Third Saturday in October

It’s just a special day, I don’t care how you spin it.  I started following Alabama football when I was a very small child, thanks to my parents, who were die-hard Alabama fans.  My earliest years were spent cheering during the glory-years of the 70’s, when Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant led Alabama teams that gave new meaning to the word “dominance.” 

I grew up loving Alabama, even as the glory years faded away, being gradually replaced by a yo-yo-like cycle of flashes of brilliance paired with plunges into mediocrity at best, and outright disappointments at worst.  I attended the University of Mississippi for college, but even then I stayed true to my Crimson Tide first love.  Don’t get me wrong–I can cheer for Ole Miss just fine.  As long as they’re not playing Alabama.

Over time, my general attitude about Alabama football has changed in some ways.  I remember as a young child being absolutely shocked when Alabama lost a game.  That just wasn’t supposed to happen.  During my young adulthood, seeing Alabama lose became more common.  And over the past 10 years, I’ve found myself unable to take any win for granted, always expecting the worst.  Even this year, with the Tide sitting at 8-0 with a very real chance to win the SEC and perhaps play in the BCS title game, I still find myself thinking “When’s the other shoe going to drop?”

Last night’s demolition of Tennesee, 29-9 in Neyland Stadium, was yet another step in this crazy journey of fandom, and it reminded me that like any true love, you stand by your team through the bad times because it makes the good times so much sweeter.  This year, the Third Saturday in October was sweet indeed.

I married a ninja

No, really.  Saturday morning, I stumbled to the kitchen in my typical, pre-caffeine, groggy state and happened to peek out of the window over the sink that looks out on the side-yard facing our driveway.  My husband was out there, ostensibly walking the dog.  I rubbed my eyes and peered closer because he was carrying a broomstick.  A real broomstick with a broom on it.

And he was swinging it in slow, looping, overhanded arcs.  I blinked and looked for whatever he was trying to hit with the broom.  The dog was nowhere in sight, and anyway, what kind of lowlife hits a dog with a broom?  Certainly not my hunk of love.  Maybe it was a spiderweb he was knocking down?  A bee flying at his head?  A rabid chipmunk?  I couldn’t see any of those things, so I was puzzled as he continued to swing the broomhandle.

Then I got it.  Slowly his movements morphed into rhythmic chops and parries and thrusts.  His feet were set wide and he lunged forward, executing a series of swift jabs and blocks with his trust staff…er…broom.  He was doing kung-fu, or hubby-kun-do or something.

So I did what any supportive, caring spouse would have done.  I ran and looked for the camera while laughing hysterically.  Unfortunately, I don’t have photographic evidence to share with you here because apparently the forces of darkness were repelled by his lightening-quick reflexes and mad bo-staff skillz and he came back inside with the dog right behind him before I could snap a picture.

When he saw me standing there, giggling uncontrollably, he ‘fessed up. 

“I was practicing!” 

“For what?” I asked. “Imminent invasion by the acolytes of Chuck Norris?”

“I’m going to get a shower now,” he grumbled.

“Kee-yah!” I replied.

I swear, even the dog was laughing.

Good times.

Cheaters

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s a cheater.  Cheaters undermine everything they touch, whether it’s in gaming, in business or some other venue.  When you feel like you can only succeed by breaking the rules, in my opinion you’ve already lost.

I’ve been witnessing a pretty good bit of cheating going on in Warhammer Online.  Primarily, I’ve seen it happening in scenarios through something called de-synching.  Basically, you create a delay for your character so that the server has to “belch” to catch up.  The result is that I can be whaling on someone and about to take them down, and all of a sudden, they appear far away from me and are able to heal themselves back up.  I’ve also gotten an error that reads “Target Not Attackable” in some instances.  It’s a way for someone to avoid being killed in a RvR skirmish–by cheating.

I don’t mind going toe to toe with someone in a fair fight and then losing.  Believe me–I die ALL the time.  But to have someone continually slip away through an exploit is maddening.  Stand, fight, take me out if you can.  What that tells me is that this person either a) has no confidence in their skills or b) they would rather “win” at all costs despite the fact that they are cheapening any victory they get.

This happened last night with a dwarf rune priest that my friend and I had targeted.  We had him down to half-health and there was no doubt the fight was all but over….and then POOF!  He disappears, and reappears far away from us, heals himself up and sprints away.  What a chickenshit.  Both my friend and I reported him, and ironically–his side LOST the overall scenario fight anyway.  Yeah, hope not dying in that fight made you feel better about that, buddy. *makes nyah nyah noises*

Ahem.

