On Frustration, Feelings, FanFic, & Falling

 Just as a sort of courtesy "heads up," this post was written in incremental sessions spanning several days & nights of no truly discernible (& anything but restful) sleep, so not only is it ridiculously overlong & incredibly rambling, but likely quite disjointed in a "where-in-the-heck-is-she-going-with-this" sense. I like to think that it comes together - at least sort of - as you read along, but that could well be because I'm the one doing the rambling & my blathering tangents always make a certain amount of sense to me. Then again, I am so damn tired & angry & sleep-deprived & frustrated & mentally loopy & enraged right now that lord knows if the following is even in "English" or not.

Just thought I owed anyone out there who may be considering reading this a word of warning before they decide to begin to follow me down another of my blathering rabbit holes.

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Wow- 5 years, eh? It's been a while since I made an entry on this thing, hasn't it?

I would love to blame my absence on some exciting, colorfully bizarre event like I've been traveling the world on horseback taking pictures of rainbows for no other reason than I wanted to, or that I was abducted by aliens & taken to their home world where I have spent the last couple of years teaching them the ins & outs of playing city-building strategy games, but the simple truth of the matter is that I am notoriously scatter-brained & have an annoying tendency to start something, get distracted, & forget about the thing I started until something suddenly makes me go "Oh, Yeah! I had that thing I was doing!" & try to remember what I was doing with said thing in the first place. The reminder could be something as simple as walking by a shop & seeing an object in the window ("Oh wow- a drum! Hey; I still have a drum I need to finish painting!") or something as seemingly silly as listening to a song on the radio ("Hey, that's 'Meet Me Halfway Across The Sky'! That was the first song I heard when I drove my very first car home from the dealership. That's right; I need to get a hold of my uncle & see about that wash-n-wax session he wanted to do on my car this month.")

Or it could be something as horribly unsettling as finding yourself suddenly falling.

I'm not going to go into any further depth right now, because I still can't fully come to grips with it myself just yet, & every time I try I only make myself sicker & sicker at the terrible idea of what I used to proudly call My Country has apparently become seemingly overnight, so in deference to my remaining shreds of sanity I'll skip on the gory details for the moment. Anyway my sister TB (aka "Dream Lurker") has already said it all much better & far more succinctly than I am capable of ever doing in her own blog, Musings of a Lurking Dreamer (the link is set to open in a new window, if you want to take a peek) so instead I'm going to try & do this in my own usual disjointed, rambling, semi-stream-of-conscious, way-too-much-information-at-times way of doing things, & hope like hell it makes me feel a little bit better than I have been feeling these last several of days. Heck, maybe I can finally get some real & actually restful sleep after this.

Worth a shot, right?

Well, here goes nothing...

 Some time ago one of our local papers used to run (& still might, at least online) a comic strip called "Rose is Rose." It wasn't a strip I ever really followed - not only because it wasn't in the newspaper we used to have delivered so I only ever saw it if I read it while visiting my late grandfather (before he died, obviously) but because it was sort of a silly innocuous little thing & I tend more toward satire or dark/odd humor & such in the comics I like - but even when you don't follow a comic strip daily you can't help but pick up on the general cast of players & basic plots, so I still had a semi-grasp of the strip despite being such an infrequent reader of it. The main character in the strip was a woman named Rose (duh, right?) & she had a daughter (who's name I don't remember) & a husband (I'm pretty sure) & a cat (who's name is also a blank) & she spent a lot of time in her garden & did stuff like grow flowers & other homey things I think (like I said, I never really followed the strip very closely) but the thing I do remember clearly was that Rose would often envision herself as her personal secret super tough "alter-ego" whenever she felt the need to do so. For instance, one strip I remember had Rose out tending to her yard when a bee appears in the first panel, the next two panels depicted Rose in her badass leather-clad biker-chick form as the bee casually flew by, & the last panel Rose was back to her usual sweet self & was clearly feeling rather proud that she had survived her Big Scary encounter. I think the thing that stuck with me most about that particular strip wasn't so much the "silliness" of privately envisioning one's self as a tough-as-nails biker just to stand your ground against a little bee, but the realization that the idea of doing so was apparently so immediately understandable to many other people that the strip didn't feel the need for any dialog or even any subtitles (like many strips resort to when doing "fantasy" sequences) to explain what was going on; just the drawings in the panels. It meant that I wasn't quite as alone in using that type of "survival" technique as I had often feared I was...although with me the "standing-my-ground-fantasy" was never limited to my personal alter-ego, but also included the other characters in the particular universe said alter-ego was currently inhabiting.

As a child, a teenager, & even as a young adult I never fully understood what "FanFic" (eg, crafting your own stories about an already existing fictional world you really enjoy) was, even though I have been doing it all my life. I mean, I clearly understood the concept of obsessing over various fictional TV/book/movie worlds I had seen/read & imagining myself taking part in the action - in some form or another (more on that odd comment coming soon) - but I never had the idea to either write down the things I was thinking on actual paper (I lived in my mind; who needed to write stuff down?) or that this sort of thing was being done by lots of other people all over the world, & likely had been since virtually the dawn of humanity. I honestly won't be surprised if one day we find some ancient tablets out there containing some long-ago person's fantasies about a character in a play or ballad they they saw at the local playhouse or heard from the local bard (What if Ulysses had another crew member - me - on his journeys?) or even that some of the primitive cave paintings we admire as being depictions of tribal life at the time were really just some cave-teen's way of dealing with a personal moment of teenage angst (Stupid Oohg said I was too dumb to make fire! Me think I will draw him being trampled by herd of wild horses!) or something similar. So while I may not have known there was an actual word for it, it was clearly something that I have always been quite adapt at doing...even if my own mental FanFic adventures were anything but conventional at first.

Something you need to understand at this point is that growing up I was never a "person" but always some kind of dog - usually a wolf - whenever I put myself into the different fictional worlds that I would go into as a child. While other children imagined themselves as being, say Batman or Robin or Catwoman or a super hero/villain of their own creation, I was always Batman's faithful wolf companion. Or at least I would have been if I had grown up watching that particular show. That was just an example - using characters I figured where fairly well "universally known" - of how my mind worked when it came to these things. So when I watched shows like The Dukes of Hazard or Battlestar Galactica (the original 80's version, not the more recent remake) for instance, I never envisioned myself as human character on those shows, but always some kind of canine companion to the heroes; a sort of just-over-to-the-side observer of the main players as they outran crazy souped-up cars all over Hazard county & foiled that greedy Boss Hog again, or fought the evil Cylons in spectacularly epic ship-to-ship space battles. Not that my various canine selves didn't get into the action - they were fiercely loyal supporters of the heroes, after all - but the "main players" were always the same ones I watched week after week, show after show. For whatever reason it just never occurred to me to make myself a "normal" member of the main gang (likely because I was never exactly what anyone would have ever called a "normal" kid, obviously) so I was happily content to keep on creating new wolf-characters to help me escape into whatever the latest fantasy world was I was currently obsessed with.

Until Star Wars - or more precisely, a reckless young Tatooine moister farmer turned brave & noble Jedi Knight named Luke Skywalker - came along.

Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "The hell? The first Star Wars movie came out in 1977 & Battlestar Galactica was an 80's thing, so just how the heck does that make any sense?" but what you have to understand is that: 


A) I was only 5 years old in 1977 - & my birthday is in July & the movie was released in May so I was actually only 4 at the time - so I never saw A New Hope on the big screen when it first came out (a situation I've since happily rectified with my incredibly accommodating & patient sister many years later when the digitally enhanced versions of the original trilogy were released) likely because my parents weren't the kind of people who thought taking a hyper little not-yet-5 year old kid to something that required a concentration span longer than 33 seconds was "fun" in any way. 


B) I actually never saw The Empire Strikes Back in theaters either (again, that has been quite happily rectified now) & both it & Return of The Jedi (which I actually did get to see when it originally hit the theaters) where 80's releases.

