To My Dear Friends

I feel I should explain some things.  Those of you that have been near me (and dealt with me), already know this.   For the rest of you, here is why I did the embarrassing,  middle of the night, drunk post.

I have an issue with depression.  It has been with me most of my life, but with the accident a few years back, it has been more pronounced.  It is now PTSD level of effect.  I take some meds for it and I have changed my life to compensate as best as I can.  I have spent several years dealing with health issues since the accident, and I am starting to see evidence of them being more psychological.  I have heart palpitations, fatigue and major shoulder pain in the same side as the broken hand from the accident.

I have also had work related stress and the depression has made it hard to get up and go to work everyday.  Recently, it has been easier due to some forced behaviour changes at work, but it is still a struggle every day to Just.Get.Up.  I do it and I produce, but I have real difficulty doing the necessary basic things to get by.

But I digress.  On to the point of this exercise; my dear friends and this post on FaceBook.

SFBDP

When I posted that stupid post, I was drunk.  For the first time in months, I picked up a drink.  I was just wanting to make my brain stop.  It was a really bad idea.  It was, overall, a great night.  At the end, as usual, it got weird.  My Depression came back with a vengeance and thus, this post.

Again, Bad Idea.  I know this now.  But, it had several unintended affects.

1) I found out, that from everyone else’s point of view, I am some kind of a badass.

watch-out-we-got-a-bad-ass-over-here

2) Also, I was contacted by several friends in private to learn some pretty cool things about me and them.  Once of them shared some PTSD advice, that I will be using.  It got him through Afghanistan; it can get me through a car wreck.

3) I need to stop drinking.  Completely.  I obviously cannot handle my emotions under the influence.  I *love* the taste of the craft beers that are being made these days, but the health ramifications are just not worth it.  I suppose, this is goodbye, until I get a handle on this.  If I ever do.

4) I am surrounded by amazing, caring people.   Wow.

5) And, apparently, I am good in bed.  Good to know.

thedance

I am hurt certainly.  It comes and goes.  It came on HARD when I posted that status.  I am through it now and I will keep going through it, I am sure.  I have my reminders set around the house to help me remember the things that you said. And I will repeat these things to myself every day.

I am a good man.

I am a smart man.

I am an honorable man.

I have always valued others more than myself, and recently, I have valued them exclusively and NOT myself.  I am going to do my level best to change that.  I don’t know how I will fare, as this is a medical thing, not a “just get over it” thing.  Depression is real and it is a medical issue, even if the various insurance companies and corporations don’t see it that way,  I will seek help and I will make changes.

Thank you all for the sympathy, the advice, the kind words, and the hugs where it was possible.  As usual, I leave you with a song.

 

See you in the world.

 

UPDATE:  For those that see this and didn’t see the facebook post.  The entire thing, with a little extra funny at the end…

Untitled

The Beginning of the World and the Age of Strife

In the beginning, there was only Resurgo and He felt alone.

He created all of the universe and then the Umbra, within which He lived in an elaborate floating Citadel. He looked upon His work and pondered. It all worked according to His plan and He was satisfied with what He had made.

But still He was alone. There were no others in the universe that He could talk to except His contemptible brother, Scratch, and he would not speak to Resurgo except to taunt and jeer at His creation. And so, Scratch was sealed out of the world.

Elves, Resurgo created first, and gave to them the love of Magic. The teacher of magic, they called Him and revered He was by them all. They were immortal, and could not forget their beginnings. As such, all of their songs, poems, and stories were of His glory and not their own. They were afraid to make things not honoring their creator, and as they could not grow old, they could not forget him.

Resurgo tried to show them that the creation itself should be honored, not He. But the Elves were blind in their faith and grateful to the Creator. They would not change.

Next came the Dwarves, and to them He gave the love of Craft, for He wished to have a people who would build wondrous things and He wished for them to build for their own sake, and not his. They, too, built in homage to their creator and built wondrous halls devoted to Him, while they themselves lived in caves and huts around the Great temples of Resurgo.

