That's How We Did It in the Navy

Today is an age of vague gender roles and a very high value placed on equality. This post, however, is a dedication to a certain aspect of manliness from an almost-forgotten age.

Over ten years ago, a neighbor across the street passed away. His name was Tom and he was a great guy. He was handy, loving, a great father. He provided for his family and shoveled the sidewalk for his elderly next-door neighbor ever winter. Everyone who knew him loved and respected who he was and what he stood for.

When Tom's cancer had finally put him on his death bed, his family all gathered around to say goodbye. His daughters and faithful wife kept vigil for hours as he laboriously clung to the last vestiges of life. Finally, a nurse pulled the wife aside and gave her an observation: the nurse had seen such situations before and predicted that Tom would not give up while those he had devoted his life to being strong for remained in the room. Surprised and at a loss for what else to do, Sharon shepherded her children from the room and they collected themselves in the waiting area. A few minutes later, the nurse brought them the news of Tom's peaceful passing.

This was a man who firmly believed that it was his duty to protect and provide for his blood. To his last breath, he needed to be strong for them, even during the one time when he couldn't be.

The second story happened just last weekend. The the father-in-law of a lifelong family friend finally, too, succumbed to his cancer. The doctors recognized that John's time was very near and, again, his wife and daughters all came to bid the man farewell. Words were said, tears shed, and the daughters went home to get some rest. No sooner had they left than John stopped breathing. His heart, however, continued to beat. The nurse quickly grabbed his wife and told her to call her daughters and bring them back.

John's heart continued to beat until the second and last daughter walked in the door, then stopped.

On the opposite side of the coin from Tom's strength, John needed to have his family near him. He hung on beyond all reason and strength for purposes that cannot be fathomed, but hang on he did until the very last person he loved beyond all measure was safely by his side.

My last story is the closest to home. It's about my grandpa.

A long, long time ago - i think i was about eight or ten - my grandfather was up visiting from Florida. Keep in mind, that at that point, i could probably count the number of times i had seen the man on one hand. I knew some stories and how much my mother loved and respected him, - he essentially raised her and her sister by himself, his bipolar wife not being of a particularly nurturing nature - but really had no concept of him as anything more than "Grandpa". I remember lying on the floor in the living room, just hanging out with the rest of my family. For some reason, i decided to put my feet up on this old desk we have - maybe i started kicking it, i don't recall the details. Grandpa yelled at me.

I never forgave him. In that formative stage, i was incensed that anyone other than my parents could DARE chastise me in such a bald and public fashion. The shame and embarrassment stuck with me and i found out after his death that he had, in fact, noticed the schism it caused in our relationship, although i was always very polite and kind to him.

Fast forward to March of 2004. Parkinson's had slowly eaten away at his faculties and the doctors predicted that there wasn't much time left. My mom flew down to Florida to spend a couple weeks there and eventually sent for the rest of the family to come down to say goodbye. My brother went first, solo. My dad and i flew down shortly after my mom and brother returned. We only stayed the one night because i had a competition that i had to leave for the following day.

I remember the warmth of the room, the (at the time) peculiarly comfortable nature of his palliative room. My father had his moment alone with his father-in-law and then it was my turn. My dad left and it was just me and my grandfather's slack-jawed stare, only the sounds of ventilators and pulse monitors to keep me company. I took his hand and told him about everything i knew about him, of my mother's love and how she had tried to raise us the way he raised her. Drool began to drip from his chin and i wiped it away as i finally apologized for the grudge that i held for so long and for no good reason. I remember his eyes glistening with tears and how i told myself that it was my imagination, that the nurses had told me that he probably couldn't hear anything we were saying.

My mom had the presence of mind to wait until i got home to tell me that my grandfather had died the night we had seen him, not more than a few hours after i had said my last goodbye.

Doug was a navy man, a good man, and a great father. He had lived a long, happy life and was ready to die. Nevertheless, he would not give up until all loose ends had been neatly tied up.

One day, if i ever have a family of my own, i'll count myself lucky if i can leave behind half the legacy of these men.

/salute.

