Week in Review – March.28

Last week was pretty nice, marred only by lingering depression and stress, most of which relates to things outside my control. Still, time spent with my friends and lovers was fantastic, and as long as I didn’t have too much time to dwell on lost loves and what I couldn’t change or help any more than I was already, I was pretty happy. I got some time alone on Thursday, and the rest of the week I was surrounded by wonderful people who make me very happy, so I have no real complaints.

Wednesday morning my alarm went off at 7 and I had a hard time getting back to sleep. When I finally did get up Ke and I went to have breakfast at Perkins and then grabbed a nap before I went into work. After work I picked Nivagi up and met her new girlfriend as well as getting to say hello to her two other boyfriends, both of whom I really like. Nivagi and I went back to my apartment and tried to watch the first episode of Dexter online, but got pwned, so I’m going to have to buy the season one DVD when I can afford it (maybe not this week – we at AT&T might strike soon).

Thursday night I had no plans, so I decided to take the night to myself and unwind before my weekend in Evansville. I got to talk to Mira for a couple of hours after work, and then I called Jero to wish her a good night before she went to sleep. I’d meant to be productive and journal, but by the time I got off the phone I was pretty sleepy, so I listened to BSG commentary and just posted some backdated entries I’d written earlier before curling up with my pillows and going to sleep.

Friday I got paid, which is always good, but then immediately almost all of it went out for rent, car payment, and parking, which sucked. After work I went over to Jero’s. She had just gotten back from derby practice, so she was understandably tired. We talked about things to do since neither of us had to be up terribly early in the morning, but since she was exhausted and I had a long drive the next day we wound up just snuggling and watching Bones until we fell asleep.

Saturday I picked Ke up and we drove down to Evansville to see Mira. We met Mira at her house and then went to a sushi place to have dinner with Mira’s friends. After gorging on yummy sushi, Ke, Mira and I went to Hebe and P37’s apartment to hang out and watch Commentary! The Musical for Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, which was very amusing. Ke, Mira and I then retired to our hotel, which had a shower big enough for three and a huge comfy bed, in which we immediately conked out after a long fun day.

Sunday Ke, Mira, and I went out for breakfast and then napped at Mira’s before Ke and I drove back to Indy. Last night I hung out at Jero’s, and tonight I plan to see Ke. Tomorrow night Jero and I are going to go see The Lost Boys in the theatre as part of Jero’s belated birthday present, and I’m hoping to maybe get together Thursday with Nivagi to work on role-playing stuff if she’s free. This weekend I’m going up to St. Louis for emmo’s housewarming party, and I’ll get to see Ra, too! Woot!

"One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice president, and that one word is 'to be prepared.'"

- former Vice-President Dan Quayle

Last Week and Half of This One – March.15 – March.25

My emotional state continues to be up and down. I’m surrounded by wonderful people, but a ton of crap is going on in others’ lives that I have no control over and for which I can provide little help. Things have settled in my relationships, but not exactly where I’d like them to, so the process of acceptance is a depressing one. I’m trying to be there for people when I can, and to enjoy the good times, but whenever I get a chance to think too much my mood crashes.

Last Sunday I slept until 3 and then woke up to breakfast with Ke and Mira. We had a lazy day of hanging out playing on our laptops and then Ke and Mira made a yummy dinner of chicken and asparagus. Ke worked on a memorial website for her grandmother while I caught up with friends and lovers about their weekend. Ke and I were feeling a little down by the end of the night, and Mira wasn’t exactly feeling very amorous either, but the three of us managed to pull each other out of our respective funks and have a good evening nonetheless.

Last Monday morning Ke, Mira, and I went out for breakfast and then Ke went into to work and Mira headed back to Evansville. I went to Jero’s and took a nap with her before driving up to meet Mika for dinner. Dinner with Mika was pleasant, and although we still have no idea when we’ll hang out while I’m on the night schedule, I’m hoping we’ll figure something out. After dinner I went back to Jero’s and we snuggled and watched Castle (a new guilty pleasure) and Dollhouse (which I love already).

