Keep In Mind

Warning: This is not going to be very good story-wise; there will be lots of grammatical mistakes, run-on sentences, and other abominations of the english language. I'm sorry; I tried to write this essay three or four times, and although I could've easily written some bullshit about when I went to Japan and "found myself" (heh, thanks Hemp), I realized that nothing has really had an impact on me -- or revealed so much of my personal weaknesses as this. I'm going to have to ask just this once that you be a little more kind in reviewing than is typical; normally, I like people being overly critical, but I don't think I can ever re-work this. I wrote it how I felt it, and I really don't want to look at it again. I just need to post it before I delete it and (futilely) try again.

--

Her very first words to me were "You know, this is a really bad idea." It was appropriate; it was November, too, but appropriate is more important in this case. Because what I had concluded, after a month of preparation and intense focus on both my schoolwork on my writing, was a terribly bad idea.

I stared at the computer screen. It was midnight on the dot, and my focus was almost non-existent. I had been so anxious to start my National Novel Writing Month novel that I couldn't really think clearly. There were other things on my mind, too, but at the moment I watched my start bar clock hit "12:00am" I was off like a speeding bullet.

I got to the line "You really need to learn how to write people that don't exist," and Stephanie -- although I always thought of her as Steph, although earlier on she was called Reese (short for Theresa, although why I have a fetish for that name I’ll never know) -- declared her agreement with the line.

"But you're not real," I reminded her.

"Bullshit." That was her response. Even before I had really solidified her character, she was incredibly feisty. Thus began a month that I can only recall in snippets of conversation, abject horror at a distance, and a growing realization that I had indeed pushed myself too far.

Over the next several days, we worked on the fiction and on her. I say we because, at the beginning, it felt more like joint effort than just myself controlling myself in weird ways -- or rather, letting myself give in to unrealistic impulses and impressions. The key to Steph's development was the internet. I found that by having two instances of IRC (a kind of chat protocol) open, with some diligent switching I could have out-and-out conversations with her, and she could have conversations with others. The former was not so terrible; mostly, it was me saying to myself how she was myself, so I was talking to myself. I used that one a lot.

But when she was talking to my friends, a different sort of pattern emerged. She was emotional from the get-go, probably bi-polar. She really liked certain things about my friends that to this day I swear I never noticed before. These were fun exercises, and they really helped channel a sense of being into her. She started to squawk a lot when the main character of my fiction had sex with her character, and I honestly felt a little guilty about it myself, but at the time it made sense. Who knows what I was really thinking back then.

The problem was, after my final projects for the semester were handed out, I was under a lot of pressure. I had just started playing World of Warcraft, for one. I was addicted, but mostly in control. I played every thursday and friday night, and I played with my friends, but I would play come rain or shine. I had declared that 'me' time, and an unfortunate number of people had gotten caught inside it -- and come out worse for the wear. I was writing, and although things had started so smoothly, as I was forced to spend more and more time working on code and dealing with teammates, my story started to suffer. I was trying to find ways out.

It was during those times that She would start to speak to me, and it would be her voice, not mine mimicking hers, and that started to scare me. But it was good to have someone to talk to.

"I think you should drop Nano this year," she said one day. A bright day, outside; I can't recall if I was walking from my job at the Library to home, or from home to my job at the Library, but I remember the street that lined the quad, and I remember that that's where I first thought the idea.

Or she said it. Whatever.

I didn't respond for a while, because I really didn't want to give up. I had given up the year before that, and the year before that. I had something really unique in my relationship with her, something that translated into... well, on the page, it didn't really translate into all that much, but I was growing attached to the spunky girl voice in my head. Of course, the second I thought that, she heard it, and she said "I know I'm not real. You know I'm not real. I told you this was a bad idea. You're not exactly the picture of fine mental health, y'know?"

I had to concede the point; there are stories I don't think I'll ever tell about my spotty history, but suffice it to say, they validated her claim -- my claim. "Still," I finally responded, this time in a mental tone of voice that indicated inward talking as opposed to mental wandering, "I know you wish you were real. I wish you were real. You're not, but... let's keep this going, if only for a few more days, okay?"

"Great. Asshole."

I kept walking; I was really close to my dorm now (or was it the Library?). "Asshole? What did I say?"

