My Damn Opinion

“Snow and adolescence are the only problems that disappear if you ignore them long enough.”

- Earl Wilson

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."

- Oscar Wilde, De Profundis, 1905

One thing I have noticed as I get older - Each time something new and interesting happens to me, I find myself wishing that I could go back to only having the problems I had a year ago, or 3 years ago, or 5 years ago....

Remind me again why I signed up to be a Convention Director?

This weekend, I invented a dance. I am now internet famous. ^_^

I killed myself once, long ago, and no one knew.

Not all of me, of course. I kept breathing and eating and walking around, but I wasn't alive anymore. An essential part of me died that night, and I didn't know if it would ever come back.

A good friend recently commented that I am somewhat unusual for a guy - I love all kinds of women. Apparently, some guys are only interested in a particular kind or type of woman, which I find odd. I really do like all women, although I suppose I have my preferences like anyone else. But it's true, I can find something attractive or lovable in just about every woman I meet. The problem is, I find too many women too lovable and it led to too many crushes, too many painful unrequited loves, and given my self esteem issues it meant I spent a lot of lonely nights wishing I had someone with me that I either couldn't have or didn't believe I could have, which is the same thing.

It hurt. It hurt a lot, all the time, and it hurt for too long and too deeply. They say that people who live with chronic pain often turn to suicide, even if they seem to be dealing with it or are getting therapy. All it takes is one night of unbearable agony and a rash decision can change things in a permanent way, especially if they feel they have no hope left.

Several years ago, I fell for yet another woman, hard. I had known her for years, had spent some time around her and somehow, someway one of my heart-strings got caught on her and down I went, into a space I had been in too damn many times before. But I decided that with this one, I had a chance, and I would tell her how I felt. I gathered my courage, steeled myself for either acceptance or rejection, and invited her to a party a bunch of other people were going to as well. If it didn't work out, she could at least vanish into the party to shield from the uncomfortableness of the whole thing.

I did not expect her to bring her new boyfriend. I did not expect to see them so happy together, and I really did not expect to be happy for them, because this was a dude I knew and liked and respected. She smiled a lot more that night, and laughed and danced and later married him. I'm glad they're married, they're perfect for each other. That worked out for the best.

Later that night, I went to bed and found myself laying in a pit of despair yet again. I was mentally and emotionally prepared for any eventuality except what had actually happened. I was both crushed and elated, I was happy for her and miserable for myself, I knew that I created a wonderful environment for her to be happy with someone else and I wasn't even upset that I had come out the loser in that equation. But I had not stopped loving her, and I knew I would never tell her that I loved her because I didn't want to stop what she had going. The anguish was indescribable.

And in a moment of cold-blooded desperation and darkness, I turned to face myself within me, and I killed that part of me that kept falling in love. I strangled it to death with my bare hands so that I didn't have to feel any more pain.

It was as bad as it sounds.

Nothing ever stays the same. Life changes, I changed, the world changed as well and I found myself in a new space eventually, only something had broken inside me. Something internally had come unhinged, although I had forgotten what for a while and I knew I might have done some real lasting damage with my rash choice. I tried pretending I hadn't done it, hoping maybe it would fix itself, but no such luck. I could only pretend so far. When the moment of truth came, there was nothing there, like a connection that everyone else had built in but mine was missing somehow. The longer it went on, the more I realized that there was something seriously wrong, like I was walking around missing internal organs and hoping all the bodily fluids would just somehow get where they needed to go anyway. It wasn't working.

Finally, after several years of fumbling in the dark, I found what was wrong. A wise woman fixed the damage I did to myself, and resuscitated the connections inside me, seeing past all my illusions and pre-conceived ideas straight to the heart of the matter. She set me straight and put me back out into the world, armed with good advice on how to keep this wound from re-opening and how to protect it from infection. After the magic of the initial moment passed, I admit I was rather disappointed to see that nothing else had changed for me. It still seemed as though I was closed off from everyone, and I remained as alone as I ever had. I went on with life, especially the extreme busy-ness of con, and I just kept trudging along, forgetting that wounds that deep take time to heal and the soul, like the body, doesn't regain full function right away.

