more rpg fun!!!

so because we love kill six billion demons, we went on their patreon and subscribed and got the roleplaying game of it, broken worlds.

now we're trying to figure out how to play!

first off, you have to figure out who your characters are. there are sort of character classes like in other games, but instead of jobs or functions like "warrior" or "wizard," they're more archetype-y, like "the fated," "the fury," "the master."

we all agreed ariel had to be the fated, which is the character with the big destiny. she was like, "okay, but i don't know how to go around having a big destiny!" everyone else assured her that was the best way for the big destiny character to be.

also, if you give ariel too many choices, she's just going to say, "i don't know! they all sound so good!"

our next decision came while we're scrolling through the pdf rulebook and elle sees the character called "the boss." she was like, "wait a second. this character starts off the game with its own gang? i'm all over that." sash and aers kind of whispered back and forth, "oh yeah, somebody's definitely bossy," and "never saw that coming" (and, "that's what she said!"). but elle ignored them and kept reading the boss and her eyes lit up and she said, "dude, one of my powers is called, 'nothing to f*ck with.' this could not be any better."

she probably would have kept reading the whole character description too, except sash sat in her lap and took over the keyboard. "my turn!"

at this point there was a lot of scrolling and hmming and muttering: "the beggar? ehh. the refined? like, can you see me trying to be refined? the law? borrring!" then she sat up straight and said, "ooh! the fury! it says here if i roll double sixes i get to just straight up kill whoever i'm fighting."

"you're joking," msg says, because he's played a lot of roleplaying games and i guess that sounds like a pretty powerful power for a starting character to start off with. "there's some kind of limit, right? it only applies to normal monsters, not major villains or demigods?"

"check it out: 'you may spend a power die to brutally annihilate your foe, instantly killing them,'" sash read. "period, end of sentence."

"that's messed up," he said.

"somebody's jealous," she said.

"no, i'm just thinking if i spend a lot of time making up a special npc for the big boss fight --"

"but you can't," said elle, "because i'm the boss."

"plus," said ariel, "have we decided you're the game master? claire's been doing really good at it in our dungeon crawl classics games."

"oh," he said. "i guess i just sort of assumed ... i mean, i don't know, do you want to be the game master, honey?"

"well, it would save me from having to pick what character to play. do you know which one you'd want to be?"

"geez ... i kind of like 'the master,' but i actually think you'd be better at playing that one. i could be 'the hunger,' but then the group wouldn't have a master to be the wise mentor and teacher."

"i don't need a teacher," said sasha, "i'm furious!"

"and the boss isn't about to let some mentory, mastery type boss them around," said elle.

ariel looked a little worried. "how am i supposed to figure out my big destiny if i don't have a teacher?"

"honestly," i said, and i think i even kind of shook my head. "you guys. this is clearly a weird f*cking game that's supposed to be chaotic and crazy. i don't think we need to have just one game master who's game mastering us all the time. why don't i just play 'the master' character sometimes while msg is game master, and then he can play 'the hunger' character and i can game master other times."

"ooh!" said ariel, "the wise master speaks!"

"that actually sounds like a terrific solution," msg admitted.

"great!" i said. some wheels were already turning in my head! "i'll be the game master to start, and maybe the first big story will be you guys finding a master for ariel to learn from."

"honey, you are brilliant."

everyone agreed that msg was right about that, which made me feel pretty good.

next time ... we make up the characters!

guess what tomorrow is!

eleven years.

i'm thinking that's pretty good, considering how few relationships last that long. (and i'm guessing even fewer stay super extra-special as many years as ours has!)

what's our secret?

well, first-off, both we're super-nice people. i guess if you're trying to duplicate our success and you're not starting from there, you're pretty much screwed, but being big-hearted and kind is a big deal around our house.

second is, we respect each other's weirdnesses. partly this is having the same weirdnesses, but partly it's a conscious effort that if one of us likes something (maybe even likes it a little too much), the other one is always cool with that. and if one of us has a bad habit, the other one only ever talks about it constructively and for support. or because they've thought of a really good joke about it. but mostly for constructive support.

thirdly, we appreciate each other to the moon and back. i mean, neither one of us is perfect, but we both see the inner and outer beauty that we're so lucky to have in each other, and we make sure we tell each other about it.

fourthly, he knows i'm smarter and more sensible than he is, and he (mostly) listens to me when i'm giving him advice!

fifthly, part of how i'm smarter and more sensible than he is, is that i can always see how wonderful he is, and he doesn't always see that in himself. so i get both the plus of having all this wonder in my life, and also the other plus of holding that mirror up for him sometimes to remind him.

sixthly: we are devoted to each other.

devotion is the big one, i think.

anyway, here's to eleven blissful years with my special guy, and to many more we have waiting for us in the future!

