February 2001

I'm not dead - yet.

Though, part of me wishes I was. Murray, Murphy's older and meaner brother, has me by the short and curlies for the moment. Between grieving for Carrie, the PMS and this cold that has me down so bad that I've missed 4 days of work this week (which I have to take vacation time for since I have no sick leave left from the broken leg), I think it's best if I just hunker down and hide for a bit. I haven't had a sore throat cold like this in years. Man, give me sinus problems any day. This sore throat, can't swallow, hurts to breath stuff really sucks.

Hope things are better for you guys.

Tarot Card for the Day: Four of Cups

Searching for Silence

Yep. I'm still alive. Feeling better and not just because of all the cold medicine I'm pumped full of. I'm actually getting better. Yep. Finally. The turning point seemed to come Friday after I had a long discussion with God, offering to trade the sore throat with a head cold because I'm used to that sort of pain. Saturday morning, my sore throat was almost completely healed and my head was filled with cotton. Let's hear it for the power of prayer! Woo-hoo! Hey, I believe it and since I was the one that was sick with the sore throat who is now only sick with the head cold and cough, I'm the one that counts. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Gotta love DayQuil and NyQuil, though. I don't know how I would ever get through a cold like this without them. I especially like NyQuil - though, as much as I hate the taste of the liquid version, I gotta love the floaty "I just drank something that's 25% alcohol" feeling. My arms and legs get all tingly and there's a sense of euphoria. (I'm a cheap drunk, what can I say?) Gosh, add in the twisted, naughty little fantasy I had about Morte turning Sara into a sex slave and I had all that I needed to take matters in hand. (TMI! TMI! RAH! RAH! RAH! I wonder how many of my friends are now either cringing or blushing.) Of course, I had to mention this naughty little fantasy to James who, with an evil joy, added a twist I hadn't thought of that made things that much more interesting. Hmmm. Things to look forward to.

I finally made it to work on Monday. Of course, they killed the DB over the weekend. So, there was little for me to do in the morning. Work was vaguely interesting in my drugged state. Of course, though, I jumped back into my teleportation fantasy during my commute. *sigh* My boss hasn't commented on me being back. In fact, he's barely spoken to me. Only when I talk to him first. I can't decide if this is a good or bad sign or just due to the fact that he's got his mind on other things. Honestly, I sort of expected some sort of chiding for me missing so much work. I guess being obviously sick helps a little.

I also managed to get my Aragon report done for Dave. I'm not sure how coherent it is and I know I've missed some things. Just too tired/lazy to add them in. But, I figure a couple thousand words was pretty good. Not to mention the list of downtime activities that, even as I type now, I know is not complete. I guess I'll have to send in a second list of DT stuff to do.

Called my Mom over the weekend to whimper. Just cause I can. That's what parents are there for. To whimper at and to have them tell you to go to the doctor's office. They are doing real good, which is nice to hear. They deserve it.

Right after I got off the phone with her, I started having a series of weird thoughts, wondering what I would do if I discovered I had a terminal illness. Would I move in with my parents and pretty much live online and try to finish my novel before I croak? Would I stick it out here in the Bay area where it's way too expensive but where all my friends are? I don't know. This train of thought about being terminally ill kept me mildly entertained for an hour or so before I moved on to pondering Aragon again.

I don't know about you all but I generally have two or three thought-lines going in my head at any one time. Often, I'll work on one thing while idly churning through two or three other trains of thought. Like, right now, as I work on this journal entry, I'm also thinking about Aragon, work and Marrach. Each has it's separate path. For example:

Aragon... The prince is really going to protect my top three contacts? Of course, this means he has to know them. This could be good or bad. I think he's a bit ambitious on that front. Hmmmm. Maybe. Reminds me. Must find out what the seneschal is up to....

Work... Ok, so we have this new spec for the Repaint tool. However, they didn't mention how the color properties are supposed to be formatted in the properties file. I wonder if someone has that information some where or if I'm just going to have to guess. Hmmmm. I wonder what happens to the script if I guess wrong....

