Have you tried staying over at someone's house? It's pretty awkward if you don't set up a routine for yourself. Have you ever had someone else stay over at your house? Awkward same. You go, "Dum dee dum dee dum... so... there's not much to do." It's just that when you're by yourself in your own house, you don't notice it. And you feel stupid about those dumb things you do at home without even noticing it.

Anyway, he went home.

"I opened the cheese wrong and my dad started swinging at me."

--

I know that as a twenty-something man, in a fight you can give at least as much as you take. Yet something in me quick to burn feels this betrayal sunken deep. Sons are ageless; that's your boy you hit.

I think I should be angry, and I am, but many other things too. When you think about, you know, someone who hits their kid, you probably think of a big drunken redneck guy, right? but I've met his dad and I know he's not like that. I remember him coming in and cracking jokes when we were roleplaying, and the cozy, tidy kitchen with the smell of dirt from the garden on the wind through the window. The small, domestic-ish glass ornaments and those sentimental angel posters said things like, "God Bless This House." I thought, "It would be nice to have parents I could actually crack jokes with like that." It makes me feel ill how wrong I am.

So Chris went to his house to find them brawling and his mom screaming about calling the cops, and Chris fled shaken with him. No names.. people who know will know. For people who don't, it would be wrong that the first thing they learn about This Person is his troubled family. People are more than the sum of their problems. Once you learn something about someone, it attaches to their name forever.

--

You can all rot. That mournful way you look at me, your hellhole desk in your hellhole office. Try to "fix" me, cure the sick me, solve my problems, save me from my sins. I'm not human. I'm a problem, I'm a patient, I'm a "troubled youth" to file with the statistics of the people you have rectified. Well fuck that, who the fuck do you think you are to think you know me? I'm not sick, I'm not troubled, I'm not "special." Don't you dare drug me. To hell with you!

--

We spent the night at Marc's place playing Vampire, tearing innocent people to shreds, Sabbat style, laughing while This Person put ice on his hand. Awkwardly, I volunteered Jeremy's place for him to stay the night, and so he went home with us, and we talked about Linux and Exalted and tried on pirate hats and everything was hysterically funny all night and I was afraid to leave him alone in the dark.

-

Something in me quick to pain and sunken deep feels this: you may be keen to laugh in daylight, but night is a different animal when you have no one for whom to maintain your smile. No-family, no-house, no-job, absence of the ticking-tocking-turning winding of days. If you were to disappear into the streetlamps shining palely on the fog, what would they write for your eulogy? "No one from nowhere, survived by none"? What do you have for yourself but your name, and even then, what does it mean if no one knows it? Even if you were to be a monk, would you have wanted this?

I feel that I should make sure his pillows are soft enough, that he has enough blankets, that he has enough to eat that's to his liking, that the bathroom isn't gross, that he isn't bored to death in the daytime. Are those flies? I feel shame; I should keep the house cleaner. Does he want any drinks? 'Cuz we have drinks. They're tasty and cold. Ice for his hand? Bunny pillow?

"No," he says, "I'm fine."
--

He said, "Maybe I'll move in with ______."

And, can you believe it, I was jealous. There's only supposed to be one girl that does all this.

She had better give him backrubs and feed him grapes and wine from a golden cup...or you'll be hearing from me, young missy!

--

Boys are so stiff and alien to me. Boys don't cry. Boys don't hug. Boys don't ask anyone if they "want to talk." Boys laugh. Boys play roleplaying games. Boys ask for another Pepsi. Maybe he likes it better that way. He's been in the same group of friends since middle school. Chris still has the first monster he ever drew for their roleplaying campaign from when he was like, twelve. We were talking about it, and he just pulled it out of his notes binder, saying, "Oh, this?" like there was absolutely no reason for it not to be there. In their way which they deny, they love each other.

--

I am anxious. I need to rush home. I need to rush home to make sure he's still there.

--

Certain acts of bravery commend themselves, those that show full measure of devotion. On Sunday, Chris and John went to his house to face his parents and to get belongings from his room. Who are you, when all your worldly posessions fit in the trunk of a car? For all they knew, his parents could've hurled chairs and beer bottles at them upon arrival. They could've just called the cops. They didn't have to do it. They didn't have to face some person's parents' anger. They didn't have to deal with someone else's domestic problems. They didn't have to have that awkward moment when they show up at the door and say, "So.. we're here for...." But they did, and it seemed to make a universe of difference.

