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3rd July 2021

"I was going to talk about an event from 'this time last year' except it was not last year, it was 2019. I struggle to work out how old I am for much the same reason. I woke up at an entirely unreasonable 4am today. I then drank half a litre of water and then listened to the rain fall for an hour. Insomnia begets insomnia; last night I could not sleep because I am worrying about many things.

1am: accommodation for a larp in 2022. The busy brain continues to be busy. What if? How do I explain this? I am very tired. Very tired.

This was my 2am conversation: I think the google doc glitch yesterday messed me up more than I understood at the time. I have backups. I keep fairly meticulous records and copies, but things do go wrong. QNAPs were hit by a ransomeware attack in May 2020, that took out one set of backups; worse I did not realise for several days because I rarely look on that drive for anything other than music (which was unaffected) I went around and around the circle last night. I'm pretty sure I know what caused the bug, I am pretty sure I lost nothing. If I did it was no more than a day's work. I have to assume that I did lose that day's work and repeat it - checking references, yay.

4am: the words to the Lord's Prayer spring to mind. Or rather the fact that I can't remember them. I recall that it has been changed in my life time, and that the version I know (or knew) derives mainly from the Siouxie and the Banshees cover version.

6am My eyes feel dried out, like burnt candyfloss left out in the sun. I am typing this, drinking coffee, and yawning so wide that my ears have popped.

I am stiff this morning, the kind of stiffness that should not be available in a body which has not slept properly. Some of this derives from the gym, some from being over 50, and the rest I must put down to some vengeful God, presumably because inserting the words

"I'll get you in the end.

O! O! Shake it, shake it, baby,

Shake it, shake it, baby, now.

Twist and shout! Ow!

A knife, a fork, a bottle, and a cork

That's the way you spell New York."

into spoken supplication is forbidden somewhere or other?

But between sacrificing parts of my thesis to Shub Internet, Avatar of Ethernet and Eater of Lines, and sacrificing sleep to the minions of Gorlak the Many Tentacled one I should be ahead on points. In a simpler time, it was only a concern about feet

[3rd July, 2019]

What is on my mind?

"Tomorrow's larp and the inevitable age/body image issues that come with playing someone TWENTY YEARS my junior. Someone has posted some well meaning advice that players get a pedicure because they will be walking about barefoot. I will not, in fact, be doing that; I have two broken toes, scars, and burn marks. Also, the last time I had painted toenails was not my fault; Emma did it while I was wasted at a party and I forgot about it and then went and trained kickboxing two days later. This caused some consternation, particularly as the Sensei was also called "Emma" and when someone remarked on it I said "Oh, Emma did that" .. thus confusion follows me on wings of Chaos. Small things though affect the balance of play. Well meaning advice turns to worry turns to a sapping of joy.

I am held together with a glass of Cabernet and a small cut on the cheek. So fragile, so very fragile, that the whispers of strangers could force me into a million tears."

Current Location: London, W1A
Current Music: Peter, Paul, & Mary - Puff the Magic Dragon

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On the matter of Sweden

“You are not a monster,” I said. But I lied. What I really wanted to say was that a monster is not such a terrible thing to be. From the Latin root monstrum, a divine messenger of catastrophe, then adapted by the Old French to mean an animal of myriad origins: centaur, griffin, satyr. To be a monster is to be a hybrid signal, a lighthouse: both shelter and warning at once. “ ~ Ocean Vuong, from “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. “

I spent the weekend at a Summer Cabin in Sweden with my friends Halfdan and Sagalinn. The concept of the summer cabin is one of those Nordic idylls that are as lovely in practice as in theory. Think of a cottage in the country; somewhere beautiful and peaceful and very much in nature. Some of them are basic and have no running water of electricity, others are on the grid and have all of the above. Sauna's, Barbecues, Drinks in the sun, Walks in nature. The only downsides of these places appears to be the probability of mosquitos. I came prepared and am pleased to say that -- unlike my previous summertime jaunts to Sweden -- I have survived un-bitten.

We have been working. All of the above pleasures were included in the trip, but even the walk in nature was a part of the creative process. We (and this 'we' is Avalon larp studio, the international collective I am a member of) are working as a part of the Transformative Play Initiative to teach folks how to make role-playing games for transformation. We've been working on a larp about personal transformation and this weekend we were testing and iterating on the character creation process. Here is the working pitch:

A group of seeming strangers come to a spiritual retreat. They have travelled from many countries and for countless different reasons: Some are hurting, some grieving, others are broken, or at a crossroads in their life.

What they discover in this place is a connection to ancient divinities, a wellspring of magic, and techniques for transformation that they can use to change themselves and, perhaps, the very course of the world. But first they need to uncover and resolve the secrets and threads of fate that bind them.

(It's a Nine Perefct Strangers analogue if we must use exisiting IP as a reference point.)

The challenge has been to find a way to build playable characters - in a workshop - for a group with a mixed level of expereince of larp and role-playing in general. We made so much progress I am overwhelmed and overjoyed.

In the breaks, and as is the way of these things, we created other larps, other games. There were sparks of inspiration shooting off the walls like stars.

I slept a little, getting up around 5 each moring (4 in UK terms) to write. No cats to accompany me here, just the gentle purring of the espresso machine.

Saying goodbye to one's found familly is difficult. I hate it each time. We'll meet up again soon though, and that is what matters. The journey home was not terrible; I got home an hour later than I had expected. I have had worse.

"I think this larp is for broken hearts"

A quote from Halfdan there as the subject for this post. I am typing this entry into an instance of Word, after the Dreamwidth webpage ate a draft of my post yesterday morning; the first sacrifice to Shub-Internet for many months. How the “Beast of a Thousand Processes, Eater of Characters, Avatar of Line Noise, and Imp of Call Waiting; the hideous multi-tendrilled entity formed of all the manifold connections of the net” must hunger now everything has moved to the cloud? Perhaps it thinks we have all perished in the fire. Not yet, not yet.

DW’s flaws derive from a 1990s clunkiness; if you want to post a picture you need to upload it somewhere. I still have a /lj directory on webservers filled with 320x240 gifs uploaded from a Trello / the text does not exist until you post it / there is no phone client.

And yet I enjoy this simplicity. There is no algorithm reading these words in order to work out what to sell me. There is no Dreamwidth AI, the ravenous replacement for Shub-Internet, chowing down on my text searching for sentience (there is none to be found until after the second cup of coffee kicks in.)

This past could be the future. It won’t be, not without critical mass, but I am comfortable here. I can italicise text, choose who reads my words, and no one profits.

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plan

The plan

So here is the plan! For certyain types of creative content am going to post here rather than ... The Other Place ... and see if any of you can be persuaded to step away from the bright lights and randomly threaded comments sections and have a conversation here. I'm going to talk about larp a lot, and I'll also do my very best to comment like crazy on anything you post.

So, create an account, let me know below, I'll add you to my circle and we'll go from there.