How many licks does it take?

I've tried to write this blog post half a dozen times, and yet somehow I've failed to finish a single one. So hopefully this time I will manage to finish a full thought, at least.

First: I'm writing this from my shiny new iPad! I love this thing. I barely have any apps on it yet - I've downloaded some, but for the most part, I don't really like them. The Facebook and Twitter apps suck; I can't find a blogspot app that doesn't suck. I don't like the Google chat app i found, either. I was hoping I could run the D&D character creator, but it runs on Silverlight, so that has been mostly futile. I did put Netflix on it, which has been absolutely ridiculously amazing. Other than that, I've mostly just been checking email and writing on it. The keyboard doesn't bother me at all - actually enjoy typing with it, though I'm obviously not as efficient as I am on a regular keyboard. For the most part, though, I really like it. It works for what I need it to do, and as I slowly get more acclimated to it, I like it more and more.

What else...there's just so much going on, I don't even know where to start. I guess I can start with real life. I had dinner with Michelle Pagnani a few weeks ago, and it was so fun! I hadn't seen her in years, but we had kept in touch, especially recently. We talked about everything, and mostly just realized how alike we are in so many ways. We want to plan a little happy hour with a bunch of the former English majors, which I would really love, if we could all find the time.

We saw Electric Six that same week. It was one of the most fun concerts I've ever been to! Anthony got me into them when we started dating, and I've been hooked ever since. We saw them at Johnny Brenda's with a bunch of people - Bailey, George, Kristin, Bill, BJ, and Aaron were all there. I spent most of the night drinking and dancing with Anthony. It was so...I don't even know. Liberating? It felt so good to dance and laugh and sing with Anthony, who is just so free and fun to be with. My words are failing me right now...which has been happening a lot lately.

Anyway, what else? Skeeball is a blast! We finished the regular season last night and remained undefeated! I rolled a 290 in our first game, and in the second game, during the mystery round, I scored a 190...rolling blindfolded with my left hand. It was a great moment. Finals are in two weeks. Registration has already opened for the next skeeson, and so far I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I could stick with my team, because we have a really great rapport, or I could make my own team with my friends, because so many people have expressed an interest in it. So I have to make a decision about it tonight.

I got my hair cut again, too, the day of the Geekadelphia Halloween party. It is shorter than my original cut, which grew way too fast into my eyes. Even now, three weeks later, my hair has grown so crazy quickly! I can't believe it. The party itself was ok - Ant and I were the two main characters from Breaking Bad, Walt and Jesse. Everyone loved our costumes. But I was feeling super fragile - I've been having some self-images issues recently, and dressing as a boy for Halloween drew out all kinds of anxiety. I ended up freaking out and Ant and I had a big fight that went on for most of the weekend. I did a lot of introspecting that weekend, but not before reigning destruction down around me. I know that I can't keep living my life like a bull in a china shop. I know I can't keep wrecking the feelings of the people around me. The people who stay are true friends who love me dearly and will stick with me no matter what, but knowing that doesn't always bring me comfort, because I cringe to think about the pain I've caused them.

In short: I'm lucky to have Ant, and Bailey, and Schneegas, and George. They've brought me through the awful haze that has been the last few weeks, and for that I am grateful. I'm lucky to have a lot of other people, too - Michelle and Veronica, and Chris and Ryan, and John and Holly, and Rachel and Vanessa, and Ian and Brian and Brett. There are too many people to name them all. I'm just a really lucky person who can't be grateful enough.

And I think I've reached my sap quota. I had taken off the week after the party, to work on my novel, which I didn't do. I did go the dentist, therapist, and Gastoenterolgoist; I did play and beat Uncharted 3; I did play a lot of Blood Bowl in our league at Redcap's; I did read a lot of 1Q84, the new Murakami book; I jdid play Skeeball; I did play three games of D&D. I had no cavities and my stomach doctor thinks things are getting better. My therapy appointment was a little mixed....my therapist left the practice, and plans on retiring soon. So that was our last appointment together. I actually ended up crying at the end because I was so sad. She is the first person I've ever really completely opened up to - I told her things I've never said out loud before. I had never given details on any of the sexual abuse I've gone through, not until three months ago when I told her. I felt sad that she was leaving; I felt anxious thinking about starting all over again with a new therapist. She was sad, too - there were tears in both of our eyes when we said goodbye. She set me up with another therapist in the practice, though, and I've seen her twice so far. I like her, and I think that the slow pace we're taking is exactly what I need right now. Everything has been so intense lately, and dialing it down feels good.

