Feb 3

 Well.

As it turned out I didn't make it through my birthday in radio silence after all. It leaked. And then my brother mischieviously added fuel to the fire. In a bizarre fate kind of thing, my brother has the same birthday as me. Just. 13 years apart. We had already said happy birthday to each other. He mischieviously then said it in public. As well. Uh huh. Ha ha.

Anywho, ended up as a nice birthday. Genuinely. Nice. Which. Yeah. Is unusual. Got a couple of new houseplants gifted to me. A bag of cough sweets. Ho ho ho. Some chocolate. And yeah. Very cool ! I spent the day chilling - was going to work - ended up not doing so. Fed myself too much food. And just enjoyed chatting with people and stuff. Was good. I think. Probably best birthday ever to be honest. As humble a standard as that is.

Moving on.

I've repeated the work conversation and current state with a bunch of people - those that are interested and ask. The response is the same. Everyone remarks how *happy* I seem. Ha ha. Hmmm.

My radio silent, lets drop the game idea friend also had a chat with me, and I caught him up with the drama. He seems fine. On the surface. Unless I am much mistaken however, there is a deeper current running there. He had a few .. interesting comments about his dad. Who. Is still not talking to him. And again. Whilst. On the surface, its cool, and just talking. It's not. There are the subtle signs there. The pauses. The tone. The timing of comments. A frustrated huff of breath. If your body language radar is finely attuned - you can tell. His spat with his dad is just, the shit icing on the shit cake. Despite to all intents and purposes his life being all you could reasonably want. Money, house, family, yada. And yet. Some of the more important things. And relationships. And touchy feeling elements. Are a wasteland. And he struggles, doesn't even begin to get to the foothills of struggle, with dealing with his emotions from it. Buried. In an avalanche of nonchalance and I am ok.

Yeah. That shit is never coming to the surface properly. Locked deep within a repressed mental landscape. It is what it is. Another friend who also knows him described him as "70's dad". It would seem my friends mindset is one of.. almost the generation prior to us. Boomer. More boomer. Less gen X. In some aspects ( as an interesting aside he always had even as a teen, and still has, a somewhat... old school... approach, experience and opinion of sex related things, very much in line with a vanilla boomer mentality. Sexually liberated he aint. But I never connected the dots to that being the tip of the iceberg and other shit also being that... old school ( as a secondary aside, I am a very liberated very non vanilla sexual type person - particularly when I compare myself to my friend - so it makes it all the more jarring when it very rarely comes up between us. I have to play... the pretend victorian. Somewhat. Ho ho ho. She showed you her ankles ? Shocking sir. Shocking ! And then did what over you ?? Disgusting ! Ha ha. Sigh. ))

When I chatted to him I explicitly skirted getting into it with him about his recent decision making vis a vis the game company. "And then there's you, and I am not going into it, and so the plan changed..." and so on. 

There was one. Ironic bit. He noted that his dads behaviour was one of, fucking things up and upsetting people, and then at some point, just continuing on like nothing had happened, and no upset had been caused. Exactly like he didn't take responsibility for what he did.

Silently in my head I traced the exact parallel behaviour in my friend. Just copying that same behavioural pattern. More muted. Less angry outbursts. But still. The same pattern. Problem. What problem. "Nothing I can do should ever upset anyone."

Once again the whole - your parents truly fuck you up thing - swerves into the limelight. My friends behaviour is a product of his upbringing. And he ironically draws attention to it. And then singularly fails to see them same in himself.

Heh.

Sigh.

It crossed my mind to bring it all up with him. And do the whole. I am angry with you. Not shouty angry. But. You betrayed a trust dealio. You have not acted well. You have fucked my life around. But. In the end, didn't go there.

Fascinating, really - his behaviour. The patterns. The roots of it. Just lately. I am seeing it everywhere. I'm always an analytical arse and I do sometimes stop myself from peering or poking too deeply into people. But. Eh. Just lately. It's like the bit in the Matrix with all the code running down the walls. You can see the patterns of peoples lives, digging or not. Why they are where they are. How they are. How one thing leads to another. The ticking of the mechanism. I. Dunno. Just age, wisdom, experience probably. If you do shit for long enough, you get good at it. Analysis is my bag. The human condition has been my continual hardcore research project for the last 30 years. Put it like that. Eh. You might know a thing or two. And. As I perhaps feel better. The lights start to come on, the brain starts to kick in, and the needles on the analysis monster flicker into life.