On Warcraft, pt. II

The fall of 2007 found me moving in with one of my best friends from high school, Matt Grajcar, and some of the guys he'd been living with for their last few years at RIT. I had been out of school for the two years prior due to my at-the-time girlfriend's parents forbidding me to go to the same school that she attended. Having done nothing but sling coffee for over a year, i felt like i needed a change of scenery, so up my stuff got packed, out to my job got transferred, and away i went.

Amidst these new surroundings and rowdy new roommates, i did leave behind another of my best friends from high school, Nate, who was basically the only friend i had had for that preceding year. And so, in an effort to keep up with him while away, he convinced me to start playing World of Warcraft and join the guild he had found, the Hammer of Go'el.

I should point out - with apologies to the girl in question - that Warcraft also fulfilled another need in my life at that point. You see, dear reader, i had been dating a girl at the time who, in her immaturity of that age, wanted me to spend all waking, non-working hours on the computer, talking to her. Myself, also immature and trying desperately to make the long distance relationship work, usually agreed. This unfortunate interaction ensured that i was spending more hours a day on the computer than i really care to reveal, and i desperately needed something to DO while "talking" to my girlfriend. Enter, Warcraft.

Now, in this reflective state in which i find myself, it would be appropriate to comment, for a moment, on the game play that Warcraft demonstrated - some could argue "pioneered" - but such musings are not for me and mine. For me, the important part of my time in WoW is almost entirely the Hammer.

I particularly remember one terrible time in Shattrath, the major city of that expansion, during prime time hours. My computer - which i had built myself with some help from various friends - was currently ROCKING out on half a gig of RAM, which up until that point, hadn't been more of a problem than my considerable patience could handle. But that night... that night it took me over an hour to get from one end of Shatt to the other. I was trying to hold a conversation in Guild chat, sending messages as if by carrier pigeon, the rest of the Guild carrying on in between my sporadic missives. Finally relating the reason behind my perforated existence in Azeroth, one of the officers - whom i only knew as Tuula, the female troll hunter - offered to send me some spare RAM he had lying around.

For free.

I tried to pay him, i did, but he refused. Maybe a week later, a manila envelope arrived in the mail for me containing two gigs of ram and a short, hand-written note signed, "Tuula and Sylvaina". I could barely believe the freely bestowed generosity and trust, but that was the norm in the Hammer of Go'el: genuine, human attention and good-will. It was there, piloting my undead warlock avatar across the non-existent hell-scape of Hellfire Peninsula, that i bumped into a community that i never knew existed and - even more inexplicably - in which i was welcomed with open arms.

The following summer, Nate and i did something that leaves the average person rather disconcerted: we made the journey into Massachusetts to attend the Guild's annual barbecue at our Guildmaster's house. There, we put faces on people's voices and characters. Elves, orcs, trolls, zombies, and cows all suddenly became real people with real names and real jobs and real lives. I met Todd and Ethan and Duane and Jenn and Joe and so many others that it was honestly a little overwhelming, but i guess that's why our Guildmaster makes sure that there's alcohol at these things.

Today, the Massachusetts branch of the Hammer are some of my best friends. I have more shared history with them than i do most coworkers. With them, i've crafted legendary sets magical robes (which took me weeks and a fairly epic string of quests), invaded fortresses of demon princes, fought for control over important resources and staging grounds, led the first wave of a continent-wide incursion into enemy territory, trained a team of highly organized and efficient assassins, and eventually toppled the terrible Lich King - the same Arthas Menethil from Warcraft 3.

I see the Mass. folks once a month now as we embark on a new set of adventures in the tabletop realm of Dungeons and Dragons. Together, we represented the Hammer at PAX East '11. Joe and i recently romped our way through Portal 2 and have plans to record some future gaming sessions for the entertainment of the Internets at Large.

I left Warcraft earlier this year not for any social reasons, but because of a terrible plague that sometimes effects regular MMO players. Currently unnamed, this affliction makes a change in the gamer's conception of the value of game time. Before infection, a player may feel that any time spent enjoying a game is inherently worthwhile. After a certain period of festering, however, it becomes difficult to justify playing any game EXCEPT the MMO because we are faced with a terrible choice: spend X time working on the next goal in the MMO, which yields permanent - albeit intangible - rewards, or fritter away the same time in a different game with nothing to show for it afterward. This scourge, combined with the very real argument that i'd already accomplished everything there was to accomplish in the game, led to my eventual decision to cut the cord and ditch WoW.

