22 March 2000

We had another tedious training meeting yesterday. At least yesterday's topics included information that might actually be necessary for us to know. And the topics were taught by the office's second-in-command, a detestable jerk, but a better speaker than the monotoned ass who gave the last few.

I need to remember not to order the salad from that place anymore, though. It was at least a third mushrooms and green peppers, and the lettuce hadn't been washed. The sub was pretty reasonable, though.

I'd been figuring on doing the bills this weekend, so yesterday evening I idly flipped through the collected stack to see what was due. I found two bills that had to be paid before the end of the week, and another that had been lost since the end of January.

Oops.

So I sat down with the checkbooks and paid the bills. I really need to start paying bills as soon as they come in; keeping the bill desk in our bedroom just isn't working - I don't see it until I'm about to go to bed, and then I'm not awake enough to want to bother. But I really want to avoid turning the dining room table into the de facto desk. We've managed to keep it clear enough to eat off of so far, but both of us leave magazines and mail piled on the edges of the table for far too long.

I suggested to Matt the possibility of getting a small desk to serve as the bill and mail desk and putting it in the kitchen or the unused corner of the dining room. He seemed ammenable to the idea at first, but later told me he didn't think it would be a good idea for us to have our bills out where people could trip over them.

But something needs to be done. Right now, when I want to clean off the table, I just pile everything on the bar, and that's not really an acceptable solution either. Maybe if I could find a small roll-top desk - something that had a top that could be closed when we had company, so they wouldn't see anything - maybe that would work.

Or maybe a policy that the table is completely cleared before dinner each night? I don't want to turn into my mother, but then, I don't want have a dining room table that I can't dine at. Ah, well, we'll figure something out.

My imagination has been caught, I must confess, by the current MeadeHall plot. Yesterday I was scribbling in my gaming notebook some ideas for my AD&D game, and I kept getting distracted by the possibilities for the MeadeHall plot swirling around in my head. I ended up writing a couple of brief story/scene that are possible futures for the story-arc, just to get them out of my head. No, I'm not posting them; they muck about with someone else's character rather a lot, and I have rules about that sort of thing. I promise, if they turn out to be at all accurate, I'll post them then.

But the more I consider it, the more I think that yeah, Zoya's going to fall for Marten. It makes for lovely character development - love vs. friendship; new vs. old; desire vs. duty. A little over a year ago, I fought off the possibility that something romantic could develop between Zoya and Jelarthna. I wasn't ready for that - Zoya wasn't ready for that. But the possibility of both romance and tragedy (or triumph over tragedy) is proving too strong for me - and Zoya - to resist.

It's funny how much role-playing time we devote to romance. It's not as prevalent now as it was when the 'Hall was in its youth, but we still spend a significant amount of time matchmaking.

I think it's because the chase is as much or more fun than the end result. Half of us are in relationships, and I'm not knocking those relationships - they're good, solid relationships with plenty of excitement and fun. But there's a great deal of excitement in the acting out of unfulfilled desire - in courting, and in being courted.

Or maybe it's just that it's spring, and romance is in the air, infecting us with the desire for it like a virus.

Word of the Day: vouchsafe - to grant or furnish a favor or reply in a gracious or condescending way

It has the ring of ages about it. "Vouchsafe me your answer, do." No one in modern times would use the word. It's too long, too elegant. Today, we simply say "give." I sound like old Obi-Wan. "An elegant [word] from a more civilized age." But it's true. The word demands to be mixed with elegant, flowing speech, written with ceremony on rolled parchment. "I vouchsafe thee these proofs, my lord, and beg that the villian be tried immediately." Or, "Vouchsafe to me thy favor, lady, to harden my courage as I enter in to terrible battle." Hmm. There's that romance again.