Tag Archives: life

Get Off The Toilet

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So let’s get all the funny stuff out of the way right up front here.

There was an article on CNN this morning about a woman who spent two years on the toilet.  She was there so long that her legs atrophied and her skin grew around the toilet seat.  The seat had to be pried off with her stuck to it and removed at the hospital.

These people lived in a trailer, and her boyfriend let this behavior go on for two years before finally calling someone in to help. 

Commence the laughing at white trash now.  I’ll wait.

Listens to “Dueling Banjos” during the pause.

Ok, back now?  Cool.

This article disturbs me.  Deeply.  Not just from the gross factor, which is pretty intense.  I cannot even begin to imagine the smell in that bathroom, not to mention the sheer foulness of a human being allowing their flesh to grow around a toilet seat.  Or, for that matter, someone who supposedly loved them letting them go so long without moving that it happened.  I’m sorry, but you’d think after a day or so you’d maybe think something was wrong.  I kind of have this thing about being in the bathroom while someone else is on the toilet to begin with, but the minute my other half asked me to start bringing her meals in the bathroom would be the minute I started placing phone calls.

Beyond the revulsion I have at this particular case, though, I wonder how much of a comment this case is on our society in general.  How many of us are just sitting on the figurative toilet, saying to ourselves that “maybe tomorrow” is the day we’re going to come out.  How many of us are letting our flesh grow into the toilet seat while we do nothing but contemplate how scary the world is outside? 

Fear of change.  Fear of failure.  Laziness.  Apathy.  These are the things that trapped that woman in her bathroom.  These are the same things we trap ourselves with.  Unfortunately, like the boyfriend in the case above, those around us are other blind to what’s going on or unwilling to put forth the effort to coax us into activity.  So we sit, and we fester, and the longer we do the more we atrophy.  Eventually, if we can be forced to move at all, it’s only through a great deal of pain and effort, and our momentum is forever stunted due to the damage that we caused ourselves in the process.

Don’t let yourself get stuck on the toilet, my friends.  Snicker and point at this woman all you want, but like it or not there are a lot of us that are just as unwilling to come out of the bathroom as she is.  We’re just not quite so literal about it.  Don’t let fear keep you from moving.  Don’t let inactivity rob you of the ability to move.  Don’t spend all of your time trapped in a room with the stink of your own waste for god’s sake. 

Shit and get off the pot. 

This Subject Line Is Very Witty and Has Made You Laugh

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Yeah, ok.  So it’s not.  This post may not be, either.  Just another of my “well, shit.  I haven’t posted in a long time and I suppose maybe I should do that so people know I’m still alive.”

Because I live under the likely false illusion that you all are so concerned with my daily activities that you’d think I was dead if I stopped posting.

Anyway…

I suppose one of the reasons I haven’t been posting as much is because I generally post while I’m at work.  Now, before you start thinking “gee, what a horrible slacker” allow me to explain.  When I’m at home I have a lot to distract me.  Music.  Conversation.  Games on my home computer.  You  name it.  If I need a few minutes of “down time” away from code I have plenty of ways to get it.  Not so much when I’m here at work.  As such, I tend to work on LJ posts when I need a few moments to collect myself.

Unfortunately I’ve been suffering from some extreme discomfort at work recently.  My workstation is about as far from ergonomic as you can get.  My keyboard is too high, my monitor is too low, and my chair is damned near a torture device.  Couple that with the fact that it is always cold here in the office and I have a hard time typing enough to get any work done, much less make a Live Journal post.  Even as I write this I’m making a large number of errors because my hands aren’t working as well as they should.   Our department is supposed to be moving to our Main Headquarters some time this year, though, and when we do I’m actually getting my own office.  At that time I’m really hoping I get a comfy managers chair and a keyboard tray or something similar.

Speaking of comfy managers chairs – This whole “ergonomic task chair” phenomenon is a crock of shit.  I sit in a cheap assed managers chair at home, sometimes for 12 hours a day or more, and I NEVER have the back problems there that I do while I’m sitting in this “ergonomically” designed torture device.  This has always been the case.  Not once, in my entire professional career, have I been given a “task” chair that was in any way comfortable. 

I suppose it’s some kind of secret way to keep your workers productive.  If they aren’t comfortable, they can’t fall asleep at their desks!  Muwahahah!

