Vagueblogging

I had half a post written and more I wanted to say but I deleted it because it was going nowhere. And I think I mostly just want to acknowledge that I finally decided to be an adult today and Use My Words instead of speculating, fantasising, obsessing and worrying, despite the possibility of Consequences.

The outcome landed smack bang in the middle of what any reasonable person would expect: no Dreams Fulfilled but no Life Shattered either. 

Turns out honest communication can short-cut a lot of problems. Who knew?

I would say I wish I'd done this ages ago, but then maybe I actually wouldn't have ended up with another friend and a new hobby, so who's to say what I should or should not have done. But now I'm just hoping I can scratch out that one bit of my mental model of "what I want my life to look like" and free up some time and energy to do other things. Like find a counsellor, or any of the dozen other things I know I should be doing to try and rebuild my life in a hopefully less broken way than it was before. 

Nine Things About Nine Worlds

*cough* *splutter*

Blimey, lets open a window in here and let some air in, eh?

*waves metaphorical duster about*

Ok.

We just got back from Nine Worlds 2015. It was great fun, and only caused a bit of stress because I slipped into the mindset of "Must Do All The Things!" which is impossible, especially if you need to eat. So a "Nine Things About Nine Worlds" post seemed like a good idea, as a bit of a post-event wind-down.

1. Staying in the same hotel as the con? Big and clever. Not only is the Radisson a pretty darn nice place (as you might expect from a 4-star hotel) with an impressive breakfast buffet (cheese for breakfast - it's the way forward), but virtually no travel time means you get to experience much more of the event. Case in point: dragging an already tired 11 year old to Just A Minute Only a Moment starting at 10 pm would be impossible if it wasn't just a two minute walk back to our room at the end. 
2. Only a Moment! I've been wanting to see one of Paul Cornell's fabled "Just A Minute"s at a con for some time now and wasn't disappointed. Joe Abercombie all but walked away with it, but all four panellists were great and even the Boy enjoyed it despite being shattered and not understanding half the topics (or indeed, all the rules). 
3. All the panels and discussions we made it too were pretty good: some better moderated than other, but interesting, well-informed panellists, good humour and audience participation were the order of the day. I never had the courage to ask a question, but the Wife did a fair bit and got some good responses. 
4. We took a stack of books down to get signed and actually got them all signed, despite missing one scheduled session. This is because Joanne Harris is lovely and recognised us from previous day and a book-signing we went to earlier in the year. And possibly Twitter.
5. Actually all the authors we spoke to were lovely. As well as the three mentioned above, we bought and has signed Snorri Kristjansson's first book after seeing him on a panel. And not just the authors - every single person we interacted with was friendly and helpful. I just wish I hadn't had an attack of shy every time I approached someone: just about managed to give away my "Awesome Cosplay" tokens.
6. We bought other books too - some that we'd been meaning to get for a while as well as those on a whim. With the freebies given away in the goodie bags, we came home with quite a lot of books. Just before moving house. Oh well.
7. Genki Gear t-shirts! I splashed out on the convention tee, the Boy got the classic "Hamsters Everywhere Salute You" and the Wife got one of their 10 for 10 - the new "Science Investigates the Unknown". 
8. It's not all positives though: the popularity of some panels meant unless you got there early there was no chance of getting in - resulting in long queues and quite a few disappointments. And having the Boy in tow meant I didn't feel up to running about trying to squeeze into second or third options. 
9. Once again, I tended towards the All The Books track and once again I came away thinking "I should try writing again". And so I will. 

Definitely, definitely going again next year. With more flexible plans but hopefully more courage to get involved.

Plans, Schmlans

The problem with making plans is sometimes the spoon thief comes and gets in the way. (In case you haven't read The Spoon Theory, go read it now. It works for mental illness just as much as any physical one. And sometimes I remember I'm actually ill, and not just lazy.)

It's been less than a month since I mentioned some of my plans for this year so maybe I shouldn't be judging myself too harshly, but I do seem to have run aground already. The daft writing project (using Celtx) has been dropped due to the ongoing problem I seem to have when it comes to writing fiction - failure to think of a plot. You just need to glance back through the last few blog posts to notice that I haven't managed that many reviews, and most of my posts have indeed been about my game or whining about life.

I have made little progress in brushing up my linux skills and haven't even made a start on learning Python or any other language. And while a few things have been put aside to be taken to charity shop or tip, there's still along way to go.

