"I want to make the audience sit differently in their seat." David Lynch said that, in an interview with the New York Times while he was making Wild At Heart. I think that phrase nicely sums about what I love about artists - especially writers and film-makers who can do that to me.
          There are a variety of reasons why I enjoy certain authors and film makers - such as David Lynch, Thomas Harris, David Cronenberg, Mike Leigh - but the reason why I respect them is single, if not simple. They can take a sentiment - it doesn't matter which - that usually remains buried within every single person's mind, bring it up to the light and make us stare at it. They evoke themes and cause us to examine parts of ourselves that we might rather ignore. And to do that takes courage, honesty and the ability to take an intensely private thing and give it to the public in a form they can recognize and empathize with. No easy task, that.

          I'm big on art-as-visceral-experience. I suppose it might be condemned as a lack of depth on my part, but I like movies, stories, pictures that appeal to me on a gut-level, first. Then I can have great fun looking inwards and determining why a thing would cause a strong resonance within me.
          Resonance... That's how I would describe the effect David Lynch first had on me. I was about fourteen when I saw Blue Velvet and, for days afterwards, I felt like I was humming all over, like a bell that had been struck and allowed to settle into silent vibrations. I'm willing to ascribe a certain portion of that to the usual chemical imbalances involved with being fourteen years old, but sometimes that familiar hum comes to me again... I enjoy it. It means I've found a new part of myself - or I'm about to learn more about something I usually consider a closed subject.

          I'm not belittling intellectual experiences. hell no. But I believe that I will always carry a clearer memory of how I felt the first time I read Dune, rather than the first time I solved a murder mystery before reaching the last page. Besides, the best kind of visceral encounter - be it going to an art exhibition or suddenly noticing the damp wind blowing through your hair - will lead to intellectual exploration, no?

          Of course, every day I wish that I could pull hidden issues into the light with my writing, but I'm still struggling. I'm never so inhibited as when I'm writing, strangely enough. Some may use a blank page as a confessional, but for me, it's a playground - and playgrounds are almost always safe.
          My imagination needs to visit the wrong side of town. :)

          Yeee-ha!! I just got a raise! It's a little one - but any raise is nice, when it's a surprise - and I've got a promise for a more substantial raise if I'm still here in six month's time. Yay! *happy dance*.

          Icing on the cake: we now have an Odwalla juice cooler in my office - only a dollar a bottle - yummers! I'm very glad to have something healthy to drink in the morning - Femme Vitale for all my friends, barkeep! Of course my fellow vividians were mixing the stuff with vodka before the day was over. :)

          I had a nice visit with Chris H. last night - after two years' acquaintance I finally got to catch up with the guy outside of a gaming convention. Sushi, beer and wide-ranging conversation. A good time was had by all, methinks. Well, except for the fact that I stayed out way too late and Alex had to pick me up at the BART station in the middle of the night. Oh well, I'll make it up to him. ;)

Johanna's Gaming News
          While the fate of dear insane Patricia remains unknown, I've been taking advantage of this time in limbo to write up yet another insane nubbin for her. The poor dear is trying to quantify reality, to prove the existence of a world beyond her ability to hallucinate, but she has no idea how to do it. With luck, I'll write up her little epiphany (of course she's going to have an epiphany, what's insanity without moments of lucidity?) before the game on Saturday.

          I've been doing some thinking on Starting Over for Rachel and I think I've got the outline sorted out, now, although I'm going to have to change a couple of minor facts in the prologue - remove the bank card from her wallet and replace it with a Social Security card, that kind of thing... A tricky narrative problem has been giving Rachel enough information/abilities to survive, without making it too easy for her to relearn her past - or so difficult that she gives up the search. It should be interesting.

          Rob has formally announced his upcoming brain-candy game, C.A. 2005, and it looks like that it could be a fun group - just as soon as the group figures out that if we stand in a circle, facing outward, it's far less likely that we're going to get stabbed in the back. The paranoia level that chronic Vampire-playing causes can be hard to shake off. :) Still, I'm looking forward to playing my little Aeon Flux clone.

***

Breaking news! Indecent Exposure, a journal my my friend, BrianW has just been launched. Go visit him and say hello!

          Johanna's book recommendation du jour: Hannibal by Thomas Harris. I succumbed to the media frenzy and bought it the other day. The pacing is a little deliberate at first, but I didn't have a problem with that. The first three chapters hooked me enough to get through any slow spots - which I'm willing to blame on my impatience rather than the author's plodding. I read the last fifty pages on the train into work this morning and it was all I could do to stifle my chuckles of outraged delight. I don't know if I would have enjoyed it quite so much if I didn't see so many parallels between characters in the book and characters I'm playing, but I'm not going to waste much time on that tangent. I enjoyed the book, and that's enough.

          I received an interesting e-mail yesterday, from a chap called Steve, who had read Unplugged. He says he's starting an online 'zine with an intended focus on fanfiction, gamer writing, etc, and he wanted to know if I would like to submit anything. Since when does a writer turn down a chance for their work to be read? However, I'm a bit leery as I have no idea if this project is going to be competently done, or yet another fanboy-with-more-ethusiasm-than-attention-span site. Time will tell, I suppose. Of course I'm going to give him a few of my bits and pieces, I'm willing to risk the worst-case scenario for a bit of exposure.

          Yesterday was another low-control day for my imagination and libido. Fortunately my self-control managed to reign over all, otherwise I would have indecently propositioned a few of my co-workers. It's not my fault if I happen to work with bunch of good looking, well mannered people. *chortle* Those who make those kind of decisions are threatening to pack us all off to some kind of sexual harassment seminar, to which most of the office replied "Is that where we'll learn to do it properly?". I pity any missionary-of-political-correctness who gets stuck with vivid's engineers. The missionary would be devoured within minutes - and a record of the feast would be online ten minutes after that.

          I watched Nick's acting class again - see June 24th for more details - and it was just as much fun as the first time. The students have made a lot of progress in just one week. They've identified and begun dealing with their greater problems and getting past their nervousness of each other. There are some good students in that class. I'm enjoying it because it's like a refresher course for me - and sorely needed, too.
          The most basic precepts of acting are applicable to roleplaying - I just wish more players paid attention to that, the quality of games would improve by an order of magnitude. Most bad roleplaying is caused by the fact that players rarely listen to each other. Rather than listening to other characters and using their energy, most of us - myself included - just bounce and rebound off one another, like dodgem cars. It's too much to expect your average gamer to get into the method-aspect of LARPing, but I wish they would know enough to listen!

          Another of Johanna's patented symbols-with-a-sledgehammer dreams last night...
          I'm running a live action game at the house that I last lived in in England. I'm enjoying showing people around, even while I notice changes that have been made to the house that I remember. The bay window in the study that looks out to the back yard has been replaced by a more mundane sliding door, but the carpet in the kitchen is the same no-pile industrial gray that I last saw when I was eleven.
          The game starts well. Most of the players are already known to me. I see Lisa and Rob in full costume, chatting on the sidewalk simultaneously ignoring and enjoying the attention they are getting from passers-by. I move into the kitchen and my character - I think I'm playing Rachel - tries to break up a fight between two others. When I pull out my character packet, I notice that the needed cards are jumbled, out of date or outright missing. As I fumble with assorted cards, the players move away. They don't have the patience to wait for me, or for a combat 'time bubble' to be resolved. A moment later, the two other characters involved take my word for what my character statistics should be. The conflict is resolved a moment later, and they, too, wonder off.
          EricL comes into the kitchen - he's the logistics guy for the game, and I'm a little irritated because I count on him to take care of character packets and now my enjoyment has been spoiled. I feel a little hurt by how quickly the other players had left - the same kind of hurt a child feels in the playground when they're picked last for a team, or not at all. I try to take it out on Eric, but he's smart enough to see through it - and stubborn enough not to take any bullshit from me. He simply apologizes and writes up a few numbers from memory - a temporary character sheet will do just fine.
          I notice that the kitchen floor is filthy - not just dirt, but litter, discarded toys, spare change, all manner of discarded things. I start picking things up, and decided that I really need a broom to deal with this level of clutter. I wonder how anybody was able to keep their footing in the mess as I drive it from one end of the kitchen to the other with a broom. I wonder how the game is going, but I'm still a little stung by the other's behavior and I feel I should be more concerned with keeping the place tidy... Fade

Johanna's Gaming News
          Not only does art imitate life - or somesuch - but games can imitate each other. One of my players in Aragon has given me a concept for an amnesiac character - and has given me a lot of room to make up their missing past. Given that my imagination has been simmering on the matter of amnesiac vampires - first Patricia and now Rachel - I've got a lot of ideas about why a vampire might be missing a large percentage of their past - and how to get it back.
          And that character is not the only one with memory troubles. I think I'll have to tie them together, somehow. Evil GM Chortle. But that's definately my limit for missing-memory characters. Two in a game of sixteen is plenty...

          I had a minor Patricia epiphany during Nick's acting class. Trish has fallen apart pretty severely, following June 27th, more so than I expected. During Nick's class, I was idling away some time doing cluster exercises, trying to define the definite factors within her life, and - lo and behold - realized that the reason why Trisha has fragmented is because she's lost faith in the one thing she thought she could always believe in - herself.
          Understanding that is well and good, but the tricky part will be rebuilding her. It's a little to pick up the pieces without any hands - which is how she feels.
          Of course, by this time tomorrow, Trish may be a member of the Sabbat, and that would restore her in many ways - just not ways she would have expected. Annoyingly enough, although I have always said that it was inevitable that Trish join the Sabbat, now I'm stalling. The character is in a very interesting space right now, and membership in the Sabbat will just put a brick wall across the expressway of her mind. I fear that going antitribu will slingshot Patricia's behavior and mindset back to the first two years of when I played her - childish, selfish and irritating, because I think the Sabbat offers very limited opportunities for character development. Hm. Well, I suppose time will answer all questions, right?

Hm, there's a song by Suzanne Vega - Thin Man - which I've always thought applied to Patricia, particularly given the latest circumstances.

          He is not my friend, but he is with me,
          Like a shadow is with a foot that falls.
          His hand is on my back when I step from the sidewalk,
          or when I'm walking down these darkened halls

          He's the Thin Man
          With a date for me
          To arrive at some point
          I don't know when it will be

          He is not my friend, but he is with me,
          And he promises me a peace I never knew.
          I cannot give in, I must refuse him
          But could I really be the one to resist that kiss so true?

Of course, I really like Suzanne Vega, too - I have since high school...If you're wondering, that song is on the album Nine Objects of Desire.

***

          A non-sequitur of a day at work, yesterday. Although my boss did come up to me at 4:40 and say "By the way Johanna, we need to organize an offsite for the entire department, next week. Go find out when everyone's vacation schedule, willya." After a moment of frantic spluttering on my part, it became apparent that he did not mean for me to start this task right then, Tuesday morning was just fine.
          Hmph, bosses who cause coronaries on Friday afternoons should be beaten. Mind you, knowing my boss, I don't know if he'd mind that much. I love this town!