Many centuries passed, and Resurgo became uneasy with His creation. All of the creatures worshipped Him. They sacrificed many riches to Him and honored Him with many holidays, yet they took no solace in their own power. Only when it somehow reflected Resurgos image or would house things created for Him would it be built. He loved His creatures, but He was saddened by their desire to only make things if He was honored. He wanted the peoples of the world to excel in all areas of science, not just art to honor him.

He then created Man, and gave them a short lifespan, so they could forget their original creation and they would eventually create for arts sake and not just for Him, as the memory of Him would only be in stories and songs.

He appeared before them in an attempt to inspire their work in other areas, but this only made their homage to Him increase tenfold. He was at a loss for what to do. And so, in great sadness, Resurgo slept.

It was then that the Great Silence began. Resurgo stopped answering the calls to him. Offers to Him were not received and rotted in the temples. Sickness went to his people and was not healed. Resurgo was gone, it seemed, and the people began to feel His sadness.

It was during this time that Resurgos brother appeared. He found his way into the universe while his brother was sleeping and began to usurp the rulers. Scratch adopted a persona on the world of Horin (the pride of Resurgo) as a priest of the God Imaginus. No one had heard of Imaginus, but he was listening to their worries and helping.

Many began to follow Imaginus and denounce Resurgo as their God. Resurgo had deserted them: why should they continue to follow Him when Imaginus was here and willing to help?

When Resurgo awoke from his slumber, many years had passed. Only the Chanellers had stayed true to Resurgo, now calling him Res to avoid persecution and secretly holding ceremonies. For although they knew he wasnt listening, they were not willing to question Resurgos motives. He was, after all, their creator. Who were they to question his silence? They were determined to learn the meaning of the silence and correct whatever wrong they had done.

Imaginus had begun a major movement subverting the minds of the people into religious slavery. The slow change had taken centuries. Resurgo found that his power had diminished to the point that He could no longer appear except to His most devout followers or as a lesser creature only, Imaginus power had increased too much over the centuries of silence Resurgo had undergone. He had to work secretly to get his power built up again.

Again, centuries passed. Resurgo revealed certain mysteries to an elite few to increase His power: Rune Magic to nine immortal Elven practitioners, so the art would not die; Gate Magic to His few devout Chanellers; and Magick to his remaining four great dragon mages, divine servants who would follow his purpose without guidance.

When Imaginus found that Resurgo had indeed awakened, he began the long struggle to completely remove Him from the world.

Thus began the Third Age of the World — The age of strife.

Don’t let me die still wondering…

I heard this song on random play today and it hit me; I very recently met a person that has changed me.  I didn’t even see it coming. It is not often that someone does so on a profound level.  I have deep friendships with many people, and they have changed me as well.  But not like this.  She has woken things in me that I had buried long ago. She has inspired me and put me into deep reflection mode.

I am not in love, just to clear that up, and that is not what I am talking about.  She is someone that I *could* love romantically, no doubt, but there are too many factors in the way of that.  Distance (both time and space) and loyalty being the highest on the list.  So, that is not on the table with her, and I knew that as I started getting to know her.  She is an incredible flirt, and as I love that activity as well, so we can enjoy that for the few days she has left here.

You see, she is moving to Prague and our friendship will be a little harder to maintain.  She will be busy teaching English as a Foreign Language to folks there, and enjoying the beautiful City of Prague.  There will be little time for a friendship with folks here, and that is a good thing.  Her adventure starts later this week and I am extremely happy for her.  I will get back to her shortly, but I have the point of this writing to make.

You see, I have been stagnant for a long time.  I have so many things to do and I haven’t really been doing any of them. Since I became single, I shut off the part of me that cares about love and relationships, and I have sabotaged several that have come my way. That is ok, because long term, I never wanted to live here anyway. For that reason, I have only been with a few women, as I don’t want them to get the wrong idea about me and fall in love with me. Not that I am that much of a catch, but I still don’t want to hurt anyone because I am not into commitment. Well, my current vows end with “until sunrise do us part.”

