Planter Seedspill, halfling druid of Ehlonna, ruffled the humongous eagle’s feathers with what he hoped was affection, but came off as frustrated. Animals were better at reading moods than people. The eagle gave a piercing but short, barking cry, which the halfling had come to associate with annoyance. He stopped ruffling her neck. She had a head as large as his body, so he had learned to be careful around her; even friendly nips drew blood. Pulling back, he let the dire eagle stalk off of the nest he had created for her, then hurriedly looked down. Nope, no eggs. Despite having released her to fly on mating flights in the Clatspurs among her old brood-mates. Planter heaved a sigh. Dogs bred so easily, by comparison.

“Still no luck, little one?” Illyana asked softly, walking up behind Planter and gazing with appreciation at the eagle’s form as she preened herself. Planter shook his head.

“Nothing,” the halfling muttered.

“Can you blame her, Planter?,” the normally cold and distant elf replied, an unusual level of emotion seeping into her voice as she spoke. “Look at her. She is a creature of the air, made to fly, to soar, to feel the touch of Aerdrie’s grace. Eggs growing within her would only burden her. Young in the nest would only tie her to the ground. Why, you strange little creature, are you so eager for her to breed?”

Planter shrugged. “It’s what we all should do, if we can. To celebrate Ehlonna’s blessing, to celebrate fertility. My dogs do it, why can’t she?”

Illyana’s face remained neutral, and the tone of her words held no bite, despite their blunt meaning. “You have a very narrow mind, Planter. Surprising, for one who follows two such diverse paths, one of arcane grimoires and the other of the wild divinity of nature.”

Planter turned, hands on his hips, a cross look on his face. “Look, miss ‘I’m afraid to go underground because all caves are evil,’ you’re one to talk about narrow minds. I like raising animals, that isn’t wrong. And so what if-”

Unmoved, Illyana interrupted “How often have you flown with her, Planter?”

Planter stopped. “What? Well, every time we travel, I’m rid-”

“No,” she interrupted again. “Not on missions. Not while traveling. How often have you flown with her out of joy?”

Planter sputtered. “Well, I have to take care of my animals, and Paladin’s new litter of puppies is about to be born, and Goodberry is always harassing me to study more spells, and . . .”

“What are you afraid of, Planter?” the elf asked him suddenly. “You said that I’m afraid of caves . . . but we place upon others the things that we do admit to feeling ourselves. You’re afraid of something, too, aren’t you?” Her eyes widened. “Why, you funny little man.” She began to laugh, a sound Planter had never before heard. “You,” she said, eyes sparkling, “are afraid of heights!”

Planter stopped, stunned. He looked at Bounty, as if afraid the eagle had overheard, then looked over his shoulders, making sure the two were alone. Then, finally, he hung his head. “I don’t . . . I wish I liked flying with her. But, I just, I get up there, and if we’re any higher than the trees, I just, I . . . I freeze.” He kicked a pebble, and muttered to himself “It’d be easier if Bounty just lived up to her name, and would lay some eggs.”

Illyana’s look of humor was replaced by one of disappointment and mild dislike. “For the love of the Seldarine, Planter, who is she to live up to a name that YOU’VE given her?” The elf shook her head, and turned away. “Well, this is your trial, and I have other things to do. But I wonder what the eagle herself would have to say about all this.” Over her shoulder, she added, “Why don’t you ask her?”

Zack Snyder’s 300 is filled with as many bad lines as it is unintentional ironies. The worst of the first: “My heart is filled with hate.” The most striking of the latter: that truth and freedom is represented by burly men with beards who all dress alike, while the deviants, body piercers, and transsexuals apparently side with tyranny and repression. Go figure. But that sort of thing is to be expected from a nearly neo-con like Frank Miller, the author of the graphic novel on which the film is based; we can forgive it, as long as there’s style and badass fights and an indefinable cool along with it.

Unfortunately, there isn’t. Unlike its older sibling, Sin City, this Miller adaptation does not translate smoothly to the big screen. Whereas Robert Rodriguez picked and chose from Miller’s collection of noir tales to make an effective, stylish, and uniquely cinematic experience, Zack Snyder remains slavishly adherent to Miller’s original pacing and narrative, and it costs him. The movie, which should be sweeping and action-packed, feels like it’s being viewed in static, rectangular blocks. We’re forced to wait for Snyder to turn the page, he reads a hell of a lot slower than we do. The few changes Snyder makes in his screenplay are pointless additions, including an irrelevant home front political sub-plot and several “big boss” videogame-style foes.

On the plus side, 300 has some good verbal sparring and some nifty choreography. But even those don’t feel original. The beautiful classical coloring and rural landscapes are right out of Gladiator; the swarms of arrows are right out of Hero; and the devil-may-care-yet-deadly-earnest attitude is right out of Braveheart. None of that is tied together, though, into a coherent whole. There’s no sense of environment or place, no frame of reference for the viewer. The spraying blood never lands on the ground, because there is no ground; it’s all CGI. When you create your own world, you have to tell the computer everything that you want to see, and remembering the little details is, apparently, too much work. Instead the filmmakers simply focus the camera on the actors in front of them, and forget to tell the computer to generate everything else that should be happening. Instead of there being a raging battle to the left, right, and behind our vision, instead of a real world out there of thrashing bodies and stray javelins, we have the feeling that the next wave of enemies is waiting in the wings, politely delaying their attack until the camera can get them in its field of view. Maybe they needed a bigger green screen.

Michael Caine’s character tells us that every great magic trick consists of three acts: a beginning that shows you something ordinary, a middle in which the extraordinary is done with that ordinary thing, and an end, where you’re shocked by something you’ve never seen before. Unfortunately, The Prestige fails to follow this outline, providing a boiling-over beginning and a tepid end; the first 20 minutes are spent trying to catch up with the film’s premise, while the last 20 minutes are spent waiting to be shown something that we’ve already seen.

The out-of-sequence storytelling of the film, using a series of flashbacks centered around a pair of diaries, is one area that seems forced and maybe unnecessary. Director Christopher Nolan gained his fame via Memento, another movie that involved (and was dependent on) a non-sequential narrative. There, it worked, and had a strangely perforated elegance; here, it felt plodding.
Fortunately for us, the middle part is, if not extraordinary, at least entertaining. It is in this pleasing hour-and-a-half that the actors fit into their roles like gloves. Though Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale rarely appear onscreen together, the few moments that they intersect are electrifying. Relative unknown Rebecca Hall, playing Bale’s wife, does an amazing job with what little screen time she has, showing up Scarlett Johansson as a mistress shared by the two magicians. There is even room amidst the intrigue for pleasant surprises like David Bowie as Nikola Tesla and Andy Serkis (that’s Gollum and King Kong) as his assistant. It’s in the scenes with these two mysterious figures that the movie has great potential, as if promising disturbing questions and shocking revelations . . . but that potential is squandered with poor pacing and editing.