          I spent most of the day twiddling out story ideas for Starting Over, the saga of Rachel's clone. At Rob's last night, Jennifer - who is working on a similar tale for her character, Marlena - and I had a fun chat about the myriad possibilities and the results of each. It rapidly got very sticky, and we were both grinning like maniacs.
          Rob choked a little when he heard I was resurrecting Paul Viersan - Rachel's nemesis - especially since Rob's character was the one who gutted Paul like a fish in the game continuity. I merely shrugged and declared that Paul has been in a torpor for nine months and did learn something from experience (never fuck the Prince's wife. More to the point, don't get caught). This is my brain candy writing and, as the GM saying goes, "My world. My rules. I win." :-)

Johanna's Gaming News
          I got sucked into a downtime plot for Bedlam's Rest last night. Rebecca was volunteered to investigate a phenomena in Oakland - a large area where no magic worked, you can see how that would alarm the Tremere. Of course, there was more to it than that and Rebecca's life has just gone from slightly tedious to way too exciting in the space of about three game days. And she's still got to talk to the werewolves. Oh boy...

          In a similar vein, I managed to speak with Rob about his other game, C.A. 2005 and, as usual, I've taped a 'kick me' sign to my back and told the GM to have at... My character has two histories - the one she knows about, and the one she doesn't. She's not going to have too much Magick (Rob is using a sort of Mage-y setting) but lots of skills - and merits/flaws like Luck, Daredevil, Softhearted and Impulsive. I sense much carnage in this character's future. ;-)
          There's a cycle in my gaming right now, what I'm preparing to do to my Aragon players is getting done to me, first. My players better hope that only nice things happen to me from now on. :)

          *arg* Diablo's Children tonight, and still no resolution to dear insane Patricia's plight. I suppose that, no matter what happens, she's going to be in disguise this evening, so now I have to figure out what that disguise is. It wouldn't be so hard, but I know the players aren't going to believe that I'm not playing Patricia. It's as much my fault as it is their's, for reasons too tedious to go into.
          I had a mischievous idea to gender-fuck (if you'll excuse the phrase) and pose at Patricia's sire, Michael - the one who she's been hallucinating/haunted by for the past two months. But I don't think LARPers can handle a female playing an apparently male character, and there is a risk that the "real" Michael will manifest and that would blow the lid off that disguise right handily.
          I have a few other ideas, but I can't write about them here, as I know a few players of that game read this journal and I don't want to ruin the surprise. :)

***

          This really belongs under gaming news but it's really the only news of the day.
          Diablo's Children - the game that I founded and ran for two years - is over. Nick, the GM, pulled a fast one on everyone and the game that just happened is to be the last. Jennifer manages to describe it very well in her journal for July 4th and I'm not going to try to repeat it except for two words: estrogen telepathy. Read Jenn's journal if you want to know more.

          So I'm feeling a little stunned. Not surprised or pissed at Nick. I'm sure he had his reasons for shutting the game down rather passing it on to another would-be GM and those reasons are his own. But still, I have a certain fondness for the troupe - if not every single aspect of it - and a tiny sentimentalist part of me feels like I just saw my baby euthanized.

          After the game was over, I was at home, talking with Alex about the possibility of some other masochist taking over the troupe. It occurred to me that - given the would-be GMs that I know of - I do not want them to use the name Diablo's Children. I know the troupe got good name-recognition locally, but I don't want anyone using that name, who I would not want running the game and - so far - none of the candidates are anyone I would want running the game. Selfish? Yes, but I created that troupe and the name is the one shred of intellectual property within it that I can lay sole claim to, and I'm going to pull a Roger-Waters-leaving-Pink-Floyd maneuver and refuse permission for its use in future - although, hopefully with more success than Waters had.

          It's the fourth of July, which is usually the one day of the year I don't make anti-American jokes. I value my life more than that. I will not be burning the flag, I will not be singing "Hope and Glory" at the local country and western bar, or anything suicidal like that.

Johanna's Gaming News
          You've seen it already. As far as I'm concerned, though, I came out of it ahead. Dear insane Patricia survived another LARP and in such a manner that I can tie up the loose dangly ends from some stories I've been writing that I feared would be interrupted by the game's end. Overall, a net gain. :)

***

          The 4th was a quiet day, for the most part. I bummed around the house feeling vaguely grumbly about DiaChi being cut off at the knees, but aware that, as crises go, that was pretty ****ing minor. Things could be far worse. For example, I could be Brook, who has just heard that one of his unit-buddies committed suicide yesterday. There's nothing like a little perspective, hm?

          Alex and I did some necessary house cleaning - before the dust mites got organized enough to demand admission to the United Nations - and we had the usual discoveries. "So that's where that book went...", etc.
          Cleaning up my apartment is akin to an archeological dig, whereby you can tell how long it's been since we cleaned last time by dating the layers of stuff on the kitchen table like strata. For example, I found a shirt that I know I haven't worn since a party in April on the back of one chair, so I know it's been at least two months since I bothered to move the crap out of that spot. A pile of correspondence by the bread machine yielded an unopened phone bill that was issued in March. If I ever give a damn about neatness, kill me. It means the aliens have finally switched me with a pod person.

          Alex and I invited James, Laurel and Jen Brecheen over for dinner and a fireworks-viewing expedition. Alex, sweetie that he is, cooked while I tidied and entertained. Later, we hiked up a hill in a nearby park to watch fireworks and saw some very pretty sparklies. I was disappointed by the lack of spontaneous choruses of "America The Beautiful" and such - I thought such things were required by the Constitution. After two glasses of wine I was ready to start singing, but Alex sat on me. Well, not quite literally.
          The highlight of the evening was watching lights flashing against the clouds from some town-obscured-by-local-landmark's fireworks exhibition and speculating upon the possibility that it was actually Gojira stomping across central Contra Costa County...and putting money on where he was heading next.

          I'm trying to get inspired enough to do a little writing. I sure as hell have enough projects sitting on my plate, but the writing-fairy is apparently on a vacation and starting up MS Word just gets me anxious. Then again, any MS application makes me anxious, including Windoze. That explains my daily mental state at work. Hmmmm.....

          Jennifer did something cute on her journal the other day - she created a list music videos she'd present if she could demand a two hour chunk of time on a music channel - it was a reaction to seeing dimwits like Ricky Martin doing "Desert Island Discs" or something. At first, when she said 'videos', I thought she meant movie clips and short cinematic bits - that shows where my head is wired - and that got me thinking about my own list. Watch this space for Johanna's Movie Montage!

Johanna's Gaming News
          Alex and I gabbed a lot about ideas we've got for a Serious Moonlight event set around an archeological expedition to Egypt in the 1920's. We actually made a lot of headway and have increased the chances of the game actually happening. We've got a skeleton script/plot progression in our heads now, rather than just a concept and that's kinda helpful. ;)

***

          Spent most of yesterday morning dopey and out-of-sorts. I kept having dreams where I had slept through entire days and then couldn't remember what I had missed. Was it work, school, kids, what? Blugh. My subconscious was obviously punishing me for staying up 'til 2AM and sleeping 'til 10. I don't know when I suddenly became so self-punishing for such minor things, but I intend to write vigorous, protesting letters to the party responsible... Oh wait, that's me.

          A little later, Jennifer visited, although Alex and I were so baked by the heat that we weren't very good hosts. Our bacon was saved when we discovered that Jennifer hasn't seen Hard Boiled. Two hours of choreographed violence later, we all felt much better - still brainfried, but happy to be alive.
          Ironically enough, around the time we were watching the infamous, unending action scene in the hospital, the McDonald's two blocks away was getting held up...

          Johanna's Movie Montage
          I threatened you with this yesterday, so don't be acting all surprised by it, now.

If I had the power to force all of you to watch a movie montage of indeterminate length, edited by my humble self, this is what it would be:

• "On The Town" - The number New York, New York (It's a Wonderful Town).
• "The Wrong Trousers" by Aardman Animation. Whimsy, whackiness and English oddness at its best.
• "You might think that, I can't possibly comment." - the BBC adapation of "House of Cards" - the first private interview between Francis Urquhart and Mattie Storin. This should be required viewing for every Vampire player.
• The first 'love' scene between Kyle MacLaughlin and Isabella Rosselini in "Blue Velvet".
• The opening five minutes of "Matador"
• "Hard Boiled" The tea-room shootout.
• "Look Back In Anger" - the version starring Richard Burton. I forget the exact scene, but it was early in the play when Burton was slagging his wife for having such little bourgoisie goals which - of course - reflected upon him.
• Disney's "Hunchback of Notre Dame". The song Hellfire - Disney presents the themes of lust and revenge within a children's movie. It certainly took me by surprise.
• The opening credits to "The Prisoner".
• "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead". The first meeting between R&G and the players on their way to Elsinore.
• "Guns of Navarone" Corporal Miller and Captain Mallory argue about the fate of a female traitor within their group.
• "Blade Runner" Deckard gives Rachel the Voigt-Kampf test.
• "Doctor Strangelove" Oh, pick a scene. Any five minute fragment will do.
• Another BBC adapation, "I, Claudius". Claudius attends his grandmother, Liva's, birthday. Another series that should be required viewing for Vampire players.
• "Naked" by Mike Leigh. Johnny rants at a security guard about Armaggedon and complacency.
• "My Beautiful Launderette" - Omar's cousin confronts Rachel in Powders, and Rachel explains her point of view on the situation.
• Any short by Stan Brackage.
• Any Bugs Bunny cartoon directed by Chuck Jones before 1955.
• "LA Story", the climatic scene when, just as Victoria whoosis is returning to the UK and leaving Steve Martin, fog rolls in across the runway, a thunderstorm erupts and compasses suddenly lose their direction - all to convince her to stay with the one who loves her.
• Alfred Hitchcock's "Notorious" Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman discuss what to cook for dinner. Easily one of the most erotic scenes in cinema history.

Johanna's Gaming News
          Ummmm. There isn't any. Wow!

***

          Oh bloody hell. Terry - who is one-third of Serious Moonlight - is angry that I announced "Valley of the Kings" as an SM event without telling him. I could have sworn that I warned him that I was working on the idea, but it's entirely possible that I didn't - memory like a steel sieve, that's me.
          Terry is particularly irritated that I'm calling it a Serious Moonlight event when he's not involved with it. This is where my nose gets out of joint. Alex and I weren't involved in the last SM event, a few months ago (because we were getting married) but we didn't say "Hey, we're not a part of this, so we don't think you should be using the troupe's name!". I think it would have been silly and selfish to say that. Terry was putting the work in, he's a member of the group, so he gets to use the name to bring in players. No problem. My pique with Terry is compounded by the fact that about two weeks ago, he told me that he felt like he had nothing creative left within him (because he was feeling lousy after breaking up with his girlfriend of two years) and I - apparently mistakenly - assumed that he wouldn't want to be involved with some dam'fool game, anyways.
          So, this morning, I get a slightly snippy e-mail from Terry protesting my use of the name Serious Moonlight and asking whether Alex and I wish to remain part of the group. I don't even want to discuss how I feel about Terry's automatic assumption of Alex's involvement. It's a logical assumption, yes, but in this case, it's not correct and I don't want Terry getting snippy with Alex, too.
          I suspect Terry feels more proprietary towards the group's name because he came up with it and he's gone to the trouble of incorporating the entity - for tax reasons, I think. That's understandable. I feel very possessive of the name Diablo's Children, but I still didn't like Terry's response. It made me feel that Terry very much considers himself the top-dog in Serious Moonlight, when I had always considered it a gleefully anarchic collective.
          But I hate to bicker about such ephemeral things as games, so if Terry insists I'll quit using the troupe name with the game I'm planning. I just think he's making a disproportionate fuss about the matter.
          Just thinking about it makes me anxious and bitchy. I want my own way in this - the right to use the group's name - but I also hate getting into fights. *sigh*

          However, on the friends-having-a-good-day scale, one of my buddies has just managed to fight her overwhelming credit card balance down to nothing. It may not sound like much to you, dear reader, but I've been watching her struggle against the debt monster for several years and I'm very happy! If naught else, it means there's hope for me and my debt. :)

          Argh! I knew I had forgotten something from yesterday's movie montage!

