Words are inadequate

Tempus, as Scott M-- was wont to say when Latin class ran late, is fugiting.

I don't do very much, socially speaking: board gaming once or twice a week, an RPG once a week, hanging out with a couple of friends of an evening. There are a handful of other events I've been psyching myself up to get out to, and of course there's the neverending search for Cool People To Bond With.

Even so, since mid-October I've been feeling more and more time pressure. It's like I can either write or not-write, and not-writing isn't getting me any closer to my objective. (Not the kind of not-writing that results in posts about my writing, the other kind.)

No matter what I did it never seemed enough
He said I was lazy, I said I was young
He said, "How many songs did you write?"
I'd written zero, I lied and said "Ten."
"You won't be young forever--
You should have written fifteen."
--Lou Reed & John Cale, "Work"

Come the end of May I'll have twelve days of vacation available. May's a busy month: Beach Week with the Arlington Board Gamers, WisCon, and Origins all fall within a three-week span. The original plan was to take most of those three weeks off, and work from work for the time betweek Beach Week and WisCon.

This eats up nearly all of that vacation time. Which would be acceptable... except that someone on the VP list pointed out that the Rainforest Writers Village still has several spots open. It's three weekdays, which is about the length of the time I'd need to take off for Origins at the end of those three weeks.

Andy sat down to talk one day
He said "Decide what you want:
Do you want to expand your parameters
Or play museums like some dilettante?"
--ibid.

I've been thinking lately about who I am and who I want to be, where "who i am" is defined by what I do. Four years ago I was a gamer. I had several consoles hooked up, I had a room full of boardgames and shelves of RPG books, I even actively sought out new computer games. Now... I'd like to do more boardgaming and role-playing but that's a desire for quality not quantity. I'd happily drop back to one RPG every two weeks if it was a sufficiently good game, and one of the best parts about living outside DC was the really good boardgaming every other weekend. I've decimated the room of boardgames and have every intention of doing the same with the RPGs as soon as I can find them a home. Video games have fallen off my radar almost entirely; I sort of miss them, but (with the exception of "soon i will make time to play Portal 2") not really.

I think I was always a storyteller, and for awhile games were my chosen medium. Thing is, they're a peculiarly passive form of storytelling. They're a way to create someone else's story. Even the best role-playing games are built around someone else's framework. I have no intention of giving them up; they're just not so prominent anymore.

VP reminded me that I don't just want to "be a writer," I want to write. Which means making choices, which are here embodied in "how I want to spend a lot of money and a not insignificant amount of time": writing retreat or gaming convention?

Really, though, it's not much of a choice. Last year GAMA decided, that having Origins at the end of June meant that people were choosing between going to Origins or GenCon, and they didn't want to force people to make that choice. So they made it for them, and moved Origins back into the school year. This resulted in, among other things, Looney Labs deciding not to have a presence at Origins 2012. Thus at least half the people I go to Origins to see won't be there this year. My original thought was that I could get back to my roots, schedule some one-shot RPG sessions, maybe do a LARP that would go better than the last disastrous Deliria LARP I played in[1].

Andy said a lot of things
I stored them all away in my head
Sometimes when I can't decide what I should do
I think "What would Andy have said?"
He'd probably say "You think too much,
That's 'cos there's work that you don't want to do."
--ibid.

Given the option of either seeing some people I hardly ever see and doing things that might or might not turn out to be fun, or going off for several days in the company of a couple of folks I already know are pretty much awesome, doing What I Want To Be Doing... well. I don't want to rush into a decision so I'll sleep on it (and talk it over with uilos when I get back home); there are probably aspects I'm not thinking through.

At least Readercon isn't until July. I'll have time to save up enough vacation for that regardless.

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[1] Short version: we were members of a travelling market that got ambushed and slaughtered with no chance to fight back, get away, or otherwise save ourselves. One player got handed an inspiring speech to recite before being killed in a particularly gruesome way. We were told afterwards that this speech had a huge effect on the game world. It was quite effectively horrifying, but an empty experience in terms of the kind of role-playing I'd wanted and expected to do. If they'd told me I was signing up for a horror game I might have been willing to forgive the blatant railroading. As it happened, all I could think was "for this I skipped the Icehouse tournament?"

So... that happened.

It mostly went by in a blur. uilos and I got on a plane Thursday afternoon and left DC for the start of the Great Moving Adventure. (I had to go through a nude-scan for the first time, and for the first time they caught my tiny pocketknife. Jerks.) We arrived in Madison, had dinner, and collapsed.

