The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

I’m still kind of sick. Did you know? I’ve been really sick.

Last night I wasn’t feeling great, but I had heard horror stories about what happened the night before when I wasn’t there. Kathy had stayed with them, apparently, and done a lot of pestering, rushing, and so forth. This basically made the shift suck for everyone involved, and they were there very late. I decided I’d call in and check on the situation before I said I wasn’t coming. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. If it was going to be a nightmare, I could probably push and make it in for my team.

I call, and it’s like the worst-case scenario. The only person there, and the one that would have to stay, was Deedee. I’ve talked about my general issues with Deedee before, and I won’t go over them again. Our conversation went like this.
“Hi, Deedee. I am still feel pretty bleh, but better than yesterday. I just wasn’t sure if I should play it safe or call in tonight. I don’t want to push myself and make myself sick again, but I don’t want to leave you all hanging.”
“Well, things go terribly without you around. They were here really late last night.”
“Yeah, I heard. But I couldn’t do it last night. Barely in consideration tonight.”
“I’m the only one here to stay, and I know nothing about it. Chris is here, but he’s not you.”
“Yeah, though he knows his stuff.”
“I’m not going to tell you to come in. But I don’t want to be here until 2 in the morning.”
“I don’t either. I’ll get sicker.”
“Well, I mean, it’s up to you. But you’re needed.”
At this point, it feels clear to me that she doesn’t give a shit about my well-being either way, she just doesn’t want to stay. I see the night ahead for my team.
“I’ll come in. But if I feel bad, I’m just going to leave, and the floor will have to finish in the morning, okay?”
“Awesome. And I’ll call in everyone early so you can get done.”

I get to work, and she hadn’t done that, by the way. Didn’t even try to call anyone.

Anyway, I felt like shit and barely got anything done. But we actually did get all of the ad done as a team before it got too late, even with me working at maybe 40%. (I spent a decent portion of the night laying down in the break room recovering.) My team is pretty awesome. However, I felt kind of sad we weren’t going to leave them extra work. Then someone said “We should leave them a stack of fake signs!”

So I did.

I took a few printouts, and put them on top of a big stack of blank paper, and left it on the desk.

They didn’t call me this morning complaining, so hopefully they could take a joke.

Anyway, I really hate this job more and more. I wish I could leave it but take everyone awesome I work with with me to wherever I go next so I wouldn’t feel so conflicted about wanting to leave.

When I was completely sick and barely able to sleep, I kept having variants of the exact same dream over and over again. Fuck if I know why. But here’s what was going on.

I had discovered some sort of special sentence. Basically, I had said this sentence, and something insane had happened. Things were destroyed. It was the most dangerous of sentences. Sort of magic, sort of not. In any case, it was extremely powerful.

I had turned myself in so that my sentence-saying power could be harnessed and controlled safely. I had been tied up, bound somewhere, and I was being studied. The sentence itself seemed to keep changing, or I kept trying different sentences. I’m not sure. But I was being invasively researched, and I could not get up.

I seriously had this dream again and again. I’d wake up, and it would have been at the same point where I tried a sentence and it worked, before I saw what it did. Then I’d force myself back to sleep and have the same dream again, pretty well exactly. It was kind of strange. Certainly not something I can remember happening before.

Anyway, there’s a short blog post. I am mostly un-sick now, so I hope to be back at normal blogging strength tomorrow. Later.

No spoilers.

Despite issues involving random card packs of upgrades, I have been really enjoying the multiplayer of Mass Effect 3. I like shooting dudes and casting spells and so on and so forth. It’s fun. It’s exciting. It’s exciting fun. Plus, you’re earning this Readiness rating, which could potentially be a nice bonus for the single player.

So I played a bunch, and then I dug into the single player. Then Aesa showed up and I kind of took a break.

Then I came back, and my Readiness had fallen about 8 percent.

Why the fuck does it fall so fast? I’m okay with the idea of playing multiplayer to up that rating, but why does it fall at all? Mass Effect 3 is a game people are going to replay. To ask them to put like 4 hours into the multiplayer every time they want to play through the game again to get that rating is FUCKING INSANE. What’s more, it doesn’t decrease if you don’t connect to the online server: Chris at work maxed it out, and then disconnected because he doesn’t have internet at his house, and he’s still at 100%. As long as he doesn’t play ME3 online, he’ll always be at 100% readiness. The game is encouraging him not to play the multiplayer or use any online feature of the game, basically, so he can do his multiple playthroughs, which seems like a bad move on EA’s part, and that means it’s impossible for him to waste money on their stupid microtransactions. What the fuck.