And finally,

C) My "great alter-ego transformation event" wasn't an instantaneous thing, but sort of a gradual shifting in the way I thought.

So after seeing Return of The Jedi on the big screen with my family & being totally, utterly captivated (especially by Luke Skywalker, for reasons I was just on the cusp of truly understanding) & eventually catching up with A New Hope & The Empire Strikes Back (let's hear it for VHS machines) I happily created yet another escape-from-reality fantasy world for myself, where once again I was a loyal canine companion to the main crew. Did you know that Luke Skywalker had his faithful wolf companion by his side all during the Battle of Hoth? Well he did - in my world at least - & that same loyal wolf fought bravely with Princess Leia & Han Solo & Chewbacca & the Ewoks & the whole Rebel Alliance at the Battle of Endor too. Just like all my other alter egos this one was an outside observer as well as a partial participant to the action, & just like all the others she was a faithful wolf/dog & not an actual person, so she never spoke or interacted with the main crew on their own level, & of course she never really "starred" in any of the main storylines.

Then somewhere along the line things slowly began to change.

I can't remember anymore exactly what the "trigger moment" was (I do remember a particularly vivid dream I had at one point, but that happened later so I'll cover that when I come to it) but I slowly begun to find that being a loyal, non-speaking, non-human observer & companion to the main crew wasn't quite as much fun as it had been up until now. Was it the shear high-octane, no-holds-barred thrill ride of pure adrenaline adventure that the Star Wars movies presented so damn well that made me want to be a real part of the action instead of just a bit player? That was likely a big part of it, at least at first. But looking back on things now I know that the main undeniable factor for my shifting feelings was in the timing: I was growing up. I don't mean just in the sense that I was getting taller & needed bigger shoes & was mastering all sorts of cool new things like cursive writing & beginning algebra concepts in school; I mean in the sense of growing up mentally, emotionally, & yes, very slowly, hormone-wise. Somewhere along the line it wasn't enough to stand loyally by Luke's side & growl warnings to those nasty Stormtroopers as they took aim at the brave Jedi hero; it was more exciting to be a fellow Rebel fighter who could shoot blasters with the best of them. A fellow Rebel fighter who could shoot blasters & fly cool ships & actually talk to Han or Leia or Lando or Luke as they all stood their ground against countless armies in battles of impossible odds...& if sometimes while they were fighting side-by-side that brave young Jedi found a moment to flash a quick little friendly smile in her direction, that would be okay. I mean, she was a fellow Rebel fighter, after all.

No, scratch that. Not just a fellow fighter, but a Jedi Knight!

Yes, that was it! She was one of the new Jedi apprentices that Luke took on after the Battle of Endor & she learned to wield a lightsaber with deadly precision. In fact, she was so good that she was the best apprentice in the class. So good that she got to go on exciting new missions with Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, & those two crazy droids. So good that Luke would even take her along on missions without the other characters, where they faced impossible challenges & always managed to scrape through because they were both so skilled & so clever & so strong with the Force & because they made such an unstoppable team. A team that fought together, flew X-wings together, exchanged witty dialog together, & spent a lot of time together. A lot of time alone together. And maybe, during some of that "alone" time it would be kind of not so terribly bad if maybe Luke sat a little bit closer than he might usually sit next to someone, & maybe if he happened to sort of accidentally touch her hand or something then that would be kind of okay too. I mean, good friends & loyal comrades in arms do that sort of thing sometimes...right?

But wait! What if she wasn't just another potential Jedi, but she had an actual backstory herself!

All my previous alter-egos had just been unexplained canine companions; loyal pooches who fought heroically beside their human counterparts but who never had any real story of their own. But that was no longer good enough for my newly evolving human alter-ego, so now I was faced with the task of coming up with some kind of history for her in order to explain how she found herself not only fighting along side the usual Star Wars crew, but joining their ranks as a legendary hero of the Rebel Alliance. My first crack at creating a character backstory was - looking back with more than a little embarrassment now - pretty much a checklist of Serious Teenage Pseudo-Angst Masquerading As What I Honestly Thought Was Drama At The Time, but then it was my very first experience, not only with human alter-egos but also with trying to explain said alter-ego's existence, & I was a budding young wannabe teenager (pseudo-angst, drama, & all) at the time, so I like to think that I can be given a "pass" for the incredibly schlocky mess I originally came up with.

Just how incredibly schlocky of a mess?

Try this: She was the sole survivor of dozens of offspring of Emperor Palpatine via one his many nameless concubines who had been subjected to all manner of various incredibly painfully & overly elaborate tortures in an effort to make her a "Dark Jedi," (no, not a Sith Warrior but a "Dark Jedi") yet she had somehow (& I never recall explaining exactly how) managed to escape her horrible life of awful imprisonment & had somehow (& again, I remember no explanation for this) managed to get wrapped up with Han, Leia, Luke & the rest of the gang, where she spent pretty much all her time & energy trying to keep everyone from uncovering her Big Terrible Secret because holy hell how could they ever be expected to forgive her terrible, awful genetic origins & see her as anything but the terrible awful horrible thing her father had been; especially Luke Skywalker because - OMG! - he was only the bravest & the best & the coolest Jedi Knight in the history of the galaxy, so how could he ever accept the daughter of the man that made his father a Sith Lord - & had tried to kill Luke himself - as a trusted member of the Rebel Alliance? Plus there was that whole thing where his father had killed hers, which just ramped up the pre-teen pseudo-drama to almost lethal levels of brooding. Never mind of course the glaring fact that if anyone in that whole damn Star Wars galaxy would have had zero problems understanding the concept of dealing with one's less than stellar paternal origin's it would have been Luke Skywalker (because friggen duh, right?) or that there is no such a thing as a stupid "Dark Jedi" anymore than there would ever be "dry water" or "hot snow" or that the entire the-bad-guy's-kid-isn't-bad backstory itself is likely one of the oldest fiction cliches ever...but like I said, I was an angst-ridden young budding soon-to-be teenager still coming to grips with this whole crazy "growing up" thing, so to me at that time this was some seriously awesome dramatic stuff I was creating, & I was pretty damn proud of myself for coming up with such a "great" backstory for my very first human alter-ego.

So my angst-riddled cliched alter-ego continued to take part in various quests to vanquish evil from the galaxy, & she continued to stand bravely beside Luke & Leia & Han & Chewie & Lando & the droids, & she continued to struggle with her angsty cliche past as she continued to become a valued ally & trusted friend to the "main crew," & I continued to create fictional challenges for my fictional self to take part in in the fictional universe I was having so much fun exploring.

Now I'm not sure how much you know about the "rules" of FanFic, but one of the things that seems virtually universal (at least going by my own experience & observations) is that everyone has their own personal "key points" that they find important to touch on in their fictional worlds, for whatever the reason. It might be a certain way one likes to describe their character ("smoldering blue eyes") or a particular detail that always makes its way into one's character backstory (the "tragically orphaned" thing is always popular) or even a special scene/dialog exchange that plays out between one's character & the other inhabitants of the fictional world(s) said character inhabits.

For whatever reason, one of my personal "key points" seems to be what I have now come to refer to as "The Heroic Catching Scene" sequence.

No matter what fictional world & alter-ego I am currently tinkering with - & they run the gamete from Sci-Fi to Fantasy to Real World based (I have a long standing love for "cop" shows) - I always seem to script a scene in which my character gets herself into a situation wherein she finds herself in eminent danger of falling to her untimely death, only to get saved at the last possible moment by one of the other characters in the given universe. Each scene has personal significance (to me) based on the world in question, & while the details are always different (the who, what, where, when, & why varies greatly depending on the particular world/characters) the universal thread is that of total trust: My character's trust in the character doing the saving, & the saving character's trust that if the situation were reversed (& it always is later, in one way or another) the action would be reciprocated without any hesitation...& of all my various evolving fantasy worlds & of all my various alter-egos, the "catching scene" that always hits me personally as the most dramatic is the one I always work into my Star Wars universe. Of course it involves Luke Skywalker in the role of designated "catcher" & of course with him being the most powerful Jedi Knight in the history of ever it features a stunning midair catch via the Force, in which the intrepid Skywalker snatches my falling alter-ego from what appears to be certain death by using his unequaled powers to freeze her in mid free-fall, just seconds before she lands on the jagged rocks or burns up in the molten lava or drowns in the sub-zero water or falls into whatever the heck nasty-ass thing I decide to put at the bottom the the pit/ledge/cliff she is currently falling from. (BTW, another of my personally observed FanFic rules is that one person's emotionally poignant drama is another person's "WTF is that overblown garbage all about?" so I'm not excepting anyone to ever "get" the previously described scene the same way I do; but that's not the point here. The point here is that Luke - like all my designated catchers - always manages to save my character in the nick of time. That's all you need to remember in order to continue, if you still want to do so.)