The bottom line is this: if people spent more time on improving their gaming skills, they shouldn’t need to cheat in the first place.

Game Time. My Time.

The term “gamer” brings up so many images, not all of them pretty.  The pasty, geeky guy living in his mom’s basement, wearing a dirty old concert tee-shirt and blinking myopically at his television screen as he frags the hell out of some thirteen-year-old playing X-box Live.  The pasty, geeky guy tap-tapping away at his keyboard as he spends hours in a virtual online world playing a muscly hunk who swings a sword and gets the girls.  The pasty geek (or group of pasty geeks) tossing funny-shaped die on a table while arguing about things like stat bonuses, damage modifiers and rules.

I’m pretty much all of those.  Except I’m not a guy.  And I prefer to be called “fair-skinned” rather than pasty.  Geeky?  Ok, yeah, you got me there.  I’ve done all those.  Console gaming, computer gaming, tabletop–I’ve run the gamut over the past decade or so.  My current hobby is playing MMORPGs.  That’s Massive Multi-player Online Role-Playing Games.

Women gamers aren’t as rare a breed as they used to be, but we’re still playing in a male-dominated world, make no mistake.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten expressions of shock when someone finds out that, yes, I am indeed a woman IRL (that’s “in real life” for you noobs).  I think the fair assumption that most make when they encounter a female character in an MMO is that the person playing that character is a man.  But not all of them are, and I’ve actually seen more women gamers over the past two years that I thought were out there.

Gaming for me is a hobby where I can let go for a while.  Be someone else.  Play a role.  Meet new people.  Accomplish goals and make decisions that don’t have real life or death consequences.  It’s a place where for a couple of hours at a stretch, I get to stop being “wife,” “mother,” “daughter,” “lawyer,” and “colleague.”  I get to be me.  The me that gets buried sometimes under all the hats that I wear on a day-to-day basis.  That’s the appeal for me.  Total escapism.

And you know what?

That helps me be a better wife, mother, daughter, lawyer and colleague.  Some people golf.  Others jog.  Some cross-stitch or paint or garden.  I game.

I need an I.E.P. for life.

My husband and I had a meeting with my youngest son’s teacher today to discuss his IEP.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, it means “Individual Education Plan,” and basically it’s a document that comes about as a result of testing and evaluations of your child and his or her educational needs combined with input from the parents and teachers.  You get these when your child enters the world of education and your child has special needs that require him or her to need a little (or a lot of) extra help.  They are legally binding documents, and they ensure that your child is protected by creating a legal obligation for the school to provide special services to help your child receive an education.  (Not every child receives special services, sometimes even when there is a need, but that’s a topic for another day, and one that thankfully, we have not faced as a family yet.)

My son has an autism spectrum disorder called PDD-NOS.  That stands for Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified.  Did you get all that?  Yeah.  I had trouble the first time I heard it, too.  He was diagnosed at three years old, and is now five.  He’s been receiving early intervention in the form of speech and occupational therapy since that time, and he is currently enrolled in a wonderful program at Mitchell’s Place.  I can’t say enough wonderful things about the people there and the work they are doing.

So today, we met with his teacher–a woman with a smile like sunshine and more patience than just about anyone I’ve ever met–and we talked about his IEP and his goals for this year.  She carefully explained what the IEP was, how it affected our son, what we could expect from the IEP, and many other topics.  It was an informative helpful meeting, complete with some good news that our son tested within the “normal” range on his language skills.  When we had him tested two years ago at the age of three, he tested at an approximate age level of eighteen months.  I can’t say enough about how important early intervention is, and my child is living proof of it.  It should have been a meeting filled with positives and reasonable goals and accomplishments.  It WAS all of those things.

So how come I burst into tears at the beginning of the meeting when I saw the IEP lying on the table?

It seems that the theme of reality checks is going to be a big one this week for me.  I got one this morning.  Another this afternoon.  I guess I get them every day, but most of the time I’m really good at keeping myself from “feeling” them so much.  It’s easier to cope with difficult ideas when we don’t let them become our entire focus.  As I told another mom of a child on the spectrum this week, “I’ve gotten really good at living in the now.  I used to be a planner, but now, my goals have changed to getting through each day as it comes.”

It’s easier that way.  If I think too much about the future, I get that lovely feeling of icy dread and have a sudden urge to run away to a beach in Tahiti and spend my hard-earned Tahiti-dollars (or whatever kind of currency they have in Tahiti)  on massive amounts of fruity drinks.  I’d love it if someone took care of the planning and the worry for me.

