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Jun. 20th, 2007 10:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usernamenumberThis has not been a good week for me and technology.
Not only did I leave my laptop's AC adapter in MA, but my phone is still busted. We went out to replace it yesterday only to find that you can't buy an MA number in CA, or you can't renew an MA plan in CA or something that sounds equally bizarre, but equates to me being SOL until I'm back home. And without my laptop I don't have most of my work or Second Shift stuff, so I find myself in the unenviable position of not really being able to call this work-time since I'm getting so little workstuff done. If I can't call this work time then it's vacation time. I have some vacation days to spare, but.. urgh.
Anyway, the days leading up to this were worthwhile no matter what.
Over the weekend I played in "Void Stalkers: To Infinity...", the weekend-long first episode of a new campaign larp I'm in with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rigel, bleemoo, tpau and several others who I don't think are on my flist. I don't think I've ever spent as much time trying to figure out personality and backstory for a character as I did on this one, but despite that he ended up coming out of the game headed in a different direction than I'd anticipated, despite that direction seeming obvious in retrospect. In the weeks leading up to the game, I was stressing a lot over this sense I had that something didn't fit in the way I was approaching the character, but no matter how much I thought about it, it didn't really crystalize until I'd been playing him for about a day. I still feel like mistakes were made: for one, I played at least the beginning of this game as though I was playing a one-shot (the style of game I normally do) and dropped a lot of my character's big plotbombs early on. Maybe it would have been better in a campaign setting to wait longer, but it seemed to work anyway. Also, some of the things I've now made canonical about his backstory would have worked better if I'd arranged them a different way, I realize now. On the whole, though, I think things came out positively and I'm fascinated by some of the places he could go from here. I've only just started doing campaign larps as opposed to one-shots, and I think this is the element I'm going to enjoy the most: the organic development of characters playing off of other characters and having time to really undergo changes over time.
Immediately after Void Stalkers we flew to CA forsamzystrange and tenzinananda's wedding. We got to my parents' house around 1am, got up the next morning, realized we'd left the invitation, which had location details, in MA, called rhosyn_du for exactly where we were meeting and in the process were told that the wedding was at 12:30, not 2pm as choose_again and I had somehow mis-remembered. Eep!
Anyway, we made it to the wedding in time. The ceremony was probably the most beautiful I've ever seen. The officiate talked about how the couple had wedded each other in their hearts over the course of their relationship, but now wanted to bear witness of their comittment to their community and make them a part of it. Whenchoose_again and I were first planning our wedding, it was very important to me culturally (in what I now regard as both healthy and unhealthy ways) that we have a ceremony, but she didn't understand why it was so important to me. Why should our commitment require anyone but us? After samzystrange and tenzinananda's ceremony, she said to me "they finally said what you'd been trying to tell me, but in words I understand". I'd been thinking the same thing throughout. 'Twas wonderful. Then, after the oficiate had said his thing, he announced that Sam and Scott had written vows to say to one another, which they then did, to one another. In other words, there was no grand pronouncement of the vows to the audience, they just looked into each others' eyes and said their vows to one another in intimate voices. No effort was made to stop the people in the front row from hearing what they said, but neither was an effort made ensure that those in the back, like us, did. All we saw was moving lips and locked eyes and that's all we needed to see. That was what we'd been brought to bear witness to, not the particulars of their vows (though I have it frrom someone closer to the front that they were beautiful as well).
At the reception I got to catch up with old friends from CA. I am perpetually amazed by how many people in that social circle I have known since high school. It seems unusual and special that so many cool and interesting people should get together so early and then stay in each others' orbits for so long. Going back always reminds me that, however welcome I always am when I return, I've been on the outer edge of this group for quite a while now. This time was different, though, in that I actually found myself homesick for Camberville. This never happened in Florida or San Diego, except for Sequoia's family and occasional visits withaerynvale and badfaun and is nice because it shows me that I've met awesome people and begun to make a home for myself there as well. That said, my biggest regret about this trip is that, being stranded in the east bay (my folks don't have a car that can make it out of the immediate area except for the one my mom uses to get to work) I didn't get to spend much time catching up with the West Coast folks more than I did. No Jobwork, no Second Shift work and no real play makes for a lot of very expensive wasted time. =:(
Ah well. Last night I also got to spend some time with Dave-who-really-needs-to-get-on-lj-dammit. I've known Dave since I was about 9 years old and he's awesome. I don't think I've ever had as much in common with a person while still being so different. Our moms both raised us on old movies and sent us to the same hippie daycare center. So later, as we both became obsessed with Metallica and later the Berkeley punk scene, we did so while retaining a sense of mellowness and a profound appreciation for the work of Gene Kelly. =:) Plus, there are only so many other kids in your average high school who are also into punk rock, show tunes, Dr. Who and The Young Ones.
We spent the evening just hanging out, talking about This American Life and playing music, showing each other new stuff we hadn't heard before and listening to older stuff like Mr. Bungle and Thin Lizzy (mental note: must go get the first MB album and Jailbreak post-haste. How I allowed a decade to go by without getting either on CD/mp3 is as perplexing as it is shameful). He also made a valiant effort to get me into his current obsession: Neil Diamond, though I'm not quite there yet.
Blargh. I would like to post more, but we've errands to run. Was planning on seeing Richard III with Dave andcindy_lu, since she's in the area for work, but looking at how early we're going to have to get up tomorrow to catch our flight that's looking like not such a good idea. Sadness. Anyway, must dash for now.
