Haiti needs hurricane help. (Thanks for the heads-up, bcholmes.)

Thanks to missk, bastette_joyce, and sogwife for a fun game night last night. And thanks to someotherguy and wtfpotatoes for the cleaning beforehand. It was noticed by at least one guest. :-)

Any vegetarians coming to game night tonight? I was going to make a couple big sandwiches of cold meats and cheese, but I also bought vegan "lunchmeat" if anyone wants that. Lemme know.

Game night tonight, 7pm. See you if you can make it!

I love my friends. I don't mean in the air-kiss-let's-do-lunch way. I mean in the deep way. I don't get close to many people; it's just not my way. But deep is not the same as close, and if you're my friend, then you're my friend, and you wouldn't be in my life if I weren't happy to have you there.

That said, I just posted this as a comment else-LJ, and I don't know that I've ever articulated it here, so I thought I'd throw it out for discussion:

I started to say "I like spending time with my friends", but to be perfectly honest, that's usually not true. What's true is that I like having spent time with my friends. That is, I like the history we end up sharing and the connections we end up making, but almost without exception, social interaction is not actively pleasant for me while it's happening. (Not never, just nearly never. And it's a Biiiiiiig continuum from "this isn't actively pleasant, but I'm happy I'm doing it and will be glad later that I did" to "this really bites". I don't do the latter very often any more these days.

I have lost (or misplaced, or actively set down) some friends over the years (kinda like the end paren on that blockquote), especially in the last couple of years, because I started to realize that that social energy drain? That's really only worth it for people I love, or feel like I might grow to love, or like the company of enough that it's worth it regardless. Nowadays, no one that I know of is my friend only for what I can give them, and that feels good. No one is my friend who makes me wish I hadn't spent time with them. And, now that I think of it, no one is my friend to whom I would be uncomfortable saying "I love you".

So, my friends (and LJ makes that term a little dicey to use here, but there it is), I love you. Thank you for being my friends. My life is richer because of you.

I especially want to thank those of you who are sitting there NOT saying "Harumph. Serene just said she doesn't like spending time with me" and understood that I was talking about my internal default state, not anything about you, because, hey, I love you. :-)

He put salt in her apple juice. I don't know who's laughing harder, her or him.

Oy. I live in a house full of children.

(This is me being happy.)

Today was much better. I got enough sleep, work was great, MtE is trying to work things out with my mom, and I got the kid into internet school.

Thank you all SO so so so so so so so much for your love and support. This past few weeks has been rough on my family, but I don't feel alone or hopeless, ever.

Also, someotherguy is fucking with the teenager's head (*), and that makes me happy. :-)





(* in non-toxic ways. She wants him to make apple juice for her. She is perfectly capable of making apple juice for herself. He said, "I'll make it when my guy dies in this game." He neglected to mention that no one dies in that game. :-) Oh, and he's making the juice for her, because he's nicer than I am. They crack each other up. I love them.)

Yesterday, my boss (slash-brother-in-law) was telling me about how dizzy and nauseated he was last week with some illness that really nailed him.

Today, I woke up dizzy, and can't shake it.

Psychomatic contagion?

I haven't missed any work yet and don't want to. I hope this settles down soon.

Bleah.

Confidential to abostick: smartass.

Hey, sockbiters, i ran into gwengolyn at the indigo girls concert. What're the odds?

[No local filter, sorry]

We are probably going to Art & Soul today. If you're gonna be there, too, and want to hook up, email me for my cell/text number, and maybe we can say hi. (inflectionpoint, I'll just expect to see you there, even if you're not going, because you're our standard bump-into-at-street-fairs person. :-)

Too poor to evacuate. This breaks my heart:

http://kateharding.net/2008/08/31/hurricane-gustav-how-to-help/

(Thanks to ailbhe for the link.)

Several of you have asked me when we're going to start game night again, and the answer is "Now". Well, sort of.

Game night at Serene's / Game night at Guy's:

When: 1st & 3rd Fridays every month, 7pm - ? (September's will be the 5th and 19th -- on the 19th, expect cake and ice cream, since Serene's birthday is the next day.)

