All week I have been feeling pretty good.  When I played games at Ralph's on Saturday, he said he thought I was doing much better.  I really had a good time.  We played some new games that I had not played before--Loot and Family Business.  I didn't care for Family Business even though I won, but that was mostly because I am not fond of elimination games.  As people were talking about leaving, I got a text to meet some other friends to play games--so I went there afterward and played domino--Mexican Train and Chicken Foot.  I am not a big fan of these games, but I really enjoy the company so it wasn't so bad.

Friday night at the dance club, I managed to hit a wine bottle with my elbow and as it was falling I reached for it, the bottle spun around sending wine everywhere, but i managed to catch it before it hit the floor.  We ended up with red wine all over the wall and the floor, but I managed to save more than half the bottle.  It took a while to clean up and I had a huge wet spot on my leg.  Luckily I was wearing black pants so you couldn't see a stain.  I scrubbed the wall and the front of the refrigerator for a long time and got most of the wine off.  The refrigerator is white and there were some light steaks left at the end--I am probably the only one who cares about that.  Darryl had dropped a bucket of ice prior to that, so neither of us was having a good evening.

Over the last couple of days, I agreed to help teach Sunday school at church.  There was a meeting this morning to meet the other teachers and get an idea what we would be doing and now I wonder why I signed up--although honestly, I am not as scared as I thought I would be.  We start the Sunday after Labor Day so I have two weeks to get really worked up.  I hope this is a good experience.  The funny thing was that my co-teacher remembered me from when I would show up at church and sit with Roland and his family.  She wondered what the relationship was.  I kind of flashed back to when we were asked the question one Sunday after church standing in line to get donuts.  Of course, I stopped doing that once they moved up north.  i explained that they had moved up north and that they attended another church.

I am still unable to remember my dreams.  In the morning my dreams are still vivid while I am in the process of waking up, but once I move around, I forget everything.  I will try again in the morning, but it hasn't been working well.

I almost missed my appointment with my psychologist.  I can't seem to get to bed at a decent time, so I got up late and then the morning flew by.  I got some laundry done and I managed to charge the battery in the Tracker.  I had started the process yesterday, but stopped it when I went to meet a friend for dinner and games before going to the club for a special party.  I hooked the battery back up to the charger this morning, and when I got back from my appointment, it was charged.  I put the battery back in the Tracker and it cranked right up.  now I just need to take it to CarMax and see what they will give me for it.

At the psychologist I told him about my aspirin overdose when I was little and he seems to think that might be why I feel helpless a lot and why I have such deep fear issues.  It makes sense to me from a logical perspective, but I am not feeling it emotionally.  He said I need to "internally digest" it.  He also wants me to keep a dream journal--really he is just curious about my dreams, but he did suggest a dream journal when I explained I don;t seem to remember my dreams.  Some of my medication seems to prevent me from having dreams, so I am going to try to stay off the sleep aids.  I have been trying to take less anyway, so it shouldn't be a big deal. Although tonight it is already late and I am supposed to play games tomorrow at Ralph's starting at 11:00 AM. 

I want to do some things in the morning--mostly I was going to make a chicken, broccoli, cheese and rice casserole to take since I already have the ingredients.  That means I need about an hour to put it together and cook everything.  Now that I think about it, it doesn't sound like such a good idea, but I plan to do it anyway.  I have been logging game play on BoardGameGeek.com and I am excited to log tomorrow's games.  I am not sure what we will play and Ralph thinks there might be 7 of us which really limits the games we can play.  Frank is supposed to be there and I want to talk to him about my road bike.  I wanted to call him up and talk to him about maybe taking my road bike to the store close to him to see if the guy he knows can true up the wheels.  I didn't do it, so I am not going to take the bike.  I sent out a list of games I could bring and only heard that someone doesn't like Playroom's Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot.  I was thinking about inviting Andi and having her bring her copy with all the expansions, but now I won't.

