Jeff’s Journal

I woke up too late to do anything of civic value this morning.

1) A great time Saturday night with old friends I hadn’t seen in 8+ years. In a lot of ways, it was like we hadn’t missed a beat, except that there was a baby in the mix. Excellent times.

2) First session of the new D&D campaign. My character (hey, Mike, should I upload information about him on the Wiki?) nearly died due to a band of orcs, and we were cavalier with innocent life, and it was awesome. Waiting two weeks for the next session kinda sucks. Stupid holidays.

Also, I rewrote my character sheet so I could fit it in a binder with all the other stuff I need. Ann got ahold of my old sheet, and decided to mess with it a bit, not realizing that I had redone it. Thus, my Eladrin Wizard’s personality traits include “compulsive masturbator,” “armpit fetish,” and “speaks in five letter words only.” Then again, she calls my player’s handbook my “Unicorn Slaying Guide.” Somehow, I don’t think I’ll be convincing her to come along to a game anytime soon, heh.

…it’s that we can never find non-frosted brown sugar cinnamon Pop Tarts anywhere. It’s like they just don’t distribute up here, forcing us to stock up on the rare occasions that the supermarket has a few, and always leaving me hungry on those Sunday mornings where I want breakfast, but there’s no milk or eggs or POP TARTS so I’m forced to go hungry until I get some clothes on and get out of the house.

Grr.

EDIT: OH MY GOD YOU CAN SUBSCRIBE TO POP TARTS.

1) So my grandfather’s wake/funeral went by fairly easily. Again - still uncomfortable with the entire idea. Still thinking a lot of is superfluous, still a little angry about how the Catholic funeral mass seems to not really be about the deceased at all. There was the requisite family drama to go along with anything else (short answer: my grandfather was apparently quite the pimp), but we spent late Thursday night with my cousins and aunts, just hanging around and catching up. Really good quality time. My cousin wrote a song for the burial which was actually fairly perfect, and that was that.

I won’t go into my rant about funerals and death and the complete insanity that seems to go along with it right now. Ann & I essentially made a pact to not be like that when we eventually have to bury each other. But yikes.

2) Saturday night was a lot more fun than I anticipated. We met up with Liz for her thirtieth birthday in Boston at one of the weirder restaurants in town, Eastern Standard, with a menu full of raw foods and livestock brains. Very weird. Along for the ride was Sarah, a pleasant surprise, and a number of Liz’s friends including Deb and a Beth who’s LJ I don’t know and Courtney. The place was quite nice, the conversation great, and we probably would have stayed longer if we could have. I didn’t even gag when I saw the brains! I win!

3) Sunday, my father came up for a father’s day/birthday thing - we got great seats for the Sea Dogs/Fisher Cats game. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate and it ended up being rained out. We went out for barbecue at a local place afterwards, my father napped on the couch for an hour, and then went home. It was a good afternoon, all things considered.

4) Ann was also able to get Red Sox tickets for last night. Needless to say, I was getting tired from the weekend already, and with summer reading kicking off this week, I told her to bring her friend Christina. So they went, had a good time, I caught up on stuff here. Not a bad night, actually, although I did stay up waaaaaay too late.

5) This weekend is a blast from my past - we’re having a big ol’ get together with the old friends I fell out of touch with from high school. All my fault, and we’re having a mini-reunion of sorts. I’m ridiculously excited about the whole thing. A long time coming.

6) Barring any natural disasters, we start the major D&D campaign this weekend. I’m actually ridiculously excited about this, too - I’ve been spending a pretty sad amount of time poring over the Player’s Handbook and seeing what works, tweaking my character, etc. Since (I think) everyone in the campaign reads this in some form, I’m not sure how much is reasonable to divulge, but I think my character is going to be pretty fun. I bought a big bag of dice and everything!

Okay. That’s it for now.

1) I’m so excited about getting rolling on our D&D, I could pee. I’ve been going back and forth on e-mail with Bill, who’s DMing the game, on character stuff and whatnot. I got the handbook about a week ago and I’m just having a blast with the whole thing. I have to say - playing with the 3.0/3.5 books threw me for a loop, and I never came close to getting a grasp on anything, but it’s much, much easier in this edition to catch on. Not to say I haven’t made my share of mistakes already, but I feel like the entire thing is pretty simple.

I got a big bag o’ dice, which is a fun little addition. eBay is funny like that, I suppose. If you need any miniature 6 sided dice, let me know.

2) Funeral is on Friday. We’ll probably head down tomorrow night. Not sure yet.

3) Because I should, a meme:

a) First Name: Jeff

b) Age: 27

c) Location: Fabulous Manch-Vegas. Manchester, NH

d) Occupation: Children’s librarian! 18 months and running!

e) Partner?: Ann. 15 months and running! And I still kinda like her! d;-)

f) Kids: I sure hope not.

g) Brothers/Sisters: My brother Kyle is 24 now, has his own place in Millbury, my old hometown. We exchange lolcats on MySpace a lot, but he seems to be doing well when we do talk.

h) Pets: Pigeon, the kitty. She’s been extra cute the last few days, too. She also wanted to play with the minature 6 sided dice.

i) List the 3-5 biggest things going on in your life:

- Work. Because work is work, and it’s hard, but it’s great. And summer reading. Yeah.
- The book. Because I keep stalling on it, and then life happens, and then I remember it and get angry that I’m putting things off.
- Life. It’s a copout answer, but life is very big for me right now.

j) Where and for what did you go to school for?:

Anna Maria College, Paxton MA, class of 2003. Went in as a music major, went out a history/political science major, using little of it.

k) Parents?

