A Window, A Light...

The work situation wasn't getting any better and, past the midway point in the semester, I know that final papers are going to be a real issue if I'm tight on time, so I went on 'seasonal' work designation so I can walk away for a while with no real ramifications. Put my scant PTO in and walked. If I want extra money when I'm on break, I can come back. If I can't stand the place, I never have to go back. Most of the dock has already walked and they're having something of a desperate time - serves them right.

The movement to only school, all the time has been good for my productivity, and it comes at just the right time.

There's a lot that I love about being in an academic setting, but being back also reminds me of all the things that frustrated me when I was there in undergrad. The teaching is generally fine, the community isn't my issue, but the infrastructure is clearly rotting at a national level. The division between the business end of universities and the academic end is wide, the treatment of education as a commodity instead of as a right, or at least a public good is as distressing as everyone says.

At first, I wasn't really sure that I belonged back. I felt that the gulf between myself and my peers would already be noticeably large and difficult to overcome. The problem really wasn't that I was behind in knowledge, which makes sense if you consider that we're working at the same collective general level. The issue is that, on top of become more acquainted with the idea of the systhesis of knowledge and helping build a greater understanding of literature (or other media, really, since the lines are beginning to blur), Masters/PhD programs are designed to train and acculturate new academics.

I don't have any real illusion that there's going to be a change to this in the near future - at least, not one that I'd have a part in. The best of my understanding has always been that this is a bad system that needs to change, but it mirrors the overall cultural system that has been built by people with the power to create new or insinuate themselves into existing institutions that govern our perception of what is normal and allowed. That means that the education I'm involved with is tied into a problematic system, and it's not a system that I like, and the education itself could be acquired by myself, but this problematic system both facilitates (in a crude, damaged way) my entrance into a field I'm interested in and allows me the time and oppertunity to participate (albeit on terms I'm not entirely comfortable with and terms I don't really have much of a choice in).

So, like, all of this shit is kind of fucked up. I'm glad to be where I'm at, though, all things considered and at least I'm doing well. 

Most times, you don't get the raw scoop here. It's pretty canned. Sometimes it's really raw, like when I'm crashing, or when I wrote that hangover bit, or something like that, but for the most part you're getting something I've thought about a lot and kind of rehearsed and not off the cuff. That gets stale, sure, but I like to control my own message. I'm just kind of spitballing today, though. Kay switched gigs from Office Max to Weekend's Only for a 300 dollar bonus, a $0.75 per hour wage increase, and slightly more hours, but no assumptions that the job itself is actually better. In retail, one job is fundamentally similar to another, but co-workers and management can make heaven a hell and a hell... well, not heaven. Purgatory, maybe. Anyhow, all that means is we both got up at 6 AM out of solidarity, but I don't have to be in until 10, so I'm letting myself kill the time today.

So, it's a fairly candid status update kind of day. I did a few entries in a row a little while ago, let it go for about a week, and you'll probably get a few in a row now, too, so I hope you enjoy this kind of thing.

I feel like Katie and I have both cooled our heels in Limbo for a few years too long, really. I think I was ready to shake that shit off in 2010, 11, or something like that and go do something with myself, but we both got trapped in no-wage/low-wage hell, which is something I've seen stick a pretty goodly number of my generation. It can last for a few years - if you're lucky. Every day feels like an eternity but looking back on it feels like it was an undifferentiated morass. As a lifestyle, it sucks at your heels and pulls on your hems, because it feels like society really doesn't even want you to break out of that. Looking at it more objectively, our economy right now is really leaning on technically capable, low wage earners, so we say you're supposed to break out, but the tools are deliberately faulty and the signs are misleading. There's a pile or corpses at the bottom of the morass. You have to hope that their cooling bodies are sturdy enough to stand on as you foist yourself out. These bootstraps are extremely morbid.

Not everyone shares this admittedly bleak outlook, but if you can't admit that even the most meagre personal success rests on the backs of people stuck in miserable positions we depend on but, societally, we refuse to support in turn, you're simply wrong. If you want out of the pit, the ladder's made of bones. You don't have the luxury of deciding the material. You neither add to the pile or build the ladder, but you either climb it or you stay there. Capitalism is inherently predatory; you might not be the butcher, but you're still eating meat.

Don't get the wrong impression, though. Not everyone likes my metaphor, and it's easy to assume I'm feeling down about my situation, but it's actually the best it's been in a long time. Kay might be getting a crummy, but living-wage paying job in the near future. Everything's in for my grad student application, so I'm just cooling my heels for a little while and waiting on the results of that and my loan application. We're still poor and stressed, but we're marginally less poor and stressed than we've been, which is an amazing difference in quality of life. And my bean and tomato plants are looking really good. So I'm in a pretty good mood. On a day to day, I'm in a better mood than I've been in for literal years.