Anyway, I decided this is a thing that I have to deal with either way, so I get this ME3 Datapad app to play this minigame as an alternate route to upping that number. I try to log into what is apparently now my Origin account in order to hook the minigame up to my main game. I have no idea what the password is, though: EA always just logs me in to that stuff automatically. So I try to do a simple password reset.
It keeps throwing “server errors” at me, and telling me to try again later.
After about 15 minutes of this and being frustrated, I decided to try typing in a different password.
It changed.
My password wasn’t meeting their password requirements. But it was never going to tell me that.

Fuck EA and Fuck Origin, is basically what I am saying here.

Okay, so remember when I complained about work awhile back? That shit has continued. Every night since there has been some other completely ridiculous and stupid issue going on. Either we’ve got too few people, or too many people, or only half of the store has signs to put up, or all the information is filled with typos and is incorrect… it’s been ridiculous. What the fuck is going on at corporate? I assume someone, who was competent and about to lose their job because of the same reason I am, left for a job that wasn’t going away, and now we have the C team trying to do all this work and having no fucking idea what they’re doing. Anyway, it’s frustrating to have to deal with. Luckily, I’ve kind of sort of stopped giving a shit all together about work there, so that does help a bit. But goodness.

So here’s a text conversation I had with my mother yesterday. We were figuring out when everyone could go out to eat for my birthday, and then we have this conversation.
“CJ is more than welcome to come to this, you know.”
“I’m glad, I was planning on bringing him.”
“He’s part of the family now.”
“It makes me incredibly happy to hear that, Mom.”
Did she figure out that we’re, uh, a thing? Or is she just awesome? I dunno nor care. I just know it’s fucking awesome and I’m glad she “gets it” on some level. That really reduces a lot of stupid worry on my part.

I feel like I’m slowly but surely starting to get used to this whole “I am not the only person in a bed” thing. It’s strange, but nice. I’ve had a decently big bed to myself my whole life, and I’m used to sprawling. Having someone else there requires different strategies. However, I’ve kind of found that I tend to fall asleep faster employing those strategies. I don’t know why. I suppose that’s a good thing.
Still, what happens is I wake up in the middle of the night, and toss and or turn, and then realize I’m not alone and I’m going to wake someone up, and then freak out, and then smack my hand on the bedside table, and freak out about that, and then I’m wide awake. Which is really stupid and not conducive to a complete night’s sleep. Heh, I’ll get over myself at some point.
At least Q seems to have adapted well. He’s gotten used to having to curl up between us at the foot of the bed instead of getting to sprawl out all over like me. He’s stopped being all kind of half growl-y at Aesa getting in bed and invading me and his space. That’s nice.

Wow, why was this blog so hard to write? I am a failure at writing today. It must be the MAXIMUM IDES we are right in the middle of.

I’m just going to talk about some more stuff about Aesa moving in. Sorry. It’s what is on my mind.

It’s strange to be treated like a woman in a relationship constantly.

I don’t mean that people don’t respect me and shit in my life otherwise. For the most part, people are awesome. But I also have a history with them, of course, which does play into our interactions. Frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way: I didn’t leave here for a reason. I don’t want to burn those bridges to the past. There was a lot of depression in my past, but a lot of awesome shit too. No reason for it to go away.

But being around someone who has always thought of me as a woman and whom I am so close to is just… interesting. The dynamic is so different. I mean, it’s been different with other people too. It’s not like I didn’t feel like a woman around Brer. It’s just I’ve always, for the most part, been a tomboyish force in that relationship and some of the “stuff” I am seeing now just isn’t his style. He’s not a super-emotional guy on the outside. He doesn’t believe in tradition for tradition’s sake. All that is part of who he is, and why I love him, and I feel super comfortable and happy around him.

Aesa, though, is kind of a classic romantic. He brought me chocolates on Valentine’s. He showed up to the house with flowers. He wants to drive me everywhere (Brer did this too, but that didn’t trigger this because that just made practical sense: he knew the area and I didn’t). He orders for me at restaurants. He insists on paying for everything.
It’s… nice! It’s nice. It’s a blush-inducing change of pace. Not necessarily better. But it’s nice. It just really throws me off. I’ve been used to doing things like paying and taking charge in this stuff all my life. None of that felt like I was doing the wrong thing or something. I never really felt like I was being forced to play a role I didn’t fit into with that stuff (unlike other things in my life). Now I’m in this situation where I feel almost in competition about it. I’m having a polite dating etiquette war. It’s just weird.