Last Tuesday was St. Patrick’s Day, so I was worried about being late for work because of the damned parade (I work downtown). I left myself extra time, but besides having to run over some revelers, I managed to get in early. I waited 15 minutes to clock in at 1:45, only to realize later that they moved me back to the 1:30 shift this week (*facepalm*). Luckily I’d mentioned to my boss when I got there that I was “early” so she knew I was actually there. After work I had no plans so I went home to MUX.

Last Wednesday morning I went to bed way too late, so when one of my managers called and offered e-time I accepted it and went into work a little late but much more rested. After work I met Ke at Brbe and Erro’s where they were hosting a game night. Ke and I hung out there, playing Apples to Apples and watching YouTube videos and Onion News. When it got late Ke and I left, picking up food and heading back to my apartment for The Daily Show and sleep.

Thursday morning Ke and I got up and had Le Peep for breakfast before she went to class and I went into work. At work they were giving away E-time like candy, so I had the rare opportunity to leave work early. I picked up Nivagi and drove her to her apartment so she could see her boyfriend and pack for her Friday night date. After that Nivagi and I then went to Denny’s for a late-night dinner. By the time we got back to my apartment it was late enough though that we were OK with just going to bed.

Friday night after work I hurried home so I could watch the third-to-last episode of BSG before going over to Jero’s to watch the two-hour finale. I got off too late to watch the finale the first time it played, but luckily Sci Fi played it again later in the evening so I still got to watch it that night. They decided to focus a lot of the ending on character instead of action, so I can see how some people might find it a little slow, but I’m generally satisfied with how they wrapped everything up.

Saturday night Jero and I went to a roller derby bout between Indianapolis and St. Louis. The Naptown Roller Girls played the Arch Rivals Roller Girls and it was a pretty exciting game to watch. The ARRG were ahead 12 points by half-time, and were able to win 93 to 60. After the bout Jero and I went back to my apartment to clean, and wound up arranging my living room and organizing things in such a way that with luck I’ll be able to someday make some order out of the chaos.

Sunday morning Jero and I didn’t get to bed until almost dawn, so Jero slept until 2 PM and I slept until four. When I woke up Jero was going through paperwork in my living room, helping me organize and get rid of things I no longer need. I joined in to help her clean, until finally we got hungry and went out to Olive Garden. We’d intended to go back to her house after dinner, but wound up back at my place for more cleaning.

Monday was Jero’s birthday, so we went out for breakfast before I had to go into work. At work I was depressed – too much going on in my life and in the lives of people important to be that I can’t control. After work I went back to Jero’s, where she’d made us yummy chicken burgers. We were going to play SingStar, but I’d left my PlayStation controller at home, so we wound up cuddling and watching Bones instead.

Tuesday night I was allowed to leave work a little early again so I grabbed some food for Ke and me and went to her house to MUX while she did homework and studied for a test Friday. On the MUX I was able to get in on the end of a Decepticon raid TP run my Hemy. Since Jero had Snoop on, I logged on Browning, and we had a fun time being unhelpful non-combatants on the sidelines while Nighthawk and Skywarp beat each other to paint.

Tonight I’m getting together with Nivagi, and it should be fun as long as I can stay awake – my alarm went off at 7 AM and I had a hard time getting back to sleep. This weekend I’m going down to Evansville to see Mira, and my mom for her birthday. With luck Ke will get to come with me so the two of us can hang out with Mira and her friends. My mom is also depressed and doesn’t really want company, but I’m hoping if I’m right there in town I’ll be able to persuade her to at least venture out for dinner.

"The future will be better tomorrow."
- former Vice-President Dan Quayle

Week in Review – February 21st

Last week was really rough for me. I was sick most of the week, and my unhappiness with my relationship with Mika, which I’ve been trying to keep a lid on since she was busy and stressed from moving, boiled over into an unfortunately argument over text message, the repercussions of which are still being felt. I thought we’d resolved some things Thursday, but from the email I got today, apparently not.

