Ah, Chris. What a guy. Who better to record the wild chronicles of his life than himself? Within these posts are stories and jokes, thoughts and wild conspiracy theories. As Chris grows and continues to view life as nothing more than an extended comedy sketch so will this blog continue recording the weirdness of the life led by one really epic guy.
Today was a pretty good day. I spent my morning at United pretending to be more mature than the teenagers I was hanging out with. Afterwards Jenny and I went out for an ice skating date a Thompson's Point. When we got tired of skating in a circle we took a french fry break. Once we refueled we went back to circle skating just a little while longer. It was wonderful. Dates with my wife are one of my favorite things.
I had originally written this post in the Blogger app, but attempting to include the image above crashed the app and made it impossible to publish the post or even get the draft to show up in my drafts. So here I am retyping the whole thing. I'm pretty disappointed in you Blogger app.
Once Jenny and I got home she revealed that she had a mad scheme to consume the rest of our day. She had a plan to clean and rearrange our apartment. Now we have 2 overloaded bookcases in the living room instead of 1, our bed is in a new spot for the first time in 3 years, and our cat is super confused by all the changes. Jenny's scheme was so mad that we're actually still not done, so tomorrow should be interesting.
Speaking of tomorrow that's the end of January. That means the end of this blog challenge I set for myself. I will be busy until late tomorrow night, but I am determined to make time for a proper end to this. Check back tomorrow for the end of an era. Sleep tight.
I'm in a sleeping bag on the floor surrounded by snoring teenage boys. This is what I do for a living.
I was just closing my eyes to sleep when I remembered I hadn't blogged yet. I'm too stubborn to stop this now. Look, this is a post. Enjoy it. I'm going to sleep.
Today's post is brought to you courtesy of me not being able to sleep back on January 12th. Much of this was jotted down and set aside to be forgotten. A lot of the writing I do these days is set aside to be forgotten. Because this is my blogging revival month I will pick these thoughts out of my mental trashcan and turn them into a post. Enjoy my mental trash. I have a lot of angst. If you read my blog back in it's glory days you know that angst was the name of the game. It was an all the angst, all the time type situation up in The Chronicles of Chris. Back in those days my angst was mostly about three things: 1. Girls 2. Friends 3. Being inadequate I was afraid no one would ever love me and I would die alone. I was afraid that I would forever be trapped in my missionary kid isolation, without friends. I was afraid I would never be good enough, that I was a failure from the start. Now my list is slightly less diverse. I've condensed my angst into two very similar thoughts: 1. I didn't turn out right. I took a wrong turn somewhere and it's my fault. 2. I didn't turn out right. My life has been too abnormal and fragmented. It's not my fault but I can't fix it. When I was young I was obsessed with the "could bes" of my potential future. Now that the future is here I'm obsessed with the "what ifs" of my past. It's not that my life turned out bad by any means. I'm happily married. I have a job that pays my bills and doesn't violate my ethics. I have a cute cat. But it's obsessive, this constant "what if." Sometimes when I'm laying in bed trying vainly to fall asleep I'll feel a pang in my chest. I've led a life characterized by impermanence and I often mourn the "could-have-beens." I miss Estonia.
I'll listen to Streets at Night, most of which seems to have been filmed in Tallinn, and just have an unnamed longing. A part of me wishes I could relive my youth and be a better person. Waste less time. Be more than I am. A part of me wishes I could go back to that home. Portland is also home, but it's not complete. Neither is Estonia. They're 2 pieces to a puzzle that don't fit together. But They're the pieces I have, so I just try my best to make do and not feel the jagged, unfitting edges grinding against each other.
It's called being a TCK. Third Culture Kid. Kid, not adult. Some part of me believed I'd grow out of this. Other people move as adults, but they have a solid, complete base they are launching from. A whole, fitting puzzle. I just don't. I have no secure base. How can I begin to even try to figure out what's ahead if I have no real idea what's behind?I Visited Estonia this summer with my wife. So much has changed. But the heart was the same. I miss it so much.
Sometimes I'll have a specific image, Kadriorg, the tram stop at Tallinn university, the sky over red Old Town roofs, and my heart will just cry out. I don't know why or what to do about it.
I've never consciously admitted this to myself but I think nights like tonight are a part of why I quit writing. When I'm writing I become self aware and introspective. Sometimes I can't turn that introspection off. When I'm self aware I can't just distract myself from my frail human mind by scrolling through Facebook and binging Netflix. These are my stuffs, my painkillers and antidepressants. I'd rather feel nothing in digital oblivion than be sleepless at nearly 2am while my cat worries about me. When I was younger I was passionate about changing the world. In college my roommate and I went door to door with petitions and got involved in student government because we were angsty young anarcho-activists with a need to improve this crappy world. I wanted so desperately to do something good. I was disillusioned with "the system" but I had hope things could be better. I had hope worth fighting for.
Now I'm still disillusioned, but I also feel entirely disenfranchised as well. The world is crap, but I don't feel that I have the power to do anything about it. But now I can't help but wonder what would have happened if I had kept my will to fight? Who could I be if I wasn't beaten down by "the system" or "the man." Could I have made the world a better place? Should I have? Am I failing myself? Sometimes I feel like there's a sixteen year old boy looking at me over the span of 10 years with a fire in his eyes question how I could have become this lame old man? I'm actually extraordinarily intimidated by that 16 year self judging me. Back then I used my blog as this lens to examine my life and realize how awesome it was. I'd be like, "today I walked home and I was listening to music. Then I started running and felt like a ninja. I'm so freaking cool." Now my blog is still a lens to look at my life, but instead of thinking that I'm a ninja, or cool at all I look through the lens and say, "today I went to work. I sat in my office for 8 hours, then came home to my small apartment and educational debt to do dishes. Sometimes I play video games too. Also, I'm married. But no life is perfect, right? Right?"
In one of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books he describes time and alternate realities as spokes in a wheel. For some reason that has always stuck with me as I think about my life. Each time you choose a path you kill an entire alternate reality. The paths branch away and what could have been is gone. I wish I could write an email to alternate Chris, hear how things turned out for him. What if Chris had never left Portland as a kid? That one doesn't trouble me too much. What if Chris had never left the US? That one's a thinker. What if Chris had somehow found a way to stay in Estonia, or go back after college? What if I had pursued my writing? Or an education in psychology? Or a revolutionary activism? What if I had pursued anything at all?
It leads me to this crazy question: who am I now with all these jumbled, unmatched pieces? Does the sum of these parts even equal a whole? I don't know. Moving to another country and being a TCK wasn't my choice, so if going down that path screwed me up I can blame other people. But does that make it better? Does knowing that other people screwed me up making my being screwed up any less difficult? Then there are the choices I could control, like giving up on my writing. Did I fail myself? If I'm messed up and disappointed with my life and it's all my fault, well, am I just the worst? So there you have it. Here's my thoughts that keep me up at night. Aren't existential crises great? I hope you've enjoyed this whiny manifesto. Check back tomorrow for some (hopefully) less whiny nonsense. Here's hoping you have a night free of existential dread.
So, I can't think of literally anything to write at the moment. In lieu of something more thoughtful, take a slice of my life, described for you in mediocre detail.
At the moment I am sitting at my desk in the kitchen. I'm writing. Obviously. My desk is a mess of unsorted Magic cards, torn open envelopes, and forgotten receipts. I've brought a small space heater in and put it on the floor next to me. This winter is more mild than normal, but still quite cold. I moved my desk into the kitchen to free up room in the living room. My dream is to someday have a man cave type set up where I can have a room to myself for my gaming and hobbies. Someday.
Jenny just finished listening the first 2 recordings of my Gamechat conversations after having played the first 2 episodes of Life is Strange this week. Before writing I had been playing Batman: Arkham Asylum with the headphones only covering one ear so I could listen and chat with Jenny. Now Jenny is getting ready for bed and chatting with me as I write. Marriage is nice. It's cool to be able to hang out with your best friend for the rest of your life.