Last week was similar to the week before it - I played two more Blood Bowl games at the shop, and played D&D encounters...our last encounter, followed by dim sum at New Harmony. It was lame going back to work, and I also skipped Skeeball to pack for MEPACon, which was the 11th to the 13th. MEPACon is a D&D convention held in Clark's Summit, PA. I was nervous about it,but it ended up being an absolute BLAST! I played 7 mods total, and leveled 2 of my characters - Genza, my ranger, went from 8th to 9th, and Emberyll, my bladesinger, went from 14th to 16th. I did have a minor freak out on the second night, but I talked it through with Anthony, and we got through it.

This past week has been a complete blur. Monday after work I had an appointment with my psychiatrist, then I had a conference call about GameLoop Philly, and then I basically just passed the hell out. I was exhausted. Tuesday I had work, then went to Redcap's for Blood Bowl and hung out with everyone all night. We went back to my place afterwards, which was really nice. Wednesday was work, then the character creation meeting for our new encounter, and then Ant and I went to his friend Gil's place for a board game night. We watched them finish up a game of Dixit, and then played Pandemic with the expansion, which made things even more complicated than usual! Yesterday I didn't have work because I had two doctor's appointments, so I went home in the morning, did some cleaning and food shopping, went to my appointments, did some laundry, then went to Skeeball, where we proceeded to win our final two games. After that, I took the bus to Ant's and he made us some dinner and we decided to try out Pandemic with just two players. It was really fun, and both times we came close to winning...but of course, we lost. I mean, come on. It's Pandemic!!

Work was boring today, and now I'm just chilling at Redcap's, watching Ant play Roland in Blood Bowl while writing this. I was supposed to have a game tonight, too, but Sam cancelled on me. On, and I'm also reading the Uncharted book, which is surprisingly not that bad. I need to review that and the game and a bunch of other stuff. Hopefully my writer's block will get thawed out a little by this giant blog post I'm writing right now :)

There is so much more I want to write about - my therapy appointment yesterday, which was the anniversary of Eric's death, as well. How my anxiety has been. How today is the first day I've felt normal in weeks. The crazy dreams I've been having. What's been going on with my novel. My thoughts on self-image, being invisible, and androgyny. The book of poetry I am putting together. The socks I want to buy. The music I've been listening to. The anime I've been watching. The handmade jewelry I just had commissioned. But I think this is enough writing for now.

Philadelphia Film Festival

This weekend, Anthony and I went to see two Philadelphia Film Festival movies with our friend Phineas. On Saturday, we saw a super weird trippy sci fi movie called Beyond the Black Rainbow, which was sort of scattered and strange but worth seeing. Last night's movie was amazing - it was a thriller called Headhunters and, much to my surprise, had Jaime Lannister in it! He was fantastic as the super sinister bad guy, which is unsurprising. There are a handful of other movies I want to see, including one on Thursday and one on Monday, but I'm not sure if we'll make it to all of them.

In other news, I joined a skeeball league! I am a freelancer (or freeballer, if you will) and I ended up on a team full of awesome people called the Alex Mac Daddies. We had two games on Thursday and we won both! My highest roll was a 250, hot damn. It's exciting and fun!

I also finished "Breaking Bad" - did I mention that? And Anthony and I have one more episode of "The IT Crowd," and not much left in "Better Off Ted." We've been playing a ton of Blood Bowl as well - the board game, as well as the PSP and computer games. I also finished the second Dresden Files book, Fool Moon, and I'm trying to decide which book to read next, though I've been carrying around the rulebook for Gamma World in the hopes that we start that campaign soon. I'm excited!

