Time off

Well, with next week being the holiday, my freelance assignments are all cleared out. So I've got a week to celebrate my independence. Outside of a trip up to see the family with CT-legal fireworks, I'm basically going to be working on some online goals - fleshing out my gaming world, poking my head back into the novel and the non-fiction book to see if the muse has returned there yet, maybe some sketching and walks in the nearby park.

And Warcraft. Definitely warcraft.

See, I've been a caual gamer for Warcraft for a while now. Over a year, off and on here and there. It passed the time in the winter, and it was cooler than Everquest for Mac was. Dark Iron server, Horde, Troll mage named Runika. And I'm happy to announce that she's level 70 and making a good entrance into the endgame.

Well, okay, she's 70 several months after the rest of the server levelled up. She -had- been at the endgame max level of 60, but we arrived there just as news was coming down about the expansion to 70. And at the time, the server had already been 'old', in the sense that the regulars all were already well-entrenched in their endgame, just running some odd alts with the stray newcomer like me. So there were plenty of people who already -did- everything I was trying to do, and everyone just assumed we knew all sorts of stuff.

Now at least there's still a significant portion of folks not yet at endgame, so new arrivals are common and there's a support system in my guild, Dire Beef.

Virtual Success during Real Life Mediocrity

I'm totally using escapism. I know it. I know that it's a *game*, and that there's a real world out there. But right now, I get the daily 'fix' of -feeling- productive, and -feeling- like I'm advancing, like I'm building something meaningful. And right now, I need that. I'm stuck in transition, trying to get myself together, trying to clear the way for whatever comes next...

More later.