First anniversary with Bernie
Bernie and I celebrated our first anniversary of dating this week. Our real anniversary is in May, but my mom died like the day before and I forgot all about it. So we finally remembered and decided to celebrate. We went out to Forum, the restaurant where my brother Casey works, and had a wonderful dinner. We don't go out very often, especially not to fancy places, so it was fun to get dressed up and have such a special meal. Casey took good care of us, and it was really nice of him to make sure we had such a nice time.
Bernie's gift to me was a Sherlock Holmes-themed game where you explore London to solve a murder mystery. We played it for the first time last night, with lightgamer morethings5 and Sam, and it was a blast. Your objective is to find the solution in fewer steps than Sherlock himself did, which encourages choosing your information sources strategically, but also to learn enough to get the full picture of what was going on with the victim and the crime. I loved the conceit of figuring out where to go and who to talk to in the city to gather information, plus examining newspapers for possibly relevant stories. It made me want to write my own mystery using the rules of this game-- I'd set it in the Hawking universe, and maybe change the conceit to the players all being members of the Hawks and learning their craft from the master. Mrs. Hawking is more of a spy than a pure detective, but she definitely uses the techniques of deduction, so I think it would be easy to adapt her sort of capers into the form. I'm very grateful to Bernie for finding this game and I think we're going to have a lot of fun with it.
I still can't get over how happy I am to be with Bernie. I feel like I can share all the aspects of a relationship with him, from the fun exciting parts that you enjoy together, to the mundane everyday parts that are improved by the other person's presence, to the difficult unpleasant parts where you need strength and support. There is honesty and genuineness, and even when things aren't perfect, I always feel respected and valued, and like we have methods to deal with the problems. There are no red flags I have to ignore or get past. Maybe it's silly how that still seems so miraculous to me, but even though things finally feel like I'm in the right place, I still can hardly believe it.
Bernie's gift to me was a Sherlock Holmes-themed game where you explore London to solve a murder mystery. We played it for the first time last night, with lightgamer morethings5 and Sam, and it was a blast. Your objective is to find the solution in fewer steps than Sherlock himself did, which encourages choosing your information sources strategically, but also to learn enough to get the full picture of what was going on with the victim and the crime. I loved the conceit of figuring out where to go and who to talk to in the city to gather information, plus examining newspapers for possibly relevant stories. It made me want to write my own mystery using the rules of this game-- I'd set it in the Hawking universe, and maybe change the conceit to the players all being members of the Hawks and learning their craft from the master. Mrs. Hawking is more of a spy than a pure detective, but she definitely uses the techniques of deduction, so I think it would be easy to adapt her sort of capers into the form. I'm very grateful to Bernie for finding this game and I think we're going to have a lot of fun with it.
I still can't get over how happy I am to be with Bernie. I feel like I can share all the aspects of a relationship with him, from the fun exciting parts that you enjoy together, to the mundane everyday parts that are improved by the other person's presence, to the difficult unpleasant parts where you need strength and support. There is honesty and genuineness, and even when things aren't perfect, I always feel respected and valued, and like we have methods to deal with the problems. There are no red flags I have to ignore or get past. Maybe it's silly how that still seems so miraculous to me, but even though things finally feel like I'm in the right place, I still can hardly believe it.