Counting Cards

For quite a while now, I have been engaged in... uh...

...well, insanity, if you must name it. I mean, jeeze, fine, have your way, I've gone fucking bananas.

I haven't wanted to discuss this... current... lunacy. Not publicly. Not even in a semi-anonymous blog.

I'll let you be the judge as to whether or not my reluctance in describing my recent behavior was (is) justified. But first, you have to make it through this blog post. Yes, the whole thing.

[ Aside #1: That is, of course, assuming that what you require is my permission to pass judgment on my behavior. However, knowing you... and I do know you... it is my stated postulation that you require no such permission. Much to my chagrin. ]

I mentioned a while back... (this is one of those threshold moments, where once you type the next few words, there's no real going back. I'm savoring it. Savor savor savor.) ...that I have something of a collection of Vampire: the Eternal Struggle cards. At the time, the total I had derived (mathematically, you may recall) was that I had 12,000+ plus cards, many of which had been carried over from the murky depths of the past, but many of which had, instead, been recently acquired at what amounts to "fire sale" rates.

[ Aside #2: The notion that there is a reason that game store owners are willing to sell these cards at said "fire sale" rates is an idea I have been steadfastly ignoring. ]

All of the above is true, if slightly out of date. I would not be exaggerating if I were to say that the man who wrote those two posts had no idea what he was getting himself into.

But what, you may ask, is there in this ludicrous hobby to spend three months of time on?

---

Let me start with a boast: I can tell you roughly how long it takes to sort 13,000+ cards by type, and then alphabetize those cards within their types. Actually, "roughly" is a misnomer: I can tell you almost exactly how long it takes to engage in this tomfoolery.

I can tell you this because I have done it eight times in the last three months. It takes something like three to four full evenings. Something around ten to twelve hours of labor.

Sort #1: Naive Hopefulness
See... at first, I simply wanted to get everything I had in some kind of reasonable order, so that if I wanted to make a deck or two, I could. Easy enough: I had decided long ago that alphabetical order is the way to store trading card games.

Some folks will sneer at this: too much labor involved, not worth it, yadda yadda yadda. They overlook, in my most humble and well-educated opinion, the sweet, sweet feeling that comes over you when you want a specific card and it takes you precisely three seconds to find it. Especially when you're finding it among 14,000+ of it's bretheren.

So, first I sorted by card type (Master cards, Combat cards, Action cards, Action Modifiers, Reactions, Political Actions, Equipment, Allies, and Retainers... I know; you were just dying to to know that), and then alphabetized.

Sort #2: I'll Just Fix This One Thing
But at the end of that sort, I noticed something pretty obnoxious. Cards come in different rarities (rare, uncommon, and common, generally), and so I had varying numbers of cards... see... and I had a lot of certain common cards, and very few of the rares...

...and so, in my stacks, I'd have 47 Lucky Blows, followed by 1 Lupine Assault, and then like 86 Majesties.




I know. Disastrous.

Well, maybe not disastrous. But it did certainly make pulling the rare cards out of the stacks a pain in the butt. Okay, so that's easy to fix, right? I just sort 'em by rarity first!

...which equals twelve hours of effort.

Sort #3: Maybe I Should Sell Some Of The Extras
Having 15,000+ cards all sorted by rarity, card type, and then alphabetically within card type was quite satisfying, in a "wow, that was a lot of really satisfying work" kind of way.

Here is something I have learned about myself over the years: sorting things causes me pleasure. Real, palpable, physical pleasure. My mother is fond of telling the story about how when I was two years old (!!), she would keep me entertained by handing me two hundred pennies. I would turn them into stacks of ten, you see, all spread around in little clumps of 100.

This condition has not improved. It has gotten worse.

At this point, my wife posed an interesting question to me. "Do you," she posed, semi-querulously and with one hand poised before her, as if to ward off any icy looks I might send flinging her way, "actually need sixty copies of the same card?" Then she bolted for the front door, pulling furniture into her wake as she ran, presumably to foil any would-be darklord-style pursuit.

You know, I think that all that labor and sorting must have done something to my mind. Maybe I was still euphoric from all the alphabetine running around in my bloodstream. Whatever it was, the idea of ridding myself of some of the extras I had accumulated made a great deal of sense.

When you decide that you're going to take your 16,000+ card collection and pull out the ones you want to sell, the simplest thing (I figured) was to pick minimums for each card type.

[ Aside #3: This is extraordinarily true. Of course, the simplest sort would be a minimum for each type of zero, but this didn't occur to me. ]

After some analysis, I settled on 10 of each common, 4 of each uncommon, and 2 of each rare. Seemed reasonable, and would certainly allow me to create whatever deck type I could ever hope for, were I to ever want to, you know, play this game. At some point. In the future.

...so, twelve hours of labor later, I had extracted one and a half of these here card boxes full of my extraneous pickings. It was admittedly slim fare: we are talking about the cards that I had the most of, by a long shot, and there weren't very many rares in there, but what the hell.

So I listed a couple of 'em on eBay. Experimentally.

I made like -$5.

But... see... this was clearly because I had set my prices, shipping, and handling wonky. I tried again.

I made something like $60 on the next set.

I tell you this mainly to explain what happened next. The idea that I could pay for my obsession... with my obsession... struck my attention centers with such immediacy, that I started researching my options within 0.34 seconds this idea entering my frontal lobes.

[ I would call this next bit an Aside, but it really kinda takes over, so it's more of an Onward!: ]

One thing I can tell you about those eBay folks: they have spent a lot of time and effort making tools to make selling stuff on their website easier.

Take, for example, this thing they call Turbo Lister. Turbo Lister is, effectively, Excel for eBay listings. It lets you assemble your whole stock of auctions, offline, and then upload them all at once. Ever wonder how people manage to list a ton of crap all at once, and in alphabetical order? No? Me neither, but as soon as I saw this tool, it all clicked.

Sure is super cool, but it sure would be cooler if there was some way to automate it... like... a way to import the card auction data from my Excel spreadsheet... like...

...everything kinda went grey and fuzzy for a while there. When I emerged, I had created what can only be described as a tool path.

[ Aside #4: Okay, you need to settle back, grab ahold of the arms of your chair, grit your teeth, and take it like a man. I'm about to go supernerd on yer ass. ]

As of right now, it goes like this:

1. I take my Excel card database, mark which of my 17,000+ cards I want to make auctions out of (by putting an "A" in the "List?" column, if you must know), and give them a starting price for the auction. Say, "$0.99".
2. I then save a version of said card database (with only the columns I need for my eBay listing: stuff like th price, the name, the image file, etc.) as a ".csv" file. This file is a big pile of shit, that only something like a half-baked Python script written by a retarded gorilla could possibly munge.
3. I then munge this .csv file with a half-baked Python script that wrote (and have re-written a hundred and fifty three times). What this script does (currently) is this:
   • Deletes all the cards I don't want to make auctions for.
   • Figures out what printing of card I'm selling, and picks the right image for it. More on that in a sec.
   • Reads in an HTML template that I've written, and, using this, it generates the HTML for the actual auction body for each card I want to list. You know, the name, the picture, my shipping rules, etc.
   • Re-exports all this crap into the "File Exchange" format that Turbo Lister (eBay's super fun tool) can read. Believe it or not, this format has something like 150 data fields, that are all undocumented. That was fun.
   At the end of this, I have a new .csv file, that Turbo Lister likes, that has just my auctions in it.
   