Now I'm done writing. I don't really have anything else to say tonight. I'll be back again tomorrow, check back then.
This isn't the post I had planned to post tonight. I have a much longer half written post saved in my drafts. Tonight I had Gamechat and had a really good discussion of Life is Strange chapter 3. Afterward I relaxed a little before settling in and beginning work on my blog post. Then Jenny came home.
Jenny normally doesn't get home from work on Tuesdays until after 10pm and is usually wiped out. Tonight she was especially tired after an exceptionally long day. So I left my blog post and focused on my wife.
I've been married about three and a half years now. I'm getting really good at it. I love being married, and I love my wife very much. That said, I feel that I'm very much still in the process of figuring this whole marriage thing out. I'm still learning how to try to balance everything. Right now the only thing I know is that when my wife needs me I make her my #1 priority.
There's not a conclusive thought or point to this post, this is just what I'm thinking right now. I'm pretty tired myself now so I'm off to bed. Fare thee well my friends, I will see you tomorrow.
The song I feel best describes today is probably "Float On" by Modest Mouse. If I were you I'd play the video so you can have a nice little soundtrack for this post. This is now a multimedia experience. Fancy.
So, today we resumed our regular youth programming minus a handful of our core volunteers. I was nervous about it and not sure how it would go. Well (spoiler alert) it went alright. Not great, not bad. Alright. That's good enough for me.
Things started out stressful. I'm doing all the pickups myself now, which makes things a bit more stressful. I like to plan things with the precision of a military strike force. The problem is that kids are kind of the opposite of that. As are their parents. I was delayed 25 minutes because one mother was mad at her children for some reason. I don't know the reason because I don't speak Portuguese. She yelled at them in Portuguese. For 25 minutes. Then I was delayed even further when I went to another stop and that mother hadn't even gotten her kids from school yet. I was super late already. At this point I was just a ball of plan-obsessed stress. I just had to sit back, take a deep breath, and let it go.
All in all I made it back with my last batch of kids at 4:35, 35 full minutes after my programs were supposed to start. But then everything was just alright. The kids weren't particularly well behaved, but no one broke anything either, so all in all a win. Also, one of them drew a picture of me. This what I look like to the children I work with.
So, that was my day. After dropping all the kids off I went to the grocery store. It was exceptionally uneventful. Now I'm home. I spent much of my post-work evening playing Life is Strange in preparation for Gamechat tomorrow. The game is still good. You should still go check it out.
So, about this whole blogging thing: I need to write about my piles of insecurity about writing and life. I'm supposed to be more vulnerable. That's like the whole point of blogging right. I'm intimidated by teenage Chris, and I feel that I've let down college Chris. That's some thoughts that deserve their own post. Will that post be written tomorrow? Will it be written ever? Will it be written in 10 years? Only one way to find out: check this blog every day for the next 10 years. You've been challenged. Step to it, bro. See you later.
Fun fact, I spent about 8 hours at work today. You know how some people don't work on weekends? Yeah, I'm going to complain about that forever.
Anyway, today was another average Sunday. I picked up a pile of cantankerous adults, then went right back out for a pile of fussy children. Then I taught 2 Sunday school classes. Then I sat in my office and watched coverage of the Star City Games Open Magic tournament while I was on building watching duty. Then I came home. So much excitement in my life right now, right?
Tomorrow is Monday and the day we're restarting out youth programs. I'm apprehensive because some of our leaders are out of commission for medical stuff for a while meaning I'm doing all the pick ups single handed. Should be interesting, right?
Dang, I feel bad that I don't really have anything to blog about. I want to do this well. I want to be a writer again. It just doesn't seem to be happening. Oh well. At least I've stuck it out this far. One more week to go. Hopefully you'll check back throughout the week for the rest of my daily blog post challenge. See you later.
Yesterday I mentioned I was planning to have all of today off for some R&R. That didn't work out to be strictly true. Instead of sleeping in Jenny woke me up at 7:30 to tell me I needed to do a pick up for work that I hadn't known about. So I started my day off by punching in for an hour. Then after lunch I had to spend about 45 driving to pick up a sick Jenny from an event she was at for work. So, my day wasn't all rest as I had hoped.
On the plus side I was able to take some time to watch the Star City Games Open in Atlanta while packing up a bunch of Pucatrades. I also managed to spend a bit of time playing Batman: Arkham Asylum. I've been really enjoying running around as a billionaire in tights. It's not exactly artsy gaming like a lot of what I've been doing lately, but it is critically acclaimed so I still feel good about it. Also, Arkham Asylum has been sitting in my gaming backlog forever because when last I tried to play it I was running it on minimum settings on my old laptop and it began crashing halfway through so I never had a chance to finish.
The other cool thing I did today was play Dungeons & Dragons with some of my old college friends online. Well, technically we're playing Dungeon World, a D&D knockoff, but it's just as fun. Playing a nerdy game together via Google hangouts has proven to be a pretty cool way to keep our friendships going despite the great graduation diaspora of 2012.
Looks like I've run out of structured and coherent things to say again. I'm not going to offer false hope that you might get another meaty blog post. You might, but I'm not guaranteeing it. Really the only way to find out is to check back. See you around, friend.
Today is Friday. Friday's are great. Friday's mean I get to spend the evening playing Magic and, hopefully, get to look forward to sleeping in on Saturday, I had a lot of fun at Magic tonight and am now looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow. Friday's are good days.
I feel exhausted. I often feel exhausted on Fridays, but this Friday I feel especially exhausted. There's no reason for it, though. That's what's weird about it. If anything this week was less labor intensive and stressful than average, not more. Maybe it's just the winter making me feel this way. Who knows. I was so tired that I had some trouble focusing at Magic. In fact, I'm having trouble focusing now. My eyelids are heavy and my brain is slugggish. Why am I so old and tired?
Also, you may have noticed that there was no post yesterday. I didn't have a ton of time or energy to write yesterday and it all got spent on my post over at The Meadery. It's cheating, but I'm going to count that post for yesterday. I did write yesterday, just not here.
So, that's that. I've got nothing else to say. As far as I know I have the whole day to myself for some R&R tomorrow so maybe I'll be able to pump out some real writing. Who knows? Check back tomorrow to see. Good night.
Normally on Wednesday nights we have Bible Study. It's normally quite enjoyable, but tonight I just wasn't feeling up to it. Luckily for me, Jenny is sick and almost nobody else could make it so Bible Study was cancelled. Hooray for a break!
It's not that there's been a lot going on, really, not anything I can put into words anyway. I've just been feeling overwhelmed by everything this week. Like, I'm just getting sensory overload from literally everything. Sometimes I just start to feel that way for a while. I don't know why. It's stressful though, so I appreciated the opportunity to slow down a bit tonight.
Work was pretty average, as usual. I made a lot of phone calls today, but ended up at an unfortunate amount of answering machines. So tomorrow will be a lot of calling people back. Eh, that's work. I also made time today to do some writing on my Magic blog. The prerelease events this weekend took up most of my usual weekend writing time so I'm behind on that. I haven't finished the post yet, but I've done the outline so now I just need to sit down long enough to put the flesh on the bones and hit publish.
When I came home I saw that there was a new Suicide Squad trailer. It's pretty amazing if you haven't seen it. If you've already seen it I would suggest watching it about 10 more times. I'm kind of super excited for this movie. I've never been particularly interested in Harley Quinn as a character, but her portrayal in this movie just seems super compelling. I can't wait to see where they take this story.
I used my unplaned free evening to make lasagna for dinner (my specialty) and finish watching Making a Murderer on Netflix with Jenny. We've also been enjoying listening to Serial, so we really enjoyed the documentary.