But the biggest problem was my really crazy idea which has indeed proven to be as daft and hard to manage as I expected. Mostly because I've utterly failed to write any form of explanation that I can send to people. So mostly I've just failed to fill in online surveys, Eagle nominations and competition forms, and abandoned my resolve to switch banks; all with the intention of emailing someone and then trying again but apathy and writer's block got in the way. And I now have a job application form to send off, with the gender question on the equal opportunities monitoring form left blank, and no idea what to say in the accompanying letter, or who to address it to, or even whether to send one at all. Not that I expect to get very far with the job anyway, but I don't want to completely screw up my chances of even being considered by coming across as something of a loon. Which is just pure cowardice I know, but there. I'm not going to cave just yet though. I'm leaning towards just sending in the application, and working again on a letter to send to the employer pointing out the problem with their form, but whether I'll ever manage to write that letter or not I don't know.

On the other hand, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to even write this post, having failed to last week when I first thought of it. So maybe it'll take time but maybe I'll get there in the end. Same with the other plans, I guess.

Other Plans for 2011

I didn't really make any resolutions, although you could say my Big Crazy Idea was one, but I still have a few ideas and plans for the year. Which I may or may not get round to doing.

We really do need to de-clutter the house and get rid of some of the baby things. The baby bath and fireguard are taking up too much room near the back door, and if we clear out the closet in the Terror's room we could a) possibly make some money from selling stuff and b) have room to store stuff we do want to keep, like magazines or old artwork or other things of nostalgic value. But I've got a feeling we'll still be saying this in ten years time....

I'm going to learn to program. I've put it off for too long, and my SO will probably quite happily get me understanding Python so I can follow her code if nothing else. I also need to learn more about *nix...and I don't think the idea of me as a sysadmin is any dafter that me as a shop assistant (which unfortunately is where all the jobs are). So employability increase, maybe. Maybe.

I'm also going to try and write more. I've been trying to update here more frequently, and hopefully not just about gaming or whining about life. I want to try and write better reviews of the books I read, TV I watch, etc, not just for here but maybe even try and get some published. If I can get myself into the habit of writing and writing to deadline, the idea of being a freelance writer would be a bit more plausible. And people keep telling me I'm good. I've also been thinking about another crazy project that, frankly, is so daft that I don't want to tell anyone about it other than the couple of people I've already mentioned it to. So, sorry, but all I'll say is I've downloaded a copy of Celtx again....

Defying Gravity, AKA My Crazy Idea

At the end of last year I mentioned I was making Plans for 2011. Well here's the big one.

Every time I am asked on a form (or in person) for my sex or gender and the options are to pick one of "male" and "female" I'm going to refuse to answer and explain why.

Why? Partly because I'm still thinking hard about my gender identity (although I'll not go into that now), partly because I don't see why everyone needs to know (I'm a person, deal) but mostly because I know people who can't honestly answer that question and I think it's about time society started to recognise that. It won't, of course; I'm far too much of a cynic to think anything will actually come of this. But at least I can say I have tried.

Gender isn't a binary. There, I said it. Some people will go further and claim gender doesn't even really exist, but having met people who are fairly sure they have a gender (usually, but not always, one different from that assigned to them at birth) I'm not so sure. What I am sure about is that not everyone fits neatly into one of those two boxes that we insist on putting people in, and even those who do can have good reasons for not wanting to reveal which one. Thus, if nothing else, we ought to have the right to keep that information to ourselves in most (if not all) circumstances. It's considered reasonable for people to decline to give their ethnicity, age, religion - why not gender? Better, of course, would be more options for filling in gender fields - even just "other" would be a step in the right direction.

Some points. Firstly, I am not trying to appropriate anyone's identity. I don't consider myself transgender (I really must blog about my gender identity soon) and I am all too aware of the cissexual privilege I have. I'm not going to actually try and live as non-gendered, I don't think I'm capable of doing so and I'm not sure it would achieve anything. Secondly, I will inevitably capitulate. I'm willing to make life a bit more awkward for myself, for a bit, but I have neither the money nor the mental energy for protracted battles with bureaucracy. All I want is at least some acknowledgement of my point. Thirdly, I suppose for any chance of making an impact I ought to recruit others in this insane campaign of mine. Maybe once I've written up draft letters I'll investigate creating a Facebook group. Maybe some of those feminists that keep going on about smashing the gender binary would like to help. I dunno. Fourthly, I have no idea whether this really is a good idea and whether I'll be able to keep it up.

It may or may not have escaped your attention that 2011 is a census year. That, in part, is why I'm choosing to do this now. Although the census asks for each person's sex, for population projections, what it actually collects is gender and in principle the ONS is both aware of this and of the potential need to collect data on gender identity (only document I could find is this pdf). Maybe a small act of civil disobedience can help nudge them towards doing something about this in future.

Looking back, looking forward

Wish I could think of a less pretentious post title. Ho hum.

Three hundred and sixty five days ago I wrote this post in which I uncharacteristically made several specific resolutions s for 2009. Well.....yes. As is often the case, most of them fell by the wayside. Life, depression and anxiety got in the way: my exercise regime slowly died, the house is almost as much of a tip as it ever was (and now we have even more stuff) and the paucity of posts on this blog show how well I managed to keep writing. Money being tight and friends being busy means our monthly "dates" never really happened, and while I do try and play with the Terror as much as I can, I could (and probably should) do more. I did achieve one however - my thesis was finished and submitted after only a short extension. That's always something of an anti-climax though, and with no idea when the viva might be, it feels like the work of the last five years has just slipped into limbo.

Not sure what else I can say about 2009 - it's been a short year. Seriously, I'm not sure where most of it has gone. Eaten up by the thesis, I suppose. We did have a horrible period where two friends and my best friend's father died in the space of a few weeks. The theft of Daddy's 30th birthday present the day after we bought it was another low point. But I suppose on the whole it's not been a bad year. Our closest friends and family are well, despite some troubles, and while the black dog is hounding both of us still, the meds I'm on seem to be helping more than not (for now at least). The Terror is thriving at school. And my beloved came out as bi-gendered, and began to be more relaxed and happier as hirself.

So looking forward to the next year, it's tempting to once again say the usual things: I ought to exercise more, the house needs clearing out, I should start writing again. I really really really need to start looking for work. But after this year's failure, I've learned my lesson. I won't say "never again" because by this time next year I might well have changed my mind, but for 2010 at least I won't be making a list of goals that I will inevitably fail to achieve. I have only one resolution: just keep trying.

I hope that's enough.

GM Performance Anxiety

I really should be doing prep for my game tomorrow, but decided to drink cider and surf t' 'net. And blog about gaming, as I haven't really been doing well at the "write" resolution.

I've been making an effort to get interested in RPGs and GMing generally as I'd been running my D&D game for a bit now and mostly drifting...reading some books, yes, but nothing really beyond that. So I've tried to read more threads on RPGnet and found a blog on GMing which admittedly I've only really glanced at. I actually have no idea what I'm going to write here...was going to describe my game a bit but that might be boring. Well, I'll summarise.

My original idea was an Order of the Stick style game where the characters knew the rules and had some idea about how narrative drives events. As the Terror had been watching a lot of the '80s Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, I then went with the whole "ordinary people transported into world of fantasy idea". Which naturally led to the set-up of the PCs being players in their first ever 4th ed D&D game who ended up in the game world, inhabiting the bodies of their characters. Much confusion followed. Especially as two of my players decided to play old characters from previous (non-D&D) games and one decided to play one of the others. Or something. As it is, they're mostly tromping around doing usual adventurer-style stuff and I've failed to find a way to use the "Dungeonmaster" NPC to any effect - mostly due to a lack of plotting on my part. I really should be planning for tomorrow's session.

There are many things I feel I should be doing better as a GM. Sessions seem to drag - I never know what my NPCs are going to say, don't really have a grasp of the rules and occasionally forget that I'm allowed to just make an ad-hoc decision without looking stuff up. Players are distracted and getting them back on track is beyond me. Still have no idea if some of them are even enjoying it, beyond an excuse to hang out with friends. Maps, I am useless at, so combat tends to be a bit haphazard as we put together bits and pieces of map tiles and lego. Still haven't thought ahead very much about what treasure to give out, let alone how I'm going to throw enough encounters at them to progress at the rate I intended (seems a natural "story" is not quite a level's worth). I guess most of this will work out by itself in time, and if I actually could be bothered to think ahead a bit more and do more prep (which I really should be doing now) I might feel more in control. A lot of this is stuff I've struggled with right from the beginnings of my attempts to GM, and some (indecision, lack of characterisation and underwhelming NPCs) is a problem in my roleplaying as a whole.