"Look, I know I'm 'not real' and all that, but that doesn't mean I had any plans to leave!" That forced me to stop, pinch the bridge of my nose in a highly cliché fashion, and take a deep breath. Had I just told myself that I wasn't going to let myself return to sanity? One foot in front of the other, almost where I needed to be. Yes, yes I had told myself that. Sheepishly, she added, "Sorry. I know this has to be hard, but it's hard on me, too."

Every day, I used her name, her voice a little bit more online. I was withdrawing, and luckily or unluckily, I called out to the girl who had dumped me not three days before the whole experiment started -- I let it slip (rather slyly, I thought at the time) that I was trying something completely new with this year's NaNo, and that I wanted to practice it with her. She was amused.

Sitting on my bed: "So, I'm writing a sort of meta-fiction about a guy who's writing a story about a girl, who exists in his head as a voice, except she shows up in the real world, his real world, anyways, and all sorts of crazy shit starts happening."

Michelle, sitting in my chair, leaning forwards ever so slightly: "Weird."

"So I figured, maybe I can get myself in that mindset. Maybe I can get into this guy's brain, and therefore get into this girl's brain. It was fuckin' crazy, but I figured I'd give it a shot."

I don't remember the rest of the conversation, but when she asked how it went and I explained that I couldn't shut her up, she was -- she was fucking interested. She wanted to talk to Steph. I instantly clammed up and became nervous and fidgety. Even though I explained multiple times that this was just a writing practice, that Steph didn't really exist in my head -- or rather, that she ONLY existed in my head -- Michelle was very kind and calm, and didn't call me any offensive names. I would've called myself some very terrible names, really.

But there was still a barrier, thankfully: I couldn't speak out loud as Steph; a part of my mind realized that if I started physically talking as a girl, then there would be no coming back. My stomach churned at the thought. So when Michelle got online, Stephanie said 'hi!'

I don't remember what we said. I don't remember it at all; I just remember the small bold letters, and I remember myself butting in with italics. It's stupid, but for some reason, font choice seemed very important to me to distinguish between the two of us. I was making borders. I was trying to section her thoughts off into some unknown region of my brain. Who knows what I was trying to do. My projects were proceeding on plan, and I was getting maybe four or five hours of good sleep a night.

The day after Steph talked to Michelle, I realized that I had shown how badly my mind was cracking. I knew it, knew it as plain as day. It's scary to realize you're going insane and that you can't do anything to stop it. Saying it sounds cheap and pathetic; writing it makes me feel like I'm telling, not showing. But there really is no other way to explain that growing tenseness in my chest, or the twitchiness that started to kick in.

Luckily, National Novel Writing Month was also Thanksgiving Week Off Month. I went back home, and I didn't write a single word for three days. Steph continued to berate me in my mind, and I still chatted using both her and myself, but I didn't write -- I couldn't write. Nothing was coming to me. I had started to grow bored with my own insanity, and without the stress of finals or papers or projects I started to drift, or... or something. And then, on wednesday afternoon, I saw an episode of Stargate Atlantis wherein Dr. McKay and some random military chick get sucked up into a Wraith beam, and then when he's spit back out, she's in his head, helping him do things in classic late '80s fashion. It was mildly entertaining, but most of all, it made me realize I wasn't half as clever as I thought I was. I was so irritated that someone out-did me that I didn't write any more. I slapped together an ending in an effort to make myself continue writing, but it didn't work. I was so pissed that Steph kind of stopped talking.

The end of November saw me turning in my final project for Doctor Kuofie, a madman in his own right. I also finished a paper for my Japanese class -- or perhaps it was one of the other minor classes I was taking at the time. Either way, things were finishing. My novel was left uncompleted at just under 20,000 words. Every once in a while, up until winter break, I tried to get Steph back in my mind -- to re-establish that strange mindset where I wasn't myself, or that feeling of personal connection that I just wasn't getting with anyone at the time. I guess I was pretty lonely. By winter I'd almost completely forgotten; by the start of the next semester, it wasn't even an issue -- I'd been sane from the get-go, and it was just me being silly and dealing with my stress in a unique sort of way.

I still miss Steph. I miss her a lot. I had created from my mind the kind of girl I would want to talk to, and I succeeded. I nearly lost my mind -- again -- in an effort to connect to someone after having lost one of my sole connections with the outside world. It's convenient to blame Michelle, but despite how embarassing what I said to her was, what I entrusted her with when I let Stephanie say 'hello,' she wasn't patronizing or insulting at all, and for that I'm very thankful. It helped me realize that my connections with the world were not so tenuous after all. I was able in the end to not only regain my sense of self, but to find what part of me lay in the world beyond myself.

