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Day Eighty-Two

Yeah, I’m just not feeling this thing anymore.

The blog thing? It isn’t helping my writing. It isn’t helping me. It isn’t helping anything, so I don’t know if I’m going to bother with this anymore. I’m going to try to hit my count for the night and then sleep on it. If there’s not a blog here in the morning, then…I don’t know, there’s not a blog here? I guess this is kind of a weird paragraph, because I’m just talking to myself. If I delete this whole thing and get rid of it, it’s not like I’m going to read it in the future. So this is just a bunch of fluff, helping me to reach an arbitrary number. Sounds a lot like work, really.

I bitch a fair bit on this thing, but that’s kind of my prerogative. I don’t have a whole lot of other outlets, so I’m just kind of…I don’t know, using this one. At one point, I figured that people might actually be reading this thing. If they do, I guess I’m embarrassed. There hasn’t been anything of any quality on here. I thought about adding “in a while”, but let’s be honest- there just hasn’t.

At some point, you have to realize that throwing in the towel’s probably the best thing that you can do. I’m a shitty writer. I’m aware of that. I’m technically proficient enough to write things that go on websites, but anything else? I’m pretty bad at it. I used to think that if I put in the effort, I’d get better. I’m not going to, because let’s face it – there comes a point where you have it or you don’t. I just don’t. There’s not a great novel waiting inside me. There’s not a mediocre short story, either. The best I can hope for is a tweet that doesn’t make other people want to punch me.

I think I wanted to be a writer because it sounded romantic. Like I’d spend my days pouring out my soul, crafting something that would touch others. The thing is, I don’t think I really have anything to pour out. I’ve got a strong desire to not really do anything that involves real labor, I guess, but that’s pretty much all I’ve got on the writing side. I can put together hackneyed concepts and clichéd characters, and at best I can mix that with a mediocre plot that brings absolutely nothing to the table. When it comes to writing, I’ve got exactly as much ability as the average person.

That sucks, because it means that a dream’s kind of over. But on the other hand, I’m being a little more realistic about my life. Nobody’s going to give a damn about the things I write, beyond maybe a passing nod to heal my ego. The only people who have ever cared to read the things I’ve written are my friends, and let’s face it – they did that not because the work was good, but because they were my friends. And by this point, they really can’t put up with any more of the crap I shovel out. So that’s me calling it a day.

I wanted to shoot for my thousand here, but I’m just going to stop. I’ll write something tomorrow or I won’t.

Day Eight-One

Next up in the little series is a note from Artalos Eridan, chronologically my youngest character but actually the third character I played in the game. His personality has always been set in stone – he’s the anti-warlock, a happy-go-lucky guy that just happened to practice dark magic. He was a natural fit to sacrifice in a major plot point of another story, and probably the hardest character death I’ve ever written. When Blizzard provided a mechanism for characters to come back from the dead, I jumped on it. Having him deal with his un-life was fun, but it could only last for so long. I found him very quickly approaching an undead version of the man he was before. The easiest solution for me was to have him come back to life when I returned to the game – this time as a Hunter. The justification for him doing so is something I haven’t written yet, but it’s a doozy. I can’t wait to write that one.

=================

Being dead sucks.

You’d think that wouldn’t be a controversial position, but these days? I feel like it’s got to be said. I wasn’t a huge fan.

Death and I have always been closely acquainted. I know most people think of it as “The Shadow”, but for me those energies have always been, well, death. That’s what coursed inside my body from the time I was a little kid. I was a walking, talking conduit for the nastiest energies ever to the seep out onto Azeroth. Death, I guess you could say, was may constant companion.

I worked really hard not to let that define me. I’ve always felt like it’s what you do, not what you are, that makes all the difference. I always figured the fact that I was a repository for deadly magic was just an accident of birth, like being a ginger. I chose to be myself, instead. I chose to be Artalos. And for about twenty years, that turned out pretty well.

I won’t say I was always a great person. I think I did right by most people, though. I took care of my brother when he couldn’t take care of himself. I tried to make sure that bad people didn’t get away with doing bad stuff. More than anything, I tried to make sure that other people had a chance to be happy. I didn’t mind spending my nights waiting tables or showing pretty young elves how magic worked. It was a beautiful world, and I was so happy to have a part in it. I knew I was meant for dark things – terrible things – but I made the decision not to do it. It worked out pretty well, until my brother went away.

You wouldn’t think the big dummy would have had such an impact on me when I was grown, but he did. When he disappeared, I pushed myself to find him – no one else seemed to care. So I tapped into that dark and nasty stuff a lot more than usual. I used it to push myself around the world and stay alive, all for hopes of finding a grumpy paladin that wouldn’t appreciate the whole ordeal. Funny thing is, he’s the one that found me. He was fine, but I was in trouble. He’d made a great new life for himself while he was gone, but he’d left me to deal with the huge mistake that was my life.

He was as kind about it as he could be, which is saying a lot for him. Me, I was busy shooting off death explosions every few hours. That’s not exactly conducive to waiting tables or doing anything else. Those months I spent inside his home, hoping that I wouldn’t hurt anyone? I can’t imagine the Twisting Nether is that much worse. I can’t imagine anything is. Even with that said, I was reticent to leave when the time came. I guess a part of me knew that I wouldn’t be coming back.

I died saving his life, you know. I know he feels guilty for “killing” me, but I was already so far gone that he just gave me relief. I made sure that he got out, though. I thought it would be the end of my grand adventure. I thought it would be the end of…well, everything. I kind of wish that it was. I didn’t have any plans on coming back. I know it seems that everyone does, these days. I know it seems like death is impermanent, but I was ready to relax. No matter what came, I knew I wouldn’t have to worry about hurting anyone.

So when I woke up a year later, body infused with dark magic and the voice of the Lich King fading from my not-so-empty head, I was understandably upset. There was still a lot of me in there. Way too much of me, to be honest – I think that was part of all the nasty stuff still lingering in my body. I know I’d hurt people while I wasn’t myself, and I hated the idea of being used again. But I was alive, for all that it mattered. I was a monster, too, and that meant that the life I had lived was closed off. It meant that I had to actually take some responsibility and do something useful with my life.

Anyone who knows me knows that I would have jumped at the first chance to get my real life back. I’m ashamed to say that I did. I’m ashamed to admit exactly all the thing I did to get back in my own body, warm and whole again. I’m ashamed of who I worked with, who I hurt. And I know if I ever told my brother, he’d never speak to me again.

But I’m alive. I don’t have my magic anymore, and I don’t have a friend in the world to speak of. But I’m alive, and where there’s life, there’s hope.

Day Eighty

I’ve been playing WoW again, and for me that means playing with my old characters. I’ve decided it might be fun to do a brief series of character vignettes, each in the words of the characters themselves. Each character has a unique view on life on Azeroth, as well as a history that’s only briefly touched upon in the game. And I figured that the best place was to start was with my first real character, Tenarios.

Ten’s a fun character for me, because he’s my darkest. A true nihilist, he believes in nothing. He’s a sadist, sure, but it’s all in service of breaking down the world around him. Ten’s personality has changed a lot over the years, but his story has remained remarkably similar. I’ve decided to keep him as he was during my last major bout of play, as a sort of Hannibal-esque character. He’s brilliant but depraved, and his long-term goals are nothing short of apocalyptic. I hope that it turns out well, but that’s really not up to me.

===============================

Death gives one a peculiar perspective.

My life was long, by the standards of Azeroth. Over ten millennia, each day spent in service to a greater goal. Why should my death be any different?

I was born in Zin’Azshari, the Queen’s own glory. My family was not prosperous, but they were learned. We kept the libraries of the great city, books filled with knowledge lost to the ages. As the city grew, so too did our charge. We were the keepers of knowledge, if only for a little while.

My father was a cruel man, like his father before him. From him, I learned perseverance. My mother was, in most ways, worse. From her, the madness in my family runs true. From the two came I and my brothers, lords of our stacks and petty tyrants of a worthless kingdom. Great men and women – names lost to the ages – came through our aisles, and we thought nothing of them. We were gods in our own heaven, caring for nothing but ourselves.

I grew older, the second son of Octari Dune’adah. I married, and I had children of my own. I brought neither my father’s cruelty or my mother’s madness to our union. My wife was a priestess, leading ancient rites. My daughters would follow neither of us, turning instead to the Queen’s new religion, the study of the arcane. When Zin’Azshari fell, they fell with it. And as I look back now, I realize that I fell as well.