4. Import said auctions into Turbo Lister.
5. Snarl and curse at Turbo Lister because the import didn't work for some fucking arcane reason that changes every time I update the program with the new version off of eBay.
6. Repeat steps 3-5 until it finally fucking imports.
7. Review my auctions in Turbo Lister. If I am happy, then:
   
8. Upload my auctions to eBay.
9. Page through my auctions online, in stunned disbelief that it all actually worked.

[ Aside #5: Okay, you can let go of your chair now, and un-grit your teeth. ]

It worked. I had written it, and it worked. I couldn't believe it.

I looked at my 18,000+ card collection. It had been growing recently... kindof swelling up... and it now fit in five card boxes. I had allocated 1.5 of those boxes as "for sale".

What in god's name had I been thinking.

Sort #4: Holy Shit Maybe I Can Actually Make Money At This
10 commons, 4 uncommons, and 2 rares?? HA!! How about 2 of each card! I mean really. Am I ever going to need a bunch of common cards and not have them or not be able to get them?? Nah. Not when I can sell 'em!

What I really want is... is...

...twelve hours of labor later, it struck me what I really wanted.

Sort #5: One Of Each Card Ever Printed
Several weeks prior, I had been at a V:TES gaming event (yes! I played! Like, twice!), and this guy had said the following (immensely destructive) words to me:

"Yeah, I finally finished my collection. I've got one of each card. {pause} Not, you know, one of each printing {laughs}, I decided I was good with just one of each card."

One. Of each. Card.

Now, the thing to understand here is that there have been fourteen various printings & expansions of this game, and certain cards get reprinted a lot. There are several cards that have eight different versions, and most cards have at least two.

It was brilliant. Of course that was what the final collection should look like. One. Of each. Card.

...

I know you think that we're done. Or, perhaps, you are wishing that we were done. Or, possibly, you are desperate for me to be done, and have already gouged out your own eyes.

Regardless, you are, I base-lessly imagine, wondering what I could possibly expect to gain out of torturing you with the inane details of this wacky obsession.

I can tell you that I don't truly know. Doesn't matter, though, because that's just where we are, kid. Your only escape now is to read to the end.

(Or, the "back" button. Either way.)

I am, however, not entirely unaware of your suffering. To show you how much I love you, I will summarize some of the rest of this sordid tale, thus:

Sort #6: I Should Pull Out All The Cards I Really Want To Keep

Sort #7: That Was A Stupid Idea, I Had It Right With Sort #5

And, last but not least,

Sort #8: I Bought A Whole Bunch Of New Booster Packs With Some Of My Winnings

Now. I have two more pieces of information I want to share with you... each of which has a link associated with it. And, then I'll give you a final tidbit, with a link, and we'll be done. K?

Piece Of Information The First:
I mentioned my Excel database. This is no ordinary Excel database. It is, at this point, a 23 megabyte monstrosity that tracks the entirety of my card collection. It... it's really something, and I cannot do it justice in word form. Brave souls may want to download and view, at their discretion.

(If you are not familiar with Excel's "grouping" features, try clicking the little "+" and "-" symbols at the top of the sheet.)

Apologies in advance. I had no idea it would turn into that.

I'm... not telling you this to brag about how cool my .xls file is. Well, not primarily for that. I'm telling you this so that the next thing I want to tell you will fit in its proper perspective.

You see the columns that have to do with the number of cards?

Each time I sorted and resorted my 19,000+ cards, I counted them. Each card. And, then updated those values in the spreadsheet, which underwent a structural changes to reflect each organizational approach.

*whew* I feel much better for having said that. I hope you do too.

Piece of Information The Second:
It is necessary, when one is selling large numbers of things on eBay, to get images of said things.

I discovered, early on in this process, that we have a scanner at work that has an amazing feature on it. I can put 15 cards all spaced out nicely on the scan bed (it's pretty big), and this scanner's software will figure out that what I want is fifteen individual files, and do all the grunt work for me, with one scan. Pretty cool.

Of course, it's not so good at naming them. "img353.jpg" is not nearly as useful to me as "assault_rifle_jyh.jpg". That part, I have to do.

OK. Now, here's the link to my eBay image database. Enjoy it, because I'm working on a way to protect it from hooligans like you.

*whew* I feel better for having talked about that. I hope you do, too.

Piece Of Information The Third:
I have 20,000+ cards now. I have no idea how that happened. I've gone completely mad.

p.s. I made that eBay store logo! I'm proud of it, even if it is a derivative work. Photoshop is cool.

*whew*

And, here is a brief pause amid the storm.

The responsible thing to do in times of turmoil like this would be to dutifully report the news. The journalistic ethic... the... it says that... report the...

...

Meh.

I had my hairstylist cut off 10" of hair yesterday. It was all deadwood, pretty much, and I am left with locks that still fall past my shoulders. My perspective on this is clear: there are guys with long hair, and there are guys who chickened right the fuck out at the shoulders. If it doesn't go past your shoulders, it ain't long. It's just large.

Some of the more psychologically-inclined members of my (rapidly diminishing) readership would no doubt be prone to speculate, Days-Of-Our-Lives-Style: does this change in hairstyle reflect some kind of change in personality?

...

Yeah, pretty much. I'm not done yet, not by a long shot, but

HOLY FUCKING SHIT

things seem to be shifting around in my internals. I alluded to this earlier, and will continue to allude to it. To wit:

1. I've lost 80 pounds.
2. I hang out with my family every night.
3. I haven't actually played World of Warcraft in over six weeks. I've spent a total of 1.5 hours in the Burning Crusade.
   

I am not making any predictions of what the darklord will be spending his time doing in the future. Goodness knows, I figured out long ago that predicting my future behavior based on current activities is a great way to drive myself insane. I am merely trying to observe the present, and report the news.

Ringing In My Head

"What would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?"

-Robert Schulle

I Have Some Catching Up To Do

It's been a long, semi-deliberate pause in the darklord's blog. Yes it has.

There is much afoot. The changes that are being wrought across the landscape of my goddamn mind are... effluvious (if I may use a completely inappropriate and partially made-up word).

