Brief rambling update to no one. Okay maybe not brief.

HolycrapI'mgraduating. In June. Everything is happening in June! Graduation, Boyfriend moves in with me, Ragnarok, possible full-time status at work, "real life".... I've already been taking care of my shit like real life is here though. It'll just get that much more scary once I don't have school as an excuse for why I don't have a real job. It'll be interesting to see how Boyfriend and I get along once we must deal with each other on a day to day basis. After nearly three years long distance... can we actually live together? Hell, we haven't even ever lived in the same city before. He's never lived on his own. I don't doubt he'll be fine but I expect some random unforeseen trouble. He's never declined to help out with dishes or other mundane crap when he's around, so, I take that as a good sign. I think in all honesty I'll be the one who has more trouble adjusting. I will have lived on my own from mid-March to the beginning of June. I'm sure I've already developed strange habits. I'm trying to keep up with dishes the way he already said he wants to, keep things picked up and not have random clothes hanging about in the living room or whatnot... I do struggle with that last bit tho. There are currently two pairs of pants and a shirt in here. I know his actual physical stuff won't take up much space. He doesn't own much, definitely nowhere near the amount of crap I have. He's just got a very small number of books and DVDs, some clothes, and his computer. Not bringing any furniture, no sentimental trinkets and crap like I have. (Which I know I need to get rid of it's just a long and painful process and I can only do so much at one time as they lose their sentimental value or I lose steam with cleaning and I swear to whatever god there may be that if he tries to speed up that process I will give him so much shit for it.)
Plus I have no idea where we'll be come September. The sublet is done at the end of August so we need to spend the summer job and apartment hunting. That's where the real-life scary thing begins. The uncertainty. I think I can only handle it because I don't handle it - I avoid thinking about it as much as possible in order to avoid a panic attack. Which I know I can have, since I've had one before. I don't think things will ever get that over whelming again, but it is still terrifying to remember. Gripping the edge of my dorm desk crying, and gasping for air, totally unable to control my breathing. I had to spend ten minutes just trying to get my shit together. That was the point in time I was about to change schools, my parents were getting divorced, I was involved with an asshole from six states away, and I thought my Grandfather was dying (I had just gotten off the phone with my mom who said I needed to come that weekend or asap to see him one more time.) Things have worked out quite well since then. I mean, it's taken a few years, but things are sorted out better. I don't have to deal with my Dad's freakouts over my Mom, that asshole is far in the past, I love my new school, I very much love my boyfriend now, and Grandpa is... well he's okay, but he's almost 93 so that's about as much as I can say for the guy. Doesn't do much these days, never really had any hobbies outside of work so he just... sleeps, mostly. That's another thing I try desperately, desperately to avoid thinking about. I'm the youngest grandkid. There are eight great-grandkids now. He. is. old. It's near his time to pass. It still crushes my heart and chokes me and blinds me with these stupid wet things in my eyes. I've been to a lot of funerals. But I was so young. I didn't understand, I didn't grasp it, hadn't been alive long enough, hadn't been around the people enough. Now? Now if anyone were to leave my life like that I would be beyond crushed. Knowing that my Grandpa will soon be leaving us doesn't and won't make it any easier to endure. I miss him already. He has a small stroke, and he hasn't been quite the same since. He doesn't tell stories anymore. I miss that more than anything. He is a good man. Was in the army band during WWII, barely avoided being shipped overseas, met my grandmother. Oh those old pictures of them... she was so lovely. I wish I had really known her. She was already slipping into Alzheimer's by the time I was aware enough to begin to understand that she was a person. It's hard when you live in a different state. Even if you drive over there fairly often it's still not the same. These previous deaths did not affect me so much because in truth I did not know them. My uncle, my aunt, paternal grandfather, maternal grandmother, any great-grandparent... I was too young and too far away to have known any of them properly. So knowing this, I have made more of an effort to see my grandfather. But now, it's so difficult, I... I can't even sustain a conversation. I can't hear me half the time, and I feel like even when he does there isn't much more to say. How can I tell him about my life, when he can't hear me, let alone begin to understand when I try to explain the concept of Dagorhir? I can't ask him about his life much either. He still has some trouble recalling words, from the stroke, and seems lost in his own sentences sometimes. He will be the first person I will truly lose and it terrifies me. There is no being ready for that. Even writing this the stupid water in my eyes threatens to take over completely, to lose myself in the streaming world of pain and loss, when he is not yet gone. It's one of the moments when I feel so much I cannot handle it. Even now as the wet recedes from my eyes my throat remains tight. There is some much written, filmed, etc about loss, but in reality... it's such an isolated world to be in. You become the center of your own universe filled only with your pain and longing, surfacing only to make a brave face for the world which truly exists.
Therapeutic, this writing is. It lets me experience the emotions without being consumed by them.
Times like this I wonder how much my writing is being influenced by my reading of Latin and translation of Latin poetry. It's such a different way of communicating from what I experience on a daily basis. My turn of phrase has become strange. And not just from Latin, but everything I read. I pick up words like mollify, erudite, or lurking. Then I use them in real life situations and it just throws people off. I think it is more acceptable to use these words in written form, but not verbal. We expect more from a book. And I wonder how I would be as a writer... undisciplined, writing in fits and bursts, I know that much from this blog here. If it were my profession... how would I handle that? Probably burn out quickly.
Instead I am striving for a different profession: teaching high school Latin. Hell if I know whether it's a good idea or not, but I think it's something I could potentially be good at. So I'm giving it a go. Applying for some private school jobs, in various states. If I don't get one, I think I'll go back to get my masters in Education. Either way I want to continue taking some Latin classes for myself. Wherever I end up. Maybe just auditing classes? I don't know how that works. But it's easier to focus on Latin if you have someone else to motivate you, like a teacher or a friend to translate with you. It's more than difficult to try and translate something on your own. Too much room for error, in my perfectionist opinion.
I think I've exhausted this creative burst. It is time for night to cover my eyes in sleep.