From the New Yorker:

"Like the Freeman brothers, McGruder was born on the South Side of Chicago, though he didn’t stay there long. The McGruders—Aaron, his parents, and an older brother, Dedric, who is now a part-time political cartoonist—shuffled around some before settling, when Aaron was six, in the middle-class suburb of Columbia, Maryland.

So the suburb of Woodcrest in the Boondocks is inspired by Jeremy's (unincorporated) city of residence. ... Mortifying. I didn't think we were that white.

Like Frank Cho, who draws Liberty Meadows, Aaron McGruder went to UMCP and first debuted in the campus paper. As you may know, the Boondocks is a radical leftist comic strip about two angry black kids who move from inner city Chicago to the whitey 'burbs. Liberty Meadows is about a shelter for animals with psychological illness. Matt comments: "Maryland fucks people up."

Woe is me
I am drowning in
pudding

Oscar Berninger! Fix the ice cream machine,
ruiner of hope and dasher of dreams.
Dining hall lord on your dining hall throne,
I pine for my frosty desserts in a cone.

As An Amusement For Myself

Helena Helena Helena Troy
taunts the girls and tempts the boys
cross the sea in Troy's black ships
armies bleeding at your lips

bright-eyed beauty pyre-lit
false and pretty, can't commit
want a boyfriend think you will
how many people have you killed?
1...2... 3... 4..

.... Fall comes heralding the smell of wood and the wings of geese.

The trashbag skull-and-crossbones hung, the seaweed skeleton hanged. On screen and song through mist and fog, ol' Errol's Sea Hawk preyed, Penzance pranced with a piratey dance, and Sparrow cried "Parley!" We downed rum coke through cannon smoke and golden wine we drank. Jelly shots burned down our throats as we learned that there's such thing as too high a proof...

Arrs were arred, wenches busty, cap'ns were dashing, seamen lusty. Hookhands dual-wielded, patches elastic, the big tacky hoop earrings clipped-on and plastic. The pirate hat filled with doubloons passed around, and teeth went a-gnawing with gold to be found.*

Arrs and Avasts filled the near crack of dawn
the day after, one question:
"Why's the rum gone?"

*especially the chocolate ones, which are virtually indistinguishable from the plastic ones

Arrr, matey! When is International Talk Like a Banker Day?

Synergy....

Politically Incorrect Thought of the Day: Life and Law in Angie-Land

I think morgues should be under fiat to extract human organs from cadavers for transplant, regardless of consent. It's not like you need that anyway, you selfish prick.

From Chris' plethora of interesting away messages... (which I've created a list for, as I have Jose's).

There was the AD&D campaign I ran that was a rip-off of the Wizard of Oz. You know, Dwarves for Munchkins and all that, with a high level Wicked Magic-User of the West. The campaign actually lasted quite a while to my regret.

I seem to recall the PCs killed the Dwarves/Munchkins to take their stuff and tore up the yellow brick road because they thought it might be made of gold. The PCs also killed the Wizard of Oz because he sassed them too much and set Scarecrow on fire because he gave poor directions.

Alex Anderegg, from RPGnet.

It goes to show that the (dismal) reality of human nature is best displayed when people have the opportunity to be directly and unlimitedly responsible for their own moral choices.

Why else do most roleplaying games end up so fucked up?

Hey everyone, UMBC's blood drive is this Tuesday, the 20th, from 10am-4pm in the Commons. You can walk in, or make an appointment by emailing Erin Hood at hood2@umbc.edu. Appointments make it go faster doubly because a) if you have an appointment you'll get priority and b) the more appointments they get, the more staffers and equipment there'll be, making it go faster in general.

If you can't make Tuesday, there's a separate blood drive on Friday, the 23rd, on South Campus. Check it oot..

ALSO, there's a blood drive in Catonsville on Saturday the 24th at the Banneker Community Center from 10:00-3:00. It's reachable by the MTA Red Line, bus route #2.

27 Melvin Avenue
Catonsville, MD 21228

The Community Center's phone number is: 410-887-0959... Someone there should know what's going on.

If you give blood, you can make it to one of the drives. Unless a piano fell on you.

BTW, I'm trying to dedicate my life to public service. Which is why I spent Labor Day weekend clearing park trail with a machete on a stick*. Okay, so that's not the only reason. If anyone asks: Dungeons and Dragons made me do it.

*Weapon proficiency: weed whip

So!

