isogashiSUGITA

Wow, super-busy day.

Duane stopped by at like 12:45 but I couldn't talk due to having a PL Flex student coming in at 1... then class at 2 also, then class at 4, then classes 7-8-9, PLUS a prospective student coming in around 5, plus preparing classes, plus putting together my Intensive Week schedule for next week. Yikes.

I had a full house today in my 8pm class for the first time since November or so. Unfortunately I think it made me a little crazy. K was really happy to finally have classmates and J was picking on me for mispronouncing his name and so on. But unfortunately 3 out of the 4 students in that class will be gone by April and K will be all alone again. Ugh. I need to do something about that but I'm not sure what...

But, after work I got to hang out with mithramuse, who I haven't seen in so long that I'm not even quite sure when the last time I saw him was! (We think CMU Spring Carnival 2002 but we're not sure.) He's been working in China the last few years and now he is in Japan this week on business, and in Tokyo pretty much just today. So he came up to Akabane and met up with me after work and I took him to Anrakutei for some yakiniku because that's what I do with people who visit from out of town... they're open late and you can just sit there for a while and grill meat and chat. Wow, it was really great to catch up with him after all these years, though!

I put Aaron on the last train back to Yokohama (where he's staying) around midnight and then I came home. And like the dumbass I am, I left my heater on all day. Bleh.

Death before dishonor, but only if the cleric can raise dead

Gary Gygax died yesterday.

You know, it's not D&D itself that I can't imagine in my life, but when I tried to think what my life would be like now without the friends that I made through D&D groups -- all the way back to 1990 or so -- that's when my head explodes.

Heck, even mithramuse, who came up to Akabane yesterday to hang out while he's on a business trip to Japan... I met him in a D&D group in the summer after my freshman year of college. He was DMing the Deserts of Desolation trilogy. I think that's the first place I met angelbob too. And Dave White. And Cliff-the-disappearing-RA. (I already knew msde from volleyball.) IIRC I pretty much replaced cheerfulchaotic's gnome mage with an elven archer named Janthina who popped into the game via a Wand of Wonder, which those who have played D&D with any other incarnation of Janthina can tell you is pretty much a recipe for disaster.

I could probably tell a similar story for like half of my friends list, though this one hits me just because it was relevant to yesterday, that I was hanging out with a D&D friend, half a planet away from where we first met in a D&D game, around the same time the D&D co-creator died.

So, if you write a response to this... share a D&D-related memory, especially if it's about meeting friends.