Last Sunday Jero had to go to derby practice, so I headed over early to hang out with Ke and Mira while Mira was in town. For dinner we went out to a super-yummy Turkish restaurant, and then snuggled in bed and watched The Big Bang Theory DVDs Ra got me for the holidays. Since we’re all big geeks we laughed our asses off until time for bed. Mira and I were planning to stay up but wound up going to sleep, too.

Monday before work I got to hang out with Mira before she had to head back to Evansville. Monday night is usually my MUX night, but Jero was stressed from derby stuff, so after I ate yummy food she made me we played Kingdom of Loathing for a while and then went to bed to cuddle and watch the latest BSG. Friday’s episode was a bonanza of exposition. B)

Tuesday I had a bad headache at work and wound up arguing with Mika over text message between calls, which I’m sure didn’t improve either of our days. She eventually stopped talking to me, but my headache lasted late into the night. After work I headed over to Ke’s, and we hung out and watched Bones while playing on our laptops. When she went to bed I joined her.

Wednesday morning I continued my text message argument with Mika until she had to get back to work. We tabled our discussion for Thursday, but the situation continued to bother me throughout the day. I spent the night alone, and tried to focus on other things, but it’s difficult for me to concentrate on anything else when there is unresolved tension between me and someone I love.

Thursday I got together with Mika to talk about our relationship. During our discussion we focused on the fact that our relationship had a weird beginning and we skipped over a lot of the “getting to know you” foundation. Mika wanted to take a break to work on rebuilding the foundation of our relationship – I’d rather continue dating while we work on things. We made plans to get together on Tuesday to discuss further.

Friday I stayed up late printing character sheets for Saturday’s game. I had far too many characters left over from previous sessions, and wanted to make sure I knew what everyone was doing so there’d be as few delays as possible. When I was finished I went over to Ke’s to snuggle and sleep. She was already in bed by the time I arrived, so I slid in next to her and snuggled her while she slept.

Saturday I ran the Exiles game for a big, fun group of players. I had a lot of fun, and am finally getting the hang again of running things for large groups. I learned lessons for the future – get started sooner so we don’t lose players to time, and design stories to feature fewer NPCs and less back-story so players spend more time playing and less time listening to me talk and RP with myself. Nonetheless, I had a great time.

The rest of the weekend was nice, and my Monday was nice until I got new email from Mika. I have to wait until after work tomorrow to talk to her about what’s up, which is bad since I have a hard time concentrating on anything else when something is hanging over my head. Still, it’s getting late and I’ve been a grumpy mess all evening, so I’m going to log off now and try to salvage my night with Jero.

GOP pollster Tony Fabrizi told the L.A. Times, "It becomes a more crystallized proof point that we are no longer the party of smaller government. We have become a party of 'It doesn't matter what size the government is as long as it is imposing our set of values.'"
-- “Some in GOP Fear Effort May Alienate Voters,” L.A. Times

Week in Review – February 14th

Last week was good, even though I started feeling sickly around Thursday. I got to spend some much-needed time with Ra and Amsc, and spent the weekend hanging out with Jero, Ke, and Mira. I didn’t get to see Mika at all for the second week in a row, which bothered me a lot more than I realized it would. I could have gone to her anti-Valentine party, but I didn’t want to deal with the smoke and the social anxiety.

Last Sunday I woke up early to drive to St. Louis to see Ra and Sckl. When I arrived we went out for lunch and watched Coraline, which was awesome. After the movie they ordered pizza and we watched The Big Bang Theory, which Ra had gotten me as a present. TBBT was good choice – some of the geek jokes strike very close to home. I’ve already started quoting it, to Ra’s amused annoyance.

Last Monday Sckl had to depart super-early to leave town for work, so he was gone by the time I woke up. I ran to the credit union to give my mom money, and then Ra and I went out for lunch and a visit to the comic store. We spent the afternoon discussing our relationship, and then at 7 I got onto the MUX for a meeting. That night I had to head back to Indy, after a long and very pleasant good-bye from Ra.