Now it's late and I'm blogging. I don't know if this window into my life is interesting, but it's here. I'm going to get off the computer now before I watch the Suicide Squad trailer again. Good night.
One of my New Year's Resolutions is to lead a more balanced life. More balanced in my time allocation, more balanced in my priorities, more balanced in where I invest my energy, and just more overall balanced. So far I'm not doing very well.
Today I had to juggle. Jenny took a sick day and I would have spent the whole day caring for her but I had some stuff I had to do in the office. On top of that, this evening was Gamechat, my video game book club, and I still hadn't finished the chapter we were going to discuss.
Somehow I managed to fit in my wife, work, and gaming in time, but it was hard. It was balanced, but in a way that resembled a house of cards. So, not really balanced.
The one last priority I hadn't added into the balance was writing. Here I am, though. Jenny's asleep with her head on my lap so I'm writing on my phone instead of the computer.
Could you imagine a world where all those priorities fit nicely into a balanced day without feeling rushed or haphazard? That's my dream. But still a dream only at this point.
Now it's time for another important piece of a balanced lifestyle: sleep. Goodnight, friend.
How do two young married millenials spend a day off from work? Loving life, mostly. I had a very nice day with my wife today. Now I'm going to tell you about it. That's what blogging is.
This morning I woke up refreshed. Yesterday had been hectic and I was grateful for the opportunity to sleep in. Once I woke up I found Jenny in the living room having just finished a small painting. Jenny has also been making it a goal to be more creative in the New Year. For me, creativity means writing. For her that means painting. I like when she paints because it's always a window to her emotional state so I immediately know how she's doing. Her painting today was happy, with a bright background and some trees.
I made us scrambled eggs for brunch and as we ate we watched iZombie and discussed our plans for the day. Despite the constant snowfall we decided to spend some time outside while there was daylight. I ran to the grocery store to get that checked off the to-do list and then Jenny and I went to Dobrá Tea, a fancy tea room with a huge selection of teas from around the world. Jenny got a complex Czech tea. I got a simple Chinese white tea. Jenny made fun of me for getting so simple (she also makes fun of me for loving vanilla ice cream). I was looking for something relaxing and the white tea delivered.
Jenny and I then went to the art supply store to restock for her creative needs. We had planned to go to Bao Bao for dinner, a cool looking dumpling shop I've been wanting to go to forever, but it apparently is not open on Mondays. So we did the next best thing and went to Misen Noodle Bar, an excellent Thai place. Jenny got Thai Fries, which are both delicious and hard to explain, and I got Gyoza to satisfy my dumpling craving.
After dinner Jenny and I were able to spend the rest of the evening relaxing and enjoying spending time together. We chatted about how our life goals and plans for the future. I'm 26, and that feels really old to me, but Jenny and I still have big dreams we're shooting for. Well, Jenny does. I'm impatient for our future. I want to know if we get where we're dreaming of. Five years ago I never would have dreamed my life would like this. Will my life five years from now look anything like my dreams?
Jenny and I watched the first few episodes of Making a Murderer. Very engrossing and interesting. I kind of want to just binge watch it all night but, you know, I'm adult now. Old man Chris needs his sleep.
Hey look, this post is ever so slightly more substantial than the last few days have been. Good, I think? Tomorrow there will be more, so, you know, read that too.
So, once again I forgot to write until I was preparing to go to sleep. Once again it's a Sunday and I'm too wiped out to put together any real thoughts. Instead I will write some complaints about my day then go to sleep.
This morning I had to be at work at 7:30 to begin pickups. It took me 20 minutes to clear the half inch sheet of ice off the windshield using a broken ice chipper and stubbornness. I did 3 trips totaling over 30 minutes to get all 23 people. The DJ on the radio referred to out as "Sunday, fun day," I assume as a way of mocking me.
Church was fine, if hectic. I didn't have a chance to catch my breath from 7:30 until 2:30 when I returned from dropping off all those people I had picked up. I knew I'd be staying at the office for a bit before I could go home and see Jenny. I thought I would be there until 3:30, 4:00 at the latest. I didn't manage to leave until 6.
Jenny had spent the day at home nursing a nasty cold. I also have a nasty cold, I just didn't have the option to stay home.
So, now it's bedtime. I'm exhausted from an extra long work day, my nose is stuffed up, and I have endless headache. But I wrote anyway. Freaking bullheaded psycho.
Tomorrow I'll write for real? Are you getting tired of that broken promise? That's fine. Goodnight.
I was just standing at the sink next to my wife as we brushed my teeth and doing a mental inventory of my day. Sleep in and cook a nice little brunch for Jenny? Check. Go to another prerelease and have fun with friends? Check. Snuggle my cat? Check. But there was something nagging me in the back of my mind.
"Jenny, I forgot to write" I said. I ran over to my computer, turned it on, and here I am, writing when I should be in bed.
I'm glad I've committed to a month of writing. It's been good to have a more active thought life and more opportunities for constructive introspection. That said, this is a lot of writing. I have exactly 2 weeks until the end of January and I plan to pump out 14 more posts just out of sheer stubbornness.
I'm sitting with my fingers on the keyboard and I just have nothing else to say. Check back in tomorrow for a post. It will have words in it. I guarantee that much.
As I am writing this I am sitting in Weekend Anime, my local
gaming store, surrounded by a group of my geeky friends. Today I played in
Standard (First place!) and Modern (Not last!) and now we’re all waiting for midnight
for prerelease to begin. In just over an hour we’ll be cracking open packs of
the newest cards and playing games together into the wee hours of the morning.
I got pulled away from that first paragraph to go play a
game of DC Deckbuilder. I won. My night is going exceptionally well. I’ve got
about 5 minutes before I get my prerelease pack and have to start building my
deck. I’ll finish up this post and put it up before I got to sleep. I think I’ll
update you on my night as I go. I’ve brought my laptop with me so that I can
write and also update my Pucatrade as I go.
Nothing too exciting in my pool. A lot of the people around
me opened really cool cards, so that’s a little sad. Now I just need to make
sure I win. A lot.
I just won. A lot. I went entirely undefeated and I feel
quite good. Now I get to take some packs home to play with Jenny. I had a
fantastic night. Two years ago I made a New Year’s resolution to make friends.
Back then I never could have imagined I would eventually spend a night out just
having a blast with a bunch of fellow geeks. This is something special. If this
isn’t nice, what is?
I’ll be back again tomorrow with more blog nonsense. I hope
this post wasn’t all that annoying or anything. Check back tomorrow for
something possibly a little bit more substantive. Sleep well, friend.
Remember this? Remember how much we all played this song?
So, it's not Friday yet. Technically. I mean, it's Friday in many other time zones, just not mine yet. But I'm extremely excited for Friday, so I guess you could say it is already Friday in my heart. Why am I excited for Friday, you ask? Well let me tell you.
Tomorrow (technically midnight Saturday) is the Oath of the Gatewatch Prerelease. That's a Magic: The Gathering thing. Magic comes out with an expansion of new cards about every three months. This means that not only do we get new cards to play with every three months, we also get to have a big party about it every three months! That's what a prerelease is. The set doesn't release until next Friday, but we're going to get a chance to play with all the cards a week early and have a great time celebrating with each other starting at midnight. So, right now I'm just over 25 hours away from having a bunch of fun with my geek friends. I am so excited.
So, this write-every-day thing has now been going for 2 weeks. That's a whole lot of writing. According to blogger I am getting some views, but I'm not sure what exactly that means. Chances are it's just my mom and some people randomly misclicking. Meh, I don't mind that much. I'm blogging again for me. I feel a lot more...fluid? Does that make sense? That's not the right word. But since I've started writing again I feel less rigid, both mentally and emotionally. I don't quite know how to express it, but I'll just say that it's been really good for me and leave it at that.
What do you have planned this weekend? Is it anything as exciting as what I'll be doing? Let me know. Also, check back tomorrow. I'll be writing my post from the game store while waiting for midnight so it should be pretty good.
