Oh, almost forgot my cool gaming note of the day!

Last night I made a move in Chaos Theory (run by Michael McGovern) and I was hoping I was coherent. My mind was pretty mixed up, and Damara has done some pretty nuts things in the past when I was incoherent. She's ended up branded as a traitor to Amber, and well, generally loathed by the Amber populace. Most of it was bad decision making and some nasty mistakes on her part. But she is fighting with Amber, and at the end of the reply I received from Michael today, she was being cheered by Amber's army. She is doing well, and raising her own reputation, and it feels so amazing to be playing through this. Damara is one of those characters who has come alive, and who has been so amazingly enjoyable through her trials and tribulations, and now through her rise. Wow. Yeah, this feeling is why I roleplay. Yummy yummy emotions. *happy little sighs* Kudos to the GM for a good game.
 

Its sad when I took long enough to type the blog that I'd timed out on the site and had to relog in to actually get it to save!

Tonight, while talking to Josh & Liz, I had to think aloud that blogs make conversation kinda obsolete.

Y'see, I talk about my blogs with Josh (hells, I've already referenced our walks at work, haven't I?). And Liz is now reading it. And since I live with Kevin one would think that *he* knows what's going on in my and our children's lives. So there we are, and among the conversation is things like Liz asking Dani about the rides at Jeepers cuz she'd seen it in the blog...

Although no worries -- there's no way I could write everything down, so we all still had plenty to talk about. Plus, Dani and Ryan were providing a floor show.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. That's probably because I'm exhausted. Yes, its only 11:15 and I'm so passing out. My eyes are heavy, and if my back and shoulder didn't hurt so bloody much, I'd definitely be asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow in a little bit. Probably still will be, in fact.

Had trouble getting to sleep last night, because I was so... agitated... about everything going on in life just now. Then when I finally *did* fall asleep, I woke up two hours later and had trouble getting *back* to sleep. Before I could manage to doze off after an hour or so, Dani was awake and climbing the stairs complaining that it was "too dark to sleep." I gave her a choice of who would walk her back to bed. She chose Daddy, and so Kevin went downstairs and I finally managed to sleep again. Until Ryan started fidgeting and kicked the scary Pooh toy which started singing loudly in his crib. Eep! I got a little more doze time and then had to get up to feed him. After Kevin got up, I went back to bed for another hour and a half or so. But since all my sleep last night was in itty bitty chunks, well, not much of it was *worth* much for what sleeping is good for.

So tonight I'm tired and achy. Y'see, that's one thing I've learned over the last four years. A part of having fibromyalgia is a sleep disorder, and when I *don't* sleep well, the pain gets worse. Making it really a self-perpetuating cycle. I'm trying to do it without sleepy meds this time, using the guaifenisen to damp the pain down and back it out. If I make it through three months of treatment and am still miserabl, I'm starting in on the sleep meds again. It means I'm half asleep before Dani is, but well, at least I can function during the day again.

The low point of the day was the sudden realization that even though I mailed everything on time, I still haven't received anything for my driver's license. Eek! So I've got to call them on Monday in a panic and wonder what the hell is going on. Although I haven't checked today's mail. Either way, we're talking about two weeks late here, which is a bad thing. And it meant I couldn't get cash today, which was just plain old annoying. I hate not being able to get my hands on my allowance. *pouts* Not like its *much* but buying gas for the car is a *nice* thing. *smiles*

The high point of the day was, well, most of the day. *grins* The whole family trooped over to visit with Josh & Liz today. We had a good afternoon, just hanging out and visiting. Josh and I walked outside and I took a good look at the wild garden that is their back yard. Its got so many cool things in it just waiting to be found and discovered. And Dani played with Liz and had a fantastic time. And we talked music and shared music which is *always* a cool thing. I have to do some new mixes now that I think I have access to all the songs I want to put on them. And I definitely have to finish up the Adrienne soundtrack before the next WEF session. I think it will be my first mixed CD if I can get the levels right. Not being able to do levels properly on a CD mix is what has kept me with doing tapes until now!

