If You Need Me For Anything….

2014 was such a weird year that I don’t even know where to start.

I abandoned the blog sometime in *looks* January because at the time I was working the night shift at my full time job, and had just snagged myself a nice, high strung little gig as a web designer/sales support monkey/writer/graphics-go-to-girl. So I was working two jobs for the better part of the beginning of last year. Something had to give. My design job started as 15 hours a week, then went up to 20, then in April it went to 40 and I left the midnight shift at the answering service for good and got paid to be a full time art person, which is a job that happens (alas) during the day.

So I got thrown into the deep end and it’s taken me this long to figure out how to doggy paddle, but I think I’ve got a handle on it now. Maybe.

On top of the graphic design stuff (I should note that I’m still somewhat of a novice), I’ve learned a proverbial crapton of stuff. I can do some minor IT work, and my co-worker and I are working on certifications (her for IT work and me for the loony bin–er, also for IT work, I guess).

So! Things!

Things that happened last year:

• Started new job!
• Left old job after 4.5 years. 😦
• Was introduced to an editor at new job. 🙂
• Finished NaNoWriMo 2014 despite Blizzard releasing a new World of Warcraft expansion during November those bastards.
• Read 42 books.
• Moved off wordpress.com and onto my own hosted site, which has finally gotten some attention!
• Did a lot of other stuff that mostly involved my hair falling out because stress.
• I went to WizardWorld ComicCon in July, and that was pretty much awesome, even if I did spend a good chunk of time having crowd-induced panic attacks.

Stuff that I plan to make happen in 2015:

• The World Outside is still a thing and sometime after tax season I’ll have the money to hire the editor I met at my new job. 🙂
• Write one short story a month. I’d write more, but considering the amount of homework I take home from work, I’ll pace myself.
• Read one book a week. I’m ahead on this.
• Learn to make WordPress Themes.
• I’ve got some freelancing going already, so the plan is to expand that toward the end of the year.
• The World Outside will also be a reality by the end of the year.
• Make some kind of art that does not include creative calls to action *headdesk*.

Those aren’t resolutions, because nobody ever keeps resolutions.

I have a review of a book that was recommended to me by the person I hope will be my editor. I also have January’s short story, so that makes plenty of post material for now. I’ll try and come up with some for later.

Picture time!

Yay!  Pictures!  Pop Quiz!  What do all these pictures have in common:

If you said:

• They are all examples of awesome books.
• They are six of yours truly’s favorites.
• Every single character on each of these covers is white.
• All of the above.

The answer is D: All of the above, but before breaking out the pitchforks, I’d like to point out it’s the covers I’m on about, not the content of the books.  Mercedes Lackey is pretty in your face about sexuality, Jim Butcher has characters from all over.  Ditto for Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.  Pratchett (and I picked that book in particular for a reason) is pretty vocal about deconstructing racism in many of his books and he’s funny when he does it.  Double win.  So content is not an issue here.

What is an issue is that you can walk down the fantasy/sci-fi section in any book store and be hard pressed to find a cover that doesn’t feature that lovely Caucasian look.  We default to it.  Granted, you might find one or two and, as time goes on, you’ll find more and more and that is a good thing.  Having a white person on the cover of a book isn’t bad.  Having nothing but white people sorta is yeah – especially when other people exist in the world.  Hello!

Like I said: we default to white.  Especially if we are white (hi!).  My leading lady, Sam?  Her looks were based off of a mix of this lovely lady and this one – because I am no less susceptible to falling into the default rut than anyone else.

Then something weird and totally unintentional happened.  I sat down to write the second draft.  Joseph stopped being a priest and Sam’s hair got curly.  A person whose intentions I’m sure were pure [sarcasm tag] pointed out that an urban fantasy novel with an obviously African American lead (that’s right: curly black hair = obvious African American) wouldn’t sell easily.

Thank you Mister Fillion.

So what did I do?

Nothing, actually.  It became a quirky side-story to tell and make people laugh or roll their eyes.   I didn’t change her personality, her description, nada.  She’s pure nut-bar pixie dream girl who will mess you up if you look at her boyfriend funny.  She’s been that way since her initial makeover during that fateful November.  If people wanted to see Sam as black I was totally okay with that.  I couldn’t (and still can’t) think of a good reason why it would be a bad thing.  Then the time came to describe her to my cover artist, because yeah, Sam’s going on the cover.