School is great... I moved into an on-campus apartment, which is very nice. It actually feels homey, unlike that one room which is a dorm, and the common room which nobody uses. I got myself a foil poster of one of those ostentatious 17th century world maps to plaster across the wall, and a pre-Raphaelite is going on my door. Jose has a giant Middle-Earth map on his ... ceiling... which makes for great staring at when you're lying on the floor. His walls are covered with his favorite artist.... Salvador Dali.

As given to abstraction as Jose is, I really should've guessed.

I actually have female friends this year. It's pretty fun actually living with girls. One of the downsides to being a nerd is that... it's hard to meet girls. Amber is sick and went back to So.Co. though. :( She and Katie are pretty awesome. Karissa is quiet and is always talking to her fiancee over webcam/voicechat, so it's like she's never around. Katie says Karissa says the same thing about me...

I'm trying to start a sci-fi and fantasy club on campus, if I can ever wade through the paperwork... I already have enough members to start out with.

My classes:

Roman Empire
Greek Life and Thought
Applied Statistics for Business and Economics
Household Economics <-- not to be confused with Home Ec
Theory of Public Finance

Ring around the Rosie

SFX 87: huh, what's Defcon?

Katie98 KT: Hacker Convention

SFX 87: sketchy

Katie98 KT: no, its actually pretty well known.

SFX 87: well there are a lot of people who think they're hackers cuz it's 1337

Katie98 KT: Tech person from teh WashPost covered it.

SFX 87: well-known as it may be, it's still a hacker convention

Katie98 KT: yea, Phil was bitching about lots of people like that being there. but there's also lots of legit hackers.

SFX 87: that'd be like attending the "international spy convention"

Katie98 KT: *shrugs* aparently its really legit

SFX 87: "People Who Poison Drinks With Giant Rings" Convention. So that's why rappers have all that bling

Katie98 KT: LOL

SFX 87: Seriously, how does anyone fall for that shit?

Katie98 KT: going to a hacker convention?

SFX 87: no, poisoning people with giant rings

Katie98 KT: I don't understand about the poisoning thing.

SFX 87: oh, you've never read those old swashbuckler novels or whatever when the devious villain would poison people by having a ring, the "jewel" of which was actually a hinged capsule filled with poison powder?

Katie98 KT: nope

SFX 87: three musketeers and what have you. Well, I think those types should have a convention. And a union that will handle their liability lawsuits. "Gentlemen, we were going to have catering this year, but there seems to be an unfortunate illness.." X-TREME POISONINGS FOR GENERATION X... NOSE PIERCING POISON!!!!!

Oh, So Wrong!

Anthropologies of Age

I unearthed a rather thought provoking blog while on a rather mundane google search of "panda names."

I think this is someone I'd like to meet, though of course because meeting people from the internet is creepy, someone I'd like to meet in a strictly neutral, strictly hypothetical non-threatening pocket dimension, free of the dual burdens of awkwardness and judgmentalism.

The quality of thought changes when you know you actually could meet someone, someone who's not just a nebulous text-spawning "person on the internet." If I went out and took Metro lines so and so, I could meet him... You know when something is "based on a true story," it's a better story? And so it is.

I think he's smarter than me also. Not smarter necessarily IQ-wise (I couldn't judge, but I wouldn't be surprised) but just in the "Oh, I never thought of that," category, a certain level of self-awareness. Maybe this is the difference between old people and young people, what "maturity" is. (Asking me to define "maturity" is like ... well... Blind people don't dream in color, from what I've heard. When people who are born blind are asked, "Do you wish you could see?" they say, "How could I wish it, when I've never known it?") It's only a theory I have; my actual contact with people outside my age group is rare. More anthropological fieldwork on my part must be done.

Unfortunately, whenever I talk to anyone older than me, it's within a hierarchical context: parents, relatives, teachers, bosses, "superiors"¹ even informally. In the case of the blog, I have spontaneously been handed the revelations, stripped of formality and rank, of someone older than me, but not old enough to be "old." You can tell, I think, just from the writing style- reading things by people older than you is like dropping a pebble into a deep pool, watching it sink, and watching the ripples. I can't explain why. It just is.