Speaking of management related stuff, I should be getting my first review as a member of management today or Wednesday, with any pay increase retroactive to January 1st.  If I get the full monty increase I should be looking at another 80-100 bucks or so every paycheck, which I’m really going to try to devote entirely to reducing credit card debt.  I was doing pretty good there near the end of last year and was right around 10k in debt.  Christmas and a few other annoying factors caused me to dip in way more than I wanted to, though, and that’s up quite a bit from that point.  I’m hoping that between my tax return, the upcoming stimulus check, and my annual performance bonus I’m able to get back down around that 10K mark again and start focusing more on reducing it to 0. 

Part of that recent debt came from the overly extravagant purchase of a 40″ Sony HD television and a Panasonic Home Theater system.  Our television in the living room started to die a few weeks ago, and much of the equipment out there was very old and only half worked.  Most of you who know me know that I don’t like doing anything half assed.  I’ll use something until it falls apart because I hate making big purchases, but when I’ve decided that it’s time for something new I try to get the best that I can afford.  Such was the case with the new AV equipment in the living room.  As reluctant as I was to take on the additional debt, I’m incredibly happy with the purchase.  The picture really is amazing, and not having so much unnecessary crap in the living room is a big relief.  I got a new entertainment stand for the living room, too, but it’s really just a stopgap until we can afford to get something nicer in its place.

One of the ways I’ve been able to enjoy the new equipment is playing Bioshock, which Krystalle got for me recently as a late Christmas present.  This game is amazing.  The graphics, the story…everything.  I don’t like first person shooters.  At all.  I’ve never been a big fan of the RPG console game genre.  This game is both, and I’m completely hooked.  I’d be playing it more, but it’s got some VERY adult content in it and I’m not entirely sure I want to expose Alex to it.  I’m really on a fence in that regard.  On the one hand, I think the game really could be valuable as a way to introduce him to Objectivisim and the writings of Ayn Rand (more specifically, what happens when you go too far with it).  It would also be a great way to go over some moral issues with him.  On the other hand, the game is disturbingly realistic at times.  It’s given both Krystalle and I some totally messed up dreams.   Is it really something I should allow him to be exposed to?

Things like this are very difficult for me, personally, because I look at my own personal history.  We got cable very early on in the whole cable game (I think my Mom had some ins with the cable company through her clients and got us a good deal), and Mom worked nights.  I had pretty  much unfettered access to late night cable programming around Alex’s age.  By the time I was 12, I’m pretty sure I hard already seen A Clockwork Orange and Young Lady Chatterley.  I also think that Alex is emotionally mature enough to handle seeing the kind of things that are in Bioshock without attempting to go out and replicate them.

But I also still want him to be my little boy for a while longer.  I realize I can’t fight the flow of time, but I’m really not ready for him to grow up yet.

Not that I have any choice in the matter.

So yeah, very much on the fence.  I think I may play the game all the way through before I make a FINAL FINAL decision.  I’ve already told him that I might sit down and play with him, but at this point that’s the only way I want him to see it.

Heh…it’s kind of funny.  Krystalle and I were both pretty much in the “we’re never going to buy an XBox 360” camp before Alex got his.  That was until we got a hold of one.  Now?  Krystalle has her own.  She got tired of wanting to play it when Alex took his with him to his Mom’s house.  Despite the hardware failures that it has become famous for, it really is an amazing system.  The best part?  It’s a tax write-off for her.

Having access to the XBox 360 has given me some much needed time away from World of Warcraft, too.  Not that I feel I need any kind of extended break, but I was definitely approaching the “I’m tired of doing everything I have available to me on my main character and I don’t feel like working on an alt” syndrome.  Kilawhar, my shaman, is damned close to being done – at least, in the realm of content that we have available to us as a guild.  We’re starting to make some progress in the 25 man content, but it’s going to be a while if we ever move on to the longer instances that take more than a night to clear.  I’m not saying it won’t ever happen, but it won’t be any time soon.  There at this point there are 3 items I’m trying to get, and two of them are pretty much guaranteed (they are purchased with items you get from running the raids and more difficult versions of the group content, so it’s only a matter of time before I hav
e enough of them to make the purchases).  I’ve kind of lost my passion for my shadow priest, Kilamon (part of this might be his current build – I changed it a bit to make him more raid-friendly, but he’s not nearly as much fun to solo with anymore), and doing the solo grind through Outland a third time on my warrior just isn’t looking as fun recently.  It wasn’t so bad getting there, because I hadn’t done it in a while and was totally jazzed on how fast it was going with the leveling changes, but now that I’m in Outland the whole thing has kind of lost its luster.   On top of all that, I’m really trying to get to bed earlier on the nights before I have to be in the office, and it’s much easier to sit down and play a few games of Catan than get involved in something with WoW.

