Drama Llamas

I really like the phrase "drama llama." Llamas in general are amusing, and the word just rolls off your tongue. However, drama llamas are not cool when they're going on in your life. Going by doesn't sound like the correct phrase for drama llamas. Passing by? Spitting in your face? Drama llamas would definitely spit in your face. Incoming long, drama filled story. If you don't like drama, pretend this post doesn't exist.

We made many friends in WoW when we played, most of which we don't talk to anymore. There was one friend in particular that we became really close to. I'm going to call him Ned, but that isn't his real name. We played with Ned for years, and we even paid for his account for a few months when he was having a hard time. We sent him some money and a walmart gift card for food too. We normally don't help people out like this, but we became really close with Ned. He was basically like a brother to me. We had each other's phone numbers in case we needed to call each other to get on WoW for something. Sounds strange, but a lot of people do it in WoW. I gave my number out to a few select people that I really trusted in game. So one night I called him and asked if he'd be on later for a raid or something. He told me that he was getting evicted from his place so probably not. I was a little shocked, I didn't know it was quite that bad. I knew Ned was having a rough time, his mother had just died and he had taken some time off work and I guess it just all piled up. My husband and I have a tendency to adopt lost strays (which is why we have 9 pets!) so we couldn't just let a good friend of ours go homeless. We offered to send him money for gas so he could drive down here through western union or some such place. We couldn't afford to pay for him to get a new place, but we could swing a few hundred for gas. He packed his stuff up and was getting ready to leave in the morning after we sent off the money when his car died (it had been having problems lately, so not a big shock either). So Jake and I stepped up to the plate and drove through three states (I think it was three, never was good at geography) to pick Ned up and drive him here.

It was a little strange, being in the car with someone you've never met before but have talked to for hours on vent. But we knew it was just temporary, Ned was getting some life insurance money from his mother's death and then he was going to find his own place. A day or two after he moved in with us, we got a big shock. Apparently, Ned's mother called Jake at work. Ned had left his cell phone at his old apartment, and we had called him from Jake's cell phone on the way. We asked if it was Ned's step-mother, but no it was his real mother. Who apparently is either a zombie or not so dead after all. This curve ball set the stage for the rest of the time Ned stayed with us. He lied to us about so many things, his old jobs, his school history, his non-existent two sisters. Jake also got him a job at his work, where Ned spent 99% of his workday looking at WoW forums. Ned never contributed much for staying with us and using our car; some months he'd give us 200 dollars (what we asked him to contribute) others he wouldn't. We didn't press it too much because we wanted him to save up money to get his own place. Still, despite all the drama Ned was part of the family. He adopted one of our cats, or she adopted him. She'd sit in the window waiting for him to come home every day, and she slept on him every single night. When he got his own place, he was going to take her with him. Which was OK with us, we know how it is when someone bonds with a pet. But eventually Ned got fired and he wasn't putting much effort into finding a new job. After having been with us for a year and one fight too many, Ned opted to move back to his home state and stay with his mother and step-father. They wouldn't let him take his cat, so we agreed to watch her for him until he could get back on his feet.

I was glad to be rid of the drama, but I still wanted to keep in touch. I tried to call and check up on him, but he was never home and never returned my calls. Six months after leaving, he e-mailed us. He didn't even wish us congratulations on our wedding, which took place a few months after he left. I gave up on him at that point. About a year and a half later, this January, we started communicating again. We aren't the type to hold grudges, we know that people make mistakes. Ned claimed to have changed, and that he had a decent job and his own apartment now. We talked for a few months, and he mentioned coming to visit us this summer. I asked him about his cat, even though we had pretty much given up on him ever getting her. He responded that he just wasn't ready to have a cat yet. This "man" is almost 30 and can't be responsible enough to take care of his cat? After all the stuff we did for him, he couldn't even come get his cat. I told him that it was terrible to get a pet attached to you then just leave them. He said that people do it all the time, they take them to the pound. At this point I didn't even want him to have her, for all I know he would of taken her to the pound. I blew up on him and told him to not contact me again.

