Roman S&M

Posted on February 14, 2005 by Meg

The Romans, not being familiar with Massachusetts weather, thought that spring began on February 5th. So, like most fertility rites, Lupercalia takes place in early spring, February 15th.

Young men would start out in the cave of Romulus and Remus, and sacrifice a goat there. Some sources (especially one named Alex) do say dog, but I think a goat would be a bit more appropiate since goats are frequently tied with sex by the Greeks and Romans. *cough, cough* Satyrs. Also because the word for goat-skin is “februum”, another word for Lupercalia is “dies februata”, and then the month in which the holiday occurred became Februarius, and thus our February.

After the required religious ritual and religious drinking (it is a Roman holiday after all) the young men would dress up in the bloody skins and run through the streets, hitting women with strips of goatskin. Young wives would try to get whipped because it brought fertility and could also ease childbirth pains for pregnant women.

This is alluded to the beginning of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar when he tells Calpurnia to try to get hit, but actually the Lupercalia was not terribly popular during Caesar’s reign. Suetonius writes that Augustus brought it back into popularity (because it suited the moral reforms he was trying to make with the Lex Julia).

Our Valentine’s Day just celebrates those who are coupled, but the Romans being cheerfully polytheistic, used this ceremony to honor Romulus and Remus, also Lupercus, Faunus and a little-known fellow called Februus. Poor Februus was the Etruscan god of the underworld, who somehow got himself associated with sex and flogging. That’s what happens when your followers praise you in a language isolate instead of good ol’ Indo-European. Like the rest of the underworld gods, he was associated with caves, so he was probably hanging out w/ the shades of Romulus and Remus when the drunken teenagers showed up for the sacrifice and orgy.

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Love, Honor and Obey… or something.

Posted on February 12, 2005 by Meg

Rachel, my friend from high school, called me last night to say she’s getting married!

Let’s analyze this sentence, ok? Rachel called Castle Von Hoffmann from the house she and her fiance own in Virginia. I love my household, but there’s a huge gap between adult life, and my constantly chaotic life of lizards and gamers.

Rachel’s probably my oldest friend, she was my very closest friend through junior high and the beginning of high school. How could someone who had all the major milestones with me be getting married? Actually, we didn’t have all the major milestones, I had my first boyfriend LONG before she did. (Who, by the way, is also married.) And I know she’s doing the right thing, she’s not rushing into it. While I have the occasional white-dress daydream, I can’t imagine the actual love, honor and obey. Did I screw up somewhere and stop maturing? Was I skipping class the day everyone else learned about committed relationships?

Rachel’s a second grade teacher now, just like she wanted to be when we were twelve. I think I wanted to be a ballerina or a computer programmer then. I’m twenty-three now and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. Probably go back for more school after I finish in May. But if I’m going to be in school forever, can’t I at least be smart in daily activities, too? What good is mastering literary theory or Roman warfare if I can’t park a car and I shrink my laundry?

And if I have to be the bluestocking stereotype, can I have a cat?

Wait, that might be a little bit too complicated, but I could take good care of a nice cactus.

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This Is Not Our Destiny

Posted on February 4, 2005 by Meg

I’ve been seeing Marcus a lot recently. We’re going through a lot of the same stuff. He’s got a couple grad school prospects for next fall, all of which involve leaving his serious girlfriend Becky. All of my job and grad school prospects for next fall involve leaving Stick.

Meanwhile, Marcus works on-campus at Parking Services and hates his job (Obviously. You caught the part about “parking services”, right?). The entity of UMass makes regulations that sound great in theory, and change these rules on a schedule known only to themselves. And Marcus’ job is to deal with unhappy, confused students everyday. It’s quite a lot like my job, only he has to explain why your car’s gone missing and I only have to explain why we don’t carry every product known to man.

Marcus is a writer and a Stoic and when we talk about our sucky jobs in comparison to our brilliant futures in the field of classical scholarship, he says “This is not our destiny”. Which sounds kind of screwy, especially since he’s otherwise a cut-out-your-heart Stoic, but go with it.

Anyway, I just called Parking Services and said “This is not our destiny.”

But the boy who’d picked up wasn’t Marcus.

There really is no suave way to recover from that. “Uh, hey, sorry, could you leave Marcus a message from Meg that says ‘This is not our destiny?’ Thanks!”