When I was younger, and my parents kept using the "when you're more mature" line on me, I thought rebelliously that, surely the consciousness of a twenty year old and the consciousness of a forty year old were similar? Your IQ does not improve so much after a certain age. If education were the issue, then a ten year-old public school American brat would be more "mature" than an 80 year old peasant from a third world country. It's not so much about family status and responsibility either- there are thirteen year-old wives and avowed bachelors to the grave. Between age 10 and age 20 a person goes through revelations of seismic magnitude, and compared to that, I didn't think the mental difference between someone, say 25, and 45 was a difference in "maturity" so much as a difference in physiological, economic, social conditions.

That was a theory, and theories can be disproved.

I know I am smarter now than when I was twelve. Smarter than when I was eighteen. How it happened and the nature of this "wisdom" is a mystery. At any age, you dwell within your consciousness. All of the world, for its great size, can be encompassed inside my head, and vast as the universe is, it cannot be bigger than my mind.

So. I enjoy watching thoughts bloom...

Sorry for the two philosophy-babble posts in a row.

¹ Except for lower-class adults. Un-PC, but true. Consider: My boss is "Dr. Mitch." The janitors at Harbor are "Sheila and Lynette." My dentist is "Dr. Miyamoto." My school bus driver was "Bobby." The esteemed culinary expert cum tv celebrity is (the honorable) "Iron Chef Kenichi." The food services employee working the dining hall cashier is "Valerie." Us young'ns are taught to address adults (I'm a "college girl," emphasis on "girl," hence not a "real" adult) as superiors, but if forms of address have any social implication, then what am I to think? I still find addressing adults by first name abhorrent. Sometimes I will call the janitor "Ms. Sheila."

Regarding the previous post: No, I'm not religious at all.

On the Nature of Youth

St. Augustine said, with whatever authority can be conferred upon dead saints, that people, even while they sin, even in the state of their own wretchedness, reach out to God. No one murders for murder's sake, for evil's sake, for the black abyss that claims them after death. People kill and execute other acts, for greed, for glory, for the sake of a woman, for the countless things that they believe life worth living for. Greed, ambition, lust, all of these sins yet at their core strive for comfort, joy, power, rapture, love, all of the things that are the essence of God who is every goodness.

However you regard St. Augustine, I have hope, while others have despair, for the youth and the future of the world. While parents, preachers, and politicians shake their fists over video games, music videos, teen sex, drugs, piercings, youthful disrespect, degeneracy, the general decline of Western Civilization, whatever it is these days that draws fashionable old-timey criticism, I look upon the world with the restless hope of the young, and because I am young, have the luxury to dream.

We play our violent video games, destroying aliens and saving the world because we dream of valor. We watch our thuggy rap tv in defiance of compliance, brown-nosing, softness, compromise and complacency. Through harsh lyrics about pride and strife we seek integrity. We do our drugs like the cloud-seeking shamans of old in pursuit of epiphany and rapture, visions of colors and stars and music. We have sex at sixteen hoping to know the pinnacles of love, this great emotion that shakes the axles of the world. We wear gang colors to know the meaning of loyalty, family, and sacrifice, to take a bullet for a brother, to do jailtime for a sister, to understand the meaning of strength. We bring guns to school in hope of immortality and recognition, because as Machiavelli says, if we have not love, then fear will do.

At school, with clear backpacks and metal detectors and security guards, the first thought of adults should not be, "Does he have a gun?" At the CD shop the first thought should not be, "Is she going to shoplift?" When the news reports a vandalism or a theft, the first line should not be, "Authorities think teenage hoodlums did it."

At the school they should say, "Hello, Sitting-By-Yourself-In-The-Corner, what's your name?" because the best way to stop a killer is not to take away his ability, but his intention. At the shop they should ask, "What sort of music are you going to make?" or "Excuse me, can you help me reach that box up there?" Perhaps if she is expected to help instead of expected to harm, she will. In the news, perhaps the story should be, "Members of local high school pitch in for children's hospital."

When we ask, "How should we live?" we want answers. When we ask, "How should we love?" we want answers. When we ask, "How will I find the meaning of valor, honor and faith?" we want answers.

"Don't do drugs and stay in school," is not an answer.

There is not one teen who does not dream. If we dream in the wrong places, wrong though they may be, wicked though they may be, at least we dream.

We want to change the world; give us a way to do it.

Security

I just spent like the last half hour trying to convince the bank on the phone that I am indeed Angela C, the bearer of Angela C's credit card.

