Thermodynamics (on Friends)

[note: for appropriate musical accompaniment of this piece, the author recommends “Wish Me Well (Go To Hell)” by The Bouncing Souls.]

Friends are troublesome things. They make demands of us that would seem ridiculous from anyone else, and we largely put up with it because… they’re friends? We tolerate their antics for reasons I suspect few people could articulate; I know I can’t. We exert energy on them; they exert energy on us, and somehow the entire system holds itself up.

Friends, for all the long suffering we generally endure because we’ve decided these people are important to us, can sometimes repay the demands they put on our time and resources by expending their own on our behalf. The benefits having friends in the right places can provide are remarkable and what often seems like “luck” is more often having resourceful people on your side.

But this isn’t about the benefits of friends.

Encounters (on life, 1d4 hours at a time)

Well, I suppose there’s no point in delaying the admission that I’m a gamer of all stripes, since a good portion of this blog’s contents is going to be devoted to my hobbies. So without further ado:

Last Wednesday marked the beginning of Wizards of the Coast’s new “D&D Encounters” events, which is an all-comers Organized Play series where players gather once a week and play a single encounter in an ongoing adventure.

Inauguration (on Perspective)

It’s the middle of March, and the quarter at school has just ended. It went well as an exercise in reestablishing long-disused patterns of thought and behavior.

I don’t really know if I’m old enough to claim the perspective of “looking back,” but I like to think I’m a bit wiser than I was at 18. I know a little more about the world, and a little more about myself. I don’t claim to know a lot about either. I’m still learning how to handle my life, and hopefully I’m making better decisions.