Today I also agreed to help with Sunday School at the church.  I have kind of wanted to get more involved with the church and when I got the email practically begging for help, I couldn't say no.  In a way it was like a sign from God.  I am actually excited for this.  I now have to attend a meeting Sunday morning to meet all the people and go through what we will be doing.  I thought I would be more scared, but I seem to be doing much better lately--and I don't know why.  Maybe the therapy is actually working and I just don't realize it.  I am not having grandiose fantasies about how I will be the best instructor and everyone will be awed by me.  I just know I will do a good job, because that is the type of person I am.  I enjoy children and think this will be good for me while I am doing something good for others.  It is not going to be easy to be there every Sunday morning, but I plan to try my best to be there as much as possible.

I finally bought a whiteboard for me to write reminders and notes on.  I even hung it on a wall as I come down the stairs.  We will have to see how it works for me, but lately I feel like I have forgotten so many things and hopefully this will keep me on top of things.

Now that I am feeling better, I wonder if I should have given up on the consulting business.  My main concern is that I am doing so well because I gave up the business.  I really need to update my resume and send it out to some key people.  I keep saying I will do it tomorrow and that is the classic trap I get into.  The good news is that I have been cleaning up around the house and getting some other things done while I am procrastinating instead of just playing on the computer all day or watching TV.  My garage is a little cleaner and I manage to pick up tools from all over the house and organize them in the toolboxes.  I am hoping this is a tend that I continue.  I would really like to have a clean house.

It is really late and I already mentioned I have a busy day tomorrow, so I will go to bed, but I have noticed through Google Analytics that more people are landing on my site.  While I wish they would click on some ads to generate revenue, I am a little apprehensive that someone might actually be reading what I type.  Since they are anonymous, I am able to handle it.  If you are reading this, just click through some of the ads--you do not have to buy anything, just click.

Another night at D&D Encounters followed by a game of Fruit Fair at a friend's house.  Fruit Fair is an interesting game--I am not sure I would have bought it, because I thought it might be like Obstgarten by HABA.  It was a lot more involved and required quite a bot more strategy.  This just proves how easy it is to judge a game by its box. The turn sequence was similar to Nottingham or Steam where the turn order is determined by other actions taken.  The basic idea of the game is to plant and harvest fruit so that you can trade the fruit for victory points.  One of the unusual aspects is that all fruit are equal when trading and that the number of victory points acquired is some what random.  Anyway, I would play the game again, but it is a challenging game with a somewhat silly theme.  For some reason, I would have preferred a little less comical artwork and plastic fruit instead of colored spheres.



Since Monday I have been trimming the hedges out back.  It took me several days to get everything done.  I did all the trimming on Monday, but it was very hot and I kept taking breaks to go inside and cool off.  I also managed to cut one of my outdoor extension cords with the electric trimmer.  My hedges are horrible and the trimming did not make them look any better--I ended up cutting them in half practically.  I also pulled all the vines and most of the weeds that grew around and in the bushes.  I ran out of bags to put the clippings and was not able to finish all the cleanup until today (2 days later).  I did not make it to the store Monday evening to buy more bags since my sister called me and wouldn't get off the phone.  On Tuesday I had several things planned including a meeting with a siding company and an introduction to the CIO at Harvesters--I agreed to do some volunteer work on their tech help desk.  I bagged most of the stuff Tuesday before heading to Harvesters and finished this afternoon so that I could put the bags in the trash to be picked up tomorrow morning.

The Harvesters meeting went well and I will be starting the first week of September.  Right now I will be going there every other week for about 4 hours.  I am excited about this and I think will be good for me intellectually and emotionally. 

The siding guy gave me a pretty good estimate, but being unemployed means I have no extra money.  I really wish I was employed so that I could get a good quality siding at a decent price.  I really like the siding with the insulation behind it giving it some more strength and a better insulation value.  I will probably look at a cheap paint job to keep the house from completely falling apart.  I don't know if they would caulk everything like it really needs to be done.  We'll see what I end up doing.

I still need to get the battery out of the Tracker and hook it up to the charger.  I really need to get rid of the car.  If I can get the battery charged I want to take it to CarMax to get a quote.  If they would give me a couple thousand,I think I would be happy.

I need to get up in the morning and do some of these things, as well as update my resume, so I will go to bed now.