It’s not just that stuff either. I don’t know. Here is a moment from the other day. I asked Aesa what he was watching. He said it was a movie that was really violent, and thus probably not my sort of thing. This statement kind of confused me until I realized that he’s saying it’s a guy movie, and that was kind of the first time someone had put up a barrier because “it’s a male thing” in reference to me.

It’s interesting times for me, I guess is what I’m saying. It’s taken more time to get my head around than I thought it would. But if worrying about how I’m interpreting this stuff is the biggest thing on my mind right now, I’d say life is going pretty fucking wonderful.

In the other room, Aesa is asleep. I’m sitting here working on job applications and writing blogs and shit, and in the other room is a not-dog, sleeping in my house, and he’s going to stay there.

What a relief.

I mean, I’m sure there will be all sorts of unimagined issues and whatever the fuck, you know? These sorts of things happen when people live in the same space. I’m sure there will be even more issues and things to work through when Brer gets here. But goddamn, I am so glad to be having those issues in the future instead of ones of loneliness and whatnot. Being lonely fucking sucks.

I feel like what we’re going to have to work on first is the whole not being together constantly thing. I still need to play my dumb vidjeo gamez and I assume he does too. I need to be able to go into my office and get schoolwork done. Hopefully the fact that this is spring break will help us transition to a state where we’re not all desperately attached at the hip. Heh. I’m sure that’ll happen without issue, though. We also need to figure out chores and things and other things… so many things.

So many things. But goddamn, I am ready for tackling these things. I am ready to have normal people problems. I am ready to have family problems. I am ready to have a family.

I’m excited. Very excited. What I’ve been working so hard for is nearly a reality, and that is… amazing. One moved in, one to go. Life is great.

Sorry to take a day to celebrate, but I feel like it’s worth celebrating. A more standard blog tomorrow, promise.

What is there to say about Earthbound? Earthbound is a basically perfect creation. When I was younger, I might have disagreed. I’d have thought Earthbound was way, way too hard. That’s because as a young person, I was an idiot and never actually used spells and items. The game is pretty damn balanced, a lot of fun, and super creative.

The setting itself is just unique. So few jRPGs would even pretend to set themselves in modern day. While the world of Earthbound clearly isn’t modern day as we know it, being really quite crazy in a lot of respects, it’s this weird idealized modern day through the lens of like the 50s that just works perfectly. It’s a world that seems perfectly normal, yet it also seems perfectly normal for kids to be fighting sentient taxi cabs with psychic powers and frying pans. It’s pretty wonderful that it can pull off that odd sort of tone in setting. The wackiness is just how the world is. Nobody takes it as anything but normal. If anything, the general “innocent seriousness” of all the main characters just kind of supports that. It’s awesome.

The writing, too, is just… so rarely do you have a game with such creative and solid writing. You can tell that someone who actually knows how to write a thing was involved in the creation of this game. It’s hilarious in a very subtle and surreal way most of the time, and even the littlest things, like using a Protractor in combat, have funny messages for no reason other than to be funny. Being able to subtly capture strong scenes, like the first time Jeff meets Dr. Adonuts, which are funny, but also kind of have actual emotion involved is just… yeah. Great. Part of that has to be credit given to the translation team, who clearly put a lot of love into the game to make sure the jokes and style made it across to the English version, but it’s just top notch all around.

Even the combat system’s subtle changes on the Dragon Quest formula really make it interesting to play. Little things, like the fact that one of your characters probably has the Franklin Badge and is immune to lightning, but which one should it be, and bringing Teddy Bears along to distract the enemy really add depth that isn’t immediately apparent. The breaking of standard genre conventions in the game is weird. Paula has no defensive spells, and Jeff, the character without spells, is only stronger in physical attack power than Paula, and really relies on what are basically spells in the form of gadgets to be effective in combat. (Slime Generator always and forever!) The rolling HP meter adds so much drama to the game, it’s not even funny. Killing easy enemies without actually going into combat is something so wonderful, you wonder why games today don’t do it. Even the condiment system, which honestly is not something you should really deal with in a playthrough, is creative and fresh, at the very least.

It’s just fantastic. Just fantastic. I will offer the general advice that if you want to roll through the game with little to no combat issues, it is a good idea to grind up to level 10 before facing Frank at the beginning of the game. Someone taught me this trick, and in my replays (yes, a game I have actually replayed! That’s how you know it’s good) this, and actually making use of Jeff’s gadgets and spells, makes the game way, way easier than I remember it being in my youth. But seriously, I would not touch anything about this game. There are little flaws, sure, as the aforementioned condiment system that is too cumbersome to actually use. But all the flaws add character to the game, and don’t detract, at least in my opinion. Earthbound is a game I would ask anyone serious about video games to play, if I had to force one really long gaming experience on them. It’s great. Great. Great.

