An Essay (Tirade) on D&D and Being a Part-Time Orc Slayer

I lost my table top roleplaying cherry when I was 21 to a room full of boys who’d been playing D&D for the better part of their cognitive life. I’d no sooner been asked to describe my character to the room than something clammed up in my chest and I froze, like a terrified actor on a stage, and was simply unable to make a sound. I had to leave the room to compose myself. I was almost brought to tears. I’m sort of embarrassed by this story because I’ve spent the rest of my role playing life fighting to be more than just the girl at the table with an unhealthy attention to what my character is wearing. The fact that I didn’t kick open the proverbial doors, pull up a chair and throw down at my coming out party is humiliating. But there it is. When I was presented to the group, I got stage fright and had to be given a pep talk before I was able to simper back into the room.

Since then I’ve played D&D 3.0 and 3.5, Warhammer, Little Fears, World of Darkness, Vampire, All Flesh Must Be Eaten and other games. I’ve enjoyed them for the most part, preferring high fantasy to the fru-fru fan fair of Vampire (in any of its incarnations). I’ve even run a couple of games, though not well, and enjoyed the world creation process for the most part. I am married, I have a normal job, plenty of friends, and healthy hobbies, but I kill orcs on friday nights and relish in getting my halfling cat burglar intoxicated while carousing after a day of dungeon crawling.

Now that you know my geekery background, let me segue into the topic of my marriage. One of the things that brought Ryan and I together was our mutual interest in roleplaying games. He was my first DMwhen I moved back to Omaha and we blossomed our romance by playing footsie under the gaming table. Our marriage is amazing, and we have a strong enough respect and admiration for each other that translates into hardly ever fighting. Withthe exception of PMS days, we hardly ever argue longer than a moment and we nearly never get into full on heated arguments. That being said, there is one topic of conversation that, for some strange reason, gets us into the worst fights we’ve ever had. We fight, we scream, we call each other names, I usually end the argument by drowning it out with my hysterical sobs. Here’s the secret: If it weren’t for D&D, my husband and I would have precious little to disagree about.

But we fight like vicious, savage animals over D&D. It usually starts out with us talking about the game, pondering a certain rule, class/race combo, or some aesthetic of the game. I start critically analyzing it and suddenly my husband turns into a crazed lunatic who immediately takes the devil’s advocate side of the analysis and works tirelessly to prove me wrong. Sometimes the fights are just about how quickly he turns on me, other times the fight is about the analysis or rule or the game itself and eventually builds into his turning on me. It is particularly bad when he takes a position against me when he’d taken my viewpoint in a previous conversation. I become like some ridiculous monster of the deep, flabbergasted, frustrated and outraged. I can feel my brain boiling as I try to reason with him, “But YOU are the one who taught me about this problem in the rules! My opinion is based on your teachings!” and he proceeds to irrationally prove why the problem is no longer true since I took up the mast.

We haven’t been able to narrow down why he does this or why it makes me so crazy. I suspect that I don’t have enough street-cred to talk shop with him like he does with his friends who’ve been playing since they were old enough to no longer be reading big print books with full page spread of pictures. (Funny enough, D&D is just small print books with full page spread of pictures) Or maybe it’s because I’m a girl, despite his religious adherence to gender equal playing table. I’d like to think it’s not because I’m a girl, though I suspect it has more to do with the fact I’ve not played any D&D game before 3.0. The reason that I suspect this is that many of his examples for disproving my opinion are drawn on what D&D has done in the past, which seems like a serious persuasive fallacy that I can’t seem to stop him from using.

This is sort of the hipster’s answer to the “post hoc ergo propter hoc” fallacy. It means “after this, therefore because of this” and can be heard in any gaming or music circle around the world. Because of what happened in the first edition (insert: first album, first band, first appearance), regardless of how good an idea, how well written, how well performed, how well accepted it was at the time, it is now the measure by which everything that comes after it can be contextualized. So for gamers, in order to talk about 4th edition, you must subsequently talk about first edition or the cycolopedia in context to 4th edition. And any thing about 4th ed that is annoying that can also be found in the first edition in some incarnation removes the right to find the thing annoying. Since I think this persuasive argument is ridiculous in all its forms, I end up beating my head against the brick wall my husband has constructed between me and him and his roleplaying bookshelf. He holds the cyclopedia up like armour and I consider setting him and the book on fire.