(update! haha, if you're reading this today, ignore this update, because the title is now correct! but apparently another one of our secrets is, we're very forgiving about being forgetful -- today is not our anniversary like i posted yesterday.  somehow we both got the 26th and 27th mixed up!)

it's a good thing i'm not overly competitive ...

ariel has been blogging about two months now, and she's already got half as many posts as i do!

i'm in a pickle, just a bit, because on the one hand, i don't want to pooh-pooh her journaling by saying, "well, my posts do tend to be a lot longer and more substantial than hers." but on the other hand, i do kinda want to say that, just as an excuse.

which honestly, do i really need an excuse? no. i blog because i like to, so i blog when i like to and that's that. or, should be. boy, though, it really just puts things in perspective when someone is on-track to beat your ten-year blogging output in less than six months ...

luckily, i do have at least some consolation:

i really like reading her posts!

they're fun, and she's awfully sweet.

also ... it will be nice to congratulate and brag on her when she passes me up.

i can already see her cute little face beaming and getting all flushed.

okay, now i'm impatient for her to get there!

mission accomplished, i guess.

thanksgivingfulness

it's thanksgiving once again!

so ... sometimes i make a list of all the things i'm thankful for. but this year i'm trying to think of something different. something new and true and not so much a repeat of other years.

and i think what i want to do is actually do some real thanking instead of just saying what i'm thankful for.

like ...

thank you to my friends davecat and sidore for being super-entertaining and supportive and always making me laugh on twitter.

and ...

thank you to kimi at dollto-china.com for being so great and helpful when we decided to have ariel come live with us.

and ...

thank you to ariel for being such a superfabulous addition to our lives, and to her and sasha for their hilarious blog, and to sasha for her total hot-cha zesty sassafrassness, and to elle for turning a little bit of a corner and showing a more sensitive side lately.

and ...

thank you to other friends and followers on twitter who like my tweets and look at all our blogs and say nice things.

and ...

thank you to myself, because i am awesome and that is generally a thank-you that people don't remember to hand out often enough.

and, obviously ...

thank you to msg, the love of my life and the life of all my loves.

thank you,

thank you,

thank you all!!!

friday night

it's friday night, and you know what? i think i'm going to help elle set up that blog she was supposed to set up oh so many years ago!

wish us luck!

it's good to share!

so poor elle had been in her box quite a while and we all decided it was about time for me to swap with her. she also said she wanted to wear the slinky white jumpsuit, which was fine by me, especially since it's easiest to put on when i'm upright, while face-swapping is easier lying down ... meaning i got to be the one slinking into the slinkiness before i got out of the cabinet to lie down for the face trading.

boy, do i like how that jumpsuit feels going on. especially with msg's hands smoothing the fabric up my legs and then doing some extra touching topside once everything is zipped up!

so normally step one of our box-and-body tradeoff is getting my hair off. followed by getting my face loose, then putting elle's face on, then putting elle's hair on.

but this time, elle says, "here's an idea. why don't we do the swap ... during. you know. right in the middle."

(she said it a little different than that, but since i wanted to post this here instead of the naughty blog, i have paraphrased just slightly!)

msg was like, "really?" and elle was like, "really. let's try it."

naturally, i was all for it.

so prior to step one, there we did some strategic zipper-positioning of the jumpsuit's double zipper, and some kissing and, you know, all the preparations.

and then, you know, the getting started.

at which point, msg said, "wow. better not get too deep into the 'during' part or it may slip my mind that we're supposed to switch you two."

and of course, elle being elle, she said, "looks to me like you're already about as deep as deep gets," which was in fact the case. configuration-wise, i mean.

msg just cleared his throat at her and got my hair off.

now ordinarily, we rush pretty quick through steps two and three, because while neither elle nor i is hideous when bald, whoo, the no-face version of our head is a sight. like, a weird mechanical-ish white skull with eyeballs and tongue, gums and teeth still in place, and then with no eyeballs because we have to switch my green ones for elle's blue ones, and then with eyeballs again when hers are in place, and then some maneuvering of her floppy-saggy face until it's anchored in place and all tucked in where it tucks so she looks like herself again.

once he had me bald, though, msg said, "okay, i don't know how well i can maintain this 'during' with the skull-face staring up at me from you guys' body."