See, I went to UMBC to turn in my timesheets to the econ department secretary so that I can get paid, and then I went to buy food. Well, I had intended on bringing (Jeremy's) pasta, but he had no sauce except an annoying frozen one that needed thawed/boiled. I didn't mind but he was like "Nooo, it doesn't reheat well... You could just get something at the Commons" and I was like, "The Commons probably aren't open" and he was like "yeah they are" and I was like "I have no cash," but it seemed like he was loathe to have me eat his pasta so I gave up the cause.

SO, it turns out that the Grille is actually cash only. I went to the ATM to get money out, grumbling cuz I'd have to pay a "convenience" fee for using another bank's ATM, but I dinnit know my PIN number. (I hate this, BTW. I have too many numbers to remember already, you'd think they'd do a password or something.)

Okay, fine, I go to the OTC and get myself a hotpocket... via credit card. No problem.

Then, since I'm there, I go to the Bookstore to get textbooks. It takes me a while to do that, I'm kind of distracted by all the nice shiny books there and the cute tiny freshmen. Anyway, I try to pay for them (it's like a $200 purchase, and I only bought a fraction of what I need) but the card won't clear, so the cashier makes me show photo ID, and then she has to call the bank and ask them.

Well it turns out they froze the account cuz of my PIN number fiasco. So they ask me a few security questions, where I make a total retard out of myself by being hesitant/getting them wrong.... There's nothing quite so infuriating as having a stranger ask me questions about myself and getting them wrong.

"So where do you buy your books from?"
"Amazon?"
"Uh.. no." (I think the correct answer is supposed to be B&N...)

"What's your current address?"
"(address)"
"No, your current address."

(Turns out the correct answer to the current address question was last year's dorm address, which is, of course, no longer current.)

I sound like such a moron, not remembering my own address. Well I'm not. I don't need to know my address because I know precisely where I live. Only people who don't know where I live know my address. Ex: I don't need to see my nose either to know it's there. Besides:

A) It's not my address, seeing as I don't own the place
B) Anyone I care about knows how to get there. It's that room, over there, at the end of the hall. Yeah, that one.
C) The door has my name in big cheerful letters on it.
D) If you've got the right room, my roommates will be there to tell you whether I'm in or out.
E) Everyone knows I'm "Michelle's Roomie" anyway so all you've got to do is find Michelle.
F) Call me or AIM me to tell me you're coming, and I'll let you in.
G) Nobody sends me mail anyway except for spammers.
(Corollary: I've never sent myself postcards.)

Most importantly:

H) I don't live there anymore.

Same with:
"What is your work/cell phone number?", ... when I told them my actual cell phone number (since I don't have a work number), that was the wrong answer. Apparently the number they wanted was last year's dorm phone. I'd forgotten what it was, so I had to look it up on my cell call list before they were satisfied. Not knowing your own phone number also makes you look stupid.

Well, I finally managed to convince them somehow that I was indeed myself. I closed the purchase on my textbooks, and went out to retrieve my bookbag from the bag check. As you know, the Bookstore doesn't let people bring their bags into the store, for security reasons. They take your bags and give you a little plastic card with a number on it, which you return to them when you get your bags back. But it turns out that in the mess I'd lost the card somewhere in the store..

GRAH!!!

I blame Jeremy. See! If only you'd let me eat your pasta!

Otakon was frickin' awesome. I had a lot more fun this year than last.

Yay, Jeremy! It's a lot better with him there. Also, I think he's finally mastered the art of driving into downtown Baltimore. Also, I was better at finding my way around and scheduling things this year.

Bumped into Lauren there too. That was frickin' awesome. Small, small world.

I had a costume of sorts, on Sunday, if wearing a giant yellow foam World of Warcraft exclamation mark on my head can be considered a costume. Damn the torsion power! It kept falling over, or keeling over in the wind. Plus, I had to take it off to go through doors and low ceilings.

A bunch of people took my picture (most of 'em thinkin' I was from Metal Gear Solid) - I hope none of them get online or you'll have pictures of me in a bike helmet with a styrofoam sphere and a high-density foam block attached to it. I ran into two other people who had forms of punctuation attached to their heads too.. that was amusing. Plus I bumped into a bunch of guildies from my server. The number of WOW junkies at Otakon was just incredible.

(The number of people who went as Full Metal Alchemist characters... less so.)

Jeremy went as Larva from Vampire Princess Miyu and ended up being glomped by an uncomfortable number of girls.

I can also say with perfect confidence that while he was dressed as Larva, (and when we went down to the Inner Harbor), he freaked out/awed a bunch of little kids ("Are you a magician?"), and homeless people did not ask him for money.