Where’s my IEP for life?

Fat Kids Can’t Wear Parachute Pants

We’ve all had “those” moments.  You know the ones.  Where suddenly life bitch-slaps you with the icy cold hand of realization, and your world shifts slightly on its axis as things re-align and re-focus and leave you with the feeling of the great cosmic “Oh.”

 

I had one when I was about eleven years old.  I don’t remember the exact year, funnily enough, considering how vividly I remember everything else about it.  But it was the early eighties, and there was this new fashion trend called ”parachute pants.”  Everyone from my currently thirty-something generation remembers parachute pants.  One of those fashion mistakes that ranks up there with acid-wash jeans, wide shoulder pads, and leg-warmers.  If you don’t remember parachute pants, well, they were these pants made of…wait for it…parachute material.  Slick, shiny, slithery nylon fabric that encased the legs and butt and had zippers in some very weird places.  At the time, they were cool. 

 

Now, bear in mind, I was an awkward eleven.  I was the short, chubby, smart girl with glasses—complete with a bad eighties perm, which I obtained in one of my failed attempts to keep current with my peers.  The end result was that I looked rather like a small bowling pin wearing thick, brown-framed glasses with frizzy brown curls on top of it.  Yeah.  I know.  It makes me cringe remembering it. 

 

For some reason I can’t fathom now that I’m much older and (hopefully) much wiser, at that time I decided I wanted a pair of parachute pants.  My mother and father, bless them for their patience and their many attempts to give me happiness in shiny shopping bags, took me to the local mall in Florence, Alabama—not exactly a hotbed of fashion forwardness, but it was what we had—and we went on the search for these pants.  Now, considering the popularity of this item, we found a pair without too much difficulty.

 

They were black and shiny, with silver zippers on the thighs and hips and god knows how many other places, and they fit!  Well, if by fitting you mean bunching horribly at the ankles because in addition to being chubby and wearing glasses, I was kind of short.  However, I was euphoric.  I had my ticket to coolness, and I just knew all the other kids would agree that I was cool, and I would be elevated from my spot somewhere on the lower level of the feeding chain of elementary school to somewhere comfortably in the upper middle of the pack.  Not even a pair of uber-cool parachute pants could vault me past that—I wasn’t that unrealistic.  My mom and dad even completed the ensemble with a matching shirt, made out of some slick-looking black material with royal blue sleeves.  It was sort of wind-suit material, but before wind-suits existed.

 

I looked exactly how you’d expect: like a bowling pin covered in shiny black material with zippers on every unflattering aspect of my bowling-pin shaped body.  With a bad perm.  And glasses.

 

I was so proud of it.  I remember waking up for school the next day, dressing in my brand new cool outfit and stepping out of the car as my mom dropped me off.  As I tromped to my homeroom class, it slowly began to dawn on me that perhaps something wasn’t quite…right.  When I stepped into my homeroom class, I knew that something was, in fact, quite wrong.

 

To be fair, no one made fun of me openly.  But I endured some of the longest hours of my young life on that day.  A day filled with side-long glances, whispers and giggles behind hands, open staring.  A day where tiny trickles of sweat slid down my chubby flanks under that god-forsaken nylon casing. A day where I was reminded, even more forcefully, that I’d gotten it wrong.  It was a small slice of hell.  Over the course of that eight hours, I had one of those moments I referred to earlier.  I realized that whatever quality that “it” was that constituted “cool,” that I didn’t have “it.”

 

As I climbed in my mom’s car to go home, the day mercifully at an end, I realized that no matter what I wore, or how I acted, or what I did—I’d never have “it.”  I stuffed the entire outfit into the back of my bottom drawer, and I don’t think I ever saw it again.  A small mercy.

 

I’d never told that story to anyone before yesterday, when I shared it with a friend.  They laughed, and I was able to laugh, too.  You see, I’ve long-since embraced my geekdom, and I’m finally, at the age of thirty-six, comfortable with who I am.  Losing the chubby after puberty and getting a decent haircut helped.  I still have glasses though.  And if you’ll excuse me, I need to go put on my uber-cool windsuit.  It’s time to go for a walk.

And my blog is born.

And…so it begins.  I’m taking my first steps into this wide world of the internet, and as you can guess by the title of this blog, I’m a little sketchy on how all of this works and how it’s ultimately going to work for my multitudes of readers (which I am sure will come in time).  So bear with me, folks.  Fasten your seatbelts and we should be out of the turbulent beginning stages soon.

Cheers!