Shuffleupagus (n) A person who shuffles around papers and office supplies in an attempt to look busy, expending more energy on the shuffling than he would doing actual work.
This comes from Michelle, formerly of Faster Than The World, but I don’t think the Shuffleupagus is an endangered species. You may have encountered one yourself!
Stick called today, partly to catch up and partly as just another step in the hellish process of separating ours into his and mine. I haven’t really known what to say about him here, because I still have a lot of respect and affection for him. First I was all “We’re going to work things out!” and then I was all “Still over. Still sad about it.” and neither one of those was a really happy thing I wanted to record for posterity (and the internet).
“I think I’ll spend Thanksgiving with my parents and then head to Denver,” Stick said. “I don’t want to wait too much longer to leave, or I’ll run into weather troubles on my drive west.”
There was silence for a moment, and then I said what had to be said.
“Do you have an extra axle?”
“Of course. And I’ll try not to get cholera,”
“Be careful fording rivers.”
Sure, the end of our relationship is like a giant gaping wound, but there’s no wrong time for an Oregon Trail reference.
Uptown, downtown. Local, express. Connections are available to the 1, 2, 3, and 9. I love the subway. It feels so cyberpunk to watch clips, play games (Alchemy!) or listen to podcasts on my phone on the subway car. And I’m embarrassingly proud of myself for finding my way around.
It’s not just the subway, actually, I love my whole trip to and from work. I like that I don’t have to think about traffic or parking, and that instead of other drivers on the beltway TRYING TO CRASH INTO ME AND KILL ME, I can sit and read my book, or listen to my headphones, or just look out the window at the New York City icons.
(Sure, it’s probably only a matter of time before I start grumbling about waiting for the bus or about how the PATH train stations seem permanently under construction. Let me enjoy it while it lasts.)
I was on the subway the other day when my stunning lack of direction struck again, so I stopped a random guy and asked for directions. He paused to think about it, and then burst into song:
“Yo-ou must take the A-train….”
Manhattan is awesome.
What with a very full first day and then all that dancing down the street singing about how I’ve gotten a new job, by the time I got to the train station, I’d completely missed rush hour. That means forty minutes between trains to Jersey and a transfer in Newark and other signs of commuter hell. Scep and Katie’s condo is awesome, but it’s at the edge of civilization. (Don’t even try to defend it, Scep, how long is your drive to work?!?) (And Andrea, your house is marked by Here be dragons on my map.)
I finally got back to Scep’s place and chatted with Scep and Katie for a bit before I picked up some clothes and left again to spend the night at my mom’s so I wouldn’t have to do that again tomorrow morning. My folks’ house is much closer to Manhattan-bound commuter rail, and therefore my awesome new job.
I took the Clove Road shortcut by Montclair State, thinking about how I’d spent quite a lot of high school weekends here at Six Brothers diner (Ooh, arcade Puzzle Bobble! That should definitely go on my 15 games list!), and not about the complete stupidity of driving a fifteen-year-old car through a college late at night. I’ve been pulled over probably six or seven times since I got my license, and five or six of those were for driving a battered old car on campus at night. It was worse when I was a new driver, going exactly the speed limit with an expression of mortal terror, but you’d think I’d have learned my lesson by now.
By the way, when the cop pulls you over in the middle of the night and asks where you’re coming from and where you’re headed, he doesn’t actually need to know about your new job, your move from North Carolina, and your old boyfriend.
I’m just saying.
It seems to me like two people who are both playing just one more turn, finishing this raid, or getting to a good savepoint would be less likely to make it to bed. But who am I to contradict Cosmo?
The other day, I went to a job interview pretty close to my dad’s church, and when I got out, I had a text message from my dad asking if I wanted to come by and meet for lunch.
I texted back Great! OMW now! Even though I’m in a weird transition state right now, I was pretty happy that I’m close enough to my folks to visit them. And my dad is texting! He’s using a numberpad, which is about a step up from Morse code, but still. My parents are using technology! Can yours do that?
When I got there, though, my dad was pretty surprised to see me, since he thought I’d gone back to Scep’s place. He pointed to my text, where I’d said I was home now, only I’d used the variant spelling of home as OMW. (Even though my dad knows a lot of acronym shorthand from ham radio, like YL for “young lady”, or CQ for “Twitter hasn’t been invented yet, anyone want to talk?” I guess it’s possible that OMW might be a bit more of an MMO term than a ham radio term).
“DAD! You thought I spelled home wrong? You think I’m a writer and an ESL teacher and I haven’t mastered four-letter words?”
At this point, my dad might have said something about my early and impressive mastery of certain four-letter words.
Anyway, I had another interview the next day, and on my way in, my dad sent me this:
GLHF 2day 88 Dad
Meg: Hey, Marcus, you ever notice that 99% of your Facebook wall is girls telling you how great you are?
Marcus: That’s because all my male friends are out in the woods stabbing things with pointy sticks and cooking over open flames.
Nick tagged me in that 15 games Facebook meme, but as I started to compile my most memorable games, I realized I’m unable to just type a list.
Civilization 2 would definitely make that list. When Civ 2 came out, I wasn’t at all interested because I didn’t like military strategy games. Eric had it, though, and I don’t remember exactly how Eric overcame my objections to strategy games and fighting games, but I imagine it was the sort of saintly patience and Jedi mindtricks he used to get me to try Morrowind (Note to self: Seriously consider listening to Eric every once in a while).
I forget if I was playing the Romans and started cleverly naming my cities Claudius and Lupercalia, or if I was founding the Japanese colonies of Tempura and Midori.
Civ 2 had optional movies of the world wonders, and in every conversation I’ve had about the value versus distraction of cutscenes, I think of design sketches blossoming into the flowers of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. That’s still my favorite wonder to build, and if you build it first, I will come after you and take it back. With my armies, because as it turns out, I do kind of like military strategy games.
It may have been the first time I saw early-morning sunlight after playing a game of Civ, but it was not the last.
I went to play D&D this weekend, with Ian and Andrea and their friends. They’ve got an ongoing run, that happened to have a couple openings. I think the conversation went like this:
DM: We have two characters available, so you can play a dwarven…
Meg: YES! I want to play the dwarf!
I didn’t have my dice with me, so I used Ian’s.
Awesome.
