While this is mostly a blog about gaming, it is occasionally also a blog about me. And around travel time, it also becomes a blog about travel. This is one of the posts that is mostly about me and mostly not about gaming and a little bit about travel.
I don't really have normal relationships. At least, I don't have normal relationships if you consider a heterosexual, monogamous relationship the norm. I have, at present, two girlfriends. Those girlfriends are each seeing people that are not me. Autumnblade is seeing a lovely young lady from our weekly D&D campaign, and Bloodsong is seeing one of my co-workers and a business contact of mine she met through me. We all know about one another. We all approve of this style of relationship, and with one another's choices in partners. Google "polyamory." That's what we're up to.
That isn't to say that everything is always lovely all the time. There's drama, and it can be really tough to work through. Anything you do that involves more than one person's feelings runs the risk of being difficult. Any time you add more people to that mix, it gets exponentially more difficult. I'm serious when I say "exponentially," as well; it isn't a case of one person bringing enough drama for one person. Each new romantic relationship brings with it a new non-romantic relationship with every other person in the group. Things get sort of crazy sometimes.
But it comes with the territory, and everyone is generally in agreement that the good heavily outweighs the bad most of the time, and we struggle on like any other relationship or network of relationships might. Think of it sort of like an extended group of friends who occasionally sleep together.
This year, I'm bringing both of my girlfriends to GenCon. That's sort of like saying "I'm bringing two snarling wildcats to sit with me in a phone booth for three hours!" There's a lot of potential for things to go horribly, horribly wrong with this trip. I'm confident it's going to be alright, mind, the above comparison isn't meant to convey that they hate one another or that they're at one another's throats. I've met some very lovely snarling wildcats. But there is certainly the potential that everyone and everything in the direct vicinity is going to get mauled, I'm not ignorant of that fact.
So this is going to be something of a strange trip. Autumnblade is a fairly avid gamer, and has the entire weekend planned out. There have been a few moments where she's looked at me and said something akin to "Then, at midnight, I get to stop for a snack!" I'm not even really sure how much I'll see of her. Bloodsong's new to gaming as a hobby, and plans to mostly check out every single game in the exhibition hall and try out whatever anyone is playing near her. Honestly, I envy her a little, in that she is going to be exposed to so many games in one of the most incredible environments possible. If she doesn't like the game she's playing, she can stop, turn around, and start playing a completely different game at the drop of a hat.
I'll likely spend a lot of time in the exhibition hall myself, but more for buying purposes than anything else. The events I'm most keen on attending are seminars. There are a lot of cool talks going on this year, and I'm really excited to learn a thing or two about my various hobbies (and my business). I'm part of the Trade Day program this year, which is something I'd pushed for in my first trip, but the bosses were pretty solid that that first go-round was not to be a working holiday. I think they've figured out that I breathe this shit, though, and have stopped trying to pursuade me from working on my days off (I have been known to come into work occasionally just because I'm bored).
About the only gaming event I'm absolutely taking part in is the Yu-Gi-Oh! Championship Series. That might seem a touch strange, given my dislike of the game, but it's for a good cause.
I will be trolling.
I have built a deck that is older than God, and have every intention of having some kid look at me like I have a screw loose when I play it. A few kids, in fact. I will be wasting a good portion of my day fucking with Yu-Gi-Oh! kids. It will be very lol. I am considering blogging about it live. Maybe live-tweeting. If I can, with pictures of my opponent's faces when I lay down a card they haven't seen since people considered Hammer Pants a viable fashion choice and the Y2K bug was going to doom the planet. Yes, that's right, I'm playing Toons.
I also plan on buying things and doing some business networking. But the YGO game is going to be the highlight of the trip, I'm sure.
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