Oh, and one other brief XBox 360 note?  Viva Piñata : Party Animals it totally cracked out fun.

I’m very much looking forward to next weekend.  I’m hopping on a plane Thursday afternoon and heading up to Cincinnati to spend the weekend with our friends John and Random for their “Anti-Superbowl Party.”  As I don’t care much for the outcome of the game this year it seemed like the ideal time to take them up on their offer.  They’ve come down to visit us a few times, so I figured it was only fair to return the favor.  Really wish Krys was coming along, but obligations here (and her dislike of flying) made that an impossibility.  Ah well.  I figure within a few weeks of getting back we’re going to take a family weekend trip up to Jacksonville and catch up with some folks there before I start in with rehearsals on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.  I already have my vacation time booked this year for Dragon*Con and (possibly) Gen Con as well, so that’s pretty much going to handle my vacation plans for the year.  Been talking with some folks about possibly doing a group cruise thing next summer since we’ve been missing out on the Goth Cruises, but that’s not something I need to really “worry” about for a while.  If it does happen, I’d like to get two rooms and take the boys.  I think they’d enjoy it.

Around the house, Krys and I have decided we’re going to start doing some major de-cluttering.  We have yet again amassed huge piles of crap that serve no purpose other than to catch dust or take up space that could be holding things we actually use.  For my part, this is probably going to involve yet another purging of books.  This is kind of hard for me to do, really.  I love having a big book collection.  I really do.  Maybe some day when we have a bigger house or less people in the current one I can go back to having huge bookshelves full of fiction, but the fact of the matter is that right now we just don’t have the space for it.  We also want to get back on the “fixing up the house” bandwagon, but a lot of that from my end is going to rely on my earlier mentioned desire to get my credit cards back under control.

In social news, we’ve gotten back into the habit of having folks over on Saturday for gaming and hanging out.  On that note, if any of you locals would like to join us just email Kyrs or I during the week to find out if we’re doing it or not.  It’s been a lot of fun, and adds in that much needed “human element” to our otherwise electronic social life.

Weight loss is still going well.  I’m not working hard to get past the next 10 pound mark and back into the 240’s.  I’m currently hovering around 254, 2 pounds away from where I was when Krys and I met.  I’m still 60 pounds away from goal according to Weight Watchers, and becoming more and more resigned to the fact that I may have to have surgery to get rid of the excess skin around my belly.  Outside of that annoying feature, I’m pretty damn pleased with how I’m looking these days.

I have muscle definition!  Who knew?!

Ok, I think I’ve “distracted” myself enough here at this point.  Going to attempt to actually get some work done.

Oh, wait…nevermind..it’s lunch time.

Heh.

Life. Don't talk to me about Life.

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So, I figured I should put an update out here of some kind. Mainly because it’s been a few weeks since I’ve really posted anything of substance and my sister (who really just needs to get off her ass and get on to some kind of social networking site instead of just lurking all the time) gets cranky at me when I don’t update my journal.

That’s right, folks. She calls me. To tell me to update my journal. So she can go read about what’s going on in my life.

I love my family.

Things have generally been pretty good around here recently. I’ve spent the last two weekends giving a little much-needed love to the yard. You can finally walk up to our house without getting attacked by the shrubbery again! Hooray! Put some mulch down in that particular “flower bed” as well and I must say it’s looking pretty nice. Definitely and improvement in the view I’ve got outside my window while I work. I also got the back flower bed trimmed back to reasonable levels again, which is a fairly daunting task in and of itself. We have several plants of the “thorny and quick to grow variety” that tend to take over the entire flower bed. If they are left on their own devices for too long (which, generally, is the case) they grow to gargantuan proportions and I end up covered in tiny cuts from where I’ve done battle with them. I’ve also got some kind of bite on my left arm that has, over the course of the last few days, swollen a bit and is warm to the touch. My skin also feels kind of hard around the area where the bite is. I’m going to see my doctor today to make sure I wasn’t bitten by the rare Ohmygoditsdeadlya Spider or something.