It just is what it is.

I've been doing a few things for fun, lately. I finally sprung for Civilization 5, after over 200 hours over a pretty good span of time on Civ 4. Civ 5 is intense. It's significantly different from 4, too. I bought it yesterday, clocked a few hours on it, and it's good. I'll try not to lose too many hours to it in the coming days, but it's Civilization, so, you know. Wish me luck. I started playing Persona 2: Innocent Sin. There's another long game. I finished Mass Effect and immediately went to Civ and Persona, so you know I'm a glutton for these time sink games. Persona's a series I have strong feelings about. I've finished 1, Eternal Punishment, 3, The Answer, and 4. Even Arena, for what it's worth, though I hear there's a new one. Innocent Sin is really the only traditional Persona I haven't gotten to, so I figured it was about time. I bought it over a year ago. My media backlog is huge. I haven't even tried to watch TV shows in a long time.

I'm reading Godel, Escher, Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid, which doesn't synch with what I'm traditionally adept at. It's heavy on logic structures and it's a dense fucking read. I went for Comp Sci in college and tanked it, because I'm balls at math, so I'm reading the book but I'm intentionally not focused on grokking it - really internalizing it - so much as I'm taking in the words, determining what's in the book, and more or less just moving on. I'm filing away a detailed understanding of what kind of information the book contains in the event that something catalyzes in me and I understand it in a flash of data structure based enlightenment. I don't really enjoy reading it, but I want to have already read it. It's just that the only way there is to do it, so whatever.

So that's that. For now, anyhow.

Hey. I haven't been around for a while. I scrolled down pretty briefly to see what's been going on since I last posted, but I haven't really read any of the postings just yet. I'm eager to be getting around to it. I was on a few days ago, but only very briefly; I'd been thinking about posting but I came up dry when I sat down. I have a little while before work and I don't feel like starting up Silent Hill 4 just at the moment, so I'm hoping I feel up to it when I get back. I'll probably force myself to relax and try to get into it for maybe a half hour or so.

I've been trying to do several things at once, with a limited amount of success. Some of that stuff is coming together really well and some of it is lagging behind. I've had a website that's been up for quite a while and like a lot of personal sites, it's suffered from a lack up updates. It's got some of my old projects and some projects I worked with Brent a little on. It's not anything special, but I'm kind of starting to use it as a personal portal to work I'm doing that's stored somewhere on the web. Because of Google's document integration and stuff like that, it's easy to just transcribe a lot of my stuff to a place on the internet and access it from there. I guess what I'm saying is that even though it's a public site (and you can access stuff I'm doing there, which may or may not be interesting to you), it's largely something I'm using to keep myself organized.

https://sites.google.com/site/thanatos02us/ - There. That's where it's at. I'm leery at going through the effort to write code that makes an effective private website on my own domain until I really am adding a decent amount of content and links to the page, so Google sites it remains. I am extremely aware of how little work has been done on it, but that doesn't bother me. If I do something I'm proud of, it'll be linked there. Pathfinder wikis are probably going to be linked to from there. I have very limited physical space, but I've come to realize that I have an almost infinite amount of space on the internet that's even free. But just like a physical shelf and desktop, I have to organize it or I'll lose it and never find it again.

Pathfinder. I really want to run this game. Most of my friends have been very good at getting back to me. I live with one. One person had technical issues receiving my mail that we never adequately troubleshot, but we did find an acceptable workaround. One guy just never responded. I like him but if I can't reach him, I'm gonna drop him. I'll organize our meetup separately. That's nothing personal, but scheduling is tough enough. If I can't get people together even once, I'm not going to mess around with a gaming Wiki. First thing's really first on this. I've done a lot of work on the game in terms of planning, but I'm not going to start writing a dungeon without people to play in it.  

Can I tell you how glad I am that the major holiday season is over? Because I am. Ye gods, am I glad.

I'm never very fussed about new year stuff. The first of the year is as good a time to double down on existing goals as any other, but I already have my personal resolutions and goals, and I'm working on them now. I'll probably 'officially' re-dedicate myself to some of this stuff, which always seems like a nice sentiment. I have a lot of goals and a lot of room for personal improvement, and this is stuff that takes time to internalize and really make happen, but I've seen good progress in my day to day life, and that's actually pretty exciting.

