I knew Friday that this was going to be one of those weekends. One where I'd be hurrying around and feeling like I wasn't getting much done. I had work, a gaming convention, a ritual, a gaming org meeting, a work meeting and an out-of-town inventory scheduled across Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So I knew things would be hectic.
I got to work Friday morning and it was raining. In my warehouse. Again.
Then I found out that the meeting that was supposed to mark the end of my day at work would be an hour later, estimated to end at 5pm. MavenCon was scheduled to start at 6pm and the game I was playing in at 7pm. This of course meant that my meeting would run long. And it did.
So I scarfed down some food, hurried to MC, and found that the GM for my event was running late. He might not be there until 10pm. I hung out a bit, talked to a couple of guys that grew up in the same general area (greater Chicagoland) as me, got into a game of Munchkin. Then the GM arrived.
One thing that a lot of people like about the Mavens is that they are a very family-friendly group. That doesn't mean 10 year-olds should be playing in an event with adults. It gets even worse when some of the adults are as bad as the kid. I left at midnight, unsatisfied, because in addition to enduring the kid's constant antics, I knew the scenario would get nowhere close to finished as the players were killing each other off faster than the monsters.
The next mornig I woke up early to finalize liturgy. I had been agonizing over how I wanted to rewrite a portion of our liturgical framework. I had lots of vague notions and research didn't really bring anything to the surface. Finally, I accepted that what I was going to use was going to have to come from my own mind and worked out things to my satisfaction. Now all I had to do was eat lunch, go grocery shopping, and get some materials for ritual in time to be at the Maven meeting at 1pm.
Why is it that things are in abundance until I look for them?
I get to the meeting, still needing the materials for ritual. I mentally map out my route home to avail me the best chance of finding what I need, get me home in time to pack things up, have dinner and get to ritual. When the meeting adjourned, I decided not to stick around MavenCon, giving myself as much time as possible. I actually get almost an hour extra to chill out, which I end up spending organizing thoughts regarding my work meeting Sunday am. I down my dinner and head to ritual.
As we wait for everyone to gather, I go through the liturgy changes in my head, wondering if I should use a script. When I go scriptless, I usually don't flub my lines, and even if I do I can improvise around it. But I think the hecticness of the weekend was weighing on me. I don't mess up the new lines, I mess up the ones I didn't change and my brain locks up. I have to restart, and it happens again. My brain locks. I realize I haven't even changed into my ritual garb.
Even during the part of the ritual where I do use the script, I get Ozlexic and mangle a couple of lines. Not screeching to a stop mangle, but bad enough that I notice and probably throw other people off. After short post-ritual socializing I go home, probably the earliest I've been home from ritual. Exhausted, I go to bed, knowing I have to be up at 6am this morning to go to a work meeting.
Now the meeting is over, and in a couple of hours I go to Ft. Wayne (about 2 hour drive) for an inventory that could go late into the night. Then I get to drive home.
Labels: inside Oz's skull
Read the rest!
