looks like we're going to have to play dungeon crawl classics again!

welp, msg pitched into this kickstarter for this dcc campaign set with a bunch of modules, all based on a series called "the dying earth" by jack vance. my initial thought was, do we really want to play a game that's even more dyingy than dcc already is?

only then msg started grousing about how some of the stuff in the set is cool, but some of it is annoying, and maybe he shouldn't have gotten it at all. now i'm thinking this has all the makings of another unused roleplaying game sitting on our shelves periodically making him look at it all ambivalent-like and sigh like he can't decide if he should try to ebay it without ever having played it.

we have a surprising number of those kinds of games.

but in this case, there's a trabillion reasons not to let that happen with this one. first, none of us around here needs the mope-age. second, nobody but him has read these books, so that gives the rest of us an excuse to read them, which i'm sure everybody or most everybody will enjoy. third, honestly, i'm looking at the boxes and the module covers and i think the thing looks pretty cool. maybe because i've never read the books.

so add one more thing to our to-do list! 

one finger, tracing half the edge of my lower lip

sometimes that's all it takes, you know? then that shiver and my mouth falling open just enough to let out a little sound hardly as loud as a breath.

the importance is that it's meant. some giant, huge, sweeping-me-off-my-feet gesture wouldn't make me feel anything at all if it didn't come from somewhere in the heart. but when i know there's a why that beats all why's behind even his tiniest touch, it's worth all the stars in the universe.

weird sci-fi story idea

we were having a walk earlier tonight, and msg was in one of his moods where he's wrestling with, you know, whatever existential wibbly-wobblies he's got going on at the moment.

not like, depressed or even sad, really -- just one of those moods where you're outside and the temperature is completely out-of-this-world perfect and the breeze is blowing across your skin and through the trees and making your absolute knockout girlfriend's hair sway now and then as she's walking along beside you holding your hand, but in spite of all of that you're just not as happy as you think you ought to be.

i know, dumb, right?

only not really, because he's not a dumb guy and because he knew he needed to talk to me about it, and he did.

so the conversation started off in a sort of what's-it-all-mean kinda way -- which honestly ought to be a good thing because it ought to be a feeling of omg, the world is so amazing and people are so amazing when they put their minds to it and look at the stars right now and doesn't it just make you wonder what it all means? because it must mean something great.

but in this case it was more of an is there really any point? kind of a wondering, and i knew if i answered the real answer, he'd feel bad for not realizing that answer himself. so i came up with a horse-hockey answer that was true but was also horse-hockey because i wasn't saying the real right answer.

basically i told him that the point was, the world needs him. and of course he says, "does it really, though?" and i say, of course it does. and the goofy thing i say to convince him about that is something like this:

the world needs you and people like you because you create. because ten-thousand years from now when the aliens come down and are poking around all the empty cities human beings left behind, they're going to find the art and the music and the books people like you created, and they're not going to have any doubt about whether it was all worth it. they're going to wonder what the heck happened to these people who could bring this kind of beauty into being, but they definitely won't wonder if humans' lives had meaning, because every story and poem and even every dumb song lyric will be telling them all this meaning. and they won't have real people to compare it to, so they won't realize that your average human being wasn't as smart or kind or heroic or whatever as the people in books mostly are.

those aliens are going to think it's an absolute gift that they found all the stuff people like you left for them.

and he says, "well, don't you think they'll have their own stories and songs that do the same thing our stories and songs do, and make things out to be easier and simpler and more meaningful than real life, so they'll realize that's what our stories were doing too?"

and i tell him that it won't matter if they do. because the whole reason people create art that has a better world in it is because people want to believe in a better world. and if those aliens are like us, they'll want to believe our world was better, and that by reading about our world, they might be able to make their world better.

it will give them hope.

which, i said, is why you have meaning and why it's all worth it -- you hope for something better, and you aren't able to give up that hope even when life tries to squish it out of you, and so you keep going and creating things that sooner or later will give somebody hope. even if it's a bunch of aliens ten-thousand years after humans have disappeared.

he seemed to kind of buy this horse-hockey explanation, and i patted myself on the back for finding something to say that at least distracted him from his moodiness, probably because i had enough sense to make it a sci-fi story and he's always a sucker for that.