Three weeks ago, I met a beautiful girl. This weekend, I found out that she is more than just beautiful, she is also strong and intelligent and compassionate and caring and supportive and reliable and generally fabulous. Oh, and pretty much not interested in me. Respects me, likes me, sees me as a friend and not really anything more. And while that sucked...it didn't suck as bad as it used to. It's hard to wake up and think of her first thing in the morning and it's hard to walk around working and have her pop into my head unbidden, but the more I dwelled on it and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that she had done me a favor: she awakened something I thought I had murdered in cold blood all those years ago. She sent life coursing through those old veins, started that heart pumping again, and made me realize that I had a bona-fide miracle on my hands. I had slain myself, and I was risen again. And where there once was nothing, there was now a space where there can be something, some day.

Just having that space, knowing it's back again and it's safe and I don't have to suffer anymore, that elation has overridden my disappointment. And I think now that I'm older and wiser, I can see how nothing in life is static and making permanent decisions based on temporary conditions is the height of foolishness, which is something I thought I knew until I realized I didn't.

I feel safe enough to be in love again. I feel like I'm back from the dead. And it feels great. I know in time someone will come along, someone who feels me stir in her what she stirs in me, only this time I'll have someplace to let her into. I'll have a key to the secret garden, and I'll make her a copy as long as she treads lightly and carefully. It's very likely she'll have to help me patch things up in there, but I can honestly say I look forward to that.

I look forward to falling in love again.

So yeah, the usual. Nervous, pensive, anxious, worried....my thesaurus runneth over. I've gotten pretty ambitious this year, so we'll see how it goes. I've already had more than my share of crazies, stress dreams and even a panic attack. I still need this t-shirt. Maybe one year I'll actually get around to buying it.

Deep breath, here goes the plunge.

About 8 years ago, I ran a game in a system called Earthdawn. I had seen it before, Bobert was quite fond of it and I knew it was put out originally by FASA games who was also responsible for Shadowrun. The original idea for the game was a fantasy version of Star Wars: A New Hope. I had had this idea brewing in my head for some time, and when I read Earthdawn the pieces all fit - there was a tyrannical Empire, there was a mystic force only a chosen few could wield, there was a rebellious province bravely resisting the Empire, hell there was even a thieves city that was a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Seemed like it would fit pretty well, so I asked three of my regular gamers, Alex, Bob and Mitch, if they wanted to play a game.

Little did I know.

That same summer, I was babysitting Kenny's kids and he was paying me a huge amount of money to do it, so I got on Ebay and started looking for more Earthdawn books. I found a lady who was selling every single book and boxed set all together that had once belonged to her son, and I slapped down $600 including shipping to buy the whole thing at once. I also had a lot of time to sit down and read them all that summer, and as I did I discovered that the world of Earthdawn was very well planned out, with all kinds of mysteries presented in the various books, but also the answers to those mysteries presented subtly in other books, most times in such a way that you would not realize what was being presented unless you had read about it in that other book. It was a brilliant way of creating the game world and of making your customers want to buy the next book when it came out so they could see the next piece of the massive, world spanning puzzle you were creating. Sadly, FASA went under long before I started picking up the books, and there are puzzles that may never be answered now unless I can manage to corner Lou Prosperi at a convention sometime. One of my great regrets was when I saw someone selling the original designers notes for each of the books on Ebay. He had somehow gotten ahold of them from a lot of items ditched by FASA after their death and understood that someone would want them. I would have gladly sold an organ to have them, but they were on Ebay during a time when I wasn't even making the rent, much less with hundreds to spare to win all those auctions. Cest' la vie...

Anyway, looking through all these books and making all these connections, a story started to form in my head. One of the key elements of the games is the Passions (the Gods basically), three of which have gone mad. They were corrupted by a Horror (a demon) called Ristul, but the problem was Ristul had no physical form which could be fought. In game terms, it had no physical or magical defense that could be targeted, the numbers in those fields actually said "N/A". However, having a mind it did have a social defense number, and a certain character class had a special ability that would target the social defense of Horrors and if successful, banish them forever. When I realized that the key to "saving" the Mad Passions was cleverly hidden in plain sight right in front of me, I literally got goosebumps, like I had found a hidden treasure map and all I had to do was start digging. The challenge, of course, was how to get the player characters all the way to maximum level to give them the power they needed to fulfill this incredible destiny. The more I thought about this, the more the story began to grow and expand in my mind, like a lattice of light tumbling downward to form a structure or a framework on which to hang everything. At this point, I was consumed by the idea of running this story, and I asked the guys if they wanted to keep playing. They agreed, and so began this eight year journey.