Epilogue: Stranger Than Fiction came out during the next Nanowrimo, and I was amused (14 words!).

--

Zach Lome is currently a programmer for Sentact, who operate a web-based ticket, notification, and survey system for schools and hospitals. The stress of college finals and projects happend to over-prepare him for the working world, where now finds himself bored and unamused. He hasn’t had any run-ins with fictional beings since he started writing for the Write Monkey Write blog, thankfully, unless one of those fictional beings happens to be a genie.

Zach still has plans to write NaNo this year, but is going to shy as far away from meta-fiction as is physically possible -- just in case.

--

Steph still isn’t speaking up much, but she’s glad that Zach’s writing this stuff out. Maybe if people paid more attention to her, she’d actually get to talk with people once in a while. Well, here’s to dreaming! She also wants to say hi to the other Steph, because it’s cool to meet people with the same name as you.

(addendum: Yes, this really happened. No, I could never quite lose that distinction between reality and fiction, although it got terribly, terribly blurry in a not-so-good way. You can read what I wrote at http://www.ilstu.edu/~zslome/writing/nano.rtf , although I warn you, it’s not very good. Finally, the last bit is a joke -- don’t worry about my mental health, and for God’s sake, don’t ask to talk to Steph. Please.)

Kahuna Lactates for Genie's Wernicke (Genie Post)

Topic: Pete: "Write a scene in which a character finds an object and a genie pops out."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Labradors deflate if menaced by collared jerky,” the young man in the open-slit white gown

replied.

Genie stared in disbelief at the members of the Aphasia Group I of the Suffolk County Temporary Rehabilitation Center as they milled about in the Center's rec room. Never before had one wish taken so long to grant. In her 1000 years so far, this was the first time the whole process had taken this long. Truth be told, she liked it that way. Being a genie used to be easy: a human would ask for something loved, lost, or forgotten and the genie would supply the craved for necessity. The life became routine: humans always asked for the same types of wishes: love, property, revenge.

Yet these fools wanted nothing from that list. Or maybe they did. Genie couldn’t really tell what these humans wanted. Every word uttered made little or no sense to her. Their randomness was particularly infuriating for a genie because genies could innately understand all human languages. Mayan peasant, no problem; deaf, not an issue. However, that pan-lingual perfection did not apply to these folks. These folks spoke in a language that escaped even a genie.

What was a genie supposed to do when her grantees made statements like, “The tapioca eats a blanket.” That isn’t a wish; it isn’t even a real thought. Genies grant wishes, not fragments. While the blankets request was bad enough, the scene only became worse. Each person was crazier than the next.

Genie was used to more sophisticated circles: Arab princes, European elites, American CEOs. Dealing with invalids seemed to violate all the standards a genie would expect for herself. In the old days, fools like these would turn the lamp over to a priest or a liege lord. That hierarchy may have been pretentious, but at least it was predictable.

In that world, a prospective grantee would always go along with the flow. Genie explains the rules, the grantee accepts, and the wishes commence. Invariably a genie must deal with responses like, “To Hell with thee” when the wish goes awry, but generally the system worked well.

“Octagon tucks feline to stir saddlebags,” a petite young woman interjected to disrupt Genie’s thoughts.

How many more days of this could Genie take? Immortality enhances the potential for patience, but doesn’t eliminate the possibility of frustration. Genie still remembered her first moments of recognition in this place. Renovations in the building led the uncovering of an antiquated, rusty kettle inside one of the walls and the discoverers simply assumed that the object belonged to a former patient. However, none of those construction workers bothered to hold the kettle without gloves.

If only, Genie thought, then I wouldn’t be stuck here. The patients though had no such qualms; being curious, a new patient grabbed the kettle as it lay on the ground unprotected and squirreled it away in his room. Shortly thereafter, Genie had appeared to the young man unable to speak.

At first, Genie assumed it was another awestruck human. It wasn’t uncommon for a human to be amazed at the sight of real magic. So many had forgotten. Sometimes the human wasn’t awed by magic, but fearful of religion. Either way, the effect wore off and Genie could get down to work. But this…Genie really feared that she would be stuck in one place forever. Forever takes on new meaning when one can never die.