So the last time we fought about D&D was when I started reading the new player’s handbook for 4th edition. I hate it. I really do. I hate 4th edition, not so much for its rules but for it’s attitude and the delivery of the new material. It’s so commercial, dirty, greedy, cheap. The book is either poorly written or poorly edited, I can’t decide which. Perhaps that says more about me than it does about the game, but at some places I just can’t get past it. For example, I was reading a section that was describing some powers (I think it was a racial power, but I can’t remember the exact page) where it listed an example of something (which I read and reread trying to figure out if it was something I was supposed to know) and then when I read the paragraph bellow it, discovered that the explanationfor the example was under it with the sentence, I swear to God: See above for an example of this type of listing. What the hell kind of editor would have thought this was a good way to set up a book? Put the examples first and then the explanation. And let’s not forget that most of theexplanations and descriptions come with a handy message to see another chapter for more info or my favorite, see another book. Hope you have access to that book, or you’re going to have to punk down $40 more dollars for the rest of the paragraph.

4th edition is dirty. It’s the first time reading a roleplaying book where I really felt like it was a commercialized game and not an atmosphere or state of mind in a bold new world. The book repeatedly breaks the pleasant fantasy atmosphere to remind you that it has every intention of rolling you for as much money as it possibly can. Enjoy your game, asshole.

Anyway, I digress. The last time Ryan and I fought it was about how much I disliked the game. Ironically, we’d had this discussion dozens of times previous where we were both on the same page, disapproving, disbelieving, cynical. Out of the blue he decided he really liked the game and I became enemy number one who must be taken out immediately. The up coming game was canceled, we fought mercilessly for days, and barely spoke a nice word to each other for the duration of it. Eventually we stopped fighting about it, but he informed me he’d be running the game whether I was playing in it or not, so grudgingly I got on board because having no game to play in was worse than playing in one written by a bunch of a corporate monkeys in need of a better editor.

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I can now tell you that I’ve made my first D&D 4th Ed character. A halfling ranger, mostly because I’m partial to archers and one of the few things I love about 4th Ed is their re-mastering of the halfling race. I’m so enamored with their new write up! I have a ton of complaints about the game, but I like the halflings and sometimes that’s good enough. I’m surprised to be admitting this, but character creation was not half as terrible as I imagined it would be. Oh it was difficult to break down my resistance, but I managed and I’ve got a fully constructed character to show for it.

I like the new break down of allignment and I like that I am now unalligned. I miss the Gods that I grew to know and love and I really dislike their unnecessary need to rename things for the sake of renaming them (some of the Gods are obviously ones from 3.5. Renaming “Attacks of Opportunity” to “Opportunity Attacks”, etc) Some of the powers were cool, though I’m a little alarmed at the idea of having to keep track of so much stuff. I’m a story player…I rely heavily on the story and character development being really good. Constant record and housekeeping might get in the way of getting into character (funny, considering my original stage fright) but I’m hoping that I memorize everything pretty quickly and am able to keep track of a lot of it in my head. I was a little angry to discover that “a pot” is no longer an item on the equipment list that you can buy (or at least know the price of). Like I said, I’m a story person, and if you’re going to cook food on an open flame, dammit you better have a good pot. In fact, there are quite a few items no longer on the equipment list. I would have hoped they would have expanded it to make the world more rich and varied, but instead they got rid of a lot of useless detail equipment and made it more streamlined, to the point that now you can, apparenly, walk into a general store and buy a basic adventuring kit with all the things you’ll need to make your way in an adventuring world. I hope it comes in a decorative keepsake box that says “My First Adventurers’ Kit” on the outside.

I like that at first level I’m going to get to hit two enemies with two arrows at one time a-la-Legolas. That’s pretty fancy schmancy high fantasy there. I can get behind looking cool, though I will kind of miss starting out as a hard scrabble pioneer in search of treasure and mischief armed with barely more than a working set of leather armour, a standard issue weapon and a sunrod.