Marrach... So, Edanya's ritual is on Wednesday night and I'll finally be done with that plot line. If Punzel's the one who has to get Edanya there, I'll be nice. If it's Kiera, well, I'll have a little fun and make her work for it. Oh, yes. Need to start writing up that new story for the story telling hour. You know, maybe I should create a site for Edanya if she's going to be telling Marrach and Huck Tankard tales on a regular basis...

What does it take to get that bit of silence back? Inquiring minds want to know.

Tarot Card for the Day: Four of Cups, Inverted

General Miscellania

On the Work Front...
I have made a serious effort to be very productive this week at work. To be visible, helpful and on time with all my stuff. I think I've done a decent job of both looking good and being productive. Just one of those things to make up for all my missed work. Gotta balance the bad with the good - until I have surplus of good to fall back on.

I've spent most of the week frantically testing one of the tools that we give to one of our special customers. They decided that they needed a couple extra bits of functionality in the tool before they would sign the contract to take the tool and give us lots of money.

Then, in the middle of that, one of the principle architects came and asked me about one of the most obscure features in the product - one that we aren't supposed to be selling - and asked me if it had been tested on our stand alone server box. Um. No. Of course not. It wasn't on the schedule. Heck, it's not supposed to be on the public product. So, I spent a few frantic hours testing that - only to have one of the managers come natter at me about how Sales didn't go through them, they went straight to the engineer. Then, he asked me what I thought of the feature.

I was bluntly honest with him. It's a dangerous feature that has only the -barest- of testing to see if it works. We have a huge warning message about it when you try to use it but I don't think that's strong enough. This feature has a 20%-30% chance of crashing your computer and is difficult to use. Needless to say, he really wasn't happy with the situation. However, there was nothing I could do about it except give him my opinion.

Finally, I rounded out the week revamping a test plan because as we continue on with the newest big functionality of our product, things change - a lot. A whole lot. Pretty much rendering the original test plan obsolete. However, since I like writing test plans, I don't much so much. It was a nice way to end a frantic week.

In the Muse...
I don't know if I should be panicking or not. I cannot remember my due date for this next issue of Black Gate magazine. If it's April 1, I'm good to go. If it's March 1, the panicking can commence since I have no free weekends between now and March and I have a 2000 word feature and a book review due. (Note: I just found out... time to start panicking. It -is- March 1.)

Also, I have a couple new poems. I forgot to upload January's poem: The Shadows' Lesson. It's based on a little bit of character interaction between my character, Elea and an EvilNastyBadGuy™ named Morte. I'm sure many in the game are not going to be really happy with me over this poem. Ah, well. Such is life.

I decided to write a topical sonnet like poem for February called: Lucifer's Valentine. I had the last two lines in my head for a couple weeks and decided that I just had to write a poem around the image/idea of Lucifier falling for a mortal maid and asking her to be his valentine. It's not a strict sonnet by any stretch of the imagination.

Miscellania...
An eMail from my sister. I thought this was very appropriate. She heard it on the radio from DJ Rob Dempsey

TEN COMMANDMENTS Of Not Worrying

Gamer Gossip...
In Marrach, we finally finished the Edanya plotline with the Ritual of Separation to separate what's left of Duvessa's soul from Edanya's soul and body. So, Edanya is a normal woman again. Well, as normal as that character gets. Duvessa is stuck in a bracer until I can get CE's help on what's supposed to come next - which, hopefully, is me stuffing Duvessa into a cat body and her becoming Elea's familiar. *grin* That would be SO cool.

Later today is Casting the Runes. I was a little leery of going but Johanna and I came up with a quick little tiny Elder plot that should keep Isabeau and Sarah mildly amused throughout the evening. Assuming, of course, the tyrant Prince doesn't decide to snack on either of us.