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Another Book Report

Posted on January 25, 2005 by Meg

So there’s a new book out called He’s Just Not That Into You by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, and it’s a dating advice book. I read The Rules when it came out, notice I said “read”, not “committed to memory”, “bought” or even “left the bookstore with”. Let me defend The Rules as a great way to manipulate yourself into a marriage with a fellow who’s not smart enough to see through you. Anyway, He’s Just Not That Into You follows the question-and-answer formula for a relationship advice book (have I actually read enough relationship advice books to spot a formula?). In each chapter, women send in their cliched problems, author Liz commiserates, and author Greg gives his tough-love answer. It goes kind of like this:

“I went out with this boy but he didn’t call again/made me pick up the check/didn’t kiss me goodnight/took off during dinner/actually has a girlfriend/wanted to have sex/didn’t want to have sex/changed his number. What’s going on?”

Or:

“I slept with the boy but he says he can’t be together because he’s really busy at work/really busy at school/can’t leave his wife right now/is in rehab/has trust issues/is still wounded from his divorce/marriage/parents. What’s going on?”

And the answer is always:

“Because he doesn’t like you.”

This book is brilliant and I wish I’d thought of it first.

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A New Resident of Castle Von Hoffmann

Posted on January 23, 2005 by Meg

This is what Yucatan, Kristine’s newest frog, looks like! She says he got him from a reptile show but I think she stole him off a “Come to the rainforest” poster. This is why he is my favorite animal in the house:

Even though he has orange hands, red eyes and purple legs, he does a very good leaf impression.

Unlike a certain gecko I won’t mention, he did not walk all over my sandwich.

Unlike a certain bunny I won’t mention, he did not pee on my lap.

Unlike a certain snake I won’t mention, he does not need to eat cute little mice.

Unlike certain humans I won’t mention, he never suggests that I should leave some hot water for other people.

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It Was 7 Minutes After Midnight

Posted on January 22, 2005 by Meg

I have just uncovered a vast conspiracy. Remember all those books we had to read in high school English classes? Sometimes they didn’t make sense and when we asked why, we’d be told that the novel was stream-of-consciousness writing and an unreliable narrator, and James Joyce was BRILLIANT and obviously if we didn’t think so, it was our failing as a teenage English student.

Well, it turns out that not all stream-of-consciousness writing is miserable allusions to Irish politics.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon is the journal of Christopher Boone, a teenage boy with high-functioning autism, or Asperger’s syndrome. Not that he ever states that — Christopher is the most unreliable narrator imaginable. He tells readers what he considers important, when he thinks of it, with little asides for number problems or mention that he needed to “do groaning” until he felt better.

The chapters are headed by prime numbers, and in case you’ve forgotten about those, Christopher tells you how to find them. His method is to write down every number in the world and then cross off the multiples of two, of three, of four, of five, etc. until you have only the prime numbers left.

Throughout the novel, Christopher is constantly conscious that he is writing a book. Some find this hard to accept in fiction, but I like when the person telling you a story knows it’s a story. Much better than a creepy omniscient narrator who goes head-hopping.

The actual plot is secondary to the amazing narration, and hinges on a few dramatic events — so dramatic that they are soap-opera staples. You’ll only notice this later, since Haddon’s narrator makes the most monumental events extremely believable. I don’t want to give away any more, so here’s the opening:
<align=right> It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs Shears’ house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running on its side, the way dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream. But the dog was not running or asleep. The dog was dead. There was a garden fork sticking out of the dog. The points of the fork must have gone all the way through the dog and into the ground because the fork had not fallen over. I decided that the dog was probably killed with the fork because I could not see any other wounds in the dog and I do not think you would stick a garden fork into a dog after it had died for some other reason, like cancer for example, or a road accident. But I could not be certain about this.

Final rating: As good as Morrowind.

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A Buggy Game

Posted on January 20, 2005 by Meg

Yesterday when we were at the store, Stick wanted to play X Bugs, which was described to me as goofy tiddlywinks. We set up play, which consists of picking sides (I’m the Russian bug army), and throwing stickered tiddlywinks down on the felt covered table.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t actually tell the difference between a Harvester and a Worker. In the world of Meg, items are distinguished mostly by their color. It’s usually neat, I can identify almost every plant in our overgrown “garden” by variating shade of green. Sadly, I unable to articulate these and am confused in a household where people identify based on shape.

Meg: The weeds are palish inside-watermelon-rind green.