The fall of my old life was…liberating. It taught me the truth of life, that nothing lasts. I taught me that all actions, in the end, hasten nothingness. Life was futile. And all that we built, all that we struggled for, lay at the bottom of the sea as testament to that great truth. While many might find that a point of despair, I felt freedom for the first time. Nothing mattered, so I was free to do as I wanted. I was free to become a new man, not defined by who I was before.

I learned to love death. It seems trite, but in the absence of other meaning it gave me something to cling to. My first kill – not counting the brutal moments when the city fell – was on the newly formed beach. There was another survivor, a man I don’t suppose I’ll ever know. He lay sputtering on the beach, calling for help. I was weak, then, in pain and unable to do much more than move. But I crawled to him, clamping my hand over his mouth. As he struggled weakly, I saw the light leave his eyes. I saw a true ending, a return to nothingness. I felt…alive.

I practiced my art for more years than humans have had a civilization. Through the land that would be Kalimdor I stalked, culling the herd of the weak and worthless. The early days were the easiest, of course – no one knew what was happening, most of our civilization in shambles. And even after that, we were so spread out – word took longer to get to the Sentinels than it took for me to leave. I was a god of death. And it was only natural that I would have my own worshippers.

Men and women flocked to my side, some for the danger and others because they embraced the same truth as I. I left my disciples across the land, letting them sow the seeds of nothingness in my absence. I left my legacy among some of these followers, and some of those whose lives we touched. The children – my children – would grow strong and proud, and often mad.

And then something changed.

The Sentinels caught me, as I knew they would. But rather than allow me to meet my destiny, they turned me over to a healer to remove what they saw as a sickness from my mind. As if the truth were a sickness! And yet…he was no simple healer. He was a druid, touching the Emerald Dream. And there he placed me, letting the magics of the place warp my mind, removing all trace of the man I was – hobbling my mind, crippling my soul. Leaving me weak, pathetic.

For hundreds of years, I sought repentance. And then, an opening – brief, but true. I followed my son into the Dream, and there reclaimed myself. From there, it was only a matter of hiding what I knew to be true, and biding my time.

I began a long game – one meant to play over lifetimes. I knew two things to be true. One, that the natural state of being was nothingness. Two, that the best way to honor that was to help bring the universe into that state. Doing so would not only require all of my considerable skill, but risks beyond my usual ken. Later, I would assume that I failed.

Looking out over the frozen wastes, I am no longer sure.

Day Seventy-Nine

I guess I should warn people that I’m going to talk about religion here. So, there you go.

Today, I substituted at a private religious school. I was actually looking forward to it, because the school has a great reputation for academics in our area. I also didn’t think much of the religious affiliation – as I’ve stated before, I’m a pretty devout Christian. The fact that the school had Bible classes and a chapel period kind of seemed like par for the course. It’s not the kind of place I’d want to send my kids, but I thought it might be a nice place to work. In fact, I’d even put in a full-time job application there over the summer.

Man, I was wrong on every count there.

The “chapel” period was really one of those “tell the kids that everyone who is not like them is evil” sort of things that I remember from growing up. A lot of time was spent telling the kids that the things that they did in their lives made them unqualified to be called Christians. Have sex? Not a Christian. Smoke pot? Not a Christian. Use Facebook? Same thing. There was also a lot of time spent demonizing anything that wasn’t strict Christianity. Listening to the wrong music, going to a secular school – those were tools of the devil, and to be avoided. The kids were lucky that they were in such a caring environment. They needed to be protected from the world. It was safe there, because the world was evil.

What. The. Fuck.

I’m not going to qualify this statement – I’m a Christian. I believe whole-heartedly in my religion. In my reading of the text, though, I’ve found that those rules that people tend to harp on – especially the ones for Jesus – tend to be for people who believe as I do. You don’t believe, I’m not going to require you to do anything. I’m certainly not going to say that you’re evil, either, because the Bible’s pretty clear that it’s entirely possible to be a good person without being a godly person. I truly hold the view that the entire point of Christianity – the religion, again, that I’ve grown up with and I whole-heartedly believe in – is about forgiveness and grace. It is about helping other people, being loving and kind and having God’s grace when you inevitably mess up.

I believe that most people go to Heaven. I believe that if you are a good person, that you treat others right and that you do your best to leave the world better than it was when you got here, you’ve got a good end coming to you. I can’t comprehend the idea of a God who would send people to eternal damnation because they didn’t hear his word, or were left only with a view of Him that what negative because of the imperfect words of men and women. I continue to practice as a Christian for a number of reasons, not least of which because I believe it helps me to temper a lot of my faults and gives me a positive focus for the future. I pursue a relationship with God not because I’m looking for a golden ticket to heaven, but because it’s a way for me to learn how to be a good man here on Earth. If I’m wrong about my faith, at least I’m helping to make a better world.

These people, though, make things worse. They represent the worst part of Christianity to me, the part that constantly looks for an outside enemy because we’re too scared to examine our own faults. Early Christianity had its enemies, sure, but the bulk of the New Testament isn’t about shaming the Romans or being mean to Jews. It’s about getting your church full of believers in order, practicing what you preach and following God. It’s about remember to feed the poor people at your church, not to use gatherings for gossip and to behave with dignity. Yeah, there’s some pretty judgmental things in there. Personally, I think they’re pretty at-odds with most of the message, and they can be explained away by being products of the time, products of the author or just bad translations and understanding of the culture. I mean, most people already know that the “witches” that aren’t supposed to be suffered to live should more accurately be translated as “poisoners”, but even things like the stuff about premarital sex actually has a lot more to do with forced prostitution than having sex out of wedlock.

Some people, though, need to create enemies so they can maintain power. These people are very much of the school that they need to scare parents into thinking everyone is evil so that they can make them pay tuition for their children. They have to make the world scarier so that no one looks at them. If you judge the world, you don’t have to judge yourself.

This makes them the worst kind of people in my eyes.

They also twist the truth in how they teach children. The speaker outright said that chapel – not academic subjects – was the most important thing about the school. All of the school books taught subjects from a “Christian” perspective – even Economics. And by Christian, I mean a hard right-wing approach that leaves out a lot of what I know to be true (or at least, a part of the modern consensus). Not only are they trying to scare these kids into obedience, but they are trying to brainwash them.

It goes without saying that I’m not going back there again. I’ll go grab my check in a week or so, but that’s all I’ll have to do with them. They not only shook my faith in education in my area, but my faith in…well, faith. I’m deeply embarrassed to share a label with these people, but I don’t know what to do about that. There are more people like that than I care to admit, and it’s only going to get worse.

- A.

Day Seventy-Eight

My brain is not in working order. I have no doubt that this is going to be briefer than normal tonight. Sorry.

There are times when you sit around, wishing for more work. I have often felt that way, especially when times are lean. Apparently, all of those wishes came true this week. My mind is utterly shot, and I’m not even close to half way finished with everything that I have to do. I’m emotionally and creatively drained, and I’ve still got around nineteen thousand words to write across the course of the next few days. I don’t know what I’m going to do. It is possible – quite possible – that I may have finally bit off more than I can chew. I’m pretty sure I’m in trouble this time.

I don’t know how to back out of this. I need the money, there’s no doubt about it. I know I can probably push through this harder, but it’s going to be difficult. It’s not just the discipline, which, let’s face it, I do not have. It’s not just the absurd amount of writing to be done (if I generously give myself only eight-hour work days, this is gonna take at least three days). It’s just that my brain does not function well enough to do this at any level. All I can do is to hope to accomplish at least some of the work in a manner that is not going to end up with me getting fired by anyone.

I figure I can do this:

Sept. 4: Read the book, write the summary, do the blog (6,000 words)

Sept. 5: Do ten articles (seven thousand words)

Sept. 6: Do nine articles (sixty-three hundred words)

That requires me to read about one hundred pages and write about seven-hundred fifty words an hour on Wednesday. That only requires me to knock out about 875 an hour on Thursday and then a remaining 750 or so on Friday. That sounds almost doable, except for the fact it’s going to mean writing constantly. That means no break. That means no time to think. That means no time to recharge. And man, I’m supposed to work on creative stuff, too. I’m supposed to work on stuff that I care about. And, of course, the worst part is that I have another job. A job that I really need to focus on, because that’s what I want out of my future.

Subbing is important, even if I don’t love. Subbing is a big deal, because it gives me more experience as a teacher. If I don’t sub, I don’t get experience. If I don’t sub at least seven days a month, I lose my job – period. Right now, that means I’m going to have to make sure that I sub two days a week for the next month as well as snag that last Monday – or at least, I have to make sure that I snag one more day. That’s doable, but it’s all down to fate. It also means that I can’t have any more weekends like this. That’s a lot harder, because it means that I’m going to have to learn how to turn down jobs.