In fact, it seems almost silly to attempt to make a record of them, so fleeting are they in substance. I change completely one day, and then the next day it's as if I was always this way, and now I'm changing again. It's a tumoult, is what it is, like an avalanche of changes in the way I think, feel, and look out upon the world, as if somewhere along the line (maybe, I dunno, when I stopped eating all the fucking time) I pulled loose that one big rock, and it tumbled down onto that other rock, and there was this cracking noise, and suddenly the whole cliff face is in vertical descent.

...I may sound like I'm exerting hyerpbole into the paragraph you just read (assuming that you didn't just skip to this paragraph). In a way, that is true, and given my well-established propensity for exaggeration, not surprising, but at the same time, I don't know that I am actually overstating the effects.

Let me give you an example. This morning I had a conversation with my darling wife regarding our current financial system, and it's robustness and shortcomings. Now, in the past, merely mentioning this general category of topics would a) make my hair stand up on end, b) make my eyes go all wide and spooky, and c) cause molten lava to actually pour from my mouth.

Ask my wife, she'll confirm all of this.

This morning, however, in contrast to the above, I took in fact and fiction, offered opinions and explored the data, and...

...well, I had a conversation about it, didn't I? Yessir, I think I did. A conversation that was utterly impossible not four months ago. I'm talking Rain Man impossible here, like bashing my head against the wall to make it stop make it stop make it stop kind of thing. This, not surprisingly, causes my wife a certain amount of discomfort and concern. She has come to the not unreasonable conclusion that there are some topics best left, shall we say, off the table. Thus, I believe it was something of a surprise to her to be having something that amounted to an exchange of data with me on this previously debilitating topic.

I offer this by way of example. This is one of dozens of areas of my life that have smoothed rightthefuckout, seemingly through the effort of some freakin' change-causing-system, one that is not being dictated to by me. All I'm doing is showing up to meetings and calling people who share my affliction, and some... thing seems to have been engaged.

Man.

You want a rather astounding, real time example of how this is affecting me?

Here we go.

Ready?

...

When I started writing this post, I wrote the title above because I haven't told you about my World of Warcraft exploits in some time, and much has happened.

And yet, here I am, at the bottom of the page, and no WoW content.

You see? This improves your life as well.

It's Better Than Epic Lewt

I shake my head in wonder as I write this. The changes that have been underway in the depths of what passes for my mind these days are... ye gods, dare I use the word "profound?"

...

Nah, too pretentious. And, considering that it's me saying that, I believe that really says something. "Remarkable" will have to do.

Either way, I cannot help but comment on... my... uh...

Well, quite frankly, my emotions. I know, I know, you didn't come here to hear about my emotions. "Tell us about your Epic Loot some more, darklord!" you shout. "We haven't had an update on your Molten Core exploits in, like, two days!" Yeah, well, stand by, man. Sometimes stuff happens that is more important than WoW. Okay?! Read the freakin' subtitle of this blog, man. You were warned.

I may have mentioned my turkey farming, and its recent losses. One could say we're in the red on this farm, and in a big way. I recently took stock of the situation, and I'll be goddamned if we haven't lost another two of those five-pound mumbajimbas.

But that's not really the point here, to be fair. Turkey loss is all to the good, I mean who the fuck wants to live surrounded by turkeys, for cryin' out loud, but today, today, friends, I want to describe to you another side of this process that flat out startled me, and in a way that I believe will lower what little esteem of me you may have left by a full 'nother notch.

I now regularly attend a gathering of sorts, where all kinds of folks engaged in this turkey business come together to share with other sympathetic ears about how fucked up a business it really is. It's kinda the main thing that's been making this work for me, to be honest; pulling myself out of my daily grind for 90 minutes and sitting with folks who have the same struggles that I do... well whaddaya know. It makes it easier to bear. Huh. Who'da thought.

But there are rules to this gathering. And those of you who know me know that in some profound way I am made of rules. I seem to have in fact dedicated my life to the discovery and expression of rules, particularly those rules that coalesce into a digital fantasy. So, it may be no surprise to find that I find these rules quite interesting. And the ones that sound like challenges... well.

The rule I want to talk about today is the "you can't get up in front of the group and speak until you've been followin' da rules for 90 days" rule.

Imagine, now. Yours truly, for the past 90 days, has been sitting in this group, silent, prevented from getting up there. It. Has. Been. Driving. Me. Mental. I have, in fact, had ample opportunity to consider the idea that this is partially why this rule exists: to motivate we of the attention-getters clan. It causes me despair that having full knowledge of the fact that I'm being remorselessly manipulated in no way changes the efficacy of that manipulation. "90 days, huh?? Oh YEAH?? Well, then, I'll see you in 90 days!!" [sits silently and pouts]

Well, friends, no more. After (lesse, does the math, ummm, let's say on average 2.5 meetings a week, 12 weeks, say ...) 30 meetings of quietly, patiently (and, I must admit, appreciatively and attentively) holding my tongue, last night I got the fuck up there.

And it was funny, by the time I actually made it to the front, I had only gratitude and simple explanation of what brought me there to offer. After walking the path for three months, it was enough... by far enough... to simply be able to get up there and say something. It was awesome.

And here's where it went all darklord on me. I finished, and I went back, and I sat down, and as I savored the final moments of my first official share, here is the the thought that popped unbidden into my head:

"That... was even better... than getting Epic Loot. Better."

Sweet Jesus. I really need to stop playing WoW one of these days.

um... hi.

[sheepish look]

Uh, yeah. Hi. It's... been a while.

...

Let's just cut right to the chase: I'm been undergoing what I can only describe as a complete renovation of my internal motivation systems.


It doesn't really do to underemphasize how profound the last two and half months have been. All bullshit aside, I'm fucking tearing up (all weepy-like) as I'm typing this shit. Seriously.

It seems dumb to me to make the statement that something as simple as getting into a place where my eating habits are healthy could have such a vast effect on me, but... that is, in fact, the case.

Actually, I suppse that considering that my eating habits were killing me, I suppose it's not so suprising. But still.

I mentioned a while back that I've misplaced a couple of these 5-pound turkeys I've been carrying around in my belly. Well, I gotta say, the goddamn things keep going missing. I've lost eight of those motherfuckers so far, and... I'll tell ya, I don't really miss them. They can kinda stay lost for all I care, actually.

But here's the thing. The actual turkeys aren't so much the issue. It's the sanity that is the really big thing. I mean...

uh...

Let's say it this way.

When I was employed in the business of raising and breeding those turkeys, I was a little nuts. And, even though I was a little nuts, I clear enough to be pretty sure that those turkeys would rise up someday , break free of their little pen, and peck the holy hell outta me. Peck me to death, you understand. Guarenteed. That was rather unnerving, given that I was busily feeding and raising those plump little bastards. I mean... why?

Now, looking back on it, I'm understanding better my contribution to that turkey pen. And, the really frightening thing is that I've come to understand that I've got a goddamn turkey farmer inside me (let's call him "Clem"), and he's absolutely dedicated to the idea that I need as many turkeys in that pen as I can manage get my hands on.