Rational housemate: Are they pointed or round leaves?

Meg: Um, let me check.

The object of the game is to flip my pieces — green with dark green bugs — on to Stick’s, which were black with red bugs, and eliminate them. Simple enough. But certain indistinguishable pieces have special abilities or drawbacks. It was a lot like when I used to download arcade games in Japanese. Is this good or bad? I died, I guess three reds in a row was bad… unless that was good and it was the yellows that were bad?

Suddenly these words started to come out of my mouth. Big problem. I am almost always thinking incredibly mean, sarcastic thoughts. My nature is not sweet and light, but unkind and cutting. I hover at a ratio of three or four nasty mental comments for each decent thing I say. When I do say something pleasant, I require hours of mental back-patting, and I can pull these events up later, as if the time I didn’t tell someone to shove it is a shining example of my great moral fortitiude. But I’ve hidden my unstoppably bitchy side from Stick for six months or so now, so I’m not about to slip up over a game of insect tiddlywinks.

I really shouldn’t bash X Bugs to the boy who played Blokus with me. Blokus, if you’re not lucky enough to have played it, is four-player horizontal Tetris/Scrabble. (Is it just me, or does “four person horizontal sound dirty? It is just me? Oops.) If the chance to take over the board and screw over your friends isn’t enough, Blokus also has the final element of a perfect boardgame: brightly colored, easily identifable pieces.

And Stick, who really is the Best Boyfriend Ever, played quite a few rounds with me this weekend at our friends Bill and Andrea’s place.

So in my calm, considered, non-bitchy opinion, I rank X Bugs as more fun than parallel parking but not as much fun as waiting for water to boil.

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Why I’m Going To Elope

Posted on January 14, 2005 by Meg

My girlfriend Allison is great. She is awesome, brilliant, pretty and I love her very very much. That’s why I agreed to go to this bridal show with her.

Allison is marrying Jon in June, and I’m going to be one of her bridesmaids. I am so excited! But I express my excitment by talking about dresses with Mama Hoffmann and playing sim wedding. (Note: if anyone from Maxis is reading this, a Sims 2 wedding expansion would be awesome. I promise I’ll buy a copy.) Allison, whose wedding fever is exponentially bigger than mine, manages to express it differently. She maintains a mental database of florists, printers, and bridal party dancing teachers.

A bridal show is terrifying. It’s kind of like an evil street bazaar where vendors try to convince you that without a chocolate fountain, your love is doomed. Points, of course, to the caterers who actually brought a chocolate fountain and a pile of pretzels and strawberries to dip in it. I didn’t have a target, did I say target? I meant BRIDE sticker, so I was able to cut though a few speeches with the witty and brilliant line “Uh, I’m not getting married.” This is an ancient spell that makes vendors drop you, almost as fast as if you’ve just said “Actually, I have communicable leprosy”.

Allison does not feel this way. We share a penchant for Greek art and Apples to Apples, and we fantasize together about being Hogwarts professors, but on the great wedding divide, we’re on different sides. Allison’s done the expo thing before, voluntarily. She actually cares about the invitation style. There are bridal calendars that tell you when to book what, just in case you needed another set of input on your wedding plans. I think with the opinions of the bride, her mom, her sisters, most of her female relations, her soon-to-be mother-in-law, her girlfriends all being considered, I’d tell the wedding lanbook to go jump in a lake. But then again, when the time comes for me to wed, expect a phone call along the lines of “I got a pretty ring! Want to come over next Saturday?”

So there I was, with my hands full of pamphlets on hiring harpists, with a woman chasing me down to tell me that my husband was going to leave me if we didn’t go to the Carribean on our honeymoon, when I saw Becky. You know Becky? Marcus’ girlfriend. A smart classics girl, who happens to also be blonde and gorgeous. Why do these things happen to me?

If you’d told me that highlight of my day would be trading departmental gossip with Becky, I’d have laughed. But I don’t think she was expecting to get along with her beloved’s ex-girlfriend, either. Maybe we’ll get Marcus and Stick in on a classics dork night.

There is a Fiance Day Care. A room full of boys watching football. It’s not that I’m even that keen on football, but I have to stop and think about how much easier it would be to be a man.

I am not against marriage. I want to get married, not next year or the year after, but it’s something I’d like to do. Perhaps at that mythical point when I grow? (Everyone says that’s going to happen) I’m just anti-wedding. I’m not really into matching favors to the table linens, or choosing entrees that look expensive but aren’t. Honestly, it’s one Saturday out of your whole life, will you care what kind of centerpieces I have? Didn’t think so.