So now that I’ve gotten a lot of back story and anecdotes out of the way, I suspect I’ll be sharing many more gaming stories withyou, a little opinion, a little verbal violence, hopefully some other things I discover that I love. I’m going from a group that has 3 women and 3 men in it to one with five men and me, the loneliest girl in the world.

Coming soon.

-Sommer

“When you are engulfed in flames” you cannot write a proper thing

I do not like writing reviews of anything, and to be honest I’m not very good at it. When I do find something I want to share with others and hopefully encourage them to pick up too, I immediately receive a gut, irrational feeling that my encouragement of the product will not only keep people from picking it up, but will some how inspire those same people to believe I am a tasteless, culture-less, fraud. Most of the time, the objects of my affections are well worth checking out, but I always feel like I’ve done them more harm than good. The irony, of course, is that I spent two years being paid to write reviews for a newspaper twice a week. No, seriously.

I guess it has something to do with the words one must use to convey the product. Some people can do it flawlessly and not sound like a pretentious fool. I can’t, and I think most people can’t. There are very few acceptable ways to say “This thing is great, and you should check it out.” Using metaphors, similies, and anecdotes only makes us sound like jackasses. If one needs a thesaurus to write the review, and one needs a dictionary to understand it, you’re in trouble.

Getting to the point, I just closed the book, literally, on David Sedaris’ newest book “When You are Engulfed in Flames.” I bought it at the book signing recently in Omaha at a nice little book store called The Bookworm, which has a darling cafe inside it, but an alarmingly large romance section and a pitiful fantasy sci-fi section. My friend and I had seats near his podium, which was all well and good, but it felt like 120 degrees in the tiny store and I spent most of the time feeling like I was melting.

He read from the book, he read from his journals, he read a new story that will go in a new book soon enough. He was charming and tittery and very funny. He has one of the best reading voices I’ve ever heard. His stories are wonderful, but when he reads them they take on a life of their own.

I met him, briefly, so that he could sign my book. Our conversation was mostly inane, and I felt bad that he had to find a topic of a 2 minute conversation for all 300 of us. I couldn’t help but get the distinct impression, while he was reading and while he was signing, that he would much rather not have been doing either. That he would be quite content if we’d just by the book and go home. In the front of the book he signed it to my name, and drew a picture of what I suspect might be Abraham Lincoln, though it is impossible to be sure, with a word balloon saying “Franks are for winners!” which might sound absurd but at the time he had just been given a hot dog by a little servant girl though the line of people waiting to get signed was denying him the ability to eat it. I suppose that was less haunting than the girl before me who, from what I gathered was enjoying her birthday, and he offered her a gift. A condom, but only if she used it for “back door” fun. She promised. After she left, he asked me if I thought it would be used with the boy she was waiting with. I have to admit, I wasn’t prepared with a sharp enough answer and merely suggested that it could go either way.

The book circles around the topic of death slowly. The vignettes told always have something to do with death and dying, though very few are directly related to a special death or dealing with death or anything like that. And of course they are funny, which makes them nearly absurd as they circle the drain. I could say something writerly and clever like, “Like sipping a good martini with close friends while discussing the lack of merits of those not invited…” but I’ll just feel like a jackass and probably sound like one too. The book is great and it’s funny and worth reading. It does not feel like a memoir, it feels like fiction, though it is more like exaggerated non-fiction. It’s not too glib, and it is very pretentious and will make you feel better than everyone else too. He talks a lot about living in other countries, a lot about death, a lot about his companion Hugh. He talks about smoking and quitting, he talks about his Greek grandmother and passing gas and airline flights. He discusses drugs and drinking at length and yes, even manages to make addiction histerical. They all work together remakably well, and I can’t help but wondering if after so many memoir books, he’ll eventually run out of stories to tell because certainly a man cannot have so many grand adventures without eventually imploding or dying of an overdose.

So read it, won’t you? 

A trip across the cafeteria

Every day, I eat lunch by myself.

I work in the corporate building of a hospital so most of the people in the cafeteria are suit and tie types, with a few women in corporate casual and a few people from the bank next door that are allowed to eat in my building.