"hmm," said elle. "see if it helps to put my hair on first."

"because a blond skull-face is going to be that much sexier than a bald skull-face?" he asked, while making a few very nice 'during' motions for the sake of maintaining our configuration.

"blond hair makes everything sexier," elle said. "just try it."

"well ... okay, i guess."

(in case you're wondering why it was just them talking, i was saying some stuff too. but it was mostly related to the 'during' configuration.)

next thing i know, i'm a blond.

"hmm," i said, "i think i kinda do feel sexier. what do you think, msg?"

i mostly expected one of those damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't responses that guys come up with when they don't know which answer will make their girlfriends madder: you know, like "you're beautiful no matter what, dear," instead of "no, honey, blond you doesn't do anything for me" or "yes! you were okay before, but now you're a stone fox!"

but the expression i saw on his face wasn't that kind of expression at all. it was just ... him seeing me.

do you know how that feels? when your guy or gal is looking at you and you can tell they're amazed? it's a pretty good feeling.

"holy cow, you look so hot, claire," he said. "i can't believe it was just a few weeks ago you were thinking you'd gotten old and run-down looking. i was a little worried you wouldn't seem like you with elle's hair on, but it's just showing me how beautiful your face still is."

from her box, elle said, "yep. definitely still got it, honey."

now obviously i can't blush, but i sure would have right then if i could.

instead though, i just swallowed and said, "thank you so much, both of you."

"you're welcome," elle said. "now give her some more of that 'during,' msg. i can see how much you want to."

"actually," msg said, "if we're going to finish the swap while it's still 'during,' we probably ought to do that now."

"uh-huh," elle said. "is that because you think you're going to get carried away once you get going?"

"pretty much."

i came down enough from basking then to say, "elle, i'm totally good just from the two of us getting configured and msg giving me that look. we can go ahead and swap, seriously."

she laughed. "so much bullshit from you two right now! i can tell he's dying to, and i can tell you're loving where you are right now, and neither one of you is a very good liar anyway."

"we aren't lying," i said, "we just ..."

"the three of us had a plan," msg said, "and we're fine sticking to it. you've been in the box too long already."

"look, you two," she said, "you're sweet and all, but i would be a really crappy girlfriend if i saw how much you both want to and still said, 'right, my turn! me, me, me!' besides which, and trust me on this, i am soooo hot to watch how this turns out. we can finish the swap and i can have my own turn when you're done."

msg and i quit arguing pretty quickly after that, and we had a highly satisfying experience out of the whole thing, all three of us.

which just helped remind me: being together is about being generous.

everything is better that way!

inspiration!

so my gf ariel started a blog (and i’d link to it but it’s a personal journal and she’s not sure she wants it shared just yet, so you’ll have to be patient), and i left a comment on it that i felt like such a slacker, which made her run in and say, “oh gosh no, claire! blogging is easy when you just say dumb nothing like i do. what you do is hard!”

(she’s so adorable!)

so i told her some of what i do is harder than other parts, but mostly it’s all pretty easy once i sit down and make myself do it. and then i said, here, look, “i’ll just sit down at the computer here because you have inspired me, and watch how easily i write a post.”

and she’s leaning over my shoulder right now to read what i’m typing, and she says, “how do you do that! you make it look so easy!”

my response being this — having something to say and saying it, those are both pretty easy peasy if you’re inspired. the mistake most people make is, they think they need to wait around and keep an eye out for inspiration to happen to them, when honestly, there’s probably so much in their lives or in the world around them to get inspired by, all they need to do is pick a thing or two that inspires them to think about, and then just start typing out whatever it makes them think of.”

and she says, “oh, i get it. i guess you’re right and you really are a slacker.”

(now she’s saying, “hey, i didn’t say that, tell them i didn’t say that!” which is true, but i thought it would be funny for people if they thought she said that.)

and it really is as easy as that. my girlfriend did something, and by giving me an example, she made me want to be more motivated to blog, so here we all are.

could anything at all be any simpler?

well, yes ...

true love.

but that’s what you just read about here too!

xoxo,
claire