It's not even really about the cat. I mean it would be nice to have a few less pets to take care of, but we love all our pets and they aren't going anywhere. But I know that she misses him. People say that animals don't remember people or feel things like we do, but she sat in the window for months after he left, waiting for him to come home. It broke my heart. She's better now, but I know she'd be happier with him. She's kind an independent cat and she prefers to keep to herself, which is hard to do in a house with 8 other pets! But the bottom line is we did so much for Ned. We tried to help him in every way that we could. And he just used us and never once did anything unselfish. I guess in a way it was a test to see if he could be unselfish and do something for us for once. He failed miserably. I don't plan on ever talking to Ned again. But it still hurts losing someone who was like a brother to me. I'll miss him, but I know our life is better off without someone like that in it. Most of all I'm disappointed. I guess some people never do change, no matter how much you want them to.

Almost another new month!

Well, it's been a bit since I posted. Nothing too exciting has happened, I'm over WoW completely at this point. A friend of mine did talk me into trying Rift though, but after less than a week playing I figured out that it's just the same thing. I'm trying to adjust to having a free life, where I don't have to wake up every day and log onto xyz video game at some point. Since I don't work, MMOs were what gave me structure and it's hard to figure out what to do with my life when that's gone, as sad as that sounds. The rational person would be like well go get a job! I probably should, but for many reasons I probably won't. Reason 1: I have a phobia of driving. I think a lot of this developed when my grandfather helped teach me to drive and would yell at me every time I made a mistake. I can get through it when I absolutely have to, but it scares the crap out of me. Reason 2: I hate working. Not because I'm lazy or don't want to do something with my life, but it makes me feel trapped. Reason 3: My husband doesn't want me to. We want to have a child in a few years, and we both want me to be a stay at home mother (we both were raised by rather absent parents). Those may not sound like good reasons to some people, but... It's not like I haven't worked before, for a short while I was the one working while my husband was struggling to find work. That's part of the reason I want to become a writer, because it's something I could do mainly at home. Having a crazy love of books and not being the worst writer in the world doesn't hurt either :-P

When I was younger (12 or so) I had so many ideas for stories, some of them were so strong that to this day I still remember them in vivid detail. I've started so many books only to stop working on them. I think my problem is that I'm afraid I'll finish one and it won't be any good. Typing that makes me feel silly though, because if I don't even finish one I lose by default. A nonexistent book can never be good! I've always been a perfectionist though, failing at something is one of the worst things for me! I really need to just buckle down and work on it, good or bad. I can always fix it and improve it with time!

It's been a busy month on top of all of that going on inside my head. Jake's parents came to visit for a weekend, and ended up putting up a new shed for us. Our old one was pretty much junk when we moved in. This was at the beginning of the month, and we still haven't been able to paint or caulk the darn thing! It's been raining and snowing almost nonstop since. This week our washing machine finally died, so tomorrow we get to go pick out a new one. I bought an exercise bike to use indoors when I can't go outside and I've been trying to get back in shape. My goal is to use it everyday for at least a mile, and work up from there. It's embarrassing but I gained a bunch of weight when I started playing WoW. Sitting at your computer and not moving tends to do that to you :-P I've already lost 40 lbs before even quitting though, so it's just time to keep going and lose the rest! I'm going to write the other reason I've been MIA in another blog as it's a super long story. But I'm still alive!

New month

Well it's a new month offically now! I picked a good time to have a new beginning :) My nap this morning consisted of me dozing for maybe an hour on and off. Strangly I'm full of energy right now though, I'm running on not very much sleep but I feel like I could outrun Twix right now (our great dane, or deer!). I know I probably really couldn't, WoW doesn't exactly help with being in shape. But it's so nice just being up at a decent time and seeing the sun rise. I used to think it was cool when I was younger to claim to be a night person, but in reality I'm more of a hmm mid-morning person. I don't really need to be up at 6 AM every day, but around 8 or 9 is perfect for me. Here's a picture of our deer, on her couch. She spends 90% of her time on that thing, and usually she's in the middle of it so no one else could possibly sit on it :-P