At the back of the room is a long table that sits about 14 people, and this table belongs exclusively to the directors who hunker over their meals and talk violently about business. Most of them are wearing white button down shirts and ties, their suit coats slung on the back of their chairs. If there are only a few of them, they crowd one end of the table, but no one is allowed to take up the rest of the table, even if the room is full.

In one corner where 3/4 walls meet at an angle, there are two tables that seat 4 people. These tables are always held by one person who shows up early so that the other three are guaranteed spots at the prime real-estate. These tables are near the small TV, but the two groups don’t seem to pay any attention to them. They are corporate cliques, clubs of four that allow no alternative group members, and hardly give notice to anyone else in the room. One table is all men, a couple in ties but they half roll their white dress shirts, prop elbows on their table and lean forward when they are making a particularly good point, gesticulating when necessary. They laugh louder than is necessary.

The other group is made up of three women and one man, who the three women greet with a kind of fondness reserved for office heartthrobs, though he is clearly not one of those. Unless of course, these women’s pool of choices is so limited that he’s the cream of the crop. They all dress smartly, but casual. They lean close to each other, touch hands or arms fondly when talking. This is a tighter, affectionate group. I imagine that someone would have to die before a spot opened up in their group of four.

I sit by myself near a bank of windows that look out into the lobby, still stuck in 1973 Hotel Lodge decor. There’s a massive wall sized fire place made of large grey and brown stones with faux flickering candle sconces on either side. I kid you not.

Sometimes I read, though more often than not I eat my food quietly and quickly and march back downstairs to my basement office and kill time. It’s not that I don’t know anyone, I know the people in my office. It’s just that because of the nature of our job, only one person can be afforded away from their desk at any length of time. We are all relegated to eating alone, and eating in the office is highly discouraged because of the poor air flow. You eat it, we all smell it.

Today I tried something new, though I will never know what possessed me. I walked my tray over to a 6 person table near the tv and sat down. There were no other tables near the tv available and I had a feeling that I’d end up sharing the table with other people soon enough. And I was right.

A woman approached me abruptly and asked if she could join me. She sat beside me quickly, hardly allowing me to wave a hand and say “yes please.” She was kind and talkative, thick around the face and middle but in a solid, honest way. The way she spoke lead me to believe there were others coming, and that I would be infested with new faces soon enough.

They were all older than me, but they were nice enough. We went through introductions and when they learned the nature of my job, I bore the brunt of a lot of complaints I’d normally have forwarded on to the appropriate people…had I actually been working. I enjoyed it anyhow, and made my apologetic remarks and made sure they knew I totally understood their pain, though I was in no position to do anything about it. It was enjoyable and I know several new names belonging to people I would have previously ignored in the hallway, and that is always nice enough.

Though my foray into the wilds of social circles was curious and eventful, I will probably return to my window seat, staring out into the lobby, thinking or reading or people watching. These are some of my favorite things, anyhow.

The crime of bad endings

What’s the hardest part of writing essays? The part that plagues sleep, steals quiet moments, causes strands of insanity to appear in daily conversation. Well, I’m here to tell you that the hardest part is writing the bloody endings.

Story endings are hard too, but those at least you can make up. Life usually is not boxed into movie conversations and Ah-ha! moments that give novels and short stories killer endings. Most of the time endings sound contrived, pulled out of one too many Hallmark moments. Or they relate back to the beginning but in an awkward way. Cutesy that turns uncomfortable. Like a 40 year old woman showing up to lunch in a denim mini-skirt and boots. No one wants to look for too long and while she shows no signs of embarrassment, her friends are turning a furious shade of red.

Essay endings are not usually endings of the actual moment or scene they are working with. They are closing statements. They are an insertion of the Now Writer commenting on their Then Experience. A cross of time periods and personalities that is used to judge themselves or others with a wizened, “I’ve learned my lesson” cadence. These are the sort of ending commentaries that can only be written after time and turmoil have passed for the writer, removing them almost entirely from their own narrative. It is worse still if they are at all campy: like a made-for-TV moment that shows everyone turned out all-right in the end after all. Obnoxious. But it’s often the kind of ending I myself have written and stared at with shame and disappointment. “Wrap it up,” a creative non-fiction teacher once said, “it should come full circle to offer some satisfaction to the reader.” But really? Life rarely comes full circle so tidily and it nearly never offers some form of satisfaction to reader or writer.