From the Normal Files...
I went over to visit with James, Laurel and Dave on Friday night. We had a great dinner and watched a movie (Mortal Kombat & did an MST3K on it). It was a completely normal, mundane and totally fun night. Laurel made burgandy chicken with rice and honeyed vegetables. It was so nice to actually have a sit down normal dinner with friends at home - around a table so we could talk to one another - that we decided we wanted to try and do this once a month. For March, I've promised to make them my famous Chicken & Dumplings from scratch. Later, James, Laurel and I went out for coffee so we could let Dave (who had had a VERY hard week) sleep. I came crawling home around 3am. *groo*

Tarot Card for the Day: Five of Cups

"Let's talk about sex, ba-by..."

Well, it seems that I can stop panicking about my articles for Black Gate. The due date has been pushed back a month. I was all freaked out because I thought I had almost no time to work on my two articles due - mostly because of the upcoming gaming convention, Dundracon. I mentioned this to my editor and wondered aloud if they ever did articles or reviews on gaming conventions or perhaps, more specifically, a gaming convention from the POV of a female. Don gave me an enthusiastic thumbs up and told me to write whatever I wanted. Cool. I'll have to do a couple of interviews on female con-goers... Like that will be hard since Johanna, Shauna and Cil will be there. I'll also grab Laurel and a couple of the female GMs/LARPers.

Thinking of DundraCon, I must be going back into a masochistic phase because last night, I was idly hoping/wondering if Chris would be there. Probably not specifically for gaming but there with the SCA group that seems to appear at every gaming/sci-fi-fantasy/literary convention in the greater bay area. Why was I wondering if he'd be there? I'm not exactly sure since he is still married to 'that woman' and will remain faithful to her (I think) for the sake of their son.

I suppose, I just wanted to see him after all this time. Just... I don't know... to see how he is and see what he's like in bed. Yeah, I got sex on the brain again. ("Let's talk about sex, ba-by. Let's talk about you and me... Let's talk about sex.") For all of Chris' faults and all of the ways he and I did not mesh... the sex was freaking fantastic.

He was the first man I made pass out with my intimate muscle control - rhythmically flexing after he orgasmed so that he felt like he was continuously orgasming for an extended period of time. I will admit, he scared me when he passed out but once he recovered, I was pretty darned smug about it. He didn't mind, either.

He was the first man I ever had multiple orgasms with. Multiple orgasms rock. One time, in his water bed, we hit just the right position so that he was brushing against my clit with just the right amount of friction and pressure that I actually ended up having -nine- orgasms in a row. Obviously, the last few were less intense than the first couple... but, man, I was a tired kitten after that. I didn't pass out but I felt like I should have.

*sigh* Yeah. The sex was fantastic. There are days when I wonder what would have happened if I had married him when he asked me. I wonder if I would be happy or not. I know most of my friends didn't like the way he treated me and you can't base a long term relationship just on sex. But, good sex really is icing on the cake.

I've started wearing my hair up in a French twist now that it's long enough. It makes doing my hair in the morning really easy. Twist it up and fasten it with a single large bobby pin and I'm good to go. It looks neat and professional and it's a really different look for me. I like it. Of course, I look like my mom but I don't care anymore.

I wore it up that way for Casting the Runes. I got a strange but good reaction from Brian. He couldn't tell if I had cut my hair or not and made an obvious show of looking at my hair. Then, he declared that he liked it. That was really nice of him. It made me feel good. I'll take all the good feelings I can get.

Speaking of being nice and Casting the Runes. While we were at the game, I chatted with Rich. Apparently, somehow, one of my personal binders ended up at his house. I'm not sure how. But he was mentioning it to me and telling me that he'd bring it on Friday for me. I asked him what was in it and he told me that while he usually just looked through stuff like that - leave it at his house, it's fair game - he opened it up and saw a picture of me when I was much younger and decided not to go through it.

When I asked him why, it was interesting. Rich admitted to me that he often treats me a little different than the rest of his friends. "Because I'm more sensitive?" I asked. He nodded and told me it was partly that but it was more than that. It was because I'm one of his friends that is honestly, genuinely nice. He told me that if people gossip about me around him, he always jumps all over them because he feels I don't deserve it.