Along the way, we both lost and gained players. Mitch left for college, but Troy joined to take his place. Troy brought in Jeff, and Kurt also found out about the game and was intrigued enough to join as well. Bob went off to cooking school and eventually dropped out entirely, although his character was central enough to the story that he remained an NPC. Shiloh joined for a while, but eventually had to drop out because his work schedule was killing him. Bob even had a friend of his from cooking school join us for one game, only to flake out the next week. Mitch eventually came back after college, initially to bring his old character back for a cameo but finally to join the game as a full player and follow the ride through to the end.

Speaking personally, running this game has been a hugely transformative experience, and a powerful lesson for me on a variety of subjects. I feel very strongly that spending my time on Earthdawn every week has made me a better teacher, a better writer, a better storyteller and a MUCH better game master. I've had the opportunity to make a huge slew of mistakes and the great fortune to have a group that was attached enough to the story and to the game as a whole to forgive me those mistakes and learn with me. I've also had a great many successes, some of which are still talked about and tried several experiments within the game that yielded both positive and negative fruits. I have also had the privilege of watching my players grow as people while their characters did. Alex has already mentioned how being Nazeer Narinian has changed him over the years. I watched Jeff become a completely different person from beginning to end, and apply some of the lessons Brimmel learned in game to his own life. Kurt has told me how playing Valaria was a powerful form of therapy for him, and Mitch and Troy have grown and changed as well, and each of them learned from my experiences in turn.

One of the biggest things that I have learned is that the ending of a story is not only just as important as the beginning and the middle, but is possibly the hardest part to do. When you create all these wildly flailing story threads, you have got to have a plan for bringing them all together, trying them off in a neat knot and chopping off the ends. But you can't just chop, you have to give that ending meaning or the beginning and the middle lose meaning as well. That was really the hardest part of creating the story, was finding a way to bring it to an end in a satisfying manner, that kept the integrity of the storyline and felt like it was "whole", for lack of a better term. Not just a stopping point, but an ending. Endings are just as important, if not more so, than beginnings.

Endings are also harder emotionally. I did not spare the effect of emotion on the guys throughout the game, and there are places in the story where I warned them, "This is going to be rough. Ride it out." So when the end finally came last night, it was no real surprise to me to see red eyes all around the table. I did all I could to create a powerful and dramatic ending, and I feel that I achieved exactly that, especially given the response I got. The central theme of Earthdawn is that the players are not just Adepts wielding magical powers, but are Heroes, performing great deeds and inspiring the people with their bravery, valor and strength. There's even a game mechanic to reflect how well known you are and how much the people love you. It was clear to me that the highest possible level of achievement for inspirational heroes was Godhood, and that that was the only way a game of this magnitude could truly end. In the end, the greatest and most powerful heroes Barsaive had ever known gave their lives willingly in defense of the entire world and of the Passions themselves, and were brought back by those Passions to stand in their company for all eternity. That's what I call a good ending.

But it doesn't end, does it? Dr Manhattan was right, nothing ever ends. But closure is important. After the game was over, Alex broke out some very good wine and we toasted the game and each other. We stood around and talked for more than an hour, and finally ended up going to dinner together and talking even more. It was nice to be able to FINALLY tell them all these things I'd had in my head all those years, but I couldn't reveal without ruining the story for them. They all had questions and we told stories and remembered the best times we'd had, and the worst. In the end, like the people of our fictional universe, we shared legends of our favorite characters, remembering them fondly and reveling in their exploits and adventures.

