imagine that! Dungeon & Dragon players all over will be reading and using the stuff I write in their campaigns!

I have to admit though, I'm a little scared that people will hate what I write or the editor, who is a friend and published my Hucked Tankard tales, will look at my stuff and think that he made a big mistake trusting me with the stuff that he has me writing. I know it is nothing more than "first job" jitters but, they are there.

So, I've gotten myself prepared. I've looked at everything I need to write and set up a series of due dates for each section. This should put my work in well before the due date and give me a chance to fix anything that I might screw up. I do have a lot of information to gather from all around the Dragonlance universe. Plus, the editor may love it all and give me more. I know that's what he's hoping. Me, too.

I have decided that the most favorite moments of my life are those rare moments of true potential. The anticipation of not knowing what an unexpected contact will bring. It is the not knowing that I enjoy. The possibilities are limitless in my mind. When I got to work today, I had a message from someone in the 919 area code. They called me over the weekend and asked me to call them back. The only people I know that live in the 919 area code are my parents, my sister, her family and my financial advisor. This person was none of the above.

Many thoughts spun in my head. Immediately, the most dramalicious events came to mind. Could this be something involving my family or my financial advisor? Was my financial advisor caught perpetrating a fraud? Was this a police detective to tell me that my parents had been in an accident? Maybe I was being called to join my family in celebrating a prize won. Though, mayhap, it had nothing to do with my family at all.

Perhaps, Uncle Sam was calling me in to work on a special case for them that involved... QA and... um... Gaming... and kittens! Perhaps, the evil, satanic ex who had tried to blackmail me, and had threatened my life, had been arrested after been caught in a murder investigation and I was next on his list. Perhaps, he had escaped and they suspected he was on his way to Seattle! Gasp! What if he had escaped and had killed this detective who had been trying to warn me and that's why his phone was consistently busy!

I did say that my thoughts ranged into the dramalicious zone. The point is that any of those things, however improbable, were possible. Until I connected with Mr. Tim Sweeney, nothing in the realm of possibility was forbidden to me. That is why moments of true potential are so very rare and so very precious to me. My whole life could hinge on that next phone call. Anticipation at its best.

The phone call? It was a wrong number. Mr. Sweeney had meant to dial someone else.

It looks like I will be disappointed a third time in the Write_Away community. I have enjoyed working with the moderators but I haven't gotten a whole lot back from the community. Recently, a new member wrote a post about not seeing what the moderators of the group promised in the user info. To a degree, they are correct. I watched myself and all of the moderators bust their butts and get almost nothing back. After two failed attempts at projects, I've slacked off to only doing the Grants Pass project. This is the email I wrote to the rest of the moderators after we started discussing it.

Honestly, after the lack of responses from my posts on how to be published and now Grants Pass, I'm beginning to think that this is not the community for me. I am an active author, actively seeking work and getting published. I published 10 articles on how to get published and bits about the business and whenever I ask what people want to hear about, I get silence or a question like "What is a gaaneden?"

I have not given up completely on the community and Grants Pass, yet but, I will say this... I have not received a single submission yet. Much to my surprise, I'm getting more interest from well known authors than the authors of this community that the Grants Pass project was suppose to benefit. Let's hope that everyone is doing this last minute and I get a score of submissions in the last two weeks.

By my count, I have tried three things with this group:
1. The Business of being Published - it failed. No one is interested.
2. The Young Adult column - it failed. After 3 months, 2 authors flaked and 75% of the group still did not know what it was.
3. The Grants Pass Anthology. - My respect for this group is flagging. There are no submissions after 2 months and my reminders are treated with contempt.

Third time is the charm. With my professional writing load increasing (just got a gig with Sovereign Press) and this group's obvious lack of interest, I suspect in September, I will be leaving this group. I'm sorry, but it sucks to put out a lot of effort and get nothing in return.

Thanks,
Jennifer

At first, I thought I was a bit harsh. Until someone on the moderator list who "has been in the community for a long while" admitted that they had no idea what any of the three projects I mentioned were. I was completely flabbergasted and disheartened, considering my last Grants Pass post had been just over a week ago. I have to admit, unless something drastic changes, I see myself leaving the community within the next two months.

Tarot Card for the Day: Ace of Cups

Along for the Ride
Last week turned out to be pretty interesting in the Chinese sense of the word. First, I went to see the doctor. I've been having all sorts of fun medical stuff going on with me. When I saw the doctor, the guesses came back: Graves disease, early menopause, anemic, diabetes and some combination therein. We just had to wait for the blood work to come back. Well, it did and I'm "fine." I have none of the aforementioned medical conditions and the doctor has decided to chalk it up to the ubiquitous "stress related issues" category.

I suppose I should be happy about this. I'm not "sick" but on the other hand, it is a little frustrating because I -am- having these symptoms and I have no clear path to stopping them. The vague "stop stressing" isn't going to help me at all. I do have a vacation coming up that I am very much looking forward to. So, hopefully, that will help. Ah, well.

