Taskmaster

So it's Saturday afternoon and the deed is done. All my stuff has been moved from the master bedroom into my room and all I have to do now is find the space for it all. Not going to be easy -- it's not exactly palatial in here. Ah well, I'm sure I'll sort something. It probably won't be tidy, but it's seldom that I've been accused of being tidy and chaos seems to suit me pretty well.

He e-mailed me asking if it was okay for him to turn up at Mage tomorrow. I don't know if it is or not, but I'm not about to turn him out. After all, the likelihood is that eventually, Andy P'll have his alternate Sundays back full-time and Andy O'll chuck in the towel on Exalted, which'll mean a weekend swap for Mage. Unless he really wants to chuck Immortal in (which I doubt he will), the schedule conflict will oblige him to drop out anyway. It's not that I want such a thing to happen -- well, not really -- but I have to admit it might make things easier. After all, I'm pretty sure it's not going to be easy for either of us to be cloistered up in a room together, even with other people, for hours at a time.

Then again, maybe I'm just being nervy for nothing. He's not a vindictive person and it wasn't the most acrimonious breakup in the world, so he has no reason to be rotten to me. As for me ... well, okay, I'm not exactly Lady Forgiveness over the way he chose to do the dumping, but I suppose I can understand why he did it. Plus there's the fact that, what with averaging one meal per day and keeping to crappier than normal sleep patterns, I don't really have the strength to go off at him. Of course, I'm not keen for him to see the state I'm in, but that's not something I can actually avoid without ducking out of game altogether, and I think that would just worry everybody. Being fat means I can live on my reserves for quite some time, my circadian rhythms have always sucked and I'm really not the most social of creatures at the best of times so I can get away with ducking out of things like the Now Show, but when I start dodging RPGs (particularly my own), people are going to notice and freak out on me. Not having it.

Anyway, it's not like I'm going to abuse Storyteller privilege with regards to him just because he doesn't love me anymore. That'd be incredibly stupid. After all, abusing people randomly is half the fun of being a Storyteller; start being discriminate about it and it removes the fun and spontanaiety from the whole deal. When it's Carl Tanner's turn to come under the hammer, it'll just ... well, it'll just be his turn, is all. No one's going to see it as a personal vendetta. After all, if that were the case, I'd be convinced that both Andys hate my guts by now.

So what's next? Well, I ought to clean up the kitchen, I really need to tidy up this room and find places for all my crap, and then I need to pull up a few character sheets for various NPCs I want to bring into tomorrow's game. I might sit down and watch some more Angel S4, but I haven't really decided. I figure that, what with having the flat to myself for awhile, I should take advantage and watch some stuff I know wouldn't go down well otherwise. I could watch Battle Royale again, maybe sit down with BRII if I can figure out how to get the VCD to work in Rufus VI. Or watch Ring, which I still haven't done yet. Still saving Eva for when he comes back, though -- ex or not, he's still a friend and it'd be nice for him to have some company when he watches the intense brain-hurt.

Right. Let's go to work.

Role Reversal

I remember once when I was living out in Bermondsey, my mother dropped in and freaked out over the fact that the flat was a mess. She said something about clutter, mess and general disorder of that nature being an indication of depression. At the time, this was amusing because, up until then, she'd vehemently denied that anything was really wrong with me. Now that she could see some way to use it to make me be more like she thought I should be, she'd pull the 'you're depressed' card whenever she felt like it -- whenever I was stepping out of line.

Now it's amusing for another reason -- because she's dead wrong.

It may well be true for other people, I'll grant you that. Lack of interest in possessions and surroundings is supposed to be one of the signs and/or symptoms. The thing is, I never really cared much anyway. 'Home' was somewhere I went to sleep, eat and/or watch hockey. Whenever I was home, I was always looking at a book, or the TV, or the inside of my eyelids -- anywhere but the house itself. There was always something more interesting to do than clean up, and I'd generally do a semi-proper clean before the whole place became a biohazard.

Depression tends to mean lack of interest in things that you enjoy, and a general tendency towards self-punishment. The one makes me aware that things need cleaning; the other makes me willing to do it. So when I start randomly cleaning the house, then you know things aren't entirely right. That tends to mean that my living in cluttered, borderline hygenic chaos means that I'm normal; it's when the bed's made, the surfaces are scrubbed and there are no clothes on the floor that you maybe have to worry.

That's why I'm not feeling as accomplished as I should about having cleaned my room and the kitchen. I know I only did it because I hate doing it. All the same, it has some advantages -- while my room is mine to destroy as I see fit, the kitchen is communal property and it'll be nice for him to come home to a clean kitchen.