• Real Genius - when Mitch and Chris first meet.
• The Hunger - the de-facto music video for "Bela Lugosi's Dead".

          If you feel like completely destroying your productivity, and you've already read through the entire archive for User Friendly, I suggest you check out Sluggy Freelance - a very amusing comic.

Johanna's Gaming News
          Despite the problems listed above, my plotting for Valley of the Kings is continuing and going quite well...

***

          No response from Terry about yesterday's situation. If he's trying to wear me down, it'll probably work, as I'm ready to just roll over, call myself Broken Moon Events and get on with my life.

          My friend Brian gets the give-Johanna-Some-Perspective award for yesterday. As I sat at my desk, grumbling and muttering about the dispute between me and Terry (see yesterday), Brian asked for a sympathetic ear. I can't get into the details, but his situation did serve to slap me up the head, once again, and calm me down quite a bit. Spats about things like game-names really are trivial, no matter how prickly it may seem at the time.
          And the second place prize for Give-Johanna-Some-Perspective goes to Why Web Journals Suck by the author of nobody knows anything. Reading through that has forced me to re-examine why I'm writing this journal. So far, it's been one part laziness - if you want to know what I'm doing, read this - and one part exhibitionism - look at what I'm doing!.
          Despite my intention to try to keep this a sort of "Window Into Everywoman" project (hm, good title, if I do get my act together, I may have to use it) I feel myself sliding into banal minutia and aimless wanderings. Perhaps I cursed myself with this journal's name, no?
          *sigh* I've always believed - despite frantic clutching towards the contrary - that I'm a shallow person. Between my chronic thoughtlessness, not-so-well-hidden greedy tendencies and a short temper, I know that I'm not going to be the one to voice the great Unspoken Revelation that will enlighten us all. Hell, the only reason that I'm not a ravening, self-centered beast (well, not all the time) is because I've learned that it is best to do what society would call the 'proper' thing or 'kind' thing, despite what I really want to do. Or is that a universal struggle? I suspect it is...
          The best I can hope for is a cheap laugh and maybe a twinge of sympathy. It all comes down to that ongoing struggle between romance and cynicism, I think. I want to believe in the best from people, from situations, but past experience rarely allows me to even hope for that best-circumstance. And on those rare times when I risk hope and optimism, there is no silencing that voice in my skull that tells me I'm being an idiot, that I'm going to regret it.
          They say optimists are never pleasantly surprised. But do the increasingly rare pleasant surprises offset the gut-wrenching moments, the stupid fights, the lingering worry?

          Grotesque irony of the day. I was at the drug store, buying a cholesterol laden I'll-start-the-diet-tomorrow snack, and I noticed a counter display for beef jerky. Now, I hate the stuff, but this one caught my eye. The mascot for this 'food' was a grinning, anthropomorphized cartoon bull. He stood on his hind legs, cheerfully wielding a stick of the product in his cleft hoof and wearing a leather jacket. This is a bull with some serious cannibalization issues, no? I could accept the stupidity of a bull brandishing jerky, but the leather jacket derailed me completely. I mean, what was the point of his wearing it? Wasn't it rather redundant?

Johanna's Gaming News
          I'm harassing Nick, the GM of the recently-departed Diablo's Children for some contact information to rent out the location DiaChi used for Aragon, but he's not being terribly forthcoming. I expect I'm going to have to corner him in his acting class tonight.
          Aragon concepts are trickling in nicely, although I'm having to deal with the usual players who are convinced that they'll be the exception to the house rules. *sigh* Oh well, it's a test of my newly-acquired ability to say "NO!" to players, no matter how much I like them, personally. Good thing, too, as I'm starting to get inquiries from DiaChi refugees who have heard about Aragon and want to join. Of course, there are some players that I'm quite happy to say NO! to... ;)

***

          Dear faceless reader. If you can find me a 3 bedroom, two bathroom house that allows pets, for rent, in a good neighborhood of Contra Costa county, which costs less than $1200/month, tell me! I'm house-hunting again, and I've been frustrated by the process, already. Nowhwere is willing to accept pets, it seems, without an usurious fee. Alex and I are short enough on funds as it is - it's going to take us a few weeks to save up for moving expenses - but, given the current market, it's going to take us months to find a new place to live...with my current landlords raising the rent all the while...

          There has been another round of communication in the dispute/spat/discussion 'twixt myself and Terry. I think we're both losing nuance to e-mail and I've suggested that we meet in person, hoist a few pints and chat about the situation.
          It appears that Terry's major issue is that I've announced this game with 'no' warning to him, and that he feels cut out of the loop. I told him that's precisely how I felt about Return to Temple of Terror but he doesn't believe that's a valid arguement. There are differences, yes, but I think the situation was similar enough to deserve comment.
          The essential fact - that I'm trying to beat my ego into quiet submission with - is that we both want to settle this amicably and with the group intact. I hope we can. However, while I'm hoping for the best, I'm braced for the worst. The fact is that I really doubt that Terry's style of GMing is going to suit Valley of the Kings and I may ask him to butt out, anyways. At that point, I won't be surprised if he takes his marbles and goes home... On a slightly amusing note, Logan has already suggested a new name for the group - CthulhuPalooza... *groan*
          Gack, I should have realized that disputes would originate sooner or later with three strong egos on a common project.

          Look out of your nearest window? Has the sun turned black? It should have. On Wednesday night, I willingly - well, with minimal coercion - held my youngest niece. She's six months old, so I figured I couldn't stall any longer. I'm nervous of small babies. Their heads are all stroppy and I'm convinced I'll break them. Babies are terribly expensive, I'm told, and parents are rarely happy with store-bought replacements.
          Despite my worries, both Emily - the niece - and I survived the experience. She's a cute little thing, and only slightly cranky. No, I didn't enjoy it, I swear! Really!
          Oh gods, if my mother is reading this, she's going to crank up the grandchild campaign again. On my side of the family, I'm the only child, so there are no little Meads just yet. I keep telling Susan to babysit Emily if she wants to spend time with an infant (or, contraiwise, go watch a meeting of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors) but she says it's not the same...Curses!

          Jennifer and I are sharing frontal-lobes again. We're both thinking about keeping a dream journal online. I'm still havering on the issue - whilst having fun designing a splash page - and if I do write it, it's going to be a lot more sporadic than this daily babble, as my dreams aren't as frequent or as vivid as they used to be - thank goodness! When I kept a dream-journal while I was in high school, I was writing between three and ten pages per day! I still clearly remember dreaming of passing Chinese coins to blind pharmacists working near the Australian embassy in London, but the full accounting of that one will have to wait for another day.

Johanna's Gaming News
          No doubt as part of some grand karmic backlash, my main plot idea for Valley of the Kings ate itself during my morning commute. I've decided that the antagonist, as he was initially conceived was too ephemeral and too hard for any player characters to deal with. I'm sure another idea is cooking in my skull, I just need to let it simmer for a day or two. I'll go after it with the ladle on the weekend.

          Aragon trundles along well, I'm feeling ready for the meeting on Sunday. I've had one unpleasant incident when I had to explain to some players who were initially a part of Sang Froid - my abortive attempt to launch this chronicle some time ago - that they are not on the first-round-of-invitations list. I tried to tell the truth, and be tactful, but it may not be enough to some of them. Drat. I don't intend to insult them personally, but in the past 14 months my vision of what makes a good Camarilla court and my opinon of my gaming peers has changed a lot, so of course things are going to be different from what I promised in 1997.
          Bah. I've been crunching numbers for the game, and I may have to postpone the kickoff of the game, or beg/borrow/steal a free location from one of the players. Drat. I really wanted to start off at the Marriot, but it's $200 per throw and, for the first six months at least, dues won't cover even half of that. If I didn't have to be looking for a new place to live, I could eat the difference, but that's not possible, now. Double bah.

***

          As per the aforementioned brain-sharing betwixt me and Jennifer, I've thrown together a journal for my evening excursions - my dreams, you fool, not those kind of nocturnal excursions. It's called Juggling Mercury and probably won't be updated daily, as my dreams aren't that frequent.
          On a day when I do make an entry in Juggling Mercury, I'll post a linking graphic, entitled drops of mercury, at the bottom of the page. There's one at the bottom of today's entry, f'r'instance!

          I hope that Juggling Mercury won't turn out like my last attempt at dream-recording - undertaken during high-school. I had to quit after a few months because my dreams were so detailed that it was just taking too darn long to record them... ;)

          I had another e-mail from Terry today, and I really hope I misinterpreted it. Terry, a guy who Alex and I invited into the troupe, declared to me that, as far as any of the three of us go, he is in charge. He then scrambled to provide a metaphor to qualify that situation - if Jagger recorded a solo album and called it a Stones album, the rest of the band would be pissed, right? - but that did little to soothe me.
          Just as I am writing up an e-mail telling Terry to take this group and shove it up his ass, Alex comes in - he was wondering what had got me cursing so loudly early on a Saturday morning - and suggested that I stick to the initial intention of meeting face-to-face and talking things out. I know my temper can - and was, in this case - getting the better of me, so I agreed. With luck, we'll be meeting on Monday. Now if I can just stop shaking...

          DJ is throwing a party tonight, celebrating his graduation from Heald and the end of his grocery-bagging days (although he was earning thirty grand doing it...). Given my shitty mood as I write this - ten minutes after reading the aforementioned e-mail - I really hope I don't do the stupid thing and try to drink it out tonight. I shall have to ask Alex to sit on me, methinks.

Johanna's Gaming News
          Not a thing. I've been too bloody shattered to think about gaming.

***

          To everyone who was invited to DJ's graduation party and didn't show up: you're mean, inconsiderate and you missed a good time.
          That's all I'm going to say on the subject.

          Today is not shaping up to be a good day. I got home quite late from DJ's party - no bad thing - and just as I'm lying down in bed, my back spasmed. I haven't had an attack like that in months, so it took me unawares and I pretty much fell to bits. It hurt so much I couldn't think straight. Fortunately, Alex could, and he talked me into running a hot bath and soaking in that for half an hour. I'm lucky I didn't drown as it helped so much, I fell asleep in the tub for about ten minutes.
          Stress is what usually twinks my back out and I know - as I'm sure you do, dear reader - what's doing this to me. It's still aching right now and walking has become a very interesting and uncomfortable exercise. Combined with Terry's latest e-mail, which pretty much boiled down to "Little girl, you're not understanding what I'm saying. Why not have someone more objective read this e-mail to you?" - that second sentence is a direct quote - has me pissed off and despondent, and even more uncomfortable.