I have now had the best sushi experience of my life. *happy little sighs* Josh & Liz brought us to Sushi Na, a little hole in the wall in Clifton Park. Its got about 7 seats at the sushi bar, and 2 tables for 4 people, and 2 tables for 2 people. And that's it. Its *small*. So we had one of the tables for 4, and an extra chair at the end for Dani, and then Ryan's car seat on the floor.

And then the fun began...

First, let me say the staff there are just so amazingly NICE. I wanna go back. Tomorrow. *sighs* I just wish it were possible! But the staff wanted to make Dani happy and kept trying to bring her things. And my little girl, being a four year old, was stubbornly insisting that she didn't want to try anything new. Not the crab sticks. Not the rice with soup over it. Not even the rice (which, with the hint of rice vinegar, "tasted funny" in her terms *heavy sighs*). And all announced in a little girl glass-shattering voice. We assured the staff it wasn't them -- she only eats chicken nuggets and fish sticks and spaghettios. Don't all four year olds eat like that? *groans*

But Ryan was the funniest of the trip. Normally in a restaurant he either naps (its boring) or sits quietly and plays with his toys. Hah! Not tonight by a long shot! He yelled to get out of his chair almost immediately. Then on my lap he started grabbing for anything that *wasn't* a toy. Paper especially. He tried to yank my placemat out from under everything. He *did* get Liz's. He ate all the wrappers from the chopsticks (well, gummed them -- we didn't let him actually *eat* one). He chattered constantly. And he thoroughly entertained the other diners (although I *did* feel badly when he literally threw his hourglas toy at the next table).

We have determined this is NOT a place to take kids. *laughs* Although they were so nice there and none of the other people really seemed to mind. They all seemed to understand, which was good. And Liz was really helpful -- at the end she took Dani and Ryan for a little walk so Kev and I could finish eating.

And oh my gods... it was the most amazing sushi. Oh yum. I didn't want to leave. I just wanted to order more and keep eating. They had a fabulous selection, and it was fabulously made. *happy little sighs* Oh yeah, we've gotta go back. And no, it wasn't just because it was my first non-vegetarian sushi since I got pregnant with Ryan back in March of 2001!!

I added more books to my recommended reading list I'm carrying around in my Blackberry to buy eventually, but I don't remember the exactness of the titles/authors. I'll mention them another time. Right now I'm reading the latest Miles book by Bujold and Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. I'm trying to read all the Hugo award nominee books before voting, since I realized when the ballot came out that Kevin and I had already read three of the six nominees. I won't start babbling about what I've liked and not liked. Suffice to say, I've only got Cosmonaut Keep and Perdido Street Station left to read, as does Kevin. It'll be cool having read all the novels for once. I like this idea -- we have to try this every year, I think.

And this year its a good crop of nominees. Go buy all of them. Then curl up and read. You won't regret it.

And now, I've babbled long enough. No philosophy tonight. I'm lucky to be making it to coherence. *grins* G'night.
 

Tonight marked a change in Dani's 4 year old little life. She went on rides.

We've been to Great Escape when she was two, and little carnivals, and Jeepers, and we could never get her on the rides. She likes the little train, but only if it doesn't go very fast. And even Rachel was unable to coax her onto things at either Great Escape or Jeepers.

But tonight when we arrived at Juliet's birthday party at Jeepers, she was running around with Saffron and Saffron wanted to go on rides. And this one ride -- Yak Attack -- was just sitting there, not going or anything. Dani looked at it, then followed Saffron in to sit in the seat with her. I think it only worked because she didn't see it in action first. The ride goes around and around fast, then goes backwards, just as fast. Dani loved it -- she went on it once with Saffron, and once sandwiched in between Robbie and Rachel, and then again with Rachel -- the girls didn't even get out of the car when Robbie left!