With the holiday season over and tax season approaching, that's where my work'll pick up. I actually welcome that, even though I dislike the cold and the early mornings. (Read: I don't actually care for the 'job' part of it.) Most of the screwy scheduling that comes from the Christmas through New Years will be gone, I'll be working 40 hours, but it'll be more or less regular shifts. I've already got a handle on that, so it's not a problem for me.

I'll probably see you on the New Years, then!

There's not really so much going on that I've felt the need to update here. Stuff does happen every day. Nice things or things that are really frustrating or, maybe just stuff that's kind of amusing. Stuff that's amusing to everyone or, maybe things that need so much contextual information that only someone who was there would be interested. What's frustrating for me is that when I sit down to write something, I can't think of anything interesting to write. It's got to be interesting to write here, and I can't think of anything except for the same old stuff. November and December are busy months, so it's like, "Well, work is pretty intense. Covered in warehouse dust again." or something like that.

So, I dunno.

I'm reading this book, "Working" by Studs Terkel. It was released in the late 70's. At the time it was published, it was a pretty big deal and it's a pretty hefty tome that's just full of short interviews with regular people from a lot of different walks of life where the author just kind of let them talk about what it was like to do what they do and how it makes them feel. My opinion on it is almost universally good. I mean, it's really a pretty amazing book. What I was really struck with is the similarity between then and now in terms of how people feel about their work. Feelings like alienation, hopelessness, and pride are pretty common. Resignation is common. There's a lot of people who express that they feel they're waiting their job out until they can retire. Some are already aware that there's no likelihood of real retirement for them. If you think it sounds like a dull premise, it really isn't. One of the really interesting bits is how people talk and how stilted dialog is in most books in comparison. I feel like I understand people a little better after reading a solid amount of this, so I guess if you're the kind of person who writes dialog or does a fair amount of role-playing, this is almost a reference document for you, but I'd recommend reading it to anyone who's interested in people, really.

Anyway, I turned 30 last Friday, which was Black Friday for those of you paying attention to that sort of thing. What did we do as celebration? Nada. We - I mean, Kay and I specifically - work in retail and you pretty much just work on Black Friday. It wasn't really that bad. I work at a furniture store in the warehouse and Kay works at an OfficeMax and both of them wanted us there but most shoppers were fixated on totally different things. So, you know, long hours but nothing exceptional. Still, scheduling means that Katie and I don't have a day together for kind of a while.

How do I feel about 30? I don't really care. I have a lot of stuff to deal with and an arbitrary date describing how old I am doesn't really hold my attention. I feel mildly distressed about it because I feel like I should have met more of my goals by now, that I should be farther along on the path I've selected for myself, but I've also thought long and hard about what I want and what I've already dealt with, and I'm more concerned with dealing with what's in front of me right now than I am that I've turned the big three-oh. I think I got a lot of my concerns out of the way at 29, though. Right now, our financial situation's very stressful, but only in that I'm constantly managing it. It's worlds better than it was last year, and if I had any Thanksgiving statement, I'd probably say that I'm just really thankful that Katie and I both have jobs that aren't great but, at least, are pretty solid. We're making our payments and getting by, and soon we'll be doing pretty well and just being able to look out at the future a little bit and actually see how your life will improve isn't something that I've been able to do in a tangible way for too long.

Now that's i've got something on my stomach, and I'm dressed and showered, I'm in better shape to make sense of my earlier observations. This is really sketchy, and it's not that it'll come to any particular use per say, but it's been a little while since I posted anything, anyhow so here it goes.

Earlier last week, I was playing Civilization 4, which you're more or less forced to do as an enigmatic, faceless, immortal dictator-for-life and was, as is my wont, sending excess troops into the hungry maw of a new world (aka, basically a woodchipper) far away from the lands they were born (aka, built) in, in order to suborn independant but unrelated civilizations (aka, barbarian nation states) and fold them into my empire so that I can achieve global domination through control of most of the world's landmasses. I turned to Katie and said, "You know, this would be a really horrific thing that I'm doing, if this were real."

But it's not real. In Civilization, you're playing a game, you're not really building a civilization. You're trying to win. I mean, you win by building the most successful Civilization at one of several victory conditions, so you need to wipe all the civilizations off the map, or send someone to Alpha Centauri, or generate a ridiculously successful culture rating, or control a huge swath of the landmass. It's not enough to create a series of successful civilizations, you actually have to win. In real life, I don't care if we send someone to Mars first or if China does, I'm just excited someone got to Mars. But someone cares. Someone important cares. Because it's about claiming resources for our nation-state. Even if that's true, we acknowledge (when we're doing a little better as a culture) that no matter what we do to other people, we're doing it to other people. So when we exploit people, we know, somehow, that we're exploiting them. A lot of times, it's in the name of Empire, but these days, it's in the name of the almighty Dollar.