The other interesting thing that happened was the fact that my car died. No warning. No coughing. Nothing. Suddenly, it wouldn't turn over. It turned out to be the electrical system. I learned some fun facts like the fact that I have a very expensive battery in my car and the fact that when my headlights were on, my brakes stopped working. I wonder how long that had been going on. So, 54,000 mile check up, electrical system fixed, $600+ dollars later and Sterling was just fine. I'm glad that this didn't happen on my road trip. I would have been very put out.

I am a gaming fool when it come to the Crimson Dawn LARP. I swear, there are twists and turns I never saw coming and that's just the relationship between the characters. The GM sponsored plots are something else altogether. You know, I'm beginning to thing that the story between Ximena, Percival and Tariq is writing itself and the players (Me, Shane and Jim) are just along for the ride. There is so much potential for this personal story between the three of them, it almost seems like the background story to how these characters in a future time received certain merits and flaws. It kind of makes me wonder what they would be like 115 years in the future or this present day.

The 20/20 program is now officially over for me. I have one last clean up appointment with the doctor and I'm done. I have a lot of mixed feelings about the program. It was nice to see the weight loss that I did but, I'm already fighting to keep it off.

Lessons Learned
One week until I'm on the road to California! Thank goodness for vacations to look forward to!

I am reliving my college partying days through my friends now. It's like having a second childhood. I have come home with Shane as the sun rose three times now. Each time, spent just enough time randomly chatting to wind down from the drive before crashing. I'm hanging out with Jim, Shane and Ben on a university campus way late at night in such a way that it reminds of the weekend City warrior bit I would do with James and Paul in college on weekends. I'm generally doing or trying out things that I haven't done in ages. It feels good for the soul.

Friday night, I went out dancing at the Mercury with Jo'nese, David and Ben. I had a wonderful time. I drank way too much - enough to contend with a "nausea" hangover the next day. Danced enough to be seriously sore the next two days. Drove when I should not have (but, got home in one piece - no blood, no foul and no ticket). Also, I actually made a pass at a guy who is interested back and is not gay. Of course, I do have to see if that was the alcohol talking when we made the tentative get together but, even if it was, I'd still call that a success.

Though, I tell you, the morning after the night of fun and/or debauchery is getting harder and harder to take as the symptoms become more pronounced and the recovery phase takes longer than I remember it did. Fortunately, I don't need a night of debauchery like I did on Friday very often. So, while the fun quotient is high, I can keep the debauchery at a manageable level. It's just that I need a night like that every once in a while to remind me of what it is like to tie one on and suffer the next day.

Lesson learned: I'm not ten feet tall and bulletproof. Nor am I young and immortal. Hmm, that means the recovery phase is gonna get more intense as I get older. That means I must get in all my sowing of wild oats now! Any volunteers to help me?

There I was, Saturday morning with a nausea hangover, blood shot eyes and guests arriving within two hours. I had no refreshments nor kitty litter and one of those was not going to wait for anyone no matter how hung over I was. So, I hop in the car and notice that I'm low on gas. As I have drive to Capital Hill that evening, I thought "Huh. I should get gas."

Off to the gas station where I pause, transfer all my money, ID and credit card from my silver cigarette case back into my purse, grab my credit card, hop out of the car and promptly lock myself out... and didn't even notice it until I tried to get back in again. "Oh, tell me I did not just do that!" I moaned. The very nice guy next to me saw my dismay and immediately offered me his cell phone. "Do you need to call someone?"

In my mind, the sarcastic bitch who had been deep asleep in a post-drunk unconsciousness immediately woke up and laughed, "Sure, you need to call someone. In fact, you could call Hans right now to rescue you... IF YOU HAD EVER GOTTEN OFF YOUR ASS, HAD THOSE EXTRA KEYS MADE AND GIVEN A SET TO HIM! Feel stupid now, dontcha, wench!" The outside voice just smiled and said, "No thanks. I'll call a locksmith."

I walked up to the gas station attendant, who was very nice and was prepared for it. In fact, he had a jimmy but he wasn't sure it would work on my car and I wasn't willing to make the attempt. 15 minutes later, a very cute guy arrived, informed me that I was not his first client this morning, hoped that I had had a fabulous night last night and had my car open in less than a minute. $45, ma'am. Thank you very much! Cascada Locksmith. Good guy. Look him up if you need that sort of help.

At this point, I decided that I was going to learn my lesson RIGHT NOW and go get those extra keys made. 10 minutes and $14 later, I had two sets of house and car keys on personalized key rings. One set for my office. One set for Hans, who, regrettably, wasn't in when I arrived at his place. So, I just asked his visiting father to give him the set of keys and to tell Hans that I was learning my lesson right now and I would explain it all later.

Lesson learned: When you really need to remember to do something like get extra keys made, the universe will remind you in the most persuasive way possible.