Then after her first time on Yak Attack, Saffron wanted to go on the little dragon rollercoaster. Dani went right along with her, just riding on the excitement high. She sort of liked it, and was sort of terrified by it. The part she *looked* most scared by was the big dip -- she just clung on and made a funny little grimacy face. The part she was always laughing after was when it went through a little dark part, but afterwards she said that was the scary part. But she said it was fun and scary and fast, and that yeah, she might do it again. Might.

Still, she went on rides. Even the banana ride which is like a Dumbo ride that goes up and down. And she had a great time at the party overall. So maybe Kevin has a hope of someday getting to go on rollercoasters with her.

He needs someone in this family to like them, because I sure as hell don't. *smiles*
 

Winds of Change are Blowing By...

I thought about picking a quote from the song, then realized I wanted to use too much of it and there're all these copyright laws that just don't let you quote things the way I wanted to and well, it wasn't worth it.

Suffice to say, the winds of change are blowing. Strongly. Its going to be a rough few weeks, and I'll talk more about it when I'm able to. But I can't yet. So if I sound kinda flaky and weird and out of it... that's why. [Oh yeah, I am SO sure that explanation helped.]

Gods how I hate these rollercoasters... I hate real ones, I hate metaphoric ones. They both do really icky things to my tummy and stress levels.

Wow, news travels fast... I've been seeing links to me popping up all over the place tonight. Once again, the extrovert part of me is bouncing up and down screaming inside my head "THIS IS SO COOL!!!" In fact, its almost unbelievably happy. I think its squished the introvert part of me for a little while. *laughs*

Okay, so I'm still having fun. This is a good good thing.

I'm starting to amass a links section. This'll take time cuz well, I have to figure who and how and all that sort of stuff... just the one link so far, to Penultimatum.com, the web site of Josh & Liz Katzman, wonderfully designed by Liz (who is really good at that sort of thing).

The rest of the links will be along later... probably categorized by blogs, personal sites, writing sites, etc... I think sometimes I tend to bite off more than I can chew. I want to be TOO organized. Feel free to laugh with me when you see me start to flounder. I'll be laughing too. *grins*
 

A random thought...

I was talking about "showing my programming roots even tho' I'm a manager" and had to wonder -- are programmers who become managers like brunettes who bleach their hair to blond?
 

I'm sitting here watching Saint Seiya, and the fists are flying, and the fighting, and the blood everywhere... and I look over at Kevin and ask "Is this my type of anime at all, really?"

And we both laugh and agree that no, it really isn't. He likes mecha and fighting -- I like character oriented angsty stories. Or humor. Like I love Ranma 1/2. I absolutely love Revolutionary Girl Utena. But there are some that Kevin and I agree on, and somehow Saint Seiya is one of them. But a part of me keeps wondering why.

Kevin says its because it has fond memories. Which almost makes me laugh.

Fond memories? I was dating Gene when I first saw Seiya. We had just met Big Steve for the first time, and saw some at Genericon. And Big Steve gave me copies of the TV episodes -- first 16 or 24 or some such. Then I watched more with Gene's friend Brad, who spoke Japanese (not to mention Chinese if I'm remembering correctly). But I wouldn't call those times "fond memories". There's a lot of difficult stuff all wrapped up in there, too.

No, its not that Seiya is a fond memory. I'm still enjoying it today.

Maybe it just means that occasionally there's a piece of me that doesn't mind the blood and violence. Hm. Food for thought.
 

The one problem with a blog is the public access... I was all set to do a rant about something from work and then realized... I can't, can I? Just in case, I can't. *heavy sighs* I'll get used to it, I guess.

On the cool side, got an email from Paul today, cuz he'd read my blog. I guess that means its time for me to go hunting around and see who else of my friends are blogging. In a lot of ways, its everything I like about the web -- a way of seeing inside someone's head, seeing how they think, and getting to know them better.

But where are there indices of blogs? I've found one -- I wasn't thrilled with it. I know there must be thousands of people using Blogger, but I couldn't search the index of titles. *pouts* I'd love to be able to post somewhere a basic profile of myself, of my blogs, and of my site. And have people be able to look me up while I can look them up. At this point, I'm reduced to still checking through Google. And my friends' sites. Which gets me somewhere, but not everywhere.