I'd say, we're not something to be played. We are not a game. But we are. We are a game.

There would always be people who are content to drive the actions of others in order to win. Sometimes, it's for glory or nationalism, but these days it's for the consolidation of capital. The people at the top - the very, very top, are wealthy beyond the dreams of anyone living in the 99% and even most of the 1%. Most of the wealthy in the 1% is not in the hands of the majority of that 1%, but in the hands of 1% of that, still.

I mean, at the level these people are playing at, Mitt Romney's millions are a joke. It's not just their personal fortunes they're playing with; when you're operating at that high a level, it's all numbers. It's difficult to do anything productive. Do you think these guys work? No way, man. But the glitch in the system is that it's almost impossible to stop your money from making more money automatically. There are people they've never met, working diligently all hours of the day and night to make that happen. It's an accident. They may not even be aware of what they're doing.

But that makes their actions very little different from those of a deranged sociopath trying to accumulate more numbers because they need the most. The only goal is to make more numbers. The results of those actions are never seen. Do you think that third-world despots ever interact with the desperately poor they've created? No man, they're insulated from that.

So, I thought, "Man alive. The biggest difference between Grand Theft Auto and Civilization, in theme, is scale."

( Whining )

Anyhow, I made dinner last night. A friend came in from the airport and had dinner with us on the way back to southern Illinois where she's residing. Italian herb roasted potatoes and brussel sprouts with shallots and bacon. It was terrific. I don't want to heap praise on myself, because potatoes are dead simple and the thick cut bacon from the farmer's market is local and makes anything taste excellent. Bacon - and I was over the bacon-on-everything nerd fetish way before it even started - but bacon is basically like a cheat code for cooks. It's high-fat, which makes a dry burger suddenly taste good anyhow. It's smokey and adds that umami taste to pretty much anything you make. I don't like to over-use it because it's not exactly great for you, but we bought it for a GISHWHES thing and there's no sense in letting a bounty like that go to waste. Besides, brussel sprouts and bacon are pretty much the perfect classic combo. It went over really well, and I was super pleased with how much everyone enjoyed it.

And, to make sure this isn't a total waste, let me tell you how to make the potatoes because like I said, they're dead easy and they make you look like a better cook than maybe you are! (I'm not saying anything about you, mind, I'm just saying if you can't cook you'll still look like you can!)

First, pre-heat your oven to something like 450. People will tell you different temperatures, but it doesn't honestly matter all that much. They're supposed to be fork-tender and the skin should be crispy, and that's how you know. Just cook them until that's what's going on.

Cut up your potatoes - any number of potatoes that are going to fit in a pan that can go in the oven, preferably without too much potato not touching the pan. Try to keep them no more than, like, I guess an inch thick. And don't fucking skin the potatoes, you know? There's a lot of nutrients in the skin, and it crisps up and tastes fucking great. Someone might be like, "Oh, yeah, peel the potatoes." That person is a liar.

The kind of potatoes you use doesn't really matter. Sure, it'll effect the taste, obviously. Yukon's are a little waxy and they've got a thin skin. Red's are quite waxy, indeed, and I like to use them for a lot of stuff people tell you to use other potatoes for. I love red potatoes, though. Russets are mealy and, in my opinion, when they crisp up, they've got the best skin. It's like, kind of crunchy and the texture differs a lot from the rest of the potato. Russets are my favorite for this, actually, but we used Yukon Gold because that's what we had. Don't go out and buy different potatoes for this - this is the kind of thing you do when you don't have anything else around anyhow and want to give someone a decent meal (or you're too lazy, like me, to run to the store!).

Spices, people. Don't be afraid of herbs and spices. It's not a trick! Just pile them on there. I used just one of those Italian Herbs mixes you get in the store. It was on sale. You can literally use anything. Everything tastes good with potatoes. Italian herbs, salt, cracked black pepper, garlic powder, (don't use fresh garlic, actually! It'll burn up way before your potatoes are done. Waste of perfectly delicious garlic.) onion powder, and paprika. I think I put some turmeric on there because it turns everything yellow and I cheat because people in my house seem to love that yellow color on food. It does add to taste, though. I just coat the whole thing until it's literally covered in herbs, pour a bunch of olive oil on it (yeah, a bunch. Do it until it's covered. I didn't measure it, and you don't have to either.) Mess it around some, mix it up. Put more herbs on. Mess it up again, kind of try to make sure most of it is touching the bottom of the pan.

