Look, when I said I might be more interesting to read if I was a basket case, I didn't mean it.

Not that I'm really a basket case. I'm too much of a control freak to give in to my miserable neurotic impulses. But after several hours of trying to be functional I have determined that I am definitely Not Okay. And, worst of all, I don't even have a solid feeling for why.

The weekend was pretty fabulous, with only a few stress points to mar it. I'm not sure that seventy-two hours with all of my friends was a really wise thing to push for on my part, but on the whole I had a good time. The (really brief this time, honest) overview:

Friday

Work. I failed to compile trn, but had a lot of fun doing it. Drove home, and was surprised that Earl wasn't there yet. I had too much to do, and got a little stressed, but I managed to clean out my car, eat Thai food with Earl, and get all my stuff into a few bags by 2030 or so. We picked up Czr at 2100, got everyone properly arranged in the car, and drove until we got to Grass Valley. Conversation was somewhat Mage oriented, but also involved a long segue into the question of whether or not I should go to school fulltime. Earl & Czr were both very encouraging. Arrival in GV was followed by sleep pretty much immediately.

Saturday

Chrisber and Marith had arrived during the night, and the lot of us went off to breakfast, and then split somewhat -- Czr, Al, and Robin went home, while the rest of us went to Ames and bought copious quantities of used books. I found more Tiptree short-story collections than you can shake a sizable stick at, and Earl picked up some books which caused Sheryl to exclaim, 'I can't believe you're buying German translations of English versions of Chinese stories!'.

We took all of our books and went back to Al&Sheryl's. Jeremy and Rachel had arrived, so much Mage ensued. I had some incredible RP. Chryse got Rachel to help with her stupid plan (which turned out to be clever after all), and got to see Martin panicked (which was definitely worth taking Paradox for). Then we had dinner, came back, and flopped around some before wandering off to bed.

Sunday

I woke up later than everyone else and stumbled into the living room, where an exciting game of Die Siedler was underway. I took over Earl's spot so he could shower, and was quickly crushed under the juggernaut which was Jeremy. Al was making pancakes, so I ate some. Then we played more Mage, successfully introducing Shuriko (Marith's character) to the chantry and convincing her we were a bunch of reckless loons. Chryse got to yell at Genni (What were you thinking, letting a fortunte teller do a reading for you?) and at Martin (What were you thinking, letting Slade take Genni to a fortune teller without warning her first?). [1] It was great fun.

Once this was more-or-less resolved we went to Nevada City, which is the nicest tourist trap I've ever seen. Rachel and Marith and Sheryl and I shopped for clothing, while the males in our party looked amused and/or long-suffering, depending on their natures. I bought three skirts, which is probably at least two more skirts than I needed. Earl and I wandered around some on our own, but eventually the group met up again and went to dinner at the Country Rose.

Dinner was good, but strained... Rachel and I had a Chryse/Rachel (she's playing herself, see. Well, sort of.) conversation via Pilot, which I think made Marith feel intensely left out. Unfortunately, almost anything I do with anyone makes Marith feel intensely left out, but it's more noticeable when we're all sitting at a table. After dinner we shopped a bit more (I bought Earl a rubber duck for his bathtub in LA) and then went back and played Age of Renaissance until we all fell asleep.

Monday

I woke up earlier than I had on Sunday, and stumbled into the living room to discover the beginnings of Die Siedler. I played for a while, then let Earl take over for me so I could shower. Ah, symmetry. Jeremy still crushed us all like bugs, though. Then we did a tiny bit of gaming (Shuriko talked to Athena, Rachel talked to Chryse) and finished up our game of Age of Renaissance. It lasted way too long, unfortunately, and Jeremy beat us all into a pulp. At this rate he's going to be a instant-threat, much like Mike and CDodd and Earl. He didn't used to win every board game he played.

Everyone left around 1830; Czr drove my car, since I hate highway driving during the daytime -- or at least driving 80 west during the daytime. Earl had managed to have a brief conflict-then-apology session with Marith right before we left, so car atmosphere was fairly tense until we stopped at McDonald's in Loomis. Food calmed me down, and helped Earl's headache (which, it turns out, was more the cause of his bad mood than his discussion with Marith). The ride home was mostly Mage discussion, with some conversation about a game Czr hopes to run thrown in.

So that was my weekend, and now that I've written it all down I feel much less like I'm about to dissolve into a puddle of neurotic tears in front of my workstation. Sending a bunch of mail to Czr and Rachel also helped.

Now that I've had time to think about it, I can define a little of why I'm upset:

• Earl leaves tomorrow morning. It doesn't matter that I'll see him nine days later. He's still leaving.
• I'm not sure I like my job, not just in the localised Cadence sense, but also in the larger 'why am I a sysadmin?' sense. Although the former certainly influences the latter.
• I think I want to go to school fulltime, but this is difficult to arrange, since I'm not sure which of my interests I want to study.
• I'm moving to Los Angeles next year, which would probably be overwhelming if I weren't already overwhelmed by everything else.
• Making future plans is difficult, since when I start looking two or three years ahead I have to take into account what Earl is doing, and he doesn't know if he'll be done with his PhD or not. And anyway, we're just dating, so it's not like we can assume we'll be together in two or three years ... even though it'd be nice if we were.

That's it in a nutshell. I'm going to close out this far-too-long entry and go catch up on all the journals I read regularly. I'm definitely calmer and more together now, and even excited by the prospect of my Trig class. Keen.

And thank you, everyone who has been sending me email. It makes me pretty cheerful to come back from a few days out of town and see a multitude of subject lines referring to my journal.

1: Chryse is firmly of the opinion that looking into the future locks you into the timeline you see, which is a pretty stupid thing to do to yourself. Plus, we've already has a few incompetent Genni-cultists express to us that Genni must be protected from knowing her own future at all costs. They might be full of it, but why take chances?