The only question is whether the bad choices made by the director were deliberate; it’s almost as if Nolan were more concerned with how the film would hold up under second and third viewings, as repeat watchers dug through the narrative looking for clues and evidence of the reveal, than he was with how it would be seen the first time around.

Day 5
So, day 5 of my journeys was filled with mishap. Montana dislikes me, apparently. It was cloudy and ominous as I approached the western half of the state, and I feared the upcoming and inevitable mountain pass. Also, Missoula was the point at which I planned to deviate from the major routes 84/90, which come together there, and to instead zoom onto route 12, giving me a little medium-size-road driving time.

Well, I drove about an hour past Missoula before I realized that I had bypassed the junction with 12. Then I looped back, and found the junction road, heading south, keeping in mind that I had to veer west at some point.

And then after about half an hour I noticed that I had not yet turned west, so I looped back again, and eventually found the turn, right where I had previously stopped for gas and thought to myself “awright, which way from here?”

It could, of course, have been, not that Montana disliked me, but rather that I was listening to a book on tape that distracted my already-impaired direction-finding higher brain functions (though leaving my reptile brain, with reflexes and traffic signal info, completely free to focus on driving, thankyouverymuch).

In any case, once I hit Idaho, everything turned around. Had a nice campsite, cooked myself some clam chowder (w. chunk of yummy fancy bread from the market in Missoula), read a little, and slept well. Then, in the morning, I stopped at a nearby trailhead and hiked just a mile in to find my very own hot spring! Thanks to J. Crook for the info on where it would be . . . I got there early enough, even though it was on a Saturday, to have the place all to myself. Passed about 6 hikers on my way out, all with buckets and flip-flops and towels, confirming that I just missed a rush. Muscles soothed and psyche repaired, I hopped back in the car, threw some “Last of the Mohicans” soundtrack into the tape deck for my fun curvy descent down the other side of the mountains, and let it ride.

When I finally reached somewhere that my phone could get a signal again, I called my contact in Portland, Mason Rippey (little brother of one of my highschool pals) . . . only to find that the number I so cleverly wrote down before I left home was, in fact, his work number. It being a Saturday, there was no one there to answer it. I then called Matt in Seattle, the highschool pal in question, to get Mason’s home contact info . . . no luck. I would later learn that he was in B.C. all weekend on a fishing trip, randomly planned and executed by business partners of his company, or some similar boondoggle zaniness. Third try: Andy, also in Seattle, generally organized guy. He did, hurray, have Mason’s number.

So I left a message, caught up with Dad, stopped to relax along the Columbia River (at a weird park; downstream from some kind of industrial doohickey and upstream from a corrections facility! Fun for the whole family!), and found a state park to camp in. Just two hours out from Portland, last night on the road, nothing to do, so I popped into a starbucks/mcdonalds at Hood River, OR, and used the wireless there to get a head start on apartment-hunting. Good thing I did, too, cause it serendipitously led me to . . . well, that’s a story for the next posting.

For now, pictures!

Stopover in Missoula to clean out the westward-ho-mobile, a bit. Notice the carefully placed entertainment options: Old-school tapes (many from HS) in the tupperware in front of the seat, about $30 worth of books-on-tape in the container on top of the box. Also not pictured (I was gonna take a pic of the original setup, with diagrams and arrows . . . that woulda been funny. Oh well.) are Dave's satellite radio hookup, loaned for the drive, and my CD player.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406668/in/set-72157594248794564/

Hah! You thought I meant normal CD player on the dashboard, or at worse a portable CD player that you have a little tape-player extension thingy for. Nope, my friends, this is cheapo travel, here. I had my "boom box" all set up in the passenger seat, speakers detached and placed strategically near the cockpit, powered by a cig lighter-to-electric plug adapter thingy! It was great for Twernbold's mix CD, star wars soundtrack, and one other album I listened to . . . then it went into "storage" with the rest of my belongings, behind the cockpit.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406711/in/set-72157594248794564/

Chill independent hotel north of Yellowstone, from which I did some writing/editing. I think I mentioned it in my last post.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406632/in/set-72157594248794564/

Crossing a lovely mountain stream near the highway in Idaho . . .
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406986/in/set-72157594248794564/

Not sure what's going on here. Is it a trail marker? Is it a female tree doing a photo-shoot in the woods? Either way, I'm SCANDALIZED!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406911/in/set-72157594248794564/

Ooh, what's this strange mist rising out of a pool near the stream? I needs must investigate!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406862/in/set-72157594248794564/

It's a natural hot spring! Woo-hoo! Great, steamy water to soothe those aching driving muscles.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406824/in/set-72157594248794564/

That is, once I figure out how the timer on my new camera works. Oops.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406798/in/set-72157594248794564/

Dueling "Welcome to Oregon" signs
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406594/in/set-72157594248794564/

Hmm. Eastern Oregon sure is . . . umm . . . flat.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234407005/in/set-72157594248794564/

And an homage to the many lives lost so that I could make this momentous journey. Poor little guys.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/234406559/in/set-72157594248794564/

I interrupt my normal postings to bring you this ridiculous summary of an upcoming movie I'm very excited about, based on a graphic novel by Frank Miller.

SYNOPSIS
"Based on the epic graphic novel by Frank Miller, 300 is a ferocious retelling of the ancient Battle of Thermopylae in which King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and 300 Spartans fought to the death against Xerxes and his massive Persian army. Facing insurmountable odds, their valor and sacrifice inspire all of Greece to unite against their Persian enemy, drawing a line in the sand for democracy."

Democracy? DEMOCRACY!?!? (that's two interobangs right there!) "Democracy" and "King" don't exactly go well together, dumbasses. A line in the sand for nationalism, maybe, or independent rule, or against imperial rule, but not for democracy.

Yeesh.

I love it already. Cool city, tons of bikes, feels like the Bay Area a little bit, but less snooty. My host (younger brother of my longtime pal Matt) and his housemates rock, and have extended an offer for me to stay for 2 weeks (Sep. 6th is when a room in a house I'm interested in opens up).

I know I owe the universe a day of travel reports; will try to backlog that soon.

Woo!

Day 3/4, 00:00 a.m.
Once in each state, I’ve gotten a thumbs-up, peace sign, or positive comment regarding my “Defoliate Bush” bumper sticker. And they’ve all been from folks driving local vehicles (state plates). I gotta admit that I’m surprised, seeing as how I’m in middle America and there are, y’know, assumptions. Red states vs. blue states and all that. Which I guess is, as they say, a bit of a myth.

Disturbing scene of the day . . .
Old Campground Host Guy: “And yup, ya saw we got showers. Fifty cents’ll get ya two and a half minutes. Not long for a shower, won’t have no time ta play w’ your pud in thar. You don’ play w’ your pud inna shower, do ya?”
Me: “Heh. Uh. I’m afraid that’s personal information. Thanks, seeya!”

