This year's over, and I'm not making any resolutions. I just want to take time to mourn defeats and reflect upon avoiding repeating them, as well as time to cheer victories and reflect on how to accomplish them again, or improve upon them.
2012 was a good year in that I did not suffer many personal losses. I've fought a few bouts of depression, and my share of what I call my "Howard Hughes periods" - where I am terrified of leaving my home, out of fear that something could happen.
I did win battles against diabetes. My average blood sugar - A1C - keeps dropping with every checkup. And my weight has declined. My main fight now is against asthma.
Professionally, I feel like I've worked my way out of being the low man on the totem pole. I'm not as terrified as I used to be about fucking up. I'd like to further improve upon that, too. I keep looking at my work's number on my caller ID, thinking "Oh, shit." I've formed friendships at work - with people who still live out of town, and I've even strengthened an old friendship with someone I've known for years who works with me now, Courtney. She's my little homegirl.
In my personal life, in the romantic department, I'm still with Dawn, and the distance still makes us miss each other. We've come to understandings, and even briefly shared another girlfriend - someone that I met from work. Didn't turn out that great, but it was a nice experience while it lasted. I guess you could say we're more of an open relationship, in that we still have non-intimate "playmates" on the side, but we're still bound to each other.
In the other parts of my personal life, as I've said, I've been hanging - at least via texting - with my pocket-sized homegirl. Being that we both like girls (she exclusively), we talk about hot chicks on the web, TV, and movies and we exchange pics. I like to send her a pic of a big butt (preferably my crush, London Andrews) and say "You're getting mooned!"
I've re-acquainted myself with a friend of mine from high school, Monnica! We've been talking and she said she's going to send me Thai recipes. I've also started talking again to Adrienne, whom I remember from 9th grade. They both like my writing. Maybe they're biased, I don't know.
Speaking of writing, I'm still writing that series of "Vampire: The Masquerade" fan-fiction. A lot of people like "The Silent War." Being that it's based on a role-playing game, and has characters inspired by people that I know, there are a lot of inside jokes, but it's still relatable. Jordon loves that a major character is inspired by him - a Brujah biker gang leader.
I've also started working on that new series I mentioned before, tentatively called "Harmonic Era," which is a fusion of science fiction and fantasy. I want to work on that more, too. I'm just now getting the rhythm of it.
Gaming-wise, I learned more about the rules of "Vampire," as far as combat and XP. I have decided that I'm going to run my game, even if I just have a couple of players. It's just so hard to keep a big group together anymore; and this campaign I want to run is going to be a big, ongoing saga that will end up being EPIC, and needs consistency in players.
Speaking of a fusion of science fiction and fantasy, I sometimes entertain the idea of writing a Rifts campaign. It's an idea that's a bit of a way off, but not a bad idea, nonetheless.
The new Hitman game came out this year! And I got through the story line on both normal and hard. I think it might be time to up the ante soon, because there are three more difficulty levels left.
I've enjoyed the new WoW expansion, "Mists of Pandaria." I've run out of time on my account, but I plan to add more time soon. My rogue is 89, and halfway to 90.
I finally got through watching all the episodes of every Star Trek series (except the animated one)! All thanks to Netflix. For anyone who doesn't subscribe yet, whenever you do, mark down on your calendar when they take out your payment each month. I've made the mistake of not doing that, and it's tripped up my finances. Anyway, I've caught up on Trek, and I'm getting caught up on Sliders, Doctor Who (I'm going to miss the 9th incarnation - he's cute!), Sons of Anarchy, and Quantum Leap. Courtney's gotten me into a new series, Lost Girl.
I haven't been introduced to new artists, but I have heard new music by artists I already like. Soundgarden's released "King Animal," and I found out what Gothica's Alessandra Santovito has been up to for the past few years - a dark ambient group called Hexperos. I have the new Tanzwut release, "WeiBe Nächte." It's pretty good. I'm going to start writing reviews when I get new music in.
And in academic news, I passed my Communication Law class. I have one more class left before I get my associate's in journalism - Design 155. I start it next week.
Well, I have to get ready for work. I'll blog later.