And while I realized that it didn’t matter to me what color her skin was, I could do one of two things:  I could “correct” the assumption that curly black hair = dark skin, because that’s just a dumb assumption to make no matter what.  Or I could jump in with both feet and go, “Yes, this creative, spacy, smartass hyperactive half angel superhero who is her boyfriend’s knight in shining armor is, in fact, a black girl.”

And if it really didn’t matter to me, then why couldn’t she be?  We’ve got plenty of pretty pale girls in the genre and Sam is not herself if she isn’t standing out from the crowd.  She usually does this by wearing Rainbow Brite arm warmers, mind you, but y’know: whatever.

And if having a black girl on the cover of my self-published e-book means I don’t sell a copy to someone, then gosh I …I just don’t know what I’d do!  /sob

That may have been a lie.

This happened unintentionally.  At first, Joseph didn’t have a last name.  When I actually needed to give him a last name it took me a very long time before (and writers will understand what I mean when I say this) he just sort of sat down in my head, exasperated, and said: Singh.

Oh.

Well okay then.

I didn’t start out to make a statement with my characters.  It sorta happened and I’m good with going with the flow.  My first goal is to tell an entertaining story.  If I manage that and just one person who hasn’t had much in the way of heroes to look up to finds one in Sam or Joseph (or Ben, or Gretchen, or Theo, or Simon – have I mentioned that the majority of the cast is not white?) then awesome.

I hold no illusions.  This will never ever be my day job.  My book isn’t going to end up in the fantasy/sci-fi aisle at your local bookstore so putting characters with darker skin on my cover isn’t going to make the slightest dent there.  It makes my job more interesting because what does a white girl know about this sort of thing?  How do you write a character of color?

Gosh!  Turns out it’s not a whole lot different from writing a white character.  You give them flaws and strengths and personality quirks, just like any other character.  You make them as rounded and real as you possibly can while avoiding the landmine field that is offensive stereotypes which really isn’t that hard.  And then you hope you did it right and if you didn’t, you listen to critique and then you apologize and change what needs to be changed.  Chances are if you treated your characters like people you did mostly okay.  At least, I hope so.

I also trust that if I hit on something offensive by accident, my friends would graciously beat the ever loving snot out of me until the stupid went away.

Here, have a bunny:

BUNNY!

Erm, excuse me…

Usually when our customers forward their lines it’s because they leave the office and go home for the night.  But one or two of our customers actually do things the old fashioned way and by old fashioned I mean they really do still live in the funeral home.  So when they forward their lines at night it’s because they want to sleep.  But there are a couple who, when the phone rings, will hear it, let it ring to us and then call us five minutes later to find out what the call was.

No seriously.

You can set your watch by it.  I usually take my time, even waiting up to a minute after finishing the call, to let the director on those specific accounts call us.  Most of the time they do.  At three in the morning we really only take one type of call and while it saves them from paying for us to call them about it, all I can picture every single time they call in, is this:

I still haven’t gotten my paycheck and they took my death call.

It’s been too long *sadface*

I’ve been re-reading The Hobbit.  I don’t know why.  Papa Tolkien and I have never actually gotten along, prose wise.  I love the stories, but my armor class is useless against Giant Walls of Text and I usually end up KOed by the first page and then I miss out on the loot while the rest of the party dances on the corpses of the R-O-U-S and since this is my game we’re talking about, they probably also burned down an orphanage without me.  The bastards.

No, it …it really is like that.

The Hobbit is easy though.  I can handle The Hobbit.  And if I keep telling myself that, it might actually turn out to be true.

/salute Hobbit!  I enjoyed your latest cinematic endeavor and look forward to listening to the geek chorus whine about your movie continuity all over again a year from now.  And by geek chorus, I mean my husband.

“Oh, how awful!”

This pretty much sums up 2013 for me.

But the Halloweenies got into the spirit of things.