          I want to resolve this bullshit situation - but the issues seem to keep mutating on me every time I turn around. First it was my use of the Serious Moonlight name, then it was communication within the group, now it seems to be Terry accusing me of being alternately thoughtless and oversensitive. I want to wait until we meet tomorrow before responding to his e-mails, because I've seen nuances between us get fragged via the internet, already - but Terry thought I was pigheaded and refusing to respond to his arguments. I finally set him straight about that with my last communiqué - that I'm just waiting for a face to face meeting, so there is no possibility of confusion - and I hope that calms him down somewhat.
          On the bright - well, less gloomy - side, he did clarify his comment about being "in charge" and it was, indeed, poorly expressed and misunderstood. But now he's said that he's feeling pessimistic about the situation (because I'm choosing to be fairly brief and blunt in our communications, rather than writing long, meticulous e-mails as he has been) and, again, I suspect Monday's meeting may just be akin to a custody decision - dividing up who gets what in Serious Moonlight and going our separate ways. At this point, I don't care. This project was meant to be fun, and I am most definitely not enjoying this.

          The body-stress doesn't help either. Given how badly I'm coping, tomorrow I'll be throwing up, and that's not one of my favorite pastimes. *wan grin* And the irony is, I can't "blame" Terry for this, because I am indeed the one who sprang Valley of the Kings on him without notice. But this has gone beyond that and seems to have blown the lid off some other unspoken issues...

          When a game is no longer fun, fix the problem. If the game still isn't fun, quit. That's one of my long-standing gaming-maxims, and I think it's one of Terry's, too - and that's why I'm not too cheerful about tomorrow.

          I think we each want something different out of Serious Moonlight. Terry wants something slick, theatrical and professional that's going to look good on his resume. He's said as much in the past. I want to have some fun running some rather unusual games. I'm not thinking about putting this on my resume or suchlike. Essentially, my attitude is far less professional than Terry's - and I think that is what's going to split us apart.
          I think it's great that Terry wants to use the arena of LARPing to practice his skills as a director - it's a good venue for it - but that's not why I'm into LARPing. I enjoy it because I like sharing stories with like-minded people - I'm not out to exercise myself as a director or to run a full-bore theatrical event. Terry seems to have fun with his vision of running a LARP, and I have fun with mine - but I'm suspecting, finally, that they are incompatible.

          I'm stopping before I lose what few of you are still reading this.

Johanna's Gaming News
          Today is the coffee-klatch for Aragon. Because I've been so preoccupied with the dispute with Terry, I've not done any of the prep that I intended to, nor do I feel particularly encouraged. So, after I post this, I'm going to have to chain myself to the computer and do a bit of unseemly scrambling.

***

          I think yesterday crossed the line from introspection to whining, so I'm not going to talk about my spat with Terry today. I suspect that both of my regular readers will be relieved.

          My back is feeling somewhat better and I am doing my best to try to think happy thoughts today. I know, that sounds very Jiminy Cricket, but I have learned that it's damned easy to wallow in a mental quagmire - but all that does is give you a headache and premature wrinkles from frowning so much.
          Of course, today being Monday stacks the deck against me, somewhat but I've got to try to fight my bad mood of the past few days. If naught else, it's driving Alex out of his mind, and that's not a nice thing for me to do - no matter how justified my grumpiness might feel.

• Good friends who put up with me
• A better husband - who puts up with me no matter what
• A general lack of money-woes - as compared to my life two years ago
• Family less than a mile away that doesn't mind a daughter who occasionally needs home cooked food and use of the laundry room
• A cat that is only mildly insane
• The great good fortune to be living in the utterly cool (despite the heatwave) SF Bay Area
• An enjoyable job with cool co-workers who are crazier and sillier than I am, most days
• Whiskers on kittens and other sentimentalist things that give me the warm fuzzies, although I'd usually die rather than admit it

          There, that wasn't so painful...

Johanna's Gaming News
          The coffee-klatch for Aragon was small, but productive. I now have seven firm characters for the game. I'm a little worried about lack of further response from those who declared they were interested, but I won't really worry until the final character deadline of the 25th has passed. If needed, I will either postpone the game for six months (ugh) or bring some candidates from the second-round up to the first-round.

          On a disappointing note, I think I'm going to have to cancel Valley of the Kings. Not because of the spat that's been dominating this journal for the past four days, but because of good ol' fashioned cashflow difficulties. I'd love to run this game, but it's far more important that Alex and I save our money for moving to a new place as soon as possible. Cthulhu LARPs are great fun, but they cost an average of $400 a game and that is cash that is going to be sorely needed elsewhere...Bah.

***

          Added some new journals to Whither I Ramble, yesterday. Take a look, if you like.

          The meeting twixt me and Terry didn't occur yesterday, as he's had a few 18+ hour workdays lately and I agreed with him that sleep was far more important. I certainly don't want to meet with a cranky Terry. ;) However, we did talk a few things out via IM and I think - I hope - that we've dealt with the worst of it. It seems that, once again, Oblivious Girl (my lesser known alternate identity) had the wrong end of the stick in more ways than I even knew about. According to him, he's not running Serious Moonlight to add notches to his theatrical belt, nor is he aspiring to some lofty standard that struck me as overly fussy, way too expensive and wasted on gamers. Establishing that certainly cleared the air.
          It never fails to surprise me how quickly fights can start - and stop. Still, I'm not out of the woods on this one, yet.

          I'm reading The Tales of Alvin Maker trilogy, by Orson Scott Card, right now and I'm enjoying it a lot. It's an alternate history/fantasy tale set in North America during the mid-18th Century. Card can establish an impressive character voice immediately, and paces his stories very well. I was hooked after the first page of the first novel, The Seventh Son. At the moment, it's very hard to put the book down (I'm on number two, Red Prophet) to get some work done!

          Oh my, I might be in real trouble this time. A few months ago, I got deeply drunk and went online. No, I didn't indulge in netsex without an anti-virus program, but I did something almost as bad.
          I wrote a letter to the President of the United States, via www.whitehouse.gov. I forget the exact wording, of course, but it was along the lines of "Screw the media jackals who are out to get you, go Prez!" About the only time I'll be patriotic is when it gives me a chance to scream about something that pisses me off even more than blind loyalty. I'm not big on blind loyalty, you see, as it's a short road from there to bigotry and violence....
          But I digress.
          So, I come home from work on Monday evening and there is a letter from the White House in my dead-tree mailbox. Uh-oh. I couldn't suppress a thrill of fear. It's probably just the usual form letter, I thought in an attempt to reassure myself. But what if it wasn't? What if I was being told that my irreverant attitude towards the nigh-sacred office of the President was not appreciated and I had 24 hours to hand in my green card and flee the country? Americans are a bit funny about their sacred cows, I've noticed, and just when I think I've figured out it's okay to make sacred hamburger, they change the rules on me and start giving me baleful looks while cleaning their guns.
          Maybe I can beg for asylum over at the British Consulate in San Francisco...

          Alright, alright, I finally opened it. Of course, it was just a form letter, with the signature of the President rubber-stamped on it. Still, it'll make a nice addition to my pile of interesting stuff - one of these days I have to make a scrapbook. For something that is only half a step above junk-mail, it's pretty nice - nice quality paper, first class postage, good ink on that rubber stamp. I'm much happier envisioning my tax dollars going on this kind of thing rather than $2,000 toilet seats at the Pentagon.

Johanna's Gaming News
          Ohboyohboyohboy. My Tremere, Rebecca certainly knows how to get into trouble. Let's see, in the past week she has tangled with Cathayans, tried to outwit a Gangrel elder (did it work? As if!), attempted to establish detente with a werewolf (about the same luck, there), and, most recently, she's gotten tangled up in the death of a high ranking Tremere in San Francisco who may or may not have been a part of a Very Bad organization... It's one of those "Who do I trust without a baseline reading?" situations. What fun!

          Valley of the Kings is almost certainly dead in the water. :P But I'm consoling myself with the fact that now I know it'll take the best part of six month's advance warning to book a good campsite, and I can use that to my advantage when I try to ramp this game up, next year.

***

          Alex's mom is in the hospital again. The smog has aggravated her emphysema and she's on a respirator. She's going to be alright - so far - but it was a bad start to the day and I've not had time to put up a journal entry. More later, I promise.

          Later...
          It was a day of weird serendipity. As I was getting ready to go to work, I heard on the radio that the commute train was shut down going into San Francisco because of a fire at a station, so I had decided to stay at home for an hour and and wait to hear what happened. A shutdown of the train lines in and out of San Francisco would create horrible congestion, and I didn't want to be a part of that.
          About a half hour later, about 8AM or so, Alex's sister, Melissa, called. Melissa told me that Joanne - my mother in law - had collapsed and was in hospital, on a respirator. This happened last year, and she was in a coma for over a week and came very close to dying. She has very bad emphysema and it seems that the lousy air quality that accompanied this week's heatwave had aggravated it and caused this collapse. I told Melissa I would get Alex and we would go to the hospital where Joanne was staying.
          It took nearly two hours for me to reach Alex at work - his situation is such that he can't answer the phone for extended periods of time - and in the duration, I was upset because I know Joanne established a living will after her last collapse. So, based on what little I knew, the family was probably waiting on us to show up so they could say goodbye and end Joanne's life support. A bloody awful way to spend a morning.
          Finally, Alex got home. The trains were still screwy, but one of his co-workers was able to give him a ride. We rushed over to see his mother in the ICU at the local hospital. A friend of Alex's family, Patty, was there and she was able to paint a much brighter picture. Yes, Joanne was on the respirator, but she wasn't in a coma and had not suffered a complete collapse like last time. She would have to stay in hospital for only a couple of days - nothing like last time, where she remained hospitalized for nearly two months.
          Joanne was awake, sporadically, and she was feeling alert enough to ask us to bring her a Pepsi - one of her favorite vices. Of course, when you're on a respirator in intensive care, soda pop is not permitted... But the presiding nurse told us that they intended to take Joanne off the breathing apparatus tomorrow, so when we visit we're going to bring a big bottle of soda pop, and a bag full of Jack In The Box's fish and chips - her other vice - just in case she can have them.

          Naturally, Alex and I are feeling worn out - him more than me. After my initial bout of upset - which, fortunately, Alex didn't have to see - I took all my anxiety and stuffed it into a jar with a very tight lid. It's something I do quite well, when I want to be functional despite being upset. Unfortunately, the mental shelves where I put these jars are getting higher as time passes, and I worry about them toppling down. So bottling things up is not something I do as often as I used to.
          Now it's late evening and I should be able to relax, but I feel like I've been coated in shellac - hard and clear. I can look out, but I feel like if someone was to touch me, they'd get the hard tap-tap of a varnished surface - functional, but impervious. I'm a bit upset by this - in a distant kind of way - but I'm hoping it's just delayed shock and a good night's sleep will take care of it...