I talked to Mom tonight and after we discussed her and Dad flying to see my sister after she has her baby in a few weeks, I finally brought up what happened when I was young.  About four months after I was born, Dad went to Viet Nam and Mom moved to California to be close to her family.  Dad was in Viet Nam for a year and when he came back they had orders to Bergstrom and we moved directly there.  While Dad was in Viet Nam Mom met him once in Hawaii.  I guess she left my sisters with a neighbor and my older brother and I with a relative of a friend--she is not sure if something happened there. 

Anyway, she thinks the most traumatic thing was a few months after I turned two I got sick and she gave me half an aspirin and put me to bed or something--the timeline is still a little fuzzy, there was something about taking girl scouts to a movie and Dad saying I was alright that evening.  The next morning I was grey and limp and Mom took me to the hospital--there was a side note about having to take my older brother since there was no one to watch him and he had to stay out in the car by himself because he wasn't allowed in.  She eventually had to bring him in because he wasn't happy and at some point Dad picked him up from the hospital.  These things just wouldn't happen today--my parents would probably have been charged with child abuse.  Anyhow, I had all kinds of tubes and stuff in my body and I was constrained in the bed as they were trying to get all the aspirin out of my system--according to the doctors I had somehow OD'ed on aspirin.  Mom and Dad are still unsure how that happened--they counted the pills in the bottle, they questioned my sisters, anyhow it is a mystery.  Now I have an allergy to aspirin--which I think I have talked about previously.  I spent about a week in the hospital and Mom and Dad weren't allowed to stay with me, they were only allowed during certain hours.  Supposedly a neighbor was also in the hospital for some surgery and would come to my room and hold me at times when Mom couldn't be there.  According to Mom I was putting Legos together with one hand--in previous versions of the stories there were puzzles that I put together with a hand and a foot.

We talked a little bit about how we always seemed to move in November when it was my little brother's birthday and I was a little jealous that he always got more presents from other people because we were traveling and saw more friends and family, but I digress.  I remember little snippets from my past, but they are weird little snippets.  I remembered the small fish pond at the house in Texas and painting the garage door when we were leaving--of course, we actually painted the entire house inside and out,but I only remember the garage door.  I also remembered a time when we visited Grandma at the lake and we tried to fish.  I think it was the first time I went fishing.  I also remember we stopped in the mountains and looked at a small patch of snow which was the first time I had seen snow.  We got to touch it and play in it a little, but someone told me not to step on it because I could fall through because you never know what is under the snow.  My memories are a lot clearer starting around 1974 when little sister was born.  The memories I have before then are very sketchy, of course my memory is not real clear about anything--I always seem to get flashes of memory when I need it most.

the other thing we talked about was that at some point my teacher came up to my mother and told her to ask her what my IQ was.  Mom thinks it was over 180, but she doesn't remember exactly.  There was also a time when my uncle gave me and one of my cousins who is just a few months older than me IQ tests and everyone was upset that I scored much higher than my cousin.  I think the high IQ is a curse from my Grandma's side.  She was very intelligent and quite crazy.  Maybe I am destined to go crazy at this point in my life.

Here I am up late.  I have been up late most nights this week--although I am not taking sleep aids, so I am not as concerned.  I am trying to not take the medication as much as possible.  Last night I was up late watching TV and going through some of the stuff in my room.  Thursday night was a lot of rummaging as well.  I have been trying to locate my runes that I got many, many years ago--I think when I was in college.  The runes are basically fortune telling type devices.  I found all but two of the runes--Ehwaz and Inguz.  Ehwaz is the rune of movement, transit, transition, progress.  Considering that I am somewhat stopped in my life, I found this interesting.  Inguz is the rune of new beginnings, fertility, emergence from a closed chrysalis.  Again, I feel like I am closed up and I need to emerge.  I am not sure if I believe in the runes, but these two missing, make me wonder.  They do seem to represent the things I need most.

