maybe you should pretend to forget to remember the bullet that’s meant for you
This weekend was a complete whirlwind. I knew it would be. To wit:
Friday after work I rushed to the board game store to get a second present for my brother, then rushed down to the chain of strip malls in Beaverton where Teal meets Scholls Ferry (and shuddered to think I lived there for two years!) to celebrate his 26th birthday. After an Asian dinner with the family & mom's very lovely Indian coworkers, we all went back to my parents' place for board games. Munchkin (blended) and Munchkin Quest. I was there until about 2am.
Then I got home where Jeff and I had a poorly timed, twoish-hour-long debate on Inherent Good that dangerously flirted with Is There A God And What Does That Mean? (The only thing we seemed to agree on fully, by the end: poodles are an aberration against God/Nature and a case could be made that they are in fact, pure evil.) Then I bathed, started a new book, and went to bed around 5:30am, after doing almost no room-cleaning for my incoming guests.
I managed to get up in time to get my ass in gear, decked out in overly formal black button-up, slacks, and my kickass velcro dress shoes, and make it down to the McMinnville Grand Ballroom for Ken Meyer's "Celebration of Life Party," which I do admit was probably the best and least-funeral-like funeral service I've ever attended. Tears and laughter; seeing Dutch and Hannah and Marcia mobbed with love and fond memories; hanging out with Clint and his family (Trang and Madeleine, both adorable). I left the service and drove immediately to Salem to pick up Chris (and say hello to Lynn, Jamie, Theresa and Grandma). Chris was in town for his own father's funeral service, and I was his ride out of Albany/Salem. So Chris and I trekked north, met up with Alex and his lady Kelly, got some food (an ill-advised plan: bar food, Saturday night, the Pearl), and headed back to my place.
At my place, Rachel and her boy Devon came over, Dutch and Hannah came up, and Jeff and Briana joined us for a grand total of ten - four cute couples and one single dude named Travis (and a dude named Chris half a world away from his lady) -- for a crazy game of Apples to Apples. Followed by a diminished group of five playing Hoopla, followed by Dutch and I playing Citadels and Munchkin Quest alone while Chris did email things and Jeff, Briana and Hannah crashed. In other words, in direct relation to the number of players and the lateness of the night, the games got progressively geekier until they hit a critical mass of exhaustion and geekiness. In other other words, it was a pretty great night.
At about seven-thirty or eight o'clock -- a.m., mind you, which is long after time had lost all meaning -- I finally managed to lay down on the living room rug and sneak in about ninety minutes of sleep (Dutch only got about twenty; I left him playing Crayon Physics Deluxe on my phone until he'd worn the battery down). Then we all got up and drove Chris to the airport, where we had brief hellos with Lynn and briefer good-byes to Chris (and then Lynn). Chris flew away to Japan. Then Hannah, Dutch and I had something like four hours to kill before returning to the airport to send Hannah back north to BC. The solution seemed obvious: break my Ikea cherry.
So, one long trip through Ikea (complete with meatballs and shenanigans) later, back to the airport: good-byes to Hannah, back exhaustedly to my place for Dutch and I. At this point, energy levels had dipped so low that neither talking nor music happened much for the duration of the drive. Then, bye-bye Dutch and I come into my room and crash. And now it is 10 after 10 (in the p.m.), I woke up about an hour ago, and I'm pushing off the sluggish sleep-dep heaviness just a little longer so's I can sleep anything like a normal night tonight. The idea of dinner seems daunting.
For those counting:
Total number of hours slept in the last three full days: 10.
Total number of hours spent driving: 4 or 5.
Total number of funerals memorials attended: 1.
Total number of trips to the airport: 2.
Total number of board games played: 6.
Total number of old-friends/SO combos I saw in the last 2 days: 6 (including Jeff and Briana).
Total number of SOs met for the first time in the last 2 days: 2.
Total number of hours spent at Ikea: 3 or 4.
Total number of meatballs consumed: approximately 15 20.
This feels like the closest to relaxing or downtime I've had since going to work Friday morning (except that bath with Jesus on Mars, that was nice). I do want to write some, because Thursday night was a really good Writing Group, despite missing half its members. Without a page to show, I talked through The World of Missing Persons's featurization and expansion of character arcs and after bouncing ideas around, hearing them spoken aloud, and hearing feedback on the direction of the story, I feel much more confident (if intimidated) about the road ahead of me. What does the protagonist want? He wants to feel useful, like a member of society; he wants to prove he's not a waste and that there is a reason he's still alive. Victor Oldham wants purpose.
But I'm not writing tonight, and I know it. At best, I'll muster the energy to make Macaroni and Cheese or something similar and watch the new episode of Lost, which has been sitting around waiting for me. I doubt I'll have the energy to seek out and purchase the most recent two (three?) BSGs, which I'm excited for and falling further behind on. Thank god for an Itunes model of cheap, downloadable TV episodes, even if I'm infinitely happier with the DVD season-by-season model of watching shows.
My body aches, suddenly. Maybe another bath, after all. Definitely some Advil, at least, though sometimes I worry: I've been taking ibuprofen more often than usual lately.
Woke up from my nap with MC Frontalot, "Diseases of Yore," stuck in my head. I just realized. That's what I've been half-humming as I write this.