Today I am going to see my psychologist, and I’m kind of dreading it.

I just feel like I’m in a weird place in my relationship with her. There was a time when she was a huge help, a huge motivator, and a huge balancing force in my life. I needed to go and see her and talk to her. I had lists of things to talk to her about every week, and often didn’t get to them all. I then got to a point where I needed her for other reasons. I needed her to help me get on hormones, get things started, make sure I’m not forgetting anything dumb about transitioning, and be there as a guide to answer questions.

Now, I don’t know why I go. I have to wrack my brain for things to talk about that I actually want to talk about. I mostly just end up telling her about significant things I did, which, I mean, I already kind of do here with you, blog, so that seems a bit unnecessary. It’s just this formality, for the most part, that costs me quite a lot of money and quite a lot of time.

Occasionally, I do have something I want to really talk about, but more and more, I am finding it to be something that I have trouble doing. Bringing up things I find important feels difficult to do, because in a lot of ways, I feel like the sort of things I am bringing up now are things that she does not agree with. We’ll often get into conversations where she will stop me in the middle of a story I’m telling, and tell me how I should have done it, before I tell her about the outcome I got that I am very happy with. I often feel like I am put on trial, in a sense, having to somehow justify decisions I should not have to justify. It just feels awkward, in a space where I’m supposed to feel safe to speak my mind, to feel like I have to hold back how I feel or somehow temper it to sound like something she can support. I mean, it’s not like I’m talking about unhealthy things here. It’d be different if I was talking about something that was causing me harm. But it’s not that sort of stuff. I mean, like, we had a conversation about polyamory, and she is clearly pretty against it. But that’s a thing I’m doing and, frankly, with Aesa moving here and everything getting crazy, is the big thing on my mind right now. But now I feel like I can’t talk about it to some extent. I mean, I don’t feel ashamed about my decisions, and the relationships I am in. Fuck no. I just really rather hate confrontation. If I have to defend myself, why am I even going? If this isn’t a place where I can relax and talk about my problems and feelings, what’s the purpose? If the thing that’s supposed to help deal with my stress and problems is creating stress and problems, what’s the point? I kind of don’t know.

My psychologist is an awesome person. I have nothing but respect for her, and I would recommend her to anyone needing the sort of help I needed. But… well, I said to Kale the other day something along the lines of this: I am finally, truly feeling that my life is less a desperate run from disaster and despair on a day to day basis and more something I am establishing that I can be proud of. It shocked me to say that. It shocked me to say I felt I was on sure footing. But I am, for once. I can do this without that help now. I really believe that. I want to move on and live my life.

That’s it. That’s what this is. This is a tie that makes it clear where I’ve come from. This is a reminder of how much of a failure I was, of how much of a mess. I go there, and I feel like that mess again, and I leave, and I feel better to be away from it. I want to lose that connection. I want to finally just fucking be myself, without strings and caveats. I want to live a life that’s mine. I want to move on. I’ve seriously fucking forgotten what life was like before in a lot of ways, and I am so fucking glad I am at that point where I can forget how terrible I felt. But she is a constant reminder that I was not well, may still not be well. She makes me feel like I haven’t succeeded, not because of anything bad or wrong or disagreeable that she’s doing, but just because of what the memories connected to being there bring up in myself. It’s a 5 hour process of reminding myself that I’m broken, when I no longer feel that way the majority of the time.

Talking about this stuff can help. But goodness, I wonder how I explain all THAT to her.

You’ll never guess what I’ve been doing! Playing Mass Effect 3! Well, not a lot of it yet, but, you know. I’m working on it. In any case, I just felt like making a little list of what I am liking and what I am not liking and such right now. I will try to be spoiler-free, but, you know. Maybe something super small in there will bother you? And let’s make this clear: I’m enjoying the game, and think it is worth my time. I just, you know, have complaints. Who wouldn’t?

What I Like About Mass Effect 3 Thus Far

The Multiplayer: I really think the multiplayer is a lot of fun! It’s not the sort of thing that is going to keep people coming back for like, a year, to be sure, but it’s a really solid horde mode, and I can’t wait for this proposed LAN with people from work to really blow this shit out and play it.
There are problems of course. The microtransaction bullshit is pretty bullshit! I normally like cards, but I don’t like card packs, and that just seems like a really terrible way of putting this multiplayer together. I may never get the better pistols while I play this thing. That’s sad to me.