The last member of our dog family is Snickers, our german shepard. He's probably our smartest dog, and as is typical of the breed he's kind of high strung. That box he's laying next to is full of his dog toys, he's the only one that really plays with them. He carries one around in his mouth most of the day. I have no idea why! Some mornings I'll wake up and there's ten toys outside his box. I guess he gets bored of just carrying one around all night :-P I'm trying to train him to put them back in the box now! I need to spend more time working with him, he's very easy to train. I trained him to drop toys on command in about 10 minutes. His neck looks all gross because Reeses loves to chew on him when they go outside. Poor Snickers will be running around and Reeses is like I R GET YOU and glomps on him. He doesn't hurt Snickers, but apparently it's the most fun game ever because no matter how I've tried to break him of the habit he still does it! He just loves annoying Snickers for some reason. He'll grab a toy once in a while and just start squeaking it, poor Snickers has a heart attack. It doesn't matter if he already has his own toy, he must have the one Reeses is chewing on! I don't feel so bad about it though because Snickers was the last dog we got fixed and he used to always hump Reeses. I think he's gay, he never went after Twix :-P
See, here's a picture I took after a snow storm a few weeks ago where Reeses was munching on Snickers. Bad dog! Ha, I just noticed after I posted this that you can see Twix running in the top right corner, or at least her head :-P

Nom nom

I finally passed out around 3 PM today, then woke up around 7:30 PM. I'm going to try to sleep for a few more hours in the early morning then stay up all day tomorrow. Tomorrow is the husband's birthday, it seems to sneak up on me every year. I ordered him a game that he's been wanting, and we're getting his truck fixed. Practical and fun all at the same time :-P He's not much of a cake person and we don't really do parties so I'll probably just tell him to order himself a pizza for dinner tomorrow.

When I woke up, I actually started reading again. It's just a silly fluff romance novel, but hey reading is reading! I don't feel like doing anything tonight, I'm still drained from yesterday. So right now I'm starving and instead of going to cook something I'm just surfing the web. Motivation, I needs you! Hopefully tomorrow I'll be more energetic, getting up when it's not pitch black out will probably help.

Sleep or lack thereof

So I never used to have sleep problems before I started playing WoW. I don't know if that's just a happy coincidence or they developed because of my gaming. Now, some weeks I just can't sleep. I'll try to sleep for hours, on and off, then just give up and get up. Or I'll sleep for three hours and my body decides that's enough for me. Or I'll sleep for 12 hours and still feel tired. I don't know what my body's problem is, but it drives me batty that I can't control how much I sleep.

I'm realllllly tired today. Not because of my normal sleep issues, but because the husband has been working even later than usual and that led to a really messed up sleep schedule. Again! My husband usually works from 5 PM to about 3 AM. Usually he doesn't get out until at least 4 though, and last week it was about 7 AM. I hate going to bed before he gets home because then it feels like I never get to see him. But at the same time I hate going to bed at 4AM. Anyway, on Friday the terrible weather caused a lot of problems that made him stay until around 8 AM. So I stayed up and my schedule got so messed up that today er well yesterday we woke up at around 5 PM. It's almost 10 AM now and I'm so tired. But I'm so sick of going to bed at stupid times that I thought it was a bright idea to just stay up. I'm pretty sure none of that made any sense. Ugh, yeah I'm tired.

It's days like today that I wish I liked coffee, or tea. I only drink soda though and I'm trying to quit that. I'm debating on going for a walk but I'm not sure if it would be very smart to wander around when I'm half asleep. It'd probably wake me up but I'm clumsy enough when I'm not half asleep and I'd rather not hurt myself. One of my dogs is snoring right next to me. I don't like him very much right now! This is him, Reeses. He's the hardest dog ever to take pictures of, the only way to get him to stand still long enough is to sneak up on him when he's sleeping. When he's awake he's the most hyperactive dog I've ever met. Despite having a bad leg, he tries to climb on you and wags his whole butt when he wags his tail. He's a good dog though, he's the not so bright, loveable one in our family.

