A note on 4th edition.

I was playing Fourth Edition of Dungeons and Dragons tonight with my best friend, his brothers and our other friend from high school. I had not played until tonight. I must say it completely needed to be done! Not only to get out and do something different, but to see how it worked!

I have not gamed like that since High school? It was nice to come back to. The adventure was a bit awkward, but it was fun to play something completely unfamiliar to me. It's been a long time since I played a first level character and didn't know it through and through. They simplified everything so much! The elegance of the game design! I can see why old schoolers have issue with it, but man if you are a newbie this game is smooth... especially if you set your character up using the computer tools they have on the website. I need to play a bit more to figure out It's true depth, but it felt like old times.

Vacation Through Car Trouble

My car has taken another dump on the carpet of my life. Apparently when a car dumps gasoline all over your engine that means the fuel pump went wrong. My car had been sputtering, I had believed it fixed, but I guess it wasn't. My mom was kind enough to pay for it to get fixed that time and I appreciate it. I just feel like...

Ya know what? I have nothing nice to say about this sitch. I doubt it would be very intelligent. It might lend itself to my desire to be able to make paint peel with swear words alone, but it won't solve anything, like kicking it repeatedly didn't. Or threatening to set it on fire - cause it totally would as the engine is covered in gasoline! I love that van... why does it betray me so?

So I think I am going to take the money it will take to fix my car and GO TO CANCUN!

I think I want to go to Astoria, Or... ya know, where they filmed "The Goonies". A comic I've been thinking of would be set there. It would be good to literally go and get a feel for the place.

Maybe the Grand Canyon? The desert sounds nice. Mayhap it would go all Castaneda on my ass and I would see something cool? It would give insight to that fight between FLLOYD the Mutant Coffee Table and that Giant Biker Squid.

Honestly going to Ireland and tracking down all the faerie rings I can find might be a wicked slick vacation. Money is an issue, but at this point I dont care. I just need to flippin get away somewhere that is not exactly work. I swear if ONE MORE THING GOES WRONG oh, it's on! I have like 2 credit cards with pretty good limits and no way to ever pay them back! If I am going to go bankrupt I am gonna do it cooooooool!

Alright, alright I am NOT gonna go bankrupt and seek vacation oblivion. I figure if I spent a grand doing something neat though it might be worth it at this point in my life. I have not gone ANYWHERE in so long, that going ANYWHERE will do. I really need to shake things up ya know?

Someone please tell me I'm not crazy. Or better yet, instead of cautionary tales about how I should mind stuff and be careful in this economy and basically stay at home and be "safe", tell me how it would be possible to travel somewhere REALLY FLIPPIN COOL without breaking my credit cards and myself in the process. That would be doing me a serious solid.

An idle Thusrday.

I sit here in my dad's old room and the morning sun glares in my face. I have a lot to do today to get ready for this Art Walk this evening, I have the day off my day job. I drink my extra good coffee - somehow my mom makes it better even though I bought the same brand and have the same coffee maker in my studio. I am in Spider-Man boxers and the Green Lantern is on my T-shirt. I sit here wanting to say something about professionalism, art, and my career.

I have to get business cards printed, Organize my studio, but paper towels, and possibly hit the DMV to get new tags. I have paid my bills today, and I still have a bit of cash left over. I am having a better week than last week. I regret deleting the previous post as this blog is intended to tell the truth in regards to gaming, life, the universe, and everything. I just felt it was a bit much to share with everyone ever. In any case I am feeling better, and that self trial helped me deal with a lot of internal issues I had been holding back since before the breakup. I hadn't realized I had so much pain.

Life has improved since last time. I went to an Anime' con over the weekend and had fun, low over head, and I made money. My Birthday helped as I had went to the drive-in with some friends, and I have been having a light work week. The paycheck won't be great next week, but I needed the downtime anyway. I am going to look for a digital printer so I can make crazier designs for shirts! I had gotten one project done, almost done with the next. I have a lot going on!

The very model of poetic excellence...

Poem poem gonna write
poem poem gonna get it right...

Songs are sung again
Remembering old tunes.

Songs are sung again
Songs once lost
Excavated among the ruins

There is no shame in remembrance
There is no pain to honor the past

What's over is over
What is never lasts.

Songs are sung to see the way
Songs are sung to hear the heart in a busy day.

To know what was
is not what will be

Do not let the past make you
A bitter me.

Sometimes it's wise...

Wisdom. Sometimes I think it's all I ever seek. I write this now and it lends so much insight into myself come to think of it. All the studying I do of people, motivations, stories, the occult, science, happiness, and sorrow, and religion.

In fact it ties into this whole concept of Spatulas, Wearing Pants, and Robot Monkeys. It's about pushing the boundaries of experience. About exploring the boundaries of myself. Who am I? What am I made of? How far can I go? This explains a lot about what my friend Jonge says in regard to circling the toilet bowl with my humor.. how I just jump right in. This also explains my awkwardness with everyone. How do you tell someone what you really see about them, good or bad, without somehow making them uncomfortable? Just imagine being able to read minds... it would feel something like that. This explains all the fascination with Role-Playing games, being other people. It also explains why I run from myself so much. I am like a fool who yearns to be a master, but still wishes to possess the possibility of the number Zero.

Humor I feel exemplifies this philosophy exquisitely. Which explains the whole deal Of FLLOYD the Mutant Coffee Table, my eternal love of the Ninja, and why I would use a spatula in a Zombie Holocaust or an alien invasion. It's about being unknown and unpredictable which ties perfectly into the concept of what Zero represents. The fact it does not look like anything but ultimately could be everything... even all at once. It is the eternal center of everything. Very much like the answer 42 is supposed to be...

