Angst Offsets
I've been on edge all week. About a bunch of things, many futurey things among them, but also a bunch of shorter-term stuff. Since Most of them concerned today. Today being, among other things (of which more anon), the first semi-session of the D&D group I'm running.
Well, the parts of the day I'd been worried about have come and gone and, as usually ends up being the case, I was worried for no damn reason whatsoever. Which is good, I'm sure we can all agree. Mostly because it was just character building and hanging out. I mean, I should have expected it to be mostly character building and hanging out, but what I plan and what takes place ain't ever exactly been similar. So I ended up half-planning out some things (the basics: a town, a plot, a villain), just in case. So, I've planned ahead. Which... well, it's new for me.
Also (and this is a semi-tangent) I'm the Secretary of AU Gamers this semester, and while I keep making snide remarks to myself about filing and dictation, I've been doing a pretty good job of it so far. So, lately, I've been feeling... competent . Which isn't freaking me out half as much as it should. I mean, I don't think I've gotten any less of a... well, of whatever it is I am. I'm getting better at coping with myself, I guess. Or maybe I'm just having a good week.
A really good week.
Anyway. It went well. Dice were rolled, characters made, equipment bought, jokes cracked. But, really, I knew the stakes were nonexistent here; the easiest part of DMing is probably making sure that the players make characters. And even I failed in an actual session, what was the worst that could happen? People would die, the world would be doomed, my Saturday's would open up, and maybe I'd have a loss of geek status. Nothing that isn't survivable. Why had I been worrying about this, anyway?
Well, because the mind can only worry so much at a time. If its trying to plan for X, if X is a thing which can be planned for, then it isn't fixating on the Y, a Y which cannot be planned for. Or rather, any plan will rest in one sentence, backed by that truest courage, courage in the face of absolutely no danger whatsoever: "Do you want to get coffee after?"
Well, iced chai. But, you know; six of one, half-dozen of th'other.
Coffee... well, caffeine in general, has been betraying me lately; what once merely woke me up now puts me on edge, as jittery as a 'Nam vet. And as we sat on the couch in the Davenport*, drinking and talking, I realized that the chai was not calming me down. Which just shows that the endocrine system gets its signals crossed pretty easily, which probably makes sense for a finely balanced set of inter-related mood-defining chemical systems on a molecular hair-trigger. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, beyond trying to recapture a stream of thought from the back of my mind which almost instantly lost all relevance. My hands nervously played with a piece of tape as we chatted about science fiction, but I scarcely noticed what they were up to. Hands don't really matter, in the larger scheme of things.
* And the fact that I didn't say "the davenport in the Davenport" can be seen as a sign of progress to a less nutso-Alden. Except then I rutting said it anyway. There is hope for me, I swear!
And then, at last... Well, I didn't take a chance, perhaps; when you pour a glass of water, you aren't risking the water seeping through the gaps between glass atoms. But worry isn't rational. You can't think it away; the only way to get rid of it is to act, to lean in and kiss her like you've wanted to do for the past hour.
And even now, I can still feel the hint of the crazy: my own private insurgency, lurking in my mind's dark edges, planning the reconquest. But it's weakened, for now at least. Fear is like the grue: probably impossible to kill, but simple to drive off. All you need is a torch lit by simple fuel: a touch, a smile, a "You're cute". And every time, it'll stay away just a little longer, come back just a little more timid.
So, anyway: to bring this extended, disjointed narrative to a close:
I've got a girlfriend now. Her name is Sara. I don't think she has an LJ (although I didn't ask). And she plays D&D and knows a hell of a lot more about music than I do and is great to talk to and says I'm cute.
And for now, that's all I need to know.
We traded Simon and Garfunkel jokes. I do not exaggerate in this: "So, you took the bus from Pennsylvania to Yellowstone. What you're saying is, you boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh."