The Wheel of Time

Now for this......The Wheel Of time is one of my favorite book series. The World of Dorkness stuff sorta dove me to find something to obsess over myself. So I'm pretty nuts over Wheel of Time fan sites. ONE of my favorite ones just came back online yesterday after 90 days of not being. Hurray for Wota!!!! My other Favorite is the Wheel Of Times Realms which helped me get my fix while Wota was down. There is a whole list of other sites I enjoy, but those two are my fav's, I enjoy the other members at both as much as I enjoy the sites.

Now let me get to my point. Many WoT fans Fear that the Author Robert Jordan will kick the bucket before he concludes the series. I don't care. I have a very active imagination and have enjoyed the books a great deal thus far. Yes like all the other fans I eagerly await each new book, But the neat thing is how many other neat things these books have helped me discover, Blogs, other Peoples blogs, webcomics, websites, online friendships, I could go on and on......All these happy little things would never be in my life without the Wheel of Time, And (shudders) The World of Dorkness.

That's all for now Tommorow or later today I hope to get back to Paths. Peace.

The World of Dorkness

I think the people that publish it call it the World of Darkness. They have put out their latest and greatest new rules. Blah. Of coarse Joe had to preorder the books, they're here at my house. The other players have been spending as much time visiting Joe's books , as they have been visiting Joe. Larpers!!! Also we are too broke to pay attention, and ICC, that's International Camarilla Convention, will be in Raleigh N.C. this year, It being the biggest World of Dorkness event of the year of coarse Joe wants to go. Lemme go look for the money tree again.

Dear, Powers that rule the World of Dorkness, quit being so expensive!!!!!

It seems that new books come out every few months so Joe is perpetually broke from buying them. So Sad! He'd rather buy books than new clothes, his clothes are all falling apart. World of Dorkness types always have stuff so they can dress up as their Vampire characters, I notice.

Blah I'm done griping. Anyhow, If not for the World of Dorkness, I would never have gotten so curious About the internet and gone looking for things to do to stave of boredom while Joe is all engrossed in The World of Dorkness.

So next time, i'll Talk about the Wheel of Time.

something that troubles me

I guess I should explain, I know a lot of kids. I talk to a lot of them on line, I talk to a lot of them from work, I talk to quite a few from organizations that I've been involved with that worked with kids. So no surprise they feel comfortable talking to me. Here's something that one of my young friends has been telling me about that really bothers me, One of my young friends is drinking. Apparently I'm the only one that knows. I've asked, "How do you get away with it, I know your parents wouldn't want you doing that?" The reply I get is what bugs me. "They Don't Notice......" So it troubles me. This is not a bad, rowdy, troubled teen I'm talking about, this is a good kid, with good grades, goals, who tries to help people around them when they can, and is in general upright and well mannered, The kid in question doesn't even really enjoy drinking that much.

Now here is why it troubles me, I'm an alcoholic. Something I'm pretty comfortable with now that I've accepted it. There are some parallels with my own experience with alcohol I don't like though. It's a pretty well known fact with most of my friends and even some of my family now that I've had a drinking problem on and off for the better part of my adult life. What a lot of them don't know is that I started drinking when I was around twelve or thirteen. It started out as just a lark, merely to satisfy adolescent curiosity. I didn't have the happiest childhood I admit, my parents divorced while I was quite young. It devastated me. My parents both wound up living in separate parts of the country and while I grew up. I moved around a lot. I'm lucky, the moving could have troubled me a lot more, I know a lot of kids it does. I actually liked moving, it presented new opportunities, and I was always a sort of lonely awkward nerd child anyway, so it's not like I really missed my friends. (off the topic of my entry here I do regret not keeping in touch with more of them over the years though) There was a lot of turmoil going on in my youth though, a lot of room for folks to not notice things, including my folks. With all the fussin, fighting, moving around, remarrying and trying to fix there own lives it slipped thought the cracks that I drank nearly everyday. I figured out it made me numb to things like, my dad's disappointment over my grades, my step-mother's machinations at alienating me from my dad, my dad's drinking problems, and the fact he barely knew how to relate to me, my stepfather's drug use, my mom who seemed so much more engrossed in everything but me, and so I drank, and "They didn't Notice". I never let them know how much things bothered me, I wasn't really encouraged to after the divorce, I was brought up being told things like" be tough", "suck it up" and to be obedient and good and fulfill their expectations of me. This isn't because they didn't love me, they just didn't know how to deal with me, and they really did want to prepare me for my adult life. They didn't mean to trap me in feelings of failure, inadequacy, and inconsolable loneliness, but it did happen and it took a long time to get through. Some days I still have to work pretty hard at it.

Part of what really bothers me about all this though, is that even thought there were an awful lot of reasons for them not to notice, there were just as many reasons for them to. After all if I had access to alcohol at that age it was probably readily available in my home.(YES, YES) There's a good deal about me my folks have always chosen to over look in pursuit of it being easier to deal with other problems. Human frailty. It took a while to convince my mom I have a drinking problem as an adult, we've never discussed my troubled youth involving alcohol.

