The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Here’s a poem about my puppy dog! I think pet poems are right up there with love poems as the BEST POETRY GENRES, don’t you think?

Running Away

There’s a constant
ka-thunk
ka-thunk
ka-thunk
as I re-enter.
Waiting until the hatch is sealed
I open the door.
You run in circles,
paws at my legs,
wanting to feel me,
know I’m real
and not an illusion after
having been alone for so long.
We sit on the couch.
We sleep.
I feel like you’re content, surely.
A nice little world
with me in it
that I made for you.
Blankets, food, affection,
everything.

Then I open the door and you run.
I chase after you,
yelling,
tripping over myself
socks slamming against dirt
as I move across the wet grass.
You see something,
a glint in the distant freedom,
and your paws cannot stop,
tongue flapping in the wind.

I finally catch up,
breathing harder than you,
and you roll on your back,
happy,
or so I think.

I don’t know what else to give you
that could compare to unknown horizons.
I had thought a lack of starvation
and lack of loneliness
would be enough.
You pat my leg,
wanting,
and I am useless.
I have never been an open road.
I’ve always been a bottle,
contained,
waiting for my seal to break.

I am hitting all the major genres! (?) Well, anyway, this is a poem in response to something my psychologist said to me, which is the title.

“Those Shoes Look Very Feminine, But You Could Go Further.”

Thanks, I guess?
To be honest, my current war
is being waged against overcompensation.
When starving, you want to gorge,
food shoveled into throat
without swallowing motion.
It creates issues.
Vomiting, projectile,
leaving you worse than before.
I will not lose my new-found womanhood
lurching over a toilet bowl
because I had too much cake too fast.

I understand your advice, though
as I really don’t fit enough stereotypes
for my new life.
Too tall, too geeky,
uninterested in makeup and dresses,
I break the illusion daily
by not playing into the reasons
everyone claims to know I’m doing this.
If I was born correctly, nobody would blink.
But now? Well.
Surely I could be more of a woman,
but here’s the thing:
Being a woman was never the goal,
just a visible side effect
of my real aims,
a beautiful, obvious scar
of the self-surgery I’m performing.
It’s life-saving
and the pills I gulp are oxygen,
keeping me alive.
Each inhale teaches me happiness,
previously unthinkable,
and each exhale
removes the constant urge to sleep
and never wake up.
I look in the mirror and I don’t see tears.
It was always about survival.

The breasts are nice
and the pronouns a godsend.
I should experiment with my options,
the new multiple guesses on my test,
and I do, daily,
but it’s less a mad dash
out of control.
It’s a marathon,
finding me in the sea of my world
and my female existence,
so if what you see doesn’t fit
with the supposed ideal
and I’m crashing into walls,
flailing into furniture,
with my chances of passing shattering
like so many vases on the shelf,
well,
I am alive.
It’s my mess, for once.
That’s why I’m smiling.

Yep, love poetry. Here we go.

Work Schedules
For Brer

A vague feeling of neglect
injected through asthma inhaler
as another window passes
and I’m stuck, employed.
Our respective masters
walk in different lights,
yours, artificial,
mine a burning fireball
of incandescent gas
I can’t hold in the sky for you
no matter how many oven mitts I buy.

Thus, another day cycle gone
with no you in sight
and I cling to others, available.
We kiss. We use.
And I don’t think of you
while I’m panting and moaning,
short of breath,
lungs failing to function as prescribed,
until I can finally breathe in
with the thought of you working.
I know you don’t mind,
doing the same while I earn,
and I shouldn’t feel bad.

But I do.
You could have watched.
You could have joined in.
You could have been part
of my life.

Physically satisfied,
I give in,
unsatisfied
without you,
knowing tomorrow
I’ll miss you again.

Well, sort of. Anyway, here we go.

Stuck Clock

Time travel is nothing.
Eyes closed carelessly,
you’re propelled backwards,
pinballing, ragdolled,
against the colored lights,
endlessly spinning over and over,
turbine creating hydroelectrics
while you try to breathe,
lungs burning,
each finger cracking in half,
forces making grip impossible,
and that’s just the first tick.