I look at that sentence and then realize there's something wrong with that -- the implication that I could happily spend the day surfing. If I took a year off from work, Kevin thinks I'd spend it online. Which, in a way, is true. I'd write. And I'd spend some of it on the internet, at first, just because I could. Because I so would love to be able to spend time doing something which relaxes me.

But oh gods, imagine having all that time to write? There are times when the synapses are firing just incredibly much, not doing anything coherent because its like I can't grab onto it anymore. But it leaves me desperate for something creative to do. I've got little scribbles, ideas for books, stories, and games. But its so hard to settle down and actually *write*. So hard.

I'm considering doing some outlines, posting bits and pieces of novel ideas and such as a part of this blog. Its too soon, really, for there to be a lot of people reading this, tho, I suppose. But if you think that'd be a good idea, email me and let me know. It'd be a weird mix of fiction types -- erotica (well, without the naughty bits since this is a family net *grins*), romance, sf, fantasy, horror, slipstream, and all kinds of things. But well, lmk.

Time for more badly translated Saint Seiya now. *grins* We're about to start the third disk out of um, 14? Yups, we've got a long way to go. We're managing to get through about a disk a week if we can actually keep up the speed we're going at now. I'm glad we got it though -- its good stuff.

Catcha later.

Blogging is addictive.

I suppose I should have expected that. I first heard about them from Neil Gaiman's book from Boskone this past February. Then again from DJ and Fiona at ACUS talking about the Lord of the Rings thing (which displays my ignorance that I can quote it, but can neither name it nor link to it!). And then again at TBR, over and over again from too many people to count.

So I finally decided to check out the concept. After all, its writing. And I need to do more of that. I can't possibly call myself a writer if I'm not writing regularly, be it fiction or non, just to keep my little brain cells in shape.

Aerobics of the mind.

But I didn't really expect just *how* addictive it would be. I mean, I was disappointed to learn today that I cannot blog from my Blackberry. *pouts*

But I'm really glad I found this. I'm using this as creative impetus to not only redesign my website, and the layout of same, but to also add material and get to work on writing a little something every day. Both here and A Twisted Weave, which is an ongoing fiction story serialized daily. I tried to write it back in fall of 2000 but got all bogged down in the mechanics of getting it updated every day. When I realized I was spending more time trying to figure out how to automate it (I was annoyed -- the world could do comics, but not fiction? why NOT?) than writing it, I knew it was over. But now I'm starting it up again, and its going well so far, and I'm really really jazzed to keep it up.

So I was walking today with Josh and I did point out the hardest part -- I have to remember the audience here. After all, anyone could be reading this. It could be someone I work with. Someone I see at conventions. Someday even one of my kids or their friends. What I say here is for public consumption.

The extrovert part of me is jumping up and down screaming "COOL!!"

The introvert is cowering and wondering "What have I done??"

Can you tell I walk the line somewhere between them, vacillating from moment to moment in my personality?

Either way, this is cool. Really cool. I've written fiction tonight. I've laid out more of my website, and conceptualized more of how it will continue to grow. I'm planning to invite friends into a team blog for creative writing exercises, or a group story, or something -- we'll figure it out. But most importantly, I've been creative. Which is so fantastic. Its allowing me to reclaim pieces of me which have been slowly slipping away over the years as I've worked my way into adulthood.

Which is just plain good.
 

Roleplaying... a slipside trip into the world of fantasy, for just a little while. Its a bit like a game, and a bit like a novel, and a bit like playacting (do you remember "Let's Pretend" from when you were a child?). Its one of those things that keeps me sane... perhaps by acting a little insane.

Once upon a time, in a single life, a college life, I spent a lot more time playing games. I remember when Shawn ran the first Amber DRGP that I ever played in -- I generated something like 600 or 800 pages of diary for that game before it ended... and I wasn't caught up to where the game was *when* it ended. I had tapes left to transcribe that I just couldn't get to because real life interfered.