Turning down jobs in the freelancing world is kind of criminal, especially if they are jobs that pay as well as these. You only get them every so often – and when you do, you hold on to them as tightly as you can. This current client has already given me a lot of work, and I’ve hit that point where I’m establishing a solid relationship with the business. The new client is in a state of flux, but if I do well I’m going to get a lot of work from him. That puts me in an awkward position, because it means that I could finally take this whole writing thing full-time from just those two clients. That’s never been a position that I’ve even hoped I’d be in before. It scares me, though, because it makes me make a choice between two things that I rather like doing (at least in theory). I can teach, or I can write. I can pursue the classroom, or I can continue to work from home.

The bad part is that sub pay isn’t really great – but it’s kinda steady. Working with these two clients can’t be anything more than a study in short term profits. But man, those short-term profits are lovely. I’ve already made as much today as I’d make in two days of subbing, and I’ll do the same each day this week. At any moment, though, those jobs could dry up. I could find myself not only dealing with a lack of income, but I could find myself in a position where my dream of teaching is killed because I didn’t take the time to cultivate it.

At the same time, taking the subbing jobs instead of this money means I’m cutting off a revenue stream I’d like to keep in the future. This is what I hope will one day be my “hobby money”. If I want a video game, I’d love to slam out a few articles and go buy it without negatively impacting my savings. If I ignore clients like this, I’m going to see my reputation take a nosedive. If I don’t cultivate that reputation, I’m dead. Google’s recent changes make having great content a must, so most clients are seeking out dedicated relationships instead of going to content farms. If I don’t maintain these relationships, I think I’m kinda screwed.

This is not a problem I was planning on, but I guess it is a good problem. As soon as I get it figured out, I guess I can make a move. For now, I’ll try to balance the two as best as I can. If I can do that, I should be able to deal with the consequences – at least, I hope I should. The future’s always scary, I guess.

- A.

Day Seventy-Seven

I’ve got a story swirling around inside of my head, and I’m not sure how to start it.

Beginnings are always really hard for me. There’s a lot of promise there, but I have an obsession with finding that first perfect line. If you can’t hook a reader in the first couple of lines, I really do feel like the battle has been lost. I mean, I’ve certainly put down books that haven’t engaged me at the beginning – even if those books are considered great by others, I just can’t invest myself in the world if I can’t find a reason to do so in a couple of pages. Given that most of the stuff that I write is fairly short, I feel like I have to accomplish that within a paragraph. And right now, I really can’t get that paragraph to come together.

Actually, that’s where I’m sitting with all of my work right now – not able to get those first few words out. With work, I usually start from the end and work backwards. That might sound like a weird process, but it works well for me. If I can come up with a good call to action, I know what I want to build towards with the rest of the article. I can go back and put together the rest of the thing like a puzzle, so long as I know where I’m going. Unfortunately, the first words are still important – they draw in the attention of readers. And that stuff, man…it’s not like this. There’s money riding on it, and I can’t mess around with it. There’s no room for anything experimental or fun. I’ve got to produce something that can sell a product or service within ten to fifteen seconds. I’m usually pretty good at that, but this weekend? It’s just not happening for me. That means I’ve got to rush it all out tomorrow, and that just sounds awful.

As much as I care about work – and I do care, I really do like to buy groceries and pay my bills – I’m more frustrated on the creative side of things. I know, logically, that I can start somewhere other than at the top. It’s just really hard for me to do so, because I feel like going to the “fun” parts kind of kills me creatively. It takes away the reason for writing if I write the scene that’s already in my head, I guess. I mean, if I like what I did…why carry on? I’ve never been the kind of guy who can plot out a string of scenes so that he can bounce from one to another without worrying about it. I’m going to try it later this year, I think, but I’m really not sure how it’s going to turn out. I usually need the kick in the pants that the first sentence will give me. It gives me as much a way to connect with the work as it does the reader, and I want to make sure that it connects on every level.

I realize it sounds incredibly stupid for me to sound like I have a creative process, since my actual output is pretty close to nil. I wish I wrote more fiction, and I’m really trying to get there. With that said, I do have a process – the non-fiction process – and it works quite well for me. It’s just kind of insane, though, because when it works it leaves me completely broken. I’m hoping that I can recapture some of whatever mojo I’ve lost tomorrow and actually get everything in. There’s a couple of big orders waiting for me, and they’ve got to be done by Wednesday. Which is insane in my business, but I do it anyway because that’s what my reputation in the industry is – the guy who can turn things around quickly. You need fifteen thousand words in a day or two, I’m your guy. It might burn me out for a week to do that, but I can get it done. Now I just need to make sure that these fifteen thousand words over the course of the next two days don’t leave me wondering what I’m supposed to do with the rest of my week.

There are a lot of days when I wish I had a job that didn’t require this kind of active thought. All jobs are hard, mind you, but it’d be cool not to fry my brain every time I have to do something major. Then again, I’m not in good enough shape for manual labor and most repetitive tasks are probably way too intricate for my clumsy self. All I’ve got is a basic ability to string a few words together and a spectacular ability to fool other people into thinking that I know what I’m talking about. I don’t know what you can do with that, honestly. Everything in those fields seems like it leads to mental and creative burnout, but hey – at least I’m not outside. I hate going outside.

I’m going to try to let my brain rest tonight by doing something that’s not complex. It’ll probably be a video game, but it will have to be one that doesn’t require me to do a whole lot of thinking. Probably not a shooter or an RPG. Maybe a little farming in WoW or a simple match in a WWE game. Something that’s going to let me put my mind elsewhere for a little bit.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – if these are the problems in my life, I am incredibly lucky. Nothing very bad is happening at the moment. Nothing great, mind you, but things are so much easier for me right now than they could be. I’m blessed, even if I whine. I just need to learn to appreciate what I’ve got and to work harder towards accomplishing the goals that I set out before me. If I can do that, I’ll probably be a lot easier to live with.

Day Seventy-Six

I can’t really put into words how happy I am that my wife is coming home tomorrow. It’s been a long five days, and it’s time for them to be over.

I guess I’m not really suited to being alone anymore, which makes sense. We’ve been together for about twelve years now, so that kind of functionality is just something that is alien to me. I mean, it’s not like I sat around and cried all weekend, but I’m at a bit of a loss. If there’s not someone else there to motivate me, I kind of slip into bad habits. I slept a lot over the last five days, and spent too much time playing video games. I accomplished exactly nothing that I wanted to accomplish, and I put that squarely on knowing that there would be no one there to call me on my crap while I was being lazy.

The best part of being in a relationship, at least to me, is having someone else there to balance you out. I have a lot of friends who like to date girls who are as geeky as they are, but I don’t see how that works in the long term. I have to have someone around who has her feet firmly planted in the real world, or I’ll run off and do stupid things. I’d gladly spend all my money on video games and comic books, only to forget that I had more important bills to pay. Hell, I’d probably convince myself that I can survive on the (incredibly meager) amount that I make right now instead of pursuing more work just because it would give me more time to goof off. With that said, I have to spend a lot of time reminding her that you can, in fact, have fun in your life even if things aren’t perfect. That it’s okay to be a little bit goofy or weird. I also help her to stop worrying so damn much about everything, which means that both of us can function on an even keel.

I am not a great person to give relationship advice. I’ve been with exactly one person since high school. I have no idea what it’s like to date. I don’t have any clue what it’s like to break up with someone. But I think I have a pretty good handle on what it’s like to build something that’s functional enough to last. I try not to give others advice about it, because I do believe that everyone has to figure out their own stuff. I just rest secure knowing that things are usually pretty okay in that part of my life. It makes up for the mess that happens in everything else, I guess. At the very least, it helps me to have a solid rock on which I can stand when everything else seems to be swept away by the tides of absolute insanity that life can become. That’s a very good thing.

Tonight, though, is one last night of being irresponsible. For me, that just means playing video games because I am an incredibly boring man. I’m going to play WoW, hit some dungeons that I haven’t seen before and generally have a good time. There’s a lot to be said for that, too. Not everything has to be epic or life changing. Some things can just be fun, you know? I might have to be a grownup again on Tuesday, but I don’t mind relishing a little bit of that laziness that I’ve missed since college. I don’t mind playing a stupid video game, making dumb jokes and seeing what I can do.