Three years ago my wife and I got a cat. I had never had a pet before and I was skeptical. Pets get fur everywhere. Their food costs money. Sometimes they even poop on the floor! Why would I want a gross little creature like that in my home draining my resources and making a mess? But I love my wife, so I acquiesced and agreed to get a cat. We adopted a rescue cat. I was willing to be open minded, but I was still a skeptic at heart.
Kitten-Sneaky sneaking out for some food.
Then I met her. The cat foster mother from Friends of Feral Felines had been calling her Giselle. We didn't like that name and decided to name her ourselves, but we didn't know what her name should be. We decided we would have to get to know her a little first. She got dropped off in our apartment and immediately look for a place to hide. She finally settled underneath our bed and wouldn't come out for anything. We put her food dish out and sat on the floor next to the bed so she could get used to our voices. Eventually she stuck her head out for just long enough to get a little food and let me take the picture above before running back into hiding.
Jenny and I continued chatting and waiting for her to come out. About 10 minutes later we heard the sound of little paws on the floor...from behind us. We turned around and saw this kitten walking into our bedroom from the living room! She had been in front of us under the bed and had managed to sneak by without us noticing to go explore the living room. What a sneaky little cat, I thought. So we named her Sneaky.
Sneaky relates to Batman because she also fights crime by night. Her crime is just more localized to our apartment and the supervillains are a bit more stuffed-mouse-toy-esque.
For the first few months after Sneaky joined our family I was unemployed. Our first year of "real world" living after college was kind of rough. Jenny was working part time doing soul-crushing data entry and I couldn't seem to hold down anything long term. I started to get pretty bummed out. Spending each day sitting at home filling out job applications and feeling like a hopeless failure really took a toll on me.
Then Sneaky moved in. The upside to me being unemployed was that her and I had an abundance of time to bond. I would pause halfway through applying for a job and feel overwhelmed. Then I would notice her curled up on the floor and go pet her. There's something healing about a cat's purr. As she got to know me better she eventually started to sense whenever I was particularly upset and would come sit in my lap and snuggle me. I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried while holding Sneaky.
I eventually got my current job and things got a lot better, but the bond that we formed during that time has held. I love my cat, and dang, she loves me too.
"All things in moderation," Sneaky says to me, "except cat treats. Can't have too many of those."
Sneaky has a very large selection of interests. When she's not looking out the window (we call it watching TV), eating, or playing with her toys she likes to try to figure out what kind of weird stuff her humans are up to. From a young age she has had an interest in my geeky hobbies, though I think as more of an academic study of the geek in his natural habitat. Sneaky loves it when we pull out her laser pointer to chase and will run back and forth until she's short of breath. She also enjoys playing fetch with us. I thought only dogs played fetch, but Sneaky loves it when we throw her toys for her and will even pick them up and bring them back to us to throw again.
Sneaky crawls into my lap whenever I sit down at the computer for a while. Can't say that I mind all that much.
Sneaky also just loves to snuggle. Whenever I sit down to play games or write she likes to sit in my lap while I pet her head. There's something really special about holding a purring cat in your lap as she falls asleep.
So, there's my love letter from a crazy cat guy post. Hope you enjoyed. Sneaky's ridiculously cute, so by virtue of that alone this post is probably a 10/10. I've now written about 4 of the 8 topics I listed as options in my post on January 1st, so there's that accomplished. I still need to fit in the rest of those topics, though. Oh, also, I mentioned yesterday I would try writing earlier in the day. Today I did. It was good. Maybe I'll try to keep that up. Check back tomorrow for more words written by!
One of my New Year's Resolutions this year was to be a more unified self. By that I mean to bring together each piece of myself, my intellect and my faith, my gaming and my socializing, all into one consistent version of myself. Today I had a very cool experience that I think was a great unification activity.
I mentioned yesterday that I was joining a "video game book club" of sorts, Gamechat. Tonight was our first night meeting together to chat and discuss Life is Strange Episode 1: Chrysalis. Life is Strange is a really emotionally and intellectually engaging game. I was already really enjoying how thought provoking an experience it had been. Having the opportunity to discuss the game with some intelligent and like-minded gamers was a new experience for me, and really enhanced my processing of gameplay and narrative. If you're interested in listening to the discussion you're in luck, it was recorded! If you're interested in a podcast-esque discussion of Life is Strange check it out here: http://132productions.com/GameChat/GameChat.html
The bonus to listening to that is you get to hear my sexy voice. By sexy I do of course mean slightly too high and speaking much too fast.
So, I'm not sure what else to write about. I did some cleaning in my office today. We've been collecting bottles and cans since this summer as a fundraiser. It was getting to the point where I had an absurd amount in my office and they were just making a mess. I dropped them off and the whole lot, about 13 trash bags full, got us $52. So, hooray! Fundraising! Either way, my office is on the road to cleanliness now and that's good.
Anyway, I'm feeling just about ready for sleep now. I think I might toy around with writing at different times of day so I'm not always so exhausted by the time I sit down to blog. Maybe if I write in the mornings I could get a bit more creativity flowing? Who knows. We'll find out! Check back tomorrow, and the next day, and so on for more rambling/blogging/etc.
So, I'm just going to tell you about my day because I think that's the kind of relationship we have. Also, I'm too tired to pull together anything else.
This morning I did not want to leave bed. I'd had trouble sleeping and got up for about a half hour in the middle of the night. I had a lot on my mind, so I spent the time writing, which is productive I guess. That writing is just sitting in a draft at the moment, but it's there. It was just one of those things where I couldn't stop thinking about something until I worked through it.
So, once I finally did crawl out of bed I went in to work. My regular youth programs are still on break for a few weeks so right now I'm in full preparation mode. Right now it's all about planning and getting the word out. So I spent my morning on Facebook, creating events and sending messages. It's a little weird that I use my personal Facebook for work. I spend all day on Facebook in the office, then I head home and go on the exact same Facebook. I'm not going anywhere with this, I'm just pointing out that it's odd.
Once I got home I devoted a large portion of my night to playing Life is Strange Episode 1: Chrysalis. It's really good. Like, exceptionally deep and engrossing. You should go play this game right now. The story is nuanced and thought-provoking. The gameplay is fluid and narrative focused. I cannot stress enough that this game is good. Stop reading my lame blog and go play this game.
Fun fact, I wasn't just playing Life is Strange for fun. I've been invited to join a "video game book club" of sorts. A group of us are playing through Life is Strange one episode at a time and then meeting to discuss it. I'm really quite excited about it. That starts tomorrow night, so I had to make sure I finished chapter 1 today.
Anyway, that's my day. I hope all this excitement didn't overwhelm you. Alright, now that I've fulfilled my writing commitment I'm going to sleep. Sleeping is great. For the maximum "things-Chris-Loves" experience you should go play Life is Strange and then go to sleep. Then check back tomorrow for more blogged nonsense.
So, I'm starting to think I just can't really write well on Sundays. Something about the crazy, hectic quality of the work I do on Sundays just drains any ability to be creative. I had planned to write about Gamechurch today but, you know, I'm not. Because I'm tired. I'm willing to forgive myself for that, though, because yesterday I wrote nearly 5000 words and it was my birthday (the rest of those words were about Magic on the Meadery.)
Today was a more or less normal Sunday, except just a little bit better than average. I had to do twice as many pick ups as normal today. Two routes, six stops, and fourteen kids. But by some miracle all the kids were ready right on time rather than making me wait 10 minutes at each stop. It's almost as if they got together and decided that the best birthday gift they could give me was a low-stress Sunday morning. Heck, I really appreciated it. That's a good gift!
When I got them all back to church and in the Sunday School classroom it turned out that the boss had cupcakes for everyone and all the kids sang Happy Birthday for me. It was pretty nice. I had to finish my lesson before I was able to eat my cupcake, so it was hard to focus on the teaching because I had chocolate frosting on my mind the whole time.