In other happy health related news it looks like A. has a Staph Infection on his right foot. Staph Infections are never fun. Staph Infections in diabetics are less fun. Trying to see if I can get him in to his doctor today as well, or if at the very least his doctor can phone in some kind of prescription for him (his doctor is notoriously hard to get an appointment with – a fact I really dislike. His doctor is also over in Tampa. If it weren’t for the fact that Alex really liked his doctor a lot I’d be changing that shit, like, yesterday).

Trying very hard to get into the Christmas Spirit this year, but it’s not really happening. The decorations aren’t up yet, and while I have plans to do so this week with the boys this week I can’t say I’m really thrilled about the prospect (could be because “with the boys” generally means that I have to continually hound them to help me in the slightest and at the first opportunity they will sneak away to their respective gaming devices and leave me to do all the work). Might also have to do with the fact that it’s going to be a fairly tight Christmas, unless I open up the vein on the credit cards. The boys are pretty much taken care of at this point. Not that it required any effort. I got a few small gifts for A., and the rest of his Christmas is a check because he wants an XBox 360 and is asking everyone for money. J. is just getting money, and it is all going into the bank. He’s turning 18 in a few scant months, and it has been decided that he needs to have some kind of cash on hand if/when he decides that living at home is far too much of a drag for him to put up with any more. Response to the Christmas Eve party have been fairly lukewarm in regards to the number of people attending so far, which is a bit disappointing but perhaps not too terribly surprising. My place stopped being party central a while ago, so it’s no longer the first place that everyone assumes they are going to be when some kind of celebration comes up. It’s ok, though. We have some confirmations already, and as long as I’m not staring at a bunch of food and no guests at all I’m happy. It might be a bit more on the low-key side of the party spectrum, but good company and good food is fun regardless of the number of people actually in attendance. The good company part is, at this juncture, a guarantee. So all is well.

Got some good news in the Holiday party front yesterday. My Aunt and Uncle wanted to host the “family” gathering this year, and were going to do so on Christmas Eve (which has become our tradition). Unfortunately, that pretty much ruled out anyone from my household going. Our party starts at 7, and my Aunt and Uncle live about 45 minutes away with traffic. They wanted to start at 5. So not happening. My Mom also works that day, and won’t get off work until 6. Instead of missing out on having everyone there, they’ve decided to move their party to the Saturday before Christmas so we can all attend. Hooray! I may not hang out with my extended family often, but I’ve seen them every Christmas for as long as I can remember. The older I’ve gotten the less and less Christmas has been something that revolved around the entire family and the more it’s become around everyone trying to find time to have their function fit in with the others. I’d have been really sad if we moved to the point where we didn’t even see each other at all.

Of course, Mom is having a gathering at her place on the 29th as well.

Three parties in one week.

Oy, my poor belly.

I do have good news in the diet and exercise front, though. Despite the fact that I haven’t posted my numbers or any new pictures here in a while, I have still continued to make forward progress. I managed to not gain weight during the run of Gorey Stories, which is a big change from my normal pattern of behavior. I was up a few pounds the week after, but I’ve taken that off and am currently sitting at 257.4 pounds. That’s 22.6 pounds down from the 280 I was back in April of this year (which is when I started to see my workouts with Yourself Fitness start having an impact on my weight…I started using the program regularly in late December of last year). I would very much like to hit 250 before the end of the year, but realistically I know how I eat at parties and I know I have a lot of parties coming up. If I can maintain or lose just a little over the next few weeks I’ll be happy.

Things in the old World of Warcraft have been going pretty well recently, too. Just this last weekend we had two different groups inside one of the 10 player raids and each one of them managed to kill off the big bad named guy at the end. We’re looking at possibly moving into some of the 25 player content after the end of the year. Not too shabby for our little casual guild. Slow? You bet. Frustrating at times. Yep. But the company is good, and in the end that’s what makes the game worth playing.

Well, I need to get motivated here. Figure that’s enough for now. I’m sure I missed a few things, but I generally do…I’ll see if I can’t remember them when I post my next update…in…like…3 months or something.

Ahh! Head explodey!

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So I’m supposed to be off book for Gorey Stories on Saturday.  I knew this, somewhere in the back of my mind, but the reality of it didn’t set in with me until our stage manager said something about it last night at the end of rehearsal.