As a player, I started off with simple, combat-focused characters, who mostly did nothing until a fight broke out and then attacked the nearest thing. And really, I haven't progressed much beyond that. Ok, with Bob - my ranger in J's Ravenloft campaign - I have had some ok roleplay. It's Ravenloft, he's gone crazy. He's currently an alcoholic who violently attacks his own reflection and trusts no-one except his companion wolf. But this means he still mostly just tags along with the rest of the party, occasionally doing ranger-y things, and getting drunk at every available opportunity. My attempts to be a more social-orientated character in a Weapons of the Gods game were...poor, frankly. Despite being surrounded only by friends of some years, I still get "stage-fright" about roleplaying and fail to think of the right things to say or do. Even in a "my character does X" way. The pressure is more intense when GMing, even though I'm sure most of my players would be happy if I just chucked hoard after hoard of zombies at them. Or dragons, or kobolds or whatever.

Again, I set my standards too high for myself. But there is no harm in trying to better. I just wish I knew how.

Reflections and Resolutions

I often try and avoid making New Year Resolutions. They never last and often I end up feeling worse for not having stuck with them. Last year, I resolved simply to be a better mother, and a better pseudo-wife. Which of course is the worst sort of resolution - one without any clear definition, meaning you can always feel as though you should have done more and never quite have the satisfaction of reaching a goal.

I suspect many people (and certainly the two people whose opinions most count in these matters) would argue that I've always been a good mother and a good pseudo-wife and so I don't really need to get "better", but I always feel there is room for improvement. And I guess lately, at least, I've been doing pretty well at both of these, as well as the cutting down on snacking, and getting more exercise thing. So for 2009 I'm going to be brave and set out a more definite plan, with some hopefully very achievable goals:

1. Keep up the jogging. It's fallen by the wayside slightly over the school holidays, but I should get back into the habit of going out 2-3 mornings a week for half an hour or so. Both the exercise and the fresh air will do me good, and it should put me in the right frame of mind to settle down to work afterwards.


2. Keep up the Wii Fit. My goal of a BMI < 25 is within sight - Christmas festivites notwithstanding. If I manage to get daily muscle and yoga workouts I should do a better job of slimming down this waist, and maybe even fitting into those jeans again.


3. De-clutter the house. I really mean it this time. Ok, we're still putting off making a final Big Decision about whether to ever have another child, and a lot of the "junk" lying around isn't mine so I can't unilaterally decide to throw it out (or I suppose I can, but I'd feel bad doing so), but there is still a lot of things I do have say over and thanks to Christmas having been bought mostly online, I have lots of cardboard boxes for storage purposes. Bit by bit, I will do this, and hopefully this time it will stay tidier.


4. Finish my thesis. I have a deadline, after all.


5. Spend time with my son. Play with him, talk to him, encourage him to do his reading and help with household chores - anything and everything except make him feel like I don't want him to bother me. I've been trying, but I need to try harder. I don't want most of our conversations to be arguments and while he's going through a very stubborn patch and obviously still needs to learn to do as he is told, I need to give a little too and try and be less selfish about my time.


6. Spend time with my SO. Just the two of us. We have friends and family who are willing to babysit, we need to start asking them more instead of feeling guilty about it. Mummy and Daddy need alone time too. If we can get out for one evening a month or so, that'd be great.


7. Write. Not just my thesis obviously. Maybe short stories, maybe plot for game, emails to people I rarely speak to, even just this blog...I don't think I've ever actually mentioned any mathematics on here despite the description, so obviously that should change. If I can find something interesting to say and spend a short amount of time once or twice a week to write it down - book reviews, comments on news, a bit of maths or whatever bogus-philosophical puzzle that has been occupying my mind - anything. I just need to write. It's good practice, and I need to break out of my fear of doing things badly, which means I have to just go ahead and do things. And writing is a fairly safe one.

So that's it. If you follow this blog maybe you'll be able to keep track of how well I do (especially on the last one) and maybe poke me occasionally to remind me. And no doubt this time next year I'll come back and go, "huh, I did pretty rubbish at all that didn't I?" But I've got a whole year...

Here's to 2009. Hope it's a good one for all of you.