And it got worse after I met a girl who I tried for more than she wanted and it hurt. There have been women, and I will admit that I loved several of them, but I always hit the big three. Too young, taken or too far away. I just couldn’t make it happen and the pain was Just.Too.Much. So, it was shut off. That led to other parts of stagnation, and eventually, after my car wreck, I went completely dead inside. I mean, I cared about nothing. And it just crept up on me.

I can summon up enough to get what I need done and that’s about it. I make folks laugh so I can summon up the excuse to laugh. I know I might seem happy sometimes, but I am not. I hate who I have become, and yet I can’t shake it. I play a lot of games to fill my time and use that as an excuse to not do the things I need to. I need to fix up my house. I need to improve my health. I need to increase my skillset to something more modern. I want to learn the guitar and/or piano so I can write more music. I want to write a novel.

So.Many.Things. But, I don’t care.

And then here comes April. Smart, funny, driven, gorgeous, nerdy April. I saw her boundless energy and I was infected. For a few moments, I thought I might have developed romantic feelings for her. And although, I am absolutely attracted to her in a Buffy-Spike sorta way, I am certain that that is not the reason I met her. What the self-reflective part of me noticed was something absurdly Simple. So completely obvious, that I didn’t see it; I was just confused by it. Can you guess what it is?

I am feeling again. I can fucking feel something. Wow.

I am so extremely sad that she and I will not get to do some really fun nerdy things together in the short term, but I am certain that in a few years, we will meet and swap stories. I am also extremely grateful that she took the time to let me get to know her and vice versa. But I can feel it. And that makes me happy. I want the pain. I want the joy. It will drive me to get better; to get new things.

To my new dear friend April: I hope you find adventure, great new things and your “safety pins” moment. When we meet again somewhere on this planet (or another if we can swing it), we will swap stories of what we have done since we lasted parted. And if we don’t meet again for some reason, then I expect the stories to be told regardless, and with a toast to absent friends.

Much love, my friend. Go forth and make epic times, my friend. I am ready to do the same. I don’t know what will happen next, but I am finally awake again, and I thank you.

A song to overwhelm me

I haven’t written in a while, so I figured I was due. So many things in the last week. GenCon; a missed 30 year reunion; Robin Williams; my daughter going back to school; missing a friend’s entire pregnancy, as she delivered today. Everything good that happened was marred ever so slightly by pain.

I really don’t have much to say, but this: I miss singing. So much happening; so much pain and joy all mixed into me, that singing is all that really makes me able to let it all go, if only for a moment. Nothing else does it for me. Nothing at all.

Except for beer.

Still, I would rather be singing. I was listening to various songs while working, and I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. This is where I am, and I can’t make it any better, at least right now. So, I just hang it up and keep busy.

Well, then. I’ll just leave you with a haiku.

Chau.

An Apology without blame

I have been studying the principles of Dale Carnegie this week, preparing to be a Graduate Assistant over the next 12 weeks. I have also recently read the Klingon Art of War, a fictional account of the writings of Sun Tzu from a Klingon point of view. In reading these books, an incident at Glitchcon recently came to light and, as my mind excels at, showed me my error and how I could have prevented the incident from exploding as it did.

I cannot likely correct it now, as the actual issue had nothing to do with me. That still remains to be resolved, and will likely remain so for some time, until people can come together and discuss it. That is where my error lies, and that error alone is what I wish to apologize for.

When the issue came to me, it was from a dear friend and my daughter. My bias should have been apparent to me at that time, but it was not. I proceeded under the assumption that I had heard all I needed to and went to confront the other party involved. I did so as quickly as I could, as one does not postpone a matter of honor. It took a few hours for me to actually get to him and I was otherwise occupied at that time. My distraction proved to be an issue, and I proceeded poorly.

I accused and was met with a defensive, justifying stance, as my Carnegie training should have prepared me for. I set the grounds for fixing the matter, and they were absolute. This was, as all absolute solutions go, the wrong thing to do.

Today, I was listening to Principle 3, If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically, and I realized my error. I immediately began to write this apology. All other concerns fell away, as I reviewed the weekend and every interaction I had had with all parties in question, until I found the moment where I had unintentionally escalated the issue.