Last Tuesday I took a half-day off work to recover from the late drive back to Indy. It was very worth it for the extra Ra time, and I made up for it by converting my day off Friday to another half-day. After work I went over to see Ke, who seemed just as tired as I. We tried to stay up and be productive, but eventually we threw in the towel and just went to bed to snuggle and catch up on sleep.

At the MUX meeting Monday we realized that a lot of our players and admin were free on Wednesday, so Hemy put together a TinyPlot event. Cobra attacked Chicago, both to damage Boeing headquarters and to damage the message of hope set forth by President Dunham (our stand-in for Obama). The event was a lot of fun, and we got it started early enough that General Hawk could join us, which was a nice bonus.

Last Thursday after work I drove to Illinois to see Amsc. We ordered Jimmy Johns and snuggled on her couch to watch the two most recent episodes of BSG. Amsc played some on her fancy new laptop, but this time didn’t let tech focus completely distract her during our visit. Unfortunately, I was starting to get sick, so by the time we went to bed I was too miserable to fully enjoy her company, which was a crying shame.

Friday I got to sleep in a little with Amsc since I’d taken a half-day off work. After my four hours at the job, I picked up Ke and we went to shopping for flowers for Mira, who came to visit this past weekend. We were hoping to go to Panera for dinner, but it got too late so we hit the Chinese buffet instead. I had to work the next day, so when we got back to Ke’s house we soon headed to bed.

Saturday after work Jero picked me up and we went to see the Naptown Roller Girls Warning Belles debut bout. I was still feeling anti-social and crappy, but I had a great time nonetheless. The Warning Belles kicked ass, beating the NE Ohio Rock n Rollers 63 to 41. They also raised $ 5025 for breast cancer research during their half-time auction, which was even cooler.

I had a good time seeing Ra and Amsc last week, and I’m glad I was able to work out the time to drive out to see them. Besides being sick, I had a great time this weekend hanging out with Jero, Ke, and Mira. Unfortunately this week has been hellaciously crappy so far, due to feeling sickly and fighting with Mika. I’m hoping I’ll at least be able to work things out with Mika when I see her today after work.

Oil Drilling In Alaska
"This can't be true. Bush described himself as an environmental guardian last fall, and I've seen photos of him standing in front of trees."
—Cecelia Mayo, Systems Analyst, theonion.com

Week in Review – January 24th

This week started off wonderfully! After a fun game night Saturday Ke, Mira and I spent all day in bed Sunday. I took advantage of the unstructured day to relax and take advantage of vast swaths of sleep and snuggles. Ke and Mira even made frozen pizzas so we wouldn’t have to leave my apartment until the wee hours Monday morning, when we finally headed into the cold in search of more Denny’s.

Monday I was supposed to go out of town, but my plans got rescheduled, so I spent the morning with Ke and Mira before meeting Jero for lunch. Monday is usually my MUX night, but since I thought I was going to be gone, I went on vacation on the MUX. So, I decided to just enjoy the night off. It was sad not to see Ra this week, but I hope she and I will be able to reschedule soon.

Tuesday I had off work so I got to hang out with Jero during her telework day. We watched the inauguration and were very happy with the swearing in of a new, intelligent President. When Jero’s workday ended we went out to eat to celebrate, and then we went back to her house to relax and play Kingdom of Loathing. We were going to play SingStar as well, but it got too late, so we went to bed.

Wednesday after work I drove to Illinois to see Amsc. When I arrived I gave her a belated New Year’s kiss and then we retired to her bedroom. We chatted and caught up a bit, and then got out my laptop to watch BSG Webisodes and The Other Boleyn Girl. I’d have loved to follow with the Elizabeth movies, but alas I had to go to sleep since I needed to get up super-early to drive back to Indy for work.

My plans Thursday with Mika were cancelled since she got sick, so I stayed home to try to catch up on journaling and laundry. I wound up having an extensive conversation with Amsc about whether or not we should continue dating, since the distance is putting a heavy strain on our relationship. When it got too late to talk about it further, we tabled the discussion for now and worked out possible plans for this weekend.