Genie didn’t really know what would happen if she was left in the human world for eternity. At most, she had been outside the kettle for a few years. Being entombed in an object felt differently; time didn’t pass the same away nor did her mind wilt so quickly. Here though, she really feared being left in the outside world for a millennium. She had already queried every human in the ward to whom she could gain access and by rule, she could only travel where her summoner went. If only she could find a way out...

“I want to take your place,” a small boy yelped from behind the adults. The genie turned…

I Can Feel the Memory in My Dragonbone (Project #1: Memoirs)

Topic: Tang: "Write a memoir about your experience at Gen Con."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

There comes a day when a man must accept the fact that his true peers are morbidly obese, dragon t-shirt wearing, female-fearing freakos. That statement may seem harsh to you; however, you would be wrong. I say this with certainty, because, well, you haven’t met my peers.

My initial impression of these people is horribly prejudiced by my friends. Unlike those persons I described a moment ago, my friends can be freakos without appearing freaky. We all cultivated nerdy interests ranging from live action vampire conflicts settled by paper-scissors-rock to attempting to paint realistic miniatures of futuristic robot orc cyber mages. Between us we make two marines, a law student, a physics teacher, and an English instructor. While certainly not cool, I dare say that we maintain some semblance of normalcy in the land of LARP. That being said, at Gen Con, we are the coolest people alive. Our status is akin to being the cousin of a Kennedy; we aren’t quite JFK, but we might have played touch football on his lawn.

Gen Con is a convention of all things geeky. The event was originally held in Geneva, hence the name. Over time it shifted to Milwaukee and now to Indianapolis. I never attended any of the years in Milwaukee, although they are discussed with the mythic quality often reserved for dead war heroes or your favorite defunct restaurant. After years amongst the breweries, Gen Con moved to Indianapolis. Veterans of both areas often tell me that Indianapolis welcomes gamers like the Middle-earth conquering heroes that we are while Milwaukee grimaced at the arrival of more people discussing THAC0 the same way fashion models discussed bulimia. For my part, I think Milwaukee could have its up side: a town with a per capita restaurant fish fry rate of 12 fish fries per 100 residents must have something to offer.

Having attended Gen Con last year, I feel more prepared to take advantage of my proportional coolness advantage. I will pick up women, wow fellow gamers with my mad role-paying skill, and impress published authors with my singular wit. Let me be clear, none of this will actually happen.

These failures will occur despite my many preexisting advantages. For example, by sleeping with more than one woman in the past, I am vastly more experienced than 84% of Gen Con’s attendees, including the lesbians. Likewise, my status as marginally overweight makes me more fit (in cases of fatties) or healthier (in cases of the human wafers) than 90% of the convention.

However, I must face facts. Rejection scares me more than a chemical attack on my home town. At least with the chemical attack, I will die when the mustard gas collapses my lungs.

Furthermore, my sense of economics tells me that attracting female gamers should be easy. After all, the supply of palatable males reaches an immeasurably small level at Gen Con. However, economics fails to account for three factors: first, I do not understand economics; second, I am a coward; and third, the quality of women at Gen Con mirrors that of the male population.

Gaming girls can be surprisingly attractive, particularly if one likes girls of the gothic or Asian bent. While not my forte, equal parts paleness and dark makeup can often combine to make a pretty little combo.

Every once and a while a really attractive women will appear. Most of the time she is hired by one of the gaming companies to attract young males to the company’s booth. This sort is easy to find in that she is often dressed as though she was an elf lingerie model. Unlike their non-gaming counter parts, young males at Gen Con will not actually engage this kind of woman. They will simply approach her, take a photograph, and later brag to their friends about how hot this woman was. Sadly, the Gen Con Gods stamped out these hired guns in the interest of creating a family environment. I disagree with this decision for a simple reason: breasts and families are not mutually exclusive.

Yet at other times, a beautiful woman will appear and look as if she wandered into the area by accident. She will talk, dress, and walk like an attractive woman, but possess some distinguishing feature like a deck of Magic cards or Celtic necklace. I try to meet these women, but meeting would require talking and talking to them would violate my previously discussed rule of cowardice.

Honestly, I think that the percentages of women at Gen Con fall inside three groups: Group 1, 48% of the women are unattractive; Group 2, 48% are somewhat attractive or attractive; and Group 3, 4% are hot. 4% is certainly less impressive than the number of beautiful women at Tri Delta, but not too shabby when you consider the asexual nature of Advanced Dungeon and Dragons.