As the Klingons say, Choose your enemies well. In this case, I did not. Not because I was in any danger of being defeated. To the contrary; I had nothing to lose and he had everything to lose. It was pure arrogance on my part to challenge him at all. Secondly, it was not my fight to engage in. In my eagerness to defend my friends and family, I rushed into battle to take on a foe that I had no business fighting.

The action I should have taken was this, and I still suggest it be taken: The parties involved and ONLY the parties involved should privately and personally (over video chat, perhaps) discuss the matter, allowing both points of view to be heard, and then both parties may resolve this matter as mature adults. Had I required such a meeting to take place at the convention, this whole thing would not have escalated to the public. How the two parties would have settled it, I have no idea. Would it have happened the same way had they spoken? Maybe, maybe not.

I prevented such a question from being answered by being accusatory at our first meeting. Everything that happened after that was a direct result of my error. Everything that happened before that moment, I take no responsibility for and leave that to the parties involved to dispute or resolve. I only ask that you work out that resolution privately.

I cannot and do not speak for Glitchcon, its Directors, or affiliates/sponsors. Any decision or action they have or will take is independent of this apology. I was not asked to make this apology; I do so completely of my own accord.

This is solely to apologize for my behavior towards the party involved and to assure that I have absolutely no malice towards anyone involved, nor have I at any point. My sole intention was to resolve the situation in a private, honorable manner and my apology is for making that end goal more difficult with my actions.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Memory Catalogue: Crazy Love

When I was a young man, perhaps around 19 or so, I went to a concert with a friend of mine.  His name was Steve Bue, and he was attending DeVry with me.   We went to see Bachmann Turner Overdrive at the Celebrity Theatre in the round, with Poco opening for them.   I wrote about that here.

There are several reasons why this is significant now, most relevant of which is that Steve passed away last year and I was reminded of him when I was perusing the upcoming birthdays on facebook.  His is coming up soon, and I was thinking of him today.  Cheers to you, sir.

vodkaglass

Also, I was also thinking of a certain gypsy pirate chick again, and spent a chunk of the day depressed about her.  I am such a dumb-ass for letting someone get to me that way.  Seven years have gone by, and still I feel it as though it was last week.  But, alas, love is love.  And this, my friends, was a grab-me-by-the-heart-and-make-me-dance-all-night-long kinda thing.  It was breathtaking and absolutely burned in my memory.

The only other moment that came close, was dancing to Erotic City in a club in Phoenix when I was about 19.   Surrounded by people, staring at the woman I was dancing with who had just unbuttoned my shirt with her teeth during the song.  We had forgotten there were other people there and when the song ended and we noticed them, we decided it was time to vacate.  Oddly, every time I came back to that bar, the DJ would stop whatever song was playing and start up David Lee Roth’s “Just a Gigalo” to mess with me.  That was a hell of a night.  Screwed that up, too, though, as is my pattern.  I am just not relationship material, it seems.

Ahem.  Where was I?  Ah, yes.  Poco.

Poco was my favorite band at one time, because of this song:

I was thinking about her, and the lyrics to this song.

“Tonight I’m gonna break away, just you wait and see.  I’ll never be imprisoned by a faded memory.  Just when I think I am over her, this broken heart will mend.  I hear her name and I have to cry; the tears come down again.”  

Forever a prisoner, it seems.

I won’t write much more on this topic, as I really don’t want to think about her any longer.  She was a Reason, as the saying goes, although I wanted her for a Lifetime.  And every time, I hear the first few lines of the song, and I fight back the tears, as the words begin to hit home.

And so, as I mourn the death of a good friend and the loss of one of many loves that was my fault, I end this day a sad man.  I will leave you with the immortal words of Garth Brooks:

 

“I could have missed the pain, but I’d have had to miss the dance.”

thedanceWalking the path,

Me.

GlitchCon 2014 Gaming Help!!!

If you are coming to GlitchCon and want to help in the game room in a serious way, please read this!