I'm rambling, let me get to my point. I'm worried about my friend. I don't think any one means to ignore the kid, but I think this recent drinking bout is an attempt to get some much needed affection and attention. I fear like me though, no one will notice in time. Like me, my friend comes from a divorced family, struggling with moving around, arguing , trying to redefine themselves, and I know how much room there is to let things slip thought the cracks. So it troubles me. Soon my friend will be old enough to move out into the real world and face all the many challenges adult life has to offer, and I really hope that that challenge will be faced with the help and guidance of friends and loved ones and not with a six pack. I'm just not sure what to do about it.

So I am taking this time to say if you have kids, sometimes it is better to be concerned with letting them know that you want them to have great lives, full of happiness and wonder, and that you want them to share and be open with you, rather than being so uptight about grades, friends, and career choices. After all you never agreed with your parents about everything either. So tell your kids you notice them even if they don't always want to talk to you. Even when they are sullen, snot nosed stuck up teenagers, remind them you love them, and keep in mind they need your love in spite of how hard it is for them to admit that. Peace.

Paths (unfinished story)

The forest floor was dark and cool. The ancient trees made a vast canopy that virtually blotted out the sun. Ardwic crept softly along the narrow game trail, tracking the girl. He was impressed with her resilience. He had never expected her to make it this far on her own. She knew he was following her also. He had expected that to discourage her enough that she would turn back. No such luck. Her trail was not so easy to follow as it should be either. He'd been led to believe she was inexperienced at this sort of venture. Water from the recent rains dripped down to the forest floor obscuring the normal forest sounds, except the birds and frogs, which are always louder after a good hard rain. The occasional droplet of water fell to coolly christen him as he moved along the trail. Ahead was a series of actual paths that crisscrossed several of the game trails and the main road. Ardwic wondered which path the girl had chosen. He hoped the recent rains hadn't muddied up her tell-tale tracks too much.

Jules kept moving through the forest. She knew Ardwic would be able to track her. She just needed to stay far enough ahead of him to evade his capture. It was tempting to just let him catch her. Why had her father chosen him, out of all the loyal men in the palace guard. Jules had always had a crush on Ardwic. She could hear him last night while he'd made camp, he'd stopped that close to her own camp. She'd gotten up early to regain her head start. She was so fortunate he'd no clue how close he was to her. Now she moved through the forest consulting her map under it's dim emerald light. By nightfall if all went according to plan she would be in Echerand. Echerand, where she would go to King Albius and ask for his amnesty.

Sleepless

Once again, sleep eludes me. I sit awake at the computer, thoughts churning through the primordial ooze of my mind. I don't really have a topic at the moment. I came here to read more of the help section in the hopes of not being a complete doofus. It has mad me a little sleepy. Now I think I will go brew some chamomile tea with honey and try to go back to bed. Perhaps I will even have restful dreams, the last few nights have been filled with vivid and disturbing dream content. Plane crashes, involving the trip my mom has gone on. Soldiers in a trench being shot at, I'm on active duty again in that one. Car wrecks in front of my house,which really does happen all the time. Meh, for now I attempt sleep again. No fear.

Poetry is my sport (well whadya want I am sorta a couch potato)

Asylum

weary my tired eyes, peruse some bleak horizon
sleepless in the night, who to confide in
stumbling as I sleepwalk, through this daydream life
who knew that daydreams could be nightmares
trapped by fetters within my mind
prisoner of the things I should have left behind
torment all begins and ends with my friends
leaving me wondering how I got into this mess
and comprehension comes at the hands of strangers
opening gateways in my soul I never could see on my own
I am the sum of all my parts, the good, the bad, and the madness.......

day one I'm hoping this is a good idea

Well my friend John, who I seem to have let disappear off the face of the earth, used to sit and have the longest most in depth conversations with me about literally everything on earth. It is to him I owe my title in a round about way. See he and I figured out in one of our conversations that I've been spending my whole life settling for the next best thing. However, that title was already taken, and so now I'm reduced another peg, to The Second to Next Best Thing. Sort of ironic but I do like irony. I don't think my parents wanted me to be the sort to set my sights so low. My mother though seems to have made peace with the fact that I am who I am and that's all that I am (yep like Popeye the Sailor Man). My father I can't really say We haven't talked in along time. It wasn't a fight or anything just a breakdown in communication stemming mostly from me. (but that is a story for another day)

So what in the world has possessed me, the unnerd to do this? (I'll define unnerd later too) Well let me tell you, I've really been meaning to learn more about this whole internet experience, and I must write.....Seriously I'm much more neurotic when I don't. So here I am, or should I say here we are if you are reading this. I didn't want to do just a live journal, though I suppose this isn't all that different. It's simply that I have no intention of merely writing journal type entries, also though this seems simple it seems somehow more involving and more of a learning experience......Let's see how this turns out.

UnNerd: a technically uncool person with little to no technical nerd like abilities........(If there's a real definition somewhere too bad that's mine)

Guess I should consider getting some books about this stuff......(lemme go find that money tree again) for now bear with me my battle plan is to wing it, and slowly work my way through the help section. That's all for now.