Avowing not to associate with Group 1 and ducking Group 3 as if SARS infected its members, I focused on Group 2. My initial plan was to rent a car, ram into a Group Twosie, and then woo her during the ensuing court battle. However, showing unexpected foresight, the Hoosier State will not rent cars to people under 26. So instead, I decided to try my luck with talking to a Twosie.

Operation Twosie Tot started off smashingly. During one of the writing seminars, I eyed a Starbuck doppelganger. Starbuck doppelgangers are particularly interesting in that much of the story of Battlestar Galactica (the show which created the Starbuck character) revolves on humans and their human- looking robot impersonators.

She sat about four rows in front of me and appeared about as interested as me in the panel discussion of “racist tendencies of WASP fantasy authors towards the peoples of the mountain.” I formed a foolproof plan: after the seminar ended, I would approach and ask about her writing. And so I waited. After the race conscious author dressed an ant-eater finished his spiel, I looked up for Starbuck and only saw the back of her head as she bolted from the room. How stupid of me, she is clearly a mind reader.

In the next seminar, I saw Starbuck once more. This time, she would not escape. After wrapping my head in dead electric eels to block her telepathy, I sat directly behind her to prevent her from fleeing the room again. As the self-published author described what sounded like the “Dragon Bone Trilogy,” I tuned out while still checking to ensure that Starbuck was within the reach of a witty one-liner. Then right as the “dragonbone” turned out to be an apocalypse stopping artifact, Starbuck rose to leave. I am going to have to tie her down next time; I should have gone to a rodeo.

My other grand attempts to nab a woman occurred at the Gen Con dance. First, think back to my earlier description of Gen Con attendees and now imagine them at a night club of their own design. If you are imagining the opening dance club scene from Blade, then you are exactly right. I kept waiting for Wesley Snipes to burst in with the I.R.S. chasing after him.

Feeling out of place or awkward, my friends I decided to become the Stair People. We repeatedly walked up and down the stairs while Jedis and French maids gyrated. At some point, Pete and I designed the an entire culture around the Stair People; they feel great pain. In fact, it will be our next writing topic: Sarcozy’s love handles and their effect on the Stair People. Against all luck, we found a few women at the top of the stairs. They too appeared to be joining the nation of Stairmasters. I eyed them and saw one, dressed in a white dress, return the look. I decided that the White Queen would be available in perpetuity and thus continued to joke with my friends and drink warm beer. As I walked down the stairs, I found a French maid who peaked my interest as she bobbed rhythmically and strained her neck at the nearby men. Instead of asking her to dance, I decided to continue on my circular path around the dance; clearly, she wasn’t going any where.

A few minutes later, I returned to my Stair People roots with two beers in hand to look for my White Queen, but she was gone. The White Queen had left during the time I spent wandering amongst her subjects. I would joke that the development leaves an extra beer for me, but I always intended to drink both. Buying two at a time simply saved money.

I left the Land of the Stairs to go locate the French maid who I assumed was eager to serve me, but she too had left. Realizing my newfound difficulty, I looked for a new target: two attractive young girls wearing dresses and standing by themselves. They seemed like the perfect women for me: pretty, but strange enough to be at Gen Con. Better yet, they appeared socially awkward. Admittedly, when I approached them, I failed to notice the large older man wearing a Mordor-rock necklace who stood next to them. Remembering myself, I made sure to pat him on the back and ignore his grimace. I babbled some unmemorable comment about the two young women, but only remembered their response,” We’re here with our Dad.” At that point, I fled to the safety of the stairs and waited for the company of my male cohorts. When faced with troubles, people should play to their strengths: in my case, flight.

Periodically, I re-learn something about myself. At Gen Con, I re-learned the somehow reassuring fact that I belong there. Instead of separating myself from those who have memorized the evolutionary adaptations of the tusken raider, I should admit to the world that I could (and should) correct their plaster molds of the raider’s central nervous system.

By attending Gen Con, one exposes himself to the risk that the world will know the truth about his hidden interests. By enjoying the interests of my peers and sharing in their failures, I expose myself to the risk that I will know the real truth: the truth is that my friends and I are not all that different from the other Gen Con attendees. Perhaps we can assimilate with the rest of the population a bit better, but after all, if you prick us, do we not bleed lead-free, specially-formatted, silicone-based orc paint.

