Undelete

(Better late than never)

Last week, I posed the question, “Could I throw it all away?” I don’t think so. There are a few good reasons but the chief one is this: Aerin represents the best in me. She is the embodiment of the selfless, service-oriented, sociable side of me. Through her, I manifest the values I believe in and try to practice in real life: Faithfulness, loyalty, respect, humanity, adventurousness, etc.

It’s not like I’m a total bastard in real life. Actually, living as Aerin a couple hours a day reminds me to watch my P’s and Q’s the other 22-odd. The more I focus on my behaviour in Vana’diel, the more my real-life attitudes improve.

Look back over the last fifty or so blogs – how many are tagged with a “mood” icon of 3 (neutral) to 5 (full-on BLM badness)? Not too many. And that’s reflective of my real life. I’m ordinarily a happy-go-lucky kind of person, and that one attribute eliminates most of my stress and creates most of my wife’s ^^

Without Aerin, I’d still be someone who values love above all, who tries to never worsen someone’s day, and all the rest. But with Aerin, I get to do all that for people I care about WHO AREN”T RELATED TO ME. Most of the people I interact with (not counting work) are family. I have a lot just within 20 miles of my house and so most of my interpersonal interactions are family based. Don’t get me wrong – I love them and don’t feel compelled to be nice to them. But family and friends are different and I like the bonds I’ve made with my Vana friends.

OK, so maybe you’re wondering… Why not more friends IRL? Simple – the family folk eat up most of my time and the few hours I have left I want to control.

On to more important business… My new schedule. Ape and I have been wrangling with this for a few days and here it is. It’s not set in stone but I should be able to count on it most of the time (and anyone planning events should start here at least):

Monday: Off
Tuesday: ~8:30 to bedtime
Wednesday: random, either a couple hours around 7-9 or 9-bedtime
Thursday: Off
Friday: Late night, after date night. 3-4 hours if I can stay awake
Saturday: Late night, 3-4 hours if I can stay awake
Sunday: random, a couple hours in the afternoon or evening

I may work in weekend daylight visits depending on what we’re doing IRL but there are no promises there. Also, Ape said if things are slow at home or she’s tied up with schoolwork I can do non-committed stuff: Farming, soloing, camping, PLing. No parties or group runs where I can’t leave within 10 minutes.