And so, a few months later, I give it another try.
But this is what always happens. I get fired up about something, get into it, do it for a while and.... it fades out of my conscious mind. Especially journal/diary things. It's kinda as if, I get excited, thinking that some potential future generation will find my diary and be amazed! I think I've had that idea ever since we learned about Anne Frank's diary in elementary school. I still find half-filled journals or 30 pages of writing that abruptly stops or just turns into a sketchbook. God I have so many sketchbooks, and I don't even draw anymore. I don't know, maybe it's all part of that ADD thing. Eh, it's also partly because it just got shunted down my priority list till it wasn't even on it anymore, since it's my Senior Year of college and all. Just three more months and I'm done with school. Like Properly done. Woah. Exciting adventures await! And terrifying job applications! That is one thing I've been working on; applying to a placement service to try to get a Latin teaching job in a private school. We'll see what comes of it; I still need to write a cover letter before I send it off. I'm moving at the end of this week, again, into a one-bedroom place. But my Boyfriend is moving in with me in June! It's all happening so fast now. And I got a minor promotion at work, no pay raise yet as that comes with the next level up, but I'm going to get that too in a couple months before I'm out of college. So that's good.
I originally meant to write this about Dungeons and Dragons, since that's what was on my brain in the first place, but then I got all caught up in the guilt of "Wow I haven't posted since January."
So be warned, massive amounts of dork you may not understand follow here.
And here's that DND:
So I'm in two different DnD groups right now, and both are excellent. One is 4.0, the other is 3.5. Now, hardcore DnD folks tend to rant about why their edition of choice is "the best." Whatever. I don't do that. I like them both, they are good for different reasons. If you want to be specific about combat and like supreme specialization and are good at maths, then 3.5 is the one for you. If you want to focus on your story, roleplaying, and more "talky" characters, or say "I just want to hit it" when your turn comes 'round in combat, then 4.0 is for you. They're just simply different systems for playing in the same universe. Whine about it all you want, I like them for different reasons.
Anyways. The Tuesday group is the 4.0 game, and the DM is an old friend of mine. We've had a rotating bunch of people but it's always me, him, and two other girls at least. We've had three other guys and two other girls join and drop out of the group for various reasons, and restarted the whole game at one point. But my half-orc barbarian Agga Kneesbreaker is still probably my all-time favorite character. Most of the time she'd be all "HUURRRR, I have axe. I hit things." but every once in a while, I'd see a good plan, and Agga would be all "Hey, hey, let's pretend it's a holiday and get all the goblins and the bugbear drunk, then we can go kill the bugbear in its sleep and steal the spider-gem and - " at which point I stop as everyone stares going "Agga says what?" me: "Uhhh.... get drunk?" everybody else: "No, it's a good plan, just, it's from Agga. What." and then we'd go with the plan, giggling about how Agga randomly was smart for two minutes. It's a good group.
The 3.5 weekend group (we've just moved from Sundays to Saturdays) is HUGE. Most of the time. It's not really consistent who is there from session to session, but it's always fun. Sometimes we have eight players, sometimes four. It all depends on who can make it. I think we actually have like two different games going at the same time with that group. One that's in the Underdark with all Dwarf characters led by Chris, and one that's free-play led by Woz. Both are excellent. Chris is one of those guys that's been playing for more than a decade and has an intimidating amount of knowledge, books, maps, and minis. Woz hasn't been playing quite as long but is pretty much the same. So that was intimidating at first, when Chris was all "I made 8 different characters to choose from in my spare time; do we need a paladin? I haven't played a paladin in a while." But then I realized he's just as big a nerd as the rest of us and extremely friendly, funny, and helpful.
I think the best part about DnD with both groups is that we don't take ourselves seriously. We relax, are willing to just dick around and joke, no rules lawyers in either group. It's a game! It's fun! That's what it's all about. It's being geeky and social at the same time. That's why I'm so glad that DnD has continued. Even when I don't have time in life for anything else geeky, due to work and school, I make time for DnD. It's an excuse to see my friends every week, and gives us something more to do than watch a movie or whatever. (You can only watch so many movies before you just want to freaking talk to someone.) Plus I just love dice; what's not to like? Pretty sure I'm just going to ask for dice for my birthday this year from my friends. I'd love to have a full rainbow like Woz and Chris. You wouldn't think about it directly, but that means buying yellow dice - and yellow dice always look sort of weird, awkward, or sinister to me. I don't know. It's a thing. But orange dice, yeah, those are pretty cool. But gotta love young, teenage me: my first set of seven dice was... glow in the dark. Hah! Do you know how useless they are? The numbers weren't even painted on! And of course I've lost my d12 of that set, probably due to my cat or moving too many times. The other dice I bought at that time were all d10s, because my high school friends and I just played the whitewolf system. Very different, by the way, from any d20 system. I've got usable dice now though. Flat, opaque green, grey, black, and blue. Those are mine. And Boyfriend gave me his old set, red flecked with black with blue numbering. Those dice carried him through YEARS of DnD campaigning, even saving this character's alignment and life by rolling a natural 20 once.
Right, perhaps enough rambling for one day.

