Now we are 39

I've long hated the ambush of the passage of time. In high school, I tried to memorize my class schedule every year, period, subject, and teacher, so I would have a solid framework for reference. I wanted nothing to hang loosely in memory, to surprise or escape attention.

I don't think I retained it fully past college, but even in my early 20s, I would occasionally give it another turn, just to try to rebuild the frame. I haven't tried it in a while. Wonder if I can still pull it up?

Period	Subject	Teacher
1	Latin	??
2	P.E.	Brown
3	Band	Hood/Webb
4	English	Pearson
5	Earth Science	Coe
6	Geometry	Martin

Freshman year is enough to prove a point, I think. Not bad for a few minutes of thought and a quick refresher on HTML tables.
This is relevant because I recently turned 39. And it reminded me of when I turned 29.

At 29, I was wary of letting 30 sneak up on me. I refused to hit that milestone and reel from unexpected realization. So I spent the entire year pretending I was 30. I practiced with thoughts of deferred ambition and mortality.

It worked flawlessly. One year later, I passed the three-decade mark brow unfurrowed by existential consequence.

I was proud of my foresight and small success. Some time later though, it occurred to me that the price for my practice was a year of my life. Essentially, I had two 30s and no 29s -- I hadn't bothered to remember my class schedule for the last year of my 20s.
This is relevant because, as you may recall, I recently turned 39. And this time I've decided to let my 9er be a 9er. A time to look back and forward, but reside only in the time I have.

I am loathe to announce projects here, because most of them never happen. Nonetheless, the limb I shimmy onto now is a project for the remainder of my fast-vanishing 30s: reflection, anticipation, and appreciation for where I am. And as well as I am able, I'll post it here at QT.

It is, as I often say these days, a good time to be me. I hope to be able to talk about why that's true.

Blogaday: A break with tradition

Not committing to my usual tradition of Blogaday this year onaccounta all the stuff I gots to do. I do intend to try to post more often in November than I have in other months of this year though. 

I have tried to increase postings year-over-year here, but 2010 will kill that trend. A little sad about that, but I'm sure valuable lessons will be learned from this, whatever those are.

Smiles and denials

For years and years, when friends' relationships foundered, I was baffled when one or both halves of a couple would smile and act like they were not just barely holding it together through force of will, even when confronted directly by an outsider.

Sometimes I would be more than baffled. I would take it personally, because crying and breaking things indicated an obvious red-lights-and-bells problem, yet my concerns would be shooed away like those of a beloved, overprotective nanny. "Thanks for being such a good friend," they would say, "We'll work through this. It'll be fine."

I would think, "They have to know how bad things are. They must just want me out of the way."

Today, it finally occurred to me that they weren't intentionally lying to me. They really were just deeply disoriented... so lost that offers of help looked like threats. Smiles and denials was how they had solved their problems before. There was no reason for it not to work this time too.

You can see how this would seem alien to a man who falls apart semi-annually. But all considered, I like my way better. I prefer lots of little break-downs to any number of big ones. That might even be why I do it, come to think of it.

Art Shop 2009 Post-Mortem

Art Shop is over, and I did pretty well! I'm about to go into a long review, mainly for my own benefit, so feel free to drop out any time this gets boring.

I have only two data points: last year and this year. So I'm not sure how meaningful my conclusions are. But I'm trying to draw some anyway.

The overarching lesson this year is from my neighbor Liz, who was selling smart-looking hand-knitted sweaters. The lesson: "Business is fickle." You do your homework, and you hedge your bets, and then you show up and hope. You don't know when it's going to go well or go badly. You go anyway.

More specific observations:

• This year's commercial breakthrough was diversification. I had a few normal monsters (fewer than last year), a bunch of pattern monsters, some tetris magnet sets, and random stuff I glued googly eyes onto. This provided a nice price spread from $40 down to $1 for the Things With Eyes. (I also sold coasters for my sister-in-law, Alison).

• The ratio of "Cool!" to "Sold!" is about 10:1.

• I didn't bring some things I wanted to. I wanted to make hats, but I never did the R&D to be able to churn out a bunch, and I didn't want to show up with only one or two. I also had meant to make pillows out of t-shirts, but the dog ate my homework there (literally), and I was already staying up late finishing monsters and freelance as it was. So I let it go. It's probably just as well -- the table was full enough. But I coulda sold the headlice out of hats, I think.