Otherwise, I’ve learned that Montana, like most continental divide states, is McBoring on the eastern half, and mind-blowingly gorgeous on the western half. It’s kinda funny how it creeps up on you. It goes from blah to “huh, it’s ugly, but interesting,” to a strange sense of impressive bigness, things seeming more rugged and sweeping, and then you top a rise and see this amazing river valley spread out below you with bluffs and valleys and ridges and you’re like “hot damn! Gorgeous!”

Sitting in my hotel room, looking out at the big mountains, stopping throughout the day to type on this or that . . . I could rapidly fall in love with this lifestyle. Not necessarily the nomadic one, but the “make my own schedule” one. The goal, I thought, was always to find gainful employment. But the closer I get to Portland, indeed the closer I got to leaving MN in the first place, the more I cherished the idea of making my own schedule. Freelance can of course accomplish that, but can I make enough to live on? I refuse to be scraping for rent and groceries ever again. So that may mean a part-time gig (REI? Or Starbucks, they offer health insurance), but those places don’t give you a lot of freedom over when you can and can’t work. So that would mean short-term freedom, e.g. doing what I want, when I want, each day, but not long-term, e.g. needing to work certain weekends, being unable to travel at will. I have some ideas on starting a new business once I hit Portland, but that may take capital. Of course, this freedom fascination might fade, as it has in the past, once reality sets in and the bills are due. But if it doesn’t, if I can make it work as my own boss . . . damn, that would be pretty great.

I now bequeath unto you, pictures!

The North Dakota badlands
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/224466637/

My cozy little state forest campsite
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/224466729/

Big ol’ cloud bank moving in
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/224466698/

Holy shit! It’s a mushroom cloud, but pretty. Did mother nature nuke Bismark after I left?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/224466677/

In their natural physiologies (not farm-raised and bred for bulk), wild turkeys are actually pretty cool and mobile. Or are these some kind of roadrunner? They sure look like turkeys. And when they run, they look like dinosaurs. Rar!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/224466940/

Oops
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/224466858/

Gah!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/224467083/

(damn sharks, following me every damn where. I bet some adapted when the see drained out, and are just lying under the dirt and pavement, waiting to eat me and my whole car)

Pointing west. Sweet! There’s hope for my love-life yet.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/224467155/

Day 2, 8:00 p.m. (Mountain Time, that is!)

To all you well-wishers who could not post replies because you have no livejournal account, problem solved! I changed my settings. Comment to your hearts' content.

First order of business tomorrow, once I hit civilization, is to have a proper meal. I’ve been mowing down peanut butter crackers and cheese sandwiches on the road, and this afternoon in Bismark I ate a crappy sandwich at Starbucks because I wanted to use the Wi-Fi there . . . note to self: good food = more important than good wireless connection. I was hoping to find a grocery store . . . or rather, considered stopping at a grocery store but didn’t bother . . . to pick up some supplementals (coffee, milk, tomato soup to go with tonight’s grilled cheese, etc.), but didn’t bother.

So it’s just grilled cheese, here at Buffalo Gap Forest Service Campground. This place rocks. Scenic, one-third the cost of camping at the nearest national park, and it has showers (the NP didn’t). Located in the northern badlands, which I didn’t even know existed; I thought they were in SD, and that was it.

Ah, and it is here that I have decided that rabbits, bunnies in the popular nomenclature, are the ideal campground scavenger. They’re timid enough that they don’t come right up to you (like, say, ducks, crows, or squirrels), innocuous enough that you don’t feel like you’re doing something wrong by not chasing them off (like deer or bears), easygoing enough that if you don’t feed them, they’ll just nibble on the local grass and hang about anyway, and they are, of course, fucking adorable.

Last night I stayed at the creepiest Motel 6 that ever existed. It was refurbished out of some kind of dormitory, I think; big cement brick walls painted white, wide hallways, very Spartan. The signs everywhere demanding that I not leave valuables in my car, and that the hotel was not responsible for stolen belongings, convinced me to take my bikes from the rack and hoof them up the stairs. So I spent an uneventful night watching Deadwood (a show that I relished when a co-worker brought in taped episodes, and have missed) and eating local-delivery pizza. I intended to write some more, but my brain was feeling mushy and unmotivated after the drive. The one bit that I saw included the death of a major character, meaning that season two and some undisclosed amount of season 3 are somewhat tarnished for me. Whine, whine, eh?

The mighty storm I took photos of last night did indeed hit, with lightning flashes galore. I emerged this morning to load my bikes back up and get some very bad complimentary coffee from the lobby, only to find . . . my doors unlocked.

I had been so goddamned preoccupied with making sure my two $50 falling-apart bikes were safe and sound that I had forgotten to lock my doors. Brilliant! As luck would have it, nothing was taken . . . whether my lack-of-bikes meant the car didn’t stand out, or the next-to-the-door-and-light ploy worked, or the broken off lock knob on the passenger side made it look locked, or my crappy stuff was unappealing, I escaped unthefted. The only really valuable stuff, Dave’s satellite radio and my laptop, were in the room anyway.

The morning was uneventful, other than my driving the car to fumes before finding a gas pump attached to a small-town bar in the middle of nowhere. Dumb; I had passed a major center just as the needle hit red, but the ol’ “I can push a little farther” pointless ambition arose, and on I went. 31.something miles per gallon on the first stretch; not bad, for being fully laden and with wind-resistant crap on top.

I’m now in Bismark, ND. I don’t particularly like it. I came in search of some wireless (which I found, although I had to pay $ for it) and a digital camera (the phone camera takes really, really crappy pictures, as my last entry demonstrates). Found the former at a Starbucks/Barnes & Noble, where I am now, and the latter in a Target. Now the question is whether I chill out and read some graphic novels, or push on. I figure I’ll make Theodore Roosevelt Natl Park by early evening, and camp there.

A 20-something Bismarkian woman with the most vividly colored tattoo I’ve ever seen (it’s an armband of flowers . . . yellow, red, green, blue, etc.) just came in. I don’t like tattoos in general, but every now and then, one works.

Other than her, I’ve decided that beyond not particularly liking Bismark, I actively, actually, strongly, instinctively DISlike it. A lot.

I'll upload today's pictures at the next Wi-Fi stop. Tally Ho!

Day 1, 5:59 p.m.

Six o’clock is a special time. It’s the beginning of the evening. The last possible time that someone with a normal day job could think of as “part of the work day.” If you work nights, it’s a dying-on-the-inside time. It’s the time you’re starting to lose your evening, the time the sun is leaving you, the time that everyone else is starting their nights out.

It’s turning six o’clock as I type this, 6 p.m. on a Tuesday. But the day doesn’t matter to me, because I’m on vacation. A permanent one, possibly. The beginning of my freelance career. First step: turn off the goddamn grammar checker. Second step: wonder if turning off the grammar check is unwise, as it might make my freelance editing easier. Third step: decide to write non-professional stuff in another program, like wordpad, and leave MS word for the pro stuff.