Or. Again. Maybe I am just delusional and full of shit.

Always a possibility. Never doubt it.

In any case. I am getting better at not interfering. Even though you can see the patterns. And some solutions. And some causes. Shut your mouth. Listen. Empathise. Shut your mouth. If people explicitly ask for help. Then go forth. Carefully. With sensitivity. Otherwise. Shut up.

It's still something I have to wrestle with a lot and fail with. This is not yet - and perhaps never will be - a reflex easy ability for me. Shutting up. Ha ha. There is also a thorny question of people not being able to ask for help. Then what. You stare at each other across a void of suffering and nothing gets done ?

Seems shit.

Meh. Always. Nuance. So tricky. In so many things in life, the extremes are almost never the answer. Even though people gravitate to the simple answers. The real answers are often tricky, and messy, and require sensitivity and context and timing and yada blah. Todays answer may not be right for tomorrow. Or a different person. Or situation. And. Difficult - in other words. No one likes difficult. Easier just to demonise and then burn the heretics. So simple. I think thats some of the problem of the modern outrage age we live in. The skill of nuance and context is lost. We live in an age of all or nothing. Best ally or hated enemy. All good. Or all bad. Life. People. Are just not like that.

Eh well.

Positives.

Ooh. Ah. Well. I'm just generally feeling very positive. At least for this brief moment in time I am radiating light. I know. What the fuck is up with that. Feeling good. My health is. Meh. Mehhhh. But. It's copable. And my good mood is making it easier to deal with. So. Yeah.

I have bought a few bits and pieces online for MORE SCRATCH BUILDING. And I am toying with the idea of hitting up some charity shops for an adventure of scouring for tat to incorporate in scratch built models. I sometimes feel like buying actual bits to scratch build with is.. not exactly cheating.. but eh... building with actual tat and things you would throw away is the highest form of the art in my opinion - assuming you can keep the quality of the final product. No gluing random crap together. It must work aesthetically darling.

But yeah. So. Thats cool. Although I suspect my great nephew has already grown bored of the idea of table top gaming. And as a knock on, my nephew no longer really wants scratch built terrain - or how to learn to make it. But eh. For the moment. I am gonna make stuff. I am mulling over options about how to either give it away to others who want it, or selling it at cost price - just the price of the bits. The bottom line is. I don't want to keep what I make. Ha ha. Lovely bits of art. But I don't want the clutter.

Also. I am itching to get back to making some game related art. I have been background thinking about hex based game design ideas. I have many many ideas. The trick is to pull it together into something that is super cool to play. Given my extensive background of playing almost every other boardgame ever made, and grokking them at a mechanics level, this is not a task thats beyond me. But. I find myself spiralling into the perfectionist trap of something never being good enough, and wanting the design to be the best thing ever. Just. Do it. Stop trying to be perfect. Yeah. But. No. What if. It was perfect ?!! Sigh. Ha ha. Regardless. I am enjoying the mental process. But yeah. Art. I want to fancy up the iconography. Err. Wait. I. Never shared that to the blog did I.

Ha. Oh.

So yeah. I made some iconography, thinger, thing. It's alpha. Colours are not representative. Hell this isn't even the final form of the shape. But yeah. It was a start. Made when I was really struggling. But still achieved shit. It's overly busy. But that's my aesthetic here. Busy. Don't like it ? Not corporate enough ? Who has two thumbs and doesn't care. This guy.

Once again a nod to Tim Stamper art. One of the Stamper brothers that formed Rare - the game studio. Who originally made a bunch of games way back in the day in the early 80s under their then company name of Ultimate Play the Game. And its the art from that era, that company, that person, that has stuck with me. I find it. Lovely.

Aight. Peace out. Be happy lovely people.