I went to the D&D Game Day for Dark Sun today.  Not many people showed up, so it wasn't as fun as it could be.  I was somewhat disappointed that there wasn't more to get me interested in Dark Sun.   The characters were 4th level, but since they were pre-generated they weren't the best builds.  It was a little better having stronger characters to play with than just 1st level.  Having played D&D Encounters, I was already exposed to the Dark Sun world of Athas.  I would kind of like to have the book, but I am not spending unnecessary money right now.  Hopefully, they will get the information into the Character Builder and the Compendium so I can look at it there.

After Game Day I went to some friends' party.  We played some Dominoes and Apples to Apples while I was there.  There was also a lot of gossip, especially about the dance club.  One of the teacher's ex-wife was there and she had some interesting things to say about stuff in the past.  I am not sure I want to know some of this stuff, but it was interesting.  Since I am not there much any more, it should not be a problem.

I am going to try to sleep so that maybe I will get up and go to church tomorrow.  I guess it depends on whether God helps me to get there.

I am up too late--I went up to my room and left my main laptop downstairs so that I would not stay up late playing games.  I got upstairs and saw the eeePC still trying to load Ubuntu Netbook onto a flash card so I did not overwrite the original OS.  Anyhow, I wanted to update the blog, but still did not want to get the  laptop.  I picked up the OLPC that was on the floor at the foot of the bed.   Unfortunately, it  had been so long since I had it plugged in that the system clock was reset and it threw all kinds of errors.  Luckily, I was still able to go out to the web to figure out how to fix it.  So here it is late and I am still up.

At D&D Encounters my character died once again.  Chapter 2 seemed a lot easier than chapter 1 or 3.  There were only four of us so it was more difficult to start  with.   Afterwards I went to a friends houseand played this game I think was called JetSet.  It had a similar mechanic to Ticket to Ride, but was different enough that the strategy was different.  I managed to win both games I played.  The first was mostly luck--the second was more strategy.

I am disappointed with myself because I have no motivation and I seemed to be afraid of everything.  I am beginning to think that I get obsessed with a task and can't move on until I do the task and there are things that I don't want to do that I get hung up on.  I worry a lot about the future even though there areso many unknowns.  I think too much and don't act.  I wanted to go somewhere to get some help with my resume and job search, but I didn't leave the house until time for Encounters to start.  I plan to do some stuff tomorrow, but I probably won't.  I need to go to the Trek store to see what they have to say about my rapid fire shifter not working.  I also needto talk to the bank about why I can't transfer money from one account to another.

I really need to get some sleep if I am going to get up tomorrow.

Because my psychologist is unavailable on Friday, I had a meeting with him today.  When I got there I told him it seems like my issues all boil down to fear.  Sometimes he brings up religious references--it is a Christian Psychology group that he is a part of.  Today we met at the satellite office which is actually in a church.  Anyhow, he brought up that "fear not" is a main theme throughout the bible.  He even thought Pope John Paul started his first speech with those words.  He thinks the fear is something from my very early development since I am not able to put it into words.  During our discussion he also wondered if my Mom doesn't have some issues with fear.  Since Dad was in the military, we moved around a lot when I was little, but I don't know the specifics from when I was very young.  I think my Dad was gone for most of the first year of my life and we moved closer to my Mom's family.  I really need to ask someone about that time, but I am not sure who.  I am afraid Mom will think I am blaming her for all my issues, and some of my sisters might not remember well.  The ones that would, I have some fear about talking to.  I feel like I am a disappointment because I am not more successful at this point.  I will talk to one of my other sisters just to see what she thinks first. 

Yesterday I spent the whole day at my friends up north.  With school beginning, there is a lot to do and I watched the kids while the two of them went to work.  I felt like I was avoiding everything by going up there.  I probably avoided more today since I stayed in bed late and then went to my appointment.  Following that I went to the public library to kill some time before playing Settlers of Catan and did some reading on chapter 3 of Dark Sun D&D Encounters.  I always enjoy the Encounters and I hope more people start showing up.  I wonder how next season will go.  I am also excited about the D&D Game Day this Saturday. 

We had six players for Catan and the game took forever.  Mike's son and his roommate showed up to play and they kind of made the game drag.  I didn't win which seems to be a prevalent theme these days, but I felt like I was in the running since I wasn't too far behind the winner in points.