I’m sitting on a dock in Alexandria, MN, on the first day of my drive out west. Bits about Alexandria: it’s a small Minnesota town, and somewhere inside, it symbolizes what I’m choosing against by leaving now, parting myself from so many cool people and potentially rewarding relationships. Not that I’d likely ever move to a place like this (at least, not in Minnesota . . . Ashland, OR, is a different story), even if I had decided to stay, but it sorta represents what Minnesota has. Nice lakes and parks; awesome amenities like trails and green spaces; a sense of community, of home. There are signs next to the paved bike paths along the lakes and parks, that say “no motorized vehicles except snowmobiles.” It makes me raise my eyebrows, a bit, but I frickin’ love that. There’s so much snow here (or was; global warming, etc., etc.) for so much of the year that they put up signs saying, essentially, “Snowmobile all you want, this way!” More observations: this lake is so ridiculously stocked with fish that one leaps up for bugs somewhere very close to the dock, say within 50 feet, every 10 seconds or so. I’ll grant you that they’re a little wary; they waited until I sat down and began typing to really start jumping. But when the fish are almost willing to jump into my hands and I’m just sitting here, I gotta imagine it’s pretty easy for a kid to catch some sunfish for his dad to clean and cook. And that’s just damn cool, the idea of a kid being able to help feed his family, gaining the confidence that comes with it. Last bit: There’s an empty jewelry box here at the edge of the dock, earrings I think, and it feels like a piece of a short story (heartwarming or elitist, I’m not sure which). Were they a gift from a boy to a girl? Did she like them, and put them on? Hate them, and spurn the guy by chucking them into the lake?

I think there might be mystery hidden here, too, because even though those fish are so constantly jumping, I can never seem to get a good look at one. You have to just let it happen, I guess, and that means you need time, and patience. Maybe that’s what Minnesota could’ve been. Marry Jenn, buy a house, try to have kids with her, maybe adopt instead? Eventually move somewhere out west, but not quite with the energy I have now, middle age, wistfulness, depression mixed with responsibility. It would’ve been doable, but it would even have been pleasant. But I’m so, so glad I’m choosing this path, instead.

Ask me again in 6 months how I feel, though.

Why am I sitting crosslegged with a laptop, appropriately, in my lap, in a small Minnesota town, at 6 p.m., on the first day of a long trip? Shouldn’t I already be well into Montana, eating in a diner, making time, picking up pavement and laying it back down behind me?

No. No, I should be here, next to the lake, watching the ducks eye me annoyedly. MS word doesn’t believe that’s a word, but I know it is, and I know that you, dear reader, can parse its intent. Don’t try to pin down language (that’s my job, ironically), it’ll slip out from beneath you every time. Always in motion are the words, hmmm?It’s my third, fourth, fifth cross-country trek? I’m an old hand at it by now, sorta, but this is the longest and most free trip I’ll ever have taken, I expect. I’m repeating myself, but bear with me. I have nowhere to be except Portland, and that only because I picked it, seemingly at random. As a friend said, “you’re the only person I know who’s picked somewhere to live based on a website.” He’s not entirely right, but he’s not entirely wrong. Which can be said for everything else, too, I guess. But as I said, this is the longest I’ve ever taken (expecting) for a trip of this length, assuming my interest in the drive holds out; only half the country in twice the usual time: approx 1 week. Doesn’t seem like long, but when you’re alone on the road, it can be forever.

And when you’re hemorrhaging money. Okay, so I needed the spell check for that. Makes me realize that I’m a great d20 designer, and a pretty good writer, but a sub-standard, maybe standard, editor, at least of “normal” things. So it’s funny that that’s what grabs me so much. So, hemorrhaging money. Not so much, and not so badly. Let’s say, instead, that I am merely conscious of the fact that I am not currently making money, and that whether or not I make money from this point forward is entirely up to my own initiative, not up to any sort of external schedule, expectation, or employment contract. It’s a liberating, and at the same time burdening, feeling. I have adequate funds to get me there (there being Portland), and to live for a few months while seeing what’s what. But I remember well my problems when I moved to Minnesota and just kinda sat around, waiting for something to happen. Had to borrow money from Mom, and from a girlfriend . . . bad scene.Exciting possibility #1: being able to take time off when I want, for however long I want, to do what I want. Exciting possibility #2: being able to guide trips for one season of the year, or more.

Damn, I’m way, way smarter, now. Which I guess goes to show how much smarter I could still be. Good.

Okay, some pictures:

Notice the disconcerting way that Inky (the car in question) seems to ride low in the rear? The tires have a little phrase that says "max load 1515 lbs." My fingers are crossed.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/223120585/

Creepy green skies in Fargo. Storm's a comin'.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/223120586/

But oncoming storms and nearby lightning strikes can't stop KoA campers from their god-given right to use a swimming pool. If they don't swim whenever they want, the terrorists win! Sigh.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17757139@N00/223122802/

Arkham Tales
Edited by William Jones

Someone will have to fill me in on the authors' reimbursement but I
think it was peanuts plus 2 copies of the book, so truly these stories
are labors of love. What I really like is there was a solicitation of
stories and a culling process by the highly respected William Jones,
from Elder Signs Press. This means the stories are notches above the
cycle books. List price is $15.95 but it is discounted on Amazon to
$10.37, and available for free shipping if you buy $25 worth of stuff
(like Hardboiled Cthulhu!). There is no discount at Chaosium, plus
shipping charges attach. I could not find it listed at Shocklines.
The book itself is a good quality trade paperback, like all the cycle
books. Page count is 288, not counting the editor's note, so very
generous! The editor's note by William Jones is quite useful and
details the setting for the anthology in Chaosium's world.
Unfortunately there are no bios on the authors. Cover art is by Steven
Gilberts. It shows a grizzled one eyed grounds keeper at Miskatonic
University, shadowed by various critters. I am not sure, but I believe
this is very appropriate because Mr. Gilberts did the artwork for some
CoC game scenarios. This brings me to the biggest flaw in the book:
there were at least a half dozen careless typos. I did not jot them
down as I was reading but, for example, p160 "fowl odors." Unless
everything was supposed to smell like chickens. I think someone relied
too much on a spell checker. Also in the story Burnt Tea by Michael
Dziesinski busted was used as a descriptive adjective, "busted
body." OK, I'll accept that a woman has a bust, or a narc conducts
a bust, or you sculpt a bust. I'll buy that if you are writing
colloquially in dialogue, or representing someone's thoughts, to say
something was busted is appropriate, but in removed narrative it reads
like the mistake of an ignoramus. Why not broken body? I saw this
same mistaken usage twice in another story somewhere recently, maybe a
chapbook, and I was equally put off by it. I won't say it killed the
story, but goodness gracious it peeved me. I'll admit to having
greatly enjoyed Eats, Shoots, & Leaves by Lynne Truss, so consider this
my panda paw print.