So my budding almost-teenage angsty self continued evolving a personal Star Wars world to escape from reality into, & my ever changing (if still cliche) alter-ego continued to take part in all sorts of bizarre, seemingly impossible missions, & the usual cast of Star Wars characters continued to grow more & more impressed with my alter-ego's skills as they took her further into their confidence & allowed her to not only stand by their side as a trusted fellow rebel, but also officially become part of their "inner circle" as a truly respected ally & an unquestioningly loyal friend. Those fictional friendships with Luke, Han, Leia, & the rest of the gang helped me cope with the usual pre-teen emotional roller coaster of feelings I was going through, as well as giving me the "courage" to deal with the various day-to-day issues I needed to face. I was always the shy, quiet kid with glasses who liked to read & draw more than keep up with whatever the latest popular trends were, which was sort of like tossing raw hamburger into a shark tank when it came to attracting kids who seemed to enjoy being jerks to other kids. Being able to image myself as a brave Jedi Knight surrounded by my circle of secret Star Wars friends - like the comic strip Rose would do when pretending to be a biker chick when confronted by bees - helped me cope with a lot of "schoolyard" bullshit, as well as allowing me the wonderful freedom to escape from the drudgery of reality by simply slipping into my own private fantasy world whenever I felt the need to do so. How could you ever feel completely helpless when you knew that Luke Skywalker - of all people - was waiting to catch you if you fell?

Then seemingly out of the blue I had a dream that threw everything into chaos.

 I'll skip the nitty-gritty details for reasons that will quickly become apparent, but the general plot of this unexpected nocturnal adventure involved my alter-ego & a certain brave Jedi Knight finding themselves hiding out in a cave on some unnamed planet in order to escape capture from yet another group of those pesky Stormtroopers who were forever pursuing them. It was dark, & stormy, & all sorts of cold & rainy outside (my lordy; even my damn dreams are cliche, eh?) so they really had no choice but to hold up in that nice, safe, warm, dry cave & wait until their fellow Rebels found them in the morning. The new "twist" was that for the first time they didn't pass the time plotting their next adventure or exchanging witty dialog like they always had before; they passed the time...well, they passed the time doing the kind of things that grownup-type people do when they graduate from being best buddies to something much, much more than best buddies. (Aren't you glad I decided to skip on the nitty-gritty details now?)

I won't ever say that this was my first real "sex dream," because my child/teen memories are really muddled (likely because I spent so much time living in my own mind rather than in the real world) & given that I had already done the whole sex education thing in elementary school & I was a young wannabe teenager at this point (so the concept of sex as a thing was no shocker) it most likely wasn't; but it was the first dream like that I remember having in such - shall we say - vivid detail, which was also most likely what upset me so much. All of the sudden my nice safe little fantasy world where I could hide from nasty icky old "reality" wasn't so nice & safe anymore. All of the sudden those friendly little flashed smiles & innocent exchanges of witty dialog & sweet little hand-brushing moments that my alter-ego & Luke Skywalker had shared for so many months weren't so friendly or innocent or sweet anymore. All of the sudden the realities of being a human being (& who wanted to be one of those when they could be a mighty Jedi Knight?) had invaded what used to be my personal private sanctuary; my secret hiding place to escape from being...well, from being me. Icky, nasty reality had found my safe little harbor of tranquility & torn it all to pieces; which was horribly frustrating & scary & disheartening & not the least little bit tranquil at all...& yet, at the same time, somehow sort of exciting & all kinds of "forbidden" & so tantalizingly adult (& wanting to be an "adult" is most definitely a trait of the typical angst-ridden pre-teen) which is also likely what added to my confusion. As much as part of me - a lot of me - secretly couldn't wait to be treated like a real live grownup type person, there was another part of me that seemed to know that Big Changes were soon coming down the pike & desperately wanted to go back to a time when hand-holding & little peck-on-the-cheek kisses were as much affection as two people ever needed to engage in to prove they were "in love," & it was that part of me that so dearly longed to stay a sweet innocent little kid forever that it kicked up such a fuss about this new Big Scary Change that it wasn't long before I finally abandoned my Star Wars fantasy world & moved on to other hopefully less threatening mental escape pastures, where it likely figured it could keep me an innocent little carefree kid forever.

The plan didn't work of course. Not by a long shot.

No matter what the new-found mental fantasy world my stay-innocent-forever part tried creating, it didn't take long before my other part - the part that found this whole "growing up" thing rather exciting - managed to get involved & make darn sure my new alter-ego & her latest "love interest" didn't stay contented holding hands & gazing at sunsets & smiling sweetly & other such innocent things for long. That ship had sailed, the proverbial cat was out of the proverbial bag, & there was clearly no going backwards...but for whatever the reason (fear? embarrassment? I'm still not entirely sure why) I never went back to my beloved Star Wars realm as a kid, & simply walked away from Han & Leia & Chewie & Lando & the droids & - especially - Luke Skywalker.

But while I may have walked away from Luke, he wasn't about to do the same to me as I discovered quite unexpectedly several years later.

Flash forward now to 1991/92. I had been out of high school for a year or so (graduated in 1990) & was still trying to come up with a plan of some sort for what the heck to do with the rest of my life. College wasn't an option for a multitude of reasons (not the least of which was that I had hated high school so damn much that the very idea of spending any more time with the same people who made it such a hellish experience was beyond inconceivable to me) so I was currently on a sort of a mental hiatus from everything as I attempted to come up with some sort of a plan for what to do next with my newly discovered "freedom." Then one morning in February I was awakened by my mother standing in my bedroom doorway telling me that her father - my grandfather - had just called her in a state of confusion because he had just found my uncle Ron - mom's youngest sibling - dead.

And just like that, I was falling.

My family isn't much in comparison to what it always seemed to me that other people had. I don't mean they are crappy people, I just meant that unlike pretty much everyone else I know there just aren't many of us. While "everyone" else talked of holiday get-togethers & family reunions involving masses of cousins & second cousins & third-cousins-twice-removed, my extended family unit consisted solely of myself, my sister, our parents, & my mother's family - her father, sister, & her two brothers (her mother & my father's parents had died long before I was more than a little lump of human flesh called a "baby," so I never met them) - so growing up my holiday memories are likely lightyears away from the kind of memories most other folks have. It wasn't that sis & I didn't have cousins & such running around in the world because we actually had boatloads of them (many of my relatives are Mormon if that explains the "boatload" reference) it was just that due to various factors we never grew up knowing them. So my family celebrations consisted solely of sis, mom & dad, grandpa, aunt Barb, uncle Bob, & uncle Ron, (plus the addition of soon-to-be uncle Scott, my aunt's fiance at the time) so that was how I always figured it would continue to be...only to find nasty icky old reality once again being a heartless bastard as I clawed my way out of bed & started rounding up clothes so I could drive mom over to grandpa's house & see what there was for us to do. Dad had long since left for work & my sister had been unceremoniously ushered of to high school after mom received the phone call (which I always sort of thought was pretty crappy but I've never really asked her how she felt about it for some reason) so it was my job by default to drive my mother over to my grandfather's house because at that time for reasons of her own mom didn't have a driver's license.