Yes, it would be difficult for me to argue against the idea that i had "wasted" a great many hours playing a video game, but it would be impossible for me to assert that i left the game having gained nothing. I gained friends, insight, a community, new skills, and, while it is definitely a story for another post, a new lease on life and will to keep living. WoW, and the people i played it with, got me through a very difficult time in my life and i have nothing but gratitude for my time spent in Azeroth.

On Warcraft, pt. I

I don't remember exactly when or how it entered our lives, but a certain computer game popped up on my family's computer some time when i was nine. I know its appearance was due to my brother, but the circumstances beyond that have evaporated with the mists of time. A quick Wikipedia search tells me that it must have been either late 1994 or early '95. It was called Warcraft: Orcs & Humans and it required a whopping 4 MB of RAM.

My first introduction into Real Time Strategy games, Warcraft was actually the second RTS game ever released for home computers, the first being Dune II. Interestingly enough, Blizzard pumped out their debut RTS game as fast as they could simply to take advantage of the warm reception that Dune II had garnished, hoping to take advantage of a perceived void in the market. Because of this rush, the saga of orcs vs. humans began with little script to speak of, their bloody conflict existing as a vehicle for the game more than anything else. My brother and i didn't care, of course, reveling - as any Tolkien geek would - in the gory spectacle of orcish combat.

My first experience with Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness was at a friend's house. All i remember from that tiny campaign was the excitement over the new, shiny graphics; the faster pace; the driving, awesome music. Then a small mob of enormous, fat, naked men with two heads waddled into my village and punched the entire settlement into the dirt. Surprisingly enough, this traumatic first experience did not deter me at all and i whiled away many hours with WCII, deepening my love for all things orc. I vividly recall the first time i met Zul'jin and badass teal scarf. Truth be told, i can trace back my love for scarves and unsymmetrical ear piercings to this troll axe-thrower.

While Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos probably didn't get as much play time from me as Starcraft did, i definitely owe it more. Warcraft added a slew of additional features in its third incarnation, including a third playable race, heroes and 3D graphics. More importantly for me, however, was the incredibly dynamic storytelling made through the vehicle of in-game cut scenes. The characters came alive, then, and i found myself truly sympathizing with Thrall, Cairne, Jaina, and the rest of the characters i would come to see so much of in the coming years. It was halfway through the Undead campaign that i first saw the fall of Sylvanas Windrunner, Ranger-General of Silvermoon, the soon-to-be Dark Lady who would steal my WoW-heart.

At this point, i'd be in Azeroth for the better part of a decade. I was intimately familiar with orcish culture and magicks, the role of gnomes in human society, and the fear of an undead scourge. My formative gaming years had been heavily marinated in war paint, battle cries, honor contests, glorious deaths.

To me, orcs will always be hulking and green-skinned.

The Burn Phase, or, Things I've Learned as a Geek, Part 2

In any game involving conflict, the player is given an array of options of varying potency and efficiency. This is done to add dynamics to the game, lest it end up as simplistic as tic-tac-toe. In combat-based games, these options are usually limited by certain conditions or qualities in order to balance the system. If one were allowed to use your most powerful tactic whenever one pleased, the game would quickly become one-dimensional and boring.

In World of Warcraft (for example), each character class is given certain powerful abilities which can only be used every so often. These abilities are categorically referred to as "cooldowns" due to the fact that after each use, the ability has to "cool down" before being used again. This core mechanic to the game means that, at any specified point, the combat potency of an individual or group can increase drastically for a short period of time, followed by a equally balanced cool down.

I have learned something about myself in my observations of how i use cooldowns. If the cooldown was short - say, two minutes or less - i would usually have no trouble using it as it was available since i knew that it would most likely be available again when i needed it next. If the cooldown was long, however, - which is anywhere from five minutes to thirty - i found myself stingily hoarding the ability, terrified to use it for fear that it wouldn't be available to me when i truly needed it.

I almost never use any ability with a cooldown of five minutes or more. My fear of misusing my most powerful abilities prevents me from utilizing them at all.

In my life, i know there are many instances of the same fearful behavior. For example, i'd much rather do nothing than fail spectacularly. I'd rather say nothing than cause pain. I'd rather bide my time in hopeful observation than risk getting hurt again and losing what little i had.