Here are the contents (not otherwise listed elsewhere that I could
find, so I typed the dang thing myself):

Mysterious Dan's Legacy - Matthew Baugh
Vaughn's Diary - Robert Vaughn
The Orb - Tony Campbell
The Nether Collection - Cody Goodfellow
Worms - Pat Harrigan
They Thrive in Darkness - Ron Shiflet
What Sorrows May Come - Lee Clark Zumpe
Arkham Pets - James Ambuehl
Small Ghost - Michael Minnis
Burnt Tea - Michael Dziesinski
Arkham Rain - John Goodrich
Regrowth - David Conyers
The Idea of Fear - CJ Henderson
Disconnected - Brian Sammons
The Lady in the Grove - Scott Lette
On Leave in Arkham - Bill Bilstad
Geometry of the Soul - Jason Andrew

Spoilers may follow so stop now if that bothers you *********

Mysterious Dan's Legacy - Matthew Baugh - This is a new author to
me. In 1873 a Kansas cowboy (that was frontier territory right after
the Civil War) comes to Arkham to collect an inheritance, which brings
unwelcome knowledge, responsibilities and enemies. This was a very
likeable story; I wonder if the protagonist, Daniel Hawkins, will
become a regular character in Mr. Baugh's stories.

Vaughn's Diary - Robert Vaughn - Here is one story where my
knowledge of the source material wasn't up to scratch and I
couldn't remember if there was an antecedent story but HPL or someone
else, so I don't recognize the name Timothy Erasmus Vaughn. Never
ever read the diary of a deceased relative who was an occultist in
Arkham. Never! I hadn't read anything by Mr. Vaughn before, but
this was a good read and I hope he is writing more mythos fiction.

The Orb - Tony Campbell - Tony Campbell wrote After the War which
appeared in Horrors Beyond. I liked that story well enough but it
didn't knock my socks off. That impression is confirmed in The Orb,
which is also OK but doesn't stand up to the best in this anthology.
A Miskatonic Unversity librarian's father has to match wits with the
Hounds of Tindalos and Nyalathotep.

The Nether Collection - Cody Goodfellow - After the absorbing
Cahokia in Horrors Beyond and the unreasonably entertaining To Skin a
Dead Man in Hardboiled Cthulhu, and his sensational novels Radiant Dawn
and Ravenous Dusk, Mr. Goodfellow can basically do no wrong. This was
a change of pace, being a story of Harry Houdini and Lovecraftian
ghouls. What can I say, I really liked it.

Worms - Pat Harrigan - This was a fascinating story by an author I
never encountered before. It chronicles the rise of a man from office
drone to fanatical rabble rouser, with terrific Lovecraftian touches
scattered throughout. I loved that more subtle touches were used as
opposed to the usual rub your face in the fact that there's a mythos
out there.

They Thrive in Darkness - Ron Shiflet - With Unfinished Business in
Hardboiled Cthulhu Mr. Shiflet now has two tales of Pickman and his
ghouls in print. While I enjoyed the story, I confess to liking
Unfinished Business better.

What Sorrows May Come - Lee Clark Zumpe - Mr. Zumpe wrote The
Breach, a terrific story in Horrors Beyond, and has a few stories in
mythos magazines. This effort was OK, sort of a reanimation tale with
a protective ghost thrown in. I liked the prose but the story left me
flat; I didn't dislike it, there was just better stuff here.

Arkham Pets - James Ambuehl - This very brief story by the
ubiquitous Mr. Ambuehl concerned a boy who finds some crawly things in
an Arkham swamp and decides to bring them home. Complications ensue.
I found this amusing and diverting.

Small Ghost - Michael Minnis - Mr. Minnis is very productive.
Recently we've had A Little Color in Your Cheeks in Horrors Beyond
(mostly good) The Prodigies of Monkfield Cabot in Eldritch Blue (OK),
Salt Air (superb) in Dead But Dreaming and The Butcher of Vyones
(great) Lost Worlds of Space and Time #1. Small Ghost was terrific,
maybe the highlight of ArkhamTales. It was about Brown Jenkin, the rat
like witch's familiar and someone with the health department.

Burnt Tea - Michael Dziesinski- I already mentioned my problem with the
typos. Otherwise this was a very nifty work by an author I never
encountered before, about the Hounds of Tindalos and Japanese tea
ceremonies in the 1920s.

Arkham Rain - John Goodrich - Mr. Goodrich is active on the mythos
scene but I don't recall seeing his work before. I'll have to
remedy that! Arkham Rain was a terrific story about the Innsmouth
taint visiting an unwitting family. An old mythos trope? You bet!
But this was a wonderfully original take.

Regrowth - David Conyers - I'm a big David Conyers fan. He is
becoming well published in almost all the newer mythos anthologies.
This story has some thematic similarity to False Containment in Horrors
Beyond, and deals with unnatural melding of disparate species. Being a
Conyers yarn it was a good read, although I've liked other stories by
him better.

The Idea of Fear - CJ Henderson - We, of course, did need a hard
boiled PI story in this book! Who better to do it than the masterful
CJ Henderson? But this story was refreshingly different; the ending
will catch you by surprise, as a PI and a medium try to find a ghost.

Disconnected - Brian Sammons - Mr. Sammons can also do no wrong,
especially after One Way Conversation in Horrors Beyond. This is
another winner. I(t is about the Mi-Go and Yuggoth, and a PI tracking
down a missing relative. But like everything else by Brian Sammons, do
not expect the usual mythos conventions or story format.

The Lady in the Grove - Scott Lette - Yet another new author to me
and yet another auspicious introduction! An Irish enforcer is sent to
Arkham to provide a little muscle for an MU professor.

On Leave in Arkham - Bill Bilstad - Ditto the above. This story
has a complex construction with rapidly switching time frames and
viewpoints, about WWI veteran/murderer. Very worthwhile read.

Geometry of the Soul - Jason Andrew - Also a new author to me, Mr.
Andrew's story was only OK, about a MU expedition that goes horribly
awry. The initial few pages in the Arkham sanitarium were much better
for me than the last few pages.

So in summary, this is a terrific book of all brand new fiction. Even
the stories that weren't the best were pretty good, and the best
stories were first rate. The price is low and the page count is
generous. Don't try to choose between it and Hard Boiled Cthulhu;
order both of them discounted from Amazon! Together they are still
less than Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth. Mythos fans should not
hesitate.

My last GenCon with FFG. It's Saturday, and technically, yesterday was my last day. I'll still be working the booth tomorrow, though, to make up for the hotel and badge and transportation they're giving me . . . it's a steal for them, but I get what I want out of it, too. And I have today off, a demand of mine, to schmooze and find work. Actually, though, I'm just having fun instead. Go me!

Tried out Dreamblade, and got my ass handed to me (0-2-drop in a swiss 10-round tournament). It is quite brain-burny, much like M:tG was, and I felt pretty overwhelmed/pressured at most junctures, made some bad calls. Had I been able to get in just one or two practice games, I think I would've done exponentially better. Feh. I don't like the game enough to get into constructed, but I'd happily draft or do sealed formats, or play online.