Begin panic mode…

See, here’s the thing…When I do a show I learn my lines largely by repetition.  I can sit down and memorize a script if I have to, but I get a much more solid grasp of the script if I hear both my part and the parts of my fellow actors in my head over and over again.  Due to the nature of this show, much of our rehearsal time has been eaten by musical rehearsals and there are some sections we simply have run that often yet.  As such, I can’t “hear” them in my head…and it’s making things REALLY difficult for me.  I just went over my script a few times during lunch, and it almost feels like some parts of the show are completely foreign to me.

Meh.  It will come.  I just hope I don’t spend 90% of my stage time calling for lines on Saturday.

In other show news, I have what is probably the most challenging song I’ve ever had to perform in this one.  It’s pretty high in my range, and I’m having a really difficult time getting enough air in my lungs to hit those notes (there just isn’t much room in it for breathing).  When I do?  Sounds great?  When I don’t?  Sounds like I’m dying (at least to me).  Talked with our (most excellent) music director about getting a rehearsal track for that one, and she’s going to be spending more time with those of us who have solos in the next few rehearsals.

Wednesday and Thursday have become my hell days.  I have to be in the office, so I end up going straight to the theater after work.  If we get out of rehearsal on time I get home a little after 10:30 PM.  Wednesday is supposed to be one of my workout days, but last night I didn’t have a full hour in me.  I’m proud of the fact that I managed to knock out 30 minutes, but the primary motivation behind that was the fact that I figured out my POINTS for the day and I was 2 over (with no Flex POINTS left to spend).  I’m really, really trying to keep the show from derailing my workout routine.  The last time I didn’t get back into the groove until months and months later.  With as good as I’ve been doing recently on that front that’s just not acceptable.  It’s bad enough that I’ve basically started smoking again.  Note to self : Taking a weekend “off” to smoke while on vacation is a bad idea, especially when you’re coming back to a very stressful work environment and a show.   I’m not back to a pack a day habit, but I can already feel that heaviness returning to my chest when I wake up in the morning (probably contributing to my breath issues in Gorey Stories as well).

Alex is still having emotional issues at school, and he’s been very clingy in my off time as a result.  He’s constantly talking about getting in “Us time” or having a “Father/Son Day,” which is a wonderful thing but I have very little time for me and to get the things done that I need to get done.  Things like my laundry, grocery shopping, paying bills, general house cleaning/maintenance.  Then there’s that whole “memorizing lines” thing.  Not that I want to sound like I’m bitching about my son wanting to spend time with me – I’m not.  This recent level of wanting me to take him places and do things with him is unprecedented, though, and came at a really bad time.  Some day, I know, I’ll be wishing he called more often and that he had time to spend with me.  The Cat is in the Cradle and all that Jazz.  I get it.  There are only so many hours in the day, though. 

Sigh.

All in all, though, I think the show is coming together really well.  I’m really looking forward to the end product on this one.  It’s just going to be an exhausting process to get there.  I REALLY can’t wait until I get some pictures taken in full makeup and costume.  If I come out looking half as cool as the others did in our promo shots I’m going to have some new user icons. 

This whole post came off a lot more bitchy and emo than I intended, really.  I’m just wiped out today.  Part of my agenda for the afternoon is plotting out the rest of my vacation time this year.  I’ve got 2 more personal days coming to me, an I have almost 50 hours of vacation piled up.  Can you say “lots of three day weekends”?  I knew ya could.

The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores

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And I must be one, because this is going to be yet another in a fairly long series of random, rapid fire “this is what is going on in my life” posts.

Morrissey

Last night

[info]netgoth

 and I got to see former Smiths front man Morrissey at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater.  What a truly amazing show.  The very first thing I noticed when he came out on the stage was that he got down on his hands and knees to the audience, and continued to show respect for us for the rest of the concert.  He frequently reached out to shake hands with audience members at the front of the auditorium, thanked us after every song, and even gave the mic to a few folks up front (which didn’t work out so well in the “entertaining for the rest of us” arena, but I’m sure it made their nights).  Any artist that takes the time to try and make their audience feel appreciated gets respect from me, and Moz did that in spades.

Above and beyond that, he put on a hell of a show.

