Been slackin’ here again…
I keep meaning to write in here but there doesn’t seem to be much to blog about. That’s not true, there’s plenty going on, but it’s all positive and productive and like a goofball, I tend to write only about things that make me cranky and that I need to let out. Like other people, I tend to retain the bad stuff much more acutely than the good stuff. Weird, that, but eh. I shall now babble at you about what’s happened since I last wrote.
There’ve been more D&D sessions, always on Thursdays. My hengeyokai ranger is still posing as human, not having any particular need to shapeshift into her hybrid or feline form. I think I may change that up next time, I’m not sure yet. She stored her bow and whipped out her two short swords at one point and went nuts on a vine that had caught our kender rogue, getting it down to one health point. The kender, who was freed on her next dice roll, took it down when she attacked.
Oh yeah, the kender acquired two basilisk eyes, which tend to turn everything that looks at it to stone. I always badly roll my wisdom, which has my character looking in the kender’s direction when she says, “Don’t look!”. My character: “What? Why?” I haven’t yet changed because of it, but next session I’m going to have a conversation with that kender and see if I can’t talk to her about them, ie the GM allows me and anyone else on this conversation to be as forewarned and get a bonus to a roll, if she continues that nonsense. :P
Aside from that weekly adventure, I’ve done very little gaming at all. The dreamer, whose online business is going to take off in a couple of weeks, suddenly came up with an idea in which I’d make my own sister website, and start selling what he’s selling. While he’s had almost 3 years to plan for his websites and confer with professionals, I have approximately two weeks to slap something together. As usual I’m using Wordpress as my CMS because I am lazy and know well how to slap it into submission. Until the dreamer can fling me the information about what I’m selling, I can’t really get the final product pages done, but I can futz around with plugins and the general layout in the meantime. I’m mostly just twiddling thumbs on that now.
I’ve gotten out of the house a bit this week–I was woken up rather rudely by the ex who abruptly showed up to fling about 20 boxes of my belongings at me, which necessitated me setting aside time from my website-making in order to shuffle things in my room enough to accomodate them. It took 10 hours of hard labor and I’m only half done, but the two tall bookshelves are in the right area and ready to receive the books I have scattered in so many boxes. I have an urgent need for a LOT more hangers, as I found out, which is why half of my clean clothes are on the floor. Trying to figure out a solution to that, perhaps hanging shelves I can shove shoes, underthings, and pants/shorts into, but still more hangers needed with two of us here now, me and the druid.
The gamer houseguest has needed time outside the house and so we’ve taken little walking trips. The other day he got news that his mom was in the hospital again so I suggested a tromp down to the place that makes only pitas. It didn’t take much arm twisting to motivate him on that one. On another occasion, I suggested I wanted to walk downtown and buy another Honkin’ Huge Burrito from the food cart in Pioneer Square, at which time the gamer could fling resumes about on our way there and back. He bleh’ed at the idea at the time but propositioned me with it today. I was happy to have an excuse to get out of the house and we made our way there, at which point we found the cart locked up and closed, so he suggested the buffet sushi place again and I assented. Much nomming was had. I actually stuffed myself, which is to say that I ate until my tummy actually said it was full, not something I do often. I blorped my way home and promptly faceplanted into bed, to the gamer’s amusement.
The cat’s been obnoxiously lovey lately, which means I wake up early with a cat nomming on toes or pouncing upon my head. He wants out of this room and I wish I could oblige him but the gamer’s housecat is too aggressive, and mine has no claws, so he’s cooped up. We can let him out for short stints but the two don’t play well together and after a while, we must herd mine back into my room before letting the other out of the secondary bathroom.
The upstairs neighbors have been very anal lately, yelling at us in the middle of the day for various pins dropping and other noises you tend to hear in a communal living building. And yet at 3am they can be heard galloping about, fighting, vacuuming, and rearranging furniture. Love the double standard there. We shall begin informing them of Portland’s noise ordinance both as they pester us about noise, and as we pester them.
I planted a seed in the gamer’s brain that he should make a videoblog, now that he has a camera (formerly mine) and a tripod (also formerly mine) to play with. Today he decided to play with that. I’m not sure what results he will have but I’m included in today’s thing. I’ll be sure to spam you with it as he uploads it/them. He’s amused by the project.