Pete - Memoir essay

Speak, friend, and enter

Where the Nerds Are, after hours in Indy; three bars my friends and I visited down in Indianapolis give me three different perspectives, glimpses of the world as I experience it day to day.

The city street flooded with high lights bringing out the deep browns of the Midwest; older brick from a century ago lines the district preserved for modern merriment. Indianapolis echoed Chicago out there on the plains, and trains gathered here from all over the East and Midwest, loading grains and people outbound for 150 years. In the vicinity of the Union Station, cast in brown brick and gray asphalt, were three bars in particular.

…

"You should go to 'Ice,' she said. Her dark hands on her hips, arms contrasting with her bright yellow blouse. "I'll probably be there after I get off here, in about an hour." A wink. She leaned in towards me just a bit, and I’d already decided. For the group.

So on our first night in town we meandered down the streets to the foyer of Ice. Out of the humid night and stepping into the elevator, we pressed "up". Wallets came out, our IDs ready.

As we ascended, images of blue and black stumbled into my mind's eye, the cool motif splashed on the walls along with thrumming trance beats, girls very made up and poser guys not interested in us at all, visiting gamers descending on their city, their club, as they noted us through sunglasses at 10pm.

The elevator doors parted... darkness there, and nothing more. Not a soul in the place.

An almost confrontational quiet. The utter lack of sound in this clearly social space was eerie; the place abandoned but somehow meticulously maintained. My first impression was surreal, the cool air hanging all around us, the stillness really seeping in. Tentative, we stepped out of the elevator, Chris held back and kept the parted doors open, thinking tactically.

We might need a way out of this place, fast.

"They're closed," Hemp said after a pause into a silence that seemed to engulf his words. Rational ,grounded Hemp. We were not in a tomb. There had not been a war during our elevator ride up. This was not a dream. Well, probably not, anyway.

I took a few steps into the vacant opulence, our very own unexpected haunted mansion, an open mausoleum just stepped into. Too quick to ignore, my apprehension spun up into curiosity. I walked on the hardwood floor, further into the darkness of the club, pools of streetlamp light barely soaking in from long windows, nearby spaces a deep dark.

Off to our right through an ornate open archway, low couches of light blue with graceful lamps of white adorned a VIP room I'd likely never see in real life. I took a few steps towards it, and strained with my senses to -feel- the place, preternatural now in it's elemental state; no people. No clanking glassware, no petty buzzed hubbub, no hustling waitstaff. No scents of cigarettes or posturing. Just the pure essence of the place, except for any other living soul.

Ice of some dormant glacier, awake in the future, but not now.

The moments hung as I explored with my eyes, then I was aware of the twinge in my stomach, all of us raised in the suburbs to be good boys and not trespass, it was inevitable that someone would voice what we all felt, somewhere inside. We'd had our glimpse into this place, seeing it as very few ever have, now it was time.

"Let's go," Chris said from the open doors back to the real world. And we did.

We weren't mean to linger too long, to see Ice in that state for more than a few moments, I think. We rode down, and spilled back out into the humid Midwestern night. GenCon started tomorrow.

...

"Have a Nice Day! Bar" was the world we live in, most of the time.

When you walked in, you felt the music in your chest uninvited. I've never had a problem with popular dance music, but the beat was like a strange, smiling girl who comes right up against you, so that she can feel your heartbeat. Like her or not, want her or not.

Lip gloss, jeans and heels. Tramp stamps and circulating shotgirls. Gelled hair with sunglasses positioned just right, guys holding a forced casual stance. The decor was Hooters-esque, laminated light wood and cement flooring, style sacrificed for form and function. The dance floor was raised higher than almost anything in the club, and most eyes are there.

It's common to see one or just a few people moving to the beat up there. If no one watched, no one would be dancing, but everyone watched. The skill varied, but mostly it's those few who really know how to move, that craved your attention, showing off. Some peacocking and mating ritual analogs as well were seen, all to the backdrop of very loud music.

My friends come to the table I've scouted, and they all have identical drinks- plastic fishbowls with some kind of alcoholic Kool-Aid. One of these would be enough for all of us, and they each have their own.

We’d hidden our convention badges, and we're not immediately obvious as gaming nerds... but we are not with these people, here. The only real communication here is visual, the candy coating of all that's supposed to be fun and sexy in life. And just by looking at us, you see we’re not from around here.