Today I'm doing some half-assed CV prep for handing out along with copies of Midnight 2nd Edition tomorrow during my exhibit hall breaks. I should've come with business cards, portfolio packages, etc., but a case of food poisoning just before leaving for the con left me pretty short on time. As it is, it'll be tight packing and leaving on time once we return.

Then tonight, I get to play the GenCon special. My normal adventuring party played it Friday night (Friday! I forgot to mention Friday!), but I ran into Mark and AJ in the hall and, hey, whaddya know, they're playing tonight. Even have a real ticket for me. SHWEET.

So yeah, Friday: I got invited to a dinner with the designers of Cryptic, the company that does an MMORPG called "City of Heroes." They're hiring over the next year or two, and even though they're a video game company, they believe in hiring out of the pencil-and-paper RPG market, as many of their current designers are from that market. They like our, y'know, ability to make do with little, to tell stories, to wear multiple hats, etc. It was a very fun evening, I liked the people there (Cryptic and peers alike), and I think I made an impression on at least Shane (a designer), if not Jack (the lead designer).

Coffee break over . . .

I organized the largest event that has ever been held in my name, at least as far as i can remember: the "goin' away grillin'" Rob Vaughn farewell BBQ. There was a decent turnout, enough that we were able to have a rousing 8-on-8 game of FFG employee vs. non-FFG employee kickball. I chose to be on the non-FFG team, for poetic reasons.

It made me feel pretty warm and fuzzy inside, especially to see people (like my boss from work, with whom my relationship has been strained in the past) who I didn't expect to show, as well as those that I know for a fact were pretty damn busy, but came anyway (Jeremy and the Carlsons, for instance). There was a bit of sadness, as well. Partly because of the people who weren't there . . . the ones from whom I've drifted apart, or who simply couldn't be there, or who weren't inclined to come. You can't be friends with everyone, I suppose! There's only so much time to maintain relationships. But there was also sadness because there were twice as many people interested in saying farewell as there might have been, say, last year. Which means things are just beginning to be great around here.

But as Joss Whedon says, you can't take the sky from me. And that's what I'd be doing to myself if I remained: taking away my own sky. I hope those mountains appreciate what I'm giving up for them!

Jenn was invited, and said she'd try to make it, but then we chatted for a few minutes and I learned that she had begun dating someone new, and it got me a wee bit jealous . . . so I asked her not to come. I feel a little ashamed of being so wishy-washy, and I think now that it would've been fine to see her, but to what end? It's not like we'll maintain a friendship or a connection from afar, we don't have enough history for that. She's a cute, fun, sexy, sassy gal. I miss her, and will continue to. But our connection was very physical and in-the-moment, so it's better off let go, I think.

On the "returning to see folks" spectrum, though, I'm a sucker. I've already purchased some pretty affordable plane tickets to come back for the big con at the end of the year. The LG gang at the BBQ joked about passing around a collection plate at Axecon to sponsor my flying in next year . . . I wonder if it might be worth dropping subtle hints in my mods ;).

Oh, and I'm VERY excited, yes VERY, about the last four (possibly reduced to three) Shield Lands rounds of the year. The mod that Twern, Dobbs and I are writing is super-cool, I think, in a "race against time!" epic cinematic sense, something that can be hard to pull off in LG. The interactive, assuming we go ahead with what Dobbs brainstormed and Twern and I developed a bit this morning, will be ridiculously fun. Mind-blowingly fun! And, just as important, it'll be relevant to the plotline and region! Weee!

Then there's Shadows of Memory. I'm pretty proud of that mod, but I fear that there might be too much complexity for it to run smoothly. Hopefully GMs will just adapt to some of the mechanics I introduce and not worry about running too strictly.

It feels good to work on fun gaming stuff again. I can't imagine I'll pursue freelance RPG writing too hard-core, just because it's such a large effort for so little payoff . . . especially dangerous if I attempted to do it as my primary source of income. Danger, danger!

Thank god for strong women in movies. Thank god for developed characters, interesting action scenes, and moody filmmaking. Thank god for realistic responses to unreal situations. In short, thank god for Neil Marshall and "The Descent."

Don't believe the unfortunate ad campaign that the studio execs have shoved onto TV; if you love gore and torture, a la "Hostel" and "Saw," you'll be disappointed in this film. It isn't ridiculously bloody . . . rather, it's just bloody enough at all the right moments, and it lets the imagination do the work most of the time. Sure, there are some terrible death scenes, some horrible situations that make the audience wince for the characters' sake, but the camera doesn't revel in it. It tells you it's about to happen, or shows you that it just did happen, and lets you fill in the blanks. This is a survival thriller more than a horror-fest, or at least the better parts of it are.

The movie's prologue includes character-driven tension and psychological horror, as well as one of the aforementioned terrible death scenes, slightly over-the-top for my taste. The film then moves on to the present day. The situation: three friends, all women, gather together for a challenge/vacation/reunion, one year after one of them, Sarah, has lost her husband and daughter in a car accident. Hints are dropped early and often suggesting that Sarah's husband was also very important to Juno, the vacation's organizer and the "adventurous" one.

So, take a bunch of friends with some shrouded history, each of them bringing along a sidekick/pal/sibling, and put them in an unexplored cave in the Appalachians. Oh, and one of them is potentially schizophrenic. That by itself gives you plenty of room for thrills and character development. And in fact, the most enjoyable parts of the movie take place with just those elements. The man-eating (or rather, woman-eating) subterranean monsters, as is so common in good horror movies, are just the catalyst.

Unlike many "the monster within" films, though, this one never leaves you feeling that one of the characters is completely selfish or evil. It never pins all the blame on one idiot, (although Juno purposefully leading them into an unsafe, unexplored cave is pretty damn stupid . . . and her protege, Holly, is supremely annoying). You don't wish them ill, and they're real enough that their faults can be empathized with rather than despised. This sets up the audience to feel, like the characters, a driving need for teamwork and survival rather than blame. But we can't quite forget the disappointment and judgment simmering beneath the surface, the little whispers of doubt and anger that would make the difference between, for instance, who you would save and who you would leave to die. And it's a good bet that our characters can't forget them either.

There are a few cases in this movie of "too much." Holly, the brash young adventure-seeker brought in by Juno, is one of them. Her character, her dialog, her actions, they're all just too much. She's the only caricature in the movie, but even she is forgivable, because there truly are adrenaline junkies just like her: all talk and no substance. They try incredibly hard to make sure that everyone knows how "extreme" they are, but they do so because they lack social confidence. So in her case, it's simply a matter of an actress seeming fake because her character is, essentially, fake.