Caffeinated, nervous
I spin in my office chair
licking cracked lips,
claws digging into padded arm rests.
The alarm clock blinks
trying to bring me into focus
but it’s futile.
I’m in the future.

Well, hey, looks like I totally fell asleep before I posted this. Well, blog a day! It’s still today! No worries, right? Right? *sighs* Anyway…

Well, it’s the month of NaNoWriMo, and while I’m not participating this year, it feels like I should still use this occasion to kick my creative writing up a notch, since I always seem to be too busy to do it. Therefore, I’m going to write some poems this week, and you can read them! Won’t that be fun? To various degrees of fun?

I’m going to lay out some ground rules though. One, these are going to be super rough drafts. I’m just going to sit here and bang something out and then post. They will likely end up being highly edited and modified before they’re done! (And if I write something that I feel doesn’t need editing, well, uh, you probably won’t see it.) Did you hear that potential publishers? Very. Rough. Drafts. Not A Published Poem. Making the claim now. For whatever that’s worth. (Probably very little.)
Two, these are all going to be personal poems. I’ve been writing about characters for a long time now in my poetry. I love doing that, and it really gets me going. But there’s some charm to being able to write about life as I see it, instead of something imaginary. I’m going to use this week to stretch my legs in that direction. At least for now.

In any case, I hope you enjoy. Or if not, you can just skip to next week. Whatever. Poems incoming!

Essner came over today. He saw my new house, and then we played some Guardian Heroes.

Guardian Heroes is an insane game where it is impossible to ever understand what is going on at any point in time. Tracking your character on three planes in the midst of explosions and whatnot is incredibly difficult! Especially when the game requires SERIOUS TIMING to be played well. The various fighting mechanics were also a bit weird and hard to understand, but that’s probably because I just jumped in and didn’t know anything.

Seriously, though, this game is tough. We played on Normal and we got like nowhere in the game. Nowhere at all. And this was in the easier “Remix” mode. Is this seriously what this game was all about? It is so popular and has so much praise, but it is just so confusing for a brawler, what is supposed to be the most easiest of game types. We flipped it to Easy and had a much more fun time from then on out and, to the fair, the game doesn’t restrict you from getting any of the achievements but the “beat it on hard” achievement while playing on easy, so clearly they expected this sort of turn of events.

Really, the game reminds me of, of all things, Guilty Gear Isuka. In that game, you had to do ridiculous shit like juggle two levels of gameplay and make sure your character was facing the right direction to block. It was overly complex for no real reason, in a game that was already sort of complex. Guardian Heroes really feels that way to me. Once you figure out how to kill dudes, you can kill them, but there are so many systems that are just a mystery. Do your stats really affect you much? I couldn’t see how while we were playing. It just… yeah.

The branching paths of the ridiculous nonsense story were appreciated. All the art is definitely of an era that is not now! It almost annoys me to that extent.

Really, though, what we ended up doing was playing online matches of their Versus mode. This was hilarious. It’s like a fighting game, but there are a million characters, and there are like a minimum of 12 people playing at a time. If you think the normal game is hard to follow, the Versus mode is a thousand times worse. It is completely impossible to keep track of yourself, and there’s no good way to know what characters, besides the main four you play in the normal mode, will do. I picked a Civilian Child for one match, and all I could do is walk back and forth slowly, and jump forward. I kind of lost my shit at that. It was so stupid. I was just this little sprite, walking around, while everyone else was throwing magic and crap left and right. It was so insane.

I really don’t get it. I don’t get how this game is the classic everyone has always said it was. I don’t get it! Maybe someone will tell me how wrong I am. That’d be fine. But I was not impressed at all. Nope.

Yesterday I said “Screw You Work And Potential Sickness!” and went out to St. Louis with my brother for a day of fun and excitement! Oh my!

Basically, John Hodgman was coming to St. Louis to tell us about the end of the world, as well as signing copies of his new book, so we had to go! And go we did! We traveled up the interstate! I saw my psychologist! But that’s not the interesting part! It happened, though.

