The Chronicles of the Strategos

Life has been getting more normal here, which is to say more uneventful. Our microwave died tonight, leading me to believe I might be cursed (on the other hand, my bedroom light hasn’t burned out yet, and that usually does happen). The outdoors continues to be beautifully green and full of flowery colors, especially some of what I believe are hyacinths outside the front porch. They are a glorious patch of purple and blue about 3 feet to a side. I was able to talk my parents into letting me mow around them, so hopefully they will spread.
I had a Great Idea last night that will hopefully be unveiled soon, but I’m giving it a mandatory waiting period of a few days to make sure it is a Great Idea and not simply a 4am Idea.
I still miss all of you greatly, but the constant ache of longing is moving to the background, and the sharp pains are become centralized on times when I’m actually thinking of one of you, rather than just anything that even slightly brings up a memory.
Also, my hair is turning curly. Not as in starting to grow out curly, but as in the hair that has already grown out is curling at a rate noticeable on a daily basis. It’s kind of ridiculous.

I'm home, but most of my stuff is still packed up in my car, waiting to move down to Madison. This means that all of my sketchbooks and novels and pretty clothes and game books and video games and DVDs are unavailable to me, and that my only real entertainment (other than that which I can find on the internet) comes from Eddie, and his large pile of Aberrant books. I've averaged one NPC a night for most of this week, and I'll probably create a few more before the week is out. I've been thinking about plot a lot, and I'm looking forward to running my game when I get to it.

...one of the perks about Aberrant being one of the few things occupying my mind for several days is that it severely increases my chances of dreaming about Aberrant. For instance, last night I was Divis Mal, using my index finger as a plasma-cutter to cut a door-sized entry into the giant porta-potty-in-space that served as a restroom for the Galatea astronauts. I then rotated the door-shaped plane of metal and went through it like a revolving door, much to the chagrin of the astronaut currently on the crapper. He starting screaming something about "explosive decompression" (poor guy must have been eating too many freeze-dried fibers) and came at me with a giant crocodile knife and his pants down. Being Divis Mal, I responded by lightly tossing him into a bulkhead wall, then using his knife as solder to weld my "door" back shut behind me. That way I didn't have to keep a force field up to prevent explosive decompression.

Then I exited the space-loo, meandered over to the controls (tossing several astronauts into conveniently located walls on the way-why do they have so many bulkhead walls in outer space, anyway?), and pressed the "explode" button. Then everything exploded, and I figured I might as well melt the polar ice caps and turn Antarctica into a lush jungle before I headed back to earth, so I did. Then I retired for the afternoon to Hawaii, where I made one of those inflatable floating couch things out of white-hot plasma and played in the ocean for a while.

It was a really nice dream.

I just had to chase a duck out of the sports center, it refused to believe that the window wouldn't let it through, to the point of walking in place against it. I never really noticed how dumb ducks are.

So, I haven't posted in two weeks... hm...

Mostly, this has been due to job hunting- trying to find a job that will supply me with funds for things like trips to Chicago, comic books, airsoft equipment, and building materials. Building materials you say? As some of you know, I intend to make a boffer warhammer. So far, I have pieces for the head- 2 styraphome cones, cut about halfway down. Yes, I know, styraphome will hurt like a bitch, but this is for costuming. Speaking of, I've had the idea for power armor costumes- kinda what Jinx had for obsidian larp, but bulkier. I'm going to try and find some big football shoulder pads, and a paintball vest as the torso section, and I'm thinking cardboard stapled to sweatpants for legs, or maybe shinguards... any suggestions? As for the helmet, again with football, remove the faceguard, and put some plastic over it, hopefully colored...

Aside from that, I've been doing a bit of reading, and playing video games... 20 days till b-day, which will hopefully mean rockband :)
Also, found a comic store with Deadpool... excellent...

I realize I've devolved into rambling, and should really continue getting ready for another fore into the job market... Whenever i think "Job hunting", I see someone chasing managers with a spear... or creeping around with a bow... hmph

AND SLEEP!! OH GOD THE SLEEP!! AND FOOD!! The edible kind, not the huggable kind... mmm, not commons XD

So this past semester was something of a downward spiral. For various reasons, none of them important. The past is the past.