Another thing the movie has too much of is the sheer number of bad guys themselves, as well as too much exposition regarding what they are. By the movie's end we've seen over a dozen of the things, which would seem to make quite a dent in the local large-animal ecosystem. The future doctor of the group also explains, in full science teacher style, what the creatures' capabilities are and how they evolved "perfectly to hunt in the darkness." First of all, nothing evolves "perfectly." It evolves enough to get by. Secondly, they don't seem to hunt in the darkness, so much as live down there between going to the surface and hunting deer, elk, wolves, and other large animals. Finally, there's one female in the bunch, almost thrown in there as if to say "See, a working society of strange critters!" But you only need one male to impregnate dozens of females . . . I hope that poor withered old cave troll didn't have to give birth to all of those predators by her lonesome.

And I don't much buy that these guys can engage in hand-to-hand fights and agile leaping about in caves, not to mention hunting large animals, if they don't have really, really, really good senses other than sight. But their senses of smell and their "sonar" seems pretty damn ineffective when their prey holds still, and one of them doesn't even notice the warmth of a burning torch a few feet away from it.

Finally, Marshall makes too much use of the shock cut scene: a metal rod sticking out of the back of someone's head, a nightmare of a girl turning to reveal her face as that of a monster, and a hallucination popping up next to our protagonist . . . none are as amazingly effective as the flashlight catching a shadow during one slow pass of the cave but revealing only rock wall when it moves back, or the brilliantly used infrared digital camera held by Sarah, panning over the group, and revealing a monster standing behind them in the darkness.

On the other hand, there were also a few "not enough"s. If you're going to introduce the idea of a subterranean predator, why not up the authentic meter by having them act like true predators? Real predators don't engage in hand-to-hand fights in which they can be hurt, or at least not if they can help it . . . the risk of death from injury and infection is far too high. How about pack tactics? How about tentative prodding of the prey, becoming bolder and bolder over time. How about them fleeing when wounded, only to attack in a rage when the heroes accidentally stumble into the heart of their nest, or out of a sense of vengeance for one of their own? This dose of realism would have the added benefit of upping the "we're being hunted" sense of the film, only adding to the terror.

Another "not enough" is the intriguing exploration of Sarah's psychosis. We're warned during the hike to the cave mouth that paranoia, dementia, hallucination, all of these are possible in a cave, but there're far too many actual, physical monsters and not enough imagined ones, especially from Sarah's point of view. Everything from her hallucination after losing her daughter and husband to unidentified pills beside her nightstand to the sound of a young girl's laughter in the caves suggest that she is schizophrenic; this could've been a huge source of tension and nightmarish imagery for the film, but it's only briefly alluded to. We as the audience are never forced to question what is real and what is imagined, which can be a horrific experience all by itself. Also, the movie suggests that Sarah was a fine, normal woman until the car accident. People get depressed when they lose loved ones, they begin having nightmares, but stressful situations and senses of loss don't cause schizophrenia or hallucinations. At worst, they might trigger episodes in someone already prone to such mental illness. I'd happily have traded the silly "perfectly evolved predators" speech in the cave for a throwaway conversation alluding to Sarah's mental issues during the opening rafting sequence, perhaps even hinting that such issues were what drove her husband into one of her friend's arms.

But I'll forgive Marshall for the faults above, because the basics of a fine thriller with compelling characters, great imagery, and fantastic pacing were all there to outweigh them. The movie sticks with you, and even more than it makes you want to stay away from caves, it makes you question how much you can trust those around you. In short, it gets inside your head.

This movie has all of the right elements, but the glue used to bind them together is bad, and they were put together incorrectly. We see some right out in front the whole time, when all we needed was a little glimpse, while whole fields of fertile thought imagery are left barren and untouched.

A summary: There exists another world, the "blue world," where nymphs reside. They used to be very close with humanity, guiding them, but humanity got materialistic and out of touch. Now they're just remembered as a bed-time story. Along with the nymphs are mystical predators, and evil-yet-just enforcers of the laws, and a host of mysterious laws and roles that humans are meant to play, but must guess at.

So, one of those essential elements that this film does have is a sense of fairy tale logic in an urban setting. Urban fantasy is increasing in popularity, though it tends to remain the realm of sensitive women writers or guys with artsy souls . . . new age folk and fans of celtic music. This film shows how it can be cool, or at least starts to. The mystical creatures (one a lovely nymph, the other a plant-covered big bad wolf) both blend right in with our normal world, looking familiar, but at the same time exude an air of being lost. The "laws older than humanity" aspect of urban fantasy is there, too . . . if you follow the rules, you'll make it out all right. But one step off the path, and you're doomed. Finally, the fluidity of those laws, their constant changing and reinterpretation, is present as well. The narrative is constantly adding new nuances to the rules we thought we knew. "But my grandmother says that SOMETIMES a scurf will break the rules," lectures a club-hopping homework-hating asian student who is the intermediary between normal life and the mysterious bed-time story that our protagonist finds himself in the midst of.

Which segueways into the next amazing element the film has, the thing that it starts with but sadly loses: great characters. From the opening scene, we feel like we're in a menagerie or a circus, with a cast of odd-but-interesting folks just waiting to reveal their secret meanings, their true purposes, their hidden skills. And as Cleveland, the protagonist who finds himself the uncertain protector of the nymph, soon learns, this story does indeed have a cast of supporting heroes, humans all, who are meant to help the lost nymph.

But then the movie falls apart. It promises to scare us . . . but it can't decide between being spooky and comic. It suggests that ordinary people can have hidden purposes and amazing skills, but it barely shows those few lucky heroes using their abilities. Instead, we simply have a series of "oops, YOU'RE not the special person in the story. How about YOU?" sequences until, just in time (and really, through luck and the process of elimination), all the right people are in all the right places, performing their "parts" in the fairy tale.

But when they do, it's anticlimactic. First of all, these heroes are chosen at random from among the swarm of minor players in the film, not via some interesting foreshadowing that clever viewers can catch (as we might have expect from a Shyamalan film), nor due to some specific action or sacrifice. So we're unimpressed with most of them from the beginning. Second, they don't so much perform their roles as stand/sit there while in one case, stuff happens around them, or in another, they vent out an emotional burden that wasn't given enough weight or poignancy in the first place. The pacing of these supposedly climactic scenes is also off, happening so late or so nearly pointlessly (e.g., saving the nymph from wounds that could easily have been avoided) that they fail to make an impact.

M. Night also suffers from a large, though admittedly tongue-in-cheek, dose of pride. He casts himself, not in a bit part as usual, but in a fairly active role. Not only that, but the character he portrays is a writer whose book changes the world . . . and one who learns that he must sacrifice himself if he is to bring about that change (the revelation of which is another emotional moment that simply doesn't work). So, the director writes himself into his script . . . as a writer who changes the world . . . AND a martyr. Uffda, as we say in Minnesota. He also succumbs to the guilty Dante-esque temptation of satirizing his critics by including a movie critic character, one who seems not-too-terrible to me. Later in the film a character tells us (which comes across as an empty accusation, as if M. Night had to write the dialogue into a character's mouth because his story didn't convey what he wanted it to) that this particular character is a cocky, self-righteous bastard who "put a girl's life in jeopardy!" How did he do that again? Oh, right, by answering our protagonist's hypothetical question regarding who might be a good "interpreter" and "guild" in a hastily described fairy tale framework. For that, obviously, he deserves to be ripped to shreds by a monster.