Put it in the oven for about 15-ish minutes, I guess. Pop it out, turn the potatoes over or, if you're me, just shake them up some. Put it in for 10-15 minutes and check the skin and tenderness. They're probably done. Let 'em cool for a bit and serve them. If you're broke, they're a great main. If you're rolling in dough, or are serving beef or something, they're an excellent side. If you've got, like, a stew or a really hearty soup that's done (and I mean done, like, it's done cooking. You don't want to put these potatoes in a cooking soup, you'll mess them up), you can put these in the bowl that the soup's being served in.

They're good. You'll look good when you serve them. Enjoy your ill-deserved accolades!

I'll probably finish up the residual WIR on Monday. I checked it off my to-do list, so now it only counts as journalling on my to-do's and it's not exactly my top priority. I've been totally swamped this whole last week helping Katie do GISHWHES or whatever acronym it is. It's a weird, very large scavenger hunt that I was not initially going to have anything to do with, but I'm on the team now, so whatever. It is fun, but it's stressful. Katie's basically running 18 hour days, I'm doing the housework and trying to keep up, and I've written some of the copy and scripts for our team. Some of it is stuff I'm actually pretty proud of, and the team is generally busting their ass.

Different things get you different points, and there's absolutely no way to know your standing until it's through. I'll post what we ended up completing when it ends on Sunday. You might get a chuckle out of it.

I've been trying diligently to keep a lid on my anxiety, which is threatening to break the door down and eat my lunch, which means a lot of angst-ridden personal journal entries about me feeling bad for literally no reason, a tremendous amount of tea, and being surprisingly anxious to go to work to give myself something physical to do. I've written my letters and mailed them out. I'm chipping away at my slowly growing HabitRPG to-do list in general, which grows by dint of need and which I make flailing, occasionally successful attempts to resolve daily. I feel like I regret everything I say to people, and comb my own speech for evidence of failures and over-reaching personal space; I really have to fight the urge to basically completely turtle up, lock the door, and avoid contact on even the most marginal terms. That's kind of what stress does to me.

All that aside, the weather is really nice right now and has been for the last few days. Remember, I'm just venting and I'm actually just fine. I'm getting by okay, and all of the objective things are looking alright, so I'm looking to those things for my guidance on where I'm at. Perspective is an odd thing - you can feel like you'll never finish something and suddenly it's done.

I've also really been enjoying writing the daily horoscopes I've been posting on tumblr and Facebook. I was surprised when a lot of my friends didn't realize I was actually the one penning those. I haven't been posting them here because I don't want to spam everyone's wall with daily Thanatos like that (it doesn't really seem like the proper venue), but they've gone over well and that makes me feel surprisingly good about myself. A few people have mentioned it to me, and yeah, they have totally been inspired by the Welcome to Night Vale podcasts. Actually, everyone who reads my journal is a good candidate for someone who would enjoy that particular bi-weekly podcast, so I'll end this post with a suggestion to go check it out!

To the great relief of everyone, I'm going to spend a few days away from the WIR process and stop spamming everyone's LJ feed in order to do literally every other thing I need to do. I checked the WIR off my to-do list, since the Core book was arduous enough, and I'm going to probably change the format radically for G-M:C because 9 posts regarding a thin volume of straightforward rules is downright goofy.

I spent the larger part of the evening drinking and playing Burning Wheel, and we're getting fairly close to finishing the arc. I don't know if we're going to finish the whole game, but we're approaching a big milestone. I've tried to write about the games before, and it's been difficult to know what to post. We've been playing for a long time now, off and on, and sometimes we're playing weekly and sometimes we play once a year. I've only ever played one character with these rules. We're over Skype. We're in different time zones, and we started playing with one extra person in a college-provided apartment several years ago. I've largely given up trying to dedicate a spot to it here, and I've been finding my meta-game writing a little lackluster. I'm only doing the WIR now because I said I was gonna.

Kay's doing stuff for GISHWHES, which means I'm on the team. It stands for "Greatest International Scavenger Hunt The World Has Ever Seen". It has a website. I'm not, like, particularly helpful but I'm doing a few of the things where somebody writes something. I kind of serve a logistical role, because a lot of the stuff is asking people about preposterous things and kind of making a scene. I really appreciate that kind of thing, but it terrifies me to actually do it. I'll write weird horoscopes or copy, but don't ask me to make phone calls - I'm terrible at it. (Ironically, from someone who's worked a lot of customer service.)

Also, I have no idea where my envelopes are. I haven't mailed my letters out and it's driving me nuts. If I can't find them by the end of the day, I'm just buying new ones.