Curses!

We have a program review meeting in a month, where I will need to present. I will need clothes for this, business clothes, because I doubt that the clothes I can wear now will fit in a month. And while most of my office is fine with jeans and a clean shirt most of the time, program reviews require something a bit more spiff.

(FWIW, I usually try to wear something better than jeans and a clean shirt - although I am so not stressing about it as my clothing options are diminishing. I have been in sneakers for at least a month. No one cares and my feet are more happy.)

This looked appropriate and, bonus, was on sale for $20. But alas, they cancelled my order - all out of my size, apparently. The hazards of buying discount!

So, back to the drawing board. Motherwear has this jacket which I have been coveting, and it is back on sale. That, a white shell or tank, and brown pants (alas, the made-to-match pants aren't made in my size) and I'd be in business.

(Although... corduroy? But the picture doesn't look like corduroy to me.)

Magical thinking!

There's an article on magical thinking in today's WaPo online. There is nothing especially new in there, but it's a decent introduction to the idea.

This has nothing to do with projecting energy or certain religious/spiritual observances. Magical thinking is why some people wear their lucky socks when their favorite sports team is playing. It's when we joke about how, "Of course it's raining; I just washed the car." It's when we overpack for a trip, because "If I bring it, then I won't need it, but if I don't, then I will."

I first learned the term... oh, I dunno, a few years back, and it's one of those things that occassionally fascinate me. So, here: I share it with you, if you've never heard of it before.

Good for the ego

I used to write, almost every day, from 1999 til last year, for online games that I either played in or ran. The first one I ran... well, I cringe a bit when I reread the logs.

But when you do something every day and pay attention to how you're doing it, you can get better.

I checked in on my last game today. Not only can I reread my old passages without wincing, the statistics page indicates that, in the past month, there have been 45+ page views on the same day, for three different days.

45 page views are about how many you would need to read everything on the game's website. Random people are finding my website and reading all of it.

Notably, I don't get that response to the "Red Ribbons" tabletop game log. Those were abbreviated summaries of a game, meant to record who, what, when, where and why. There's much more telling than showing, and the page statistics show that interested visitors typically read a page or three and then get bored. I don't blame them - they weren't written to be great fiction. They were written as an aid for the GM and the players.

The online games were halfway between a game and an exercise in collaborative fiction. So, while I'm patting myself on the back, back-pats should be extended to my players/co-authors as well!