Two, still. Heh. My father is coming toward the end of his tenure at the prison - one of the good guys, not the guy behind bars. We continue to have a better relationship than we ever did during my more formative years, and that’s a good thing.

My mother is doing well. It’s hard to judge properly being away, but “is doing well” feels right.

l) Who are some of your closest friends?

At this point, we’ve finally become close to a local couple, also a librarian. We’re still quite close with Michelle and Josh and we’re long overdue in seeing them, and it’s just like old times whenever we catch up with Julia and Tiff and the like. So it’s been decent, all things considered.

He was 94.

I’m not sad, per se - one, he was 94, lived a fairly rich life, had 14 kids, etc etc. I’m sad in the way that death is sad, that my father has no surviving parents anymore. Etc.

Death is still weird, though. I don’t know how to explain my relationship to it at this point, except that it’s weird and I don’t like the concept of funerals and yeah.

So this will be an interesting week.

1) Stimulus check arrived and deposited. Of course, $1000 of it was spent already on bills and taxes, so there’s $200 left - oh, whoops, Ann’s starter in her car went. Starter + tow + labor = a hair more than $200, for sure.

Sigh.

2) Even with that minor setback, this looks very, very enticing.

With all the stuff flying through my head, I wish I wasn’t so hot and lethargic. Eventually I’ll catch up on the personal front. Quick hits:

1) It’s the kind of hot where you take a shower at 7:20, look in the mirror at 8:30, and you’d never know you actually showered by looking, and you feel all gross and sweaty already. I usually have good heat tolerance - not today.

2) Firefox 3 Beta is nice, but the sooner they can get the session recovery working on it, the better.

3) Massachusetts folks - in the off chance you’re not working this Friday, or even get an hour for lunch, Ann & I will be in Central Mass for the morning to the mid-afternoon. Let us know if you’re around/available/whatever.

4) As excited as I am for this week, it’s going to be way too busy - a tough short work week, followed by the Sox game, followed by R.E.M. in Mansfield, followed by an Irace-side family party, followed by Sunday work. Gah!

5) Healing teeth = weird.

1) First, a meme. Don’t feel like tagging, but list 8 things people may not know. These are always hard for me because I lay so much out there as is, but it’s been a while, so…

a) For a long time, I couldn’t stop a book after starting it. My tolerance level has shifted dramatically in a short time - if a book doesn’t hook me in quickly, I’m generally not going to finish it. I have no clue what caused that shift.

b) I’m currently looking at my desk at home (it’s 10pm on Tuesday) and I’m shocked - I cleaned this before my wisdom teeth thing, and within 7 days, it’s possibly worse than it was before. Unopened mail, CDs to listen to and mail out, etc. It’s incredible, my ability to accumulate stuff.

c) I’ve been picking up my guitar a lot more lately, and I feel like I’m making some minor breakthroughs in ability. Not so much where I’m going to be more than above competent, but better than I’ve ever felt in the 10 years I’ve been playing now.

d) I find it odd that I have so much nostalgia for 1990s alt rock, yet dislike most grunge and was a little too young to truly appreciate it.

e) One of the best things I’ve done for myself the last few years is fully embracing my inner nerd. I wish I had done it in high school - it couldn’t have gotten much worse for me socially as a whole anyway, and it would have saved me a lot of strife in college.

f) I have no clue why I’m so bad at e-mailing.

g) As bad as I am at e-mailing, I’m worse with the phone. Still.

h) I still regret too much. I think I always will, no matter how happy I am with my lot in life.

2) My first day back to work was interesting on a number of levels, but keeping it on a health note - wow. I was wiped by the end of the day. It’s amazing how something so small as this can really throw you off your game. My jaw was really killing me by the end of the day, my voice was really ragged and shaky beyond the compensating and the remnants of the cold/allergy battle, and yeah. Wow. If I wasn’t so damn busy with summer stuff, I might have considered going home, but I barely convinced myself to stay home on Monday. Working through things is good, I suppose.

3) I’ve been following R.E.M. setlists since the tour started and since my show is next week - the lists are VERY impressive. plenty of Accelerate, of course, but they’re pulling out a lot of great old stuff. “Heron House,” “Ignoreland,” “Circus Envy,” and “Pretty Persusion” are all songs I’ve wanted to hear live and that have shown up on lists, “Ignoreland” being a staple thus far. I’m still pulling for “Auctioneer” and now perhaps wishing for “9-9″ isn’t completely out of the question. One week! ONE WEEK!

4) So I was, uh, able to see the 4th edition D&D player’s manual. They’ve done a LOT of streamlining, but I can’t say I miss too much from what I knew of 3.0/3.5. I still wish I could play as a multiclassed bard, but I think my understanding of things has opened up a decent idea for a character. If I have any real disappointment with it early, it’s that the alignment structure has changed - if i’m reading this correctly, no more chaotic good? We’re stuck on only neutral (or, in 4e terms, “unaligned”)? That’s kind of crappy, but it also fits in with some of the said streamlining. Regardless, I find it difficult to work off of PDF files, and I hope once I get the book in my hand, I can work some other stuff out on my own.

Given that the 4e book has leaked, we did work with it more in our game on Sunday, and to great result. It, again, helps that we have a really great group going, but everything moves incredibly smoothly with it, and yeah. I’m gushing a bit, I suppose - we’re halting the pre-made campaign after this weekend, and then two weeks off before we dive into the long-term. I can’t wait.

Okay, that’s all I’ve got. Enough outta me.