Such behavior is based off of a fallacy; it gains you nothing to wait for the perfect moment and so lose any advantage you might have had. Now, i am by no means saying to cast strategy and logical thinking to the wind and act recklessly. I firmly believe that a clear head and a comprehensive array of data is key to discovering the most advantageous move in almost all scenarios. Sometimes, though, fortune truly does favor the bold. Use the advantage when you have it or risk losing it completely.

Sometimes, you should just go all in.

Country Wife

[...]On the third day after his return, the Godking gave audience to his rescuers. The young man was still gaunt and had a brittle, sensitive air about him, the horrors he had witnessed still plainly evident through his new clothes and freshly bathed skin. The Godking's seconddaughter stood just a pace behind and to one side of the young man, looking little better. Neither had spoken much over the in between days, forcing little smiles at the servants who insisted on thanking them personally or offering them sons or daughters in marriage. This attention had quickly waned, fortunately for the two youths, and they were allowed to recover mostly in seclusion until this morning, when a page had summoned them here, into the Godking's presence.

A delicate string of saliva slowly oozed out the corner of the old king's broken mouth as he gently coughed. The page boy quickly dabbed it away with a kerchief. Taking a deep, rattly breath, the Godking opened his rheumy eyes leaned forward, resting a gnarled arm against an equally bony knee.

"Boy, the maidens are already singing songs about you," he wheezed. "Never have i ever seen such bravery. Foolishness, my knights would have called it, but thanks to you, my kingdom is once again safe. In thanks, i now grant you a boon: your reward is limited only by your imagination, up to the hand of my firstdaughter in marriage."

The throne room went quite still at this announcement. The courtiers where aghast. It was well known that the dowry of the firstdaughter was the entire kingdom. Several of the wealthier nobles had been angling for years to be in this boy's very position. This farm boy's position.

Throughout the pronouncement, the youth met the Godking's gaze confidently. Now he closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath - which only shook the tiniest bit - and released it. His thoughts gathered, he opened his eyes and spoke in a clear, steady voice:

"King, i want you to know that what your seconddaughter and i did, we did not out of a sense of duty, or nationality to your great empire. We did not do it for fame and we certainly did not do it for any reward. We put our lives in harm's way because it was what was required of us. It was right. Therefore, i humbly relinquish any right to your boon and ask for nothing."

A lady in the gallery fainted.

The king blinked for several long heartbeats before beginning to violently rock back and forth. On the fourth attempt, the terrified page finally understood and helped the Godking to his feet. The old man began to rage, shaking his fist at the youth, foam spraying from his bared teeth.

"Don't be daft, you foolish boy! I offer you land the vastness of which you could not experience even if you devoted the rest of your life to travelling it. I offer you so much gold that you could not count it all before you perished. The hand of my beautiful firstdaughter is your's for the taking and you spit upon her?"

The young man did not respond as the king tired himself out and was helped back into his throne by the page. When the old man had finished coughing and sputtering into the page's proffered kerchief, the youth spoke again, and again his voice was clear and strong

"Sire, i do not wish you to think i spurn your generosity, for i do request something. My lord, i come to you now as a suitor and ask for your seconddaughter's hand in marriage."

Wispy sound of conversation began to drift down from the galleries as the king stared at the lad before him.

"My dear boy, you're not thinking clearly. My seconddaughter has no worth to you; you gain nothing by marrying her and you well know this. Now speak: tell me whatever your heart desires and that shall be the value of your reward."

The young man glanced beside him at the girl by his side, reached out his hand and took her's.

"I want whatever she's worth."

The Red Queen

I am often jealous of those writers i follow on the internets whose products are, day after day, clever and hysterical. They are the sitcom writers of my generation and i often envision their lives as idyllic versions of my own, filled with quiet, sunlit mornings and very few worldly cares. Oh! how i yearn to be one of their kind, recognized and admitted into their most awesome of circles.

To that end, i'm going to be funny today.

My grandmother is bipolar. My earliest memories of the woman involve sad stories my mother used to tell me about the after-grade-school snacks of cookies and creme de menthe her mom used to prepare for her, just so she wouldn't have to drink alone. My own experiences have a much rosier shade and involve mostly images and feelings of adventure: being shown gramma's collection of cane swords; admiring her many knick-knacks from around the globe; looking askance at my brother and cousins as she leaps from a doorway to bar our path, brandishing an antique threshing flail.

I particularly remember my first experience with what my mother described as one of my gramma's "manic phases." We were vacationing down in North Carolina (where my grandmother lived for many years), visiting my aunt and cousins, and gramma offered to take the four of us cousins out to a local flea market. For reasons i no longer remember - perhaps a debilitating case of the sniffles - i opted out of going on this adventure. To this day, i regret my decision, for my brother and cousins came back with all manners of treasures! I distinctly remember a neon orange shag throw rug, a couple of turkish fezes, and the looks of exasperation on the faces of my aunt and mother which i would only understand years later.

Gramma lives up in New Jersey now, within driving distance of my house. It was decided that my aunt had had to deal with enough of her shenanigans and - now that gramma was retiring to an assisted-living sort of facility - that it was now my mother's turn to deal with her. This new proximity has allowed me to witness all sorts of new sides of the woman that i'd only previously heard of second hand.

The Thanksgiving of 2008 saw my aunt and cousins up north and my ol' G-Ma solidly in the middle of a manic phase. It was that particular year when my mother took it upon herself to educate my cousins and i about what to expect from an almost-80-year-old woman in full-blown bipolar mania. She gave Paul and i actual photocopied textbook pages with lists of symptoms. I had long known about the inhuman levels of energy, the disjointed thoughts, the feelings of euphoria, but it was that year that i learned about the hallucinations, the delusions, and the "hypersexuality."

Think about that last bit for a second.

About mid-way through that week, i woke up in the middle of the night and ventured downstairs for a drink. Being a boxer-sleeper, the first thing i noticed upon reaching the half-way point in my stealthy descent of the stairs was the frigid temperature of the first floor. A careful look around the corner set the scene quite effectively. The hall was empty, the hall bathroom door open with both light and fan on, the living room dark and empty, the front door open with only the glass screen door keeping out the cold and the smoke from my grandmother's Misty cigarettes. I could see her silhouette out on the porch, so i swept as quickly and quietly as i could down the hall and into the kitchen where i found the source of the cold air: the wide open back door. I shut the door, grabbed my drink and retreated as fast as i could to the warmth and privacy of my room.

The next morning, i mentioned the occurrence to my mother. Apparently when she got up in the morning, she found the kitchen in a similar state to the one i described above. When she asked my grandmother about it, the old lady informed my mother that PSE&G had gotten in touch with her last night to inform her about a potentially hazardous gas leak. Checking the phone, my mother very delicately asked her how the gas company had talked to my gramma, since there were no records of any calls going through last night, either incoming or outgoing.

"There's more than one way of getting in touch with people," my grandmother replied sagaciously and with a sly wink.

The Interminable Skittering of Anthropomorphized Words

I am quickly approaching what feels like a critical mass of nuggets and ideas. They rattle about in my skull to the point of being distracting, what with their collisions and then endless human interest pieces about the loving families of the concepts lost in the great catastrophe of the right prefrontal cortex.

Bitches.

While a cornucopia of potential projects seems like a fantastic thing in theory, my particular creative bent tends to end just there: at the idea stage. I have half-theories and choruses, novel conflicts and juxtapositions, species and tonalities all logged away in my head without any framing in which to put them.

You know how annoying it is when you have the chorus of a song stuck in your head, but you can't remember the rest of the song? It's worse when you wrote the blinking chorus.

Some of my frustration comes from my - for lack of a more accurate term - Renaissance tendencies; that is to say, my interest - and perhaps competence - in many fields without ever achieving expertise in any of them. So while my idea for a sky-born fish monster is nifty and i'd love to show it to other people, my drawing skills limit my ability to effectively portray the concept.

I have entire casts of characters with no plot for them to be a part of; beautiful, poignant scenes which cannot benefit from the scope of context; clever turns of phrase, naked of verse.

Still, they are mine. These little acts of creation, this instances of pristine beauty, give me focus and energy. Just as lethargy and apathy are sure signs of my depression, creativity is a signal to myself of a Good Place. The weather is turning colder and as it does, my thoughts stir, awakening to the world around me and its myriad inspirations.