Once I got home I was feeling tired and had kind of a headache so I took some time for some mellow activities. I sat down and did some organizing of my Magic cards, some Pucatrading, and put on some crap Netflix (Okay, I'll shamefacedly admit it was Star Wars: Clone Wars. It's technically canon, so I need to watch it!) It was nice to just have some focused chill time.
So, that's my day. Fairly average. I'll write again tomorrow, as per usual. Will it be good? Will it be terrible? Check back tomorrow and take a chance on me! (Obligatory song below)
So, it's my birthday. Yep. 26 years old. I am now arguably in my "late" twenties. That's scary. Do you know what I thought of 26 year olds when I was a teenager? I thought they were old people. Do you know what I thought of 26 year olds when I was in college? I thought they were out of touch and stupid. Do you know what I think of 26 year olds now? Basically all the same stuff.
Now that I'm actually writing this post I'm having a lot more trouble articulating all this then I thought I would. Probably because I'm an old man now and can't remember my thoughts.
Okay, lists are easy. Let's make a list. I'm afraid of:
1. Being out of touch socially/being less cool than I already was.
2. Not having achieved enough in 26 years and being a failure and a loser.
3. My body and mind becoming decrepit and useless.
4. Losing the creativity, passion, confidence, and hopefulness of my youth.
5. Becoming like the embittered and cynical adults I see around me.
6. DEATH.
So, that's a lot. Let's go in order and break this down piece by existentially horrifying piece.
1. Being out of touch socially/being less cool than I already was.
So, I'm a Youth Pastor. That's my job. I spend my time hanging out with people who are between 8 and 20 years younger than me. My life is in constant stark contrast to youth. Like, sometimes I feel young and then I look at some 17 year old who is so much more in touch with culture and technology. I used to be that guy. Now I don't even know how an Ipad works.
I don't want to become irrelevant. I don't need to change the world. I don't need to be famous. I just need to not be a walking, talking waste of time and space.
There's really no way around this one. As people become old they get out of touch. Maybe if I spent more time with people my own age I wouldn't feel it quite as strongly. But as of now, I feel it. A lot.
2. Not having achieved enough in 26 years and being a failure and a loser.
I've been out of college and married for almost 4 years now. I had degrees in two fields, neither of which I work in. I've been in my job for 3 years. Have I done enough?
In my 26 years I've managed to scrape out a college degree and land a job as a more or less expendable youth pastor. The one achievement I think has been perfect is my marriage. But other than my marriage has the past 26 years led to anything? Am I going anywhere? I often think not. I don't see myself being a youth pastor in Portland, Maine for the next 20 years. But I don't see any other prospects either. I've hit 26 and I feel like I'm just kind of a dead-end person. I don't want to be a failure. I don't want to be a loser. I want to be worth something.
3. My body and mind becoming decrepit and useless.
I've always had trouble with memory. My dad does too, so I think it might be genetic. My poor memory is a big part of why I cherish autobiographical writing so much. There are massive portions of my life that I just don't remember clearly. Luckily I wrote them down. But here's the thing, if my memory is this bad at 26 how much worse will it be in 10 years? Or 20? Will I remember anything? Will I be coherent as a human?
I've been lucky to have a more or less healthy body, at least as far as I know. But have you heard of this thing called cancer? Family history is cool. It's not just cancer, that's just the worst case scenario. 2 people at my church are having knee replacement surgeries. As people age their bodies fail them. I don't want my body to fail me. I don't want to become weak and useless.
4. Losing the creativity, passion, confidence, and hopefulness of my youth.
I think this one is one of the most terrifying to me because on some level I know it's already happened. I don't write anymore. I mean, I guess I'm writing now, but who knows how long that will last. When I was younger I used to crave opportunities to be creative. I would actively seek out times to write. I would shut myself in my room for hours crafting stories, both fiction and otherwise, and I would be filled with the thrill of creativity. Now I only write if I force myself into it. Now only write out of obligation. What if I get so old I lose even the obligation?
In college one of my best friends and I would go around with petitions and each joined the Student Government Association because we were passionate and hopeful and we wanted to affect change. I used to be passionate and hopeful. I used to believe I could change the world. Now I feel like I've seen too much. My wife works fighting human trafficking and both her and I are very aware of issues of social injustice. My wife looks at these things and has the passion and hope to fight. I see these things and I sigh and retreat a little bit deeper into myself.
I used to be confident. I used to believe I could do anything. I used to not let existential crises get me down. I used to believe my confidence was bigger than anything this world could throw at me, be it stress at work, cutting personal failures, or even outright insults to my own competence. I was wrong. I feel like my confidence shrinks each passing year.
5. Becoming like the embittered and cynical adults I see around me.
Adults suck. Yeah, I know that at 26 I'm also an adult. I suck too, alright? Despite being an old man now I'm still lumping people who feel older than me into the category of "adult." So many adults I see me around me are just embittered husks of their former shells. Pastors more focused on budgets than ministry, social activists who don't believe in change, people fighting to keep the status quo for fear of anything else, people who hate their spouses and actively speak badly about them, parents so burnt out from raising their kids that they're barely even doing that, etc.
I want to be more than that. I try to view these people as cautionary tales. I get that there's a lot to be bitter about. Seriously, half my blog posts are just whiny existential crises. But that's no reason to just be bitter about life as a whole. As I type this there's a twinge in my chest as I recognize how much of that cynicism I cling to myself. I don't want to be a grown up of that's what it means.
6. DEATH.
So, this one is kind of a big deal. I don't have a ton to say about it, really. If I die tomorrow my wife will be alone. Who will feed my cat? Will I be remembered as someone who lived well? Will I be largely missed, or will only my wife and family care that I'm gone? Will my life have been worth anything? I try really hard not to think about this one, but, you know, I'm going to die someday. We all do. There's nothing I can do about that, and that's pretty dang scary.
Conclusion?
Geeze, that was some pretty heavy stuff. Are you okay? If that depressed you pretty severely go seek help. Eh, guess you're okay. That's really all I've got for today. I don't know what kind of psycho I am that every birthday ends up feeling like some kind of annual existential crisis. Hope you enjoyed the post at least a little. I'll be back again tomorrow, hopefully writing about Gamechurch. Come check it out.
Fridays are the best. This Friday was no exception. I ducked out of work early to come home and make lunch for Jenny and was able to enjoy some time with her before heading off to play Magic. I had a great time at Magic. A friend of mine was visiting who I don't get to see that often and it was nice to chat and play some games with him. I managed a 2-1 finish at Standard and a 2-3 finish at Modern. Very satisfying results all around. I'll be writing about Magic on my blog on The Meadery at some point this weekend, so feel free to check that out.
Also, tomorrow's my birthday. Well, technically today. It's past midnight. I'm turning 26. That's mega-old. Like, super insanely ancient. Tomorrow I will be writing a birthday blog post and I think I'm going to focus on my fears associated with again. So, look forward to that. I'm also going to see Stars Wars: The Force Awakens again with my wife for my birthday, and getting burgers, so it should be a pretty great day.
Sunday I think I'll blog about Gamechurch. That's something I should do, and Sunday seems as good a day as any to blog about church related stuff. If you don't know about Gamechurch you should definitely read my post. If you need a tidbit to get you interested just know that it's all about telling gamers that Jesus loves that.
So, that's it for today. Another obligatory psudo-post. Meh. I didn't get home until 11pm, so I'm not going to worry about it too much. I'm too tired to care. I'm going to bed. It's my 26th birthday, old man Chris needs his sleep!
So, it's January 7th. I've been posting a blog post once a day since last year (haha, New Year humor is the best.) I feel like I'm running out of gas. My post on January 1st included a list of 8 things I could write about. I've covered 3 of them. But I'm tired. I'm tired and grumpy and my stomach kind of hurts. My apartment is extremely cold. I can't muster the attention to even play a video game right now, let alone produce some coherent writing.