It was a long, hard drive (emotionally, not so much time-wise as we didn't live more than 20 minutes or so away from my grandfather's house) & I don't remember a lot of specifics; just my mother saying over & over & over how she couldn't believe this was happening (Ron had evidently just died in his sleep) & me trying to pay attention to the road so we got there in one piece. We finally arrived & mom & grandpa were hugging & crying & talking to each other while I sat there alone in the living room staring at the fireplace silently wondering why the heck I was even there. The paramedics soon arrived (or maybe they were already there, I don't remember anymore) & eventually my aunt Barb & her fiance Scott showed up at some point & Scott volunteered to go find my uncle Bob & tell him what was happening because nobody could get a hold of him on the phone for some reason. (Uncle Bob - like uncle Ron & my grandfather before he retired - worked at the local airport & it was sometimes crazy-hard to track people down there, as SeaTac was a ginormous airport even "way back" then.) So I sat there & stared at that damn fireplace while everyone else was crying & talking to each other - but saying next to nothing to me - & silently cried about the death of an uncle I actually had never really known super well but was still really upset about. My uncle Bob was eventually tracked down & even my grandfather's sister Margie showed up to do what she could do to help, as I continued to sit on that couch by myself. (I only met Margie a couple of times in my whole life & has always found her rather aloof & even intimidating; but I found out much later that she had actually been very upset about the way I had been left sitting there all alone while everyone else basically ignored me, which made me feel sort of good to know for some odd reason.)

The weeks that followed consisted of what I now know to be the "usual" things that take place when a family member dies; lots of crying & confusion & contacting funeral parlors & arranging for memorial services & the like. Add to this that sis & I where both hit with a major case of the flu or something & were unable to go to my uncle's memorial service (which really sucked & for which I still am angry at "the universe" for doing to us) & on top of everything else my aunt was due to get married shortly (reality is a serious dickhead, isn't it?) & you have a general idea of what it was like for me during those terrible weeks immediately following my uncle Ron's passing. It was hard to sleep & trying to get back into the swing of things - especially after being "cheated" out of even being able to go to the damn memorial service - & I really wasn't sure how the heck to ever get back to a normal state of existence...until one night, out of the total blue & without having really thought about anything remotely Star Wars related in seemingly forever (a little show called Star Trek: The Next Generation had hit the airwaves back in '87 & I had been gleefully buried in this new mental escape for quite some time by this point) I found myself suddenly dreaming of my old Jedi incarnation, & Luke Skywalker was right there by my side, flashing that wicked farmboy devil-may-care smile as we headed off on whatever impossible mission it was that my dreaming self had arranged for us to participate in. It wasn't the idea of dreaming about something so unexpected & totally not "in sync" with what was happening in real life that surprised me - most dreams can lay claim to those traits, after all - it was the way that particular unexpected dream (& the others that followed) made me feel when I woke up.

I felt like I belonged. Like I was needed. Like I was important & valuable & somebody out there actually truly gave a damn about how I felt & what I thought & what I was going through. I had been falling of that ledge called "reality" & was headed for an uncertain landing, when I was suddenly & dramatically snatched in midair by a long-ago comrade with a farmboy grin who had come to my rescue without even being called on. "Forget about all that stuff; let's have an adventure!" He seemed to be saying, "The galaxy needs us!" So we headed off to wherever my dreams sent us & we met up with all our old friends & we fought with all our old enemies & yes, we "hid out" in a cave or two along the way as well (which I was no longer the least bit embarrassed about & never should have been the first time either, but teen angst is a real bitch when it comes to such things) & we saved the Star Wars galaxy from the usual problems it seemed constantly plagued with, & it was like we had never been apart, which was incredibly comforting.

It was sort of like firing up a dearly-loved computer game or cracking open a once-loved book after many years & finding that it still captures your imagination like the first time you remember hitting the "start" button or reading the first exciting words in the beginning of chapter one. Yeah, I know; a lot of once loved games & books don't exactly hold up so well when you go back to them after a long absence. Kind of lends some credence to the oft-repeated phrase about how you can't go home again & similar concepts (trust me; I've been in the "not as fun as it used to be" department many times) but while it is certainly true that many once beloved joys eventually lose their ability to deliver on their promise of fun & escapism, it is also true that for whatever reason some things seem to never lose their ability to capture one's imagination, no matter how long you have happily indulged in them or for how long you may "forget" about them in between revisits. I have since come to realize that for me one of those never-goes-away pleasures is undoubtedly the Lucas Star Wars universe; but it took a while to finally grasp what I know see as an obvious truth. (I'm a slow learner at times, okay?)

After Luke's unexpected yet wonderfully refreshing visits in the wake of me dealing with my feelings about my uncle's unexpected death, things - eventually - started to get back to normal. My aunt got married as originally planned a couple months after Ron's passing (a bittersweet event to be sure) & time marched along as usual. I found new hobbies & new interests & new worlds to obsess over to keep the "needs-a-reality-escape" part of myself content...but no matter what my current "mental escape of choice" was at the time (& I've got a lot of them; trust me!) whenever I found myself somewhere up that proverbial stream of excrement without a paddle handy & was beside myself with uncertainty over just how in the hell I was going to get out of my current mess, I would suddenly, inexplicably, & totally out of the blue find myself having another "Luke Skywalker adventure" dream & slowly start to feel a little bit better. I even started to occasionally revisit my old Star Wars world during my "waking hours" & begun making a few much needed changes to that world & my alter-ego there too. I never stayed long (like I said, I'm a slow learner at times) but little by little my Star Wars friends started to quietly re-stake a claim on what they once had sole control of many years ago...& no matter where I was in my life, whenever I found myself falling those loyal friends - led by that devilishly reckless Luke Skywalker - would somehow sense my fear & manage to catch me.

So when I was unjustly fired from a job I loved along with three other people because we all chose to stand up for a female coworker who spoke very little English & was almost raped by one of the supervisors (just one more damn reason I am sicker than sick about recent political developments in my goddamn country right now) & had no idea what I was going to do - *poof!* - there was that grinning Jedi Knight waiting for me in my dreams one night to take me away from things for a while.

And when my sister was dealing with what eventually turned out to be a 20+ pound benign growth that we didn't know was "harmless" at first because it could just as easily have been cancerous & she was having a terrible time getting any financial help because of our seriously fucked-up insurance system (one more reason I want to scream about my horrible, horrible country right now) & I was hit between the eyes with the awful possibility of losing my only sibling - *poof!* - out of the blue one night I found myself standing next to my Rebel Alliance friends as Luke prepared to lead us in battle against whatever nasty thing we needed to defeat & keep me from thinking about what that asshole reality was piling on top of my family in the daylight hours.

And when I found myself with no health coverage & seemingly nowhere to turn during my own health scare (as though I needed another reason to be so damn irate at my deplorable country, right?) & I was crying myself to sleep at night because every time it looked like somebody might be able to help me I was inexplicably turned away & I felt beyond worthless & I was giving up hope of ever finding help - *poof!* - I was suddenly wrapped tightly in Luke's arms, as he assured me that I wasn't worthless & did what he could to help me through one of the darkest times in my life.

And when my grandfather who had been going through a series of increasingly challenging medical issues for several years was hit with what we all feared was one challenge too many even though none of us wanted to say it & even the doctors seemed to dance around the subject when we asked & I was spending my days sitting in often windowless waiting rooms staring at paintings meant to make me somehow feel better & my nights driving home in the rain & as things became progressively worse & the outcome more & more obvious - *poof!* - Luke Skywalker to the rescue again with his farmboy grin & his strong arms & his need for my help on another nocturnal adventure of galactic importance (that darn galaxy was always in danger) to keep me from a total emotional breakdown.

It didn't matter that I was currently obsessing over some other FanFic world or some new computer game or some other new hobby at any of those (& many other) times; Luke didn't care. He had a job to do & he was going to do it. He saw me falling & was there to catch me, period. Never mind that I hadn't called for help or even if I hadn't realized that I was falling yet (it wasn't uncommon for me to only "discover" that I had been feeling lower than low for some time only after waking up from one of Luke's surprise nocturnal visits) he was going to catch me in midair & let me know that no matter what was going on in my mortal existence, I could always rely on my personal Jedi & our secret nighttime adventures to keep me from falling into total mental oblivion.

