Hidden Pugmarks

It’s Valentine’s Day. Potentiallly one of the most amazing and most depressing days of the year.

For a guy like me, Valentine’s Day is the type of day that you live for. A chance to do all of the little things. A chance to write and give and try and show someone how much they mean to you. A day to celebrate love and relationships.

I may have plans tonight. Sort of… Maybe… Hopefully =)

As it is Valentine’s Day I feel compelled to write something for it. That, and I’m sure some people out there expect me to. Plus, I told someone I would.

To The Girl With No Last Name
I watch you flutter through the sky
Like a forbidden butterfly
A fleeting blur of mottled wonder
Enrapturing all who catch sight of you
With your butterfly kisses
You bring hope to life
Flowers of it blooming along your path
Carrying everyone higher on your wings
When you cross between my eyes and the sun
A bubble of rainbow swirls surrounds you
Almost invisible to everyone
Just barely strong enough to keep them away
You always disappear before it fades
I want to watch it fade some day
Step inside of its boundaries
Really see the heart that beats within
Stand guard over it through the long night
Waiting patiently while the exhaustion ebbs away
Protecting you until the rainbows return

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! Don’t forget the flowers!

There are moments in life that belie comprehension. Coincidences that go beyond reason.

A good friend of mine got “restructured” out of his job this week. He is pretty upbeat about it all. It was kind of strange because the week before I told him I had been thinking about heading west (like a young man should) and he had said he wanted to as well, but that he had to wait a while to get a certain bonus or stock maturation or whatever.

Then just like that, he’s free.

Since we often talk about where we will work next and what we will do as well as reminisce about the past; talk turned to California. As a friend of mine says “The grass really is greener in California.”

A couple of years ago we went to California for E3. Our whole company went for it. It was a massive celebration event for the 11 months of overtime we had just battled through (our lightest work week was 40 hours in 3 days).

There were ten or eleven of us who decided to head out to Santa Monica and take in the sights as well as soaking up the beach life. After a bunch of wandering around, switching sides of the pier at the beach, etc, I was tired and wanted to sit and take a break. So my friend and I told everyone else to just go ahead and we’d catch up.

So there we were. Just sitting on the edge of a little strip of pavement running along the beach when these two stewardesses (they called themselves that) rolled up to us on roller skates. They asked us if we had some free time and if we would mind following them around and videotaping them.

Do the math. Two single guys who hadn’t been more than 100 feet away from a computer in almost a year + two beautiful stwardesses who want them to run around and videotape them = two guys following around two girls with a camera.

That’s how we spent the afternoon. Then the women took us out for beer. We all hit it off quite well, it’s too bad that we were only going to be down in LA for a couple more days.

It was a legendary event at the company (the legend was extended further after a trip to GDC a year later). The crew on the beach met up with us a few hours later and were all “What the hell? How did you do that? What’s the deal? Who were they?”

Forever the memory of meeting Missy and Erin will be immortalized by the word “Foamy”. There is a story to that, but it is neither interesting nor funny, so it will be skipped.

I am originally from the west, and it has always called to me. Maybe it’s time to answer? Maybe I haven’t gone far enough west? It is really just too hard to decide. All of the major decisions in my life are impulse decisions. I can agonize over what to eat for supper for three hours; but damn if I don’t just up and move myself across the country throwing my life into chaos “just because.”

I’m trying to reverse my decision making habits.

Life is interesting. Every single day of it. The good ones, and even the bad ones.

I know, that unlike a lot of people, I can find the silver lining in almost any cloud. I can also definitely spot the bad apple in a barrel as well. My mood is the determining factor in which of those things I then present to everyone else.

Lately I haven’t been sleeping much. I just can’t seem to find time for it. The side effect of this, is that my body is starting to make time for it. I consistently fall asleep in the bath or shower these days. If I flop on the couch to watch a few sports highlights, I generally wake up hours later.

Last weekend I was getting ready to do laundry, I had the bag full and ready to go. I was sitting on the edge of my bed when I leaned back for just a second to think and make sure that I had everything. I woke up three hours later, and the laundry didn’t get done that day.

I even find myself struggling to stay awake when I’m riding the subway. It’s hot down there. The subway constantly vibrates. The white noise sound of moving through the tunnels is very relaxing.

I guess this is the onset of narcolepsy.

So what’s the cause you might ask? No one knows. It’s just something that happens. It has happened all my life in spurts here and there. My last year of high school, I swear, I barely ever slept. I’ve spent months on end at a time plagued by nightmares. I’ve spent the larger portion of my life living on 4-6 hours of sleep.

I’m convinced that the crux of the problem is that I’m supposed to sleep my eight hours a night from 4am until noon. Society won’t let me do that though, and keep the job that I have. Working from noon until 8pm or 9pm sounds just fine to me.

Even after it all though, I find myself smiling. I was taking a cab to work today, driving through the same streets as always. I was looking at the same buildings that I always see. Something though was wonderful. I re-realized that I live in Montreal and this is a wonderful city! I still can’t believe I’m here sometimes. I come from such small town roots.

It helped to lift away the tired feeling that has wrapped itself so tightly around me.

Hopefully I won’t fall asleep in Blackwing Lair tonight. There’s a Broodlord in there, and he needs to do some dying.

I play World of Warcraft. I play it a lot. More than is healthy I’m sure.

I’ve been playing it for over a year. Yet I still love it. I still enjoy it. Mostly I enjoy the people and spending time with them. Sometimes though, things happen in it that just drive me right up the wall.

I’m a tank. That’s what I do. That’s who I am. I can’t seem to enjoy playing any other facet of the game. I like to believe that I’m good at it. I had started to believe that the raid group I’m in had taken notice of that.

For a while there, whenever the usual MT was away, I got to hop in and MT the dungeons. Now, this is what I live for. There is nothing I enjoy more in the game than tanking a huge mob while I have 39 other people depending on me and I’m depending on them.

It’s all about trust. I have infinite trust in people, as unfounded as it may be, until they prove me wrong. So I trust all of them to do their job. I never worry about my health, I know they have my back. I hope that they don’t worry about themselves either, because they know I’m doing everything I can to be number one on the hate list so that they don’t get attacked.

I seem to have wandered off topic there. That’s how much I like it.

Well, last night the usual MT wasn’t there and we were going up against Onyxia. I have always wanted to tank Onyxia. She’s a giant black dragon, and I love slaying dragons. I didn’t get nod from the coach. No tap on the shoulder. I got passed over for the rookie (who happens to be one of the raid leaders).

I was pretty bothered by the whole thing. At moments like that the impulsive part of me thinks “I should just quit this raid and go find another one where I’m useful. One where I’m valued.” Then after a few minutes goes by the practical side of me kicks in and starts to think “Well, it wouldn’t be the same without some of these people around. It wouldn’t be as much fun.” So I suck it up, and I keep going.

I know that I’ve been referred to as one of the best tanks on the server. I get called in by groups to tank bosses and do the ends of instances when they can’t get through (not for a while though, since I’m so busy with raiding these days). Still, when things like that happen, I don’t feel like I’m any good at all.

Back to Blackwing tonight. At least I can be useful there. If enough people don’t show up for a solid 5-10 attempts on Broodlord tonight, I don’t know what I’ll do.