I sincerely hope that, however you celebrate it, the holiday season was a good one for you.  It was a good one for me!  Mostly.  I worked all of it.  But then I’m easy to please and the post-holiday breakdown didn’t happen until the morning of the 26th when EVERYBODY DECIDED THAT SIX AM WAS THE PERFECT TIME TO ASSUME OFFICES ARE OPEN.

People.  If the sun hasn’t come up yet and nobody is dead: go back to sleep.

Sometime in the last couple months (probably November) I took a call and ever since taking that call it’s been preying on my mind, like a brain worm.  Since I’ve been scatterbrained and other things have been popping up hither and yon, I haven’t gotten a chance to write about it, but here – let me paraphrase it for you:

Me: Good Morning. This is [FUNERAL CHAPEL HOME PLACE], my name is [REDACTED because Olivia is a pen name yo] how can I help you?

Caller: Hello?  Can I speak to [DIRECTOR]?

((It’s about 2am, so you know.  Eyebrows.))

Me: I’m sorry, s/he is not in at the moment, may I take a message or did you need to speak to someone right away?  I have [REDACTED – who was not the director she asked for] on call for emergencies.

Caller:  Oh.  Oh dear.  No, s/he just told me to call when my family member, [REDACTED], passed away.  I just wanted to give a head’s up.

((I actually do not roll my eyes at this point, because grieving family members get breaks.  They just do.  I hate it when they call in death calls because they never have any of the info and I feel awful asking them dozens of personal questions, but they’re upset and doing what they were told, so it’s a get out of jail free card.))

Me: Oh!  Alright, well, I can certainly reach someone for you–

Caller:  Oh no, please don’t bother them.  We’re not ready or anything, this is just a head’s up for …well, for whoever.

Me: ((Patience padawan…)) Alright, well, what usually happens is when the facility is ready they go ahead and give us a call.  We have a removal person that we can contact at that point who will come out and pick them up.  If you like, I can take what information you have and get a hold of them for you?

Caller: Is that the director?

Me: No, in this case it’s a separate in-house removal person that we contact for death calls. I can certainly reach a director if you need to speak to them though.  May I have your name please?

Caller: I don’t want to give that out just yet.  The facility can call when they’re ready?  We’re just getting ready to go up there now, so they should be ready when we get there.  So …this is just a head’s up, I guess.  No need to bother anyone.

((At this point, in case it’s not obvious, we’re speaking at cross purposes.  I really can’t help her, and it’s sort of drilled into us that we’re to take messages all the time, hence all the “no seriously do you want me to reach someone?” questions.  See, head’s up calls are messages, that will be cleared, provided I have the info.))

Me: If I take a message now I will have to page someone, so if you want to hold off and just want to have the facility call–

Caller: Wait, so you’re just an answering machine?

((Congrats random answering service drone, you’ve been upgraded to a T-1000 answering MACHINE!))

Me: I’m with their after hours service, yes.

Caller: Oh!  Oh, how awful.

I wish I could make this one up, but that last line is a direct quote.  And yes, if you’re reading it in a certain upper crust, prim and proper accent, you’re reading it correctly.  In fact, it’s the only quote I really remember because it bothered me that much.  The rest is paraphrased but essentially breaks down to someone not understanding that she actually was jumping the gun.  Badly.  After that, she muttered some more things and hung up on me.  About an hour later we did get the call from the facility, so no business lost, I guess?

If you think I’m taking the comment the wrong way, let me assure you, from tone and context (let’s not get into the things she muttered after the awful comment), she was just mortified that she had to talk to a service.  I don’t know why.  I don’t pretend to understand, but when she found out I was a lowly worker drone, she just couldn’t take it.

Look, up until that point, the caller was extremely nice, if a bit scatterbrained, and also gets the “grieving family get out of jail free” card.  But two things here:

1.  No, what I do is not awful.  What I do makes sure you got to talk to a living, breathing human (now with action punch empathy!) at two o’clock in the morning.  Not a voice mail box.  Not a calling tree.  Do not pass GO.  Do not collect $200.  Go straight to person.  Sometimes people are surprised when that happens, but it’s always a pleasant surprise and you know what?  I enjoy that part of my job.  I’m the filter between slightly scatterbrained family members who called not really knowing what they wanted and the directors.