Once it was over and everyone went home, I found myself in a strange place emotionally. I was exhausted, no doubt, but I was also pensive and nervous. I couldn't put my finger on what it was I was feeling, and I ended up wandering around the house, not cleaning up after the game and not even enjoying playing Fallout 3 again after several months. I finally went to sleep and woke up about 6 hours later, still feeling ill at ease. Finally, while I was making breakfast, it hit me - what I needed was to sit down and both mourn and celebrate the passing of my game. I needed to sit down and just have a good cry and let it all out. The women reading this will say "Duh! Of course you did!" and the men are likely to say "Really?", but it was exactly what I needed. I put in Annie Lennox's "Into The West" from Lord of the Rings, scrolled through the website I had made for the game and just bawled my frickin' eyes out. And man, what a difference it made. I feel...cleansed. I feel relieved, and I feel ready to finally move on and do other things. See? Endings are important! ^_^

I'm still going to run games, until I can't anymore. I don't know that I will ever be able to do anything as amazing as Earthdawn again, but I won't discount it. I have to admit, half of what made this game so very good is that Earthdawn itself is so very good. It has continued to live on under other publishers, and their changes and corrections make the game better with every iteration. Earthdawn brought something out in me and in my players, and I don't know if that alchemy can be reproduced. But I know for certain that the stories have not stopped stirring in my head, and I have learned over the years that I can't ignore them, I have to let them out. So maybe one day one of those stories will be another open-ended critical hit (a natural 20, if you will) and we'll get to revel in the days of high adventure once again.

Until then, well....we'll always have The Age of Legends.

I need this to live. The jail time would be totally worth it.


via videosift.com

"No other offense has ever been visited with such severe penalties as seeking to help the oppressed."

- Clarence Darrow

District 9 is amazing. I'm not even ruining it for you. Just go.

Although, if shaky-cam makes you ill, you'll want to wait for the DVD release. Just sayin'....

I love the music in the second half.



Still sure you don't want to play, Walker? ^_^

"Listen to the mustn'ts, child, listen to the don'ts
Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts,
Listen to the never-have's, then listen close to me,
Anything can happen, child, anything can be."

- Shel Silverstein, Listen to the Musn'ts

So, most of you saw my post on Noah earlier today. And I've been thinking about it a lot as the day has gone by, and I'm still not sure I actually want to contact him. I wasn't sure why.

I talked to Alex about it, and told him I wasn't sure I wanted to contact him, and he said to just go ahead, send him an email and touch base. And he's right, it would be good to touch base with Noah, let him know I'm alive, acknowledge that he's alive, and it's good to see him again.

So what's the problem?

The problem is the conversation. It will be initially filled with all the things he's done, getting married in space, having a podcast, having panels at Comicon, cool things like that. Stories about his wife, meeting her, having fun with her, good times all around, maybe some tales of where he's working now, and what kind of work he's doing. That sounds great. And then, because he's polite and doesn't want to hog the conversation he'll ask "So, how about you? What have you been up to?"

And I will have nothing to say. Nothing special or good to talk about, no noteworthy achievements, no relationships good or bad, no career to speak of, not even a decent credit rating. No car, no house, no promotions, no achievements aside from those that make up my Xbox score...nothing.

I don't really want to have that conversation. I don't want to see the look on his face. I don't want to be That Guy. But it seems that I am. And that is a horribly depressing fact.

For those that know him, I think I just found Noah Fulmor. The last I heard from him was right after 9/11, he was in school in NYC at the time and he wrote back long enough to say "I'm alive, I'm fine, donate blood." That was the last of it, no more responses via email. Every now and then I'd google him, hoping to find some evidence of his existence outside of college, with no luck.

Until today. I found this and then this, and then finally the clencher was this. Watch that video, that's definitely him. Married in space.

Crazy. Still trying to decide how I feel about this. But basically good. I'm glad he's not dead, and he seems to have found a measure of success. ^_^

So, a few people have asked me if I'm doing anything for my birthday this Monday, and honestly I had forgotten about it until yesterday. I have plans for family things later in the weekend, but due to popular demand I'm thinking about putting something together for this Saturday night after Earthdawn, probably just dinner somewhere since there are no movies that interest me that I haven't already seen.

So if you're interested and have the time, let's get together Saturday night at 7pm at the Chili's by the Continental Theater off of Monaco and Hampden. We'll get our grub on, act like a bunch of goobers in public, and figure out what to do afterwards from there. If you can't come, don't EVEN worry about it, this is all totally half-assed and last-minute and casual. And for Grud's sake don't bring me a present. ^_^

It's at the end of this video, which is probably not safe for work. ^_^

After 48 hours on Facebook, I have 67 friends and counting. I guess I can no longer claim to be unpopular.