poukledden

I think y'all should do it, too. "It" being the geek self-anaylsis thing. Here's the idea: pick something you geek about -- a movie, tv series, book or book series, you name it. And then do what I did with the D&D thing. The idea here is to just jot down your thoughts about what draws you/what your favorite bits are/etc. Total stream of consciousness. Post it on your blog, if you have one (and if, Rie, you can remember your password after all this time :). Or in the comments on this post or the D&D one, or mail it to Geraldo, it's all good. Geekalyze yourself!

Oh, yeah, and make it something silly. Just for fun. I mean, not like one of your *serious* interests. No Bible, no Ancient Philosophers, that sort of thing. It should be the kind of thing that most people would say "meh" and think not much of anything could come of it, self-knowledge wise. Anyone can get Deep with the Bible. Doing it with the X-Men, say, or Roger Corman flicks, now *there's* a challenge.

Sometimes, let me tell you, I write some pretty weird stuff in my moleskin. Tonight, for instance, I found myself pondering these facts about myself -- facts about my preferences when it comes to the world of Dungeons and Dragons. Call it a form of trying to figure myself out. The whys, I can't help but think, would be interesting to know.

So here it is. Gregory through the lens of D&D:

--Favorite class/es: Druids and Rangers
--Favorite Race/s: gnomes and elves (wood and wild over gray and high)
--Chances of me playing a human character: virtually nil
--Favorite alignment: Chaotic Good, by a landslide


Other random bits:

Sorcerers are better than Wizards. Paladins are tiresome gits*. Monks are really cool tiresome gits.** Sorcerer/Rogue is a good multiclass option to play.  Halfings are cool when they are of the nomadic/free-wheeling/kender type, and boring when they are of the Hobbit type.

Really. I can't help but think there is Self Knowledge here.

(*oddly, when I was a kid, they were my favorite character class. But that may have just been because of the cool horses they got to have)
(**read this as "Monks' cool fighting abilities are neat and look really cool in Neverwinter Nights, but the rest of the time they're boring)

I nuked all my tags. The tag cloud is empty. Well, except for whatever this entry gets tagged with.

Don't know why I did, except that it was out of control (again) and filled with tags that really didn't get used except once, thus making the whole concept useless. And, well, because it seems like housecleaning time in the life of Gregory, and this is taking many strange forms at times.

In this case, it's a growing obsession with how we -- well, specifically *me*, let's not project too much, though the 'we' bit is true, too -- relate to words. Tags, as an intertubes phenomena, are interesting. You tag a blog entry or a photo "porpoise gangbang" and lo! behold! it's got something of a porpoise gangbang about it, even if it's just a blog post about how you lost a sock while doing your laundry. Words shape and limit things. It's really kind of their job, isn't it? It's their strength and weakness.

Here's the thought, related to the whole what does Gregory identify with/relate to/believe in big thinky thinkies of recent times. Tags are interesting things. My tag cloud was getting pretty huge, mostly because I tagged entries with no thought. And thus I want to start again. But tags, see, they form those clouds, get bigger and bigger, and it's like saying I am this, all of this, this and that and that other thing and ESPECIALLY THIS and not really this but a little bit, and yeah THIS and THIS contradict each other, but hey, human being, ya know. The words, all in a melting pot cloud, jostling and combining and affecting each other. No -ism but I-ism, Me-ism, the whole this big messy ball of me-ness.

So I'm going to rebuild the ball and see what happens. And realize, no matter how many times I have to bash my head against a wall to remind myself, that no word can capture me, that I'm under no obligation to adhere to any one word, and anyone who thinks different are no friends of mine and can, quite frankly, fsck off. And certain single words I'm not even sure of anymore, anyway, and so should just go with one that I know is for sure: explorer. Let the rest of the cards fall where they may.

In other news, it's very possible that Yours Truly spent several hours working on a painfully but happily accomplished 500 words or so of output of a type that might, for those obsessed with labels, be called a story. Shhhhh....