It was a surprising revelation and a really, really nice compliment. I appreciate the fact that he cares enough about me as a friend to be aware of some of my personal flaws and makes the effort not to be his usual (often playfully offensive) self. It's like he's protecting me some from the harsher realities out there.

Rich can be an asshole at times. As can many of my friends. But, he's also a genuinely nice guy, too. He's offensive to his friends because he, and they, enjoy it. There's a little song that runs around that particular group of my friends that begins with "All my friends are assholes..." A lot of times, I'll join in - as much as I can. But I do know that they are a bit easier on me. Granted, it does not make me immune to their friendly harassment or sarcasm and I'm glad. I am one of the group. But still... I like the fact that they are aware of my particular quirks. That makes me happy.

Thinking back on that very quick conversation with Rich, it makes me smile. It could have been just a casual throw away snippet of conversation but it wasn't. As short as it was, it was a bonding moment between Rich and I. Such moments are too rare and precious not to be noticed. Thank you, Rich. [I ended up sending Rich part of this entry since it said everything I wanted to say to him.]

Tarot Card for the Day: Five of Cups, Inverted

Not Much Really

The title says it all. Not much has happened in the last few days. Lots of work and such. I've been very studious at work. We are working like dogs with no end in sight. Too many projects. The only interesting thing is that my boss is on vacation all next week. So, I suspect I'm going to the point of contact again. Not a bad thing. I'm going to be working on a project different than everyone else. Hopefully, it will be relaxing for me.

This weekend will be a glut of gaming as I will be at DundraCon Friday thru Monday. Friday night is going to be a Skotos party and I'm already looking forward to a series of 6-8 hour games and at least one LARP. I'll have a full report on Monday or Tuesday. Until then, have a great time!

Tarot Card for the Day: Six of Cups

Tore Up from the Floor Up

Groo... what a weekend. Great weekend. Sucky aftermath.

Friday.
Checked in and hung out with friends. James and Laurel came over about 6pm and we chatted until 8pmish. During that time, Dave, Rob, Alex and Johanna showed up to hang out. Dave was the White Wolf rep for the convention and thus had to work the whole thing through. I had a room for me but let James and Laurel and Dave use it as a staging area. Next year, I'm just going to reserve two adjoining rooms for all of us so that we can sleep in one room and hang out in the other.

Then, we all went down to the Marrach party and hung there until 1am. It was nice to see the Skotos gang and meet some of the faces behind the characters. For some, I was pleasantly surprised. For others... not so much so. I learned about some of the upcoming plotlines that I will be involved in and I have to say, I'm not sure of how I will respond to them yet. I am sure they will be modified some.

I didn't make it as a Storyplotter for the game but I am considered a Veteran Player and I will be in charge of the magi. That's nice. I know of two of the Storyplotters and I know I can work with both... so, I'm happy about that.

Saturday.
I slept in Saturday because I figured that I wouldn't be able to for the rest of the weekend. I met up with James again after Adam came to crash in my room. James, Laurel and I were supposed to meet up with Peter, one of the owners of Pendragon RPG. Rob ended up meeting up with us. Peter ran us through a monster-long game of Pendragon. We started made characters at noon. Started the game at 1pm. Ran until 8pm. Took a dinner/chat break until 11pm. Then finished out the game around 2:30am.

I had a blast. I really like Pendragon. It's an RPG of the Arthurian Legend turned on its ear. I am going to have to learn more about it. Heck... I'm probably going to end up composing one or two poems based on what happened to my character during that game. *grin*

Sunday.
Laurel and Peter talked until about 7am. Me? I fell asleep around 4am with a pillow over my head. Peter is a great guy but -loud-. Apparently, around 3am, James curled up in my closet to sleep. The worse part about it? I had to be up by 7:30 for Shauna's 8am game.

So, I made it to Shauna's 8am Changling game. It was very, very cool. I played a female Troll wrestler. Unfortunately, I spent most of the game just listening to what was going on around me. My character happened to miss the two combats in the game. Ah, well. The game ended around 4pm. So, James and I decided we wanted to sign up for the Star Wars LARP by Dreams of Deirdre (which is an awesome LARP group).