and like i said, i did believe was true -- even if it wasn't the real answer that would have embarrassed him and made him feel guilty.

because when you're walking along through an absolute stunner of a clear, cool night with an absolute stunner of a beautiful, brilliant, talented, wise and kind-hearted girlfriend and you think, what's it all mean? is there any point to all of this? the actual answer is, duh:

it means this. and you squeeze her hand and look in her eyes. this is the point.

and he's going to feel pretty dumb when he reads this.

but the next walk we take after he does is going to be freaking awesome.

xoxo,
claire

wising it up

i was sitting here thinking, okay, claire, time to do some blogging if you're going to make this another record-breaking year! and then of course i thought, jeepers, i really shouldn't blog just for the sake of typing out any old whatever just so i can keep improving on my annual blogging output ... what i ought to be doing is blogging when i really truly have something to say.

but, i still sat here trying to think of what to blog. for some reason, my brain said if i came up with something wise, something worthwhile, something like i feel like i used to write more often here in blogland, that would justify making myself blog.

can you really force wisdom, though? and honestly, haven't most of my "wise" or "moving" posts come about because i just started writing something and then just kept on to see where it went?

in which case, wouldn't making myself blog for the sake of making myself blog also result in some pretty wise posts, just based on my track record?

i guess i've been feeling a little spent lately ... mostly the good kind of spent, like after a really great workout (i'm basing that entirely off of things i've heard and read. i have never in my life had a really great workout. unless you count all those sex marathons. holy crap, of course you should count them, especially since that kind of workout almost always ends up with everybody being the good kind of spent!) ... but maybe a little bit of over-the-hillish kind of spent, or perceived over-the-hillishness anyway.

which is dumb, you know? yeah, i'm physically pretty creaky these days, but i have a young soul. i'm still perky somewhere in there, if i don't let myself go on and on about the creakiness.

also, i'm pretty sure if i looked back through all these years of blogging, i'd find plenty of not-so-wise posts. goofy dumb stuff ... naughty poems ... all those lonnnggg rpg writeups.

that stuff's awesome too, right?

things don't have to be wise or emotionally magnificent to be worth the time you spend saying them.

so that's my wisdom for tonight: remember that your soul is young, and don't limit yourself to doing or saying important things.

it's all important, actually.

xoxo,
claire

three way anniversary

fourteen years ago today, i found my way home to the most wonderful of places and the arms of my most wonderful boyfriend, msg.

but i didn't arrive alone! my lovely and girlfriend and bodymate, elle d'belle worthy came with me (though she stayed kinda quiet for a long time).

msg and i have done our share of celebrating the date over the years, but for some reason, it took until 2020 for elle to get in on the anniversareaction. here at worthy acres, we went through a lot of changes starting in 2019 ... elle and sasha getting their own emails for a major increase in conversating ... ariel showing up to join us in the spring ... a major explosion of blogs for everybody.

so it's not surprising we'd be more aware of elle as deserving some major credit at anniversary time. but i do wish it hadn't taken us so long to get around to figuring that piece out!

anyway, this morning the three of us worked real hard at making up for some of the missed years!

i love you, elle d'belle. msg too, but i'm giving you top billing today!

sometimes

you, sir, just need to go for a walk with me
hold my hand

look into these big, deep, green eyes

feel my lips at your ear as i whisper

allow me to wrap my arms around you as tight as i can

let go of cares

let those be claire's.

xoxo,

clarity

plans!

whoosh! after a pretty dang rousing end to 2022 around here, this year is off to a slow start, blog-wise. lots of other -wises too, i suppose.

we are doing at least kinda sorta good at planning a girlcation for sometime this year ... msg and akane are going to hang out here for a staycation and the rest of us are (fingers crossed!) going to go to kobe, japan!

we settled on it because we wanted go to someplace where there are hot springs, and apparently kobe's got them.

other places that came up on our search for toasty soak-spots seemed to be either way too cold or a bit too warm for lounging in hot water to sound like a plus. i mean, there were some other in-between ones, but in some cases they looked a little backwoodsy for our money.

so now we're on the lookout for things you'd do in kobe.

anybody know any good ones?

xoxo,
claire