Catching Up #2: Post-Permabuzz Report or Man, We’re Getting Old…

A few people who don’t know have asked me, what the hell is Permabuzz and where can I sign up for it?

Alas, Permabuzz, at least the one I’m a regular contributor too, only occurs in two situations. The secondary one is on a tropical island where a pair of the Misfit Toys are getting married and the majority of the rest of our non-related family gathers to celebrate with lots of drinks usually involving rum and small umbrellas. The Primary Permabuzz comes from our annual Memorial Day weekend hootenanny on Cape Cod. I use hootenanny because Oz broke down the different levels of partying so well.

It began about a decade ago with most of the Misfit Toys that went to college together. Theory’s family has a small house in a quiet neighborhood on the Cape and we’d gather together for poker, board games, drinking, grilled food and an escape from our woes.

As our lives evolved, so did the Cape gathering. Our various S.O.’s entered the picture and in many (good) ways, shaped the evolution of the event. Funny how good women will help guys get their shit together, be it through love and support or huge fucking upheaval. Sorry, my confusion is showing. For the lion’s share of the last ten years we piled 20+ people into that tiny home every year. It was crowded, you didn’t sleep much, drank far to excess and generally abused your body.

It was the stuff of legends.

Legends evolve and grow and so did Permabuzz (the state one strives for during these weekends…). Last year, there was a massive change in the event: Location. Thanks to Boots and The Man, my friends who got married last August, we gained access to The Compound. I call it that because not only are their wings to the house and multiple bathrooms and showers (where we only had one bathroom and two showers at the old place, one of them being outdoors… and Cape Cod in May isn’t warm in the morning…) but it has two huge porches, a kitchen that would make any foodie, like myself, weep with joy and a finished basement with both a beer pong and a pool table. Needless to say, there was much rejoicing when The Compound was made available.

Even more rejoicing this year as the basement had a HD Projector and surround sound system added to it. So this year, I brought my Xbox 360 and my full RockBand set up. Had my friend PD not knocked the 360 over on Sunday evening, screwing up my game disc, I’m pretty sure I was going to have to hose people down to get them off the game so I could have left with it.

This year was still a blast, but at least for me, there were certainly differences.

The first was that we’re moving away from being kid friendly to kid populated. Three ladies in our group are pregnant, several of the newlyweds are either trying or less careful than before and then there are Booty and Hat, the sons of my two friends Oracle and Link. Yes, more goofy aliases, but again, they fit perfectly. Now, I love the boys and spend more time with them than the majority of the population at Permabuzz, but having a couple of well behaved boys is very different than having a crowd of babies and toddlers. Uber-Geek and I were discussing this and both of us see a major change coming. Possibly an end to the event as we know it.

Secondly, was the simple fact of age catching up with us. Regardless of how healthy each of us are individually (with the overall average tipping towards healthier this year) we just can’t party like we used to when we started this silliness. Our lives are fuller, our time more precious, our livers have clocked more miles than they should. It takes it’s toll after a while. So getting drunk and staying up until 5 am to get up at 11 and try to be reasonable for the rest of the day takes a lot more effort. For me personally, toss in the preceding month with a ton of travel for work-work, the emotional drain of going to a funeral the week before and driving up and back to the both the funeral and the cape with your ex-live in girlfriend (more on The Heroine in a moment) and you can see why I spent as much time as I could after I got back through the following Sunday doing as much resting and sleeping as I could.

Man I need to get into better shape.

The next thing that really got to me was time and distance. Other than The Heroine, arguably the biggest reason why I left New England, I hadn’t seen most of this family until the week before at the wake and funeral for Fortunate Son’s mom. It had been July when I’d seen most people, September for those who went to Uber-Geek’s bachelor party. For some, those I’d spoken to and written to and confided in over the last year, we barely skipped a beat. Other than a few moments of looking at each other to acknowledge that we missed each other, things were great. But in a family this size, you aren’t close with everyone and distance and big changes (like moving and breaking up with the woman you intend on marrying) becomes a game of telephone to a certain extent. You don’t know who’s told who what, how that information has been shaded by personal opinion or how it may have been simply misunderstood. There were a few people that I wanted to sit and talk with more, but couldn’t because it was hard to have a moment alone and awkward to turn the conversation to my being away. I can be an egotistical bastard at times, but as I was reminded by Oracle, I shouldn’t focus on being a victim. LONG story that I may not tell here…

All of this got shaded by the last big change. Besides seeing me for the first time in months, it was the first time most had seen The Heroine in about as long and, because life is a big cosmic joke sometimes, they were seeing us together in the same place, for 3-5 days (depending on how long people stayed). Very few people went near the subject of she and I, that is until false drama came to light. I won’t go into details, but there was some confusion on a few things (that if had it been true, would have probably started a fist fight and ended a couple of friendships), but I managed to avoid such things. Granted, I could be wrong (and if I am, heads will roll) but I trust my friends to not be stupid, cruel and hurtful.

Regardless of all that, being around this family of mine, who had seen me and The Heroine as a team, a couple, a family of our own starting together, it was odd. Not that I felt out of place, but that all the changes that had occurred – by circumstance, necessity and design – all jumped up at once for everyone, including myself.

That’s why I’ve been in my own head so much this past week I’ve rested. Thanks to seeing people, some BIG clarity from Oracle, conversations (or lack there of) with The Heroine and one of the Muses, I realize that while I’ve become that Hero of This Story that I am meant to be, it doesn’t mean that the journey is over or that I don’t have challenges to face.