All fussing aside, today was an exceptionally average day. I went to work, sent some emails, made a to-do list, crossed stuff off the to-do list, and then came home. Not much more interesting to write about. Tomorrow I'll be going to Friday Night Magic, the weekly Magic tournament at my local store where I'll be participating in both Standard and Modern events. It's not competitive level so it doesn't count toward my New Year's Resolution, but it's still going to be really nice to see some friends and relax.
Geez, this post is awful. I'd rather post nothing than just post a few paragraphs of me whining about minor inconveniences. Just another reminder of why I stopped writing. Don't get me wrong, I love writing and it's been doing me a world of good to be blogging again. I just can't bring the creativity every day. Today is just an off day so I guess you're getting an off post. So it goes. Check back tomorrow for something hopefully a little more interesting.
I love plans. Let me restate that: I have a desperate, pathological, obsessive need for plans. I'm at my happiest when I have split a day into 96 separate 15 minute segments planned out in fine detail. I'm not joking. I'm basically an OCD wreck version of Hannibal Smith from The A-Team (See video).
But sometimes a plan doesn't come together. Sometimes I have a great plan and everything changes. Sometimes I have nights like tonight.
If you've been keeping up with my adventures on the blog thus far you may remember that tonight I had planned to attend a competitive Magic: The Gathering event. I had planned to use this to fulfill one of my New Year's Resolutions. I had planned to see some of my gaming friends. I had planned to spend my evening relaxing and having fun. I had plans!
Can you guess what happened to my plans?They changed. You better believe I scowled so hard. Wednesday nights are normally our Young Adult Bible Study night, but we had been on a break due to the holidays. We were supposed to resume tonight, a fact that I had forgotten and really hoped everyone else had forgotten as well. Unfortunately for me, they had not. Normally I'd have considered blowing it off, but I provide transportation for 2 other people so if I don't go neither do they. Also, I guess prioritizing God stuff is a good thing. I guess.
Anyway, I took some time to mope and then made peace with the fact that my plans would have to change. I wouldn't get to compete in a cool event and write about it on my blog. I tried to focus on the silver lining. The upside of all this was that I would be able to spend a couple hours at home relaxing with my wife. I love my wife and I enjoy spending time with her. So, I adjusted my plans. I felt settled and okay. We went home, took off our coats, and started chatting. Then her phone rang.
My wife is the go-to person when someone needs help. As we were told through the course of events tonight, "I always call Jenny first because she gets it done!" Also, when I say need help I don't mean like moving a couch. I mean like locked out of your apartment with your infant with nowhere to go in the middle of winter in Maine. Jenny is basically a super hero. Unfortunately Super Plan Man, a.k.a. me, is her reluctant sidekick. I was grumpy to have my plans disrupted once again. On the other hand I do legitimately care about other people so I was willing pretty quickly to shift my night to accommodate saving the day. And yes, we did save the day.
After that we went to Bible Study and ate nachos. The nachos weren't quite as good as playing Magic but, hey, free nachos. After Bible study Jenny and I rushed home to listen to the Serial podcast while we cleaned the house to prepare for a friend of Jenny's who was coming to visit. While Jenny and her friend chatted in the living room I finally had a chance to look at what was left of my night and plan it my way. My plan went like this:
Phase 1: Finish Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea Chapter 2
Phase 2: Blog
Phase 3: Go to sleep
Go play this game. Bioshock Infinite is a great game on it's own. Burial at Sea Chapter 2 was just mind blowing.
You may notice that I'm in phase 2 of my master plan at the moment. Phase 1 was a massive success. I finished Burial at Sea and loved it. Phase 2 is just about finished. I've blogged/rambled about my day and I'm just about ready to hit publish. Now I'm getting pretty excited about phase 3. This post had much less of a point than I normally like to have in my posts, but I think that might be okay. Anyway, check back tomorrow for more excellent fussy old man ramblings.
A little over a year ago I made the decision to get into Magic: The Gathering. I wrote a blog post about it. Let me give you a quick recap of why I decided to get into Magic:
1. I needed to make friends.
2. I needed some intellectual stimulation in my life.
3. I needed something in my life that was a stress-free break.
4. I needed to "let my geek flag fly."
5. I needed to have something that made me feel proud of my self and competent as a person.
#1 on that list was probably my biggest motivator. Making friends as an adult seems to be nearly impossible, and I was extremely lonely. I'm not the world's most social person and it had reached the point where things were just unhealthy.
My story begins simply. I decided I wanted to get into Magic. I bought the Speed Vs. Cunning Duel Deck and my wonderful wife and I sat down at our kitchen and table and pretended to know how to play. First off, major kudos to my wife for being willing to do that with me. She was so willing to support me getting into the hobby and help me out. She's great.
From there I bought a Deck Builder Toolkit and built myself a nonsense little deck. I was so proud. It felt so good to be creative and be piecing together the puzzle of this new hobby. The videos of Tolarian Community College were a massive help to me in learning about this deeply complex game. If you are interested in getting into MTG or just enjoy hypnotically compelling product reviews I suggest you check it out.
From what I could see on the internets it seemed that playing in drafts would be a really good way for me to get into playing Magic. A Magic "draft" is, in simple terms, when you open booster packs and pass them around a group each taking turns picking 1 card at a time to build a deck. Then you play those decks against each other. It's great because you're getting more cards for your collection and also getting a lot of practice with diverse strategies.
So, with some trepidation I looked up when my local gaming shop was holding drafts and walked in on a Monday night ready to go. Well, I say ready to go when what I really mean is I'd bought card sleeves and watched a few youtube videos. I had an employee at the shop give me some advice. He told me to remember the pick order acronym B.R.E.A.D.:
B=Bombs, the cards that can win a game on, or nearly on, their own
R=Removal, cards that kill creatures and other threats your opponents present.
E=Evasion, creatures that have ways to get past blockers to damage your opponent.
A=Aggro, aggressive and fast creatures.
D=Dirt, the stuff no one wants.
For some reason I focused in really hard on the center letter of B.R.E.A.D. and when I opened my first pack, after the panic had subsided, I noticed some of my creatures had flying. "Flying is a really good keyword!" I thought, and went on to build a terrible Blue-White fliers deck. It didn't win at all. It didn't matter. I had a lot of fun and I had finally taken the step into my gaming community. I had met for the first time people who would eventually become friends.
A month after my first draft I had my first opportunity to go to a prerelease. Magic gets a new expansion quarterly, and each time a week before the official release stores hold "prerelease" events that give everyone an opportunity to play with and get some of the new cards before they are officially released. I still felt new and uncomfortable in the community, but I had decided to jump in headfirst. I went to my first ever prerelease event, a midnight event for the set Fate Reforged (The set title seems quite fitting). Not only did I have a great time, but I came in second place! It was an amazing feeling. I credit my regular success at midnight prereleases largely to the fact that I can function quite well while tired. I've definitely won a few games due to sleepy opponents.
This is what I'm talking about when I say Magic is my stress free break. Also, you should check out Cardboard Crack. They've got some solid comedy going on.
Over the next month I continued to draft and trade in order to build up my collection and build my dream deck. Eventually I had collected most of what I needed in order to join in on my first Standard tournament. I lost terribly, but I was able to meet new people and experience an entirely new format for playing magic. (Note: Magic is played in a variety of formats. Standard is the most commonly played, and consists of only cards from a limited card pool of the last several sets. Modern, which I will mention later, consists of cards from 2003 until now.)