I'm going to work on being content. On not judging others, or myself. It might just have a positive effect on me. You never know.

It’s 5:30 AM and I just got back from work.
“5:30 AM?” I hear you ask, “Is Coffee of Annihilation in the habit of serving crazy midnight vampire coffee?”
To which I respond: No! Actually, I thought I was opening today. So I got up at 3:30 AM and arrived bright and perky at 5:00 AM and tried to punch in and the computer blocked my efforts. “Lex, you dumbass,” it said, “you were supposed to get here at 10:30 and work ‘til 7:00 PM.”

Oh.

This sucks because I didn’t do fun stuff last night because I thought I had to open today. And now I haven’t really slept and I have to work until 7:00, which means I’ll miss the SCA thingie tonight. And I have to open tomorrow.

In times like these, it’s nice to know I can always turn to religion for comfort. My normal religion doesn’t cut it here, though. I told Loki about what happened, and he just laughed at me and said the computer was right to call me a dumbass.
THANKS LOKI. HOPE YOU’RE ENJOYING YOUR UNDERGROUND PRISON THERE.

Atheism doesn’t really help either. I told the absence of god about my misfortune, but the absence of god failed to reply.

So I decided to find a NEW religion. I looked around my apartment, and my eyes finally settled on Sam’s box of common Magic cards. “Hey,” I thought, “I’ve already made a tarot-style divination deck out of these things. I bet I could find some Big Serious Religion in here as well!”

And I was right.



REPENT, SINNERS! THE TIME OF MAGIC JUDGMENT IS NIGH! EVERBARK SHAMAN AND TIDESHAPER MYSTIC DIED TO BRING YOU THIS MESSAGE. ALSO THOSE TWO MOONGLOVE CHANGELINGS RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CROSS. MAN, I SHOULD’VE USED MORE DIFFERENT CARDS.
REPENT!!!!!

…sleep.

That was the name of a brand of hand lotion I saw at Rite Aid today. I kid you not. The connotations of this are both amusing and extensive.


Upon further investigation on the internet, I discovered that apparently Antonio Banderas has a whole line of fregrances. I'm not sure why the little pink boxes with images of A.B. on them amuse me so much, but they do. Perhaps its because I can imagine Banderas endorsing sexy sexy manscent cologne, but slapping it on the pink ladylike bottles fills me with an uncontrolable urge to double over in hysterics. It has also made me wonder, not for the first time, how celebrities end up in these clothing/makeup/beauty product lines and whether they actually care about them at all. Do they actually have a hand in designing these things, or is it just "Mr. Banderas, sir, would you please sign here to give us rights to your name?" "Mmm-hmm "*scribble scribble goes back to reading script*


Moving on to Literature; I have now finished the Three Musketeers. For those who have already read it or do not care if they know they ending, here is my brief commentary with ( spoilers. )

In other news, on Mother's Day my mom and I went on our customary annual May trip to the flower shop where Mom gets all of the flowers that need to be replanted every year and I get my one flat of pansies, because for some reason I am a sucker for them and like all of the pretty colors their cute little faces come in. I'm kind of weird about them; I don't like pictures or images of them in any way, shape or form...there are other flowers like petunias and marigolds that can be just as brightly colored, but I just don't give a damn...actually I kind of dislike them a lot...but yeah. Pansies and Fuchsias (http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1270/926776116_bb72f42338.jpg?v=0)are, I think, the coolest flowers that you can find in your typical American flowershop.

With the exception of the Sun-Begonia. I invented the Sun-Begonia while on aforementioned flower shopping trip with my mom.

It looks like this...




Many flower-shoppers had been previously unaware of the existance of the Sun-Begonia, and asked my mom where in the shop she had found such a remarkable specimen. Including one of the shop owners (^___^).