Flash forward now to 2016 & things have finally come full-circle on a FanFic front. For various reasons my Star Wars universe has become my currently predominate obsession - at least for the time being - & I have logged many hours reworking, re-crafting, & rewriting (yes, as in actually writing stuff down this time) the new ideas I have dreamed up to hopefully help better flesh-out my old storylines & my alter-ego much better. No more of this "Palpatine's daughter" nonsense; she now has a far more dynamic (to me) family backstory that even ties into many of the events that take place in the prequel movies (which I quite enjoyed, despite the admittedly & inexplicably bad "acting" issues at times) & she has a much less teen-angst filled personality now, likely because I'm no longer an angsty teen myself anymore by any means. Heck, she even has an actual name now, which I never remember my original character ever having. (I think she was just me so she never had a name all her own.) Not that it matters, but I finally settled on "Azriadne" (that's "Ariadne" the daughter of Minos because I have a thing for Greek mythology plus a "z" thrown in to make it sound more exotic) & I also did away with that whole crazy "Dark Jedi" insanity (seriously, WTF was I thinking with that schlock?) so she is no longer something as ridiculously impossible as a "Dry Wet" or a "Bad Good" & is actually something that might actually conceivably exist, at least within the confines of a Star Wars themed universe. So my newly revamped Star Wars world continues to grow & I continue to tweak it, & I keep dealing with life's usual annoyances & I keep finding new interests (& revisiting old ones) to keep myself from getting bored, & life continues to march a long like it always does.

The point I am trying to make here (& I'm pretty sure it's all but lost in my barely coherent ramblings) is that I have a crazy-long collection of carefully cultivated "escape mechanisms" that I have always been able to rely on when I felt the need to hide from reality for a while. These escape devices include a myriad of computer games & a rotating world of FanFic universes, as well as my various "crafty" diversions like my love of Tie-Dye or my wood carving passion. In the past, whenever I was going through what felt to me like a Dark Patch on the road of life (even if it didn't seems that way to anyone else) I could always - eventually - find a way to pull myself through by distracting my often overly obsessive mind with one of my many "distractions" & slowly, little by little, step by step, I could usually get myself to see the light at the end of the long dark tunnel...& if none of that worked, I could always count on Luke Skywalker to swoop in before I hit rock-bottom & snatch me in midair to take me on some sort of dreamland adventure (cave "hiding" included) & help me forget - just for a moment or two - whatever that bastard "reality" was currently trying to break me down with.

And as I'm sure everyone knows by now, reality pulled a major gut-punch on the 8th of November.
 
The thing is, I don't seem to be feeling any better, even after a week of hiding from the world in general (even my friends) & that scares the hell out of me, because I should be able to find a way to get past this nightmare of deplorable proportions & bury myself in my craft projects or my computer games or my various FanFic distractions, but I can't - hell I can't even sleep well at the moment - so I find myself doing things like standing out in the rain in my sleep clothes (seriously) staring up at the sky wondering what the hell is happening to my fucking country & why I didn't see it coming & wishing like all hell that I can find something - anything - to distract my mind (which is a ball of turmoil beyond comprehension right now) & let me escape from this wide awake nightmare of hellish creation that I am stuck living in.

And that's one of the things that has hit me so blasted hard about the current shit-storm of events that has me tied up in knots of anxiety & is sending me in a major downward spiral of anger, frustration, & serious depression: My usual avenues of escape & coping aren't working anymore. The computer games that I normally find so enjoyable hold zero interest for me right now, all the crafty activities I can usually focus on for hours on end seem totally pointless, & - what is likely the scariest realization of all - even my beloved FanFic worlds seem to be currently inaccessible to me. I fire up Word & I stare at the page, but I can't seem to get past the bleakness of my current reality long enough to get any of the stories I have previously been happily crafting to come out. I don't know what to do, where to turn, or how to deal with the idea of how a man who exudes Palpatine levels of pure evil has been handed the keys to my country because of an outdated system that allows the candidate who actually received the most physical votes to still lose an election.

It's a joke right? It has to be a joke; because a man accused of child rape & who openly brags about sexual assaulting multiple women & condones racism & makes fun of veterans simply cannot be named Commander In Chief of my whole damn country, can he?

I wish I could wake up from this whole sickening mess & that it was still November 7th & that none of this was real. I wish that I could find a way to make it not be real. I wish that I didn't feel like this & that I was one of those people who just says "meh, whatever" & doesn't seem to understand - or care - just what the hell is facing us as a nation as soon as that horrible vile disgusting creature takes control. I wish I could find a way to escape this twisted sickening horror show, even if only for a little while & even if only in my dreams.

Luke? Are you still out there? I hope like hell you are.

Because your Azriadne's falling.

A Christmas Story

     I'm not exactly sure when it started, but I have definitely come to view this time of year as the "Season of More."

More lights.
More decorations.
More sparkly.
More frantic.
More love.
More hate.
More awesomeness.
Just basically "more" in general.

     This isn't to say that the other seasons or holidays aren't full of their own kind of energy, but there just seems to be something about this time of year that makes everything extra intense, at least to me.

    Maybe it's the way so many major religious & cultural celebrations all converge at once, or the fact that the weather around these parts (Pacific Northwest) is particularity wet & dreary (thereby forcing one to "think" more, as it's too damn crappy to go outside & frolic) but whatever the reason, it often seems that this particular time of year brings with it the ability to amplify actions & feelings to levels the other times of year just can't touch, which is both good & not-so-good.

     It's not-so-good in that few things are more heartrending than reading about a family loosing their home or a loved one just days before they were all going to go to grandma's house (or wherever) to sit down to a warm holiday dinner with family & friends.

     But it's good in that there is something about this time of year when every so often the stars aline, energy is created & something happens to turn what was initially a deep sadness into a time for unexpected joy.

I want to tell you a little Christmas story.

     Not the kind where a town council decides to outlaw Santa & group of orphans manage to change their minds. Or where a little puppy with a limp is picked out of the litter by a young boy with a lame leg of his own. Or how a reindeer with no friends & a nasal condition saves the day, or even the one where a bitter old curmudgeon learns the "true meaning" of Christmas.

     The story I am talking about is one about an English woman, a Dutch man & an American gal who found themselves faced with the terrible news that a little website they all frequented & had become good friends on was going to be closing in the New Year, as the site's owner had decided to move on to other things, as so often happens in this game we call "life." So after they had all posted their sad & shocked "good bye/good luck" posts they began to ponder what to do (and where to "go") next...& this is when the stars alined just right & that elusive holiday magic glimmered for just a moment, making the English woman send a PM (private message) to the Dutch man & the American gal saying that she had just sent a PM to the site owner asking him if he would be willing to let her take over the cost & such of running the site & if they would be interested in helping her.

     So the Dutch man & the American gal (the latter of which had been just about to ask the site owner the very same thing) both said "yes" & the English woman relayed this to the site owner & asked the Dutch man & the American gal to do the same (which they did) prompting the site owner to reply that he was not opposed to their proposal & in fact another woman (who I think may also be American but I am not certain) had contacted him about the same thing.

     So after many crossed PMs, the English woman, the Dutch man, the American gal & the other American (??) lady all got together & posted their plan "in the open" & received much advice & other help from other people who frequented the same site, included the offer to host many of the downloads from another Netherlands native. More advice followed, along with more posts of encouragement & what was once a "tragedy" was suddenly an unexpected "joy."

     In short, sometime this coming January (by the 11th unless we decided to get a month "extension" on the current server) it seems that these 4 folks will find themselves the proud "owners" of a little website about a little game that brought them all together in the first place.