As an odd aside, I also realize that we’re less than three weeks out from GTA V. That’s exciting, and always will be to me. GTA games have been of very high quality. Heck, everything that Rockstar itself makes is pretty much perfect. I can’t wait to jump into that morally ambiguous world for a few weeks and to try to figure out what the story is supposed to mean. GTA III was a straight crime thriller. Vice City was about excess. San Andreas was about the past catching up with you. IV was about revenge. I can’t wait to see what this game is about, because they all seem to so perfectly capture a moment in time. If this game is half as good as IV, it’s going to be the game of the year. Considering all the other games that have come out in 2013, that’s really saying something. It’s got to compete with games like Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite, which in any other year would each be a shoe-in for the title. This year? Too much, too quickly. It’ll be cool to see what ends up standing out.

I wonder how much work I’ll do this week. I’m already feeling lazy – it’s only habit that keeps me working on this blog, if I’m going to be honest. I know I need to read a book and summarize it. I know I have a meeting. I know that I have work that actually has to be finished for clients who were expecting it days ago. I just really can’t bring myself to care about it. I know that things are going to be financially okay as long as I get the work done in that nebulous time period that is “soon”. I know I can do that, so why worry? I just wish that I was more motivated.

Now, it’s time for video games. It’s time to lose myself in silly characters that I developed a decade ago. More than anything, it’s time to stop being a grownup and to stop remember that I actually have responsibilities. I’m just going to sit back, go to Azeroth and kill some stuff that needs to be killed. I’ll be a real person when I wake up, but for now I’m going to embrace the make believe. Sometimes, you just need that.

Day Seventy-Five

Okay, trying to knock this out really quick. Why? Because I have a game to play, for once. I have a game to play that is not conducive to me stopping to write at any point soon, so I’m going to pound out a thousand words as quickly as I can. I love this feeling, especially when I know that I don’t really have to wake up at any particular time in the morning. I also know that I’ll fade pretty hard by midnight, so I need to get in as much time as I can. It’s almost like college, except I’m lazier and I know that there’s work to be done over the next few days. I don’t even really know where to start.

I have a lot of work schedule so far, and I do like that. I’ve got about two to three days worth of work in the tank right now, just waiting for me to start. That means two days of sitting at home, not subbing and generally relaxing. That’s nice, especially since I’m not looking forward to subbing directly after a holiday weekend. If I can get done by Monday (which I hope I can), that means I’ll only be taking a sub day once this week – not too bad. While I appreciate having the subbing job, it’s also something that doesn’t pay well enough for me to feel bad about doing something else on that day. I’d love to pick up a Friday, because that’s typically the slowest working day for me and the best one available for me to make a bit of extra money. If I can do that, great. If not, I’ll figure something out. All I know is that it’s nice to be off to a running start instead of trying to make up for lost time.

Marvel Avengers Alliance remains a very fun game. I’ve been playing it for a little over a year, and it’s probably the best “Free to Play” thing that I’ve ever played. As long as you avoid PVP, you will really never feel the sting of not dropping money. There are dozens of characters now, plenty of storylines and a lot of great ways to earn both types of in-game currency. I’m still in the process of chasing new characters, and I love all the little nods to the Marvel Universe that are in the game. If a character’s not already in the game, you can bet something will mention him or her – a weapon, a line in a conversation, even the flavor text on something. The game’s really starting to go deep for the lineup (two of the most recent characters were Daimon Hellstrom and Squirrel Girl), so even a Marvel nut like me can get pleasantly surprised by what might show up. The combat is very much old-school JRPG, with balanced classes, unique character moves and a rock-paper-scissors aspect that makes strategy a huge part of the game. Unless something changes, I can’t imagine that I’ll stop playing. It really is just that fun.

Speaking of fun, I’m really digging World of Warcraft again. It’s definitely a function of having friends around to play it with, but I forgot how well-made the game is. People might complain that it hasn’t innovated in a bit, but it’s really the game that still does the core mechanics the best. I think some people forget that innovation, at this point, means doing things that WoW does not. When you’re the gold standard, you don’t really have to change up how you do things. At the same time, it has been nice to see the game incorporate a bunch of new stuff. The pet battles are a good distraction, new areas from expansions are always fun, and I always have a fun time following the story. It’s not the best game out there, but it is still my favorite MMO. I’d love to see where it’s going to go in the future, but I fear that it’s getting about time for it to be rebuilt from the ground up. I just hope that they don’t change too much – they don’t need to fix what isn’t broke.

I picked up a rather huge load of old games a few days ago, none of which I’ve gotten around to opening. Some, like WWE 13, Splinter Cell Conviction and LA Noire, are games that I never got around to playing or finishing the first time around. Others, like Saboteur, Dante’s Inferno, Mass effect 3 and Arkham City are just fun games to have around. I didn’t buy them to play immediately – I just wanted to have a nice reserve of games to play during the lean months of early 2014. While there are a ton of games coming out in the next few months to play, next year actually looks kind of empty. I’m probably going to avoid trading in a lot of the games that I get this fall, just because there isn’t anything to look forward to next year. It’s the year of a console release, so everything’s got to be centered around that. Development probably won’t ramp up again until the summer, at which time I can actually think about getting the next console series. Of course, at that point I’ll actually have friends in town to play those consoles with, so everything will be a bit different.

That’s about all I’ve got. This is the most rushed I’ve ever been in writing, so I apologize for whatever might have slipped through. It’s just a diary, at this point, but I still worry a little bit about it. I want to be able to read all of this in eleven months, so I do try. Of course, I figure I’ll just look back at this and shake my head at it being a waste of time – but hey, at least I’m putting in a fair bit of effort. Can’t really ask for more than that from yourself.

Day Seventy-Four

Days with nothing much to do really are the best kinds of days. I’ve got nothing ahead of me to accomplish and nothing sneaking up behind me to make my life miserable. I’ve just got free time, and that is awesome. Next week might be busy, but I don’t have to care about that until Monday. For now, I just get to do what I want, when I want to do it. That’s kind of nice, even if it’s a bit lonely. I’m looking forward to my wife getting home, but I’m trying to pack as much stuff that I like into this weekend as I can.

I took the time to re-watch Casino Royale today, just because I could. It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen that movie. I didn’t go to the theater to see it – I was pretty put off after Die Another Day, and I wasn’t willing to give money up for another Bond movie. I did see it almost immediately after it came out on DVD, and I really did like it. I didn’t end up buying it for a few years, though. I saw Quantum of Solace and Skyfall in the theaters, but I never really got around to buying the DVDs. I think it was because Casino Royale came on television so often at first – there just didn’t seem to be a good reason to buy a disc, and I didn’t want to waste the money. I picked up Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and Skyfall around May, and I just got around to opening them up. I’ve got this theory about the Daniel Craig Bond movies, and I want to see if it holds up. It’s my belief that the three movies are actually just one long story – the origin of James Bond.

Now, Casino Royale is clearly an origin story. He doesn’t spout off any famous lines or even wear the tux until the end. Quantum of Solace is a direct continuation of the story, one that was hurt by being released years after part one – not being able to make quick connections hurt the flow of the story, so I’m going to see how it holds up tomorrow. Skyfall isn’t as closely related to the other two, but it’s still full of growth moments. By the end of the movie, Bond is back in essentially the same position that Sean Connery was in during his first turn in the tux. I think if I watch the three movies together, I’ll get a better idea of the underlying themes of the story and figure out what the writers and director were really trying to get at.

If not, I still got to watch like six hours of Bond movies, so that’s not so bad.

Along with the Bond movies have been video games, of course. I decided to get back into the evil beast that is World of Warcraft, though this time I did it for purely social reasons. A lot of my old friends from WoW have agreed that this weekend makes for a fine nostalgia trip, so we’re leveling up our old guild and just having fun. And you know what? It’s great. Those relationships haven’t changed that much in the intervening years, and everybody still gets along so far. We’re not grating on one another (I think), and the stories we tell and jokes we make are as easy as ever. There’s only a handful of us today (a couple more will join tomorrow), but it really feels like we haven’t lost a step. It’s been years since we’ve all played together, but everything still works.

I love the fact that I made friendships playing a silly video game. I’ve gotten to know these people reasonably well. If something happens in my life, I usually rush out to tell them about it. I don’t know everything about them, but I know enough to care about what goes on with them. It’s like any other friendship in my life, save for the fact that we always interact from behind computers. I used to think that meant that it was worth less, but I don’t feel that way any longer. I mean, these are friendships that have lasted for over half a decade, and valuing those just seems like a natural part of the human process. We’ve spent time accomplishing things together, telling jokes and forming relationships. Just because distance is a factor doesn’t mean that any of that is any less real. It just means that it happens by choice, not by happenstance. The fact that I keep in contact with all of these people happens because we work at it. All it would take is to step away from the boards to make the friendships crumble – but so far, very few of us have chosen that route. And when we do, we always end up coming back.