***

          Last night did not end well. Don't get me wrong, Alex's mother is alright and all the of major, important things in my life continue to function as well as can be expected, but, once again, my favorite hobby has managed to produce an incident that has pissed me off no end. Gird thyself for a rant, dear reader.
          Alex and I play in a local Vampire LARP, Bedlam's Rest. Alex is a Narrator - which is rather like a referee. A Narrator can make decisions about the rules, determine whether a character succeeds when attempting an action, that sort of thing. Last night, Rob, the GM of Bedlam's Rest, calls Alex and says that he has received a petition from eight players asking that Alex step down as a Narrator. Apparently those eight have disagreed with calls that Alex has made (or just simply disliked the calls he has made) and think he's not fit for the role.
          Surprising, but not earth-shattering. Alex, who was taking things far more calmly than I, asks who has such a low opinion of him. Rob declares that he is not going to divulge the names of the eight critics because that's his policy and apparently a few of those eight are close friends of Alex's.
          Friends? Friends? I'd like to think that friends can be honest with each other, even when there's conflict between them. I may be a big wobbling jelly when it comes to confrontation, but I have never, ever lied to a friend about how I feel about a situation. I may evade, I may decide not to mention a problem, but when faced directly, I don't see any point in lying.
          And there's a second issue here. Rob is letting himself be bullied by The Anonymous Eight. He asked Alex to accede to their wishes, and Alex will. But Alex is demanding that Rob tell the playership the entire story behind Alex's removal. It's not an entirely kind place to put Rob, you might think, but by letting himself be bullied by his players, Rob is putting himself there.
          I'm absolutely furious at the cowards who don't have the nerve to approach Alex about this. If any of you are reading this, and you happen to be invited to my game, Aragon, please remove yourself from it - I don't care what excuse you conjure (since you're not being honest with the object of your ire, I certainly don't expect you to be honest with me) but get out of Aragon. I will not have bullies in my game.
          I'm also very disappointed that Rob is being pushed around by The Anonymous Eight. I understand he's in a tight spot - as a GM, you're constantly juggling player politics to keep the majority happy. He got given a situation where he could piss off one player - Alex - or piss off eight, so he decided to keep the greater number satisfied. But the very fact that he has let these players force this situation means that a precedent has been set. They've succeeded once, so no doubt they'll try again - or some other players will get the same idea, and Rob will find himself subject to bullying demands from an increasing number of players as time passes.

          Bloody hell, this hobby is supposed to be fun, but this latest incident has thoroughly soured my stomach. Between this and the recent Serious Moonlight spat, I'm giving some thoughts to giving up LARPing. These petty politics are below me and aren't worth a nanosecond of my time, and the ratio between fun-had and bullshit-tolerated is rapidly careening towards the bullshit end of the scale.
          If I were to leave Bedlam's Rest, it would be because I don't want to be in the same game as the spineless little worms behind the incident cited above - and those eight are just those that I've heard of - I know that the odds are very likely that there are more than just those few. And the possibility, slight as it may be, that those same cretins are in the game I am about to launch, makes me want to shut it down and wash my hands of the entire time-wasting petty-ego-fostering habit of LARPs.

          At least in tabletop games, the GM knows his/her players very well, and the crowd is too small to provide a coward with cover.

          Of course, after writing the above, Rob has just sent me an e-mail with his side of the situation. It seems that he wasn't too pleased with my opinion. *shrug* Rob's a strong fellow, he can cope with an honest opinion. Admittedly, he got it a little unexpectedly - he found this page before I had published it 'officially' with a link from the index and in my opinion, you take your chances with those pages.
          Quick explanation: Sometimes I'll write a journal entry the night before publication, at my home computer, in which case, I'll upload it to my site - but without a link from the index - so I can update the page the next day, before 'official' publication, from my work machine without worrying about remembering to bring in a floppy disk with the file. But this means that if a reader follows the 'tomorrow' link, they might find a page before it's quite ready to be read.
          So, Rob found my rant and was a little disconcerted that I've gone off like this, about him, in public... I intended to warn him that I was going to be a little frank today, but he found the darn page before it was ready. I guess I better make a hidden directory to hold interim files, hm? I'm rather surprised Rob didn't object to the last time I ranted about his behavior, but maybe he hadn't become a regular reader, then. No, Rob, I'm not going to tell you when I did that - you'll have to read through the back entries yourself. There's only two month's worth, so it won't take too long. ;)
          But, that brings me to my next point. I am going to be honest in this diary, and that means that sometimes I'm not going to agree with a reader's wonderful opinion of themselves. Just as I have occasionally discovered some rather harsh opinions about myself via my friend's online diaries, there is a risk of the same happening to friends of mine who are reading this. Keep in mind that this is my journal, for my reactions and thoughts on a situation - not a moderated, reasoned forum and, above all, this is just my opinion. As always, readers may agree or disagree as they choose. And, finally, no-one has to read it if they don't want to...
          Phew, that's enough of that.

Bits that circumstances deleted from the entry for July 14th.

          Oh boy, another member of the Mead family has gotten online. My cousin Graham Mead has just launched his own web page. Take a look if you like, but it's very much under construction.

          Today was a legs morning. Maybe it's because everyone is wearing shorts because of the heatwave, but I was noticing everyone's legs while walking to work. One woman was wearing a pair of hideous spore-mold-green tights with a light blue ensemble. It was the wrong color in general - gangrenous green is rarely flattering over a large area of flesh - and in particular, as it utterly failed to harmonize with the pale stonewashed blue of this wearer's short overalls.
          I was surprised I wasn't arrested - or at least assaulted - when following another woman who had the most interesting calf-mechanics I've ever seen. She had very slender legs and small but prominent calves. As she walked, it seemed that her calves would have to bump into each other - or she would have to adopt a wide stance to avoid it - but with every step, her moving leg would lift just enough to barely clear its opposite counterpart with nary a millimeter to spare. The S shaped line of her calves, running from her knee to ankle was a hell of a thing. Watching her walk made me feel like a clumping troll.
          And my boss was wearing socks of the most intriguing shade of periwinkle with his brown leather sandals...

          In an act of extreme filial duty, I missed the season finale of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and took my mother to go see the South Park movie. Don't ask me why, but she's a big fan of the show. I've found it occasionally amusing, but have had no desire to watch 90 minutes of it...

          Went on a webring binge yesterday and have petitioned to join four more webrings - you probably noticed them on the way in. I've got a few regular readers right now - I'd love to know who the chap from Finland who spent 40 minutes reading all the journal is - but I'm always looking for more.

          Juggling Mercury is giving me a bit of grief. Well, that's not quite true. The heat has been giving me a lot of grief, so it's been very hard to dream lately, and even harder to have anything more than even-more-surreal-than-usual fragments at night's end. It seems that the middle of a heatwave may not have been the best time to launch... ;)

Johanna's Gaming News
I've got to get off my lazy hind-end and create Mercy, my character for Rob's brain candy game C.A. 2005. She's going to be a Euthanatos, methinks...

***

          Uncle, already! I would like to clarify for the record that I am not trying to imply that Rob is a milquetoast or a pushover. I am far more pissed off at the players that are forcing him to look like a milquetoast, alright? Pax? Can I have some freakin' peace now?
          You never know how many regular readers you have until you go off on a rant...

          Rob's pique nonwithstanding - I'm just batting a thousand for pissing people off this month - the latest round of gaming-associated-stupidity enabled me to broach a subject that's been on my mind for some time. Gruesome details below:

          A little background for those who don't know already. My degree is in film production. When I was about sixteen years old, the Passion Satyr (rather than the Career Fairy) whacked me on the side of the head with a film-can and said "Hey, bozo!" - the Passion Satyr is not known for tact - "This film thing rocks! Get thee hence and learn all you can about this because you're going to want to spend the rest of your life with it." The Passion Satyr is also known for not mincing words.
          A few years later, 1996 to be precise, I graduate with a film degree, a head full of dreams and a bad taste in my mouth. Film school had its high points, but it was mostly a nasty morass of personal politics, bickering, and an assemblage of people who were entirely too young to be that bitter - and according to eye-witnesses, I was one of the most bitter ones there (amongst the undergrads, at least), but I don't believe 'em. So, my passion waned a bit and was quickly replaced the all important urge to Get Out Of My Parents' House.
          Fortunately, I had recently met Alex and, to the stunned surprise of all observers, fallen head over heels in love with the fellow. I moved in with him and set forth to find work that would fill my belly and pay the rent.

          Fast forward to just-about the present day. I'm working as a paper pusher for a groovy company and I'm happy about that, but the Passion Satyr has been entrapped in a stout iron cage of an administrative job and the selfish desire for things like good food and gaming books. With every day that passes, he shakes the bars and howls with outrage and manages to taint almost every thought with a color of what should be and thoughts of it's too late for anything else now.
          For a long time it was I'll re-start my film career once Alex is out of the Air Force., but now the circumstances appear to be As soon as Alex is out of the Air Force, we're going to have children, and I know damn well that a baby and film-work absolutely don't mix. So that pushes everything back for another six years or so. At that point, I'll be in my early 30's, my knowledge of filmmaking will be ten years behind the curve and what little craft I have left will have rusted shut.
          It's right about then the Passion Satyr morphs into the Frustration Monster (his form when thwarted), screams loud enough to shatter glass and make me want to wander into traffic. What is the fucking point of studying filmmaking, of being possessed by this driving urge to be a part of the entertainment industry if I feel powerless to do anything with it?
          I try to calm myself with thoughts of "You can't have everything you want." and I do want to start a family before I'm thirty - for health reasons if naught else (and there's a lot else), but that's barely even a whisper against the noise in my head. I feel like a drug addict who's supply is constantly within sight, but never quite within reach.

          Fast foward a little more to this past month. As you know, dear reader, my favorite hobby has been a bit of a pain in the ass lately. Once again, I've been giving some thought to seriously cutting down my involvement with live-action games, or quitting them entirely. Why? Because I'm creative, but very lazy. My creative energy is like water, it always takes the easiest course.
          LARPing has provided me with easy fodder for stories. I've enjoyed writing them, but I think it's time to divert my energy - change the course of the river, so to speak - and try to return to the unfinished screenplays that are on my computer. Why? Because finishing these screenplays will placate the Frustration Monster and give me a shred of lasting self-esteem, besides.
          And the ideas I have for On The Edge and The Device are good ones, if I buckle down and put the effort into them that I have into writing character stories, making character costumes, etc. And if I finish these thrice-damned pieces then maybe I can try to *gasp* sell them. Wouldn't that be a hoot?
          Writing is something I can do while working 9-to-5. I just hope it will be enough to quell the Frustration Monster and maybe bring the Passion Satyr back. I need more Passion in my life - instead of bitterness and regret. It makes for bloody depressing journal entries... :P

          Wow, bad karma must be catching! Alex's dog, Sandy, just got sprayed in the face by a skunk. Apparently Sandy has some urge to prove how stupid he is because he kept chasing the damn skunk after it sprayed him. Chez Johanna smells just lovely right now, let me tell you. We've got some formula for removing skunk-stink (for the record -1 quart 3% hydrogen peroxide solution, 1/4 cup of baking soda, 1 teaspoon liquid soap, wash the dog in this mixture, avoiding the eyes and mouth, and rinse thoroughly) but washing the dog is going to be an adventure!