UPDATE:  6/20

I have help for the schedule!  We will have a preliminary schedule up by 7/1.  If you are wanting to run games, please use these links to get them in the system so they can be scheduled!

 http://serenityalways.com/blog/2014/03/25/glitchcon-2014-gaming/

Continue reading GlitchCon 2014 Gaming Help!!!

Memory Catalogue: Ordinary People

I absolutely love this song and what it reminds me of.  One of the greatest people I will ever know.  He started as a casual friend from a bar and grew into a real friendship over time.  Mr. Reed sang this song at Deja Vu on Tuesday karaoke nights and it is my favorite that he has ever done.   I will let you listen, while you scroll down to read the rest, if you are so inclined.

For those that remember it, Deja Vu was a Piano Bar, and then later a Night Club.  For a few years, they also ran the best Karaoke in the area, due to the high quality song choices, microphones and hella awesome speaker system.  You really felt like you were performing in a quality venue when you had hold of that mic and were walking around the room.  They had 3 TVs with the lyrics on them placed about the room, so you would wander and still get the lyrics if you forgot them.   Most of us serious singers memorized the lyrics and practiced the songs before heading to the club, but it was helpful in case you needed them to have three screens to look at.

Oh, and we had the best KJs running it.  😉

But the best part of the place was meeting the folks that I still call friends today.  We don’t see each other very much anymore, now that Deja Vu has closed and Bentley’s has lost Mr. Reed as its head bartender.  It definitely feels like an age has passed.

Although I will always remember the karaoke as the starting point, as it was the first real place I called my own after my divorce and the beginning of my healing and starting to feel like I was maybe worth a shit again.    Now, having gone way past that stage and onto another, I look back as I hear this song and remember Deja Vu, all over again.  Pun intended.

And, I start to seriously think about the next stage of life, which has already started.  Where will I end up in this next age?  Who will I know and spend time with?  I’d like to think it will be some of the same, and some of the new.  But I am ready to move on.  I needed that time to get me through something, and now I don’t.

But I will always treasure the time I spent with those wonderful, Ordinary People at Deja Vu.

Walking the Path,

Me.

 

All the games!

RP Games I have run (as GM):

  • All of the flavors of D&D (including Pathfinder but excluding 4e)
  • Rolemaster, Spacemaster, MERP
  • Palladium, and TMNT (same system)
  • Star Frontiers
  • Top Secret
  • Star Wars (West End)
  • GURPS (All the Genres!)
  • Fate (Dresden, Vanilla)
  • Spirit of the Century (Early Fate)
  • Cortex (old and new)
  • Ars Magica
  • Traveller (original)
  • Houses of the Blooded, both Tabletop and LARP
  • Dungeon and Apocalypse World
  • John Wick’s mini-games (Eldritch High, Cat)
  • Houses of the Blooded (TTRPG and LARP)
  • Shadowrun (4th and 5th Ed)
  • Savage Worlds
  • 7th Sea Second Edition
  • Flashing Blades
  • Mutants and Masterminds

 

GlitchCon 2014 Gaming

If you are planning on running a game at Gl!tchCon, I will need you to fill out this form.  For the paranoid, a tinyurl preview.

If you are looking to run a Demo table for your game or for a game company at Gl!tchCon, I will need you to fill out this form. For the paranoid, a tinyurl preview.

Both of these forms lead to google forms that will capture information to a spreadsheet that only I have access to.

Some of the feedback I received last year is that a schedule was not posted early enough. With that in mind, please don’t wait until the last minute.  I want to get a schedule up by July 1st.  I will need you to fill these out by June 15th, in order to make that deadline.  If you come in later, we can still add you to the schedule, but you may not have the benefit of advertising that we do on the website, meaning folks may not know you will be there.

Remember, to get a free pass into the convention, we require 16 hours of total volunteer time.  

If you have any questions, please send them to me, at rockstar at glitchcon dot com and I will do my best to answer them as quickly as possible.

Chris Colbath

Master of Games at Gl!tchCon

brasskey

Just waiting for the world to change…