the voices dying with a dying fall

Song of the Hour: I Hear the Bells by Mike Doughty, assorted Okkervil River.

Due
to a recently reborn spades addiction, I have been unavailable for
comment. If you would like to wave at me, I can generally be found at
pogo.com nilling some poor unsuspecting Canadian retiree to death. I
have a problem. It’s not gambling, but you do win lottery prizes and of
course there’s your all important ranking system. Who needs to research
grad schools or study for the GRE? There hands to be played, dammit, and if i don’t play them, who will?

It’s
nostalgic, really. Spades, and Suzie’s porch are forever linked. Gin
and Kool-aid (what was wrong with us?), and the meth lab next door
(what was wrong with everybody?). I’ve
spent more time chatting with online spades partners than I have the
people around me. I can only hope I grow bored with it soon.

I
bowled a 125 today. Which isn’t stellar by any means, but it’s my best
since class started. I’ve found bowling to be as much a lesson in
anatomy as in physics. By pulling different muscles everyday, I get to
learn about muscle groupings and the length and breadth of each. This
is high quality, hands on education that I couldn’t have come by at an
earlier age. Thirty is still young, but bowling didn’t feel like this
at twenty, that’s for damn sure.

Wow. I seriously have nothing
exciting to report. It’s all spades and bowling alleys and Joss. And
Star Trek TNG. We’re on season 3 now, and I feel this bizarre mingling
of guilt and pleasure as Joss gets more and more interested in it. I
subjected him to Harry Potter, LOTR, Star Wars, X-Men and now Star Trek
with equal dedication. It’s as though I’m going out of my way to shape
a bona fide geek, such as I am. I even got him to watch the D&D
cartoon that I watched growing up. Should
I feel guilty? You can’t force someone to like something. As much as my
parents tried to force me to like more "normal" things, the influence
of wanting to please them only went so far. I think Joss genuinely
likes the sci-fi/fantasy stuff I throw at him… I hope so at least. I
hope he isn’t just trying to please me. Last night he was very
insistent that we watch the next episode, and completely without
prodding. He obviously doesn’t get all the science jargon, of which
there is a copious amount if you’ve never watched the show, but he
wants to watch it anyway. I don’t know, should I feel guilty? I guess
he’ll grow out of it soon if he’s only doing it for my sake. I stopped
watching all the sports/wrestling crap that my dad and brother watched
when I was about his age. It wasn’t worth it anymore.

I also
spend about 7 hours a week playing Joss’ new favorite video game, Jak
III. It’s like this weird cross between Road Warrior and Sonic the
Hedgehog where you’re fighting a losing war against an army of powerful
machines fueled by "dark ego" and you have a series of missions to
accomplish that are fairly difficult. I’ve never been so interested in
the actual story of a video game before. It’s kind of dark at times,
you’re wondering through a town and there are raids by the enemy and
your character mumbles "we’ve already lost this war"  when the battles
are over, even though you won. I was skeptical at first that Joss
would, I don’t know, "get it"– but one of the allies says some really
harsh things about "acceptable losses" that has spawned some
interesting conversations between us. Insights into human nature come
from the strangest corners I guess. Regardless, it’s something fun to
do together. And since Joss is doing his "end of grade" testing all
week, he doesn’t have any homework.
let’s see how this "no child left behind" thing goes.

Alrighty. Time for one more spades tournament before I meet the jossling’s bus.
I really, really hope I get bored with this cards thing soon. It’s worse than The Sims.

love.