I don’t usually think of video games as a place where formative events happen, but WoW has been such a place for me. Nothing life-changing, but it has helped me to connect with new people and learn new things. My life will always be concentrated on what happens in the real world, but I’ll certainly never stop learning in every space that I can. The fact that I can interact with all of these fine folks from behind a screen just means that I have to put more mental effort into the process – and that’s probably a good thing.

For now, I’m gonna get back into that game. We’re only playing for a weekend, so I want to get in as much times as possible. When it’s over, things will go back to normal. So I might as well enjoy it while I can, because it’s probably not something that’s going to happen again. If it does, though, you better believe that I will be embracing it with open arms and a ready keyboard. After all, you’ve got to work to keep in contact with your friends.

- A.

Day Seventy-Three

I’m just gonna rage for a thousand words, okay?

I just got done writing a very long summary of “7 Habits for Highly Effective People” because that is something that I do with my life. I don’t write book summaries as a rule, but the reimbursement rate on this one was pretty good and it only took me about a day to finish. I slogged through about four thousand words to get this one done, and I’m just left with an incredibly bad taste in my mouth. I’m unrealistically angry right now, and I probably don’t have a right to be.

Okay guys, let’s just level – self-help books are garbage. All of them. The Secret? Garbage. Seven Habits? Garbage. Whatever piece of trash your aunt is read to help her get a new boyfriend or your uncle swears by that will help him get a new job? Utter garbage. Nothing is worse than self-help, and I should know – I’m a pretty prolific writer of the stuff. Self-help isn’t just bad, it’s predatory. It preys on a market full of people who are desperate for a way to turn their lives around, and they’re all counting on hacks to help them to find a way out of the dark. It’s the worst stuff ever.

There are two types of self-help in my mind. The first is what I’d consider the “bullshit” self-help category. This category is of stuff that in no way, shape or form can actually improve your life. This where things like the Power of Positive Thinking or The Laws of Attraction reign supreme. They’re all about essentially making wishes to make your life better. You know what? Wishing absolutely does not change your life. If anything, it makes your life actively worse because you are expecting something else to do the heavy lifting for you. These books make me incredibly angry because they give people an excuse. Life not going well? You must not be sending out enough positive vibes. You didn’t get that promotion? It isn’t because you were late to work every day, it’s because you skipped your affirmations. This kind of stuff is poisonous to the human spirit, it really is. It’s also written by people who have no reason to believe a word of it – I should know, I’ve written two books on the topic that have sold moderately well on the Kindle bookstore.

The other type of self-help is Obvious Self-Help. I like to think of these books as the Be A Good Person books. Seven Habits is a great example of the genre, because there’s not a single thing in there that you don’t already know. Look at the habits – they’re basically “be proactive, don’t be terrible to other people, learn how to listen and take care of yourself”. That’s it. That’s all there is to this book, and it’s sold literally millions of copies. I have crapped out books like this over and over again, basically telling people that the only way to have a better life is to not be a terrible human being. Oddly enough, these books tend to sell less well because they aren’t promising any kind of magic. People don’t want to know that you have to work really hard to get the things that you want. People want a magic pill or a genie in the bottle to make sure that everything works without having to put in the effort. It’s frustrating, because it’s changed the way that people view the world. It’s made everyone horrible, and I hate having to deal with the people who have read the stuff. I even hate the fact that I make money off of them, because I wish I didn’t have to. I’m just doing the whole “work really hard if you want to succeed” sort of thing that they don’t want to do.

Look, if your life sucks…it’s because it sucks. If you’re lucky, you can work incredibly hard and get out of that. If you’re not lucky, the best you can hope for is to find some measure of happiness in whatever it is that you love. There’s no magic answer that’s going to make things better. There’s no book that’s going to help you to magically improve things in a few simple steps. I’m a religious guy, and I’ll tell you right now that reading your Bible every night is not going to give you the life of your dreams. I think it’ll help to give you a basis on which you can build a pretty good life, but it’s not going to make you a millionaire. If you want something, you have to go out there and grab it. There is absolutely no substitute for hard work. Anyone who tells you otherwise is just trying to steal from you.

This stuff bothers me because most of the people I know fall into the target audience. They don’t understand why they have crappy lives. It’s usually because they wait around for stuff like this to work instead of putting in the effort themselves. I’m not a “by the bootstraps” kind of guy, mind you. Getting help in life is a categorically good thing. There are even times in life when you have to be completely dependent on others, because it takes a lot to get back on your feet. But at some point, you have to take responsibility for your own life. At some point, you have to learn that the only way to get something better than what you have is to put up with a lot of crap that you don’t want to deal with. You might have to work an awful job or go back to school – but that work is going to put you in a position to succeed. Luck or circumstances might be against you, but you won’t get anywhere if you don’t take those steps first.

I just wish more people would try. And I wish less people would buy the stuff I’m selling.

Day Seventy-Two

Yep, still not making up that extra day.

I’m in the midst of that most fearful period of married life, a long weekend utterly alone. My wife’s flown up to visit her family in New York, leaving me here alone with the dogs. I’ve got four full days of nothing but time to myself, and I can’t exactly remember what I used to do with that sort of time. I could play video games, but man…that is a LOT of hours. An insane amount of hours, actually. Thank goodness that I at least have some work that I can do, because I would otherwise go insane.

I made the decision to take the long weekend off from subbing, mostly because I’d really like to sleep in for a few days. I’ve also got enough work piled on my account that I’m going to make more writing than subbing ,which is both nice and kind of depressing. It’s nice, because it’s nice to make a little bit of extra money – something we need, to be honest, and something that I’m happy to be able to provide for once. It’s also depressing, because it shows exactly how little I make when I sub. Tennessee is certainly not New York, where you can make something that approaches a living off of subbing. Subbing rounds up to about twelve dollars an hour for what you work, except that the gig is only about five paid hours and you’re capped at thirty for the week – and that’s if you’re lucky. That’s no way to make a living, and it’s something that gives me pause.

When I teach, I’ll make money. Not great money, but enough money to ensure that we’re going to be comfortable. My wife makes significantly more than I ever will, and I am blessedly very cool with that. As a sub, though, I don’t feel like I’m pulling my weight. I can make a hell of a lot more on a good writing week than I can as a sub – back when things were flush in the business, I could clear a huge chunk of change without breaking a sweat. I wrote for exactly an hour last night, and I made about what I made during the working day before. Knowing that I can stay home and be relatively lazy while making money makes it very hard for me to wake up early and take a subbing job, even if it’s the kind of job that I want. I’m not really sure what to do at this point, because finances are really coming into play. Subbing work, when it’s steady, is a great source of extra income. When I’ve got to decide between subbing or writing, though, it’s hard to make the “right” choice. I could, in theory, make more money doing the latter than the former if it’s a good day. If it’s a bad day, though, I’ve wasted my time. I have no idea how to calculate the risk versus reward on this one, and I’m not sure where I’m going to go next. Bad times.

On a completely different front, it looks like I’m embarking on a fun new writing experiment for work. I’m being paid to read a couple of non-fiction books and write Sparknotes-style summaries for each. The pay is pretty good (the two combined equal about three days of subbing) and the cost of the books is actually covered. I’ll probably spend a decent chunk of tomorrow reading, and the rest of Thursday and some of Friday writing. I figure I can probably knock out both the books in about a day (it’s only about five hundred pages, and really – what else am I going to do with my time?), and then start writing. This is the kind of stuff I love, because I’m getting compensated for doing something that’s at least going to interest me. Neither of the books are exactly up my alley, but both are worth the time to read simply because it’s doing something more than writing sales copy. I do feel a bit like I’m doing a book report in high school, but that’s kind of comforting. I know what I’m doing, and I can probably do it well.

That’s the really cool thing about this kind of writing. I usually describe myself as working on SEO content now, but that’s actually moving farther and farther from the truth as time goes on. I’m doing a lot of work reviewing things, writing blog posts and generally providing real information. I like the fact that my name is starting to go on a few things, and I really like the fact that I’m starting to get some respect in the industry. That’s another thing that makes it difficult to take the sub jobs – I’m actually good at the type of writing that I do for money. You might not be able to tell it from this rambling piece of crap that I put up every night, but I’m a pretty prolific and proficient writer when it comes to working for other people. I get jobs when I need them, and it’d be really lovely to make a living doing stuff like this. I’m actually pretty conflicted about where I’m going to go next. I’m on the cusp of being able to push this to the next level, but I’m not sure if it’s what I want.