But you know, filters can get worn out, which is why #2 is so degrading:

2. I am not this:

DELETE DELETE DELETE

Or this:

Though let’s be fair: I wouldn’t say no…

And I am definitely, most assuredly, no seriously please knock it the fuck off, NOT THIS:

JLKJSFDALKFHALSKFHAKLHGLSHDGLHSD STOP IT

I am a human being.  Nothing gets you put on my shitlist faster than asking if I am an answering machine.  If you can’t tell the difference between a person and a machine then Skynet can’t wipe out humanity fast enough because frankly, I can’t with you anymore.  I can’t even English.  That’s how mad that question makes me.

It makes me wish I was this.

Damn those birds.

So to recap: Please never assume the person you’re talking to is a cyborg, unless they introduce themselves as Siri and even then it’s probably best to err on the side of them having a fully functioning organic heart, brain, nervous system, and other assorted squishy bits.  We’ll love you for it!  Thanks!

Things I Never Expected To Do On My Days Off

I think maybe I mentioned once or twice, in passing, that I was a mom.  I have  a 16 year old son (I mentioned my age before, and if you remember then yes, you can do the math and yes, yes I was that young).  I don’t talk about my family much because my comfort zone doesn’t extend that far.  But since we’re pushing comfort boundaries here, let me tell you internets, being a parent is an interesting experience.  I’m not good at it.  My kid is fantastic and I have no idea how he ended up that way, because it’s not me.

The Universe is a tricky bastard.  I don’t think it’s out to get me and mine, per se, but it is having some fun experimenting at my expense.  The dialogue goes something like this:

Universe: I see you are turning 18 and graduating from high school soon.  I see also that you are taking birth control and antibiotics at the same time.  Did you know that antibiotics can negate the effects of the pill?  Oh, well that condom broke and you do now.

[TIME PASSES]

Universe: Motherhood is fun huh?  Well here’s a new job that pays you $50 a week.  Make it work!

Me: Yeah okay.

Universe: I see you made it.  Good, good.  Time to go back to school!

Me: Yeah okay, I’m on the deans list?

Universe: …Here.  Have a husband.

Me: I like my husband!

Universe: Congratulations on finding a decent paying job in this struggling economy!  You’re digging yourself out of debt and have a nice place to live!  Everything is going smoothly!  Your kid is doing well in school!  By the way, he’s gay.

Me: I am almost guaranteed not to be a grandmother by accident!  *happy party dance*

Universe:  Right.  Okay.  You shrugged off everything else but how do you handle your kid questioning his gender identity?

Let’s stop there.

Look, every 16 year old on the planet has gone through a period where they’re figuring out who they are, who they like, what interests them, and what they want to do.  So what’s going on here is a) normal and b) no big deal.  What makes me angry is when the rest of the world tells him that it’s a) not normal and b) a big deal.

I don’t like watching my kiddo look down, stutter, twist his hands together and nervously admit that things don’t fit.  Like he thinks he’s broken.  Like he’s wrong.  Like I’m going to get angry with him, even though he knows better.  That sense of shame is not something my kid should ever be carrying around, and yet here we are.

And I am angry.

I can’t snap my fingers and make the rest of the world fall into line, but I can make sure my kid gets what he needs.  So I spent the majority of my days off hunting down information because while I’m moderately more informed than average, I still had no idea where to even begin.  When your kid asks to play on the computer when he’s in the dog house for bad grades, the obvious answer is no.  When your kid asks to speak to a therapist to help him figure out who he is the answer is ohshitGoogle and you start making shot-in-the-dark calls.

And you have no idea how the person on the other end of the line is going to react, so you have no idea how to phrase things.  You officially become the bulwark between the rest of the world and your kiddo because you’re mom and that’s your friggin job.  I got a lot of blank uncomfortable silences when I asked about gender identity so I dropped the coyness and started straight up asking about kids who are possibly transgender (even though the kiddo isn’t sure he is at this point, it’s the word that got the most “Oh!” responses and then I got to back up and explain).  Do you know anyone who works with kids in this group?  Do you know anyone who would know anyone who would… etc etc.