I didn't give up on Standard, but I also didn't focus on it too heavily. I was mainly focused on drafting regularly until a magical day in April. My brother-in-law Jon, a fellow Magic player and gamer, was visiting with my in-laws and that day also happened to be the Dragons of Tarkir Game Day. Game Days are Standard tournaments that happen a few weeks after a set is released that kind of celebrate the new set and give players a chance to toy around with the new cards in a competitive setting. They also give out pretty sweet promotional cards! So, Jon and I decided to go to the Game Day together. I didn't have very high expectations for myself. I thought I might win a match or two. But then I started winning....and winning...and I didn't stop winning. I only had a single loss and ended up taking third place out of 16 people! I could not have been more proud. My goofy little deck had brought me to a successful finish at a tournament. I was thrilled.
Around this time I heard about The Meadery, an MTG specific social media network. For fun I joined and posted my signature deck, "Sultai Elementals," on the website. Next thing I knew someone in my game store's Facebook group posted that my deck had been featured in an article on The Meadery! I was amazed and overjoyed. It was the coolest feeling in the world. For a moment I felt famous. I felt like the greatest Magic player in the world. I felt good about myself. I really cherish this time in my life. Having generally pretty low self-esteem, the 1-2 punch of tournament success followed by public recognition was life changing. The message of "you're good at something! You're a competent human being!" meant so much to me.
I had also discovered Pucatrade, an online MTG trading service. If you're interested you should click that link and sign up. If you do I'll get bonus referral points! #ShamelessPlug Anyway, as the competitive environment shifted my deck became less effective and I found myself wanting to switch to something different. I used Pucatrade to switch over to a more established and competitive deck known as Abzan Midrange. After switching I started to win. A lot.
Me on the left as Liliana Vess, Maya in the middle as Nissa Revane, and Jenny on the right as Chandra Nalaar.
This summer our good friend Maya was living with us and working with me. I had been saving up store credit from my numerous wins and invited Maya and my wife, Jenny, to join me at the prerelease for the summer set: Magic Origins! They agreed on one condition--we all had to dress up as characters from Magic. Well, you can see the picture. It was awesome. Also, yes I cosplayed as a female character. I also got my wife and good friend to go play Magic with me. So worth it. It was super fun having my friends with me and getting to introduce them to something I love.
By now I was having a lot of success with my Standard deck. In September there came an opportunity to take my game to the next level. Magic has a quarterly pro tour with a grand prize of $40k. My store was hosting a Preliminary Pro-Tour Qualifier (PPTQ), my first step towards Magic fame and fortune. I had never been to an event at such a highly competitive level and I had no idea what to expect. I have not before or since faced competition quite so fierce. Despite the high caliber of my opponents I still managed to get a record of 2-2-1 (2 wins, 2 losses, 1 tie), landing me straight in the middle of the pack. All things considered I'm quite proud of that for my first ever competitive event.
We're now at just about a month ago in the story. Many of my new friends had been pushing me to get into Modern, a Magic format featuring older and more powerful cards and strategies. Because of it's age, the cards in Modern can be expensive and hard to come by, but I had been slowly trading to piece together everything I would need to finalize a competitive Modern deck. At the beginning of December I went to my first Modern tournament. The next week I went again! I had a blast! Also, Modern fanned into flame the spark that Magic had begun to produce in me, the spark of creativity. Thanks to Modern I began to write again. For the first time in over a year I blogged. I blogged, just not here. I began to write about my experience with Modern on The Meadery. Check out my two posts!
1. You Never Forget Your First Time (My Intro to Modern)
2. Stepping into Modern, Take 2
So that brings me to where I am today. Magic has brought me new friends, given me more self-confidence, and even inspired me to write again. One of my New Year's Resolutions is to place in the Top 8 of a Competitive REL Magic event. Tomorrow I might just have that chance. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be blogging about my string of victories and glory.
One way or another, check back tomorrow to hear more about this life of mine. It will be probably be great.
(Note: This post is up on January 6th because it took so long to write. This counts as my post-a-day post for January 5th.)
Today I went to a paint bar. Before you start to think I have illusions of grandeur about my artistic talents, let's clarify that this wasn't my choice. I don't know whose idea it was, but this was a part of the office Christmas party to celebrate a holiday season of hard work. I came for the sandwiches and chips. It would have been rude to then blow off the paint bar. Now that I've written an extraneous disclaimer I feel I can move on.
This post is going to have pictures in it. People like pictures. So prepare to like this post. It's going to be great.
So we get to the paint bar and I'm just super skeptical. I don't know that I've ever painted before in my life. I like the keep my creativity to the realm where I can hit CTRL+Z if I screw things up. So we walk into the paint bar and as I walk among the collection of clean canvases and paint splattered table my apprehension only grows. I make sure to claim a seat where my canvas is facing away from everyone. The class has a few minutes before it starts so I stand up to walk around and explore a little bit. Then I see it. "Kurt Vonnegut." Up near the ceiling is written the name of the guy I want to be when I grow up. I notice that the name is attached to a quote: "Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow." I still didn't particularly want to spend my aftenoon painting badly, but I couldn't help but think "Well, if Kurt Vonnegut says so..."
It's a selfie. Look at me fitting in with my generation. Go Millennials!
I began painting. I didn't really understand most of what was going on, but I found that if I just pretended my brush was a broom and I was trying to clean off the canvas things went pretty well. At one point I spent about 5 minutes just blending the yellow paint onto the white because I hadn't been given any other instructions yet and and I wanted to look busy. "Blending can be really fun," the instructor said, "and sometimes it can be hard to know when to stop. Because it's so fun." I took the hint. I only blended a little bit more and then stared out the window waiting for further instructions.
At this point I was considering just calling it finished. I would name this piece Snow Corpses Observing Nightmare Trees
Somewhere in between blending the blue of the sky into the red of the sunset and painting those trees I began to believe I had mastered painting. The instructor said to make the trees so they would have "personality." Holy crap, look at all the personality! I'm considering quitting my job and becoming a full time tree painter. The instructor described the leaf things on the trees as "little mustaches" and I was so on board for painting mustaches that I just went nuts on those trees.
I presented Jenny with the final product because I'm the king of romance.
After putting on all the fine details and letting the paint dry we all headed back to the office. My dear wife hadn't been able to come because she had to do work stuff, which was kind of lame. I gave her my painting to decorate her office with. Not too bad if I say so myself. I'm probably the next great artist of this generation. You should offer to buy this piece from my wife before I blow up and all my paintings cost millions of dollars.
So, that's what I did today. Did you like that? Three whole pictures! This post was just decadent. If you enjoyed all this decadence you should definitely check in for tomorrow's post. The current plan is to use tomorrow to write about how my experience with Magic: The Gathering has been. I'm not guaranteeing that's what will happen, but it's what I'm thinking about. Anyway, that's another day done and I'm still feeling pretty good about writing more frequently. It just feels good. Also, I'm seeing that these posts are getting views. If you're reading this drop me a comment just so I have an idea of who my audience is. If you'd rather not that's cool too. You're free to keep your mystique, my mystery reader. Anyway, until tomorrow here's me, the world's best painter, signing off.
It's 10pm on a Sunday night. I've been thinking all day about what to write about and I've been pretty much drawing a blank. As per my challenge to myself I'll still post something, even if it's a short post like this is likely to be.
Today was a pretty average Sunday for me. I got out of the house a few minutes later than I had planned after having some eggs go straight from the pan, onto my pant leg, and down to the floor. I picked up a few kids for Sunday School and then taught Sunday School and Jr. Church. Attendance was average. Behavior was average. Nothing to write home (or blog) about, really. The only notable item was a meeting after church with the mix of employees and volunteers who comprise the "Youth Leadership Team" that helps make the programs I run happen. We set dates and no one yelled. Last time we had a meeting like this there was yelling. 2015 was a rough year at work.