     So here's another huge "thanks" to zephyerzodiac (the English woman), BoilingOil (the Dutch man), dark_author (a woman I am almost positive is from America), Leefish (the Netherlands woman) & TwoJeffs (the founder of the Simbology site) from me- Zirconia Wolf (the American gal) for making this holiday a lot less crappy than it was a few short days ago. Without you guys (& all you other Simbology fans) this holiday story would never have had the happy ending it does now.

It may not have the heart-tugging power of that puppy with a limp or that reindeer with the sinus problem, but to me it means a hell of a lot more.

Merry Fucking Christmas

         Sorry 'bout the not-so-friendly post title, but it's how I'm feeling at the moment so it's what I went with. That's the whole point of having a Blog in the first place, isn't it? To have someplace you can freely spout whatever drivel/sentimental crap you want to without any fear of *retribution* or getting yourself banned from someplace. It's hard to get banned when you're the one in charge!

So anyway, on with the post:

As I write this, I feel like I've almost literally been punched in the gut.

            As anyone who *knows* me already knows, I am a huge fan of the Sims 2 & derive untold pleasure from tinkering, tweaking & toying with the *lives* of my little pixel minions. Sitting on a shelf just above my computer monitor are four well used 3-ring binders full of information on every one of my pixel peeps, divided by neighborhood & diligently organized in a way that would likely only make sense in my own strange little brain. Next to the binders is a row of no less than 26 books of "baby names" from every culture imaginable, which I refer to frequently when either naming a new character or bestowing a new moniker on one of the more strangely named Maxis-made Sims. On my computer itself there are almost countless folders containing my self-made "spread sheets" & genealogy charts & story outlines & character overviews & "read me" files for the myriad of hacks & mods that I have downloaded over the years. And let's not forget the programs I've installed to do everything from meshing (MilkShape 3D) to custom content installing (Clean Installer & Delphy's Download Organizer) to file editing (Wardrobe Wrangler, Sims 2 Categorizer, The Sims 2 Enhancer) to graphic editing (PaintShop Pro X3, ArtRage Studio & GIMP) to manipulating the very game files themselves (via the awesomely awesome SimPE.)

In other words that crazy, silly game takes up not only a rather large chunk on my hard drive, but my *life* as well.

So why am I telling you this?

            Because hand-in-hand with my obsession has been the discovery of some truly amazing people that I have met on some truly amazing sites. People that I've come to regard as close, personal friends even though I've never met any of them face to face & indeed likely never will, as most of them are not only from out of state, but reside in completely different countries than I do. People who have got married, had babies, bought houses, lost jobs, purchased computers & a myriad of other things, all while we shared a deep & perhaps even indescribable (to non-Simmers) bond, all because of a strange game that many people either don't *get* or condemn as being *stupid* despite never having played it themselves. People I respect, people I admire, people who I look forward to *seeing* during my near daily trips to my favorite sites...people I fear I will soon be losing touch with. Because in the midst of this holiday season with it's lights & it's music & it's glitter & it's bows, I have just learned than no less than 3 sites I used to haunt will be closing for good, one in six months & the other two this very January.

            No more Ancient Castaways, no more CrazyTown & saddest of all no more Simbology- the site where I not only met some of my dearest friends, but the site that gave me the courage (and the place) to try my timid hand at creating my very own game content. 

The site that became a second home for me. 

The site that I finally broke 4,000 posts & officially became a "Whippy Whippersnapper" which made me happier than I suppose most *normal* folks would say I should have been over such a thing.

            Of course there have been offers from some folks to come *join* their sites, which is nice, but all the people extending such invitations are fans of the Sims 3, which while I understand many people are enjoying it, it is NOT the game for me & I really enjoyed having a place (Simbology) to go where I could post questions & pictures & read stories about I game I still adore & greatly enjoy & know that the people who I was *talking* to shared my enthusiasm, as much as I shared theirs.

            This isn't a *dig* at the folks who owned the sites that are closing, as I totally understand about life moving on & interest changing & I truly hope they all find joy in whatever endeavors they are moving on to...

...but it doesn't change the fact that in the midst of this holiday season, with it's warmth & it's joy & it's presents & it's message of peace on earth, the only thing I'm feeling at this particular moment is the bitter sting of reality spitting in my face as it takes yet another source of joy from what passes for my life.


So happy holidays & have a merry fucking Christmas.

Not Dead Yet

     Just wanted to pop in & say that despite any rumors to the contrary, I'm actually still alive & with luck hope to get back to a semi-regular posting schedule.

     Also wanted to say that I am in the (slow) process of setting up another blog, which I will be dedicating solely to my TS2 ramblings, leaving this blog as more of the usual what-I'm-up-to type of thing.

That's it for now.

Peace out!

What A Difference A Day Makes

It's 1:15 PM June 7th as I begin to type & quite frankly I'm not really sure what exactly to say. The last several days have been something of a blur...but blogs were made for rambling posts, so by golly that's what I guess I'll do!

It all started the morning of June 1st when I came upstairs to consider my breakfast options & noticed that my usually easy going father seemed to be rather under the weather. As he trudged into the bathroom (again) Mom explained that he seemed to have either food poisoning or a flu as he had been trowing up for the last few hours. Flu's are nasty buggers - but hardly uncommon - so we all went about our day pretty much like always...save for Dad wearing a grove in the floor from his chair to the bathroom & complaining of a sharp, constant pain throughout his abdomen. When no improvement was seen by that evening, we decided that if he was still this sick in the morning we would take Dad to the local emergency clinic. That plan was soon replaced when Dad declared he couldn't go through another night like he was & decided to go to the clinic right then.

Turned out to be quite literally a life saving decision on his part.

See, as it turned out Dad didn't have food poisoning or a bad case of the flu, he actually had a large portion of his small intestines dead from lack of blood flow & was soon on his way to Swedish hospital in Seattle for emergency surgery. He was mere moments away from having his bowel perforated...which, incidentally is exactly what killed the wife of my Tuesday night carving teacher a couple of years ago.

In short, as of 4 AM June 2nd, Dad's survival was looking like a long shot.

Enter the power of my post title.

I don't know if it was the prayers & thoughts of the people Mom, sis & I reached out to or Dad's seriously amazing ability to tolerate pain (or a bit of both?) but he was off the ventilator a day after surgery, up an walking faster than anyone ever hoped & is actually on his way home from the hospital today, 6 days after this whole thing started.

Just so this really sinks in, the average recovery time for folks undergoing the same surgery is 10-14 days.

I think the thing that best sums up this whole ordeal is when the surgeon who preformed the operation (and gave Mom & I the less-than-optimistic prognosis) came to see Dad just after the ventilator was out.

I don't know if I have ever seen someone with a more pleasantly surprised look on their face before in my life.

"Sometimes it's nice to put a check in the win column for the good guys" he said.

No kidding, dude.

No kidding.

58 E-Mails & Counting

NOTE: This post is ridiculously long & rambling for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which is my good old ADHD kicking into overdrive. I would apologize for this, except that I'm the only one who reads this thing & I figure I deserve what I get for reading a blog by me in the first place!

********************

As I look to the lower right corner of my computer screen - the part that always seems to play host to the myriad of important (and not-so-important) update notices, "must read" messages, invasive pop-ups & so many other annoying side effects of PC ownership - I can't help but see Thunderbird gleefully reminding me that I have 247 emails (236 of which are still unread) waiting patiently for me to sift through.

**247, eh? It was only 108 when I last bothered to check.  I guess I better get a move on...but then, moving on is often easier said than done, especially in your world, isn't it?**

The astute out there will likely notice that it's been a while since my last blog post. Not that it matters, but there actually is a semi-reasonable explanation for that: I haven't exactly been "home" the last couple of months.

No, I haven't moved or anything: I'm still eking out an existence in the very same Seattle area basement room that I've been nesting in for too many years to care about anymore. The "home" I'm talking about - and the one I've been skillfully avoiding these past months - is the one I was stuck with when I first made my appearance in this unsuspecting little planet some 38 years ago.

Namely, my real life.