I like the endings that just end. No user commentary, no feel good moment. They come to a point where the story is over and they accept the ending, dirty and complicated and sometimes unsatisfactory. I like the endings that show that the writer did not learn his lesson and could quite potentially make the same mistake again. It’s an exciting prospect. I like the narratives that end as if the writer just walked out, the final statement in a conversation or the closing of a door. Or a car driving away and its occupants never being heard from again.

The Plain, Unmarked Box Arrived by Lori Jakiela, published 4/13/2008 in The New York Times is an example of just how hard endings can be. Her essay begins with the magic clever opening all essay writers want to harness- “THE night we ordered the sex chair, we’d been drinking. Not a lot, but enough to make a sex chair seem like an investment, like junk bonds or an I.R.A.”

Snappy! Clever! Using words that suck readers in. Give’m sex or violence and you’re suddenly made of solid gold. I love this opener and the rest of the essay follows suit, showing that she’s not just a clever minx with a few good lines stored up. It’s funny for parents, it’s funny for those of us child-free, it’s funny for couples or anyone who likes their sex lighthearted.

Oh lord, but the ending.

I don’t even know what the ending has to do with the rest of the essay. It is sort of like she got up from her laptop to go get some more coffee and someone snuck in and rewrote the ending for her. The voice changes and it offers a clean, wrapped up ending that is only a glossed over version of satisfaction. For lack of more class, I feel a bit blue-balled.

If this essay were a movie, the last paragraph would have been delivered with a quiet, vaguely exhausted voice over by the heroine as the camera withdrew in a sweeping pan from the seemingly normal suburban house. While this might work in a heart warming Hallmark Presents, it bears no resemblance to the snarky, sharp witted writer of the last page and a half. It is what could be characterized as an inactive ending.

Not to pick on Lori (though it pains me not to poke fun of the fact she named her children Locklin and Phelan) because this is not a problem she alone has. It is a widespread disease amongst essayists. Some of my favorite essays have left me banging my head on the last word that might as well have been part of the phrase “happily ever after.”  I’ve canned entire essays of my own because I couldn’t figure out how to end it without sounding like a freshman jackass.

There is no known cure, except maybe born talent, if there is such a thing. If only life came with punch lines. God, if only.

The Society of Secret Holders

 

The first time I discovered A Perfect Circle I was living in Boston, barely 21 and experiencing a change in my life I can only describe as “pre-Goth-Girl” with all its trappings and broodings. I palmed the CD from my roommate and listened to it on repeat for hours. When I’d worn out my borrowing welcome, I purchased the CD on my own and started the listening rampage over again. I’d lie on my bed, leg draped halfway off the mattress, hand curled over my eyes, listening with my whole body. It spoke to me. 3 Libras was everything I knew about the world, everything I believed. A few weeks later I’d discover POE, which was like discovering myself, profound and debilitating. Just a few weeks after that I was dressing like an extra in Blade and waxing poetic about my place in the world. I’m only a little embarrassed for myself, because during that time period, despite the ridiculous clothing, I learned more about who I was and who I could make myself out to be than I would at any other junction in my life. I also discovered how pliable other people are, and how manipulation was an art I had a particular knack for. I knew early on that plying my dark talent meant I was destined for stardom amongst journalists and advertisers, which was fine by me. Stardom of any sort was good enough; I wasn’t picky about the destination.

 

I’m paralyzed by those two years spent amongst Boston’s beautiful history and dark underbelly. I have stories in spades, and yet they remain untold, stored up inside like some terrible emotion. Those stories are toxic, the best kind to be told I suppose, but not by me. Somehow by not telling them, they remain just that, stories. Not non-fiction, not my life, not my terrible choices or the things I’d seen. Fairy tales, maybe, or at least tales of caution. Careful kids, this could’ve been you.

 

Which I realize is ridiculous. It wasn’t nearly as terrible as my mind spins it to be, and I certainly came out of it just fine. And yet, for all my love of creative non-fiction, this is the one area that seems off limits. My very secret diary. They aren’t just my secrets, they belong to others too. A society of secret holders. A lifetime difference and with no desire to return.

