Game Called on Account of Niceness

Sore throat, general aches, sneezing fits, sinus sodomy ... oh yeah, welcome to the wonderful world of the summer cold. I'd better feel well by tomorrow or I'm going to be seriously pissed off at a world that's trying to make me cancel my Saturday spoil-fest.

There was a thing about the Dune session, suddenly proposed for Tuesday. Andy P sent a mailing around with a list of characters people could play and asked us to decide who was who. We'd already discussed this a few weeks ago, so no hardship to decide. Thing is, after I'd bagged medic, Andy O came out of the woodwork and said he wanted to play ... and play the medic, to boot. Now, Andy O never gets in on these things, mostly because he has to be up obscenely early most days for job-related shit, and I've had my turn with Firefly. Anyway, I know squat about Dune -- never read it, never watched any of the TV adaptations, and the only summary I've ever received is the one Andy P gave me a few weeks ago. In short, I'll just spend the session like I did Firefly -- confused and screwing the whole thing up. Besides, Andy O was one of the original members of House Molay and I'm just a Janet-come-lately. It's really no hardship for me to just step aside and let Andy O play.

Well, not really.

Not much, anyway.

Okay. Alright. It blows dead goats for nickels that I'm just blowing the whole thing off like this. But I don't understand the Duneverse, I'm going to feel like an idiot because of it, I'm not obliging Andy P to sit around and rewrite his Gencon script just because I want in and ... I'm trying to be nice here, damnit! So why do I feel like such a loser?

So far today I've been called helpful twice. It's like the universe knows that I'm in a sucky mood and need a self-confidence injection. Or it could just be that I've been very helpful and/or I've got some decent people on the phone for a change. Now I go off to get the post and sort out the rest of the world's ills. Huh.

Rock. [me] Hard Place.

Oh, this is incredibly stupid.

Simson's moving in a couple of weeks and needs the time to reorganise and pack. This brings the whole group back down to five people. Fuckmuffins. I've already dropped out! Also gave up dibs on the one character I actually wanted to play -- I don't get Mentat or Bene Gesserit -- actually, I don't get Suk either -- but "medic" is something that I can actually understand.

I have two options at this point:

1) I can stay dropped out, let Andy P find his own damn sixth player and keep my distance from the whole mess.

2) I can swallow my damnable pride and assorted misgivings and say (with as much good grace as possible in the circumstances), "Fine, count me in -- I'll just take whatever character no one else wants".

Neither prospect appeals, really. I go back in, I go back on a decision (I hate doing that) despite my misgivings. I stay out, I feel like I'm distancing myself for no good reason and probably seem ungrateful or something. Not to mention the fact that I put Andy P in the position of having to find a sixth player when I could fix that particular matter handily.

See? These are the perils and pitfalls of actually having something remotely resembling a code of social behaviour. I used to think that everyone tried to be considerate of the needs and thoughts of others and tried to maintain a balance between self-sacrifice and self-interest. But it's times like these I really envy all the people that I know who don't actually give a crap. I know a few people who don't appear to give a single thought for the needs of others; people who say whatever they like however they like and then either ignore the reactions of others or seem surprised that anyone might take their statement any way but the one in which they meant it. In short, people who don't think for one moment longer than they have to about thoughts, feelings or anything they cannot or will not comprehend. Let me tell you, I envy these people enormously at times like this, because they sure as hell don't have the Scylla and Charybdis problem -- or rather, they see neither rock nor hard place. God knows why these people haven't completely crashed and burned by now -- maybe it's just because their boats are stronger.

Between that and the being ill, I just want to curl up in a little ball and die. I get the feeling that Saturday is right off.

Meme-thing

( Well, it seems to fit how I feel now... )

Yeah, that was about it, really. Want to go home, but instead am probably going out to find hair dye or something.