I lost some time once...

Since I migrated my entire journal from LJ over to here, I guess I'll call this a fresh start.

I have been absolutely horrid about posing on my blog since establishing a regular presence on Facebook and other social media. I recall, shortly before I quit bothering with LJ on any kind of regular basis, something that would pull the day's tweets from your Twitter account, and post that on LJ as your post for the day. In our desire to have a meaningful existence online, we have decided to phone it in, and just pretend we are doing anything noteworthy.

Anyway..

Taken together, my LJ and DW-original posts tally to 2000 (1955 LJ and 45 DW, who'd'a thunk it?). This means I just am going to abandon the numbering completely. The idea was to keep up with how I was doing, but I also realized that people who might not see a filtered post would be able to easily figure out that they were cut from one. Besides, it's incorrigibly dull to dutifully number each post like lines on a sheet of notebook paper. You spend so much trying to make everything pretty, that you lose the thread of what you want to do.

In my case, I have become painfully disconnected from my creativity. I struggle daily to come up with ideas that I consider worth converting into some kind of story. I'm easily discouraged from pursuing ideas that I do have. Things just feel... too big. I'd like to dismiss it as a non-issue, but it's honestly gone on for too long. All I know to do is start typing something in here every night, if I can.

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Today, though I just bought a plane ticket to go to New York, I spent almost $200 on the Kimagure Orange Road TV series complete box set. I feel horribly guilty about it, but I have a justification for it. You see, I've been watching the KOR TV DVDs on eBay for well over a year. Not only did I never find an English-language box set for sale, I never even saw individual DVDs for less than $20-25 each. That's $280-300 minimum for the series. To find it for only $15 a piece, and from a reputable seller (Goodwill) was surprising.

I still feel guilty, but this is my favorite series, I'm not avoiding paying bills to do this, and this is also something I did with Kevin. You see, back before Kickstarter, AnimEigo had to talk people into preordering the TV series to make it. I went in on the VHS set with Kevin. We technically each owned half of the series, though I think he left them at my house initially. After I fell on some hard times financially, I ceded complete ownership of the series to him. I always meant to get some blank VHS tapes to record a copy, but never got around to it.

Years later, AnimEigo released them on DVD, in what I can only imagine as their swan song from anime publishing, because they folded soon after finishing the DVD releases (in fact, I think I've read that they were trying to get them out before their license for KOR expired). I knew about the OVAs they released, but I never heard or thought about the TV series. So, for years, my OVAs have been sitting on my shelf, surrounded by other anime, but nothing else.

So, I will finally have everything released for KOR in a DVD format. It's something that I cannot deny that I've wanted for a long time, so I will just accept the monetary hit and count my blessings at finding it so cheaply. Next, I will start saving everything I can, for I like having money in savings, and giving my money to McDonald's and Wendy's for the convenience to eat the crap they sell is no longer as satisfying as it used to be.

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Well, work comes early tomorrow, so I better call it a night.

It has been nearly 10 months since I last used my LJ for anything other than seeing the daily LOLcats (and that's because a lot of you don't post on here anymore, either!). I've migrated pretty fully to Facebook and Twitter. Twitter's more fun, perhaps because I have to figure out what I want to say in 140 characters or less. At this point, Facebook just copies what I tweet.

At any rate, I found a link on Facebook to LJ, and wound up browsing through various user info pages, adding folks. If I just added you, then you should at least be familiar with me. The new default user pic -- which I use on Facebook, Twitter, and the Summerland Grove site -- is recent enough that you should be able to match it to me. I know a lot of you from SG anyway.

The past almost-10 months have been.. different. I courted Christianity again, dated a devout Christian (the former admittedly DID halfway occur due to the latter), wound up giving up my D&D game on Sundays forever (I never have Sunday afternoons off anymore), met a great group of people in what I am apt to call the core membership of Summerland Grove, began smoking pipes for fun, became a pagan in name (I suspect I've always been one in spirit, whether I knew it or not), decided on a spiritual path (Asatru), began dating a wonderful woman, and have grown to despise my job at Kroger so much that I almost went to a job fair (my resume was... well, completely unmade and not gonna be ready in time, plus I got called on to help my girlfriend, which I had no hesitation doing).