The set was a mix of his solo work and stuff from the Smiths, with a few obvious classics in there (“Girlfriend in a Coma” and “Every Day Is Like Sunday”) as well as some of their more obscure works.  Having been a metal head in the 80’s when the Smiths were really popular, I only recognized the stuff that was still being played in the clubs once the 90’s rolled around or was on their greatest hits album.  K. was much more familiar, and excited, about seeing some of those old songs rolled out.  I got really bouncy over the songs he sang from Morrissey, You Are The Quarry, especially “Irish Blood, English Heart” and “First of the Gang to Die.” 

The final song before his encore was, of course, “How Soon Is Now?”

The production of this number was, to put it bluntly, fucking incredible.  The number before was one I wasn’t familiar with (Krys may have been – not sure), but it was a pretty somber piece that ended with Moz in a rather uncomfortable and very melodramatic position at the front of the drum stand under sickly green lighting while the keyboardist played a dirge-like version of “Auld Lang Syne.”  The opening chords of “How Soon Is Now?” then exploded out from the speakers, accompanied with light show and Moz leaping back to his feet.  The audience, of course, went mad (many of them were there just for that song, I’m sure).  What impressed me the most about this is that he made an artsy kind of statement with it as well.  At the end of the song, after the lyrics were done, Moz collapsed into a fetal position with his hands clasped over his ears at the front of the stage.  The music was INSANELY loud at this point, with a huge bass drum being hammered with increasing intensity by one of the truly skilled musicians that were backing Morrissey up.  Many artists have talked about their current body of work being overshadowed by what they have done previously, but I’ve never seen an artist express that so well while still giving the audience what they came there for (an example Mr. Andrew Eldritch would be wise to follow). 

I wasn’t overly impressed with the shirts so I didn’t get one, but Krys saw one she liked and I used the money I had to get one for her.  I may end up regretting that (I usually do), but I just didn’t see one I was likely to want to wear. 

I have to admit that while I like Ruth Eckerd Hall in general (and the fact that they had a place where you could get Key Lime Pie and coffee before the show), I always kind of resent seeing artists like Morrissey in a place like that.  It’s like seeing Rollins at TBPAC – there are always a lot of people there would never would have dreamed of setting foot in a place like The Masquerade.  People who wouldn’t dare travel to St. Petersburg to STAND outside in the crush of humanity that is a show at Jannuss Landing. 

Yuppies.

We saw some truly horrid examples of the “beautiful people” at the concert last night.  Two, in particular, were sitting right in front of us.  Drunk (or acting like it), and more interested in flirting loudly with each other during the opening act than actually, I don’t know, watching the show.  The woman of the couple even sat through about 3/4 of Morrissey’s set (and nobody was sitting, which meant she didn’t see shit). 

Oh, but she got up for “How Soon Is Now?”

Feh.

I’m always glad to see an artist pack a house and, of course, getting paid for their work.  It just annoys me when people don’t actually give a shit about the show itself – and as such take away from the experience by disrupting the enjoyment of those around them.  The drunk woman at the Rollins show who kept hollering about how she was going to “get with” him by the end of the night is another example.   Yeah – the guy who rabidly anti-drugs and alcohol is going to want to sleep with the loud, drunk woman who keeps hollering through his spoken word show.

Sigh.

But I digress.  Bottom line here is that that show last night was awesome, and I’m glad as hell I got to see it.

Moving on…

Dragon*Con

Purchased my membership for D*C 2007 this morning.  Our current plan for going is this – We’re going to leave when I get home from work on Thursday night (August 30th) and drive to Jacksonville.  We’re dropping J. off at his Grandmothers that night and getting a hotel room somewhere in Orange Park.  We’re going to get up and leave early on Friday morning to try and get to the hotel as close to the check-in time as possible.  Last year by the time we got there all the parking spaces in the hotel were gone and I’d rather not have to deal with that again.  It might also help us get a room on a lower floor.  K. is going to be busy working with the folks on the MMO track for most of the con, so I’ll likely be on my own a lot.  I also have to be ready to log on and work at a moments notice, as we are making some major changes that weekend and I’m frankly lucky that my boss is letting me leave town to begin with.   This also means I won’t be doing a lot of heavy drinking that weekend, as I need to be able to actually DO some of that work if he calls me.