Johanna's Gaming News
Well, given the above, this is a section that may be shrinking quite soon....

***

         Upon waking Friday morning, my day looked grey and bleak and I felt distinctly cranky. Alex - who had been given the day off by his sympathetic boss who was no doubt worrying about him coming in to the office with a gun - turned over in bed and sleepily asked me if I could take the day off with him.
          Cue: English Guilt. "No, darling, I can't. I had to take Wednesday off, with your mother taking ill and all..."
          He cunningly counters. "But honey, we have to take care of the dog," - who had a run in with a skunk last night, "And I would really life it if you could spend the day with me..."
          Cue more guilt. I think about it, decide that there isn't anything on my plate that can't wait until Monday, and decide to log in - my boss, KJ, is always accessible online, and beg for another day off.
          My husband now owes my boss a great big thankyou letter, as KJ relented and allowed me to bunk off for the second day this week. Alex and I spent the day talking out some things that are stressing us - such as the Rob situation, how to cope with the fact that Alex's mom is dying by inches, my Frustration Monster, etc - and generally enjoyed being at leisure while most everyone else was at work.

          I am definitely my parents' daughter. I have noticed that, when stressed, they tend to go out and spend money. Maybe it's their way of reassuring themselves that they are secure and productive during times of disorder and insecurity. Or maybe they are just trying to spoil themselves when they feel put upon... either way, I think my actions today reflected both possibilities...
          Once Alex and I had awoken from sleeping later than was really good for us - 11AM - I declared that it was time for us to bust open our piggybanks and buy ourselves a new computer. Now, we've been telling all and sundry that we've been saving for a new machine for the past month, but the fact is that, at the end of my last paycheck, I still only had $50 left in my checking account. But apparently Alex had plenty of cash saved up - guess who's account gets used for the day-to-day expenses? After a hard look at our upcoming bills, we decided we had enough to buy one of those cheap-and-nasty PC boxes that are saturating the market and we ventured forth into the wilds of consumerism.
          After a scant few hours' shopping, a new HP Pavilion was established in the computer room and your humble author was happily knocking back a bottle of Robert Mondavi while her husband was at a friend's house determining why they couldn't connect to the internet. In true luser fashion, it turns out that the friend's husband had forgotten to plug in their modem... At least it was easily fixed.
          Anyways, we now have a machine that we can actually cruise the web with, without worrying about it crashing every five minutes - a very real problem with our previous machine, a hardworking 486 donated to me by my generous father - and we're deleriously happy. Now we're fighting over who gets to spend time on it. The aforementioned 486 has been installed on the dining room table as the household writing machine, so Alex and I can still go nuts with our writing, without tying up web-surfing time...
          Just tonight, on a journal discussion list, I encountered a remark from someone complaining about how her computer keyboard was all gummed up with crumbs because she eats all her meals over her computer. This struck me as a perfectly normal situation. I was the despair of MicroProse's IS helpdesk guy after I managed to spill salsa and sour cream into my keyboard... I was really hungry, but I couldn't quit QA'ing these German UI files for Magic:The Gathering, and they were selling taquitos from the roach coach... It was a disaster waiting to happen...

          Since my mood was improved by blatant consumerism, I sent an apology to Rob. This journal is a place for me to express my unvarnished feelings, certes, but it was not my deliberate intention to hurt his feelings - as he seems to fear. It was no skin off my nose to apologize, and offering an apology is certainly a tiny thing to do salve a friendship. I've offered to bring him a six-pack of something and talk things out an an upcoming game meeting at his place on Sunday. Let's hope it takes, hm?

Johanna's Writing News
          Unsurprisingly enough, radical progress on my writing projects has not been made in 24 hours. It may take a few weeks, but I intend to divert the energy formerly directed towards LARP into writing into my screenplays instead. Of course, Rome wasn't built in a day....
          But, bless his heart, Alex gave me a very simple suggestion which has helped me out of the corner that I had written myself into in On The Edge - more of that when I'm more into the writing mode....

***

          Saturday was a pleasantly quiet day, the silence broken only by Alex and I occasionally arguing about who's turn it was to play on the new computer - currently nicknamed "The Muscle Machine". But we've set up the old box - the 486 - in the living room because it's perfectly adequate for me to work on my journal and other writing stuff, without depriving Alex of his websurfing time. :) An additional bonus is that I can listen to the TV while I work.

          Went to go see Eyes Wide Shut last night.
          Wow. Go see it.
          Even seeing the audience was an interesting experience. For once, I think I was the youngest person there, and everyone was sitting in the back half of the theater - obviously we all had bad eyesight - a sure sign of an older audience. Two teenagers walked out about twenty minutes into the film - mindless MTV ingrates - but everyone else was rapt.
          The film moves at it own pace - languorous yet extremely tense. Kubrick manages to convey a sense of claustrophobia extremely well. As I've mentioned earlier, I like a film-maker who can make me sit differently in my seat. Kubrick can do it in spades. Throughout the film, I was able to identify with an aspect - sometimes several aspects - of every single character. Even now, an hour after watching it, I'm having a hard time processing everything that I saw - the plot, the characters, the cinematography. Wow.

          Everyone longs for a moment of sensual surreality in their life, don't they? An unreal moment of self-centered sybarism...
          It would certainly explain some of what I've done in roleplaying games and other areas of my life - but I'm not about to get into those other areas just yet...

          And it really, really hurts me to admit this, but not only did Kubrick managed to beat a good performance out of Tom Cruise, but Cruise actually looked very, um, sexy. I've never been too fond of the guy - as far as I can have personal feelings for a person I don't know and probably never will (hey, I gotta daydream when it comes to the film-thing, alright?) - but he looked darned tasty in Eyes Wide Shut.

          Alex would like to add a warning: to any male fans of Nicole Kidman: wear tight underwear lest you embarrass yourself when you stand up after the film's conclusion....
          I swear upon the soul of the web that I didn't write that.

          Oh boy, Alex is opening up the big bottle of wine. If this entry should become more incoherent, you know why.

          Got a nice e-mail from Ross yesterday - hi, Ross - waving the flag for my plan to resume screenwriting. It was very enheartening. Ross is a family friend and a smart guy - despite his best attempts to slaughter brain cells with too many pints of bitter and holidays in the sun - and his opinion carries a lot of weight with me.

          Visited Alex's mom yesterday afternoon. She's doing very well, but won't be released until Monday because of some farcical situation involving her doctor being out of town. Drat. But she's feeling quite well - given the situation - and doesn't mind having to stay in the hospital another day. It's a much better attitude than being grumpy, I suppose. ;)
          Following a thread on a journal e-mail list I subscribe to, Alex and I resurrected our list of who we would cast in a movie based upon our lives. Picking and choosing which Hollywood celebs will portray us and our friends was a fun way to kill time as we were driving back from visiting Alex's mom. Of course, I'm going to share the cast list. If any of my friends have better suggestions - or I've forgotten you completely - drop me a line. I'd be tickled pink to hear your POV, but I'll leave the reasons for the casting to your imagination.

The Life and Times of a Dedicated Geekgrrl
(it's a working title, you understand)

 

• Me - Jennifer Connelly
• Alex - Seth Green (although Alex wants Sam Neill)
• Chris Mead - Michael Palin
• Susan Mead - Diana Rigg
• Dan Kruzinsky (Alex's dad) - Ian Holm
• Joanne Kruzinsky (Alex's mom) - Blythe Danner
• Melissa Baker - Sandra Bullock
• Jenn Brozek - Gillian Anderson or Helen Hunt
• Brook Weir - Michael Biehn
• Logan Waterman - Cary Grant or a young Rutger Hauer (we're getting a time machine for this one, natch)
• Dave Webb - Christian Slater
• Terry O'Daniel - Daniel Day Lewis (don't kill me, Alex suggested it!)
• Kevin Jones - Liam Neeson
• Collette Campbell - Lisa Kudrow
• Ross Milne - Pete Posselthwaite

          There are others - Alex and I cast almost everyone we know - but I don't want to bore you too much.

Johanna's Writing News
          A movie like Eyes Wide Shut certainly cheers me up about the screenwriters' art... I'm going to be hitting the bookstores for some inspirational reading - I've managed to lose my copy of "Adventures in the Screen Trade" by William Goldman - and taking an axe to my treatment for On The Edge.

***

          I spent most of Sunday recovering from staying up until 3:30AM the night before, drinking more wine that was really good for me. Groo. Still, I don't I've done any permanent damage to my liver, and this time I only wrote some mediocre poetry while under the influence - rather than a long rambling letter to the American President. Well, as far I remember, I didn't write to the President again...

          Argh! My less-gaming resolution is being threatened! Two friends of mine who attempted to launch a Babylon 5 LARP (canceled because of logistical hairiness) are now thinking of a Fading Suns LARP. I'm not familiar with Fading Suns, but my friends have told me to expect a lot of high-court intrigue in a space opera setting, and that sounds good to me. Actually, I'm doubtful if this game will take off, either, so I'm not going to dedicate any thinking-time to it until it actually becomes necessary. No, I'm not resisting temptation on this one, as the two chaps running it are very devious players, and I'd love to see what they create as gamemasters.

***

          I love life's little ironies. They're what prevents me from collapsing into a complete morass of self-pity and whingeing.
          Take Monday morning for example. I awaken after a solid evening of nightmares, mostly consisting of my childhood home being consumed by the sea - never read Cthulhu mythos stories before going to bed - and feeling a bit blue about the latest dip in my roller-coaster week.
          My mood of nervous-blueness mutates into anxiety and irritation as my 45 minute commute takes nearly two hours, most of it in the trans-bay tunnel, which occupies three of the top ten spots of the Places Johanna Doesn't Want to Die or Even Be Stuck In For Any Length of Time. The six block walk from my station to work felt like it took another two hours, and the gray blustery weather kept reminding me of my dreams last night.
          I get to work ready to spend the day feeling utterly sorry for myself and whining at anyone whom I can corner long enough to listen. I sit down at my desk, and listen to my boss, Dave, talk about PTSD in general, and his experience in the Falklands War in particular. As he finishes talking about how he can still hear the voice of an injured Argentinian soldier crying for his mother all night, I shamefacedly realize that I don't really have much of an excuse to mope.