I was so thrashed, though, I had to nap from 5-6 while James got himself ready. Around 6pm, James came back as I was barely coherently getting myself together and asked "Do you want the good news or bad news?" I just looked at him. "Good news is that you made it into the LARP." I gasped, "But you didn't?" James grinned at me. "Oh, I made it in. The bad news is that it started 5 minutes ago." *groan* So much for making myself look really good. I took a brush to my hair and called it done.

Obviously, I was a wee bit late, so I missed the first part of the opening lecture. So, afterwards - while they were handing out characters, I grabbed one of the GMs and asked him what I had missed. He wanted to know if I had ever LARPed before. "Oh, yeah." I answered. "I'm a veteran LARPer... I've been doing it for almost a decade now." He paused, "Did you come with someone? A guy?" I nodded and pointed out James. "Oh, good!" He grinned an evil grin at me. "I've got the perfect set of characters for you two."

So, James and I were playing a married couple, but I had been lost/disappeared for the last year - in the clutches of the Empire. James was a research scientist who had created a horrible biochemical agent on accident and was trying to get the agent back. My character didn't remember much of anything except James' face and spending a lot of time being tortured. It was a good dynamic. James couldn't trust me because it seemed to be a set up. (The GMs accident wrote up the section on my character wrong for James - it seemed like my character died a year ago and thus, I was a clone.)

Later, when I talked to the GMs afterwards... I got told that I had one of the hardest characters to play and I had actually gotten the farthest on my victory conditions. At one point, I managed to get the agent and I was about to destroy it until the secret Jedi in the game put the whammy on me. "That will be save with me." *gesture*

A bunch of us went out to Denny's around 2am for some much needed food. We were all pretty thrashed. Adam had won one of the GM awards for his portrayal of a Bimm merchant. He had spent half the night with his shoes taped to his knees because Bimms are really short. We had a pretty surreal conversation of people too tired to really think right. Crawling into bed was one of most incredibly pleasant experiences I had had in a while.

Monday.
Groo... Talk about being thrashed. As Dave puts it, I was "tore up from the floor up." I did get about 7 hours of sleep but it was obviously not enough. I remember spending 10 minutes sitting on the bed, trying to figure out how to put on my socks. Also, I could feel my throat constricting as my cough got worse. Seems I was headed into a relapse of illness due to my abuse of my body this weekend.

Unfortunately, the hotel was making it so that everyone had to check out by noon. I was not a happy camper but I made it. Dave showed up with Jenny-Lynn in tow as they were going to head out. Generally, my jealousy of how good Jenny-Lynn looks is kept in check but that morning, it was gone. She walked in with Dave and my internal monologue when into overdrive, being very, very catty about Jenny-Lynn's outfit. Especially her flirty little mini-skirt. I think the nicest thing I thought was "Couldn't you afford the rest of it?"

Later, while Laurel, James and I slowly humanize with lunch, I realized that I was just really, really tired and shouldn't do anything except drive home and sleep. Which is what I did. I slept from 3-6pm, then puttered around until 10pm and headed back to bed.

Tuesday.
Man, I really am going to be paying for this weekend. My ears are all stopped up and in some pain. I'm coughing wetly and generally not feeling good at all. Still, I dragged my unhappy butt into work because I have some major deadlines. I'm really glad the boss is on vacation this week, so I can just get my work done without worrying about him or anything outside of my tasks at hand. Very tired. Must not sleep at work.

Tarot Card for the Day: Six of Cups, Inverted

Stone Cold

I got an email from my Mom this weekend about my Grandmother - my Father's Mother. Apparently, she's had a major stroke, is barely conscious and when she is conscious, she doesn't know or recognize anyone. Mom wrote to tell me that they were pulling the plug on the life support and that Dad was not going to fly to Chicago until Grandma was dead. She asked me and my brother to pray for them.