Where:

• 1st Friday: Serene's place, North Oakland (not wheelchair-accessible)
• 3rd Friday : stonebender's, San Leandro (wheelchair-accessible entry; the bathroom is less so)

What: Games. Board games and/or RPG. (That is, we'll plan to play board games, and if anyone wants to start up an RPG alongside the boardgamers, someotherguy has agreed to make that happen.)

Who: You and anyone you want to invite. RSVPs are very helpful, but if you forget to RSVP, please come anyway.

What to bring: You don't have to bring anything. If there are snacks/drinks/games that you especially want to have there, feel free to bring them, but we will provide substantial amounts of trashy (and non-trashy) snacks, lots to drink, and a pile of games to choose from, including Apples to Apples, Monopoly, Fluxx, Checkers/Chess, Trouble, playing cards, etc.

A note about kids: Our places are not childproofed, but they're kid-friendly. We have building toys and DVDs for the munchkins, but if that doesn't captivate them, you're in charge of entertaining your little ones.

If you have food or environmental allergies, please do let us know so that we can do our best to accommodate you.

A friend of mine, who is one of the best people in the world, is about to adopt a baby. I'm so happy for her I could cry. Yeah, that's why I'm crying. Let's go with that.

(But I am happy for her, I really am.)

I've already received eight submissions for 42. Yay!

Please do refer people to my post with the call for submissions. If you comment here with a link to that pointer, you even get a collaboration point to be put toward, umm, fabulous prizes? :-)

(sistercoyote, I already noted yours. Thanks!)

Ooh, gamer geeks, you totally want to check out this post of someotherguy's. Fun!

Okay, folks. The preliminary website for 42 Magazine is up. (It will be located at 42magazine.com soonish.) I'm very excited.

For those who don't know already, we're going to publish a print magazine in the spring of '09, celebrating meaning in life. This is something I've been dreaming about since someotherguy's 42nd birthday, and now, with mine coming up, here it is.

Click here to see the call for submissions, which I've excerpted under the cut.

Whee! *bounce*

( Call for submissions, Spring '09 issue )

Ooh, I get to talk about my boys, yay. (Stole this one from custardfairy.)

( About my SOs )

So as you may have noticed, my life went a little chaotic there for a while. Good chaos, but still. Everything went kind of blooie while I got us settled in, but now, we're settled in, so I can share with you my new project, which I promised to share with you months ago. (My last new project, the sex-toy websites, was put on hold by the boss, but this one's my own baby.)

The thing is called "42". It's the first publication from our new small press, JAFSP, whose website is still in development, but will be jafsp.com. It will be a quarterly print magazine with a companion website. One of the companies I work for, 4TheBest, is sponsoring this venture, and I'm so excited to see it start taking shape.

42 is a magazine for people like me, and many of my friends. It's about the meaning of life (as the title suggests), with a secular focus* and a DIY sensibility. I envision a really great collaborative effort. I'm turning 42 next month, and this is the year when I focus on the things and people that give my life meaning.

I'll be issuing a call for submissions very soon, possibly tonight, but I wanted to get you ready to put your thinking caps (and writing caps and photography caps and art caps) on.

I'm VERY excited.


*Yep, secular. That is, if you find meaning in religion of any flavor, way cool, I'm happy for you. But it's not something we'll be addressing in this particular magazine.

Edit: vasilatos informs me that اثنان ؤ ءاربءؤن is "42" in Arabic. I know zwei und vierzig (German) and cuarenta y dos (Spanish). Any others?

Just looking at my first real timesheet for Cal, which goes in on Friday.

I've earned 5 hours of vacation pay (I work 4 hours a day, so that's a little more than a day). I've also earned 4 hours of sick leave.

What this means is that by the end of my first year here, I will (because I almost never miss work) have likely accumulated three weeks of vacation and 12 days of sick leave.

It's a very rare thing in my life to get paid time off. I'm just sitting here savoring it right now.