As far as the fear goes I guess I need to learn the Litany Against Fear from Dune and see if it works for me.  The only part I remember is about fear being the mind-killer.  I really feel like it is killing my mind right now.

I have decided a big part of my problem is that I am not a risk taker.  I tried to be and it is debilitating.  I have always worried about everything and now it is worse because I have more to worry about.  I keep thinking I want to run from my responsibilities, but I don't know what I would do then.

Today, I went to church--I have been going on a regular basis for a while.  Anyhow today is the Vigil for the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.  I learned something new and that is that Mary was assumed into heaven body and soul-she was not entombed as there was no body.  Catholics believe in the intercession of saints and therefore pray to the saints to help in certain situations.  We also pray to Mary for intercession--there was a saying that whenever God closes a door, Mary opens a window.  Anyhow, it was a good sermon about Mary being the first to believe in Jesus and how she is the mother of the church.  Adoration of the Virgin Mary is mostly a Catholic thing--the priest said it was exclusive to Catholicism, but I am not sure if that is true.  In the past I have heard people say that Catholics worship Mary and the saints and this is not true.  We respect them and believe that the will intercede on our behalf and help us, but we don't believe they are gods.

As anybody who might read this blog knows, I am on a quest of self discovery and I am not liking what I am finding.  I want change, but I am reluctant to change.  I keep finding myself dreaming or fantasizing about things happening for me.  Each time it is a passive action on my part.  In none of my dreams am I the active person.  I dream of winning the lottery, my house being destroyed by a microburst, or even coming down with a serious disease.  All things that happen to me that allow to ignore something in my life.  Other times someone recognizes me from the club and wants me to dance with them or help teach dance class in a community or church program.  I want to volunteer and help people, but I fantasize that they will ask me to help, not that I go up and ask to help.  This is something I want to change and don't know how and use that as an excuse for not changing.  I can find an excuse for anything.

After church I made a chicken, rice and broccoli casserole and went to the social at the club.  There was next to nobody there and we did not dance at all.  I was going to try to be more outgoing and dance with more people, but alas it was not to be.  Next weekend some friends are having a pool party and I want to go and try to get in the water, but it is also when the Dark Sun campaign game day is being held.  I am hoping that maybe I can run a game.  If I get up the nerve I might send an email to the organizer to see if he will let me run the game and he can play.  I think he might go for it, but I am not sure.  Running the few Wednesday night encounters has been a lot of fun.  I would like to be an organizer for a small store, but I am too afraid to ask any store owners I know.

There is a job that I got in an email for an AS/400 COBOL programmer 6 month contract in Colorado.  I would like to send in a resume just to see what they would say.  What I am thinking--or fantasizing--is that if I could get enough money then I could get a furnished room using a site like roommates.com and get by pretty cheap so that I could afford to pay on my house here.  If the HomeVestors thing works out it would be even better.  It may just be a dream, because I can't seem to get myself to put together an appropriate resume and cover letter.  I got the email on Wednesday or Thursday and keep putting off the documentation thinking I can do it tomorrow.  I need to stop that and just do it, but that is so much easier to say than do--at least for me.  I feel like the cowardly lion looking for courage to do things I want to do.  If only it were as easy as having the wizard pin a medal on my chest.

Maybe I need to pray to Mary that I meet the wizard.

I am feeling very weak and I have this constant pain in my chest and stomach.  I called HomeVestors and they have not called me back, I sent an email to the President of the Franchisor and he hasn't not responded, and I did not go home as I had planned.

This week was rough.  A couple of years ago I had to get a new water heater.  I signed a one contract with the company, because cost of the one year contract with the discount on the water heater was less than just the water heater.  Since then they have wanted to come out an do an inspection.  They continued to call me even though the contract was up--they said they owed it to me.  Finally, I said yes.  I spent much of Monday cleaning my house to a point that I was acceptable with.  They came out on Tuesday and of course they were lots of little problems. Anyhow, my house was now pretty clean.  I thought that would make me feel better, but it didn't.