Clem and I don't really see eye to eye on the turkey issue.

Fortunately, I have friends. It appears I'm not the only one with a turkey farmer inside them, and it's startlingly helpful to sit and talk with other folks who understand and fear their own version of Clem (be they Leeroy, Agnes, Wilbur, or Edna). Something about it works, and I intend to stick with it. The alternative seems to be going back into the turkey farming business , and that terrifies me.

Like, really, for sure, actual fear, not just theoretical fear, but grips-yer-heart-with-cold-clenching-death kind of fear. Yeah, like that. Fear.

Anyway.

Good to be back, great to see you all. Lemme know if you find any of my turkeys.

Discussing Weighty Matters

My blogging has dwindled of late. You may have noticed. Let me assure you (as I have in previous posts) that I have my reasons.

I am going to try to explain those reasons now.

...

Sigh. Listen, it isn't that I don't love you, because I do. You know that, all the time we've spent together, the long walks, the phone calls... it's not about that, you have to believe that.

It's just... that... see... um...

...

Yeah, that's not working. Let me try another tact.

So, there's stuff I really can't tell you about. Like, for example, [--REDACTED FOR YOUR PROTECTION--], and [--REDACTED FOR YOUR PROTECTION--]. You know, the really [--OMITTED--] stuff.

But I do try.

[ ASIDE: ] The strangest thing about this moment is that I find myself wanting to write. Honestly, when I started this whole "bloggy" thing, I was convinced that in three weeks we would be looking at a withered stump of a blog -- four posts spread out across twenty days, with declining interest and nothing inspiring.

But, here we are, just over a year later, and I'm actually getting more interested in the process by the day.

So what the fuck do I do when the topic is too personal? I mean, do I really want the entire Interweb knowing that [--OMITTED AT THE REQUEST OF THE VATICAN--]? I mean, that's some pretty [--CENSORED--] stuff!!

No! No I don't! But... I want to write about it! WTF?!?!

Not sure. Whatever. [ /ASIDE ]

The short version is that, as I've mentioned, my relationship with food fucking blows.

And, over the last few months, I've stumbled onto some rather startling... life-changing... things ... that have led to my colleagues saying things like "Ye gods, man, what, do you have a wasting disease or something?" and "Hey, stick-boy! Over here!"

I welcome this strange, new world with frank astonishment, because I can assure you, it is not some new injection of willpower or self-discipline that has caused this change. No friends. It is, instead that I fucking asked for help.

Like, really, actually, for reals this time. I have come to understand what the word "plea" means. Also "begging for your life". Turns out you can eat yourself to death, and at this point I have some passing familiarity with what that road looks like.

I think I finally asked the right people for help. I hope so, anyway. Point is, after what I would describe as a long, thorn-strewn road, I've been sane and happy for like two whole weeks, and that is a bit of a shift for me. I'll keep you posted on my progress; right now I've misplaced at least four 5-pound turkeys that I've been carrying around in my belly for the last year. I'm not entirely sure where they went, but they are certainly gone.

If you're curious and want more data, just ask.

An Aspect of Spirit -- Part 2

(Read Part 1!)

When last we left our intrepid adventurer (that would be me), we were discussing the recent realization that I just can't take it any more, that yes, fine, I admit it, I'm not an athiest. I'm also not one of the "vaguely spiritual". I am, in fact, something else entirely.

What exactly is that? That's harder to pin down. Maybe we'll discuss that in a bit here, but first, I feel the urge (yea, unto, a need) to complete the tale that I began (if a 1600-word diatribe can be called a beginning) last week.

Let's set the Wayback Machine to waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back to three weeks ago. That was about the time that this "I've had it and can't take this lying down any more" idea first began to make itself known to my semi-conscious mind.

Let me be straight with you: I was, and have been, struggling with this shit. Now, those who know me may roll their eyes a titch at this, because I struggle with, you know, breakfast. Or, like, casual conversation. My existence seems to be largely defined as a chain of struggles, regardless of whether or not I'm actually being confronted with a challenge. Irrelevant! Worst case, I can struggle over my lack of something to struggle over.

But that's not what I mean. I mean, like, soul-cramping struggle.

I may have mentioned to some of you in the past (and, you know, the entire Internet) that I am not without girth. That my girth-itude has, in fact, been increasing, and rather dramatically. Have I, however, mentioned that I am beginning to think that I may be in a great deal of trouble in this regard? Perhaps not. It's... not an easy subject to broach. One very quickly starts to sound like a simpering weenie, and it's not long before the "Well, why don't you try eating less?" commentary kicks in. Also, it's really fucking scary to consider the idea that I may... not... actually be able to do this without some help. The word addiction is beginning to appear in conversation, and more often than I'd like.

Unrelated to the leading topic? Not when desperation kicks in, my friends. No, I think not.

Here's the thing: were I a born-and-bred athiest, I figure that when rock-bottom began to come into view, I would turn to... I dunno, the government? Friends? Couldn't tell you, see, because I ain't. Nossir. Around these here parts, when we spot rock-bottom-sign (which is how the Fremen refer to it), we go looking for help from the Muad'dib of the spirit.

Which was a bit startling, honestly. I mean, I was beginning to think that my fascination with all this spiritual shit had faded away into obscurity. When it's been seven fucking years since you've dusted off the old altar and shaken the chicken bones at the sky, you kinda start to believe that maybe it was a passing fad.

(I'm kidding about the shaking the chicken bones at the sky thing. You shake the chicken bones to the north.)

But no. In truth, it's starting to look like I was simply content for all those years.

Who'da thought? Seems that a contented darklord doesn't go looking so much for conversations with spiritual archetypes. "Nope, everything's fine, thanks! Keep up the good work!" was pretty much the vibe I was giving off, it appears.

Well, friends, let me tell you. It's been brought to my attention (mainly by the fact that I'm having trouble seeing my feet these days) that something may be slightly out of whack, here in paradise. And so, after the fear made its way through my wittle brain (which took about three weeks), you get what you got with my last post.

Make sense? Fear of death == spiritual reawakening. Funny, that.

...

Okay, so now, as of that last sentence there, you and I are all caught up. We're running in real-time now. Shut down the Wayback Machine, 'cause we ain't gonna need it again in this post, baby.

Which means that I can FINALLY approach the original fucking point that I was setting out to make when I started writing my last post, which was Friday, for cripes' sake. We're at 2300 words so far, filling in the background.

In retrospect, the point that I want to make is probably no longer the point of these posts, and is in fact far less interesting in hindsight than it has been to try to explain all this bullshit to you all.

...

But it's still a cool point. Here we go.

The point that I want to make has to do with what I deem to be a fascinating insight that I received from a friend of mine last week about the relationship between spirituality, your relationships, and how you treat yourself.

I know, I know. Sounds like Teen Vogue psychobabble. Brace yourself; it only gets worse from here on in. But, dig this.