 

When I returned from Boston to Omaha, it took only a few days of being back to feel the heaviness disappear. Like a shroud being drawn back from my face, I felt like a person for the first time in a long time. Not some marionette. At some point, driving on the interstate, I made the decision to not talk about my time in Boston, to put it away, to keep to myself. To not have to face those things or those people or those moments that I regreted. I wanted to believe, I still do, that I regret nothing. But that’s not true. I regret things. I don’t hate them or fret about them, but I am not quite ready to profit from them either. I’m not quite ready to reunite that section of time with the rest of my life. Like the missing link between the truth and the fairy tale, I’m not ready to start connecting the dots.

 

Some CDs, including Mer de Noms disappeared into boxes under my bed, recalling moments and time that I had no interest in returning to. It took me several years before I could listen to POE again, and even to this day the emotion it welled up inside of me is no longer there. Music is the great emotional memory of every person in the world. Hearing a song can take us back to a moment, back to a person or a time or a thing that is potent. An anchor in time. A Perfect Circle takes me right back to my bedroom, draped across my bed, emotions welling, mind racing, a new persona roaring out of the gloam.

 

Yesterday I placed 3 Libras on my iPod play list. Reluctantly. Like a ticking time bomb. Hitting shuffle, I never know when it’ll appear or if I’ll listen to the whole thing before a shaking finger pushes the next button. I have a sinking feeling this was a bad idea. Knowing that it’s there, waiting to be heard. One out of 204 songs could unlock it all. Damn it.

The Bitter End. A short essay.

It’s nearly 60 degrees today- March 13, 2008- a Thursday. For the first time since November, the ice and snow have completely melted from our yard and driveway- leaving behind a soft powdery white stain of water and salt in every pore and crevice of the concrete. Remnants of battle, to be sprayed down and forgotten.

Along the edges, pine needles and leaves, missed from the fall cleanup before the first snow, remain wet, dirty and decomposing. It is the first hints of spring, but instead of flowers, life, birth, love and renewal, there is something else in the air. Exhaustion. Looking around my yard I get a sense of exhaustion. A world strained by extreme temperatures, finally released from a wintery prison and the nerve endings quiver like weakened knees. There’s no more strength left in these boughs to spring forth new growth. All they have left in them is to hang limp and wet and breath a stiff sigh of release. It is over. Maybe we’ll go forth tomorrow.

I feel the same way. Staring out my front window, there is warmth in the air too, but also a chill that hasn’t yet gone away. It doesn’t feel hopeful, it feels malicious. It takes the edge off something that should feel exciting and makes me feel vulnerable instead. Like a villain who reminds you that he knows where you live, even when you think you are safe. Maybe not as dramatic, but I want to remain inside none the less. For a little while longer.

Maybe I’ll go forth tomorrow.

A Love Story essay

The love story essay, re-titled “A Practical Love Story” is ready for submission to the contest. I’m nervous and excited. I’ll be making the submission this Friday when I get paid so I can cover submission costs. I’m crossing my fingers but I’m not being overly hopeful. It is my first submission, after-all, and few come out of the gates with a hit single.

Now that that one is over, I’m working on a couple of others for general submission to a few journals of choice. I’ve got a few tongue-in-cheek essays on being an English graduate that I’m considering rewriting for submission. Seriously, the hardest part about essay writing and submission is not the writing, it is deciding what to write about. The mind boggles over it.

One of these days I’ll write about my methods and I’ll supply some examples. I hesitate to do so until my first publication though, because instead of a wise writer with advice to spare, I just sound like a jack-ass putting the cart before the horse.

She slays orcs on the weekends.

I was 21 and had just moved to Boston, MA from Nebraska. I wasn’t unfamiliar with roleplaying, but I had never done it or known anyone who had done it. When I was in high school, I knew an older student who played Magic. I did not know what that meant other than when someone would say “He plays Magic,” it was always accompanied with an eye roll or a smirk.