Ah well. Enough LJ posting, back to Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Tess, I'm sorry your life sucks, because it wasn't your fault and you were forced into it, unlike Bathsheba (Thomas Hardy's heroine from his other book, Far From the Madding Crowd, who gets into her life scrapes because she can't make intelligent decisions).

Over and out.

Should anyone for some inexplicible reason wish to talk to me, my new phone number is 608-363-4554.

Various things have precluded me from spending much time outside as of yet, but I can tell you that everything is wondrously green and the cats are amazing.
So what have I been up to recently? Not too much. I went in to town with Dad this morning to pick up this years baby chicks, as well as a new DVD player (our old one got lightninged). While there I also picked up a new set of speakers for my computer, and found out I definitely should have done so sooner, like two years ago maybe.
I also continue to make progress on rebuilding my internet contacts now that I've had to go back to my laptop and dial-up. Firefox has been installed and I'm set back up on both email accounts and Facebook (plus LJ, but you should know that by now). The cleaning of my laptop's fans has improved the connection considerably, and made it no longer kick me offline after about 20 minutes. This means that there will be less lag time in my communications (as I no longer have to see what's been sent to me, write a response the next day, and go online to actually send/post it) and that I've put reinstalling AIM on my list of things to do soon.

It is raining outside.  I could hear it from the pattering on my window as I lay in bed reading, A Feast for Crows.  As I finished a section I realized that it was warm and night and there was a sun-dress right next to me.  So I put it on an tiptoed outside.  There isn't much light on my street.  Only one lone streetlamp pretty far down the road.  I basked in the warm rain as the semi-darkness surrounded me.  In doing so I felt a strange sort of melancholy.  Partially due to being alone.  Mainly due to knowledge and memories.  I felt isolated from the world...no, that's the wrong word to use...I felt as if I was so much a part of the world that I wasn't really there.  I sometimes get that feeling, a sense that I'm not really there.  It isn't bad but it isn't good either.  It's strange and different and almost frightening while being heartbreakingly beautiful at the same time (for people who were in Robbie's play-yourself Abberant game think Travis'  music).  As if there's a chance that if I don't ground myself I will dissipate and float away.  Interaction helps ground me.  Sometimes I can be with many people and still feel that combination of disconnect and connection with something else.  I reach out to people then, sometimes.

I'm going to be separated from Sarah for a long time.  We may see each other at GenCon, but there's a chance I'm not going.  That's terrifying in a way.  But it's also wonderful because it gives me something to look forward to.  I don't think there is a way to put how much she has done for me and how and what she means to me into words.  Only that she has stuck with me through good times and bad.  I didn't make it easy.  But it means so much to have her as a friend.

The thunder just rolled again.  Each raindrop is like a touch from the sky.  Is this what happens when the sky needs to caress the ground?  Perhaps there will be a tornado later, so that the ground can reciprocate.

I am officially moved and unpacked completely. Like, everything, and all put away where it should be. well ok, some of the clothes are scattered around the room but that is because the school dryers suck and the last load of wash I did before moving didn't quite dry out. I am currently living in a double, which I get as a single. I keep being afraid that someone else will walk in out of the blue and claim to be my roommate but Reslife has not given me the notice that they would have if I were romming with someone, and no one else is here. And I do mean NO ONE as far as I can tell the entire house is empty except for me, I didn't see anyone moving in all day and there haven't been any lights on all night, so I'm alone in an old house with creaking floorboards. Hm, damn no Zombie bar.

who knew? I was bored at about 1:00 and started playing some mindless bubble shooter game online. I look at my clock and suddenly it is 5:20, I suppose when a game is specifically built to be a mindless game you can play for hours it does its' job well.

There is a man in the ceiling. I passed him in the hall on the way to my apartment. The man in the ceiling said hello and his phone played some music.

I would like to be in the ceiling as well, but I don’t think the apartment people let you use the ceiling unless you are on Official Business and you know how to fix things. Somebody come to my apartment and break things in the ceiling! Things I know how to fix! I want Official Business too!