Friday after work I rushed to the board game store to get a second present for my brother, then rushed down to the chain of strip malls in Beaverton where Teal meets Scholls Ferry (and shuddered to think I lived there for two years!) to celebrate his 26th birthday. After an Asian dinner with the family & mom's very lovely Indian coworkers, we all went back to my parents' place for board games. Munchkin (blended) and Munchkin Quest. I was there until about 2am.
Then I got home where Jeff and I had a poorly timed, twoish-hour-long debate on Inherent Good that dangerously flirted with Is There A God And What Does That Mean? (The only thing we seemed to agree on fully, by the end: poodles are an aberration against God/Nature and a case could be made that they are in fact, pure evil.) Then I bathed, started a new book, and went to bed around 5:30am, after doing almost no room-cleaning for my incoming guests.
I managed to get up in time to get my ass in gear, decked out in overly formal black button-up, slacks, and my kickass velcro dress shoes, and make it down to the McMinnville Grand Ballroom for Ken Meyer's "Celebration of Life Party," which I do admit was probably the best and least-funeral-like funeral service I've ever attended. Tears and laughter; seeing Dutch and Hannah and Marcia mobbed with love and fond memories; hanging out with Clint and his family (Trang and Madeleine, both adorable). I left the service and drove immediately to Salem to pick up Chris (and say hello to Lynn, Jamie, Theresa and Grandma). Chris was in town for his own father's funeral service, and I was his ride out of Albany/Salem. So Chris and I trekked north, met up with Alex and his lady Kelly, got some food (an ill-advised plan: bar food, Saturday night, the Pearl), and headed back to my place.
At my place, Rachel and her boy Devon came over, Dutch and Hannah came up, and Jeff and Briana joined us for a grand total of ten - four cute couples and one single dude named Travis (and a dude named Chris half a world away from his lady) -- for a crazy game of Apples to Apples. Followed by a diminished group of five playing Hoopla, followed by Dutch and I playing Citadels and Munchkin Quest alone while Chris did email things and Jeff, Briana and Hannah crashed. In other words, in direct relation to the number of players and the lateness of the night, the games got progressively geekier until they hit a critical mass of exhaustion and geekiness. In other other words, it was a pretty great night.
At about seven-thirty or eight o'clock -- a.m., mind you, which is long after time had lost all meaning -- I finally managed to lay down on the living room rug and sneak in about ninety minutes of sleep (Dutch only got about twenty; I left him playing Crayon Physics Deluxe on my phone until he'd worn the battery down). Then we all got up and drove Chris to the airport, where we had brief hellos with Lynn and briefer good-byes to Chris (and then Lynn). Chris flew away to Japan. Then Hannah, Dutch and I had something like four hours to kill before returning to the airport to send Hannah back north to BC. The solution seemed obvious: break my Ikea cherry.
So, one long trip through Ikea (complete with meatballs and shenanigans) later, back to the airport: good-byes to Hannah, back exhaustedly to my place for Dutch and I. At this point, energy levels had dipped so low that neither talking nor music happened much for the duration of the drive. Then, bye-bye Dutch and I come into my room and crash. And now it is 10 after 10 (in the p.m.), I woke up about an hour ago, and I'm pushing off the sluggish sleep-dep heaviness just a little longer so's I can sleep anything like a normal night tonight. The idea of dinner seems daunting.
For those counting:
Total number of hours slept in the last three full days: 10.
Total number of hours spent driving: 4 or 5.
Total number of funerals memorials attended: 1.
Total number of trips to the airport: 2.
Total number of board games played: 6.
Total number of old-friends/SO combos I saw in the last 2 days: 6 (including Jeff and Briana).
Total number of SOs met for the first time in the last 2 days: 2.
Total number of hours spent at Ikea: 3 or 4.
Total number of meatballs consumed: approximately 15 20.
This feels like the closest to relaxing or downtime I've had since going to work Friday morning (except that bath with Jesus on Mars, that was nice). I do want to write some, because Thursday night was a really good Writing Group, despite missing half its members. Without a page to show, I talked through The World of Missing Persons's featurization and expansion of character arcs and after bouncing ideas around, hearing them spoken aloud, and hearing feedback on the direction of the story, I feel much more confident (if intimidated) about the road ahead of me. What does the protagonist want? He wants to feel useful, like a member of society; he wants to prove he's not a waste and that there is a reason he's still alive. Victor Oldham wants purpose.
But I'm not writing tonight, and I know it. At best, I'll muster the energy to make Macaroni and Cheese or something similar and watch the new episode of Lost, which has been sitting around waiting for me. I doubt I'll have the energy to seek out and purchase the most recent two (three?) BSGs, which I'm excited for and falling further behind on. Thank god for an Itunes model of cheap, downloadable TV episodes, even if I'm infinitely happier with the DVD season-by-season model of watching shows.
My body aches, suddenly. Maybe another bath, after all. Definitely some Advil, at least, though sometimes I worry: I've been taking ibuprofen more often than usual lately.
Woke up from my nap with MC Frontalot, "Diseases of Yore," stuck in my head. I just realized. That's what I've been half-humming as I write this.