Because Ohio

Last known photo out my dashboard.  (Cortana, protect us!)

I couldn't make it to Pittsburgh as I'm just too sick and exhausted.I'm going to hang out here at the well-lit Towpath service plaza on the Ohio Turnpike for a while and maybe catch a nap. This seems like a bad idea; the kind of thing my mother would warn me about being murdered by drifters.  I called a few nearby motels with no luck.  I'm stuck here at least a few hours until I'm awake enough to drive and not vomit.  If I go missing I blame Ohio.  Lauren can have my signed-by-Ben Farscape peacekeeper rifle. Linda C. gets my Byzantine necklace.  Georges gets my Buffy Scythe (and Gambit pages). Tony gets all my money, savings and other stuff in the deposit boxes and first dibs on all my other stuff provided he takes care of my pets the way I would until they die of natural causes.... Mwahahaha!  Vivi gets my musical instruments and music books so she can start a band in high school.  Lilly gets my drawing/painting/ceramics and other craft stuff and glass animals.  I don't know what all the three year olds would want of mine... maybe my vast Barbie collection?  Hmm... Weirdly I always think of my hobbies as pretty childish... Maybe not so childish three year olds would want that stuff.  Meh.

Anyway, I expect my other nerdy friends will have to divvy up my nerdy action figures and collectibles via armed combat (totally reasonable) and the rest of my possessions should be sold off on eBay and the money used to hire lawyers to file a class action lawsuit against Dr Oz (obviously).  It's what I would have wanted.

My remains (if any) should be set adrift Viking-style into Lake Michigan in a fiery boat (along with my Xena sword, Heinlein books and high school diaries and Star Wars fan fiction I wrote at age 13 that I still have for some reason and should definitely not ever be read by anyone).  Oakton can have all my Pharm teaching materials (Tony can get at them on my Google Drive).  I think that covers all the important stuff.  I'm also sure a blog written at 3am on an iPhone is totally legally binding.  Yay murder by drifters in windowless vans!! 😊🚗🇺🇸😬 

UPDATE: It was too scary at the rest stop so I texted my sister I was tired and would just power thru and then Siri messaged me to put down the iPhone and take a nap. (?!)  Not wanting to anger the Apple Overlord A.I., I just kept taking breaks and drinking caffeine.  I eventually got to my sister's house, turned off the engine and instantly fell asleep in my car for two hours. ...In front of my sister's house... for two hours.  Asleep at the wheel (probably drooling) like that YouTuber who lives in her car to save college money...

Some days I think my life would make a great sitcom.

 Today's Norwegian Vocabulary Word: samling
  Pronounced: (sohm-ling).
   (Translation: collection)
 Exercise: Use "samling" in a sentence:
 Example: Jeg har en actionfigurssamling.
   (I have an action figure collection.)

It's a man's life, Playing with tiny dolls on a big grid

Today I went back to GamesPlus for their weekly Pathfinder Society meeting, hopefully to play with people over age 13.  As before, the GM was a jovial and enthusiastic young man who was clearly there to give everyone an interesting and good time.  There were evidently too many people there for one table, so I got split off with two other guys to play (luckily with the same GM) a scenario where we played pregenerated characters that were like level 7 or 8.  The thing is, this was my third game ever, and I got this super complicated character with tons of powers.  Which might have been interesting, but there were palpable waves of disapproval and impatience from one of the other players, who was dumbfounded that I didn't know even the basics of melee combat!  INCONCEIVABLE!

I'd probably feel worse about it, except the player in question was a burly ginger with a giant beard with two braids in it like it as seen in Lord of the Rings. I mean, I've known a lot of folks who don't dress like a "normal person" (whatever that is), and have, on occasion, been in public looking a little weird.  However, beard man didn't crack a smile the entire time.  We played for over five hours.  Because evidently this was a super serious game and we all need to take the endeavor extremely seriously.  It seems to me that if you're going to metaphorically shriek at the world that you're a little weird by wearing beard braids and you want to be accepted despite your weirdness, than at least you should be an affable and jolly fellow.  I mean, that's my excuse!  I'm a bit odd, but at least I'll try to make you laugh.  Well, who knows, maybe his dog died earlier.  

...because sometimes you just want to eat brains.

Regardless of grumpy players, the thing that troubles me a bit is that I had a better time playing a scenario with the 13-year-olds than doing the same with people in my own age range.  The kids were having a great time playing.  There was almost continual giggling and jokes and laughing but we still played in character and the mission was successfully finished.  These older guys today didn't seem like they were having fun.  The other, non-braided, player was a fellow I played with last week who seemed pretty laid back and was eager to explain stuff to me.  But he also appeared to not be having fun.  

And, like, I mean, how could you not have fun playing this game?  I mean, we had secret missions, we were working for an evil syndicate, we had to investigate an illicit drug-making facility and get evidence about all the wrong-doing and evil.  And I was a shapeshifter. Shapeshifter.  Like Mystique.  I mean, shapeshifting AND pharmacology?!  It should have been a barrel of laughs for everyone.  And about two-thirds through the run I freed a creature called Aogg (pictured at right) who, in gratitude for my freeing him, chomped off my head and ate my brain. Then I got to play as Aogg!   Yeah, Aogg's pretty cool. He can hover.  Yeah, pretty cool...

Anyway, I tore the end-boss in half with my green pincers and ate his brain.  I WIN!

The win was tempered a little as the other players began immediately packing up their stuff the moment I ate the bad guy's head (awesome)...  I don't get that.  If you're treating the experience like it's an onus, and it's a game, then why do it at all?