Moving forward

Well it's been about two days since I last logged onto WoW. It's not quite as hard as I expected it to be, but the first few days have always been the easiest for me. What is hard is finding other things to do with the husband without WoW. It's cold and snowy and storming out this weekend (yes, it has been doing all three o_O) so we can't go outside and do anything. I met my husband in WoW so needless to say it's always been a big part of our lives together. He's not just a WoW addict though, he's a video game addict period. He has little to no hobbies outside of gaming when he's not working. That makes it hard for us to do things outside of WoW, I'm trying to get him to open up his mind to other things but it's definitely a work in progress. Sometimes I feel like compared to him I have so many interests and things I'd love to do, where as I think he'd be happy just gaming for the rest of his life.

The biggest problem is that I love reading and books. It's always exciting picking out new books and then coming home and reading them. I could spend hours in a book store, even if I don't buy anything. Or a library for that matter. My husband doesn't read. I try to encourage him to read sci-fi or fantasy books as they can parallel the storyline in a video game, but the only ones he's mentioned wanting to read are ones based on video games. It's so hard for me to understand that. Those books are probably terrible, though I've never read one. Before I started playing WoW, books were my life. I could spend a weekend at home reading and it was the most relaxing, comforting thing ever. Now that I've quit I want to get back into reading and writing, but knowing that he doesn't read makes me sad. What about when I do finally finish a book and I want to share that with him?

I don't know, I just hope that with time we'll find more things to do together and it gets easier. It will help when it's actually nice out and we can go outside. We both love animals and nature (minus the bugs!) so we plan on getting a lot more active when we can. It will be nice to lose the WoW weight and get back in shape! It's funny how when you stop playing, you stop talking to all the people you used to play with. For one they're so busy playing that they don't have time to talk to people, and for another it seems like all those relationships were just so superficial. If you can't talk about gear, gold, or xyz WoW thing there's really not much to talk about. Not that I didn't talk to them about other things in game, but all of that was done while working on one of those in game things. Once you cease being useful for them, they couldn't care less about you. It's sad that I spent so much of my time playing with those people. I'm just glad I got out, and can hopefully stay out. I'm tired of missing out on the world while playing in a fake one.

Another year wasted!

So... quitting is hard. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I'm not a weak person. I'm actually a very strong, opinionated person, but I am also very anti-social. WoW gave me a way to communicate with people without letting them too close. There's only one person in my life that I feel I can count on (the husband), other people just let you down. I think that's the main reason why I find it so hard to quit. WoW gave me a safe way to be social, without strings or disappointment. If people upset me or annoyed me I could just log off and not have to deal with them anymore. It's really hard to log off from people in the real world. So here I am on attempt number [insert ridiculous number here] to quit that evil game.

People like to say it's not the game's fault. I agree that it's not totally the game's fault. But the game is built to keep people to keep playing and spending money. All of my old in game friends struggled with playing too much, to varying degrees. Some people took it to extremes like me and played 10+ hours most days. Others just stayed up too late and cut their sleep short or put a few things off to play a little more. It's sad but it's hard to blame the company. Of course they want to make money and there are people that can balance their playing. I still think the game is toxic though, so many people's lives are destroyed by it.

The bottom line is that I'm tired of letting a game have control over me. I need to put on my big boy (person?) pants and accept that if I don't change something I'm going to just keep going back to that game. The stupid thing is the past 6 months or so I haven't even had fun playing when I did play. Why do I keep doing a hobby that I don't enjoy?! That's beyond stupid. And when I think about how I let my life get so derailed for a freaking video game I kind of want to kick my own ass. It's pixels! Sure they're pretty and all, but they aren't real. In 10 years or whenever the game closes down for good all those people still playing will have nothing to show for it. You can't even keep your darn character, it's not even really yours to begin with. And for all that people are ending marriages, neglecting kids, and gaining tons of weight. I remember when video games used to be associated with fun. None of that sounds fun to me.

Anyway, enough ranting. This is day one for me. Again! It makes me sad to read that post I wrote a year ago, a year I could of done something productive in. I don't want to make that mistake again. It's up to me to grow up, and learn how to live again.