          I rarely do - have much reason to mope, that is. On the grand cosmic scale of things, life is good. Excessive self-pity is my misguided way of paying attention to myself, an excuse to be gloomy and rotten to everyone around me, and I thank heavens/quantum physics/whatever, that causes life to slap me upside the head almost every time I start sliding into one of those moods.
          Besides, nobody likes a gloomyguts. :)

          Interesting encounter, during my seemingly-long walk to work. I was wearing a skirt and heels - because my jeans were filthy - and I'm clomping down Market Street. Just as I'm crossing Second Street, a middle aged fellow - gingery hair, moon-shaped smiling face, could be a psycho or simply a pickup attempt - asked me a question.
          "Do you think women get a satisfaction - perhaps on the subconscious level - from the noise that high-heeled shoes make when they walk?"
          I couldn't help laughing at that one, because I've wondered at it myself. "They might." I replied, "It certainly gives me a sense of going somewhere." - which is true enough. I think there's something very satisfying in the click-click of heels on pavement.
          "I've always wondered," he told me. "Because there has to be a reason why they're so noisy. I mean, there's no reason why manufacturers can't just put a little rubber sole on those shoes, and save women from sounding like horses when they go walking down the street.." and with that, he stepped into a coffee shop.
          It's an interesting point - why do most heeled shoes sound so noisy? There are times when I wince at how loud they can be - usually when I'm trying to creep through a library, or coming home late at night - and there are times when the click of hard plastic on concrete is positively cheerful....

          Between Kubrick, Cthulhu and - oh hell, I can't pull off the alliteration - general grumpiness, I had a hell of a time unstuffing my head yesterday. I had a sense of a lot of unrealized, unformed ideas in my mind and no notion of how to get at them and express them, let alone what they were about. Maybe it was just the lingering hangover...

          Yesterday was pleasantly busy at work. Busy enough to get my mind off moping, certes, and for that I was damn glad. However, everyone else had a sucky day. Alex twisted his ankle running after the dog, trying to get him outside before he (the dog, that is) threw up on the carpet. Alex is hobbling around on a cane and manfully insisting that he does not need to see a doctor. What is it with the male of the species and their refusal to take medical aid when needed? Mind you, for Alex, seeing a doctor means driving for the best part of an hour to the nearest Air Force Base, and when it's your right ankle that's been hurt, driving is hardly enjoyable.
          Meanwhile, Jennifer had a major fit at a mutual friend, and then discovered that a radical mistake had been made - arrgh - and I'm writhing with sympathy for her...

          Me, I spent the night near the television, listening to Ballykissangel (I'm one of the six people in the United States who watches that show), munching on a Galaxy bar (a bit of old Blighty!) and trying to figure out a supposedly simple bit of java programming so I can redesign the front page for Rough Cut. Yes, I'm finally caving in and planning to add some java rollovers to my front page. I've always said that I'll never design anything for my site that I couldn't run on my home machine, and now that the 486 has been put out to pasture and replaced with a shiny new not-too-far-behind-the-curve machine, I can finally make my front page a wee bit more dynamic.
          Assuming I can figure out this fershluggin' java thing. Hell, I work at a web shop, I'm sure someone has some code I can steal....

          My attempts to cheer myself up are being beset by difficulties at every turn. For a start, everyone's mourning the death of JFK Jr. - so that established a gloomier-than-normal baseline. My birthday is coming up tomorrow (send flowers or money to....) and that always gets me a bit maudlin - I'm constantly surprised that a sterling example of mediocrity such as myself keeps living year after year, whereas Mozart was dead by thirty. And I've got a handful of miserable friends who aren't exactly up to trying to share any passing joy. All around, a gloomy week.
          But, damn it, I'm determined not to get bogged down. All being depressed does for me is get me gloomy, make me break out and eat too much... I think I'll go see that new Muppet movie tonight. It's silly, I know, but I like the Muppets, and how can a person be gloomy around Kermit?

***

         Well, another birthday has trundled around to say hello. I've finally outgrown the driving need to be the absolute center of attention on my b-day, but a little fussing is nice - and I got that yesterday with a cake from my co-workers and dinner from my parents.
          As years go, this one has been fairly hectic. Let's see, I got laid off from one sorta-groovy place, only to get hired at an even groovier joint, I made a handful of new friends - and managed to hang on to most of the old ones - and, of course, I got married! Not bad, not bad at all. I wonder what next year will bring?

          Of course, musing about next year assumes that I will live through today. I severely dropped the ball on an interview candidate yesterday, and now I'm scrambling to bring him in - and I've already got two other people coming in today, so the engineers who I usually pull as interviewers are getting a bit surly about the whole thing. I don't blame them. So, I'm going to get to work now, and maybe I'll add something up here a little later.

***

          I think I'm finally shaking off my case of run-away-itis. It's a normal phenomenon, I'm told. Whenever I'm not my usual sharp-tongued-but-blithely-happy self, I get seized by the urge to go somewhere, anywhere. Just go somewhere new and pray a new state of mind will accompany me.
          Jumping into a car and dashing out on a madcap roadtrip is a great premise for a movie, but in real life, I suspect that most who follow that impulse find themselves in the middle of Fresno, at 2AM with an empty gas tank and no idea how to get home. And the kind of excitement that Fresno can offer in the middle of the night is the wrong kind.
          And given the fact that I can't drive, the idea of driving for the horizon becomes just slightly ridiculous. And I don't care what a great screenplay it would make, I'm not going to flee my worries on a Greyhound bus. Yuk.
          Running away from problems is always than solving them, isn't it? The trick is to remember that problems can run awfully fast - faster than you.

         I'm reading Clive Barker's Weaveworld this week. I've not read anything of his before - unless you want to count my lost copy of The Great And Secret Show. I'm only a hundred pages (out of nearly 700) in at the moment, but so far, so good. Actually, I've been motivated to read this particular book because one of its principal characters shares some commonalities with my boss, Dave who is a chum of Barker's, it seems. Ah, we'll read books for the silliest reasons, no?

          Yesterday was a thankfully mild day. I followed my usual Friday tradition of "Gothic Friday", much to the amusement of the attendees of our sorta-monthly cocktail party. Gothic Friday is my protest against corporate dress codes in general, and Casual Day in particular. Every Friday, when I get on the BART commuter train, I am surrounded by a sea of khakis. Most of my fellow commuters obviously work in traditional offices, and the Sea O'Khakis indicates that today is Casual Day - but not so casual that they can wear jeans. Poor sods. I very much agree with the belief that , with the - possible exception of banking - what you wear is not going to affect your business one jot.
          So, to wave the flag for sartorial freedom in the office, and to break my monotony of wearing jeans and tee-shirts almost every day of the week, I don whatever clean and hopefully-Gothic duds I have, and counter Casual Day with Gothic Day. It's my way of pointing out that dress really isn't that important in an office.
          Mind you, most of my goth clothing falls under the 'fetish' category, so I have been compelled to create a look that my boss, KJ, calls "Office Gothic". Oh, the burden of being a fashion pioneer!

         During the aforementioned office cocktail party, I had a great talk with Richard, who is an occasional contractor and, more to the point, occasional screenwriter who is scratching and clawing to sell his work any bloody way possible. Talking with him is very inspiring, and it's always fun to kvetch about how producers don't know anything about art. :)

          I had a nice day yesterday - even though I have a Carlin-eqsue hatred of the word 'nice', it really is the most fitting in this case. In the afternoon, Jennifer came over for lunch and a browse at the local used book store. There wasn't much there to drain my bank account - for once - but I did pick up one of the few Dick Francis novels I haven't read yet, for the commute.
          After that, Jennifer and I left Alex at home and went to go see Eyes Wide Shut. To my immense relief, Jennifer liked it. As we were leaving the theater, I told her "I wasn't sure if you would like this movie, or not, but I think your life is better for having seen it.". A man sitting in the row in front of us turns to me and says, a little surprised "You liked it that much?". "Second time I've seen it." I told him, and wandered off.
          I wish I had taken the time to say "Like it or not, a movie like this will make you think." As I've said before, I believe the great film makers are the ones who can take something - be it a notion, ideal, obsession or whatever - and present it for all to see. It forces the viewer to recognize that notion within themselves - or gives them to freedom to quietly admit to it - and that recognition/admission can lead to some interesting self-discovery. And I think Eyes Wide Shut is one of those films that provokes recognition and admission of beliefs that people don't usually want to talk about.
          Or maybe I just spent too much time in film theory classes.

          Later, a few of us, including Logan, Brook, Kriztina and the long-lost Ashley headed out to my favorite Chinese/Japanese restaurant for dinner. Nummers! Garlic green beans and sushi all round! I had a good time chatting and hanging out with them, but the migrane fairy came to visit just before the appetizers arrive, and it was touch or go whether I was going to be able to sit through dinner, or if I was going to lobotomize myself with a chopstick. Given that I'm still able to type, I'm sure you can guess which happened.

          Sunday was another lazy day. I spent most of it in bed trying to screw my head back on after a lingering visit from the migrane fairy. I wasn't in pain, but I was feeling very light headed and disoriented, so it was best for all concerned if I was kept away from sharp instruments and power tools.
          I ventured outside long enough to find a good knock-off of the aforemention fifty dollar shirt, but then I promptly blew what I saved on a strapless bra to go under it - it was a backless halter top. Wonderbra now makes a strapless version, and discovering that fact put me in lingerie heaven for a few, blissful moments. Then I remembered how bloody awkward it is to wear the dam' things. Still, the combo looked great and my husband was right - I needn't have worried about the aptness of my untoned arms with a halter-top, becuase nobody was looking at my arms, anyways... *grin*

          Bedlams's Rest was last night - which is why I flipped out and bought clothes in my fugue state - and I had a very good time. Now that my character's clan - the Tremere - is quite proliferate, the other courtiers are finally talking to us. Admittedly it's so they can figure out where to plant the knife, but at least my character, Rebecca, made some new acquaintances.
          Of course, some of them, Rebecca wouldn't have missed. The minions of a cult that she had unwittingly crossed introduced themselves with rifle butts - owie - and damn near kidnapped her. She was only saved because some Brujah were about to go bungee jumping - with a firehose - from a nearby roof. Whilst some courtiers seemed a little disappointed at Rebecca's survival, the Brujah seemed dead chuffed to have had a bit of excitement.
          They got excitement in buckets when, an hour later, the meeting venue (an office on top of a five story building - was attacked by a bunch of machine-gun toting assassins. Rebecca happened to be on the roof at this point, enjoying a bit of mutual up-suckery with the court Harpy. We both desperately wanted to ingratiate ourselves with each other, so the bullshit was getting pretty deep - but fun. As the gunfire erupted from the nearby office, both he and I realized that the Brujah's improvised bungee cord was still in place, so we slid our dead asses out of there. Cowardly, but y'know what? We survived.

          Yay! The power is back on, but that means I have to go back to work... Oh well...

          I need to have a long chat with my subconscious mind. I keep dreaming about wind this month. I'll leave the dreary analysis to your fetid imagination, dear reader.

          Speaking - well, writing - of fetid imaginations, despite my resolution to cut down my game-writing, I am being plagued by ideas for an epilogue story for Rachel, despite the fact that the chronicle she belongs to has been closed for six months... I've got a bad feeling I'm going to have to exorcise these demons by writing them down. It's not that I mind writing for one of my darlings, but I really am trying to let my mind lie fallow for a bit before launching into my screenplays again.

          My office recovered from the local power outage quite well - web people without web access are a lonely, confused lot. I was applauded for my frantic use of my Palm Pilot during the outage, until I told people I was just writing my journal for the day - not keeping up with vital corporate e-mails.