Sigh.  I realize I'll be happier once I can find a home game to play, or find a group that wants to  enjoy themselves, or even just find a group of folks to hang out with outside of work.  The main problem, as I see it, is that I mostly meet folks at work, mostly fellow instructors, and most ladies my age all are way too busy to go turning into a giant brain-eating crab monster every weekend.  They're working and/or have kids or a spouse and they spend their solo free time sleeping so they don't die.  And I can't be friends with men at work because prior experience indicates that men think you want to have sex if you want to meet outside of work.  Totally don't.  Just want to have some fun and diversion.  I don't mind playing with slightly younger or older folks as well.  

Ah well, I won't let one dwarven-wannabe ruin the experience.  It's still fun to just go out and spend time with other humans doing something completely ridiculous without feeling foolish about it.

Anyway, I have to go to sleep;  the four hour game totally set off my migraine thing and I'm still dizzy and nauseous as hell four hours later.  Hmmm... Maybe I need to cut down on all the flying and brain-snacking.  Teehee!  

*CHOMP*

  Pathfinder Rules of the Day: Action Types

   Translation: Stuff you do in the game while pretending to fight a mean thing using rules even though you're an adult but you don't care because it's awesome.

   Exercise:    Translate this sentence from the Rules for Pathfinder:

"In a normal round, you can perform a standard action and a move action, or you can perform a full-round action. You can also perform one swift action and one or more free actions. You can always take a move action in place of a standard action." **

  Answer: Huh?
  

The sort of thing that only happens to me

So as I wrote before, I decided to get back into tabletop RPG because it's something fun where you meet a lot of people.  Since I haven't found a home game yet, I've been doing D&D Adventurer's League and Pathfinder Society since those are groups you can drop in and out of at will and just enjoy a nice afternoon of gaming while being in public and interacting with humans without committing to said random humans.

I'd been doing internet searches for groups in the area and found an entry for "Northbrook Pathfinder Society" and emailed the organizer, who emailed me back quickly with a very articulate and friendly email inviting me to play.  I got the impression that this guy was an instructor at the local junior high (where I and my son both went to school, actually), who was getting kids interested in tabletop gaming.  It seemed like a fun, wholesome, easy group to play with, especially as it set of my teacher-spidey-sense.  I love working with kids if I feel I can get them enthused about a topic.  When my son Tony was in school I ran a Junior Great Books group and I also put on a micro demo every year at the school science fair to get folks using microscopes.  Working with kids in the role of a teacher is something I really like (but not enough to do it full time...).

Anyway, today I went to the meeting and found a table with five 12- to 13-year-olds getting ready to play.  I was pleased to see there were two girls there (girl gamer power!).  But no instructor.  Because the person I'd been communicating with turned out to be... you guessed it... another 13-year-old kid.  

I would have bailed, mostly because I didn't want to seem like a total weirdo, but the whole teacher thing weighed on me.  I felt I couldn't say, "Oh, screw this, I'm not playing with kids," as I thought that would be incredibly rude.  I'm sure they wouldn't have cared but... anyway, I sat down and played a four hour scenario with the group.

Fighting the final boss in the scenario today... I was the only one with heals... so I guess it was worth being the super creepy lady sitting on the Sunset Foods balcony with all the young folks?  I guess?

It actually was a lot of fun.  The group reminded me a lot of those kids on "Stranger Things"; the leader in particular seemed extremely bright.  He reminded me a lot of my son Tony at that age.  And I don't mind playing with kids or young people, actually.  I played a LOT of Halo and videogames with Tony when he was younger and sometimes was in multiplayer with him and his friends.  That being said...  I mean, come on, it's weird to play with a group whose TOTAL age is still less than yours.

SIgh.  This only happens to me.  I just blunder into stuff like this. 

The only consolation was that I think (or hope) that the adults that walked by assumed I was one of the kids' mom, and not like a super creepy lady who lures children to their watery graves.  At one point the leader's grandfather stopped by...  I shook his hand and gave him my full name and afterwards gave the leader one of my business cards to give to his grandfather.

*Cringe*

Oh god, the cringing.  So much cringing.  I think it will take at least a week for the cringing to wear off.  

Anyway, I did have fun and was useful as they had no healer and I ended up preventing a TPK.  But I did end by thanking them profusely for helping me learn the game, and said I thought it was probably a little weird to them that this old lady showed up, but thanks again, and if they ever had a medical question they were welcome to ask and then I got the hell out of there.

I remember back around 1979 that I played D&D with some nerdy friends once a week (and then went to Big Boy's for milkshakes and french fries) and our DM was a guy who wore fatigues.   I thought he was MUCH older than us, but in retrospect he was likely only in his early or mid-twenties.  I wonder if he might have been a VIetnam vet and maybe a relative of one of the kids.  He was a great DM so we didn't care.  

Likely the kids didn't care either, but I felt I was intruding on something that should be an adult-free and happy memory for these kids.  

Tomorrow I'm going back to Mount Prospect to try another Pathfinder Scenario with the awkward grownups that play there.  Where we can all be awkward together without anyone calling protective services.

*Cringe*

Hey, you know, it gets me out of the house and off the streets, where I'd likely just be doing crime or fomenting a revolution or some such. Everybody wins?  Right?

*Cringe*

*Cringe*

 Today's Norwegian Vocabulary Word: pinlig
  Pronounced: (peen-lee).
   (Translation: embarrassing)
 Exercise: Use "pinlig" in a sentence:
 Example: Denne ettermiddagen var en pinlig situasjon
   (This afternoon was an embarrassing situation)