My hair... is short. As in Oh-my-God-I-think-I-hate-it-But-I'm-not-sure short. I've started the process of moving back from black to red. Glenn did a faboo job last night on me and the boys, Jim (a birthday present for him) and Shane (an 'enjoy Europe' present for him). But, in the process of bleaching and re-dyeing, the bottom few inches of my hair got fried and Glenn decided it would be better if I just had it all cut off to stimulate growth.

So, my hair looks neat. Rather like anime hair. He did big, chunky red highlights that make it look like I had red hair originally and decided to lowlight my hair in black. Now, as the black grows out, it won't look nearly so funny. However, it is short. A pixie-ish cut. I had wanted to go back to CA with all this long, luscious hair... instead, I'm very edgy. For those of you who know me, you know I'm not what one could call "edgy."

I'm sure I look fine. Good even. But, this is not what I was expecting and had no time to mentally prepare to lose 4-5 inches of hair. I'm sure I don't look like a boy or masculine in any way but, I'm still freaking out about it. Plus, I'm terribly afraid I'm going to go back to CA and all my friends are going to have to do that fake smile "Oh, Jenn. It looks fine..." Then mouth behind my back "Oh my God! What was she thinking?!" to each other.

Lesson learned: Coming back from dyeing your hair black is every bit as difficult as the hairdresser says it will be.

Tarot Card for the Day: Two of Cups

Hell of a Week
This has been one hell of a week, I tell you. The short of it is this: it was review week at work and it was bad. My less than stellar review was very unexpected to me. I'm not going to go into details here because I would end up saying some really nasty things about my ex-boss. However, on the good side of things, I did get some of the concessions and rewrites I requested and my ex-boss is no longer in charge of my professional career. That's what my new boss (whom I've had for about six week now and LOVELOVELOVE) is for and we've already got a plan. Plus, he keeps telling me how much he likes my work. I know. Vague. But it's the best I can do.

I am on vacation now. Thank goodness. I really need it bad. I am going to be driving down to the Bay area to stay with Rich, visit with friends and family, then go to Conquest. You know, I must really be comfortable with the idea of driving to the Bay area for vacation. Friday was the first time I got around to thinking about what I need to take and what I need to do to prepare. Usually, for a vacation, I'm thinking about it and planning for weeks ahead of time. I suppose, since I know Cynthia is going to be visiting my darling psycho kitty every day and Hans might drop in once or twice just to make sure the cat's not on fire and the TV's still here, I'm feeling pretty good about the one thing I would really worry about.

Right now, my biggest worry is washing clothing so I have something to pack. I've picked up munchies and cash for the road already. I have three books on audio CD to keep me company if I want a break in the silence and I've got a straight shot for almost 800 miles. It's funny, my main quandary is what book(s) to bring to read. I sort of want to bring the Tanakh because I'd like to keep up on that. But, at the same time, I don't want people making strange assumptions of me because I'm reading a Jewish holy book in a public place. It's weird that I feel I have to think of these things when I travel now. I really don't like it.

Also, on the strange side of things, I'm going to be visiting my brother while I'm on vacation. I have not seen him since his wedding to Suzanne. Visiting them is not the strange thing. Looking forward to it is. I don't get along with my brother. But, he's mellowed a lot since he got married and I like his wife. Actually, I'm really looking forward to this whole trip to the Bay area. Lots of good friends to visit and much gaming/LARPing to be had. Of course, I still need to nail down the details of the game I'm running... but I figure I'll do that during the 14 hour drive.

Some really cool plot-hooky dreamage recently: Atlantis: This is the kind of dream that is the seed to a much bigger story. I am part of a group of people descendent from the last survivors of Atlantis. Our goal is to remember our heritage and technology. We are already well on the way.

My writing gig for Dragonlance is going well. I've finished the first big chunk of writing for it and have sent it in. My editor seemed surprised and happy that I was ready to send stuff in already. I had to. Otherwise, I would be waiting until the last minute and writing my ass off to make the deadline. I didn't want to do that with this. To me, it's not professional and this is part module writing, part fiction. It is amazing to me that writers are so lackadaisical about deadlines.

Speaking of deadlines, the deadline for the Write_Away group for the Grants Pass anthology is looming and I finally got my first story and a deadline extension request (which I allowed). I have not read the first story, yet, because I've been in such a bad mood lately and I didn't want to taint my perception of the story with my mood. So, I'll read it when I get back from vacation. By that time, I should be in good spirits and I should have several Grants Pass submissions to read and consider.

Also, I think I'm going to approach writing Breaking the Chains story in a different way. I think, I'm going to write up the universe, worlds, culture, religion, fashion, etc... as if I were writing up a role-playing game. That way, I will have the bible, history, leaders, events and timeline completed before I write the story that spans several decades. I'm tentatively calling the universe bible project "Gosstiny" which is the term the Aradis people use that means "Capturing the Good Destiny/Fate." It is part of their religion. The opposite of that is "Baestiny" which means "Thwarting the Bad Destiny/Fate." While I'm in CA, I plan to have a long talk about this with Monte who has been working on his own gaming world write up for ages now.

Tarot Card for the Day: Two of Cups, Inverted