On Monday I talked to my regional guy with the Franchise and told him I was thinking of closing up shop.  He told me I had to speak to the president.  Since then all my anxiety and everything has gotten worse.  I am reading Rick Riodan's Percy Jackson novels late into the night.  While I am enjoying the story, because of the sleep aids I don't remember what I read the night before very well so I end up reading those parts again.  Anyway I have been staying up way to late.

Last night I went to the club for the weekly party which they moved to Thursday this week because there was something else going on Friday night.  It has been awhile since I have been to the club and it was nice to see some friends again.  I was nervous all night that someone may ask me how I was doing.  I tried to tell Andi, but she didn't seem interested and I didn't push the issue.  I really need someone to talk to, but I don't know who.  I had a pretty good talk with my older sister on Monday and she agreed that I needed to get out of the franchise.  It was because of her I actually sent the email message.

I talked with Dad on Sunday--I know I am jumping around from a time standpoint and if I am repeating anything I apologize.  Dad was doing good although he was tired from the surgery a couple weeks ago.  He is not young and I told him it would take some time to heal.  It sounded a little hoarse, but his spirits were up.  I don't usually talk to Dad and when I do it is mostly about the weather and other inconsequential stuff.  He actually opened up a little and told me how he had felt anxiety when he and Mom were worrying about money before they both started collecting social security and Mom was collecting retirement from her previous job.  I was glad to hear her was planning to go with Mom to Germany for a couple of weeks after my baby sister has her third child--which is supposed to be a girl.  She is very excited about that after having two boys.

My psychologist appointment is in less than two hours and I haven't even taken a shower.  I need to go.  I don't know what I am going to tell him, but I would love to be able to tell him that he needs to be pushing harder.

I talked with the people who set up my corporation and they seemed to think that if I closed the business and it has a value less than what I invested, I would not have to pay any fees or taxes on my 401k money that I can't rollover into another qualified plan.  I need to talk to my CPA, but I haven't heard back from him yet.  I also finally contacted Homevestors to talk about them buying my house.  I don't know what I am doing and I am tearing my world apart.  I hope this is a positive step and not one more closer to bad things.

I am very scared.  I had to pay some bills and the money in personal accounts is under $10,000.  Now i am panicked and don't know what to do.  I really want to just chuck everything and have no responsibility, but I don't know how to do that and I an too embarrassed to ask someone.  I really hate that so much stuff has to be over the telephone today.  I would much prefer to send an email or to talk to someone directly.  I don't know why I hate the telephone so much, but honestly I have even been having trouble sending email these days.

On Friday, my psychologist started talking about career counseling.  I really don't want career counseling from him--if he thinks I need some, I will want to see someone else.  I have a hard time believing a career counselor will really help me with my problems, but getting a job and making money would alleviate some of my stress.  I am afraid I would get into old habits and not change and wind up 60 years old wondering when I was going to start living my life and it being too late for some things.

Right now I am just procrastinating cleaning up my house for when the water guy comes early Tuesday morning.  There is a lot I need to do and I am not doing anything.  I also know I need to call the people who helped me incorporate tomorrow and also talk to the unemployment people.  I need to really make a decision about going forward with the franchise or end it.  The longer I put that off, the longer I will continue to drift and have all these anxiety feelings.  The biggest thing I need to do is call Homevestors and see what they would do with my house.  I would feel better if I could get out from under it.   I should really look at selling the timeshares as well, but for some reason I am not ready to do that.

I am trying to figure out how to get rid of Dr Who CCG cards, Young Jedi CCG cards (from Decipher), and the Middle Earth CCG cards (from ICE--Iron Crown Enterprises).  I really need to put them out on ebay, but again I am reluctant.  My reluctance is basically what people call laziness, but that is not the right term. 