Of course, outing myself on my LJ as a pagan could be considered... unwise? foolhardy? I dunno. Anyone with half a brain who has watched my Twitter feed/Facebook posts will have picked up on it long ago, though I deliberately don't come right out and say it, because I live in Memphis, TN, where you're accepted for who you are...

...that is, if you're a monogamous heterosexual Conservative Christian who is intolerant of others' lifestyles and points of view. (I still classify as heterosexual, though that's the only part of that statement that still applies to me.) I have far too many Christian friends on Facebook who I suspect will try to help me "see the error of my ways", so I am mum on the subject there, but I realize I don't give a flying fuck outside of being harassed about it on Facebook. I keep quiet at work as well, just because things already are a cluster fuck there, without adding "OMG IT'S A PAGAN!!!11" to the list. I've not dedicated to a specific god, which admittedly bothers me quite a bit (to the point that I can get downright moody/depressed about it), but I'm reading everything I can get my hands on that I think will help me understand my choice of path more clearly. (I'm currently reading "Our Troth, Vol. 1", and Tyr *STILL* looks like a reasonable choice, though he no longer feels like a perfect fit.)

About two weeks ago, I went to Festival of Souls. I'd never been, and even though I had to work two days and missed the workshops, I had a lot of fun. I made a point to attend the rituals, and was.. well, "blown away" is appropriate, if a little cliched. My brother, Ricky (titus_the_mage, though he's never used it), went as well, and surprised me. He'd always referred to himself as an agnostic, or as he put it, a "chicken shit atheist", but apparently *REALLY* took to the pagan point of view. I'm still processing that he has come to that realization, though I'm glad to have a longtime close personal friend with me in this new life.

While I enjoyed every ritual, I was absolutely thunderstruck by the candlelight labyrinth held after the ancestor ritual on Friday night. The solemnity covering the field, where the candles were laid out in concentric circles that slowly led to the center, was absolute. I didn't hear any voices (consciously), nor did I have any brilliant immediately-life-changing flashes of inspiration (again, consciously), but when I had gotten out of it, I felt different. Two weeks later, I wish I had the labyrinth still up to walk again, like I have a new appreciation for it, and if I could just walk it again, even more would become clear to me.

On the D&D/RPG front, I eventually had to drop lordreaibn's 4e D&D game, because work began jumping around on Sundays for me (I don't get to do payroll like I used to, though no hard feelings for the new clerk). I briefly attempted to get a game going involving nyminal, strieson, mfsfreak, and disker and his wife, but that fell through due to lack of motivation on my part. I just no longer "feel it" where D&D is concerned. I am far more likely to wax nostalgic over my old 2e games, and how engrossing they were back then. Perhaps, when my schedule settles down some, or I change jobs, I can start a game again with some folks, perhaps even including lordreaibn, tannenwynn, marius_98, or lostgamers. I have access to a larger pool of folks, and if I mix and match 'em a bit so I'm not stuck with the same collection of people I have played with for the last ten years, things might get interesting. (I have *NO* problem with my old D&D group, but the reality is that lack of fresh blood caused things to get stale, and we all know it.)

Well, that's my life this year so far. It's an oversimplification, and you'll notice I didn't post about work. I'm on vacation for at least two more days, so I refuse to acknowledge it until then. :) Welcome to all the new people. I hope that you add me back. I want to get to know each of you better than I have so far.

Oh yeah, I also, at the urging of my girlfriend, am going to begin writing again daily, even if it's just in here. I am one of the worst procrastinators you'll ever meet, but I want this. I miss writing something down, reading it, and going "holy crap, this is GOOD."

P.S. Holy crap. I've had this account for over 8 years now. I feel damned old suddenly. :)