This last week, I was in Bend OR. It was kinda totally awesome.
So, a few months back, my very good friend Todd told me the girl he'd been seeing for a year or so had agreed to marry his sorry ass. He asked me to be his best man. Since I had never done that sort of thing before and I hate crowds to the point of xenophobia and I get bad stage fright, of course I said "SURE!"
So, last Friday he picked me up and we drove to Bend OR, where I got to stay at his kick ass pad and eat his kick ass food and meet his kick ass friends. It was... well, "great" is too small a word to describe how great it was. My reputation preceeded me and all of Todd's friends were really eager to meet me. Never a good sign. But, surprisingly, they liked me all the same! They were all very excited that I was coming because that meant some role-playing games to follow. I hadn't actually planned anything for D&D or anything, but I drudged the idea bank for scraps of copper that I tried to polish into pure gold and I ended up running two separate role-playing games while I was there. One was with Todd and his friend Marc - who quickly became my friend as well - and one with a much larger group: Marc, Todd, Joel, Lyryn, and Joel & Lyryn's 10 year old kid, Ally. At first, I was a little hesitant to let a 10 year old girl play, especially with a group of foul-mouthed hyper-egos like Marc, Todd, and myself. I am pleased to report that Ally put all of us to shame with her roleplaying skills. I mean, everything that the party casually missed that I planned on using against them later for forgetting, she picked up on and ran with. There were at least 4 times where the party had completely overlooked the obvious and Ally was right there to pick up the slack. It was a great example of how experienced game-players easily think within their own box (which makes them more experienced) while younger gamers have no boundaries (which makes them unpredictable and brilliantly inspired). Kids think waaaaay outside the box... and that was truly refreshing.
But, I did the math at one point during this marathon gaming run and realized that, within the span of 52 hours, I had been talking and gaming for at least 30 of them. Late nights of gaming until 4 am coupled with heavy on-the-fly storytelling threatened to run me down real quick like. At the end of it, I was sucking down Ricola and tea and popping Vitamin C pills like Tic-Tacs. On the plus side, apparently I'm a really good Game Master. It was shocking for me to realize that I hadn't run a group since I was about 16 or so. And everyone was really kind and forgiving of my rules mistakes when it came to the 3.5 D&D game I ran. They all kept talking about how it may have been the best game they've ever been a part of and how awesome it was... so that was nice.
I got to spend some good time with Todd and his new wife Amber prior to the wedding as well. They are stupid for each other. It's kinda great. She makes him a better person and that's saying something. For someone to make someone else who is already pretty fricking awesomesauce into someone even better, well... she's kinda amazing to say the least. And damn, she looked hot in that dress. Good for you, Todd. Here's wishing the best for you both. Oh yeah... I guess people really enjoyed my speech as well. Here's to knowing how to write a good speech. Hooray!
So, I've been riding the wave of happy-but-exhausted for a few days now. I have some homework to do but I'm drag assing on it right now (hence the blog instead of the mad dash to study study study). I just really enjoy feeling content right now. I have some plans to work on in the future concerning my future, but that's another blog to come, I suppose. For now, I'm gonna watch some stupid ass movie instead of the "classic" film I'm supposed to watch for class and probably eat some lunch and try and hold onto this happy for a little while. Yeah.
-d@n