Friday through today was WisCon. It surprised me with awesome a bit less than last year; I expect that's because I was used to it this time. The panels and readings continued to make me reasonably happy (note to self: watch for works by Carolyn Ives Gilman and David Levine). Through great self-control I limited myself to no more than a dozen books (I think: three by Terry Bisson, another five of Aqueduct Press's small Conversation Pieces, two misc, one won in a raffle at a reading, and one from the Tiptree jury's overstock), all of which I was able to fit into the luggage. I do not say my luggage, because what with the moving process we've had to sort of combine suitcases and shove things where they'll fit. Still, it's all packed and will require no additional shipping.

I had a small handful of short conversations and spoke to absolutely no one that I'd-- no, wait, I did say hello to Claire Light, from whom I'd won a critique in an auction a few months back. But I can name five other people off the top of my head I'd meant to introduce myself to before the con, and another handful that happened to be there. In a shock to no one who's not me, I am terminally bad at going up to people and starting conversations. Oh well. Perhaps this will be forcibly improved over the next few months.

(Also, next year I fully intend to take advantage of the Friday morning writer's workshop, by having something submitted around April 15.)

(Also also, a big FUCK YOU to GAMA, who appear to have decided to move Origins to Memorial Day. NOT COOL, GAMA. NOT COOL AT ALL.)

And tomorrow we get up and board a bus to Chicago, where I will re-purchase tickets to Seattle and thence Vancouver, in the hope that the previous tickets will be returned as Undeliverable and then refunded. And then we arrive at the new apartment on Wednesday afternoon, take possession, and look at each other in befuddlement as we try to figure out where we're going to sleep until our stuff arrives on Friday.

So, Origins. Driving down Wednesday afternoon is an acceptable plan; missing Lab setup doesn't make me cry, missing the insanity of the Wednesday night Fluxx tournament makes me happy, and saving a vacation day for use elsewhere is certainly a good thing. Contrariwise, staying over Sunday night and taking Monday as a driving and recuperating day is a far better plan than driving back Sunday afternoon/evening: it gives me one more night of Origins, and it means I'm not completely fried when I get back to work.

The whole experience felt skimpy this year. Bought a couple RPG books, and a couple of games I'd been meaning to pick up anyway. Overloaded on Lab time on Friday with mastering for the overlong Zendo tournament, so skipped the IIT on Satyrday for my own mental health. (Although I did hand over the scepter to Mr Davenport, to whom congratulations.) Played perhaps a half-dozen games, and two RPGs.

On the other hand, I saw a whole mess of good people that I only ever see at Origins, I got to play two RPGs, and in general the whole weekend was sort of the last gasp of my vacation time.

Also, North Market still sells the best convention food ever.

I'll be going back next year but not working as much in the Lab. I am no longer a broke college student; I'm a DINK. Time is in much shorter supply than money. I don't need the free badge; I need the gaming. I'll likely continue to run Fluxx because it gives me a good excuse to be in the Lab and see people and wear my labcoat, but that's about it.

I gather from zyxwvut's reaction that he may be interested in Secret Project Rock.

Actual Origins report to follow (short form: awesome); for now, you'll have to settle for ( my International Icehouse Tournament report. )

Um. I went back and forth between the Lab and the hotel room a lot trying to remain functional enough to run Fluxx tournaments and still have some amount of fun with uilos while breaking the fever. Didn't work terribly well, although we did manage to get to a single outside-the-Lab event (Shear Panic, which has awesome sheep and is an okay game) and walked the exhibit hall a bit. On what I guess must have been Friday night I pulled myself together enough to send heptadecagram on a Kroger run for ibuprofen and orange juice. He returned with these things and also with an Ohio State sweatshirt, in which I remained bundled for most of the rest of the con.

Games. Convinced rbandrews to purchase Duel in the Dark, a two-player game about British bombing raids over Germany. Basically, the British player preprograms the flight path of the bomber, then the German player sets up static defences, then the bomber makes its run while the British and German fighters try to defend and attack it respectively. It's neat and not very wargamey at all. There was the aforementioned Shear Panic. I acquired Inkognito, an interesting partnership deduction game featuring the Nun of Fate, and Attribute, which looks kind of like Apples to Apples if that were a game and not merely a party activity. And a couple of very nifty-looking small-press RPGs, about which more anon (probably in the media log).

People. Missed seeing practically everyone from Boston (xalolo was just about it; ndkid isn't really "from Boston"). Managed to meet a few new people (a handful of Fluxx players, and elvenyukiryu who gives backrubs, and apparently-LJ-less Jessie Clark from just north of Abingdon), and met and remembered this time muzikmaker21. Didn't get nearly as many hugs as I would have liked due to fear of contagion.

Food. North Market is of course made of awesome. Maybe next year I'll get to try their ice cream. Ongolian was closed on Wednesday for the Fourth so we went to a place where they give you too much good Italian food to split among a bunch of people instead. Tasty but, well, it's not Ongolian. Other than that I didn't really eat a whole lot, or taste much of what I ate.

