Huzzah. Back to work after the long drive yesterday. I’ve had worse drives – coming from Florida to Oklahoma was brutal – but it was still basically six hours in a car alone. Blech. This was also the first time I’ve rented a car where I didn’t spring for the SiriusXM, so I had to rely on my CDs (which I had to actually find in my normal car) to cover a pretty large swath of Kansas where I couldn’t find a decent radio station.

So … here I am. Back to the grind. Rah.

Now I need to get working on my Verge game again…

Tomorrow, I get to roll out of bed really early and head up to Misery … er … Missouri, where my baby sister lives. Originally, I was going to drive up there today, but one of my co-workers abruptly needed to be off today because his wife’s family pulled some scheduling shenanigans, so I came in. I was also going to drive my actual car up there but last week, I had to put air in the tires and noted how messed up they are … so I’m renting a car instead. Picking it up after work.

Not really looking forward to the drive, but it’s family. What are you going to do, right?

Don’t be terribly surprised if (or rather … when) stuff changes. I’ve been playing around with various WordPress themes in order to find one I really, really like instead of just tolerate.

I’ve made no secret how much I freaking hate this time of year, especially X-Mas. My dad died around X-Mas back in ’91 so I have certain sense memories tied to this time of the year. As a result, the closer we get to that point, the more … unbalanced (for lack of a better word) I find myself getting. Today and yesterday are especially good examples: out of nowhere, my mood has sharply deteriorated to the point that I came home from work and just immediately secluded myself in my bedroom where I did some reading and tried to focus on things that wouldn’t piss me off. Unfortunately, the book I’m reading – Kurt Schlichter’s Collapse – probably isn’t helping because I can totally see this being the future of the US. My roommate has invited me to accompany him to his family’s Turkey Day thing tomorrow and I’m still debating whether to go or not. On one hand, I do like his family and he’s basically my “brother from a different mother” but on the other, I’ll have to deal with observing family stuff and God, I’m in no mood to deal with that.

New Year’s cannot possibly come soon enough so I can get back to avoiding introspection.

So … I’m in between running games and in a bit of a weird state. I was absolutely ready to be done with the ConsOps game by the last couple of sessions, but now, I’m jonesing to be back in the GM chair, particularly with the Verge game. Unfortunately, I can’t really do a lot but work on setting stuff since we’re doing the Session 0 to develop characters probably after the first of the year. Normally, I build the game around the characters, so this will be a different mindset I need to get into.

Factor in also the rapid approach of the “stupid season” … my dad passed away back in ’91 around X-Mas so I have certain sense memories tied to this abysmal holiday & it doesn’t help that I’ve got some weirdo friends who are the insane happy-happy-glee-glee types about Christmas (and seem to be unable to comprehend how much I actively loath it.)

So I’m in an odd mood. I’m trying to force my brain into something useful but alas…

Blech. Sick all week. Started late on Saturday, so I took steps to counter it and ended up sleeping all day Sunday (due to NyQuil), then unfortunately missing work on Monday for more of the same. Very much ready for this crap to be over with so I can get back to feeling at least relatively normal…