And I live in a moderately rural area.  The closest metropolitan area is Green Bay (yeah, metropolitan in the loosest sense of the word) and that’s about a four-five hour drive away.  So the answer to the question, “Is there a therapist in the area who works with kids questioning their gender identity?” is a resounding nope.  There are several councilors who work with kids who identify as gay/bi/lesbian, but gender-queries are an entirely separate thing that has nothing to do with one’s orientation.  What I needed was someone who knew what questions to ask and who was experienced in this area.

Nope, nada, nyet, non, zilch, zero, go fuck yourself.

But pester enough people and dig deep enough and someone will eventually point you in the right direction, if for no other reason than to get rid of you.  I was put in touch with a councilor from downstate who gave me some good direction, a list of medical tests to get done to rule out any sort of chemical/medical causes, and the name of a local doctor to call and get them done.

So I called and the doctor works for the university and therefore won’t see anyone who isn’t a student/faculty/staff or their families.  Well bugger me then.  Their suggestion was to call the behavioral health center at the hospital.  They couldn’t handle medical requests (I don’t know) and said that the best thing to do was contact his regular pediatrician and get them to do the tests, which puts us back at square one.   I should note, in case it’s not obvious, that my faith in humanity is pretty low, so it wasn’t without a little trepidation that I put in the call to the pediatrician.  Like all my initial calls, I had no idea how they were going to react, and that made me put my guard up, just in case.

I was actually very impressed.  After the initial blink blink, the receptionist put me over to the nurse who also had a very brief blink blink moment before shrugging and getting into the nitty gritty.  She took the list of tests and the name and number of the councilor I spoke to so she could call and make sure they were getting the right labs ordered.  Then she made sure we got an appointment with kiddo’s regular doctor.  That was it.  No judgement, very helpful, and after the initial brief confusion (which I can’t fault them for, honestly, because I’m a wreck at explaining things verbally), got down to business and got things done.

So until then we’re in hover mode.  The appointment isn’t until January, so there’s time.  After the initial rush, the kiddo’s fine with waiting, because things are actually happening.  It’s just slow, which is life.  Once we get the test results we’re on to phase two which is…

…You know what.  I have no idea.  We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Hello I Have Opinions

NOTE: I’ve come to the conclusion that it feels sort of fake for me, one to whom verbal cursing comes naturally, to try and cover every f-bomb with something clever (that is very rarely actually clever) – and we’re all adults here, right?  Right.  I apologize if swearing offends you, but it’s starting to grate on me and this is my blog so bugger it.  Onwards!

—

I am convinced that the entire internet exists for no other reason than to make me uncomfortable while in the very same moment making me insanely jealous at everyone elses’ apparent expertise with social media.  Lookit me blog this!  And Facebook that!  And Instagram this!  And Twittertwittertwitter!

I still do not get Twitter.  Or Tumblr.  It’s frustrating but for me it’s like barging into a party like a clumsy ox where everybody knows everybody so now you stand around awkwardly going, “Um, hi?  Hello?  Will you be my friend please?  I make cookies!”

I do make cookies, by the way.  They are awesome.

This time of year is also a very uncomfortable year for me.  I grew up surrounded by pomp and circumstance (Catholic) and thus all the Season-y Greetings started to grate and nowadays I can’t stomach them for very long.  I’ve also developed some fairly strong opinions on things that tend to clash with the cheery feel-goods of the holiday season.

*Gets out soapbox.*

I’m an atheist and while I give zero fucks how many “Merry Christmas!”es I hear in a given season, it’s also very difficult for me to not launch into a tirade every time I hear things like “Remember the reason for the season!” while people are breaking down the doors at the nearest Target to get the new Barbie doll or whatever.

I do all my Christmas shopping online (yes, we do celebrate – with a TARDIS on top of the tree and everything!).

It’s also the season of bell ringers and it’s always very, very uncomfortable to walk by the box and not drop anything in.  I haven’t donated to the Salvation Army in years because while things may not be as bad as they seem, they are bad enough that there are better places to spend my donation money.