Work

Things have been crazy busy recently.  I can’t go into specifics as to why just yet, but things have been rapid fire and will continue to be so for at least the next month.  We’re turning out some truly awesome stuff under the meticulous eye of my boss.  He’s really nitpicky, and while that can be frustrating as hell when you’re working you cannot argue that the end results are anything less than stellar.  We’re churning out some great work, and I look forward to the point when we get to turn it over to our members.

Health

Still keeping up with the hour long 6-day a week workout routine, and other than a brief setback on the scale this week it’s been very productive for me.  I feel great, and according to K. I’m looking pretty good too.  My face is clearing up a bit again.  I’ve added another product to my daily mix of pills and creams and it seems to be helping. 

World of Warcraft

Our guild is finally progressing through Karazhan, and last week we managed to get right up to the “half way” point of a full clear of the dungeon.  Looking forward to trying to get past that milestone this week.


I’m sure I could come up with some other topics, but those are the ones I usually harp on the most and I really need to get back to that hectic work I mentioned above. 
Have a great day, gang.

State of the Critus

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So, it’s been a while since I’ve sat down and written just a “this is what is going on in my life” post.  Figured it was high time.

Frankly, this week has pretty much sucked balls.  I’ve been dealing with a bunch of crap, and most of it has revolved around those three words often repeated here – World of Warcraft.  Specifically, the people in the game.  Not individuals per se, or their actions, but the fact that there are so many of them in our guild now.  Despite the fact that most of us have at least some kind of real world connection, that’s no guarantee that we’re all going to think and act alike.   There are occasionally going to be bumps in the road.

Just turns out that a few of those bumps decided to show up around the same time, and they were all those really big speed bumps that will totally fuck up your car if you go over them too fast.

The sad thing is that most of this happened on Tuesday night, when I wasn’t even online.  I had decided to take the night off because I was feeling stressed about the game for OTHER reasons.  I watched some TV, relaxed for a bit, and decided to check our guild forums before I went to bed.  In the 3 hours I was offline Mt. Kilimanjaro decided to explode all over the guild.  In the days following, the volcano kept spelling ash out all over the damn place as I had all kinds of issues that folks have been keeping to themselves dumped in my lap.

So I’m also dealing with a lot of red herrings.  Joy!

There are 94 people in our guild currently, and at times it seems like there are 94 different ways that people think the guild should be run.  From the super casual folks who feel neglected to the super hardcore folks who don’t think we’re strict enough to everyone in between I’m standing in the middle trying to do my best to keep my cool and find ways to keep everyone happy.

Lots of times, it ain’t a lot of fun.  It certainly ain’t easy, and I don’t always succeed.  Sometimes I make the wrong choice.  Sometimes I blow my top, too.  It doesn’t happen often, but it happened twice this week.  I ain’t proud of it, but ya know….Try walking a mile in my shoes….

Yep, I could quit.  Would be as simple as stopping the payments on my credit card.  Trust me when I say I’ve thought about it.  I guess what ultimately keeps me from doing so is the fact that this game has not only put me back in touch with old friends who I hardly ever spoke with, it’s also the only social setting I can associate with certain folks who I met there.  I mean, I have friends in this guild who I’ve known since I was a teenager.  20 year relationships, and I talk to them more now than I EVER did before we started playing WoW together.  I’ve also gotten very close with people who I met in the game.  People who we’ve since met in real life and consider part of our inner circle.  WoW is the ONLY way we regularly “see” them.

I know.  Those of you who think it’s “just a game” can’t possibly understand.  These games have brought more than a few people into our lives, though.  People who we never would have known had we not played them. 

[info]xany_hellion

 being the big example, there. 

Which is also why it’s not easy for me to just say “fuck it” and start kicking everyone out, too.

It would be easier to deal with if I was one of the yelling, controlling, “this is how the guild is going to fucking be” types.  Not what I’m about, though, and not the kind of people we are.  Sometimes I envy those folks, too.

Speakingof WoW, the fact that K. is going to now be working for wowinsdier.com means that we’re likely going to go to Blizzcon this year.  Which, while being an exciting thing, also sucks because it’s the weekend one of our friends is having a get together in Colorado.  Fact is, the only reason we’re really going to be able to do Blizzcon is because it’s going to be a tax writeoff for K.  As are her monthly game fees and upgrades she makes to her computer.

You take whatever help you can get, really.  Things are a little better after the refinance, but still going to be tight for a while.