• Got lots of compliments, and someone said to me, "Everyone is talking about your stuff!" Meredith pointed out that it must feel good to hear people say nice things about my work. And it should. I've tried to figure out why it doesn't.
  
  My guess is that I have a subcutaneous cynicism that distrusts inert talk. Telling me you like my work is swell, but like it with your wallet, and I'm more inclined to believe you.
  
  I mean, regardless of origin or intent, a compliment is a compliment, and kindness is not so abundant that I'm willing to wave it away. But there's still a stark line in my heart between "talk" and "walk."
  
  Cynicism is low on my list of favorite character traits. But it's often coupled with a constructive shrewdness. I haven't discerned how to gerrymander my feelings to properly segregate "good judgment" and "bad faith." But at least I'm happy I've discovered it's important to do that.

• Everybody DOES love monsters, but everybody also loves utility. Based on some half-verbalized semi-criticisms, I got the impression that many people think stuffed monsters are only for children. Items that look fun and cool are ok for children, but not adults. Had I ingrained some sort of usefulness into the product (here's where a hat would have come in handy) I would have had more admirers and customers.

• I can't tell whether low-pressure sales is better for business in dollar terms, but I can tell I feel icky about applying pressure. I only want to sell to people who already want to buy. I get no joy from persuasion.
  

• Some of last years' monsters didn't sell, and I brought them home thinking that they must have been defective in some way. They were unbeloved, and therefore I had failed. I took them back this year anyway, to fill out the ranks. To my surprise, they sold, to people who seemed happy to have them.
  
  So the new conclusion is that some products hit certain people a certain way, and you don't know who or when. There might be some genuine stinkers in the bunch, and you hope to weed those out as soon as possible. But sometimes a creation's buyer just hasn't come along yet.

• Last year I sold a bunch of stuff on Friday, and Saturday was dead. Low point: Some woman spent most of an hour letting her daughter amuse herself at my booth while she talked, and then bought nada. However, my goal had been to make enough to cover my new sewing machine, and I did that, so mission accomplished.
  
  This year, I did only so-so on Friday, and going into Saturday I did a lot of hand-wringing about how bad I feared business would be, especially after a quiet first hour. I heard people say "Friday is more social; Saturday is the day more people buy." But that hadn't been my experience.
  
  Turns out, people were right. Saturday mysteriously picked up around 1:00, and I did decently thereafter. When I tallied up sales, I made a significantly larger amount of money this year compared to last year.

• I dropped my prices a little on magnets and big monsters on Saturday after disappointing Friday night sales. Both sold better on Saturday. I don't know whether it was because of the price drop or the motivated Saturday shoppers. For monsters anyway, my hunch is $40 is a breaking point for a lot of people. They'll bite at $35, but $40 is too much.

• When I say I did "decently", we're still not talking a lot of money. I probably did a little better than break even on the hobby this year. Which is cool with me. I'm interested to turn this into more of an income stream, but a self-funding hobby is sufficient gratification.

• An artsy consignment shop downtown wants to sell my monsters. Sweet! I'll probably have more to say about that in a couple weeks.
  

• I've set a goal to attend at least one more art/craft show in 2010 as a vendor. I need more data points.

If you came out to Art Shop this year, whether or not you bought a monster, then my sincere thanks. If you DID buy something, then I hope it brings you joy and amusement. See all y'all next year.

Blogaday 2009 Wrap-up

Another Blogaday ends. Time for the wordy wrap-up!

• This year, I did 61 days instead of the previous 30. I have gone into this before with about 2 weeks of semi-prepared content with the expectation that I'd get back to the rest of it later. This time, those 2 weeks were 25% of the total content instead of 50%, so mid-November left me with some head scratching.
  
• The head scratching point is where the magic happens. Not saying that was the best content, but that's where I have to start thinking and stop coasting.
• "Start thinking and stop coasting" should be tattooed on my arm or something.
• Will Rogers used to write a daily newspaper column. He wrote it daily, in the field, and he made it funny. For most other humans, an essay a day is hard work. After my realization that I'm not built up to write an original piece of polished thought every day, I started posting pithy stuff, some that could have just been Twitter fodder. That was okay too.
• I still prefer essays here.
  