**Real life? That's a joke! Doesn't life involve actually doing something?? Speaking of which, you really need to get your head back into "screen-shot mode" & finish those TS2 pictures you started 2 months ago. Also, you should at least get a start on sorting through those all those darned emails...**

I've never been much of a fan of reality, having always preferred the worlds I created in my head to the one in which I seem to be stuck in, which has managed to prove out to be one of those blessing/curse things you hear about in sappy poems, sentimental song lyrics & overly dramatic movies.

On the "blessing" side I like to count my ability to completely suspend belief & my knack for total immersion in all things imaginative. (In fact I actively pity folks who can go see movies like Avatar, Inception, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings or How To Train Your Dragon & then just get up & leave when the credits begin to roll.) I also like to count my artistic skills (honed by years of thinking not only outside the box, but outside the room - nay, the building - the box was sitting in) as well as my ability to entertain myself virtually anywhere at a moments notice. (This I credit to an imagination so vivid that I defy any drug dealer to find a substance that can get me even half as high as I can get myself with just a few moments of solitude, my over-active mind & maybe some paper & a pen.)

All those things - combined with an at times sarcastically sharp sense of humor & a sister who doesn't always think I'm a complete & total lunatic - have helped to make my survival on this stupid rock a lot more bearable than it likely could have been.

So what's the "curse" side of all this?

Pretty much the same as the above.

See, that same total immersion ability that makes a good book, movie or TV show so engrossing for me also means I can become so lost in them that I can gleefully spend countless hours obsessing over them. (When I say I'm a TS2 addict, I am not exaggerating. In fact, I'm not really sure "addict" is a strong enough word at times!)

That artistic ability I like to lay claim to also means I keep harboring delusions of self employment- delusions that lead to fights with my inner critic & fears of failure, keeping me in a  spiral of non-action, which only fuels my desire to escape into my own reality.

My "unique" brand of humor often gets me labeled as having a negative attitude when dealing with people who don't know me well (which is really further proof that self employment is the only way I'll ever find an income again) & I know there are many times when my sister seriously debates the merits of bludgeoning me to death with the nearest heavy object & burying me someplace in our backwoods.

And as for my ability to entertain myself at will...well, that brings me to what I've been doing these last few months.

**Step one: sort everything by sender so you can separate out the useless crap quicker. Who the hell are "aquitami", "asimwen" "Gretchen B" and all those other names??? Ah, another batch of folks on that TS2 Yahoo group you so cleverly signed up for. Good lord! Just how many replies to a request for help about the stupid money cheat are really needed! Urg. Okay, delete everything that isn't a challenge update...and we're down to 211 emails with 201 unread. Awesome.**

It all started when I arrived home from my Tuesday night carving class back in March, actually March 1^st to be exact. As I walked through the door with my usual dinner (Taco Bell's chicken tostada salad & I have a standing engagement on Tuesdays & Thursdays) I happened to notice the light was blinking on the answering machine, so I casually asked who had called. Turn's out, the caller had been my uncle & the call had been to inform us that my 92 year old grandfather had been taken to the emergency room after suffering a massive heat stroke. It seems his sometimes temperamental furnace had malfunctioned, sending the temperature in his home to over 100 by the time my uncle walked in for his nightly visit. Uncle found grandpa passed out on his bed & had to call 911 as he tried to keep grandpa from suffocating on his own vomit. In one of those "stroke of good luck" kind of things, grandpa's house is almost literally right down the hill from the local Fire Station, so help was on the scene mere minutes after my uncle dialed his cell phone. Apparently my uncle had called from the hospital & was still waiting to see how bad grandpa's damage was going to be.

By the way, when he was brought to the hospital, grandpa's internal temperature had been 109.

**Alright, what's next? Goodbye to you Amazon, Barnes & Noble, EBay & some other assorted spam. 183 emails with 173 unread. Yippee.**

The next several days were something of an unwelcome, surreal blur of car trips, hospital rooms, hand sanitizer dispensers & an oddly serene little waiting room with surprisingly comfortable chairs. At the end of the week, grandpa was released from the hospital & transferred to a local "rehabilitation center" while the rest of us started in on cleaning up the two very neglected spare bedrooms in his house. We also decided to paint his bathroom, which resulted in me managing to knock over a can of grey-blue paint & the purchase of a new toilet seat, but that's another story.

**So long Jerry's Art Supplies, Curves, Dilbert strips & Move On "dot" Org! That brings it down to 121 emails with only 111 left unread. Go me, go.**

The rehab center turned out to be...well, let's just say it's more than worthy of it's very own post, but all I'll say now is that I really feel that any place that claims to be good about working with the elderly should really bone up on their patient handling skill set in regards to dementia. And any rehab center that tosses a person aside the moment they are to sickly to "properly" participate in their rehabbing needs a swift kick in the...well, again, I think that's best left for a different day.

Grrrr.

Anyway, after his month long stay at the afore mentioned "Club Useless" grandpa is now residing in a small, privately operated "care facility" (the term nursing home conjures up too many negative images & really doesn't describe the place right anyway) where he gets 3 home-cooked meals a day & 24 hour supervision - the later of which he has actually needed for sometime now, but "family blindness" is a sneaky little bugger, isn't it?

**Sears, Rockler, Penny Press & more miscellaneous spam, be gone! 73 emails with 62 unread! Progress is mine! Boo-Ya! Take that, PC trash can!**

So just what in the holy heck does any of this crap have to do with where I've "been" the last few months? Well, remember that bit about my ability to entertain myself with little more than my obsessively overactive imagination? It seems that this latest bout of "family excitement" caused me to withdraw from my usual stress reliever (namely obsessively organizing the lives of the myriad of Sims who live in my TS2 game files) and fling myself rather unexpectedly back into an addiction that I actually hadn't thought much about for a few years now: namely my all-time favorite TV show, Law & Order: Criminal Intent. (Okay, I feel the need to clarify that I am talking about seasons 1-4 here & not the utter garbage that began in season 5 & took root in seasons 6 & beyond...but then, that's the awesome part of being me: in my world, the only seasons that "really" happened were 1-4 anyway. Gads, I simply love revisionist history!)

In short, instead of writing stories about Sims, I've been writing stories about NYPD's Major Case squad & their new semi-partners, the Extreme Victims unit.

In place re-scripting the lives of Don Lothario, Nervous Subject & Consort Capp I am re-scripting the lives of A.D.A Ron Carver, Captain James Deakins, Detective Alexandra Eames & Detective Robert Goren.

Rather than fleshing out NPCs & Townies like Kaylyn Langerak, Meadow Thayer & Goopy GilsCarbo, I have been filling in the gaps for characters like Detective Bishop (who never really got her due in the "real" world), Detective Eames (whom I have married off a second time to a child rights attorney named Jason Fisher) & Nicole Wallace (who doesn't heed the warnings of my alter ego & ends up very, very dead as it turns out that hell's real furry is actually a woman defending her man! Take that, you Australian bitch! Bwahahahah!)

Instead of creating new Sims like Preacher Dante (an evil Warlock), Jocasta Goth (a self-made 3^rd child of the famous Mortimer & Bella Goth) & Zeebest Quizine (the storied evil rival of chef Julien Cooke that Maxis was to friggen lazy to create themselves) I am inventing characters like Chief International Marshall Jack Kelly (the US Marshall/Canadian Mounty who started the "Extreme Victims" crime unit, which is dedicated solely to solving the most violent, twisted & unusual of cases) Detective/Deputy Brian Cooper (my alter-ego's partner & long-time Deputy when she 1^st arrives in New York), Detective/Agent Kevin Hanson (former FBI agent who becomes my alter ego's 2^nd partner after Brian goes nuts & tries to kill her) & of course, the fiery Detective/Marshall Aryanna Taglioni (ace Extreme Victims specialist, superstar horsewoman, crackerjack gunslinger, rescuer of abused Great Danes & ultimately destined to become the love of Detective Goren's up-until-now pathetically sad & very lonely life. In case you missed it, she's my alter ego in this particular universe. Also in case you missed it, this whole universe exists just so Goren & my alter ego can eventually engage in the kind of stuff one doesn't write about in an unsuspecting blog. NC-17, eat your heart out, baby!)

