(no subject)

Spent most of the past five days down in Tacoma enjoying much loser funness with ten rounds of Living Greyhawk games at this year's New Year's Eve of Loser Fun 7 convention. I took time out Saturday afternoon for a fabulous date with jeliza and the nerdvana party.

Thank the gods I have tomorrow off so I have a chance to try to recover from all my 'vacationing' the over the past two weeks. It's been good, but seriously lacking in area of a solid night's sleep.

1998

As has become a tradition for the holiday following New Year's Day, I've pulled out the oldest records in my file cabinet to throw out and replace with the year just past. This year, 1998 hits the shredder.

'98 was the start of a run of several really hard years for me. Kim's surprise driving off with her brand new boyfriend and then informing me over New Year's that she was dumping me triggered a depression that grew deeper and deeper throughout the year. Our relationship lingered on and off throughout in the year in some kind of unliving state, which only added to my sense of loss.

My game company was struggling and we were all working long hours to finish up a short-schedule project in time to bail us out of bankruptcy. To add to the stress, one of the partners stated they were quitting, leaving it to me to try to find some new project to keep us going after months of lost time ultimately ending in us shutting down in November, laying everyone off including myself before Christmas.

Throw in being in the middle of graduate school, the increasing emotional distance between Angela and myself--really between anyone and myself--, and you can see why it was a year I'd never want to relive.

It was a year where things I invested years of my life into unravelled, stress turned into despair, and the events of that year still echo in me to this day.

RIP, 1998.