I really do feel like I missed half of Origins this year. I didn't even get to compete in the IIT. With any luck next year will be better.

Another twenty-four-hour bug (well, probably thirty-six). At least this one started last night, so it will be mostly done by the time I get in the car. And the last one wasn't contagious, so I doubt this one will be.

It is clearly bringing out my latent brilliance. I don't know ahead of time whether I will be too warm or too cold in the car tomorrow. Solution: wear pants that turn into shorts! I am so smart.

Now if I could just figure out why I'm hungry. Might have something to do with not having wanted any lunch, perhaps.

Origins occurred, games were played, Fluxx was run, conversations were had, Thoughts were Thunk. I swam and walked and bought and played and generally had a good time despite not sleeping well. The parts of the Hampton that weren't the desk staff were wonderful and helpful and tasty (depending on whether they were the pool, the non-desk staff, or the breakfast). Got a wonderful massage from ancientsong (hi there!) and got some stretches that I apparently need badly to be doing, since I walk so much on the balls of my feet. Played in a Deliria LARP that appears to have been made of poor timing and bad ideas on our part (my boss decided that the best idea EVER would be to hire a notoriously unreliable type of faery guide and tell him "Take us into fairyland!" without giving him any more destination requirements). Died horribly in another Deliria game (of which more later). North Market and Mongolian and peanut-butter-and-uilos-pomegranate-jelly sandwiches on labmade bread. The myriad people I only ever see at Origins. Babbling and incoherence and sleep-dep, oh my.

The lady on the plane next to me yesterday explained, when I told her I was a writer, that as a former English Major she had had dreams of being a major novelist, but she was making a living instead, and she hoped to one day have enough free time to write.

And I remembered Gene Wolfe getting up at 5.00 am every day and writing two pages before going in to work, and I told her that if she wanted to be a writer she ought to write. ("It's like most jobs," I told. "It's amazing how much of it just consists of showing up." But she didn't believe me.)
--Neil Gaiman, 2006-06-23

It's not all that much sleep-dep, I suppose. The world only feels about two feet further away than it ought.

Talked to my parents this evening for the first time since Origins. Pepsi, the hyperactive terrier we've had since I was seventeen, had to be put to sleep earlier this week. Couldn't digest food, etc. Sad, but not crippling-sad; she was an annoyingly hyperactive puppy for the two years I lived with her, and as such caught more resentment from me than she really deserved. We started getting along a lot better around about the time I started actually getting on well with my parents, which would be three or four years ago, I think.

Work sucks, and is about to start sucking a lot more: Liz, the fairly cool new assistant manager that I've worked with only a few times, got a real job in Richmond, and is leaving. Emily hasn't decided whether she's really quitting or just dropping back to very-few-hours-per-week. This leaves us with Leigh the manager who's probably an okay guy, Kyle the assistant manager who's a bit of a rules nazi, David who's a slackass and who talks all the time, Janet who's technically a keyholder and is even more of a slackass than David [though Janet is at least capable of shutting up], and Mary who doesn't ever show up to work on time. Well, and me.

Samurai is a rather cool game. I heartily encourage all those with an interest in strategy boardgames to download the computer version from Klear Games and give it a try. Some interface wonkiness, and make sure you play with the Classic ruleset and not the Domination one, but in all pretty good. The AI is decent as well.

I keep meaning to write up thoughts on people from Origins and not really having all that much to say. It mostly boils down to "I'm uncomfortable talking to people I don't know well," really. prog in particular made an effort to engage me in conversation several times, which I definitely appreciated; but I still felt like I was being way more awkward than I should have been. This didn't/doesn't happen in games, though. Give me something else outside of conversation to think about, and it's about an order of magnitude easier. Unsure if this is just having something to distract me or if it's the having something else to focus on. [Also curious: despite having spent an equally small time around both of them, I feel like I know cthulhia a lot better than prog. Probably due to the different nature of their LJs.]

Back from Origins. Had a great time, wish you'd been there. [Unless you're one of the numerous people reading this who was there, in which case it was really good to see you.]

?skip=200. Must've been a slow week.

*thud*

The Story of Bread: This is far too funny. I laughed out loud for the five minutes or so it took me to read it.

Origins. I laughed, I cried, I fell down, it changed my life. (Bonus points to people who recognise that and aren't vond.) Overall, good. Met up with chaosnymph, rikchik[1], sirleebutler, subbes, the_radix, ts52, ubiquity, and zyxwvut, plus a bunch of the LJless. Sadly missing from last year were cthulhia, elphie, mnemex, prog, queue, and Zarf. Real update coming tomorrow, as today was decreed to be a Vacation.

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[1] I'm assuming that rikchik == dmm. Can someone confirm or deny?