In other words, rather than obsessing about my TS2 universe, I have been obsessing about an alternate Law & Order universe.

Well, that & making some much needed progress in the email sorting area.

**Okay, just deleted somemore spam & sorted out a few things I need to look through later. That just leaves 58 emails (with 45 unread) still to go.**

That's 58 emails & counting....

The Awesome Desk of Awesomeness

     Since the point of a blog (as near as I can figure, anyway) is to blather on endlessly to anonymous strangers about things only interesting to one's own self, I figured I would write about my latest endeavor, namely the completion of the Awesome Desk of Awesomeness.

     First, a little back story: As I mentioned in my last post, I like to fancy myself as something of a wood carving wolf, so I suppose that it's no surprise that I have an attraction to wooden furniture, the richer the better. (When I say "richer" I am referring to the depth of the color & the beauty of the wood grain, not the price tag! I am not exactly a wealthy wolf, you know!) Anyway in keeping with my "wood attraction" most of the furnishings in my private den (also known as a bedroom) are made of wood, including the desk that plays host to my Trusty Computer. Well, okay technically my current PC is really Trusty Computer III, but as I only ever have one PC at a time I don't mention any previous PCs to my current one out of respect for their feelings. Anyway, as the same desk has played host to all 3 PCs to date I think this is a minor point & was - quite frankly - not even worth mentioning.

Urm....

     Well, anyway the desk I was using was quite functional & had been with me since sometime around my late Elementary/early Middle School days.

It was sturdy.
It was pretty.
It was reliable.

But it wasn't exactly on the "big" side. (Turns out that I am quite a bit bigger than I was back in grade school. Go figure.)

     So for the last few years I have been on the lookout for what I perceived to be the perfect replacement desk. It had to be wood, but was best unfinished so I could do my own staining, which I love. It had to be affordable (as I mentioned before I am not a particularly rich wolf) & most importantly it had to be the right size. This was was where things got really sticky, as the desk in question not only had to accommodate me & my 6' frame + a PC, it also had to fit in one very specific spot as my "den" is packed to the gills. Then of course there was the printer/scanner/copier, the scanner (yes, I have a stand alone scanner too- stop judging me!) the Wacom tablet, the snazzy new stereo my mother had given me (which was currently relegated to a spot on the floor) the battery-backup surge protector, the game controller (both of which actually sit on a shelf above the desk but I wanted to mention them anyway) the computer speakers & my bizarre assortment of pens/highlighters/markers that I liked to keep close by. Oh yes, then there's my 3 computer mice (one I normally use, one the goes with the Wacom tablet & one that my uncle gave me that sits on my monitor & changes color- I said stop judging me!)

     In short, the new desk had a hell of a "must have" list, which was why I had pretty much resigned myself to making do with what I had...until I happened to be in the parking lot of a local "strip mall" (more like a haphazard collection of owner-run shops) this last December & noticed that the local furniture store had it's usual display of clearance stuff sitting out front...

...including, the Awesome Desk of Awesomeness.

     It was sitting on the left-most end of the row of furniture that had been placed outside in the freezing temperature it hopes of attracting interested customers. (The only businesses that have decent "people traffic" in this shopping center are the grocery store, the gas station, the feline veterinary clinic & the pizza joint. The other shop owners really have to struggle to get people to to come to their stores. Quite frankly, I am surprised they last as long as many of them do.) Now granted, I was virtually on the other side of the parking lot at the time, but even from that distance I could tell that the Awesome Desk of Awesomeness was different from any of the desks I had seen during my years of desk searching. I could tell it was big & I could see that it was unfinished (which is surprisingly hard to find these days, at least locally) but the thing that really grabbed my attention was that the pull-out drawer where the keyboard was to go seemed much longer than usual...long enough, in fact to accommodate a mouse pad & a Wacom tablet.

     I was so attracted to the desk that after our workout (which is why we where at the "mall" in the first place) I talked mom into walking over to look at the desk up close. The desk was even more perfect than I could have imagined, both in size & space (it had separate compartments for both a CPU & a printer!) but when I looked at the price tag, my heart fell when I saw the $295 asking price. Granted, the original price was over almost $600 (and it had been reduced once before to the high $300s)  but still it seemed like a lot of money to spend, even for such an amazing desk, so I sadly trudged away. However seeing the desk mad me think that there had to be something else (cheaper) out there somewhere, so mom & I began to poke around on the internet & see what we could find.

     What we found was that it seems that it is ridiculously hard to find desks of any real size that don't require you to sell your organs to afford them. That $295 asking price was beginning to look like a pretty good one, but I'm a rather stubborn wolf & had convinced myself that I "couldn't" have the desk (how was I ever going to get the thing home?) so we kept searching. After a little more digging, mom found what looked like a decent contender listed for sale at - of all places - Ikea. I say "of all places" because despite the fact that I live relatively close to one of the few Ikea stores in the country, I had yet to set foot in the place. In fact, most of my Ikea knowledge (aside from what I see in their virtually continuous add campaigns) has been gathered via the Ikea SP (Stuff Pack) for my beloved Sims 2 game.

In short, my Sims have had more experience with Ikea stuff than I have.

     Deciding that I should really go see what all the fuss is about (& still in denial about the desk I was destined to have) the family & I decided to go to Ikea & see the place for ourselves. So what did we think? Urm...let's just say that our Ikea experience was more than worthy of it's own post & since this post is getting long as it is, I will skip the gory details for now except to say that A) the desk I had gone to see was out of stock & B) if you are in anyway claustrophobic you should never ever ever set foot in an Ikea store, period. (Holy shit, how in the bloody hell is that place so goddamn popular??? Is everyone else on this stupid planet fucking insane???)

     It was about this time that I was beginning to realize what I had known on some level the very first time I saw the Awesome Desk of Awesomeness: it was destined to be mine, no matter what it did to my bank account. (That's the problem with awesomeness: it doesn't often come cheap.) So after a few more days of me trying to talk myself out of it, I finally went ahead & bought the damn thing with my Xmas money. (The details of the purchase - or more precisely - the experience with the shop's owner are also worthy of their very own post, but for now I will just say this: There's a reason so many of the small businesses in my area are constantly struggling....)

     So to make a long story short (too late!) I have been spending the last 3 weeks sanding, staining & finishing the Awesome Desk of Awesomeness to it's properly amazing self. There were a couple touch-n-go moments (like when I got it home & realized just how big the thing really was) but in the end things worked out fine. The old desk was removed & the Awesome desk is now in place & getting used to it's new duties as a computer desk/stuff holder.

     I thought I would end this ludicrously long post with some pictures of the Awesome Desk of Awesomeness at various stages of the finishing process. (A big thanks to my dad who took the pictures!)

     Okay, picture one is the Awesome Desk of Awesomeness in it's unfinished/naked state:

Keep in mind that this thing is (in inches) 62 long x 23 wide x 34 tall whereas the old desk was 33 long x 14 wide x 28 tall...so it is a lot bigger than what I used to have!

     Picture two is the Awesome Desk with several coats of stain on it:

Ignore the stupid Shop-Vac. I was doing this project in the rec-room/basement area in front of my bedroom & there's a fair bit of clutter there. I like this shot as it shows the various pull-out drawers the desk has. That's a mahogany stain, if anyone cares.

Lastly we have picture three, taken mere minutes before dad & I wheeled the Awesome Desk into place:

Oooohhhhh. So shiny! That's 5 coats of a satin finish topped of with 2 coats of spray gloss. What can I say, I like shiny objects! (Of course it took me only minutes to scratch that finish when I was wrestling the damn CPU into it's drawer. @#$%!!!!!)

Okay, that's enough pointless blathering for now, so I think I'll sign off...until I decide to write about Ikea or my desk buying adventure details....* shudder *.....