Then we decided to go waste time at the Science Center, and man, was that a disappointment. I hadn’t really been there for-serious in a long while, and it was just amazing how much was not there anymore. So much of the place has been gutted, and it really seems like they haven’t replaced that stuff with anything as far as exhibits go. Instead they put in a Build-A-Bear workshop (what?) and more spaces for them to sell tickets to little things at astoundingly high prices. I have such good memories of that place, and it just feels like it’s gone way, way downhill from when it opened when I was a child. Maybe some of that is nostalgia, and maybe not, but it really just seemed sad.

We left that place of sadness and went to the Art Museum instead. Neither of us had really been there, but it was actually pretty cool! We went downstairs where there was some sort of furniture as well as gigantic broadsword and armor exhibit. There was some really cool shit down there! Crazy swords and spears, super ornate armor, and just really amazing pieces of furniture. They even had these weird tiny “sample rooms” where you could see some of this old furniture in it’s “natural habitat.” It was pretty classy, and really lifted our spirits after the sadness of the Science Center. I really should go back there sometime. We only got to see one tiny part of one floor.

Then it was off to Red Robin, for a burger. I tried a Peppercorn burger. It was fine. I could see someone else really enjoying it. But I found it a bit odd, if edible. What threw me off, I think, was it was served on this Onion Bun? Which was just strange, and left the whole thing tasting weird. The little crispy onions should have been enough onion, right? Anyway, it was an experiment! I tried something, which I rarely do, so good for me.

We then rushed to see Mr. Hodgman. He was fantastic in person. Very funny, and very animated. He quoted from his book from memory in a way that made you feel like it was a prepared speech, and not a book excerpt, which is pretty awesome. There was also music. He played a ukelele, and hosted a sing-along. It was totally worth my time to come see him: it was basically a little two-hour show.
Afterwards, of course, he signed books. I worried about what I was going to say, and worried, and worried. Then, of course, we get up there, and Jonathan says something witty and fun without even trying, and I just try to ride his coattails and not look like the lame sister of a cool dude. But still, he was very awesome, and I thanked him for coming to St. Louis, because who comes to Missouri anyway? But he just stopped me with a “No, seriously, thank you for coming. Really glad you could make it.” And whether it was sincere or not, it certainly sounded that way. He is a classy dude, that John Hodgman.

So we got our traditional QT milkshakes and came home. I had a great day, and I am now the owner of a signed copy of That Is All, which is awesome. And now I will sleep.

As the title says, I’m sick! I’m not totally sure with what yet, but the general dizziness and shortness of breath I have been experiencing would lead me to believe that I have bronchitis again, as I had similar symptoms last time. I am going to take another day of rest (and seeing John Hodgman) to make sure before I go to the doctor though. Don’t worry, I will take care of myself.

Anyway, the point is, I didn’t really have time to write a serious blog, and I need to get more sleep, so here’s some links. I know I’ve been lame here lately… I’m going to try to kick it up a notch soon.

Speaking of lame (that’s called a segue!), how about that Mike Dawson? Is he not the best video game hero you’ve ever seen? I’ve been enjoying Retsupurae dealing with his adventures, and other people have too, creating amazing fan works. For example, did you know that Mike Dawson has been seen in Champions Online? Or that he knows how to deal with just about any situation? He also has his own game, and suspicious links to Ring Man! Yep, everyone loves Mike Dawson!

I still really like Penguindrum. The new theme song is pretty great!

I really didn’t want to be, but I am kind of super hyped for Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3. Phoenix Wright! Rocket Raccoon! How can someone pass this up? I am weak.

Someone linked me this on twitter. It’s pretty funny! Quite a restaurant review.

There are always more pony ask blogs, and always more funny responses on them.

I’m going to sleep! Later!

Let’s see what’s on the list of unused blog ideas… Doom II RPG, huh?

I really loved Wolfenstein RPG. Like, a ton. It was a lot of fun, and surprisingly strategic in its combat. Thus, when I saw that Doom II RPG was a thing, and it was on sale, of course I was there. I’d like more of that, please.

In a lot of ways, Doom II RPG is much more robust than Wolfenstein RPG, but it just doesn’t feel as fun to me. Is it because I’ve already played it? I don’t think so. It just feels less inspired.