The Weight System: When I heard about this, I’m like “Eh, pistols for lyfe.” But now that I’m playing, I really appreciate it. I love that my secondary weapon can be the lightest assault rifle (burst fire one, no less!) instead of the stupid SMGs. I love that when I really want to incinerate people constantly, just carrying the pistol gives me like 200% increased cooldown speed, and I can just spam the motherfucker. The weight system really lets you play the way you want to play. It’s neat.

Vega: I guess people were worried about him, in the same way they were worried about Jack last game? I think he’s pretty cool, at least so far. He’s very likable.

That This One Male Crew Member Mentioned His Husband: It’s done pretty matter-of-fact and throwaway, as opposed to THIS IS A BIG DEAL. You don’t even have to hear about it if you don’t question every member of your crew. It’s nice.

What I Don’t Like About Mass Effect 3 Thus Far

Shepard Is Earth-Centric: In previous games, Renegade Shepard only really cared about humanity, and Paragon Shepard looked at the big picture. Now my paragon Shepard is whining about Earth and talking to aliens like Earth is the most important thing ever constantly, and it really frustrates me. Where did my other Shepard go?

Shepard Is No Longer A Battle-Hardened Badass: Seriously? The tutorial events traumatize you? Give me a fucking break: Shepard has seen crew members liquified before her fucking eyes. I can’t believe she’d be so shaken as to affect her and her mission. They always did a great job before of making her a person while also making her a soldier first and foremost, and I rather liked that. Now that feels thrown down the drain.

Mood Lighting On The Normandy: Can’t the Alliance Military afford to actually light their goddamn ship? This “everything is dark and soft-glow like a romantic restaurant” look is obscenely stupid.

Security Station To Hide A Load On The Way To The Galaxy Map/Elevator On The Second Floor: Why the hell is Shepard getting scanned for weapons every time she goes to talk to Joker on her own fucking ship? Is this really where we need a security station? Seriously? And not, like, I dunno, near life support, or something where a saboteur could do a lot more damage? Or in, say, the docking bay, where people are boarding the ship? It’s clearly hiding loading, and I get that, but gods, it’s just dumb being there. There wasn’t a stupid security point there in 2.

Calibrations Joke: Yeah, I get it, Bioware, you read fan comics about ME2 as well. But by recognizing it, you’re kind of ruining it.

Anyway, I’ll get back to playing more tonight. It’s fun! But yeah, could be better, thus far.

I get to work to do work like I normally do last night. That’s a thing I do. Work. Anyway, I get there, and work begins! Then I am called to the office.

My boss goes, “Look at this corporate e-mail. This might be trouble.” I take a look. The e-mail basically says that one set of signs I am supposed to have my team put up tonight doesn’t exist right now, because corporate screwed up. It would be ready at 11. Thus, I was supposed to do two ad sets: putting up all of one set once, then immediately going back and putting up the other set. It said we’d get more payroll for that.

“That’s ridiculous,” I said. More payroll is all well and good, but I can’t stay up until 4 AM on the whim of some assholes at corporate. I kind of have shit to do. Frankly, the fact that I stay late most nights at ad set is me being way nicer and more dedicated to the job than I need to be.
“What’s the plan?” my boss said.
“I don’t know. The signs they’re talking about are printing right now,” I said. And they were. I had already confirmed it.
“What does that mean? You’re sure?” my boss said.
“I’ll take care of it,” I said.

I took the memo, and I set it down on my desk, and I went back to work.
The problem the memo was talking about was a few signs that would give errors when you were trying to print them. Based on reports and my own experience in the store, there were approximately 30 or so signs that were not working in this way. 30 signs. Out of about 4000 that we put up. They wanted us to spend an extra 3 hours for 30 signs. We were already understaffed: I was already at work until 2 just getting it done the NORMAL way.

Basically, I got really pissed. Maybe it’s the whole “not having a job soon” thing, but I wasn’t about to put up with this bullshit. So I didn’t! I told everyone to ignore those errors, and just get the job done as if they didn’t exist. That was me taking care of it. Maybe I’m the best boss, or maybe I’m the worst. Your call. But goddamn, sometimes I really hate my employer for being so fucking STUPID. I’m tired and cranky and it’s all their fault for not doing their job properly, and fuck them. Again, I appreciate and quite like most of the people I work with. But the organization itself is just… gah. GAH. Gah.

Gah.