So what is the point of this log? I feel like I have answered something terribly important just now. What I want out of life is experience. I ultimately wish to achieve mastery of myself... I just may not have been taking responsibility for my actions yet.

That is a scary prospect. Responsibility for any and all my actions. That means in addition to taking responsibility for my direct actions, taking responsibility for anything that happens even if I had no direct hand in it. I think this is what they mean by Karma.

I know what I am saying is very true. It's like knowing when a drawn line is perfectly straight.

Alright, now with this uber powerful revelation, how does one implement it in our day to day? How can I accept responsibility for everything and still keep my heart light? Or is the power of the knowledge supposed to keep me from being pulled down by ultimate responsibility? I feel the need to not say too much about pain and joy for they are things that pass as all things do. The only real truth I think matters is the acceptance of ourselves by ourselves for ourselves. Only then can we truly accept others for themselves. Why do I want to rub the Buddha all of a sudden?

So THAT'S why I like to eat food I don't like... holy crap I feel better now that I sorted THAT out!

Ownership...

At this point in my life I have been thinking about goals.

I have been attempting to wrap my head around how to get more out of life.. or at least find what it is about life that I really give a damn about. For a long portion of my life, hell maybe even through all of it, I could give a damn.

Life and death is relative for example, everything feels like a giant ink blot that everyone gives their own meaning to. Religion and comparisons there is sort of like saying whose invisible turtle has the prettiest shell. I could use any words in the English language and everyone would take their meaning at face value (their face value). So what really matters in light of all of this? What is the point of money? what is the purpose of fighting and dieing for principles that someone else made up in a drugged up religious epiphany, or who described the prettiest invisible turtle?

So this is where I'm starting from as I think about goals. What's the flippin point? Why not just sit around, go to work, come home, and play video games? Why not draw the same boring stuff, why reach for anything is enough of "it'll do" is already here?

So what makes me reach or fight for something? You know, I am starting to figure that out. I am tired of my "place" in life for one. My home doesn't suit me any more, my games that I loved are becoming something that holds me back. I see it all around me. How much of my life that I have not owned. I failed in a previous relationship because I did not own myself. I let my ownership get away from me, probably because it was easier. The concept of taking ownership is uncomfortable yet promising.

So what is ownership anyway? Good question as I am not always sure... but then if I was "Owning" it, I would talk as if I were. So that is how I will discuss this - as if I KNOW. Or respect what I dont know about it. That is ownership too.

Owning a situation is accepting the consequences of your actions regardless of the outcome - even if there were things not directly in your control. If you fought someone and died it is the acceptance of that. If you played the lottery and won it is dealing with all that comes with getting a lot of money really fast. Owning a situation is like the double edge of making wishes. Getting what you ask for is not the same as getting what you need right then.

Owning yourself is absolutely necessary to succeed in life. The sense of empowerment, the opportunity to take absolute stock of yourself, so you have the confidence to handle whatever happens. The need to never be afraid of the dark, not because you control it, but because you own it and whatever may happen there.

I am in the process of taking stock myself. It is time to Own my life. I choose the face my ink blot takes, though I know it is it's own shape too.

Chris - Wielder of the Sacred Spatula

Art and other avenues of mania!

Oh my freaking god what have I been up to? I have been going through a lot lately. I mean, my art for one, recently I went to the Art Show at Origins and had a blast, met some people, and possibly some very special people. I have an art studio in the Secor building that has a lot of room, and I am still figuring out what to do with all of it. I have recently begun speaking to a fellow artist who seems capable and wise, and he has given me some seriously good insight on my compositions at the first discussion we had. I have had my spatulas stolen (except "The Shwinger") and my dice and I have felt sad and empty... until I have gotten a new one thanks to my friend Ren. I was going through Origins and realizing how many of my dice I lost... oh sweet God the pain.

My day job has been slowly getting more and more abysmal as time goes on. I do not know what to say that I haven't either ranted about too much before or what to say to change anything there. Every day it just gets worse and I have been looking for some other gainful employment.

I enjoy being single, but it has been hard. My emotions feel barely there and I am unable to tell how much pain I am in, but it must be considerable as I still dont feel anything except melancholy for the loss of the cats. I feel like I woke up from a dream in my parents house. Like the past nine years didn't happen and I was in a coma the whole time.

I sit here in dad's room, the moon is half empty (it's waning) and I am about to watch "Zombieland" which is a phenomenal movie. I think of someone I met at the con, and I hope I...

It's too soon to say anything about that. She was awesome and I hope I will see her again. God, I hope so. Lets just say that with all the anxiety these feelings entail that I still catch myself smiling when she held my new spatula the way she did!

I have been reading a lot about business and how to make money and finance. I have been looking for ways to make my money situation far better than it is.

Today specifically I have been on an emotional roller coaster where I feel depressed, yet edgy about drawing things. I feel the need to burn off this extra energy, but lack the focus to use it to create anything. I want to do everything, but I feel lost in which direction.

I went to the show and I had fun, but I am frustrated with myself and my approach to it. I am not up to snuff in my own opinion and today's advice was fresh and a direction to go in. I am smiling thinking about it right now.

My life has definitely been improving, or rather a reckoning has been taking place... like the fall out from the Tower card in the tarot. It's clearing the way for new symbols, new hopes, and new dreams. hopefully a reestablishment of myself.