The place oozes sex and expensive t-shirts and effort, a kind of desperation ground out with the bare hips to answer every beat. Looking good, being seen, and coming off hip are central. We're tolerated, but we're not like these people, not accepted. I suppose it would be possible to get lost here, to have fun and just let go, but there seems to be so much of a disconnect between who I am and what this place was trying to be, that there's no point; no real return on my investment.

A few more songs play, and we leave, four almost-full fishbowls on our crappy table, just off the dance floor. On the way out we passed some amazingly attractive people, and for a moment we rethought our exit. We're outside; "Did you see her?" "Why did we leave?" “Could we get back in?”

But in a moment we're detached, and fine, and heading elsewhere.

...

Union Station itself speaks in a pure, aged Midwestern voice, history in the lines and texture of its façade; brown and tan bricks in Romanesque Revival. Long ago, many, many people passed daily through the cavernous spaces on their way to Kansas City, Little Rock, and Pennsylvania. Compared to its past, the building was all but silent now; an empty cathedral from the time of cattle pulls, linesmen, and pocket watches.

Around the west side an innocuous stairway led down, a simple small sign marked the destination: "Universal Imports Unlimited".

Descending, we came to a darkened stairwell ending at a formidable door with an eye-slit. With a rap against thick timber, someone behind the door threw back a slide with a loud clack, opening a tiny eye-level aperture.

"Yea?"

" 'Are you my guardian angel?' " I asked. There's an unexplainable catch in my throat, for a heartbeat.

A pause, then another loud clack as the slide is closed again. A click as a deadbolt was turned, and the door swings inward. Light spilled into the stairwell for a moment as we're ushered in. Just as quickly, the solid door was closed and bolted behind us, and we're in the Safe House.

A former speakeasy and current hideout for would-be spies, the Safe House rests in the bowels of Union Station, tucked away from the history and bustle of Indianapolis, but still a part of it. Indirect and dim lighting created more shadows than light, throwing relief onto exposed brick, the look that seemed to be the DNA of downtown Indy.

Off to the side of the entryway, there's a blackjack table and roulette wheel set up, all seats are filled.

I recognized some players from missions I've run during the day, and as I looked around the darkened space with a low ceiling, I traded familiar nods with more. I made my way to the old style dark wooden bar. I note the music, something forgettable but appropriate to the people here.

We're all gamers, all graduates of Guardian 6 and their friends. No locals, no posturing, or $300 jeans. Just we nerds, in a place of our own, tucked away from the real world. A safe house, indeed. You needed a pass phrase to get in, someone's playing a game of some sort all the time, and you felt that ready camaraderie with strangers who are a bit different than everyone else, just like you. We’re all still wearing our convention badges, at 1030 pm.

We sit, and plan how tomorrow our agency will beat the others with wit and guile.

...

To me, these three places seemed to represent how I see the world.

Ice was the hint of the foundations of things; how you perceive the world when you dream about it, or when you're back-of-house at a theater. You’re privy to the place in a state most don’t see; its actual working level, as opposed to what almost everyone usually sees.

It's revealing there, but lonely. This view was the lens I see the world through when I am depressed, or at my most analytical. Ghosts of line and shape, the people who aren't really there, though they may be moving all around me. It's just form, feature and function without soul. My trips to this world are almost always short. Looking under the hood of a car is often interesting, but rarely helps you get from place to place.

At Have a Nice Day, I saw the world as it is on MTV, as the media and the malls show it to me. The packaged, gelled-slick version that screams, ”Look at me! Approve of me! Desire me!”

Here it's all about flavor, sugar, and salt; Sensuality and instant gratification are key. Class divisions are thrown into sharp relief here; the nerds of GenCon who were unable to blend in with the popular kids stand out, and form awkward gaggles here. Their clothes were different; body language and speech marked them apart from the gathered tribe.

The Safe House is exactly that, a secure haven for like-souls, strangers in a strange land. It’s a protected space where you needed a codephrase to enter, and a rite of passage to be accepted. Class means very little here, as it’s a gathering of friends, family, almost. This might not be how the world actually is, or how it is portrayed in the stories of our success, but it is the world we’re most comfortable in, the one where we belong. The vernacular is native, and easy. “Critical hits” and “LARPS” and the clear superiority of the d20 system are items for ready discussion and debate.

I am at home in all of these places, and comfortable, depending on my state of mind. Sometimes I get a glimpse of Ice, I move through Have a Nice Day to just operate in the world, and in my mind, my heart, I gather with friends in a Safe House.