You are, perhaps, familiar with the concept of psychological projection. It's basically the idea that your relationship with other people is largely a reflection of your relationship with yourself. If you're carrying around a lot of self-loathing, you're going to project that onto other people, and will interpret everything they do and say as an expression of their loathing of you, when this may or may not have anything to do with how they actually feel about you.

Capiche? Well-established psychological territory so far.

It is, perhaps, not inobvious or really a stretch to point out that the same is true about your relationship with yourself. If a person is carrying around a bunch of self-loathing, it would not be surprising to see that person carrying on in one self-destructive behavior or another.

In fact, you could say that these two things (external and internal relationships) are both one thing: you will have relationships (with yourself or others) that are what you feel you deserve. That is perhaps an oversimplification, but it will serve for the point I'm making.

Here's the new bit. And, this is the paragraph that I couldn't really write without explaining myself some.

Spirituality, of the sort that we would generally recognize as an actual practice (as opposed to the touchy-feely "sure, stuff is maybe possible, I dunno" approach) is defined generally as including (or, perhaps, being entirely defined by) a relationship with an external entity/power/archetype/universal intelligence/elder god of the deep.

The key word there being relationship.

So, get this: spirituality is a form of psychological projection. More specifically, spirituality is an exercise in which a human pretends to be having a relationship (ideally with someone who is really nice), and practices (if you'll forgive the double entendre) having that relationship.

It's a way... wait for it... to become a better person.

And, that is true regardless of your relationship with religion. All that is required is for the practicer to act as if they are having a relationship with a real thing. I'm not 100% sure that you even have to really believe it, to be honest. Couldn't tell ya, though. See previous post.

And...

...well, that's about it.

I've come a very long way in this post, much longer than I expected when I sat down to write about this topic, and I'm glad you made it all the way to the end, Fearless Reader. I honestly never thought we'd be having this conversation, but here we are. I, for one, am very interested to see what else is waiting around the corner.

An Aspect of Spirit -- Part 1

As I sit here at my desk, while my avatar stands placidly on a rock out in the Bay of Storms in eastern Azshara, idly tossing her fishing line into the grey water in search of [Stonescale Eel], my mind, she wanders.

I suppose that's sort of the point of fishing. That's what people tell me, anyway.

I have, of late, been given over to some musings of a sort that have not graced my frontal lobes in more than seven years. And, I have to warn you, the general topic that these thoughts revolve around has no place in Silicon Valley. My dilemma is that I spend 100% of my time in said Valley.

The topic at hand is spirituality.

...

That's right. I went there. Uh huh.

Allow me the liberty to fill in some of the background, and then we'll talk about being part of an oppressed class. You'll like that part, it's got great sniveling. But first, some history.

My father was what I must describe as a philosophy collector. Over the course of my childhood, I was a member of just about every religious or philosophical organization that could be joined and attended in the greater Seattle area. He would dig himself into a new sect, burrowing into it like a paleontologist, reverently dusting off, examining, and catalogueing each new idea he came across.

His interest, though, was primarily in learning new things, so once he had taken his full measure of a group, he would invariably begin to uncover their faults. This would lead to the fall from grace, the leaving, the desperate chest-beating about never being able to find anything real or true, and then the search for the next thing to dig into.

So, then, naturally I (and my mother and brother) ended up being dragged along behind this philsophical juggernaut, bouncing off each new crested wave like a water skiier trying to earn his water legs without drowning. Because if there is one thing anyone who interacted with my father knew it was this: that man could share. Like nobody's business.

We called it being "Dwighted".

Expressing interest in a topic that my father understood was a dangerous behavior. The best outcome you could hope for would be a quick dive into hjs voluminous reference stacks, followed by a single papered volume or article being shoved into your hands. Worst case was that he took you on as a disciple. This happened... all the time.

The conjunction of this compulsive information mining and equally compulsive information sharing meant that I (and my brother, although you'd hardly know it to look at him) grew up with one of the most robust spritual and philosophical backgrounds I've heard of. It was the equivalent of being a Pastor's child, but in every religion known to mankind.

Thus, I got a chance to see the profound strengths and profound weaknesses of most of the major (and quite a few of the minor) spiritual organizations out there. It left me scarred for life. And, as it turns out, a secret social pariah, wandering in a technological wilderness.

Because I bought it, see.

I believe.

Let's be clear what I mean by that, since our good friends the Asshole sect of the Christian faith (as opposed to most Christians, who are generally astoundingly kind and understanding people) have gone ahead and polarized the philosophical landscape to the point where I can't say the word "believe" without it accumulating extra meaning about having confidence that the sky is populated with winged messengers and human dieties with white hair, the second coming of one Jewish Rabbi or another, or various other blatant absurdities.

So. To be clear.

What I mean by believe is that over the course of my life I have taken the time to experiment with various forms of spiritual pursuit, and have proven to myself that there's plenty we don't understand about this universe we live in, and much that is helpful to the human condition. There is quite a lot of the experience of living that has been swept into the dark, musty subbasement of Non-Scientific Hooey that is, alas, quite possibly true (at the very least, in the context of human emotions, and quite possibly more than that). And, some of this Hooey of which we speak I have proven to myself to be factual... at least to my own satisfaction.

If only it were provable outside of my own mind. Sigh.

I am, perhaps, not the first human to express such a regret.

For the early parts of my adult life (and much of my teenagerhood) I was a practicing SomethingOrOther-ian. I gathered together the pieces of the various teachings that I resonated with (you know, resonate, like my crystalline structure vibrates when exposed to sound. I'm a crystal elemental of spirit.), and did with them as I pleased, pretty much.

Until I moved to California.

Now, you would think that moving to the Bay Area that I would be among like-minded souls, and that my spiritual interests would... nope! Not so much!

Let's narrow in on this for a moment, since it is, in my opinion, non-obvious what is going on around here, and it certainly isn't what I was expecting. There is a kind of perfect storm of de-spiritualization blowing its winds through the Bay, which is kindof the opposite of what the travel brochures would have you believe.

Here's how I see it:

California, as you may know, is the generally accepted leader o' the pack when it comes to acceptance of a broad range of ideas. People flee to the west coast to escape the homophobia, sexism, fundamentalism, and general religiosity (if I may mangle my mother language for a moment) of other areas in the country. And this is where things start to go weird.

See, some large portion of the folk that flee here are fleeing here out of a desire to be able to express themselves as a Follower of Science and a Skeptic of All Things Flim-Flammy. These folk tend to see any spiritual pursuit as an indication of a weakness of mind, brainwashing, or perhaps flat out mental illness. "How could you believe in something you can't see or touch?" goes the argument.

Can't blame 'em, really.

And, here's the tricky part: many of them are up in arms about it. They see (rightfully) that fundamentalism is tearing our country apart, and (wrongfully) blame religion and the many and varied philosophical pursuits attatched thereto for the plague of incoherency that we as a nation are suffering from. They hate people of faith.