Sam's friend Sarah is here from out of town and right now he's showing her the garden on the roof. I told Sarah that I couldn't be her friend because of what happened when she walked into my room.

SARAH: All these pictures on the walls... did you draw them?
ME: Goodness no. I wish. Most of them are by Brian Froud.
SARAH: Oh. I like Amy Brown better.

And so I went off on my standard rant about how Amy Brown art has no soul and how the striped socks she draws on her faeries can't actually stand in for a soul even though I wish striped socks could do that and maybe that's why I wear striped socks all the time.
Not having a soul doesn't usually bother me all that much, though.
Souls are more important in art than in people.

Anyway, I was probably lying when I told Sarah I couldn't be her friend. People who like Ultimate Spider-Man and VNV Nation shouldn't throw stones. Maybe when I get out of the shower I'll join the people on the roof and we can all hang out together and not scream.
I'd still rather lurk through the ceiling, though. If Sarah gives me some Official Business in the ceiling I'll totally be her friend.

So, I've been back in Austin for a while and I should probably make a post about it.  I did promise to write on LJ more now that I'm not a GIANT BALL OF EMO.  Which was the reason for not wanting to write before.  So, let's see...

Being home is both a happy and sad event for me.  I love my family.  I've always said that I'm damn lucky to have the parents I do.  I like seeing my mom and dad again.  I may fight sometimes with my mom but I love her and it's nice having her around to hug and snuggle.  Richard (my stepfather) is still delightfully British (though I worry that the dogs have replaced the children in their affections).  My sister, when I see her, is great.  We are VERY different but also have random similar interests (like the medical field).  She isn't around much, but having her near brings back good memories.  My Dad is awesome.  Silly and random and fun to be around...which is why I feel bad about not ever really seeing him.  My stepmother makes me understand how my sister used to feel about living with me.  Walking on eggshells is the best metaphor.  The slightest twich wrong will cause an explosion of crazy.  Her being crazy at me not only makes me annoyed but also makes my father sad, so I've found it best to just stay clear.  Even if the explosion didn't happen I'd have to be so fake and careful that I would be bitter and exhausted afterward.  This especially sucks because even though I bitch about children, I do want to see my brother.  He seems really well behaved for a kid and I think seeing him for a little bit might be nice.  But he's always with my stepmother and I don't want to have to deal with that.  So that's a bit depressing.

Also, as much as I like family, all of my friends are pretty much gone.  Moved away or still in school or just...distant.  So I've been pretty damn bored (any suggestions for reading material would be great...hint, hint.)  As much as the air conditioning is great, I really want to get to Madison already.

Life in Austin is like a state of limbo.  What I really need to do is get out of the house, but without a car that's hard.  Strangely enough, I've been remembering my dreams really vividly, which just adds to the surreal feeling.  On the other hand, it's been almost three weeks since the goggles and I'm still feeling good about myself.  WIN.

and now I am left in the lurch. The hours to pick up keys are from 3-6, instead of 2-7. now this change may not sound too big, but it means that those of us who have to work today may not be able to pick up the keys, and after a polite hone call to ResLife, no we cannot pick them up sooner or later, we must find a way to pick up our keys at those times or else we won't be able to move in today. And, yes we do get kicked out of our old rooms today. So, now I'm trying to decide which option to go with for getting the time to pick up my keys. 1) ask the office for a 5 minute break at some point after 3. Now the downside to this is that I'm not sure that there is anyone in the office to ask, not to mention the asking for a break part, but I'm sure that they would understand. Now, the second option is to leave work about 5-10 minute early. I know that many people last year left work a bit early, sometimes up to 15 minutes early. The downside to that is A: it is irresponsible, and B: I hated it when the front desk worker checked out early and I couldn't turn in a time sheet. But time sheets aren't due for quite a while yet, so I should be fine there. All in all it is looking like closing about 5 minutes early is the plan.

EDIT: Or, you know, I could remember that one of my friends is giving out the keys and she could be awesome and agree to hold one for me til 6:05 or so. Maggie wins.

