d&d

A Little Gratitude

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

Hello, dear readers – we’ve made it to Thursday. I haven’t had a bad week, per se, but it’s definitely been an anxious one, between the increasing number of COVID19 cases in the Midwest, and the upcoming election, and… *gestures at the general 2020 dumpster fire*. I don’t expect that to ease up any time soon, so in an attempt to counterbalance that, let’s do a little gratitude list this week.

  • I had to do my final presentation of my big quarterly stretch project at work to our leadership team on Monday, and it went well! I was feeling very behind in the past couple of weeks and wasn’t sure I’d be able to pull it off, so the fact that everything came together in the end was a nice little boost at the start of the week.
  • Also, Monday was my Grandma’s 93rd birthday. We have a complicated relationship, but I ended up getting to chat with her on the phone for a few minutes in the evening, and that was nice.
  • Last night I started a new (online) songwriting class with Sue Demel, who is one of my favorite people. This is my third time taking this particular class, and it always draws out really interesting material. I’m very excited to see where the next eight weeks take us.
  • I have spent an inordinate amount of time this week creating a character for a spooky D&D one-shot that I’m playing with some friends tonight, and I am SO EXCITED. D&D has been one of the major bright spots in my life lately – I love collaborative storytelling so much, and I have the most wonderful people to do it with.
  • I dropped off my mail-in ballot at the nearest early voting site on Sunday, and got the notice this week that it was accepted and my vote will be counted. Terrified as I am about this election, I appreciate how easy it is to vote in Chicago, and I appreciate the abundance of resources online that helped me to sift through the ~65 judges we were voting to retain (or, in several cases, not retain).

Hang in there, everyone. Keep wearing your masks and physically distancing (I know it’s hard and we’re all tired of it, but the pandemic doesn’t care and it’s not over). Keep checking in on each other. And if you’re in the US and you haven’t voted yet – please, please, please vote. If you need help making a plan, send me a message.

Sleepy Week

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

Hello, dear readers! It appears we have made it to another Thursday. Since we had Labor Day on Monday here in the US (which meant a long weekend for me), I’m a little bit extra discombobulated about time right now.

I’ve been extra tired this week. A lot of this, I think, has been the weather, which has been pretty consistently overcast. I also haven’t been sleeping great – staying up later than I should and having weird and unsettling dreams when I do go to bed – which is not helping anything. It hasn’t been a bad week, though. The long weekend was nice. I had two D&D games, a couple of other regularly scheduled virtual hangouts with friends, and my first songwriting class of the new session at the Old Town School (via Zoom, of course). And Monday we used the extra day to put together a LEGO set, which was a lot of fun.

I wrote a song for class this week that I’m pretty happy with (I might post it here next week – I want to let my classmates hear it first), I got to play another session of my friend’s tarot-based game last night, and work has been pretty chill, so all in all it’s not been a bad week. I’m just very sleepy.

On that note, I think I’ll sign off for the week so I can focus on drinking my coffee and trying to wake up a bit more. Stay safe – keep wearing your masks and social distancing and washing your hands. I know it sucks, but the pandemic isn’t over. Keep hanging in there!