Hate 'em.

Add to this the other side of the quotient: the aggressively over-spiritual. Berkeley and the Haight are famous for broad acceptance of spiritual pursuits, many of which stink so badly of snake-oil that you'd swear that guy standing on the street corner is the Music Man. Friends, trouble! Right here in River City!

Having a conversation with these folks can be just as frustrating as one with their oppressors. A philosophical conversation with a wild-eyed Follower of Crystal Healing And Stuff is... just fucking impossible, actually. It derails so fast you would swear they were doing it deliberately.

And, often, they hate the unspiritual. Hate 'em. In a really nice, accepting way.

So, imagine you lived in a town that was populated with 25% hardcore Republicans, and 25% hardcore Democrats. Would you dare to strike up a political conversation with anyone, given a 50% chance that you're going to be unwittingly swept up in The Great War that you have no interest in?

It is ironic, I figure, that there are enough of these aggressively spiritually inclinded and disinclined folk around the Bay Area that, living here, in the center of acceptance and progressive thinking, one gets very, very cautious about bringing up any kind of spirituality in casual conversation, if only to protect one's sanity. And, even worse, if word gets out that you secretly harbor spiritual ambitions, there's a chance that someone up the foodchain at your place of work is one of these psychos, and that that will have a direct negative impact on your career.

Yaay.

So, now that we've described the landscape in which I linger, I can finally start the conversation that I've come all this long way to write, and, as you are reading this, you have endured a torrent of wandering paragraphs to read.

I can't take it any more. The gig is up. I confess. I'm one of them. A huge part of my person, my essence, the, shall we say, fiber of my being, is a profoundly spiritual substance of some kind. If one were to render me (as one would render fat into soap), you'd end up with 75lbs of gamer, 75lbs of dad / husband, and about 100lbs of spiritual dude.

It's just that it's all on the inside. So you never see it.

To some, such a declaration may be equivalent to me confessing that I wear black. Sort of an "um, gasp?" situation. If so, then great, you know me better than I have known myself for the past few years.

To others... not sure. I haven't been very forthcoming on this topic during the last... decade.

So, here's a note: If you've managed to make it all the way down this page, you must be a friend of mine, because who the fuck else would endure such a post? Checkmate! So, friend, here's a request for you: don't you dare dance around your athiesm with me just because I discussed this shit.Sneer at my woefully illogical thinking. Scoff if you must. Better that than tiptoeing around the topic so as not to offend. You tiptoe around me at your peril, bub.

...

To be continued. Because, believe it or not, I didn't manage to talk about the actual point of this post, and I'm already well over my word count.

Be afraid.

My Belly Spilleth Over

I hate getting fat.

It's hopelessly degrading, and frustrating, and humiliating, and life-threatening, and stupid. Yet, here I am.

At lunch yesterday, I was talking about my fascination with my stupid behavior with a smoker friend of mine, and we hit on a remarkable shared experience: that of standing there, observing yourself engaging in a behavior you know will kill you if you sustain it over time, and having the knowledge of that fact affect your behavior in no way whatsoever.

It's amazing, actually. I stand there, look at some fattening snack that I don't need, and think to myself "that's the shit that I need to stop eating, right there. That's the bad stuff." And then, I walk over, and help myself to it.

o.O

(That's an emoticon for raising one eyebrow, by the way. See? It's two eyes? The period is the nose? Yeah. Picked that up on WoW, and have been unable to stop. Again with the compulsive behavior.)

What's even more remarkable is that I have, in the past, managed to connect the notion of continuing to eat like I do with denying my kids of their father in their adulthood. I mean, if I keep this up, there's a good chance I'm going to kick it before my grandchildren are in highschool.

Consider that I know what that feels like. My dad died in his sleep at 51 (of being fat, methinks), and I still harbor a certain resentment against him for giving me an adulthood without him. It sucks, frankly.

Yet, I stand there, looking at the open bag o' Doritos that my co-workers have thoughtfully left out on the table after our TGIFriday meeting, and go ahead and take a few.

Or, a lot. What's astounding to me is that I can see my children's faces as I'm doing this, and it doesn't prevent me from taking the destructive action.

What. The. Fuck.

I have, it seems, a remarkable ability to embrace and endure horrendous internal paradoxes. The strongest emotion I feel about all this is fascination and horror, horror at my lack of horror over my actions (if that makes sense).

My talent, it seems, is to be able to observe the horrendous, in both the abstract and the personal, and understand it very deeply. This, without any desire to actually alter the (infinitely predictable) outcome that awaits at the end of the road I'm walking.

Perhaps to distract myself from the fate in store for me, I have become quite bemused by certain small things that have happened along the road to robustness. I have an idea that all large men go through these little milestones, that they are a kind of shared cultural event (like driving a car for the first time, or your first sexual experience).

These, however, I imagine are only discussed when among other men, and only when sitting around a table somewhere reasonably anonymous. Like a bar. With drinks to lubricate the mind.

Here, then, is the progression of initiations I encountered, and which I am coming to believe all men encounter, while traveling on the road to becoming a Fat Boy:

The Belly
The first event was when I stopped simply growing larger in general, and began to poke out in front. The arrival of the actual belly is a moment not easily forgotten, and is filled with horror. Dieting ensues.

Then, horror fades, and is replaced by familiarity. Dieting skips, stutters, and dies.

The Hanging Shirt
The second great event was when I could no longer bear to tuck in my shirt. Time it was that tucking in my shirt made for good form, and I could boldly carry my chest about (as it was still larger than the supporting gut).

Then, one day, tucking it in only made it more clear how much larger my gut was than my waist.

The best solution to this, as it turns out, is to simply leave the shirt untucked. A draped shirt, you see, although it doesn't actually hide the enormousness underneath it, at least obscures it. Button-down shirts are actually better for this than T-shirts.

Since I made this discovery, I have been observing my well-gutted friends and co-workers and, uh, everyone I see. And lo, I'll be damned if every single one of them hasn't learned the same trick. Some go for sports jerseys, some go for button downs, but no one save those most comfortable with their rotundity tuck the goddamn thing in. Look around, see for yourself.

The Belly Drops
The most recent event (and, in some ways, the most horrifying) was the day that I realized not only that I had been holding in my gut for years, but that I could not, in fact, hold it in any longer.

I swear, this is what happened: I woke up one morning, looked at myself in the mirror, noticed that I was straining to keep it in, and let it go... and I gained 20 pounds in 0.2 seconds.

I told this story to a friend of mine at work. He laughed and laughed (I have very sensitive, kind friends), and said that he was wondering what had happened, because I looked like I had gained a bunch of weight recently. I assured him that it was just my belly dropping.