I took the Universal Mary Sue Robbie directed me to for several of the characters/NPCs that I have played, and there were definatly some surprises, I expected Satoshi to be much higher, and Felix and Yakiv to be much higher as well. The only one to surprise me with how high it was is Lucanis.

Satoshi (2.5 year Exalted game, Munchkinland) 76
Haji (last year's LARP) 219
Kai (freshman year LARP/wedding crashers character) 34
Fitz (Dan's aberrant game) 50
Felix (Next Year's LARP) 9
Shemyaza (God killing D&D pickup) 103
Lucanis (Robbie's Evil game) 94
Zayn (Nick's 7th Sea game next year) 51
Yakiv (shadow nations) 12
Koshchei (NPC from LARP this year) 108

I got back to my parent's house around four PM today. The drive from Wisconsin to New York went fine, just like everyone else knew it would.

( Read more... )

Yesterday was graduation and all the other seniors leaving. It’s really weird to still be here, I mean it isn’t a surprise or anything, I have been planning on this for quite a while now, but it is really disconcerting to know that everyone who I arrived here with is gone. Everyone who was around when I was trying to figure out my place in BSFFA has left, and I am still here. On a less depressing aspect of this, I realized that I still consider BSFFA the same club as it was when I joined. It has changed a lot over the years, but it is still recognizable, and I presume it will still be so next year too.

In other news, all of my worldly possessions are currently packed away in anticipation of moving today. I got up at 5:20 or so to get it all packed in time, and I know for a fact that I won’t even be able to start the move in process until 6:00, so I’m in for one long day here. On the plus side it shouldn’t take more then two trips with one of those cart things that have been floating around. It’s really sobering to realize that everything you own can be packed away so neatly and compactly. I’m really looking forward to moving into a new room, it always makes me happy to get to set up a new room, try and figure out which arrangements work out best.

Also, now that I’m moving into where I will live for the summer I will be getting a new computer, Galen, although wonderful and still useful has developed enough weird personality quirks that I would feel much more comfortable with another computer on hand. To that end I will be getting a new desktop sometime rather soon, or at least ordering it soon. It will be good to finally have a computer that is decent by current video game graphics standards, there have been far too many games that I wanted but couldn’t run on Galen.

Sigh, it is defiantly a bad sign that it is only an hour into work and I am already bored.

Rarely have I experienced the emotions of happy and sad to this extreme, and never before have I experienced both at the same time. I realized as I left Beloit for the last time that the ‘last time’ bit wasn’t actually factoring into my emotions. I was that sad about leaving simply because I knew so many people that I wanted to keep hanging out with. I’ve always known that I tend to form friendships much stronger than the other person, but I only recently realized that I tend to keep most people at a distance because of that. The fact that there were so many people I didn’t want to leave says something amazing about all of you. About three hours after leaving the ‘last time’ bit actually kicked in, and that’s what brought me to this point. I have many thoughts about social relationships and connected topics, but they do not belong here tonight.
The happy has also kicked in now, though. With an extremely non-hectic finals schedule, I didn’t really know just how stressed out I was getting. As we pulled out of Beloit, I broke down crying a little bit out of relief, completely independent from the sadness of leaving. I spent the drive home talking to my parents about basically the exact conversations I always hoped I would have at Beloit but never got around to. Things like what I think is wrong with the current human social structure, why space exploration is important, my political and religious views, and a wide variety of other more minor topics. Plus, we stopped at my brother’s house on the way back and I got to see family and be an uncle again. The fact that little Olivia still remembered me and smiled as soon as she saw me made my day right there. Home is wonderful, but that will be covered in tomorrow’s update after I’ve had a chance to wander around outside in the daylight. I also feel good because even though I didn’t leave Beloit in the social position I had hoped for, I think I left with a good enough basis to get to that point through personal communication.
I hope all of you seniors and other people leaving made it safely home with a minimum of mishaps, and that you are having as much happy feelings as me and not as much sadness (but not too much less, seeing as it comes from having had such a good time). Extra goodbye’s and hugs for everyone, especially those of you that I missed!