• It's actually not hard to think up something to put on a blog every day. I'm walking around thinking alla time. What's hard is noting that something I'm thinking could be put on a blog. The blog has to occupy a balcony seat in your head. I imagine there's a list of things in your head that you compare new experiences to, that you use to contextualize experience. A blog just has to make it onto that list.
• I missed a day in late November again. One of these years I'm going to try not to miss a day.

I'm also trying to top last year's post count, so I'll probably post more in December. It's Advent again, and Art Shop is this Friday -- come by if you're in Philadelphia! -- so I'll have things to talk about. Peace out, blogaday bitches.

Further adventures in junk

Ever since I found the box of cameras, I've been more conscious of finding stuff on Wednesday walks. And I haven't had any great finds since. I have noticed other people on the job though.

Reflections:

1) There are pros out here. Other people have been at it longer, are better at it, and plain care more than I do. I see beat-up trucks cruising the streets piled with scrap metal and random stuff in the back. I see beat-down looking older people with roly carts looking for cans and bottles to turn in. This is what these people DO. I'm amazed I find anything at all with them on the circuit.

2) One man's trash does not automatically make another man's treasure. Seeing value is a matter of experience and opportunity -- that goes for garbage or stocks. Today I found a bunch of ball Christmas ornaments someone was throwing out. That's not going to be very interesting to professional scrappers, but it's just the sort of thing I plan to glue eyes to and try to sell in a couple of weeks.

3) Stay easy. I've been looking for more big, sexy scores like the vintage Apple computers I found. If I had been focused on that, I'd have missed the fun I picked up today. Not every day will be great, but the wider your definition of "great" is, the more likely you are to have one.

I'm beginning to think that a large part of a life well lived is learning the disparate set of tricks that circumvents your specific set of neuroses.

Two Gen Con stories

When Gen Con was still in Milwaukee, the local Christian evangelists took to the streets to save souls through signs and pointed questions and pestering. I never scorned them -- they're brothers in Christ, even if they're from a branch of the family I don't talk to much. But as a gamer, I could see their tactics were poor.

I felt bad just ignoring them, so I would acknowledge them when I passed, which was usually the opening they wanted.

Except I don't need re-saving. I was exactly the person they didn't want to talk to. Yet somehow, that never seemed acceptable to them. I got into some strange conversations with evangelicals looking for something to convert rather than someone to love.
Story 1
A guy with long, stringy hair a beard, a baseball cap. Pictures and scripture painted on his truck. A sign condemning sinners stands in the street, next to the sidewalk. It was the day before the con started; all of us were still getting warmed up. A friend and I were walking back from Kinko's to the convention center.

"Do you know what you have to do to be saved?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
"What is it?"
"Don't you know?" I asked him, confused.
"I do, I want to know if you do."
"What do you say it is?" (Jesus judo ends theological arguments way faster.)
"Don't you know?"
"Yeah, but I want to know what you say."

We did that routine two more times before he revealed,

"Read the Bible every day!"
"That's not it," I said. "You have to believe in Jesus to be saved. That's what the Bible says."

He was indignant. My friend was already half a block ahead of me, so I left to catch up. I saw the dude later in the convention, but I crossed the street because I didn't want to talk to him again.

Story 2
As I walked by a man with a sign and a Christian t-shirt, I said hello.

He asked me if I knew what would happen to me if I died that night. A classic hard-sell evangelical opener, one I've never used myself, because it's such a theological crotch kick.

I actually had somewhere to be, and was with friends again, so I didn't stop to talk. We had this whole conversation while I was on the move.

"Yes," I said, walking by him. "I'll go to Heaven."

"Well let me ask you something else," he said as I walked on, looking back. "Will you go to Heaven if you commit suicide?"

This is the Catholic test. If you think Catholics aren't real, true Christians, you can sometimes lure the confused (I mean, open) ones into a conversation this way.

"Yes." I said louder, because I was farther down the block now.

That's right!" he shouted.

"I know!" I shouted back.

D&D: New campaign kickoff

Started my brand new D&D campaign tonight. If you've been following my blog spoor for the last year, you might have noticed I've been screwing around with a wiki for this thing. Now, open for business!

I've spent a hella lot of time laying groundwork and spelling out rules, and it's still not done.

Important Lesson: You're never really done.