I’ve been spending more time out in the living room during the evening, using my laptop to work on my biz website, while the gamer does his thing. He likes the company and I like the different scenery as I work. Oh yeah, because Microsoft is killing the Windows 7 beta I’ve been using on all our machines, I need to take a day to reformat and reinstall an older supported OS. But I’m procrastinating on that one. I’m hoping I can afford a new hard drive for both the desktop and the laptop before I go to the trouble of installing another OS. But I’ve really liked Windows 7. I hope I can someday afford that too.
Umm, yeah, not much else going on, though I have been busy. There are boxes still to unpack, a game to play, a website to make, and more food to be et (I love murdering English). I get out and walk at least three times a week, not insignificant distances either. The druid and I are still disgustingly in love. There are a few things in the queue I’m waiting to drag him to, a couple foody places, getting his ID, and forcing him to enjoy a museum.
Oh yeah, the car’s been in the care of our mechanic friend, who’s had little time to work on the thing, which is fine because we’ve been low on funds anyway. We’ve scraped by with hemmoraging money for bus and taxis thus far, I suppose we can bleed profusely for a bit longer. Bleh.
And lately, I miss my gallbladder a bit. After meals, I have to sit near a restroom, as I’ve had explosive stuff arrive abruptly just afterwards. I have a really bleh digestive system and for some reason, my liver is having alzheimer’s regarding when to produce bile and when not to, lately.
Aside from that disgusting admission, I spend my putter-time on Facebook, which for some reason I’m using fairly frequently after avoiding for years and years. It’s amusing, and disturbing, to admit that. *grins* I successfully weaned myself off of Farmville, but I level in Dream World and Castle Age daily, heh.
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Oh yeah, someone who’s been on my mind for the past week is Eva Markvoort, a neat young woman who happens to have cystic fibrosis, a genetic thing in which the lungs and digestive system produce a thick sticky mucus, which makes it hard to digest food, and, more importantly, breathe. The only chance to survive much beyond one’s teens is to have a double lung transplant. Eva had one two years ago. She’s enjoyed breathing clearly, and doing physically challenging things like snowboarding, and flying across the continent to take in the sights of NYC.
Since November 2009, however, her body’s been obnoxiously rejecting said transplanted lungs despite the heavy medications she’s on. Last week, in fact, she posted a video to say her goodbyes, to her friends, and fans, as she currently has a documentary about her floating about the world, trying to raise awareness about her condition. It’s been a week and a half, and she’s still kicking. It’s not that she’s hanging onto life with white knuckles, she’s quite matter-of-fact about it and as ready as anyone facing death can be, but she’s always thankful to open her eyes each morning and realize she’s made it another night, gets to have more time with friends, family, and boyfriend.
This is something she won’t recover from but she’s thankful for every further minute she gets. It’s torturous to breathe and she has to hang onto someone to make it through the worst moments, but in as much pain as she is in, she is thankful for every breath, because it means she still gets to be here. Definitely can’t blame her there, if you have a lot to live for and a lot of love around you, things left you want to do and hope for that elusive cure that would make this whole thing unnecessary, welllllll… *nods*
I’m happy she gets more minutes, hours, days, even weeks with her family. I hope she can pull through and stick around for a little longer, even as she will not recover from this, it’d be nice to be able to focus on things more facetious than getting enough oxygen with every breath. I’m amused as she blogs each day, to the thunderous applause of her fans and readers. I cried more, the first day she posted after a multi-day pause, than I think I would have if one of her family had let us know that she was no longer with us. She’s still here. It’s become a project for her, to see if she’s still here enough to share her thoughts and her life once more.
Her fight has me thinking about life, and what comes after. Like I said, she’s been on my mind a lot. I send her quiet thoughts several times a day. I wish for her nothing more than the ease of pain and suffering, a few more hours with her parents and boyfriend, enough sentience to appreciate each moment she’s given for as long as she can, with as much peace and love as can be had on this planet. I wish there was more I can do for her specifically, but of course there are things that medical science cannot fix at this time, and unfortunately that means that vibrant people like Eva must go at a time that seems unfair and unfinished.
Writing about her has made me thoughtful again. I don’t burst into tears at the mere thought of her, now, but my eyes are wet again. There are two causes I feel strongly about now, pancreatic cancer (which took my sister’s best friend) and cystic fibrosis (which is taking my friend Eva).