I can’t believe this is how people spend their Saturdays. Luckily, I made it back to Griffon in time to make a character for D&D.

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EverQuest and Relationships.

Posted on January 14, 2005 by Meg

My computer’s been at Stick’s place for a few weeks now, to facilitate our EverQuest playing. And where the computer is, so am I.

Stick: You know, you’re here all the time anyway. And it’s silly to pay two rents.

Meg: Are you going where I think you’re going with this?

Stick: Do you want to?

Meg: Well, can I hang up my paintings here?

*a pause*

Meg: No, I can’t.

Stick: Hang on, I’ll change your permissions. Try it now.

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EverQuest 2 And The Flu.

Posted on January 11, 2005 by Meg

Stick, a candidate for Greatest Boyfriend Ever, got me three months of EverQuest 2 for Christmas. I installed my new game — all 10 CDs of it! It was like an old Sierra game! — and found out that I needed a new videocard. I’d actually just gotten my GeForce 4 when I started dating Stick, so it’s still new and still pretty high-quality. (Am I the only person who measures relationship length in computer upgrades?).

During the installation of my brand-new GeForce 5, Stick did not once tell me the correct way to turn a screwdriver. YEAH! If you’re ever helping me install computer guts, I want to know what needs to go next to the fan. You might even need to remind me to ground myself. But I think, at twenty-three years old, that I’m got a handle on righty-tighty, lefty-loosey.

Another reason that Stick is The Greatest Boyfriend Ever, is that his plans for January break involved bringing my computer over to his house and playing EverQuest until we stare with glazed eyes, argue briefly about whose character is cooler, and fall asleep. My character, who is, actually, the coolest, is Thera. I bet you think I classics-geekily named my EverQuest character after the island just north of Crete. No way! She’s actually named after my Morrowind character who’s named after the Greek island.

All characters start on The Island of Refuge, where you do a couple basic class-dependant quests, get some gear, learn your hotkeys, and get off the island. I was apprehensive about meeting those 300th-level characters who prey on newbies, but it turned out that EverQuest is PvP-free and bad guys respawn fast enough to keep competition down.

Quick sidenote: Who are these people who are level 50 EverQuesters? Do they leave the house? Are they freakishly good gamers, like my roommate Andy, with a high level character in each class? (Andy, AKA the guy who lives in my attic, disagrees with me on the value of City Of Heroes and has a high level character on every server) Or maybe they live in the Artic Circle and they’re housebound with snow for six months a year.

Once on Qeynos (Sadly, a proper noun and therefore no good for Scrabble), you get a room. No, not in the sense that I’m usually thinking about Stick. You get a room at an inn, for which you must pay rent. This room can be decorated, with furniture, books and paintings, and while I know it’s a clever way to keep the in-game economy moving, I love it. I love playing dollhouse! One flaw in the game is that I haven’t seen any really unique clothes yet. That would be a great way to move the economy, to customize your character and to show wealth and rank. Besides, I like playing dress-up.

The quests are a mix of “Deliver this letter to NPC X”, and “Slay 5 sewer rats” (Like all adventure games, EQ2 has a rat-infested catacomb). They seem disappointingly linear now, but there are so many missions that it’s all right. Some of the real highlights of Morrowind or Neverwinter Nights are the social missions. So far, EQ2 has been lacking in fight-or-talk quests, there’s usually only one dialogue option at a time, but that may be a function of character class or level.

There’s also “stuff”. I love Sierra games, and Roberta Williams taught me to take anything that not nailed down. One of my big problems with City Of Heroes was the lack of items. But EverQuest is great for this. Rural areas are filled with rocks to mine, plants to pick, even butterflies and feathers to collect. There are “?” icons to search for collection quests, my favorite was the seashell collection.

In my fluish feverish state this week, I started having creepy EverQuest dreams. With a fever, I usually have nightmares. So far, I dreamed that Stick left me for a prettier girl, that Professor Marathon told me I can’t graduate in spring, and that every time I found a little “?” icon, it turned into an item I already had in my inventory. Pretty terrifying stuff.

Even though I was terribly sick, I managed to play EverQuest obsessively. The highlight being the day I dragged myself out of bed, leveled Thera, and went back to sleep for another 12 hours.

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