Not only did I leave my laptop's AC adapter in MA, but my phone is still busted. We went out to replace it yesterday only to find that you can't buy an MA number in CA, or you can't renew an MA plan in CA or something that sounds equally bizarre, but equates to me being SOL until I'm back home. And without my laptop I don't have most of my work or Second Shift stuff, so I find myself in the unenviable position of not really being able to call this work-time since I'm getting so little workstuff done. If I can't call this work time then it's vacation time. I have some vacation days to spare, but.. urgh.
Anyway, the days leading up to this were worthwhile no matter what.
Over the weekend I played in "Void Stalkers: To Infinity...", the weekend-long first episode of a new campaign larp I'm in with
rigel, bleemoo, tpau and several others who I don't think are on my flist. I don't think I've ever spent as much time trying to figure out personality and backstory for a character as I did on this one, but despite that he ended up coming out of the game headed in a different direction than I'd anticipated, despite that direction seeming obvious in retrospect. In the weeks leading up to the game, I was stressing a lot over this sense I had that something didn't fit in the way I was approaching the character, but no matter how much I thought about it, it didn't really crystalize until I'd been playing him for about a day. I still feel like mistakes were made: for one, I played at least the beginning of this game as though I was playing a one-shot (the style of game I normally do) and dropped a lot of my character's big plotbombs early on. Maybe it would have been better in a campaign setting to wait longer, but it seemed to work anyway. Also, some of the things I've now made canonical about his backstory would have worked better if I'd arranged them a different way, I realize now. On the whole, though, I think things came out positively and I'm fascinated by some of the places he could go from here. I've only just started doing campaign larps as opposed to one-shots, and I think this is the element I'm going to enjoy the most: the organic development of characters playing off of other characters and having time to really undergo changes over time. Immediately after Void Stalkers we flew to CA for
samzystrange and tenzinananda's wedding. We got to my parents' house around 1am, got up the next morning, realized we'd left the invitation, which had location details, in MA, called rhosyn_du for exactly where we were meeting and in the process were told that the wedding was at 12:30, not 2pm as choose_again and I had somehow mis-remembered. Eep! Anyway, we made it to the wedding in time. The ceremony was probably the most beautiful I've ever seen. The officiate talked about how the couple had wedded each other in their hearts over the course of their relationship, but now wanted to bear witness of their comittment to their community and make them a part of it. When
choose_again and I were first planning our wedding, it was very important to me culturally (in what I now regard as both healthy and unhealthy ways) that we have a ceremony, but she didn't understand why it was so important to me. Why should our commitment require anyone but us? After samzystrange and tenzinananda's ceremony, she said to me "they finally said what you'd been trying to tell me, but in words I understand". I'd been thinking the same thing throughout. 'Twas wonderful. Then, after the oficiate had said his thing, he announced that Sam and Scott had written vows to say to one another, which they then did, to one another. In other words, there was no grand pronouncement of the vows to the audience, they just looked into each others' eyes and said their vows to one another in intimate voices. No effort was made to stop the people in the front row from hearing what they said, but neither was an effort made ensure that those in the back, like us, did. All we saw was moving lips and locked eyes and that's all we needed to see. That was what we'd been brought to bear witness to, not the particulars of their vows (though I have it frrom someone closer to the front that they were beautiful as well).At the reception I got to catch up with old friends from CA. I am perpetually amazed by how many people in that social circle I have known since high school. It seems unusual and special that so many cool and interesting people should get together so early and then stay in each others' orbits for so long. Going back always reminds me that, however welcome I always am when I return, I've been on the outer edge of this group for quite a while now. This time was different, though, in that I actually found myself homesick for Camberville. This never happened in Florida or San Diego, except for Sequoia's family and occasional visits with
aerynvale and badfaun and is nice because it shows me that I've met awesome people and begun to make a home for myself there as well. That said, my biggest regret about this trip is that, being stranded in the east bay (my folks don't have a car that can make it out of the immediate area except for the one my mom uses to get to work) I didn't get to spend much time catching up with the West Coast folks more than I did. No Jobwork, no Second Shift work and no real play makes for a lot of very expensive wasted time. =:( Ah well. Last night I also got to spend some time with Dave-who-really-needs-to-get-on-lj-dammit. I've known Dave since I was about 9 years old and he's awesome. I don't think I've ever had as much in common with a person while still being so different. Our moms both raised us on old movies and sent us to the same hippie daycare center. So later, as we both became obsessed with Metallica and later the Berkeley punk scene, we did so while retaining a sense of mellowness and a profound appreciation for the work of Gene Kelly. =:) Plus, there are only so many other kids in your average high school who are also into punk rock, show tunes, Dr. Who and The Young Ones.
We spent the evening just hanging out, talking about This American Life and playing music, showing each other new stuff we hadn't heard before and listening to older stuff like Mr. Bungle and Thin Lizzy (mental note: must go get the first MB album and Jailbreak post-haste. How I allowed a decade to go by without getting either on CD/mp3 is as perplexing as it is shameful). He also made a valiant effort to get me into his current obsession: Neil Diamond, though I'm not quite there yet.
Blargh. I would like to post more, but we've errands to run. Was planning on seeing Richard III with Dave and
cindy_lu, since she's in the area for work, but looking at how early we're going to have to get up tomorrow to catch our flight that's looking like not such a good idea. Sadness. Anyway, must dash for now.
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Date: 2007-06-21 02:42 pm (UTC)Next time, more prior notice is definitely one of the things we will do differently, plus arranging some actual transportation to the south bay. And if you're ever near Boston, email me!