*Slides soapbox back under the bed*

So it’s a stressful time of the year for me for a bunch of different reasons.  November is usually a lot of fun, because NaNo, but this year I found myself stuck with hours and hours and hours of overtime.  I left work every morning and the last thing I wanted after 60 hours (6 days of 10 hour shifts) was to be responsible about something.  About halfway through the month I realized that writing was so far down the list of priorities for the month that winning NaNo was not going to happen.

And once I realized that, the pressure was off and winning NaNo did, in fact, happen.  Barely.

It was sort of a spotty month though.

This year NaNo taught me several things:

1. I despise, with the passion of a thousand red belching heartburn plagued anthropomorphic volcanoes, writing in first person.
2. It’s possible for me to hate my main character enough that I changed perspectives halfway through so I just didn’t have to deal with her.
3. It’s my secret shame that I’m very rarely able to create a character who possesses a vagina that I don’t also immediately want to throttle.  I don’t know if this is some sort of subconscious self-loathing or what, but I suppose it’ll be something to work on.  Maybe if I shake them hard enough character development will start falling out.
4. I really hate vampires.

But I still managed to make words on pages happen in large chunks during the very small amount of free-time I had.  That’s got to count for something, right?

So now it’s back to working on the book and some short stories and maybe if I grow a spine I’ll send some off and we’ll see what happens.

…And while I’m dreaming I’d like a pony…

P.S. No, you can’t have a pony. Or a moose. Or a mantis shrimp. Or a tardigrade. Or a crab. Keep trying though.

Aw. 😦

Suddenly: A Blog!

Whoops.  I’ve been waaaaaaaaay lax with the posting.  Mostly I’ve been lazy and the longer I go without posting something, the guiltier I (inexplicably) feel and then I continue to avoid it and it all just sorta spirals until oh right this thing exists in the world.

So hi there!

But I have been working and the first half of the story is very near ready for line-editing!  Also: In just a few short days it’ll be NaNo time!  I enjoy NaNo in that I love making myself write so much in so little time.  It’s not good writing, and a lot of it is rambling and babbling and incoherent, but it’s fun nonetheless.  This year is the first year I’ve made myself sit down and plot it all out.  I’m taking a break from writing about Nephilim and decided to write about cliched Circus Vampires ™ in the 1930s American dust-bowl era and their groupies instead.

Told from the first person (ew ew ew I hate writing in first person why did I decide that would be a good idea) point of view of one of those groupies …After she’s been committed to an asylum in the 1940s.

So it’s a family-friendly story.

On a whim I decided to try the snowflake method of outlining because I stumbled across it via Google and it seemed like a good idea.  What I’ve ended up with is the entire book in non-prose form, so that should make this November slightly easier.  Considering how many hours of overtime I’ll be working, that’ll come in handy.  We’ll see.  I’m usually a pantser but considering how much re-writing and trashing and restarting and and and — that I’ve done on The World Outside I’m going to try something different this time around.

So anyway, that’s what I’ve got.  It’s not much but it’ll do for now.  I’ll hopefully remember that I have this thing when I need to whine about how November is (or isn’t) going!  Maybe I’ll stick a lil word counter up in the sidebar.

Hmmm….

Alas, Poor Yorick

Nope, I didn’t see Hamlet.  It’s not playing this year.

I did have a ball in Canada though!  I love Stratford and every time I go I always forget how much that particular area of Canada loves it’s brick houses.  Aluminum siding was really rare.  I’m actually very curious as to why that is because the difference was striking enough that it stood out to me.

For the record, I am all about brick houses, but I accept that I may be in the minority there.

If you’re wondering about a deluge of pictures, unfortunately I don’t have that.  My paranoia made sure I left my cell phone in the hotel room pretty much full time.  Not because I thought it would get stolen, but because I didn’t want to be that person.  If you’re a theater goer, you know what I mean.  It’s the person whose phone goes off during the performance.  I spent the first show with my purse between my legs, my cell phone not only set to vibrate but turned off completely and my mind just would not shut up.  I was convinced that it would turn itself on and start bawling.  After that, I left it in the room and just let myself enjoy the shows.

(I never said it was rational.)

