Day 5: Permission

Okay, I did turn my sister onto the Chibli maker - that was fun!

I couldn't stand it anymore. I had read every inane Facebook update, and wrote a few myself. I made a Twitter friend laugh. I saved the world, (a few of them, as a matter of fact), fed snacks, made dinners, had meetings, planned and executed an exposition (Thursday was one of those 16-hour days!) I called girlfriends. I balanced checkbooks. I shuffled papers and socks. I even had an epic pedicure yesterday - really! I think the wonderful woman saw the fatigue on my face and knew it had nested in my poor, sore hooves, er, feet, and worked her magic. I took my vitamins and melatonin and slept like a baby. I made plans, I sorted stacks, I finished Dance with Dragons, and started new books. I bought The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, and started reading Christopher Moore's A Dirty Job.  (Holy crap! I just saw on my Amazon order list I bought this almost a year ago!) So far I think it's brilliant, and his thesis on the "beta male" is constantly reminding me of all the beta males in Azeroth (yes, you -- the players).

While Alpha Males are often gifted with superior physical attributes—size, strength, speed, good looks—selected by evolution over the eons by the strongest surviving and, essentially, getting all the girls, the Beta Male gene has survived not by meeting and overcoming adversity, but by anticipating and avoiding it. That is, when the Alpha Males were out charging after mastodons, the Beta Males could imagine in advance that attacking what was essentially an angry, woolly bulldozer with a pointy stick might be a losing proposition, so they hung back at camp to console the grieving widows. When Alpha Males set out to conquer neighboring tribes, to count coups and take heads, Beta Males could see in advance that in the event of a victory, the influx of female slaves was going to leave a surplus of mateless women cast out for younger trophy models, with nothing to do but salt down the heads and file the uncounted coups, and some would find solace in the arms of any Beta Male smart enough to survive. In the case of defeat, well, there was that widows thing again. The Beta Male is seldom the strongest or the fastest, but because he can anticipate danger, he far outnumbers his Alpha Male competition. The world is led by Alpha Males, but the machinery of the world turns on the bearings of the Beta Male.

Moore, Christopher (2009-10-13). A Dirty Job (Kindle Locations 467-475). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Yesterday while walking to my truck I saw a white falcon perched on the telephone wire. In my gangly shuffling to get out my phone, he/she wisely flew off. Who wants an inept ornithologist posting one's beauty on another stupid Facebook post? Then, a few miles down the road I noticed the full-ish moon. I talked to Siri about the experiences for a mental note for writing. And speaking of writing, today I'm off to another Puget Sound Writing Project group, and we always get time to write and share. Right on!

So-------

When I'm sitting there at 9:30PM, and I've done everything I can possibly do (except the dishes--come on now, don't be cruel!) and I turned to C.D. Rogue and tell him I just want to play a little (he never put this ban on me, by the way--he's too smart for that) he said, and I'm paraphrasing: When all is done, all is taken care of, and we [as a grownup] want to choose to play or do whatever for a bit, then there is nothing wrong with it.

Freed up of all guilt or sense of failure, I did log on. I was hoping no one would notice (ah, where is that invisibility cloak log on button?!) because I just wanted to bounce around a bit, but it is a social place, and I do adore my buddies in Azeroth, but damn, I would feel like I'd have to explain myself. No matter. Luckycricket the Gnome Monk ran a little dungeon or two with a lovely rogue from Elune (she was charming and sweet- so nice to meet nice players!) and Lucky leveled up one or two (considering she has every heirloom imaginable, no wonder!)

Now, I do have another post brewing about how to reset balance in one's play life, and how the current game structure contributed to my threatening stance on the game ledge, but that's for another time. Now I'm going to check my virtual mail, drink a bit more coffee, and take people places and do more things. And make no apologies.