Take a look around, and see if you can find any men that have a sort-of large belly. I daresay, you won't find many. There's no-belly guys (who are holding it in), and then there's large belly guys (who let it all hang out). I haven't seen many in-betweeners.

...

That's it so far. What horrors lie in store in the future, my dear and beloved friends? I'll keep you posted.

Mr. Sandman

Let's set the Wayback Machine to last year. Specifically, one particular morning.

I awoke, as I often do. On this morning, I awoke to my wife sitting on the end of our bed, looking at me curiously. Not good.

After a brief hesitation, she asked, "Did you know you have sleep apnea?"

The scene buckles here, the camera tilting at a skewed angle to convey the sense of the bottom dropping out of the world for the character in the scene (me). I had, at this moment, a crystalline image pop into my head. It was of the Grim Reaper, hooded cowl and scythed, standing in the little walkway space that decorates my front door, rasing a skeletal hand to knock.

For, you see, my father had sleep apnea. Bad. So bad, in fact, that he would literally rattle the windows when he snored. And, he died in his sleep, at the tender age of 51. It is entirely possible that his condition contributed to his death.

Thus, the creature knocking on my front door was, in my mind, the very same creature who had claimed the life of my father.

[ shudder ]

The Reader's Digest version of sleep apnea, for those of you not in the know, is that when folks who suffer from it fall asleep, they relax to a point where their breathing passage collapses. Having their breathing cut off is, not surprisingly, dismaying to the sleeper. The body's response to this is to startle awake. Some folks awake fully, many times per night (torturous, that), and some folks merely awaken enough to re-open their breathing passage. I am, apparently one of the latter, and until my wife had a sleepless night and noticed that I wasn't breathing while I slept, was completely unaware of the condition.

It did, however, strike fear into my heart. Oh yes.

At the time, I had very little recourse in mind. My primary reaction was to change my diet, in an attempt to lose some weight. As my father had struggled with this condition, I actually knew some things about it(which, as you will read shortly, turned out to be a hinderance of sorts), and one of the things I knew was that it was exacerbated by having a thick neck.

Diet change? Largely successful. Weight loss? Not so much. Startling, I know.

Months passed. I was aware that I was apnea-ic (to coin a phrase), but I spent most of my effort grappling with a sense of desperation about overcoming the disorder. My father had struggled with it, you see, going so far as to having had surgery on his soft palate (to open it up some). Failures, all of his attempts, as far as I understood it. And, I was reluctant to start marching down the path of surgery on this condition at the tender age of 33. Seemed abrupt to me.

However, I did gradually come to believe that this was a much more invasive issue than I had originally understood. It slowly dawned on me that over the past decade I had become tired. Tired in a way that I had originally attributed to aging, and working a lot, and staying up too late playing World of Warcraft (all reasonable assumptions, even in hindsight), but...

God damn I was tired. I had gotten into the habit of taking half-hour naps in my car after going to lunch, before returning to work. My traditional homecoming after work was to collapse on the couch and sleep for 30 minutes. I consistenly woke up sleepy. I started to realize that this whole sleep apnea thing fucking sucked, and that I wasn't really the same person I remembered being.

I spent a lot of time telling my friends about this crap. Strangely enough, though, the "knowledge" and "previous experience" I had about the condition had the unintended side-effect of delaying my actually researching the condition. Dumb.

My wife, of course, came to my rescue. As she so often does. (As an aside, how to bachelors survive in the wild? I would most certainly have locked myself out of my house and starved to death on some random street corner long ago if my wife didn't keep an eye on me... it makes me think that bachelors have access to some hidden lore that I can only marvel at.)

She read to me an article in a health magazine (see??? who subscribes to health magazines?!? my wife!) that was talking about my condition! Who'd have thought, that there were actual people out there that knew more about this thing than I did! Get right outta town!

And, in that article, I first heard about my new best friend, the CPAP machine.

CPAP stands for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure. It's a facemask you wear at night that shoves air down your throat, which prevents the airway from collapsing, see. The article described how it worked, and then had a bunch of testimonials from people who's life had been dramatically changed for the better by this technological marvel. It mentioned that some folks found the device uncomfortable, but fuck that shit. I called my doctor the next day.

Something like two weeks later, I spent a horrible, long, boring night at the Sleep Clinic, where they recorded my brain waves, and watched me sleep with an infrared fucking camera. It was surreal, but very interesting. I couldn't sleep for shit, but apparently they got the data they needed. I spent half the night "sleeping" normally, and the other half sleeping with the CPAP mask thing on my face. (I found the mask acceptably uncomfortable.)

When I saw the report...

Well, it turns out that when I sleep, I wake myself up at a rate of 29 "events" per hour. I couldn't believe what I was seeing: I wake myself up every two minutes. There was this startling line in the report, that went like this:

"REM Events.............................................0"

Zero. Zip. None. No REM.

For over a decade, I have not dreamed. It's funny; looking back, I thought it was just that I wasn't remembering my dreams. It's a bit horrifying to realize that no, in fact, I wasn't dreaming at all.

It's a miracle I'm still sane. Some may feel this is an optimistic evaluation of my current mental state, but be that as it may, holy fucking shit.

I (and my doctor) learned another startling fact from this report: when I slept with the mask on, my snoring events dropped to almost zero. This left room, apparently, for another malevolent demonic force to enter into the picture, as it turns out that I also suffer from a thing called Restless Leg Syndrome. In this wonderful human adapatation to planet earth, the sufferer's legs twitch as they sleep. This has the same effect as the snoring (although in a less violent procedure): it wakes you up. When not waking myself up with snoring, I wake myself up at almost the same rate with twitching.

When you step back, and take a look at the situation, what you have here is someone who is really unskilled at sleeping. I suck at it. I'm a neophyte, a level 1 sleeper. I couldn't sleep my way out of a wet paper bag. And, my doctor concurred.

For the sleep apnea, I was given the lovely CPAP machine. For the twitching, I was given a drug that they use to calm Parkinson's patients (you know, the folks who's hands tremble constantly) to take at night.

Let me say this: after a single night, the change in my ability to think was nothing short of miraculous. That I now am able to largely take it for granted, and have returned to some version of the dude I was in my late teenage years is sweet beyond reason.

Thank you, western medicine, for giving me my brain back.

Almost Like An Excuse

So now I'm pondering weight loss.

It's nearly impossible to discuss (or, heck, to even think) about this topic without shipping in a truckload of baggage from far-flug locations. At least, it is if you're a middle-class 30-something 'merican deeply dipped in the cultural fondue of the States. But, as it turns out, ya kinda hafta try anyway, mountains of baggage or no.

Let's start at some random spot in the middle.

My wife recently came back from a trip to Paris (or, Paree, as it is known), and returned bright-eyed and inspired by the notoriously pragmatic approach French ladies take to their food. That is, they don't eat very much of it. Remarkably, this keeps them thin.

...