Friday night I hung out with Ke. She bought us Fazoli’s and we hung out at her house on her laptops. Ke helped me a bit with working out my financial troubles, and I mulled over a response to a critical email I’d gotten from Ra concerning my dating practices and how they lead to my “relationship stress on multiple fronts” as Ra put it. I’ll need more time to ponder her points and think about how to resolve them.

Today I had a pleasant lunch with Jero. After work Amsc is coming into town and then the two of us are going down to Bloomington to meet up with Jalyru and my sister. Jalyru invited me up to play on her Wii and ‘do some karaoke,’ so it should be fun. Tomorrow Amsc and I have all day to sleep in and snuggle, so I look forward to the quiet downtime.

“’Sin?’ ‘Sin’ like ‘love’ was a word hard to define. It came in two bitter but vastly different flavors. The first lay in violating the taboos of your tribe.”
-- Robert Heinlein, Time Enough For Love

Last Week 2009.01.17

Last week was pretty good. I stressed myself out over Saturday’s D&D game, but everyone seemed to have a good time. I finally got to talk to Mika about the problems I’ve been having with out relationship, and that cleared up much of the cloud of depression that’s been hanging over me for months.

The Sunday night before last I met up with Nivagi to celebrate her birthday. I couldn’t afford to take her out to dinner, so we just ordered Chinese food and stayed in. We got some time alone and got to sleep in together since I’m off work most Mondays. It was good to spend time with her when neither of us was rushed or exhausted, and Nivagi said it was a first-rate start to her birthday week.

That Monday I blew off MUX night again to work on my Dollship of Doom for Saturday’s D&D game. I felt guilty about it, but I did need to get it done by Saturday, and it’s a lot more fun and speedy with Jero’s help. I felt some time pressure since I wanted to journal, MUX, and work on the Dollship all at the same time. Besides self-induced stress, however, it was a nice night.

That Tuesday I had a horrible day at work, so I skipped the Poly Meetup and just had noodles and hid out with Ke. She helped me put my bed together (finally!) and looked into storage options for all my crap. I got caught up with a little of the vast list of things I’m behind on while Ke studied and window-shopped online. It was a perfect night of productivity and unwinding.

That Wednesday Jero and I had tickets to Repo! The Genetic Opera. Anbadi, D!1, Beldar, DaSn, Jedo, and Liin were there, as well as the director and one of the stars. The movie was marvelously fun in a Sweeney Todd sort of way, and full of Anthony Stewart Head goodness. Afterwards there was an interesting Q&A with the writers and the actor who played the Grave-Robber. I got their autograph for Mira, hugs from Anbadi, D!1, and Liin, and then we went back to Jero’s to sleep.

That Thursday night Mika came over and we had a long talk about our relationship. I’ve had a hard time adjusting to the rapid development of her connection with Tojo, but I didn’t want to bother her about it because I didn’t want to stomp on her NRE. It turns out that just talking about it with her made me feel a lot better about everything. What was that about poly and communication, communication, communication? >B)

Last Friday I went to Mars’s to work more on my Dollship of Doom. Emmemy made us dinner, and their kid ran around looking cute. Mars worked on his own constructible cardstock projects and then helped me with part of the Dollship forecastle. When Emmemy went to bed Mars and I watched the first episode of season 4.5 of BSG, which was just as uplifting as hell. When it got late I stumbled over to Ke’s and passed out to sleep.

Last Saturday I had to work, so I dropped off the Dollship at Jero’s so she could work on it and then went into the office. Unfortunately I’d left the ship in the car all night and the glue froze, meaning Jero had to redo a lot of what we’d done this week. After work Mira come into town for the weekend to role-play with me and to visit Ke, and the D&D game was a chaotic but fun time, and I think an overall success.

“I'll go where and when I please, see what I want to -- and try not to antagonize local yokels. Especially those fighting each other; it makes them trigger happy.”
-- Robert Heinlein, Time Enough For Love