I looked at that email and felt nothing. No remorse. No grief. No relief. Just... nothing.

I have never loved my father's mother. I have not seen her since I was 12. However, I do still have two vivid memories in my head from encounters with Grandma Vi.

I was six. Grandma Vi told me something that I knew was incorrect. So, I told her that she was wrong. She tried to play around it but being a stubborn six year old, I told her she was wrong and how. She turned to me, her six year old granddaughter, and said, "I don't like you." Then, she walked away.

I was twelve. Once again, we were in Chicago at a family Christmas. Shannon and I were talking to our much idolized older cousin Debbie. At 23, Debbie was already an executive in a telecommunications corporation. (Currently, she's the CEO of a 13 Billion dollars telecommunications company.) Debbie was impressing Shannon and I with her duties as an executive and mentioned having to fly here and there for various business meetings. I'm not sure when Grandma Vi started listening in, but at that point, she turned to Debbie and scowled, saying "You spoiled brat!" My sister and I were quickly shunted out of the area. That was the Christmas that started the 10+ year feud between my father and his mother. It was his new found belief in religion that turned him back to his family to bridge the gap.

I remember little else of my grandmother and at this point, I don't care to. Part of me is a little concerned about my stone cold attitude towards my grandmother's pending death. I am sorry my father and Aunt Jackie are going through such pain. In all honesty, I just wish that Grandma Vi would just finally die to end all of the suffering and allow the grieving/healing to begin.

As I was leaving for the convention on Friday, I noticed that my next door neighbor put up a "for rent" sign. I immediately thought of Dave, James and Laurel who are looking for a place to live. It would be very cool if they were my next door neighbors. However, the whole time I was thinking that, I was wondering what was wrong with the house. In the almost four years I have lived here, that house has seen 3 different families. The first one was in for 2.5 years. The second was in for about a year. This last family stayed about 3 months.

So, when I returned home, I was optimistic but guarded. I stopped by the house to see what they had to say. Reading the little notice under the "For Rent" sign, I almost choked with disbelief. It was a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 2 garage renting at $2100 per month.

$2100??!!! For a 3 bedroom house? WTF?

But wait, it gets better. The owners are requiring the renters make 2.5x the rent amount per month, just to qualify to rent this house. Let's see... $2100 x 2.5 = $5250 per month x 12 months = $63,000/year - as a minimum to rent this house that is nothing special.

But wait, there's more! You have to pay first month, last month and a $1000 security deposit just to move in. So, that's $2100 x 2 = $4200 + $1000 = $5200. Yes, folks. Just to move into this nothing special 3 bedroom house, you have to hand over $5200 frickin' dollars in one lump sum.

And people wonder why I am planning to move out of the Bay Area.

OK. How come it took me until Feb 21 for me to notice that I still had "January" on the front of my Journal page? How come nobody poked me about it? *grump* Nobody loves me. Everybody hates me. I might as well go eat worms.

P.S. I -hate- being sick.

Tarot Card for the Day: Seven of Cups

Deaf, Cold & Blind?

I got an email yesterday that Grandma Vi died on Wednesday. Again, I felt nothing. I think my only thought was, "Ok, good. Everyone can get on with their lives now." This really disturbs me, this total lack of emotion. I am so indifferent, I have to wonder if there is something wrong with me. I don't even care enough to think something spiteful about this Grandmother that I guess I've never loved.

I am sorry that my father is in pain but the indifferent me tells me that he will get over it - sooner than he thinks. That 10+ year family feud took its toll in many ways. I guess that's why I don't understand why a grandparent can be special to a family. At least, not until the grandkids are old enough to realize that grandparents are more than just walking goodie bags. Maybe, I feel a little cheated that I never had my grandparents around as I grew up. Being a military brat does put a damper on that sort of thing.

Is there something wrong with me that I don't care that Grandma Vi is dead? Mom has asked that we pray for her soul. I think I said a few words in her direction but I've been more concerned about my father. I don't like it when he is in pain.