Namely, getting angry for real about what happened with several people, including The Heroine. And then forgiving said people so I can move on to whatever is next. With or without those I forgive.

But we’ll sink into that more later this week….

I left the Cape with an ache in my heart, a desire to see my loved ones more often and a better understanding of not only why I love them, but why they love me.

Fittingly enough, it was Mean Mr. Mustard who made my heart ache the most. I’ve known the man since freshman year of college and while a big softy underneath, he’s got plenty of bluster to cover it up. The Heroine and I were saying our goodbyes and he was at the kitchen island, nursing his coffee and pancakes. I moved to hug him and he looked at me, eyes brightened by coffee but sad. A painful look was on his face as we did the guy hug (big squeeze and a couple of pats on the back). When I pulled back, he looked me square and said, “Man, I miss you dude.”

If you know the man like I know the man, it was all the other things he didn’t say out loud that made that moment.

Uncharacteristically for me, I kept it short in response.

“I know. I’ll come back soon.”

Thomas Wolfe’s line is often over used, but it is true. More importantly, it is what you learn away from Home that is most important.

But Home too, is a dangerous and necessary thought for me these days. The last time I felt like I was Home, a place of love and truth and safety, was with her. It was where ever she was. And I told her that.

I don’t want to be Homeless anymore.

But I do know that I have plenty of family that I still need to visit.

R.I.P. Gary Gygax

Odds are decent that if you know me, you can understand why the fact Gary Gygax died today actually means something to me.

Mr. Gygax was one of the co-creators for Dungeons and Dragons.

Okay, stop. If you just snickered or rolled your eyes, I want to talk to you directly. Don’t look at me in that tone of voice. Put aside your bias and think for a second. Anyone who didn’t make a snide comment in their head is excused and should come back for the next post (which should be much more interesting… especially if you like stories of me making an ass of myself. For the rest of you, keep reading.

I don’t care what you think about D&D, or gaming or anything geek related at the moment.  I could argue about how fun it is until I’m blue in the face. But D&D was only partly about the game or the characters or any of the rules that allowed you to play.

For me, it was about two things.

One, was spending time with people who were my friends. Yes, I was a geek and still am. And that was part of it. But I didn’t start playing because I couldn’t find friends. I started playing because I wanted to hang out with my older brothers. I was 8 and they were 16 and 20 respectively and naturally I thought they were both the coolest people on the planet. So when they started to let me play (after hounding them for weeks) I felt amazingly adult. Sure, they abused me and my characters, but I was playing with the older kids. So, I never thought of it as something social rejects did. Not until junior high. And by then it was too late.

In my gaming lifetime, I’ve played with lots of different people. My D&D table has hosted lonely social outcasts, band geeks, football players, a few star track players, a couple of math prodigies and lots of drama people. And that doesn’t count college. And once I got to college, the table expanded to include an even wider array of players, including geek girls who often wound up being the best players.  Still, for the most part, the game was secondary. Sure, we obsessed over characters and figuring out the mysteries that were being put forth by whoever was running the game, but it was just an excuse to get together and have a good time with friends, escaping a little bit into another world.

Which ties to the second thing D&D helped me with in my life. Imagination. It was never the only outlet I had: My Geekdom is well rounded enough to include comic books, movies, tv, novels, poetry, music and tons of other sources. But gaming, D&D specifically, was in the mix, part of the creative palette that began with simply making characters based on my friends and family and evolved as my tastes and experience have.

Gygax my not be as widely known as other modern gatekeepers of imagination, but trust me, D&D has had its effect on pop culture over the last 30 years, even if you don’t know it.

I don’t play anymore. Not since I moved away from New England and the games that Uber-Geek, Fortunate Son and Midwest were running. I still check in with them and the other players in our group (all of whom are part of the Misfit Toys crowd) to see how the game is going. Sadly, it seems like there’s a chance most of us will stop playing. Fortunate Son is moving to NY with IT Goddess and their having a child. Midwest and his wife are also expecting. Uber-Geek… well, I don’t think he’ll ever stop playing, but it feels like that era of my life was closing even before this happened.

But I only vaguely remember the battles that were fought or the items we looted from castles and ruins. I remember staying up all hours during college and playing. I remember using the picnic tables at Starkey Elementary as both places to play D&D (when we weren’t playing basketball) in high school because it was a good midway point for all the players. I remember teaching D&D to several girlfriends with varying degrees of success and finding that they’re willingness to humor me and learn about my hobbies was often a good indicator as to how accepting they were as a person overall.

So, I offer up my thanks to Mr. Gygax for the game he helped create. It has translated from table tops to video games, to comic books, cartoons and movies. And helped a generation develop and mature, but not necessarily grow up.

Now, about this past weekend…

Tagged

A belated response to getting tagged by my Editorial Hero: I have to link to his blog, leave a comment there so his readers can visit mine (which I’ve done about this and other things), post the rules on my blog (which is what you just read) and list 7 bizarre things about me.

1. Thanks to being adopted, I was an uncle when I was three years old and a great-uncle when I was 26.

2. At age 5, I cried on my way out of seeing the Empire Strikes Back because I was certain that they’d killed Han Solo.

3.  50% of the women I’ve seriously dated or cared about have had the same first initial.

4. Though I have mocha colored skin and black hair on my head, if I grow out a beard, my Irish heritage provides streaks of red.

5. From age 12 through age 31, I’ve owned at least two video game entertainment systems. I only recently moved down to one.

6. Living in Florida as a teenager, my best sport was ice hockey.

7.  90% of the time, I wake up exactly two minutes before my alarm is about to go off, not matter what time it is set for. It is my own personal two minute warning.