Real Life. RL. Ugh.

Its always interfering into the fantasy, isn't it? I mean, you get a perfectly good fantasy going, and you start really enjoying this other life in this other world and then WHAM -- Real Life is there saying, "Hey, remember, you've got a job and you need money to keep that roof over your head and food in your kids' mouths."

Yipes.

Kinda destroys the moment in a major way.

But that doesn't mean we shouldn't roleplay. Fantasy, as long as it isn't made into reality, is a very valid way of "escaping" for even just one moment from the things that drive us nuts. I mean, who doesn't daydream? Just kick back in the chair, staring off into space for a few minutes, thinking about something else entirely? And isn't that a form of roleplaying -- putting yourself into a different situation than the one you are really in?

So what if it doesn't involved a chainmail bikini and a sword. Its still roleplay.

Me, I get to do "real" roleplaying once a month right now. Face to Face in Julia Frizzell's campaign "Which Endureth Forever". In the last seven years, Adrienne has become a real voice in my head. I've been through a lot of other face to face games in that time, but Julia's game has endured.

The only other gaming I really get to do is PBEM (play by email). I could really go on and on here, and probably will another time. I run two games (used to be three). I play in a lot more. But its a good way to indulge in the fantasy. I can spend five-ten minutes on a post, and then go on with reality. Sometimes its difficult to *get* those five minutes, what with life intruding. But I do my best to get it.

Cuz like I said... it keeps me sane. And sanity is supposed to be a good thing. I guess.
 

A time of peace. Ryan plays in the exersaucer and Dani resists sleep, calling out from the bedroom with a myriad of imagined difficulties. Untying a knot in a doll's dress, a request for a sippy cup refilled, a complaint that that same cup now is leaking (it isn't). It'll be a constant parade until she suddenly slips into the dreamlands, despite her best efforts.

Children are always so certain they'll miss something by being asleep. I suppose, in a way, they are right. But the world *will* still be there when they awaken in the morning, waiting for innocent minds to play.

Y'know, Tivo is useless when you forget to fast-forward through the commercials. I mean watching *taped* commercials. How pitiful. *sighs*

Okay, so we're Tivo addicts. With two kids, its the only way we get to peacefully watch the shows we enjoy. After all, they never are actually in bed and asleep by 8pm. This way we can watch it whenever. And I've got something random to watch when I'm up at all hours with the baby. It works, anyway. In a strange way, makes us less of slaves to the TV. Which works for me.
 

So, its been a day.

Thank the gods for the long weekend -- otherwise we never would've gotten anything done, I'm sure. As it is, its 9:30 at night and the laundry never got finished. But I'm trying to somehow watch (badly) subtitled anime and do this first blog entry at the same time. Saint Seiya -- the Hong Kong edition. We can't watch this while the kidlet's awake -- its far too violent for her. Although at least she can't read the subtitles. Hells, half the time *we* can't read the subtitles. English that was translated from the Japanese by people who speak Chinese -- sometimes we sit there, staring at the screen and laughing.

I'm rambling.

But then, that's the point of something like this, isn't it? A lot of rambling, some few insightful comments. I suppose, then, we'll see how it goes.

Dani and I baked brownies today. Cookies yesterday. She brought home Cookie Monster's favorite cookie recipe (sugar cookies) so we made a double batch and split it into four parts, then colored each part a different color. Then we made logs of cookies, and froze most of them, but we baked the ones that looked like fuschia and pink flowers with green centers yesterday. They came out pretty well, as did the brownies today. Dani really loves baking.

Its hard, sometimes, walking the line between wanting desperately to teach her everything, and having the patience to deal with the mess and mistakes. And she is so independant sometimes that she won't let me do the messy parts, like finishing up the stirring. She gets offended. But she's still too little to do everything at only four years old.

Yeah, being a parent is hard. I thought one was hard, and two's even harder. So there's a question for another day -- in the scheme of mother, housewife, and manager -- where is Deb in this reflection?