I don’t imagine the flight is going to be a lot of fun for K, either, especially since we’re going to have to do this with as little time out of town as possible (I’ll be wrapping up a big project at work).  She’ll have very little down time between one flight and another.  Couple that with jet lag and it’s going to be…interesting.

Yeah, it’s sad that I’ve written this much about a video game and that said video game pretty much defines the state of the Critus, but there it is.  Have some other stuff I could write about, but at this point I gotta get back to that real life stuff….

Masks – Me and My Pants

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I’ve written several times about masks in my life.  Hell, one of the better poems I ever wrote back in high school was called “Masks.”  For as long as I have been studying people, I’ve been curious about the things we hide behind when we put ourselves out in front of other people.  From something as obvious as our clothing or style choices, to more subtle things like facets of our personality or the people we associate with.  We construct these images…facades, really…of who we think the “ideal” us is.  Carefully constructed personas designed to fool the rest of the world.

Sometimes they work.  Many times they don’t.

As acutely aware of masks as I like to think I am, it often comes as a surprise to me when I realize I’m still wearing them.  Oh, as the years have gone by I’ve certainly taken a lot of them off.  There are still a few lurking around, though.  I’d like to think I’m familiar with the ones that are still around, but every once in a while one sneaks up on me.

Just last week I saw one for what it was, and it’s so obvious to me now as to be embarassing. 

What was it?

The way I wore my pants.

Yes, I finally realized it – I’m pretty sure that a lot of you (especially the women in my circle) have been keenly aware of it for a while, but the magnitude of it just hit me last week.

For those of you who don’t know me in real life, I shall explain.  Up until last week, I wore my pants very high for a man.  Like, at or even above my belly button.  I would justify the fact that I did so by saying that it really was my waist, and that guys who wore their pants lower were just trying to hide the fact that they should be wearing a much larger pant size than they were.  While that may very well be the case, they aren’t the only ones who were hiding.  See, when I was wearing my pants up that high it made it more difficult to see how much my belly bulged out over my waist, and I didn’t feel as though I looked as big as I was.  In all fairness, I believe this started when I was a kid and had to wear adult sizes because of my weight.  My long pants were VERY long, and I had to wear them that high in order to keep them from dragging on the ground.  In time, though, it got to be something more.

Of course, I was also causing my “junk” to be crammed into my pants and outlined clearly for the world to see (a condition I have learned is known as Moose Knuckles, the male equivalent of the Camel Toe).  The whole “underwear riding up my ass crack” factor was pretty annoying too.  I could also wear much smaller t-shirts than I should have been able to getin to.

I wasn’t just trying to fool everyone else, either.  Wearing my pants like that worked to pretty effectively hide it from me, too. 

It smacked me in the face last week when I posted an old picture of myself to our guild web site.  In it I was wearing a pair of shorts with the shirt tucked in (a practice I learned to get over).  When I saw it, I realized just how bad it looked…and the reality of what I have been doing for the last 20 years smacked me right between the eyes.

So I started wearing my pants normally.  I didn’t say anything to anyone about it at first, and it’s only now that I’m feeling brave enough to write about it.  I think the embarrassment of 20 years in which my lower half has looked goofy and/or pornographic caught up to me at once.  When K. asked me about it I wouldn’t even talk to her at first – it actually took me an hour or so to finally voice everything I was thinking. 

Now I’m getting used to wearing my pants in the proper manner.  The biggest thing I notice, of course, is my belly.  It really is noticeable how much bigger than my waist it is when I have a pair of pants on.  I think though, in many ways, it’s helped to motivate me more than mortify me.  I want it GONE.  While it’s awkward to suddenly have the top of my pants so close to my ass crack, it’s nice to not have to constantly be adjusting myself.  I don’t look like I’m wearing high waters when I have long pants on anymore, either.

And, yes, I’m wearing pants that are smaller than I was when they were higher.  So I guess all those guys I maligned for doing so get the last laugh after all.

So to any of you I’ve scandalized in the past with my overly tight crotch, I apologize.

To any costume designers (*cough*[info]actorkat*cough*) who have had to make me look good with this silly insistence of mine, I’m sorry.

To anyone who has tried to politely point out how bad this looked only to have me shut them down, I was wrong.

I’ve taken off one more mask.  It feels good.  Strange, but good.

Wonder how many I have left?