crack, bump, groan, Zzzzz, snap, creak.....

I am feeling a little broken today. A LOT tired and a little broken. I came out of the 4-day event with minimal damage: a long bruise, clearly from a weapon hit, on my right upper arm; a slightly sore eye from being accidentally kicked in the eye; some small bruises here and there and SORE FEET!!!

That is all for now, more later when I have time. Unfortunately, (or fortunately, as the case may be...) my day has already shaped up to be VERY busy.

sore and tired

Went to EOS for the first time and had a great time! I had plot and backstory and everything, it was very cool actually. I will have to thank Angel for that.

Despite being damned tired and thinking I could not trudge another step through the deep powdery snow, I did okay and did not die. Heh. Kidding. Sort of. Anyway, not important. My character was interesting and neat to play, I got to meet most of the people in my throne and quite a few others. There was intrigue and cool stuff.

And a murder mystery to boot. I have to admit, when it happened it was a teensy bit cheesy. But then, it's larping, which is mucho geeky. So I think a little cheese is acceptable.

Anyway, I have some ideas for costume and accessories and I hope to be able to make some stuff for the game before I play again. Pants are a MUST, the skirt thing is not going to cut it. Not for adventuring and not for the concept either.

Anyway, today has been a day of napping and resting. Time to go to bed so I can deal with work tomorrow. Grumble.

Had fun! YAY!!

Thank you to my sweetie and my best friend for helping me go this weekend!

not sad to be home

The weather SUCKS!!! We got the ass end of a hurricane up here in New England and the weather has sucked all day. High winds, rainy, and it was really cold earlier. Oddly, it has warmed up some. But then they say that if you don't like the weather here wait an hour and it will change. Alas, it has.

I went out to dinner tonight. Me. Alone. Went to Macaroni Grill and had me some Lobster Ravioli. I brought a book with me to read, which I did. I had a great time! No worries about what to order, or how fast the waitress was coming back. No feeling obligated to finish faster or feeling self-conscious about how much I was eating. I was not totally without some background mind noise. I was having a little dialog in my head wondering if people were thinking about the woman eating along on a Saturday night and why. Did they think I was a spinster (for lack of a better word), a writer taking a break for some inspiration (I wore my very writer-esque black turtleneck), just someone taking a break from her kids? I didn't harp on it, but I did think about it in the back of my mind.

Regardless, I had a nice time. It got me out of the house, for the second time today, the first being my unsuccessful attempt to get my bloodwork done. The damn lab was CLOSED!! They said they were open. Well, maybe they closed because of the weather or no one was showing up, I dunno. But I was annoyed.

That's about it today. Off I go to use my laptop in bed and try to organize my thoughts before trying to organize my desk!

saddened by the passing of a personality

When I got to work Monday morning and checked on LJ, as I normally do, I read a post from a friend who mentioned that she had read in someone else's LJ that Perry DeAngelis had passed away. I looked around and found it, though there was not more information. I checked with Lou as she is a longtime friend of the family and she had also heard about it from another friend.

I am so sad about this.

Perry was one of the founding board members of LIONE Rampant along with 6 other guys from NH and MA. They decided to start their own game after playing the only other one around at the time, NERO. They had their own ideas, each of them, and wanted to put their creative minds together and make their own game.

He wrote and played some of the most memorable events/characters/creatures/modules in my LARPing career. To this day, his penchant for making up the most bizarre, poorly-statted, late-night micro is infamous! At the final event of the LIONE 3 campaign this July, I gave one of the present board members a brick together with a roll of duct tape and called it "The Honorary Perry DeAngelis Award" - because this board member (Lee) always played the most evil, most conniving, most surprising characters in that campaign. I thought of it off-the-cuff the day before, and now I am so glad I did it. It's just a testament to the contribution that Perry made to that game and to the lives of the people who played it.

I was not in contact with Perry for the last few years. But when I searched Google on his name I found a lot of people who were. He was active in the New England Skeptics Society. I remember when he and Steve founded that and it was just them. There were a lot of listeners and members of the group that have been touched by his death, even though they never met him.

Skeptics Guide to the Universe-Main Page
Skeptics Guide Message Boards

Steve Novella's Blog and comments

One of the posts was from Perry's close friend Evan:

Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 3:31 am Post subject:
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Hey all,

Forgive my intrusion on this thread, but unlike Rebecca and Steve, I don't have blog or another place to type a few words.

I am going to save my deepest thoughts and recollections about Perry for the next show that we record. But I must say that reading all the posts here, at Steve and Rebecca's blogs, and the SGU fans site today has been both amazing and very difficult at the same time. Your words of kindness and expressions of heart-felt grief has brought me to tears several times today.

I just got home from an impromptu gathering at Steve's house with about a dozen of Perry's closest friends along with his sister Celeste. We hugged, laughed, told story after story over a delicious beef dinner that my wife prepared in Perry's honor (thank you Jen, my soulmate forever!), drank a little wine, laughed some more, told more stories .... you get the idea. It was a little strange, but there seemed to be no time for our tears of sorrow - we just wanted to talk about Perry as much as we possibly could, and we did so for hours on end.

It's here at my computer that I find myself wet around the eyes as I read every word that has been typed. Its kind of surreal. I can't say that I can't believe Perry is gone, only because he suffered for many many years with multiple diseases, and we knew that this unbearably sad day would have to occur. But what I can say is that your outpouring of raw emotion, kindness, and love is heart-felt, warming beyond words, and incredibly astute. I met Perry in 1986, and I admired him within about 2 minutes of talking to him. A life-long friendship was born. As I read all that you have written, I think back to my first moments of being in Perry's company and I say to myself "Yes, I know exactly what they are talking about and how they feel."

I can't thank you all enough for your words and thoughts. You're the ones that are helping make this agonizing pain bearable. Please continue to express your thoughts and feelings. This is extrememly theraputic for Steve, Bob, Jay, Rebecca, myself, and Perry's closest family and friends. I'm off to find a fresh box of tissues.

Evan
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And words from someone else who knew him as well:
John's post

Perry will be missed by a lot of people for a lot of reasons. You don't have to be a close friend to miss someone when they are gone.