At one point, the protagonist is speaking with one of his tenants about tests she has to take for her university courses. If M. Night Shyamalan's films were educational materials, Sixth Sense would be like a shocking essay with a mind-blowing conclusion; the Village and Signs would be interesting and open discourses on right and wrong, or on fate and meaning; and, unfortunately, Lady in the Water would be a multiple-choice test with poorly worded questions and no way of knowing the right answers until the teacher gives you the answer sheet.

Wow, that's not a very flattering description! Perhaps it's telling that I get frustrated when these "dumb" quizzes don't give me the result that matches my self-image. I should *certainly* be green, and that last quiz, the one that I didn't post that said I'd be at home on Babylon 5? Pshaw!

Nope, not needing to be in control at all, no sir . . . :)


Reds are motivated by POWER, seek productivity, and

need to look good to others. Simply stated,

REDS want their own way. They like to be in

the drivers seat and willingly pay the price

to be in a leadership role. REDS value

whatever gets them ahead in life, whether it

be at work, school, or in their personal

relationships. What REDS value, they get

done. They are often workaholics. They will,

however, resist being forced to do anything

that doesnt interest them.

Reds need to appear knowledgeable. They crave

approval from others for their intelligence

and insight. They want to be respected even

more than they want to be loved. They want to

be admired for their logical, practical

minds. REDS are confident, proactive,

visionary, and can be arrogant, selfish, and

insensitive. When you deal with a RED, be

precise, factual, and direct.


What Color Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

My housemates are having a heart-to-heart in the living room, so I'm holing up in my room and figured I'd post to fritter away the time. That's really a lame reason for posting; I oughta post in order to keep friends and family up-to-date on my life's happenings and whatnot.

Well, one reason I haven't updated much lately is because of the ultimate of "I'm too busy to do X" reasons: a significant other. I met a girl. Really, a woman.

An OLDER woman.

Okay, so maybe 36 doesn't seem that old to some of you who, well, ARE 36. But to me, little mr. "not quite 30," it seems like a big gap. Also, to little mr. "not ready to grow up or settle down quite yet," it's somewhat scary. Obviously, a 36-year-old woman is going to have different goals, intentions, etc., than a mid-twenties gal. Plus, all kinds of other things have sprung to mind . . . our lack of common interests, different backgrounds, different, well, EVERYTHING.

But the weird part is, they don't matter. I don't have a choice. I'm in love. So is she (Jenn). Done. Case closed. Nothing to do but ride it out. And I don't seem to mind, not one bit. Sorry, I don't mean to go all melodramatic and Romeo & Juliet on everyone, but I'm really feeling pretty amazed by all this. We've known each other for about a month, so I'm sure there are still things to learn, things to discover, ugly hidden sides to reveal, but there's a comfort between us that just blows me away. I'm also pretty renowned among my closest friends for falling head-over-heels for cute girls, totally losing my head and having hugely high expectations. This is just like that . . . only different. First of all, it's mutual. And yeah, there's a part of me that wonders, is the reason it's so easy for me to fall for her because she's so willing to fall for me? Maybe a bit. But it still puts us on very similar playing fields, and means that inside maybe we're very similar. Both cheesy (yet moody) romantics. And second, I don't think she's perfect. I don't want to spend every waking minute with her. Yet I think she's wonderful, and I want to spend at least part of every day talking to her, being with her, e-mailing her, or SOMEthing.

When I wake up with her (yep, we've had sleepovers . . . this is the '00s, for cryin' out loud!), I think that I want to keep on waking up with her, morning after morning.

Of course, there's more . . . but just in case my dad is reading this (Dad, I expect a phone call if you are, because I know the anticipation and potential horror of my next revelations have gotta be killin' ya), I'll take it slow and only mention one thing at a time. So, older woman, check, there you go.

In other news, I was all set and ready to go visit my sister Jen in Charleston last weekend (and my dad, who lives in FL within driving range). Had the tickets booked, halfway packed, go to check in online . . . and the flight is cancelled. Predicted snow in Chicago.

First of all, United Airlines' customer service kinda blows. They used a voice-response robot with an imitation human voice, spouting phrases like "okay," and "got it," and "sounds good," mixing it up so you'd feel more like you were talking to a normal person. Just made me feel creepy. Then when I gave up on it and said "Agent!" (which is the word you speak to mr. robot if you get sick of him and want to talk to a real person), it took 20 minutes to get one.

Anyway, no voucher offered, just a choice between my money back and a later flight. Well, the only later flight available was at 5 pm, when the original flight was scheduled to leave at 7 am. That would get me into Charleston at midnight, and my flight back was scheduled for 7 am on Sunday . . . so I'd have a whopping 30 hours in Charleston. Greeaaaaatttt.

I decided on the money-back option, much as it disappointed me (and Jen, and Dad). Jen's pet recently died, and it has been a rough time for her, so I was looking forward to giving her a big hug. Not to mention, MN = brrr and SC = warm. Gonna have to look for another cheap airfare, and soon . . . if I go down and visit while it's still cold, I get fun fam time AND bragging rights about being in a warm place.

Awright, laundry time.

Which is why I never play one, I guess.

Wizard 37% Combativeness, 23% Sneakiness, 76% Intellect, 19% Spirituality

Brilliant! You are a Wizard! Wizards are spells-casters who study powerful arcane magic. While Wizards tend to be pretty fragile, some of those spells can pack quite a punch. Unlike Clerics, Wizards aren’t as good at fixing people as they are at breaking them, so watch where you toss that fireball… Your most distinctive trait is your intelligence. You're probably well learned and logical, if perhaps a bit fragile.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 17% on Combativeness You scored higher than 18% on Sneakiness You scored higher than 63% on Intellect You scored higher than 13% on Spirituality

Link: The RPG Class Test written by MFlowers on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

After several virtual pep-talks and one in-person one, I'm feeling a good bit better. Although I've had to change my settings so only registered users can post comments, which is too bad; I had wanted to allow friends 'n' family who aren't on lj to post the occasional thought, but some stranger from New Jersey seems to feel the need to express himself/herself via anonymous postings, and they're just plain annoying.

I know I'm broadcasting my thoughts for anyone to see, but there's something about random ramblings, comments without context, notes from nobody . . . they just seem invasive. I don't care if complete strangers read this, but complete strangers poking fun, offering advice, being silly . . . I just don't want to have to deal with it. Unless someone wants to tell me the meaning of life, or offer me a job, or seriously crack my shit up with the funniest thing EVAR, I don't need to hear from them.

In other news, I heard from the intriguing woman that I was down about yesterday, though she remains unclear and odd. I'm supposed to feel free to contact her, but she's "not sure what she's looking for."

Umm . . . okay.