Speaking of excitement, I'm also going to my first ever Dungeons and Dragons convention! I've never done that before. I hope I don't get super burnt out! I'll probably end up using my high level Bladesinger all weekend, but that's ok - I really want to get her levelled up so I can start playing the higher mods anyway, and I'd love to see what she's capable of in the higher levels. She's pretty bad ass right now as it is!

What else has been going on... I did some cleaning and laundry yesterday, though I could really do some more. My two Halloween costumes are almost finished - well, one is completely done, but I still need one small piece for the other! We ended up having to get two because we had one all planned out and started buying stuff for it and then found out our other party was mustache-themed, so now we have two, which has actually been pretty fun to put together :). I'll take plenty of pictures, don't worry :) I'm still slogging through Resistance 3 and I finished up Ico and need to start Shadow of the Colossus. Mostly I'm just chomping at the bit for Uncharted 3!! I've also been taking lots of pictures lately, which has been really fun, and doing as much writing as I can. This week is packed with stuff as well...

• tonight: dinner with Michelle Pagnani


• tomorrow night: new Murakami comes out! plan to read all night :)


• Wednesday night: dinner, D&D Encounters, Electric Six concert!


• Thursday night: either Skeeball or PFF movie


• Friday night: Indyhall/Geekadelphia Mustache party at Tattooed Mom's


• Saturday: D&D all day, Halloween party at Brian's at night


• Sunday: NOTHING all day so far, but PFF movie at night

I don't think I'll be sleeping much...

Oh, and also, I'm on a new medication - it's called Buspar. My anxiety has been flaring up pretty badly, so my psychiatrist added that to what I'm already taking. He forgot to mention I shouldn't drink on it, so Friday night at boardgame night at Kristen's I went from slightly wine tipsy to annihilated in three glasses. I will be sure to 1) eat dinner, 2) not drink so fast, and 3) not take Buspar with wine. Not a good idea.

Ok, off to dinner! Be sure to check out some of these amazing videos by my Skeeball teammate, Kristin:

Dirty Signs with Kristin

They are ridiculously awesome.

Nik out!

breaking bad

there's nothing like being sick and watching an entire show from start to finish. i've watched seasons 1 and 2 of "breaking bad" since friday, and today, i started season 3. i could just lay around sick all day and watch the entire season, but i'm so tempted to do so many other things. i also finished up the yiddish policeman's union (which i absolutely loved) for the book club that doesn't suck and now i'm back to storm front, the first book in the dresden files series. i am really enjoying it so far, and i would love to get into the dresden game some of the guys are running. there are video games i want to play, too, and really want to go over the gamma world rule books anthony lent me because we want to start a game of that as well, and i'd like to do some cleaning, but i've just really got so little energy right now from being sick and a lack of sleep and the rough therapy session i had this morning, which has me out of sorts and anxious. so i think i'll just spend the rest of the afternoon with walt, walter jr, jesse, and the rest of the gang. if i'm feeling better later, i might work on some of the stuff i mentioned... that or i'll head to redcap's and play some blood bowl with gil. but right now i've got a fever and a rapid heart rate and a cranky disposition, so we'll have to see. :P

so... many... things... i also want to write, but my laptop is so hot on my lap, and my brain is all fuzzy from this headache, and wahhhhhhhhh.

i also want to write about therapy, and the book she has me reading now, and my dietary changes, but that'll have to be later, when i'm hopefully far less whiny and anxious. <3

forgot to mention...

I had a pretty rough anxiety attack last night. The research I've done, plus what I've discussed in therapy, added to my reflections on what has sparked these attacks before, have lead me to believe that I understand what caused it. Mike is down the shore - has been since Tuesday. I'm joining him tonight or tomorrow. But in the meantime, I have (previously inexplicable) anxiety, which I now think is because I hold my idea of safety closely tied to the person I'm dating. It also explains some of why my relationships move so fast.

This is all just speculation, but it feels like I'm unravelling a complex knot.

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