You can taste the irony in that paragraph I crafted for you, can't you? One eyebrow raised, just a little, the barest hint of a smile, to see if you'll get the joke? Okay, good. Now, imagine that that's the best I've been able to do over the course of my years on this rotating rock to confront the issue of my belly. I can summon irony about the topic at will; I'm an expert at smiling at the painful truth of our collective (and my specific) inability to remain slender over the long-term. But so far all that has done has made me clever and fat.

Soon, if this continues, I will be clever and dead.

Here's the thing: I've watched many of my various compatriots try and fail at an abundance of tactics designed to deal with this scourge. My father was weighty, and it killed him, and he struggled his entire life with this or that or this or now I'm gonna only eat rocks.

From observing this constant flailing, I deduced that temporary "self-control-based" solutions seem to lead to long-term failure. I'm not certain that this is right, but I'm like 95%. Which is to say, I think it's an unlikely path to success.

So, what, then?

I think my best thought so far is environmental design. Which is to say, construct a life that requires me to behave in the manner that will keep me alive until my late 90's.

What behavior are we talking about here? To wit: thin people fall into two broad categories: the ones who don't eat very much, and the ones who don't eat very much and excercise a lot. The ones that exercise are broad, and the ones that don't are skinny. I'm broad, so which behavior is appropriate for me seems clear.

This means that I must design a life that requires me to starve and excercise for the right to continue my pursuits.

So, that's the general parameters of the problem. Doesn't sound too hard, does it? So why the fatness?

Not sure. But, I'm starting to wonder about one thing: I have been operating under the supposition that I have a remarkable lack of self-discipline when it comes to changing my behavior around eating and exercising. Now, history is certainly my friend when it comes to finding evidence for this. But...

...doesn't that sound convenient to you? I mean... you know...

Okay, so OW.

It really, really hurts to have a cool thing you designed summarily cut from the game.

Now here's the problem: it is well known that designers love to sit there and beat their chest in woe when their ideas are removed from their games by producers. It is, in fact, stereotypical behavior to protest such cuts. So much so that it galls me when I see it, and it galls me even more when I do it.

But, man, sometimes it really stings.

It seems to be largely in the presentation. Producers take note: there is a great deal of difference between saying, "We're thinking about cutting that boss fight and replacing it with something simpler; what do you think about that?" and saying, "Yeah, we cut that. Thank god, too, it didn't make any sense."

Don't get me wrong. When a producer comes to me and asks me what I think about a proposed cut, I'm well aware that they aren't actually looking for my opinion on the matter. It's been settled all ready, generally long before the question made its way to my desk. That said, even the slightest courtesy in these matters often makes the difference between a kind of resigned acceptance of the inevitable and sitting there stewing in frustration and confusion (and then blogging about it).

But still, one is presented with the dilemma: the way such things get handled often really fucking stings, but if I make any noise about that fact, I have to overcome the initial assumption that I'm just complaining about my work getting cut. Which I'd like to do. Which of course is something that wants to invade any conversation I have about the topic, and takes some reasonable amount of restraint to prevent. Which makes convincing people that I really don't just want to grouse all the more difficult.

Sigh.

Needless to say, they cut something today. It happens. I fantasize sometimes about ways to handle the urgent necessity of game development in such a way as to not require me to sit and take it unflinchingly. There ought to be a better way, dammit.

None jump to mind, though. Other than just being kind to one another.

It Keeps Happening This Way

[ random emotional outburst ]

I'm getting tired of myself.

Before I go on, I should explain something. I have absolutely no patience for insufferable artist folk who go on and on and on about how terrible their life is, and how it's all a big fucking tragedy. Because it isn't, see. So, take this post in that context: I'm engaging in behavior that I find abhorrent.

So, here's the deal: I'm paid to think. It's pretty much my whole gig. That, and talking. The way it works, generally, is that someone with their hands on the wheel of whatever project I'm on points me at some problem, and goes, "Explain!" I go trundling off, dissect the poor creature with my talons and mandibles, and bring back a rather detailed explanation of what made it tick prior to my arrival. Often it is no longer "ticking" per se by the time I am done with it, but those are the risks you take.

My masters then go "Hmm. Okay. Then we should do is..." and kinda wander off talking amongst themselves, holding the information I brought back between them like a medical specimen, or a rare artiface. Sometimes I engage in the conversation about what we are going to do about what I found, and sometimes I don't.

I like this gig. I like it a lot. And, I'm pretty good at it, if the reports on my progress and my continued deployment against expensive problems are any indication of the quality of my work. Figure they are.

So then why is it, do you suppose, that over and over I find myself in a room full of people who don't want to hear what I have to say? And here is where the random emotional outburst actually begins: it's so frustrating to be hired for a given strength (say, one's analytical abilities), and then to be constantly ignored when attempting to apply that strength to problems other than the specific problems that one's masters are aware of. This situation is bizarre to the extent that my outspoken nature and foresight are often the very reason I have been brought in. To be ignored in such a case is surreal at best.

And yet, it happens again, and again, and again... and again... and again... until I have to step back and say, "What in the fuck am I doing wrong that is creating this situation?" Because clearly I can't have simply ended up in the same situation in every professional role I've had to date by coincidence.

I think the answer lies in what I am willing to settle for. For, of course, what you will settle for is what the world will give you. So, then, it follows that the solution to this dilemma is to change what I am willing to settle for.

This will be difficult.

But, as a wise man once said, "What the fuck else have you got to do?"

It is not I who am crazy. It is I who am Mad.

Something just struck me. Like the kiss on the end of a wet fist, as they say.

I am a certain amount of crazy. I've always been a bit looped; it's something I came by honestly (thanks, Dad), and something that I nurtured as a child, not knowing just how dangerous it could become.

And here I am, struggling to stay calm in a huge, monolithic corporate environment. It's a fucking nightmare, some days. (Others, it's quite nice. Hmmm, I experience ups and downs... hmmmm...)

I have fluctuated from wildy successful to not-so-successful here. And it just occurred to me that my success seems to vary partially by how crazy the people I'm working with are.

Here's the way it works:

When I work with really crazy fuckers, I understand them, and can talk to other people about where they are coming from. Also, them being really crazy makes my neuroses seem mild. Thus, people cling to me like a life-preserver. "Save us! You understand these fuckers! Go... make them stop or something!" And I do.

But, when I'm working with normal people, well...

...I stick out. Badly. And, it makes me want to turtle or hermit or explode or something. The thing I want the most is to be understood, and normals have no ability to comprehend where I'm coming from. My dynamo runs just way too fast for most people to handle. Its whine makes them afraid, and so they would prefer not to have to deal with me.

Shit, sometimes I'd prefer not to have to deal with me.

So, back to the point: I succeed when I work in the fucking looney bin. I hate it, but a certain part of me likes it, because deep down, I know that I'm just one step away from that, myself, and I prefer looks of comprehension to looks of fear. By a very wide margin.

Strange.