As for what we saw and what I thought: Waiting for Godot was my least favorite.  It was plagued with pauses and silences that, I think, were aiming to be Pinter Pauses but actually came across as though the actors forgot their lines.  Combine that with the fact that it was the first show we saw and therefore the one I spent agonizing over the magic cell phone turning itself on.  That definitely didn’t help.  It wasn’t all bad though.  The actor playing Lucky was brilliant and I don’t use that term lightly.

The rest of the round up made up for it.  Blythe Spirit was good, Othello was spectacular, Measure for Measure was awesome, and Merchant of Venice was effing amazing.  Setting MoV in 1930s Italy was about as subtle as a brick to the face, and the only likeable characters in the entire play (for me) were Portia and her groupies, but I loved it.

I’m sort of torn between Othello and MoV as my favorite.  Both casts were amazing but I think Othello’s set design (including the lighting design) wins out.  What they were able to do with a plain (but mobile) square stage and moving flats was breathtaking.  Also the performances.  I was actually able to forget my paralyzing fear of heights (we had nosebleeds) while the actors were on stage.

If you ever have the chance to head up north to Canada and see some Shakespeare, I would highly recommend it.  Have I mentioned that they’ve already announced next year’s season?  Between King Lear, Midsummer Night’s Dream (two different versions!), Alice Through the Looking Glass, and Man of La Mancha, I pretty much put my foot down.  We are going.

Things I would recommend for any long car ride:

The First Act of Star Wars (Episode 4) as performed by Famous Voice Actors.

Welcome to Nightvale.

The latter has the benefit of being voiced by someone with a Phone Book Voice.  Anyone possessing a Phone Book Voice is immediately my favorite.

It’s been awhile since I got back.  In my defense …I have no defense.  After throwing an epic tantrum way back when over Final Fantasy going online when FFXI came out, I’ve been sucked in by Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn.  To clarify: I am an old school Final Fantasy nerd.  I played the first one on the Nintendo when I was nine.   I’m a bit strange in that I don’t like FF7 (I mean to say that I really don’t like it and I wish they would stop trying to get blood from that stone) and FF8 (one that is pretty much panned as terrible) was my favorite, followed closely by FF6.  They’re up to 13 (and it’s sequel) now.

In essence: I always played Final Fantasy because the games were RPGs with a story.  Probably not the best stories, but at the time they were addicting.  It was a rag-tag group of heroes thrown together by fate to defeat whatever evil baddy happened to be threatening the world this week.  You had your sword guy, your brawler, your gun guy, your lancer, your white mage, your black mage, your cranky/emotionally stunted or gloriously sarcastic and cheerful hero (pick one), your designated love interest, or any combination thereof.  Pretty standard.  Throwing that into an MMO made me do this:

This is not to say that MMOs can’t have stories – I go back and forth on whether or not I like WoW’s story but it’s there and it drives the game.  It’s just that the first “M” in MMO stands for Massively and that is like the exact opposite of “small rag-tag group of underdog heroes saving world.”

So I said NO! to Final Fantasy at that point (and haven’t finished an FF game since then, though I’ve tried both 12 and 13 – and will probably finish 13 eventually).  I got the schadenfreude bug when Final Fantasy XIV first came out.  It was called a $50 beta for a reason.  It was awful.

And then they fired everybody and brought in a new team and there was a free beta weekend so I said Oh why not and then suddenly:

So if you need me I’ll be leveling my Conjurer.

Lazy Days

I knew I was in trouble when…

By time you get around to reading this I’ll be on my way to Canada! I’m very excited and will have many pictures to upload by the time I get home, I’m sure. I have twelve (12!!!) days off and they have been sorely needed. I’ve been writing, research-reading (and some fun reading), and working pretty much non-stop for over a month now and with the exception of starting to build a mansion in Rift I haven’t gotten a lot of “me” time. Granted, since I’m traveling with family, I won’t get much time to myself, but I think I’m okay with that. I think.

Oh and that mansion I mentioned?  I may have been working on that a leeetle too much in my downtime. I’m not even halfway done and I love it. Rift, what hast thou done!?

Since I’m not feeling like doing anything resembling work right now, let me show off what I’ve got so far!  I say “so far” because only a small fraction of the thing is done.  The first floor needs to be finished before I move to the second and I’m still a ways away from finishing the first floor.