What other life updates can I throw your way? This weekend I've spent some time playing FEZ as a part of my plan to focus on less junk food-y gaming. I'm not a big fan of puzzle games in general and can only play for a bit at a time before I get frustrated. When I get frustrated I've been hopping over to the Burial at Sea DLC for Bioshock Infinite. It is a shooter, but I'd consider this more intellectual. I've always been a fan of noir style so I've enjoyed the influences of that as well as just more interesting story-infused gameplay. I just finished chapter 1 before beginning this blog post. I hear you play as Elizabeth in the second chapter, so I'm quite excited for that.
The only other thing I can think to mention is that I am planning on attending a Magic: The Gathering Grand Prix Trial (GPT). This qualifies as a competitive event as relates to my New Year's Resolutions, so let's hope I can put up some solid results. Either way I'll be writing about it on here. For those in the know who may be curious, I'll be piloting an Abzan Midrange deck. Why Abzan? It wins tournaments. I plan to win.
I think that's it for tonight's post. I do have other things I could write about, but I'm feeling pretty tired and I'm also just a lazy person. Maybe tomorrow's post will be more interesting? Who knows? Only one way to find out. Check back tomorrow and see what's up.
Remember yesterday when I said I would someday maybe write about my New Year's resolutions for this year? Well I'm doing it! Look at that, I'm already following through on my writing goals. I'm basically a saint.
So, 2015 was on the whole a pretty tense year. But one take away from all that stress is that The Serenity Prayer is super legit. The majority of the things that raise my blood pressure in life are people. People are just the worst. They are rude, selfish, stupid, and often simply abrasive characters in the story of my life. But here's the thing, I can't control those people. So, since I can't do away with the stressors that made 2015 a difficult year it seems my only option is to make myself better. If I can better equip myself to handle 2016 hopefully this time next year I'll be writing a blog post bragging about the better man I have become.
While at Urbana I made a list of New Year's Resolutions for 2016. Because I'm a compulsive organizer and am obsessed with round numbers I decided on fifteen things split into five different categories for different areas of my life. Those areas are Faith, Marriage, Friends, Work, and Gaming. You may think that's weird, but I don't care what you think. This is my blog and my list. So, without further ado, let's break this down.
My 2016 New Year's Resolutions:
Faith:
1. Be a more unified person. As in, not a Christian and a gamer and a writer, etc., but a Christian writer gamer, if that makes sense. I have a tendency to segment my life into to these little areas and try to avoid any crossover. That's super unhealthy and just plain impractical. This year I am going to work on bringing each area of my life together into one cohesive whole.
2. Meet up with God 1-on-1 every day. I work for a church and am married to a fellow Christian, so I spend a lot of time praying, reading the Bible, and focusing on God but very little time doing that on my own. This year I will work on doing those things alone and with more of a personal focus.
3. Find someone with whom I can pray and "get real" with. I'm married, which is super cool, but I find that the only person I have in my life to talk to about anything real or serious is my wife. But then who can I talk to if I'm having a hard time with my wife? Who do I go to? This year I will find someone, praying that God will put someone in my life.
Marriage:
4. Blog everyday in January. "What does that have to do with your marriage?" you ask, judging my lofty goals. Well, here's the deal. Marriage is hard. I've been married three and half years now and I'm still just barely figuring this whole thing out. Right now an issue I need to address in my marriage is my lack of self-care. I go and go focusing on work and my wife and whatever else but without time to care for myself I end up just going until I crash. This year I will write as a means of caring for myself.
5. Be more honest and vulnerable. You notice how it's kind of weird and awkward that I'm writing about my marriage and private thoughts? Yeah, that's me being vulnerable. I hate that now. I used to love being vulnerable on my blog. I loved not having to hide. But now Big Man Chris the Competent Adult is here and I don't feel safe. I need to be more vulnerable with my wife and I need to be more vulnerable in general. This year I will be more open and honest.
6. Figure out a more balanced lifestyle. God. Wife. Work. Self. Hobbies. Friends. Sleep. How do I balance these things? Heck if I know. Right now I elect to just not balance them. That's bad. This year I will find a healthy balance for my life.
Friends:
7. Focus on turning acquaintances into friendships and deepening the friendships I already have. I've managed to make some local friends this year. It only took me almost three years. Now I need to work on deepening those relationships. Remember how I said I'm bad at vulnerability now? Ick, this feels like vulnerability. This year I will get below surface level in my friendships.
8. Be more real on social media (and IRL I guess). I feel like this one crosses over into #1 and #5 on this list as well. I tend project a sterilized and acceptable image on social media, and also in real life. I need to be honest enough to put who I really am out there, and in order to that I need to let who I am be a unified self. This year I will be real.
9. Be more friendly in general. I'm turning 26 in a week and will officially be in my "late twenties." I'm an old man, you guys. Like, "get off my lawn," "kids these days" type old man. I'm grumpy and inaccessible. That's no good. I guess all three of my friend resolutions just boil down to bringing my shields down. This year I will be more friendly.
Work:
10. Be more confident and worry less what people think of me. Rumors are weapons and this year I've been on the receiving end a little bit. There's a certain social politics to church life, and therefore my work life, that I just can't abide by. Between facing some full powered passive aggression and people jockeying for "power" this year has been exhausting and taken a toll on my confidence. Things have just reached a point where I just have to be more confident in myself and ignore all the crap that gets thrown my way. This year I will be more confident in myself.
11. Remember to view my work as a ministry. So, I work at a church. That sucks. You'd think being a Christian and getting to work at a church would be amazing. But there's a major downside no one ever thinks about. If your pastor is actually your boss when do you ever get pastored? If church is your job, when do you get to do church for your own soul? Well, not a lot I've found. Despite that, I need to remember to view my work as a ministry. It's so easy to let burn out take hold just keep going for a paycheck, without remembering that I do actually love God and want this to be service to him. This year I will focus on my ministry as a ministry.
12. Work on interacting better with coworkers. Overall I have pretty good relationships with all my coworkers. Yet, as mentioned above, I'm not a very friendly guy. I could probably do a lot better in being friendly towards my coworkers.
Gaming:
13. Top 8 a Competitive REL event. So, this is a Magic: The Gathering goal. I'll write a post about this at some point, but I have gotten really into Magic and it's been doing good things for me. I'd like to go a competitive level event and be in the top 8 players. It's a simple goal, but one I'm excited about pursuing. This year I will Top 8 a competitive Magic event.
14. Figure out Twitch streaming. So, I created a Twitch account a little while for streaming my gaming. I like this idea because it allows me another creative outlet and will hopefully help me to connect more with the gaming community. Who knows, it might even help me raise money for my mission trip with Gamechurch too! I'm not saying I'll stream every day or anything, I just need to quit being lazy and just try it out. This year I will figure out Twitch.
15. This year I will do less "junk food" gaming and focus on more thoughtful gaming. As I mentioned earlier, I'm an old man now, or at least I will be in a week when I turn 26. Being an old man means that when I get home after a stressful day at work I want to veg out and just turn my brain off. Lame shooters and games I've already played 10 times are great for that. But are they great for me? Video games are an art form just like movies (yep, I said it) and like movies while it's okay to watch Dumb and Dumber sometimes you want to balance that with something a little more classy from time to time. So this year I am going to focus more on games that stimulate my brain with good story and human emotion, not just collections of explosions.
Bonus:
16. Read more Kurt Vonnegut. Think more. Hey, it's 2016 so I threw in a bonus 16th resolution.
Whoa, look how long this post is! If you're still here you must be, like, my best fiend or something. High five! We should hang out and play some Magic. I'll be posting again tomorrow, assuming I'm willing to be a decent person. Then again, I work tomorrow (remember, when you work at a church Sundays are work days! Yay!) so I'll be bummed out and tired by the time I get home so the post might be shortish. Who knows? You will. Tomorrow. Be there.
I had originally written this post in the Blogger app, but attempting to include the image above crashed the app and made it impossible to publish the post or even get the draft to show up in my drafts. So here I am retyping the whole thing. I'm pretty disappointed in you Blogger app.
