Cities

So tonight was the night I almost didn’t post. Not that anyone other than me would be disappointed in that fact. Hell I’m not sure if anyone is reading this. Blogging like this seems to be, at least to me, like casting a message in bottle out in to the ocean. Except that I there is a chance that I might get a response. It’s an interesting paradox. Throwing something off into the Void with the expectation that one might get a response. It seems to be a fundamentally human urge. We did send Voyager out into the unknown, not expecting contact, but hoping for it. Odd. Anywhose on one hand I’m not sure if anyone is reading this, but just in case I don‘t want to offend. Strange, it is at once very liberating, supposedly being able to state your opinions through the veil of time and anonymity, and at the same time censoring oneself, just in case. Odd in deed.

Not much happened today. Work and hanging out with a friend and chance encounter with another whilst buying beer. I think that’s what I love about this city. The fact that if I am in the People’s Republic there is a good chance of running into someone I know, and, that if I wander out to other neighborhoods I am just another anonymous person. Its like have a small town and city at once. So that when you tire of one you can go visit the other.

I have to say that I like the fact that I run into friends and acquaintances on the street. I spent most of my 20s as nomad, and if I ran into someone that I knew, it probably meant that I worked with them. And that they were just as much of a foreigner or outsider as I was. It’s been a long time since I have truly gotten the opportunity to get to know an organic neighborhood. A place that has developed and changed over time and really wasn’t planned.

I never liked living out in the suburbs; it always felt so artificial, fake and unnatural. Everything was chains and anything that wasn’t was in the process of being forced out. It always felt like a very transient place to me. A place without roots. Or maybe that was because, living in the suburbs also coincided with the time that I lost my physical link to my roots.

Even so, in this city that is almost a thousand miles from my childhood, I feel that are roots, even if most us who live here are transplants. It’s also the first place that I have lived permanently since leaving my parents home. Maybe that is the reason for my attachment. After all it is very odd for me to be attached to this city.

Had I told myself even 4 years ago that I would live in Atlanta and love it; I would have laughed at myself. I mean I’m terribly far away from home and any long established support network. There are no mountains. No easily accessible woods. It’s really fucking hot in the summer, and no snow. But there are amazing people who have surprisingly become a support network in a very short amount of time. Wonderful neighborhoods for me to explore. Awesome music that reminds me why I enjoy going out to see bands. Interesting architecture that changes styles every couple of streets. Several really good bookstores. Secret hidden parks that you can walk past a thousand times before you notice them, tucked into a hill below the road. Places where in the midst of the city all the noise seems to recede. The scuzziness and the danger. The way the city forces me to pay attention. The odd community that seems to have surrounded me while still leaving me with ability to have my space.

It’s a city of paradoxes. After all I live in a city lacking a central identity where each neighborhood seems to have a very defined one. However those defined identities are very fluid and change with years. It’s a city that more so than anywhere else reminds me of an organism. Like a coral reef. Made up of many unique individual parts that don’t seem to follow a unified pattern, but that create a wonderful chaotic whole.

Maybe I’m just attracted to cities. I’m always curious why they sprout up where they do and why some endure while others fade. What makes people love them and hate them? Why does one place speak to some people while at the same moment drive others away. How they are able to be places of tight knit communities and at the same time harbor soul aching loneness. Maybe I just like paradoxes.
Till Tomorrow- C

PS The cricket in my kitchen wall seems to have vacated my apartment. Either that or its really been digging the music I’ve been playing.

Attack of the Nerd Girl

So it’s an odd Tuesday for me. No dice are rolling, no beer is being consumed, and no hill giants are being turned into squirrels. No Tuesday D&D ( Dungeons and Dragons). Its odd how this event has become a staple of my week and how I rather miss it. However since I spent the day feeling like 18 kinds of garbage it’s probably a good thing.

Work was another day of slinging coffee and dealing with the craziness of working at a small business. Nothing terribly exciting save the fact that my back hurt so bad that I had to sit for a bit. And tomorrow will be more of the same. I should go put the aspirin in bag now.

Okay aspirin is in the bag. I guess I need to find a topic for this entry lest it become an exercise in rambling. Topic, topic, topic…. Topppppppic……. Topic.. To-pic……… I guess I’ll write about gaming. It works well enough.

So I’ve been a RPGer for ages, since I was 14 actually. Now I don’t do computer games or larp-ing and I don’t play to many board games either. I just really enjoy getting together with a group of friends and rolling dice while becoming someone else. I just enjoy getting to deal with parts of my psyche that otherwise get repressed and tend to cause trouble. Yes I am a nerd, a total geek, seriously go take a wander through my movie collection, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, the first two X-Men ( the third was awful), all of the official Sean Connery, James Bond movies ( I totally blame my high school boyfriend for this), season 2 of Battle star Galactica ( the new series not that campy 70s crap), Highlander ( there can be only one), Labyrinth, season one of the Muppet Show, ( I freaking adore Jim Henson), Serenity, Young Frankenstein, Space balls ( I love you Mel Brooks) and of course the original 3 Star Wars movies (before George Lucas decided he needed to basically shit all over the Sistine Chapel of Sci-Fi). Yup nerd, plus I have comic books, too.

I’m actually pretty excited about a new character I’m going to start playing in a new game. It’s my first time playing an RPG outside of D&D in ages and my group is playing Rokugan which is a setting in feudal Japan. I’m really exciting because for the first time in forever, literally since I started playing, I am not playing a thief, or a bard ( which I view as a thief that can use magic, hey in 2nd edition I still had backstab). No I am playing a straight up shit wrecking fighter, or in this case samurai, and in this system there is one family in one clan that has female samurai and I’m part of it. My character’s external motto is, “If I can’t kill it, I’m probably not going to be much use.” No negating or using tactics for this one. But what has me really interested is the fact that I’m using her as a way to explore non-traditional women and how they cope with there femininity. I want her to try and establish an alternate to traditional femininity without completely aping traditional masculine behaviors. It’s going to be a constant struggle for her since she is treated essentially like any other samurai by the society but I feel that there should be this conflict within her. Oh yeah and she’s going to be very attractive which is very odd for women in this family so that is something she’ll constantly have to be dealing with.

So is this escapism on my part? Hell yes it is. But in escaping Chris and all the preconceived notions people have of me and that I have of myself, I get to learn a lot about who I am. Especially when I know what I would do in a certain situation is totally at odds with my character. Since I’ve been playing for awhile I know how to fight the urge to make the character do what I would. But it’s still hard, very hard, almost disturbing sometimes, but then again it’s a great way to learn about who you are and what you honestly believe in. Plus it’s a good excuse to sit around and bullshit with friends afterward.

Still it’s nice to have a week off from it. So to help with the slight nerd withdrawal I’m off to go watch some Doctor Who and drink a metric ton of OJ in hopes of feeling better tomorrow.
Till Tomorrow-C

PS The Cricket in my wall appears to like early Radiohead and Iron and Wine. While it’s an annoying little bastard at least it has good music taste.