I guess, at this point, all I can do is chalk this up to one of my own little bits of inhumanity and move on with my life.

I am slightly feeling better. However, my cold is pretty much in my ears so I am half deaf. It is much like listening under water. Rather disconcerting. This has made me ponder what it would be like to be deaf. To only her my voice in my head - if that was even still possible.

My first thought was, "Oh, it might not be so bad." Then, I realized - I couldn't drive. I couldn't watch movies in a theater and I would lose music. That last little bit frightened me the most. Losing music would be horrible. Not to hear my favorite songs on the radio. Not to have any new music. To only have the fading strains of music that slips away into faulty memory. *shudder* No. I don't want to loose my hearing.

Of the five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste and smell... I would willingly give up only taste and smell. Taste first. The last one I would want to ever give up is sight. I think being blind would be the death of me. I would loose my books and my computer. Neither would acceptable to me.

That said, I woke up this morning with what seems to be a mild version of pink eye. I had to unglue my eye from being shut and blink out the cloudiness. That took a good 10-15 minutes. Not a fun thing. Apparently, the cloudiness is like having cataracts. You know what? This getting old stuff is for the birds. I vote we stay young forever.

I had Dave, James and Jenny-Lynn over for dinner last night. I didn't really know what to cook. It ended up being sautéed chicken breasts, pasta and peas. Unfortunately, the chicken was a little dry. Next time, I'll bake them. However, everyone cleaned their plates really well. That made me happy.

Afterwards, we sat around just talking about all sorts of stuff. Dave is the consummate cook and it's his turn next. In two weeks, we are apparently going to be having venison. *grin* I can see this turning into a playful cooking challenge for those of us who can really cook. Next time, I -will- have time to make my chicken and dumplings. Jenny-Lynn admitted that she's only good at Mac-n-cheese. We don't care. It's the company that counts.

They had to leave fairly early because Jenny-Lynn had to work in the morning and she wanted to talk to her husband that night. I spent the rest of the night messing around on Marrach. Now, I had better go get dressed since I have Sekt Valir game in an hour or two.

Tarot Card for the Day: Seven of Cups, Inverted

Joyce is Dead?

OMG! Joss killed Joyce!

If you know what I'm talking about, you must be a Buffy fan. Joss Wheton is the producer. Joyce is Buffy's Mom. She died in a surprisingly peace manner of passing out with a brain anurism. This episode, called "The Body", had me in tears with the emotional gut wrenching it did as we watch the characters react to Joyce's death.

This show also touched me in another way. A friend of mine in college died the very same way. He stood up. He keeled over. He died. Just that quick. It was a hereditary brain anurism. Sean was only 20 years old. I remember that I did not react very well. How could one of my friends die like that? Especially after he had done so much to clean himself up and get himself out of the local gangs? It wasn't fair. I guess part of my tears while watching Buffy were in rememberance of Sean.

Angel was pretty good, too. I'm glad they have the gang back together again. The new dynamic of Angel working for the rest will be interesting to watch.

Well, it's been 9 days now and I still can't hear. I'm starting to admit to myself I might actually have something wrong with me that will need me to go to the doctor's office. If I'm not better by this weekend, I'm going to go in on Monday. I'm starting to get tired of attempting to lip read and saying "What? Could you repeat that please?" This is a little daunting for someone like me who has always had good hearing.

Also, I don't think my sore throat is cold related anymore. I'm not sure. However, only the right side hurts when I swallow. It might be my tonsils. I know the lymphnode on the right side is all tender and swollen. If it's not better by this weekend, I'll go in for that. Maybe I just need some industrial strength antibotic to flush my system.

A friend of mine, Ed, is making me relive my glorious college days. He's into Amtgard. I was in Amtguard in Portland. He's pretty much convinced both James and I to check out his group. Oh, boy! I'm going back to being beaten up by PVC and Foam swords. It will be interesting to hear the war stories from both sides. Maybe I'll tell them how was abducted into the Starfire Clan.

Tarot Card for the Day: Eight of Cups