The time Boyfriend's cousin reminded me of Miss Crazy-Pants.

So for Thanksgiving I was invited to go "Up North" with Boyfriend's family. For starters, I thought this meant driving the 3 1/2 to 4 hours to Boyfriend's house, then another 2 or so north. Oh, so, so, wrong. It was another four from Boyfriend's house, not two. So that means around... eight hours of driving in one day. Literally in the car all day. Luckily I was not driving for the second half. I showed up at Boyfriend's house, went pee, loaded up Boyfriend's brother's car, and was on the road again in 15 minutes. Then we began an joke that would run through the whole trip. Boyfriend's parents had been all nerves, apparently. Parents said 1:30, so He'd told me to get there by 1:30, so I planned accordingly. But the parents? "Oh, when is Sam getting here?" and "Have you talked to Sam yet?" and "Where is Sam?" all the way up to the point where I walked in the door at 1:30 on the dot. No shit, on the dot. Boyfriend had responded "I said 1:30 Mom!" Every time they asked. Thus, any quiet moment or to make some silly point during the trip they'd say "When's Sam getting here?" to much giggling.
Anyways. Up North we went. And I mean UP NORTH - it was like we drove into winter. Snow on the ground when back home it had been 60 degrees the day before. Plus another two inches the first night. Oh and there's a Ski place up there called "Nub's Nob" which we couldn't resist for all kinds of jokes. So much fun.Boyfriend's Aunt has a condo up there and a neighbor let "us kids" stay in their rental condo, with the result of much videogaming and imbibing. Much Call of Duty zombie map, Waterfall, movies, Outburst, and Heroes of Might and Magic III. Four days of vacation bliss. Mostly.
The last night we were there, Friday night, it went as normal until 3am when Boyfriend, Cousin 1 and I were playing the drinking game to The Princess Bride. (Rules later.) It was around 3am that Cousin 2 came back from the other condo, drunk as a skunk and loud. Cousin 2 has been to Iraq as a soldier. This has resulted, as can be expected, some crazy-pants trouble, aka PTSD, which is Legit. War, PTSD, makes sense. What didn't make sense was how much he channeled Miss Crazy-Pants. You have to understand that it was 3am, we were all under various influences. This just made me that much more unprepared to deal with the SUDDEN INFLUX OF CRAZY in the condo. Cousin 2 made with the repetitive over-share, telling us exactly why he was so messed up because of a certain horrible thing that happened in the War. Then it was with the questions. That's the most horrible part of Miss Crazy-Pants type of crazy, because no matter what you say, it's not right. You can't dodge, they're insistent. Even when you say exactly what he/she wants to hear, it's not enough. The crazy train keeps rolling. Even if you repeat what they want to hear. I tried to dodge. Mistake! Sitting next to Boyfriend, I ended up cowering against him because Cousin 2 was leaning over me, invading my personal space (which is actually somewhat hard to do) and loudly asking me his questions. Far, far too much for my substance-addled brain and emotions to handle. Cousin 1 got him to back off by distracting him and I fled so fast to Boyfriend's and my room. Then Cousins 1 and 2 (brothers) stayed up until 5am talking, wrestling, boxing? and generally being loud.

So my real question is not wtf is wrong with Cousin 2 - because it's easy to infer PTSD - but more... wtf is wrong with Dad's girlfriend that she acts like someone with PTSD??

Aside from that one night of Mister Crazy-Pants I had a lovely time hanging out with Boyfriend's family and eating delicious food. I'd go back again even risking a little crazy.