Unlike Wolfenstein, you get to pick between three dudes this time. “Sarge,” who is more appropriately known as Doomguy, a lady, and a scientist. They all have different stats, so that’s different. I went with the lady because she is a lady. I didn’t really feel like my choice affected the game much. Maybe I had less HP? I’m not sure. The game also tries to throw a lot of more “interesting” weapons at you. For example, you early on get a Sentry Bot which you can send out and control separately from you and shoot guys with. However, it’s just not practical to use that stuff often, for reasons I am about to explain.

One of the weapons you get pretty early is a Holy Water Pistol. This refills at any sink or toilet. You can drink from it to heal yourself, or shoot enemies with it. It hurts demons, and inflicts a fear effect. Now, think about this: all enemies in Doom, except the basic zombie guys, are demons. This weapon clears rooms, keeps you safe, and you always have ammo for it. It just kind of breaks things wide open. Until you get to a boss, where it just doesn’t work, and you realize that without it, you really have shit for weapons! This weapon makes normal combat trivial, but then the bosses become a huge leap in difficulty. It’s just strange.

Similarly, all these stats are strange. You didn’t really have much in the way of player-changed stats in Wolfenstein, but in this game, you’re doing things like a dumb treadmill mini game to up your speed stat. The game wants you to grind, and the benefits for gaining one point are kind of minimal, as far as I could tell. I’m not going to sit there and grind until enemies don’t get two turns to my one or whatever. Not going to do it.

Yeah, I dunno. I would suggest you getting Wolfenstein over this one. They’re both very similar, in general, but I just felt like I found a lot of flaws with this “expanded” version. Maybe I’m just stupid though. I don’t know.

It’s late, I’m exhausted, so you get to hear me bitch. Sorry about that.

Today sucked.

I don’t currently have the best job in the world or anything. Far from it. But I hardly ever hate it. I like most of the people I work with, and I enjoy being useful and doing my thing. I’m respected. It works really well. But some days, like yesterday, I really just fucking hate my job.
Let me just go over what happened.

I got up really early to go to work. I was tired, but work called! I got there, and apparently my shift had been moved. A note had been left in my mailbox, which I never check because it’s less a mailbox and more “where I keep the ad set supplies,” and there hadn’t been an ad set in awhile. So there was a big fuss about me showing up at the time I was scheduled instead of the time they moved me to without telling me. This wouldn’t be a huge deal, but it just bothers me that, if I had been anyone else, they would have called me, and there wouldn’t have been this stupid issue they were making such a big deal about.

Because I was there early, they moved me onto the truck, which I was not dressed for. I had dressed up kind of nice, wearing a new top I had bought the night before. I felt like this was hindering me, as I was trying damn hard not to get black from the boxes all over myself. Still, I didn’t slack off or anything. Things were happening. The shift was long, though, and I ended up unpacking freight in an area I had less experience with than most, away from all my friends to help the time pass.

After this, I ran straight home, took care of the puppy dog, and did work for class. I basically had time to figure that out before running to class and teaching. Class went okay, I guess, but shockingly, nobody in my class was familiar with Harry Potter. I had brought in an essay about Harry Potter, and they just did not get it at all. Phrases like “Cedric Diggory’s death in book four” completely confounded them. I didn’t expect them to be encyclopedias, but when you have plenty of context clues, shouldn’t your memory be jogged enough to at least go “Oh yeah, someone died in Goblet of Fire, right? Must be that guy.” Heh, I don’t know, I just figured everyone younger than me would be familiar with it. It was a shock.

I went home and ate then. This caused me to keep dozing off on the couch. I was pretty exhausted by that point already, but I had work to go to. I got up and went.

Work took forever. It was a huge ad, and we were being audited, so it took even longer than it should have. What’s worse, the store started playing Christmas music the moment we closed. This is even before Halloween was technically over at midnight. It was insane, and it didn’t add much to everyone’s demeanor. We eventually finished, very late. I was tired and cranky, but on the way out the door, it was pointed out that my new top has a hole in it. Fantastic! Fantastic. I tried to get some food from the drive-thru to eat my woes away, but I got trapped there for like 20 minutes waiting, so that was time well spent.

And now I’m here. Complaining. I didn’t much care for yesterday. Boo to you, Halloween. At least I have off today.