So when my new roommate told me that I needed to play in their weekly D&D game, I was a bit dubious. D&D? Me? Really? But I’m willing to try out nearly anything, especially at that time in my life, so what the hell. I made my first character, a rogue half-elf, the starting character of every shy girl. My first session was a disaster.

I got stage fright. Right at the beginning when we were describing our character, I froze up and couldn’t even whisper her eye color. I ran out of the room and had to take a breather. I couldn’t imagine the draw of such a game where terror could freeze my throat like that. How silly I was.

Now, many years later, I know D&D better than any other game out there, and I’ve tried some. I can put together a great character pretty quickly, and I can even do voices if I put my heart into it. There’s something satisfying about slaying orcs on the weekends.

My husband also loves roleplaying, it’s one of the things that brought us together. He leans back sometimes and tells me stories about the old days- the days before he played sometimes. The days of Gary Gygax and TSR. He reminds me that Gary hated version 3.0, which stands to reason that he hated my favorite version, 3.5. I like listening to his stories. I feel part of a tradition. A group. A club. A cult. But not one of those scary ones. The ones where every eats too much pizza, drinks too much soda, and heroically saves peasants from goblin hordes.

While I never met Gary Gygax myself, his legacy is all over our house. I was incredibly hurt when I heard he had died. The last time I felt this way about the passing of a celebrity, it was Hunter S. Thompson’s shocking death. So few people experiment on the world, it sucks when they have to leave it.

Gary built a world for me to play in. I’ll always remember that.

Illustration Friday: “To Leap or not to Leap?”

“Leap” for Illustration Friday. This is my first time participating, but I’m pretty excited about it.

“To Leap or not to Leap?” -S.L.Wiegert 2008

To leap or not to leap, that is the question. Considering I am a married woman, you’d think I’d be all for taking the plunge. I’m not for getting married just to be married. Marriage is great. But it is hard, complicated, hurtful, awkward, embarrassing,  frustrating, claustrophobic. It is all the words that are opposite of these, too, but I think these are the words most people pretend not to recognize. You have to be able to take the good and the bad and roll with all the punches, and know when to call it quits and when to fight and know when to kiss it all better.
Know thyself, first. I think women jump into the whole marriage thing too fast, too furious, too determined to just Get There.

The week of our one year anniversary of dating, a female co-worker of my husband’s asked him if he was going to propose, because, she said, she’d never stay with a man who wouldn’t propose after a year. “Why waste the time?” she told him. She also told him I was going to leave him if he didn’t. We dated for another year before getting engaged. These are the kinds of conversations that plague me.

All I’m saying is, sure it’s sweet and romantic and comforting and exciting and sometimes easier than being alone. But it’s the opposite of all these, sometimes, too.

So to leap, or not to leap? It sure is a long way down. . .

I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic!

Excerpt from “The Patchwork Wedding” essay

Aha! The semi-final draft of the essay is completed! I took it from a mostly exposition piece littered with statistics (it was originally from a class assignment where we had to use statistical information in our essay) to one that is mostly storytelling with hardly any statistics. The original title was lengthy and witheringly cheeky and now it is simplistic and a little nicer. The publication I’m presenting it to leans towards the nice side of life and thus I must lean that way too, for just a moment.

 The essay is currently titled “The Patchwork Wedding” and relates my unique and practical engagement, floundering in a sea of wedding frou-frou fluffery, before finally getting smart and throwing tradition to the wind and insulting many traditional women in the process. The title is still rolling about in my head. It works because the wedding ended up being a collage of hands and ideas and creativity with no rule or order to fashion it together with. I regret the spuriness of it, but not for longer than a heartbeat. I don’t regret much for very long.

Now it is the hands of one more, less critical editor before I finalize it one last time and batch it up for submission. I’m crossing my fingers, though I shouldn’t get too worked up. It is, after-all, my first submission and I suspect many rejections will come between now and the hour of my final departure, so I’m not worried. I have plenty of time to get it right before the end.

Here’s a little excerpt from the middle of the essay:

“For months, these were the things that mattered most to me. The dress, the linen invitations with satin ribbon closures, and a buffet of food that matched in theme to the decorations – I was unstoppable in my quest for beauty, pleasure and matching tablecloths.” Page 5 of 10 S.L. Wiegert March 2, 2008