I guess it’s good to have options in life. It just kind of sucks to actually have to make decisions. I don’t even know what the safe route is anymore – I just know that there’s one that goes according to a plan, and one that goes according to my personal comfort. I’m not sure which to follow yet, but I’m going to figure that out soon. For now, I’m just glad that I have both jobs and that I’ve got a chance to figure out my own way. That’s a lot more than most people get, and I’m grateful for it.

Day Seventy-One

Still behind a day.

Instead of complaining about something, I’m just going to get right to what’s been in my head for a bit – music, again. I’ve already talked about playing an instrument, but now I’m thinking more about listening to music. It’s still not something I do as often as I once did, but it’s still something that’s in my life. Music is such a defining thing that I think it’s weird that people don’t think about it more often. Without music, I really don’t know where my life would be. Hell, I don’t even really know who I would be.

Like I wrote before, I grew up with music. It wasn’t always particularly good music, but it was music. My first exposures to music that I remember were with my grandparents. My mom’s dad was a musician – like I said, a legitimate, dyed-in-the-wool musician. He loved to sing, play piano and play guitar. When I was younger, he would tell me that he was a famous musician when he was younger, that he had his own radio station, and the like. In reality, he wasn’t particularly successful – he tried, but it came down to a choice between family and music, and he chose the former. Still, his record with Sun Records is hanging in my mom’s house, and I have his old guitar. That counts for a lot.

Anyway, he was a fan of country. He sang the classics and the music of his contemporaries – Hank Williams and Johnny Cash were big, as was Merle Haggard and a host of other singers I know better by voice than by name. My dad, however, alternated between 70s rock and 80s/90s pop as I grew up. I heard a lot of Skynyrd and Queen, but also far too much Mariah Carrey and Madonna. If my grandfather cultivated a musical taste, my dad just kind of let it grow out of control.

I was around ten or eleven when I actually started to formulate musical opinions of my own. I remember listening to old country music on an AM station in Durango, Colorado. That’s the first time I ever heard “Ring of Fire”, and it was the first time I ever stayed up late to listen to a radio show. I listened to Garth Brooks and Johnny Cash, Tim McGraw and countless others – country was my thing, for a quite a little while. As I grew older, my tastes changed. I listened to bands like Smashmouth and Matchbox 20, bought albums by countless 90s one-hit wonders and early-2000s bands that lasted about as long as it took to record their first albums. The older I got, the angrier the music became. I liked my music loud, demanding and dark. I never quite hit the really hard stuff, but I walked that line.

My late teens were probably the biggest time in which I actually cared about music. I had Rage Against the Machine and Metallic posters on my wall, but I was busy memorizing chords for Green Day and Nirvana at the same time. I liked music that had a message, even if that message was juvenile. I particularly enjoyed anything that seemed like it might be subversive. I was a little idiot that wore a lot of black, liked to talk about anarchy and played in a terrible punk band. It was pretty much par for the course as a teenager, but it’s something that seemed so incredibly important to me at the time. That lasted about as long as it took to get to college, when I started to listen to new bands – bands that were a bit more melodic, even if they kept an edge. Flogging Molly and Pennywise were in, Metallic and Rage were out. I was listening to voices as much as music for the first time, and it changed how I looked at things.

Today, I don’t know – I don’t really listen to music that often. I’ll catch something on the radio and download it later, but it doesn’t have the same impact. I can appreciate a singer like Adele, for example, because I know that she’s technically proficient and she can write a good song. I’m not necessarily a fan – I don’t think about the music for a second longer than it takes for it to stop playing. I haven’t been to a concert in about four years, even though going out to see anyone was pretty much the highlight of my weekend in college.

As an aside, I can pinpoint the exact moment at which I stopped going to shows. There was a (locally) ska band called Catch-22 up in New York, and I’d never seen them live. I went down to a local club with two friends to catch them. Unfortunately, they were preceded by at least two hours worth of high school bands – terrible, terrible bands that everyone else was there to see. When they were done, the band got on stage…and proceeded to tell us that they had a more important gig the next night, so they were just going to play a couple of songs and leave. They sleepwalked through about four songs (shades of Local H’s “All the Kids are Right”) and just…left. We spent all night waiting for that band, only for them to disappoint us. That was the last show that I attended, and might be the last for some time. It just left a terrible memory, and one that I guess I had a hard time getting over.

I wonder if music is something that’s just important to you when you’re young. No one I know talks about bands anymore, at least not as something more than an item of passing interesting. It’s nice not to get judged based on musical taste, but it’d be nice to have better ideas about what to listen to. In the end, that’s how I always found music – and now, I think, I’ve lost a way to track down new bands to love.

- A.

Day Seventy

You know, today was supposed to be my day to make up the lost word count. It was, I promise. But I’m entirely wiped out from subbing, something that looks like it’s going to be a problem when it comes to this blog. It’s not like the work is incredibly tough – it’s not – but it is very draining. It’s what I think of as all of the worst parts of teaching, with none of the usual rewards. You’re a glorified babysitter, with no ability to implement class policy or even really provide discipline. You follow the directions of someone that you might never meet, but have to act like they trust you enough that they will take your word on whatever happens in the classroom. It’s weird.

At the same time, this really is the only path back into a classroom for me. To teach, I need experience. Unfortunately, I can’t gain that in my own classroom at the moment. I can, however, be the best sub that I can be – and that’s something that I really do plan on doing. I’m going back in again tomorrow, actually, and I’m going to try to knock it out of the park. If I can do that, I’ll probably go back to writing for the rest of the week – after all, there’s no need to overdo it so far. I just need to make a little money, get a little bit of experience and get some real work done. Once I’m done with all of that, I can happily get back to doing things that don’t make me feel quite so powerless or frustrated. Then again, I’ll probably just end up feeling like I should’ve picked up another day in the classroom, so I won’t really feel like I’ve done anything worthwhile with my time anyway.

The plus side is that I’m going back to a familiar classroom tomorrow. I’ve met the kids, I know the teacher’s expectations and I have a good idea of what to do with them. It’s blocks tomorrow, so I really only have to deal with a few groups – this makes life easier for me, because I can get to know the kids, deal with a small set of behavior problems over a length of time and then move on to the next set. I also get an hour and change for lunch, a fact about which I cannot stress the importance enough. I mean, it’s at least three times what I get at the usual schools, so it means that I can read a good book and really spend some time relaxing in the middle of the day. I’ll teach two classes, take an hour off, and then teach two classes. How cool is that? It’s pretty cool, is how cool it is. It’s actually nice enough that I’m kind of excited about going in tomorrow, which is helping me feel a bit better about my job today. Not bad, I guess. Not bad at all.

What else do I have here? Not a lot. The tank is feeling pretty dry. I think you have to actually experience things to get any kind of inspiration, and I’ve been in a pretty experience-free zone for the last little bit. Subbing is a holding pattern, and there’s not a lot I can draw on from it in terms of writing. I mean, other than that last five hundred words, I guess. But that’s not writing, that’s just venting with poorly constructed sentences. But it helps me to accomplish a goal, and that might be enough for the moment.

All I really want to do at the moment is finish up Saints Row IV. I think I’ve written enough about it that you’ve got to know that I love the game, but man…I love that game. I’m actually remarkably close to done, and I’ve even done all of the side quests. That’s pretty unusual for me, so I think I’ll probably carry it even farther and try to get a full 100% on all of the Achievements. That’s not something I’ve ever really done in a full-release game, but I do think that I’ll give it a shot. The game is fun enough that I know I’ve missed stuff, and just running around with some of the weirder weapons will be enough to hold me until I run out and grab GTA V. That’s going to be a weird switch, but I’m looking forward to that.

As much as people praised the narrative of the last GTA game, I am looking forward to playing some games with a bit more substance to them. Arkham Origins and Assassins’ Creed IV should have rather more useful stories, even though AC IV’s “present day” is getting shaken up on every level. I love playing games with stories, because they feel like truly interacting movies. They may not always be the best in terms of writing, but they offer a narrative experience that other forms of media can’t match. When you watch a movie, you watch the characters. When you play a good, story-driven game, you feel like you’re experiencing everything that’s happening. It’s a great way to dive into a story, and it’s probably the reason why so many games fail on the story level – that’s a hard feat to pull off well, and something that I imagine takes a heck of a writer to actually accomplish.