I want to do these things, but emotionally I avoid them.  I am not sure why, other than it always seems to come down to not knowing how, fear of not doing it well, and not wanting people to help because I feel like I should know everything.  In a way, I feel like I have to be better than everyone else and if it will not look like that I just put on an air of arrogance and shrug it off as if it is beneath me.  That seems to be my defense mechanic.  It doesn't work in intimate relationships, which is why I really haven't had any.  I even treat my family this way, and I hate to do it, but I am blaming them for making me this way.  I have to believe it came from somewhere.  What I wonder is how come I am this way and nobody else is.  I have a plethora of brothers and sisters and I only have one sister who has never been married and never had children.

I really need to go clean and worry about my issues later.  Or probably while I am trying to clean and not doing it.

My up north friends asked me to watch their kids this morning while Becky goes to a staff meeting.  I get there and the boys have already gotten all electronic devices taken away.  Within a few minutes there is a ruckus downstairs and the next thing I know they are writing sentences as punishment.  What fun is it for me if the kids are in trouble and can't do things.  The girls are playing in their bedroom.  They are playing nicely together, but the voices they are using for their different pet shop pals are obnoxious.  I can kind of see why my friends are kind of annoyed with their kids.  I am not sure I could put up with this on a constant basis.  Hopefully, the boys will be done soon and we can play a game or something.  I was going to have them play outside, but it might already be too hot.  I really hate the heat.

I am feeling very anxious, because I know I should be working--even though I haven't worked in weeks.  When I am at home doing nothing I don't feel as bad as when I am somewhere else.

I don't think I have posted about all the fun I had getting my anti-depressant filled.  To make a long story short, the medication I had a prescription for was hard to find--I had to check at several different CVS stores--and then cost a lot of money.  The pharmacy faxed a request for a generic and then was supposed to ask them to fax the response to the CVS close to my house.  Instead it was faxed to a different CVS from all the ones I visited and the only was I found it was to sign up on-line.  I was without for 4 days.  I really didn't feel that bad while I was off the medication--I think I might have actually been better.

Yesterday, I took my Magic the Gathering cards to the game shop where I play D&D Encounters and sold my cards for $142.  I probably could have gotten more selling them myself on ebay or something, but I didn't want to go through the trouble.  That seems to be my big problem is that I don't want to go through the trouble.  I need to figure out what to do with the Young Jedi, Middle Earth CCG, and Dr Who CCG cards.

I had a lot of fun at D&D Encounters last night.  I ran the game and at first thought the players were going to trample the monsters.  In the end, I managed to get a few hits in, but my dice rolls were really bad or it would have been a lot worse.  I did not have the creatures burrow because I wasn't sure how that worked with cut stone, but evidently they can move at half speed through stone.  The players won and survived yet another encounter--chapter 2 doesn't seem to be as difficult as chapter 1 was.  We will see what happens in Chapter 3.

I can't believe I haven't posted in a while.  I have actually been doing OK, but I am an extreme state of denial.  I have not done any work, and I have this fantasy about selling everything and working a blue collar job.  I don't know if I will follow through or not. 

I did finally recycle a bunch of magazines that I have been holding on to for years.  I also took a bunch of books to Half-Priced Books and sold them for next to nothing--but at least they are out of my house.  Most of them were from when I was part of the Rodale Press book club.  According to the lady at the counter, it was my old D&D books that actually got me the most money.  I was expecting my signed copy of Peter Taylor's The Old Forest and Other Stories to get me something and it really didn't.

I also tried selling my Atari 2600 to Vintage Stock and they wouldn't take it.  I think I am going to try Craigslist or ebay.  On Wednesday I tried to sell some rare and foil Magic The Gathering cards and Josh was only interested in one card.  He said that he would buy my other cards in bulk, so I need to take them in on Wednesday when I go to play D&D Encounters.

I saw on Facebook that the Triceratops has been identified as the younger form of another dinosaur.  The article had something in the title about the triceratops no longer existing.  Well, where ever the fossils came from must have existed.  The real point is that the Triceratops is the same dinosaur as another species.  After a but more reading, the name Triceratops will most likely be the name that goes forward, so technically the other dinosaur is going away--but since no one knows the other dinosaur it makes for a better headline to say the triceratops never existed.  It worked.  A lot of people still commented on how the dinosaur should still be called a triceratops even though the article said it would probably be called a triceratops.