          Wheee! We have a pony masquerading as a dog in the office today - a harlequin Great Dane called Gatsby. He is easily one of the most mellow dogs I've ever seen, as well as one of the largest, and darned handsome to boot. His owner is not going to be able to get any work done today, because everyone keeps stopping by to make a fuss of Gatsby....
          Not much to report today, kids, just another average day in geekland. Maybe more later.

          Another uneventful day at work yesterday - aside from Gatsby's visit. I honestly don't think I've ever seen a dog that big before. His head was the same height as my waist and when he walked, he positively loped. Of course, he was just an overgrown puppy and a delight to scritch.
          Let it be noted, I heartily approve of offices that allow the workers to bring in their pets. I wish it was viable to bring a cat into the office, but cats can't be trusted enough not to go abandon the home office for one that has fresh lox for their bagels.

          I had a great visit with BrianT last night. We've not kept much in touch for the past few months, so last night was spent splitting a pizza and talking about everything from friendship, to gaming, to books and back again. Mostly I was there to give him a chance to vent about a few things that have been occupying his time, and I think I helped, somewhat.
          Brian's a perceptive guy that occasionally gets dismissed because of his slightly goofy attitude, but he's extremely articulate and can find the heart of a matter - no matter what the subject - surprisingly quickly. A major theme of our conversation was ourselves - how we have been, how we have been trying to change negative aspects of our personalities over the past year. We can both be pretty bitchy (cue: sarcastic gasps of disbelief) and we're both trying to blunt our occasionally sharp tongues. Wish us luck!
          At one point in the evening, rather than gossip about our mutual friends, we decided to trade rumors we had heard about ourselves lately. There was nothing new - for either of us - but it was interesting to hear what was making the rounds, and for how long...
          Somehow, Brian had gotten the impression that I was unhappy about something until a few months ago... Odd, that. Truth be told, once I had kicked out my freeloading ex-room-mate about two years ago, I've been as happy as the proverbial clam.

          What is the origin of that saying 'as happy as a clam' - how do we know that? Where's the empirical evidence? Why should some mollusk (oh, alright, bivalve) on the ocean floor be any happier than, say, Jerri Hall?

          I'm still furiously uninspired to get back to working on my screenplays. I may just take a short-cut and enroll in another screenwriting class, as a tangible deadline and associating with my peers will probably help kick-start me right handily. I guess I'm just a little dissapointed by the transition time required to go from gaming-writing to anything else. Why can't I be brimming over with brilliant ideas and crackling dialogue the instant I wish it, darnit? (waves a big 'joke' sign)

          Aiye! My office was without power again, today, until nearly one o'clock. Apparently a transformer blew or something. Great.
          For a while, I loyally tried to be a hall monitor and stop the engineers from playing truant, but it was in vain. By ten o'clock, parties had departed to go see "American Pie", work at home, or just go sit in the sunshine at South Park. I finally crumbled when an expedition headed out to SF MOMA to take a look at Tiborocity. Very interesting, but I still think that the biggest mystery behind modern art is "Who's putting on who?"

          I saw the most wonderful man walking down Market Street today. He was clad in a grey faux-fur jacket, tiny black spandex shorts, bright pink fishnet hose, black legwarmers, patent leather boots, white spandex gloves and matching hot-pink earrings, sunglasses and tiny valise, which was gently clasped between right thumb and forefinger. His hair was peroxide blonde, in a crew cut, and he walked with the most delicate, deliberate gait I've seen outside of a drag show. Entirely too wonderful for 9AM, I thought.
          Watching people react to him was amusing. Down in the Castro, or even over on Haight, he probably would have been invisible, but the heart of the Financial District is another story entirely....

          Out of the mouths of babes... My back threw a minor spasm on Tuesday night while I was visiting with BrianT and he gives me a shrewd assessment and asks "Anxiety attack?" I immediately replied in the negative and hobbled off to go do some unladylike stretches in the bathroom. The spasm - for once - passed very quickly and faded without the help of painkillers or a hot bath, but Brian's comment got me thinking.
          My nasty back twinges are aggravated by stress, I know that already, but it was something that I had shrugged off as being a minor factor. I was more willing to believe that my lousy posture or lack of exercise was a more direct cause. But the tendency for the attacks to come on very suddenly - usually with no warning - and that the best cure I have for them is to take some deep breaths and lie down in hot bathtub, suggests that anxiety might be playing a far bigger role in my back-stress than I anticipated.
          Holy shit, what's got me so upset? And why don't I know about it?

          I think I'm suffering LARP withdrawal. I've got lots of free floating inspiration, but I'm not feeling inspired to write anything, so I figure it must be an urge to roleplay. I've gone from four games to one in three months - no wonder I'm feeling jittery! Must...resist..urge..to...don...silly...outfits....

          In one of those eerie out-of-internet-body experiences, I have to tell you that I'm not here today. I mean, yes, I'm still on the planet earth, but I'm not in any position to write/upload new content - this was sneakily uploaded last night - because I have got the unenviable task of being notes-taking-maven at an all-day offsite meeting today.
          So, instead of my usual goofing off at work, I'm actually working today, just somewhere else. Gory details will be forthcoming.

Written Last Night

          Watching Nick's acting class again - for the last time. It's their final tonight and Nick asked me to show up as support. I honestly can't imagine why. What I've seen of his exercises, and judging by what Nick's told me of his teacher's reaction to him, he's already acing the class and could probably read his laundry list and pass.
          Beth has just read the assembled the riot act and the students are about to start. I think the noise of my tapping away will distract them, so I had better stop for a bit.
Notes taken during the exam
          This woman is evil. Students are performing an exercise in two colors - aggressive and pastel. Two adult men just had to play the scene as two five year old girls making up after a fight on the swings. I think they deserve a passing grade, just for not cracking up completely.
          I think I'm starting to understand why nick is looking just a tiny bit anxious....Uh-oh, he's up...
          My god, the boy should be a drill sergeant, i nearly dropped my palm pilot when he started. Hm, I think he's straining his voice...yep, there's a crack...
          Pastel time - this should be interesting...Nick as shy, which is something I thought I'd never see...not bad...
          His partner is good, too - lovely energy and voice...
          I wonder if these people have any idea how brave they are? I hope so. Watching this is making me squirm - as I've said before, I'm just not brave enough for real acting.
          I was idly toying with the notion of taking this class - if it was being offered next semester by the same teacher, in the evenings - but I'm certain I would get eaten alive...
          Oh my, two surfer boys just got hit with "Barbie on cocaine" as their pastel - oh, the humanity!
          I think a lot of these students need to work on pacing - of course, they are beginners. They have great energy, but many of them seem to be rushing through their lines. Silence is as powerful as speech. Mind you, nerves must be a factor...
          *grin* The sultry Latina just got handed 'seductive' on a plate. She's got a great manner, but she's losing vocal energy and that's dragging her partner down. The perils of soft colors.
          Hmm, a lot of energy going into body gestures - a lot of stamping and gesturing.. This is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. As I recall, Jim Kirkwood threatened to staple my arms to my sides...
          The students have certainly gotten closer to each other in the meantime. There's a lot of friendly chatting going on between them. Nothing like adrenaline to enhance bonding, hm?

          I'm still agonizing over my lack of direction for Rebecca. I try to think of ideas for her, and think of ideas for Rachel or Patricia, instead. That's no doubt because it's easier to think of ideas for well-developed characters, rather than to break new ground. Still, Rob reminded me of a couple of basics that I had forgotten - make it personal and get into trouble. With that in mind, maybe I can get Rebecca into some interesting scrapes.

          The all-day offsite meeting for the engineering dept. wasn't nearly as bad as I had feared. We met in a private house in a Marin - an absolutely gorgeous structure on Mount Tam - and I was afraid I wasn't going to get any work done for looking out of the window over the spectacular view... One structure, about a mile away, attracted our attention. It was quite rectangular, built into the side of the mountain, and all grey planes and the occasional blue domed skylight. I dubbed it "Dr Evil's Summer Lair" and that seemed quite apt.
          The downside was that I spent almost seven hours sitting on an ottoman (soft and squishy), twisted in an odd way to watch the speakers and type notes on my laptop - ow, my back! But the location made up for it, I think....

          So I had a minor revelation yesterday as my boss, Shadwell - oh, I mean Mitchelhill - was declaring "I can sell anything!", as he was selling us on the idea of committing our lives and souls to vivid for the next three years. The minor revelation had nothing to do with that, that's just when it happened.
          I'm a voyeur. Not in the 'peeping tom' sense, but definitely, I think, in the social and creative sense.
          It's a given that any cinema aficionado has got a big streak of voyeur built into them - otherwise we wouldn't want to stick that big one-eyed intruder called a camera into everything - and the same is true for being a writer.
          But I think my voyeurism extends beyond that. As I was sitting in yesterday's beautiful meeting place, watching the meeting and taking notes, I was struck - as I have been many times before - by a sense of being an outsider. Unless I'm with a group of close friends, that is almost always how I feel. I don't feel driven to force myself onto the scene, and I rarely feel welcome when I'm hanging on the peripheral. When left to my own devices in a group situation where I don't know the majority, I will wander off and be by myself, or find the one person I do know and stick to them like a limpet.
          Most often, when I find myself wanting to creep away, I force myself not to, and try to find new people to speak with. There's an ongoing battle between my alienation and my common sense - "If you don't want to feel like an outsider, then you have to meet people." - but fear of looking like a babbling idiot can do a handy job of short-circuiting my bravery... So far, I think I'm winning about as many encounters as I lose.

          I like to watch people and circumstances as a I walk down the street. My end-of-day commute is my favorite time for this. I will see people hurrying along Market Street and try to remember their faces, or create stories for them - why is he standing outside the ice-cream shop looking so furious? - all the time feeling removed from those around me.

          The 'cowardly voyeur' notion extends to why I prefer cinema over the stage. The camera, the screen, the entire production process, puts a barrier between myself and the other end - whether I'm in the director's chair, or in the audience. In the audience, the 'fourth wall' is clear, certainly, but it's made out of unbreakable glass. I can watch a film comfortably. There is distance enough between myself and the characters to prevent any discomforting intimacy.
          Not so on stage. The fourth wall is gone, and you are peering directly into characters' lives - in a much more immediate and intimate manner than on-screen. And that makes me feel uncomfortable in some ways - the voyeur forced so close to their target that they risk being caught, perhaps? Even when I was watching Nick's acting class yesterday, I was squirming a little at the immediacy of it all. I couldn't hit 'pause' and go to another room or think 'these are just characters', as they were more than that, they were people.

          Of course, this could be a universal phenomena... If nothing else, I think I've finally figured out why fans of the theater might heap contempt on cinema. I still think it's cool, though.

          After this minor revelation and a long day I thought it might be nice to go visit Jennifer, who I thought might want company after getting an extra-strength dose of Harsh Truths Nobody Wants To Hear earlier in the week. So I toddled down to the south bay. Armed with beer and pizza rolls - obviously I was feeling nostalgic for my early college days - we both went to visit Rob and Lisa. Of course, we gossiped an awful lot about gaming and the like, and we had a good time.