That’s about all I’ve got for now, and I’m working really hard to get this hundred words or so typed out. I play video games, and then I try to teach kids. I wish I could do more of the latter instead of the former, but I’ve got very little to complain about in my life. All I need to do is to make sure that I’m going to be able to get through the next couple of days. Once the weekend gets here, I’m going to relax like it’s my job. Except, you know, one that I’m good at.

- A.

Day Sixty-Nine

I hate missing days. They take a lot of time to make up – seriously, I can barely make it through a thousand words most days, so making it through two seems pretty insurmountable. I meant to write something a bit more meaningful today, but the day got away from me again. I’ve got to hit the hay in an hour or so, so I’m attempting to squeeze something out under the wire. That means no fiction for me tonight, as much as I’d like to write it. I’ve got an eighth grade science class to teach in the morning, and nothing’s going to put me off my game.

One thing that I was thinking about over the course of the last few days is music. Music used to be a huge part of my life – something I suppose is true for most people. There was always music in my house, even if a lot of it wasn’t very good. My dad listened to music at unbearable volumes in the car, but he and my mom had a stereo in the house. Michael Jackson, Beach Boys – those were the two biggest names that I remember as a little kid. Singing was a pretty normal part of life, but I wasn’t very good at it. I did, however, learn to love the music. When it came time for me to make that all-important middle school choice between art and band, there wasn’t really a question of what I’d do – I went with music and I never turned back.

I was, and always will be, a pretty terrible drummer. I don’t have great coordination, and keeping a steady rhythm has always been kind of hard. I started as a drummer in 6th grade because no one else wanted to, and then I just kind of drifted. I actually started in a marching band in eight grade though, playing a bass drum before moving up to snare in the 9th. I was just good enough to copy what other people did, which I guess is technically what you do when you play music anyway. By the time I got to high school, I was at least competent enough not to mess things up too much when I was stuck at auxiliary percussion.

Before all of that, though, I started on the piano. We had a piano in the house from the time I was about eight, and it was something that I’d stop and start trying to play over and over. I wasn’t the kind of kid who gave up on lessons, but I’d end up moving away after a month or two of playing. I do remember a few recitals in a few different towns, but my progress would always be limited by the fact that I’d have to take lengthy breaks from playing or that I’d have to start my lessons over in a new town.

Piano came in handy in percussion, though, because it allowed me to play xylophone and marimba with at least some degree of ability. It also gave me the chance to play piano on one piece, even if I only got to play half the part. On the upside, though, it allowed me to play a grand piano once – that was a ton of fun, and a memory that I cherish.

After percussion came the guitar, because…I guess just because I was a teenager. My grandfather always played – he was a legitimate musician, playing in Memphis in the 60s and 70s before giving that up. He gave me a guitar when I was around fifteen, and I was hooked from there. I took exactly four guitar lessons before stopping, but that didn’t stop me from playing. My teacher taught me how to play notes and a few chords, and from there I just took off. I was never a virtuoso player, but I played as hard as I could. I was in a punk band in high school, and I amassed a collection of guitars for a bit. It was enough to define who I was for a period of my life.

Now…now I don’t really play anymore. I haven’t trotted out any of my guitars in at least six months, and probably a solid year before that. I don’t have whatever was in me before to give me that desire to play. Part of it comes from an injury – I got hurt working in college, and I couldn’t play guitar for a good long while. My ability to play kind of atrophied at that point and it was discouraging enough that I never really tried again. Coupled with the fact that playing does still hurt, and my days with the guitar were over. My drum kit is long since gone, and I haven’t had a piano in over a decade. As much as music was once a part of my life, now it’s just gone. That makes me sad, I guess. Not because I don’t play, but because I shut off a part of my life that I won’t be able to get back. I don’t foresee myself ever becoming a better guitarist than I was at seventeen or playing a piano any better than I did as a kid. I’m not going to grow as a musician, because I’m not a musician anymore. I’m a guy who has a bunch of instruments and the ability to pick out a song or two. That’s it.

It’s weird how you can move away from things that define you. Be it from lack of ambition or access, some things just stop being such a defining force in your life when you get older. I wish that I had kept playing music, but that’s just an idle wish that point. That’s part of why I write this blog, though – I don’t want to leave writing behind, and I don’t want that part of myself to fade away from disuse. I just want to be able to keep having fun with it as long as I can.

- A

Day Sixty-Eight

Well, my first day of substitute teaching was interesting.

I’ll preface this by saying that I really enjoy the job. I’m in a classroom, and I’m helping kids. Those are both things that I enjoy, and I’m glad that I got the chance to get paid to do that today. I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity, and the kids that I taught were remarkably good for their age group. I’m definitely looking forward to my next opportunity to sub, which looks like it will probably be in a few weeks. It’s a good gig, and one that I’m lucky to have.

With that said, subbing is also very weird. There’s a palpable sense of wrongness about the whole thing. You are very aware of the fact that it is not your classroom, not your curriculum and the kids are not your kids. Every second of the day is defined by the teacher for whom you are filling in. This isn’t bad in and of itself, but it’s frustrating if you actually want to teach. There are great teachable moments and all, but they’re overshadowed by all of the restrictions. In my class today, I was restricted to pretty much handing out papers and making sure that the kids didn’t kill one another or burn down the building. This is not a bad thing – it’s an easy way to get paid, after all – but I really want to be teaching right now. Getting to do the easy mode is not only frustrating financially, but it is intellectually limiting. I wish that I had my own class, and that feeling was intensified by being back in a classroom today. I’ve lucked out and grabbed eight days in a row in another classroom, though, so at least I’ll get more of a chance to get to know the students and to teach a new subject.

That’s pretty much it for the real-world stuff. I had a nice day subbing, and I look forward to going back to that school. I think I might have made a good enough impression to sub in that same class again, which would be a nice, easy way to go through another day. Now that I know how to get to the school, I’ll be able to sleep in a bit later and I won’t have to freak out about finding a parking space. All in all, it’s a best case scenario.

Which brings me, of course, to Batman.

If you haven’t heard yet, Ben Affleck will be playing Batman in the Superman/Batman film. This is kind of surprising news, because this isn’t exactly what Affleck is known for – especially these days. I don’t think the guy’s actually a bad actor, and I don’t think he’s so terribly wrong for the part that he’d ruin it, but it still seems weird to have him play Batman after Bale. There’s definitely a pro and con side of things to him playing the role, which…will fill up some of my word count, to be honest.

I’ll start with the “pro” side, just because most people don’t think about it. The guy is actually quite a good actor – when he’s in dramatic roles, he usually nails the part. Yes, he was in some awful films, but he was never the actor that ruined them. The guy’s got the perfect look and he’s at the right age for an “older” Batman (well, older than Superman, anyway). And, let’s face it – he’s no odder a choice than Bale or Keaton for Batman. He took a turn as Daredevil, and yeah…that movie sucked. But he wasn’t what was wrong with it, not by a long shot. The director’s cut of the movie is much better, with far less Elektra and weird Colin Farrell stuff mucking up the works. Seeing him in a proper superhero film might be a nice change of pace.

The only thing that worries me is that Warner Bros. seemed to have the idea of getting a “big name” as the priority rather than getting someone who was right for the part. Keaton was right for the part, even though he was a comedian. Bale was right for the part, even though he seemed like an awful choice at the time. There were a ton of problems with Nolan’s films, but casting was never one of those problems – he always cast for the role rather than for the name. WB, though, seems to be going for name casting and that could be a problem. That means Affleck has to prove that he can fill the role rather than giving fans the safe assumption that the director knows what’s up. On the balance, that’s a bad thing for fans and for the movie itself. It’ll take a long time to see how this shakes out.

It’s going to take an awful lot for Superman/Batman to work out. I didn’t really like Man of Steel, and I don’t think that the formula for the new movie will stray that far from the previous entry. I hope I’m wrong, because I like the characters and actors involved with the story. It’d be nice if they’d switch up directors and get a Joss Whedon-type to direct – someone who loves the source material but who can also put a definitive stamp on the film that fits the actual tone of the character. Man of Steel was very much a Snyder film, but it wasn’t much of a Superman film. I want to see something that stays true to the character while still giving the director room to stretch.

Man, it’s weird thinking of all the movies coming out in the future. It’s such a great time to be a nerd. I mean, it’s at least cool to be able to be disappointed about who is going to be in a Superman/Batman movie. That means that the movie is getting made, and that we’ll all get to see it. Who would’ve predicted that one ten years ago?