But it was surprisingly thorough. I'm methodical as a tornado when I write. I blow through town and look back once I'm done. Sometimes I've hit everything, and other times I've left whole blocks mysteriously untouched. I don't have a system. I just make up stuff until some outside constraint makes me stop.

So going in, I didn't know whether I'd written enough to make tonight work. But then I said, "Well, in the wiki..." about a dozen times in answer to questions. So I think I got all the vital stuff in.

Important Lesson: Don't worry about getting it all right. It's a game you're playing with friends.

Important Lesson: Just because it's in the text doesn't mean anyone else knows it's there.

I made the experience point totals for level gain a little higher, using a conglomeration of different Pathfinder experience gain rates. Then I told them that I'd award extra XP for people who enable group enjoyment by doing out-of-game things to make things more fun. The player who takes notes or handles mapping or draws a group shot or takes pics of minis gets an XP bonus. I hoped to encourage players to be creative and contribute on their own terms instead of doing all the work solo. This idea was poo-pooed, so it might not last.

Instead, I might use a variation on Sean Reynolds's Alternative Level Advancement System. I like Sean's idea, but changing your character every single session is too much paperwork in an already paperwork-heavy game.

Important Lesson: Adults with kids don't necessarily have the giveadamn to write character journals. In the long run, a bennie meant to encourage participation could begin to feel like a penalty on people who don't want to participate.

I thought having the rules online would be a good way to get everything out to the players so I wouldn't have to be the sole source of information. Also I hoped it would require me to lug fewer books to the game.

But the concept is a little ahead of the group's hardware capacity. Nobody brought a laptop or usable wireless device to let them look up stuff. We wound up using books anyway, which don't quite mesh with the fifty-'leben ways I've tweaked the d20/Pathfinder rules sets.

Important Lesson: Oops.

After a lot of shuffling papers and answering questions, characters were done, except for the niggling details that no one ever firms up until the third game anyway. I thought that'd be it. Good work everybody, see you in two weeks.

No! They demanded we play tonight! Begin tonight! Begin fighting! Tonight!

Since one of our regulars was absent, I didn't want to get too deep into the first adventure. So I used the time-tested, beloved pacing device DMs and comic book writers have used for decades. I threw in a combat. It wasn't meaningless, but it was off the cuff.

Important Lesson: Come more prepared than you think you'll need. And come prepared to improvise.

BlogaDay: In Review

Again, didn't get around to posting during the 24-hour period. But my rule for years and years has been: It's not tomorrow until I sleep, so I'm calling this November 30. Shame that Blogger doesn't support flexible dating. It's enough to drive a man to WordPress, or Moveable Type if he's feeling adventurous.

BlogaDay lessons learned:

• This is hard. I wrote the first week all at once in a fit of pique, and then wrote several more days ahead of time during the first week. I ran out of prepared content halfway through and started riffing.
  
• But it’s not that hard. A couple hundred words a day is doable.
• I got more polished stuff in the first half, but the second half was more surprising. I think I prefer polish.
• I’m not sure if anyone else thinks this, but I think I’m funnier writing late at night. You probably can't tell which ones I wrote at night, since the time stamp only occasionally corresponds to the writing time. I said things in late-night posts that I wouldn’t have said under the sun, and occasionally questioned the next day. But I didn’t take it down either. (Although I feel a little bad for calling Russel Davies an Internet douchebag.)
• Posting every day gave me impetus to do other things. I finished books and completed projects that I wouldn't have worked as hard on if I hadn't wanted to use it for blog fodder. That word puzzle, for instance, has been sitting around half-finished for over a year. Using it as a rainy-day post impelled me to finish it, AND got it out in front of an audience.
• Interactivity is challenging. I'm uncomfortable in front of an audience that talks back. I prefer media where I can put it out there and fade behind the layers between me and the reader.
• This forced march has been a good experience. I don't think I had the self-discipline to do it before now in my life, and I know I didn't have the grace to let myself miss a day like I did and keep going without feeling terrible about it.
• I have momentum, and I haven't decided what to do with it. I'm in the habit of posting every day now. According to Google Analytics, I'm up to 4-6 discrete daily readers. Seems a shame to put it down.

Chances are good I won't post tomorrow, but I'll be back on Sunday. Thanks for reading BlogaDay!