- A.

Day Sixty-Seven

This post is going to be even more disjointed than usual, since I’m going to be writing it bit by bit as the night goes on. I’ve got to get to bed a bit earlier, because I’ve got my first subbing job of the year in the AM. Gone are the glory days of sleeping in ‘till 8am, I guess. I’ve got to get up and get to work like a grownup, so I can’t wait to get my blog done at the last minute. I don’t quite have time to write the whole thing at once, though, so I’m parting it out over the night.

So it was about an hour between the first hundred words and what I’m writing now. In that time, I made dinner and ate…not bad. I really enjoy cooking, even though I’m really not that good at it. I can make a few things well, but I’ve got a fear of chicken. For some reason, I can either undercook it or over cook it – there is no middle ground for me. Tonight’s meal was gluten-free chocolate chip pancakes (my wife can’t eat gluten) and bacon. Not really the world’s most impressive spread, but it tasted delicious. And really, what more can I do?

I am incredibly excited about substitute teaching in the morning. I guess that’s a good sign – it’s got to mean that I’m on the right career path if I’m willing to wake up before the sun to go into a hostile teaching environment. I love teaching, I really do, and even subbing is a great way to spend the day. It doesn’t hurt that I’m only there from 8:00 to 3:30 – I still get to get out early for the weekend, and I get paid. What could be better? Well, I mean, other than having a steady job. That would actually be better, but I’m certainly not going to complain about what I’m getting. Even the little paycheck is going to be enough to make a difference for me, and it’s a bit of experience that I can put on my resume. By the time I’m done with this year’s sub work, I should be able to tell employers that I have a wide range of experience teaching multiple grade levels. That should…actually, that shouldn’t mean much, since I’ll be moving to another state. But it will help me get more sub work, and then help me get into a regular teaching position.

As much as I’m looking forward to tomorrow, I’m really more excited about my upcoming subbing dates in September. I’m in the same classroom for eight days, and I’ll actually be in a high school English class. While History is my favorite subject to teach, I’ve been spending a lot of time considering going the English route. It’s easier to get a job in the field, and I really enjoy it. I mean, it’s the only class in which you can sit and discuss literature – how great is that? This subbing stint should give me a good chance to see if I like it as much as history and it should allow me to make a choice as to whether I will be taking that licensing exam later this year. If I do take that exam, it will certainly put me in a better position to get hired next year. At the very least, it will put me in a position to get a better job next year. I suppose it can’t hurt, but it is very nice to get a trial run. Plus, it’s a guaranteed seven days of employment!

Of course, I spent today celebrating by playing more Saints Row IV. I absolutely love this game, in much the same way I loved the previous games in the series. It bounces from silly to serious so fast that it’s hard to keep a handle on things, but it’s mostly a light and fun game. I’ve encountered even more callbacks and parodies over the last few hours, and the superpowers are becoming more and more fun. I really don’t know if I’m going to enjoy GTA V as much as I hoped I would, simply because the powers seem like such a logical extension of the concept. Just the ability to jump around the city and super-speed over obstacles takes away a lot of the tedium of the game for me, so I’ll have to see how things look in the future.

There’s not a lot else for me to say tonight. I’ve got tunnel vision when it comes to big stuff, so I can’t really think about much other than teaching. I’m very excited, and I really hope that things go well. Looking back on my own high school career, though, I can’t ever remember any particularly “great” subs. There were certainly subs that were more fun to have, but none that I remember by name. I don’t remember anyone giving subs a particularly hard time either, except for in one instance. That class was full of over a hundred freshmen, though, so something was bound to happen. My day, at least, should be fairly easy to get through if I keep my head down, act like an instructor and make sure that the kids stay on task. That should be easy – it’s not like I haven’t done it before. So now it’s that terrible chunk of time when I just sit and wait for tomorrow.

Man, chunking out an entry like this is just weird. I’ve always sat and written in one quick burst, and dividing up my time just doesn’t feel right. Still, it helped me get through my thousand words for the evening and that’s what counts. I will hopefully have a coherent narrative about my first subbing experience tomorrow night, which will be lovely. At least I have an idea of what I’m going to write about in advance, which pretty much never happens. Then again, I bet anyone who has ever looked at that blog can already tell that.

- A

Day Sixty-Six

It’s still technically the 21st as I sit down to write this, so I haven’t skipped a day. Cutting it pretty close, but I’m counting this one!

I’ve played two very different games today – Saints Row IV and Catherine. One’s a shallow, silly game that’s almost certainly going to get savaged by anyone who takes games seriously. The other is an odd puzzle game that got reviewed well. As much as I want to be the kind of person that likes the latter, the former is what really impressed me. I think they both speak to very different kinds of game design, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I’ll start with Catherine, because that’s the one that’s certainly supposed to be novel. I’ll probably start this bit by saying that I’m neither a huge fan of Japanese RPGs nor a fan of anime. Unfortunately, this game seems to be designed for those who like both – or at least those who have a passing familiarity with both. The cutscenes are incredibly well animated, and look like they could come out of any series that’s actually on TV. The gameplay is weird – it’s half puzzle game, half RPG/relationship simulator. That’s a shame, because (outside of Portal), I’m really not a puzzle gaming guy. All of the other game elements are locked out behind the puzzles, so you will find yourself unable to experience the plot if you’re not great at quickly dealing with spatial relations puzzles. That’s a real shame, because the story is at least interesting – it’s not that novel, but it’s enough to hold my interest. I’d love to see how it pans out, but I won’t be playing much more of the game. The puzzles just aren’t my thing, and there’s way too much time spent just watching the game. It almost reminds me of some of the worst parts of the Metal Gear series – it desperately wants to be a movie or television show, so the player is relegated to pressing a few button prompts or just watching the screen.

Saints Row IV, on the other hand, is surprisingly deep. I wrote a bit about the super powers yesterday, but I’ve actually been impressed by how deep the game has become. The Saints Row series has always had a decent layer of plot under all the silliness, especially if you pay attention enough to those things that go unsaid during the game. Watching The Boss’ journey through the first two games was a pretty simple story of watching him go from a nobody to the leader of a city’s most powerful game. The third game was largely concerned with empire building, but it finally gave him a personality beyond being a sociopath – he was still crazy and murderous, but also fiercely loyal to his friends. He could even have a bit of a sing along with them, if the time was right.

I was delighted to see that The Boss is still growing in Saints Row IV. Interactions with the other characters outside of combat now give him a chance to get to know them a bit better, and you actually get the feeling that he’s as much bound to them by loyalty as they are to him. There’s even a few great scenes where you get to learn a lot more about the other characters in the game and how they’ve evolved since the beginning of the series.

This game is, oddly enough, also about continuity. Saints Row 2 hid a lot of its connections to Saints Row behind optional missions, and Saints Row the Third could be played without having ever touched the series. This game, though, is all about acknowledging the past. There are quite a few call backs to the three previous games, including a welcome return to the first scene of the series. The nature of the game lends itself to pulling together the disparate elements of the series, and it’s great to learn more about what happened to certain characters when we weren’t interacting with them. It’s almost like Saints Row is starting to grow as a franchise, even as it seeks to be as absolutely juvenile as possible – and that is entirely okay.

I’ve also got to say that I really love how it lampoons other video games. From text adventures to Metal Gear, shots are taken everywhere. At the same time, those shots are so lovingly crafted that you have to know that the people who developed the games are fans of those other series. So many video games that I play these days are about serious art that I’ve forgotten that some game designers actually, you know, love video games. That’s pretty refreshing, and it shows. While the Metal Gear parody is probably the most overt in the game, I’ve loved the subtle nods to other games that are present. It gives me a chance to discover something new every few minutes, and I love that.

Video game season is absolutely awesome. I can spend a great month in Saints Row before moving on to GTA, and I’m interested to see how I’ll make the switch from the silliest open world game to the most serious. I hope GTA V takes at least some of the levity from The Ballad of Gay Tony, because GTA IV could be a pretty depressing game at times. That doesn’t make it bad, but it does mean that it wasn’t always fun to play. Of course, I’ve got Saints Row to give me the humor if I want it, so it might not be so bad to play something with a little more gravitas.

Yes, GTA now has gravitas. It’s come a long way from the game I played in high school. The fifth game should be quite a bit of fun, but I don’t know if it’ll be as good as the fourth iteration of its one-time clone. It’s going to be a lot of fun to see which one is better, though.

- A.

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