Warhammer Rant

I like Warhammer.

I like 40k, and I think I could even learn to love Age of Sigmar.

I like the hobby. I like the interactions you can have with other people. I like everything about it.

The thing I hate? I hate how that no one will play.

I feel like I'm 8 years old again walking around the house asking everyone if they want to play a game with me and no one ever saying that they do. I feel like those days when I was done with homework and wanting to play with a friend or a neighbor or do anything other than sit at home and the only response that I got back was that everyone else was busy, and that no one wanted to be with me.

It's a two person game. All I need is one, just one, other person that would be willing to say, 'you know what? Sure, I'll give it a shot' and then playing with me. That's it. Just one person. I'm not asking for a D&D group. I'm not asking for a sports team. I'm asking for one other person that shares the hobby with me and is able to fairly regularly open up a night of their schedule and say that they want to play the game with me. It's really not that complicated, and yet for some reason I can't make it happen.

There was a commentary a while ago that I watched talking about how that because there was a community or at least a sense of community where a person was they were able to quickly paint and model and get things out because they wanted to play. They wanted to get out there, and they wanted to have fun with their frinds. I'm experencing the exact opposite of that. I want to play. I want to model. I want to paint. I want to make it a good hobby, but no one is out there playing, and I feel like the entry into other groups or circles that are hardcore about this are a little TOO crazy for me. I can't find someone in my circle, in my life position that doesn't have 100 hours a week to work on things, that doesn't smell like week old doritos, to grow with this.

What I would love is to have a friend where we could grow together in this game. Start out with small games, grow up to larger games. Become comfortable with the games and learn all of the nuances. Instead of that, I'm faced with people that have been doing this for years and their only goal is to get things on the table and wreck face. They don't slow down, they don't help me understand anything, and I feel like I'm getting left in the dust. It's a stupid rant, don't mind me. I'll still paint. I just have no clue when the next time it is that I'm going to be able to field anything.

In a side note - if anyone wants to buy me anything for anything, Chaos Demons (anything that's Tzeentch) is what I've got my eyes on for much further down the road. I still have to finish up painting all of my chaos (which is coming along, my maulerfiend is almost finished, then I'll only have a handful of models that I need to work on from there to be done) then I have to try and tackle two full MASSIVE fantasy armies.

I Waited - My American Life

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/134/we-didnt

This was partially for the blog, partially for something else with work, but I decided that it fit well in both places, so here's a short story called I Waited.

I Waited

I waited on my twelfth birthday, for someone to tell me that I was actually a super hero. I knew that there was something different with me, and I knew that they had to know what it was. I wanted them to tell me just what my super power was going to be now that I was going into puberty, and I couldn’t wait to keep the family secret. I didn’t care about the cake, the ice cream, or anything else that was wrapped in paper and given to me, I was looking forward to my grandma’s traditional birthday card to have something more than $20 in it, so that I could finally be the super hero that I knew I was.

I waited until the last minute of my sixteenth birthday for my family to tell me that I was adopted. I knew that I was. They didn’t have to tell me. I wanted to have them finally admit to the truth. There were never pictures of my mom pregnant before I was around, there were no baby pictures of me until a few weeks old, and despite what everyone said about how I looked like my dad having brown hair and brown eyes wasn’t a family trait, that’s just called looking average. I knew that there was something different about me when my entire family loved music but I could hardly carry a tune. I knew that I was something different because whenever I looked at family pictures I never felt like I looked like everyone else around me, but at the same time there were old yearbooks that I thumbed through that had pictures of people that looked more like my relatives than my actual relatives. I waited for someone to finally admit to the truth about who I was. 

I waited before and after graduation for someone to finally let me in on the family secret. Dad changed his name when he was in college, and he never told anyone why. I knew that once I finished high school that I would finally be old enough in their eyes to be told. I stayed in my bedroom that night, instead of out with my friends, because I was certain that someone was going to come into my room and tell me the secret. 

I waited for someone to tell me which college I should go to. I got accepted to a few different ones, but I didn’t know which one to pick. I knew that my advisor had a favorite, but he never actually told me which one I should go to. My parents were even less helpful and I tried to get them to put in their opinion but they said that it was my choice. I waited past three admission deadlines and was stuck with plan D. 

I waited in college for her to call back. I even had her number. She was going to be the one. She made me feel like no one else ever could. She made me feel like just possibly, somewhere in my bones was the person that could make dreams come true. She made it feel like I could touch the tops of trees and float through clouds, but she said that she would call me, and so I waited. I waited until I heard from one of my roommates that she was engaged to someone else. 

I waited for a response from my interview at my dream job. They were the company I was going to work for. They were the only thing that I wanted to be with for the years that I planned it out. That company was where I was going to be, and I knew that after one interview they would see what I had and call me back. I waited for their response. I only slept three hours a night for a week because I was afraid that if I fell asleep that I would miss their call welcoming me in to their fold, where I knew that I would belong and could finally make a difference in my world. I waited because I knew that if I got that job, I could finally be different. I could finally do all of the things that I had dreamed of doing.

I waited to ask her to marry me; she said it was too little too late. I wanted to make sure that I was ready and that I could support her and we could have a family together. I wanted everyone to be happy, and she didn’t like that I wanted to provide that for her.

I waited to start my family. I couldn’t have a kid while still in a graduate program. Then I couldn’t have a kid while interning. I couldn’t have a kid while in my first year at the company. I certainly couldn’t have a kid while working on the new project. I wanted to be the father that would help and love my kid, and I couldn’t do that while I was just getting started in the world. I waited for her to tell me that we should have a kid, but all she told me was that we weren’t right for each other anymore.

I waited to move. I always wanted to live on the east coast; I liked the cities. There were jobs out there that were better paying, there was a life style that I knew would fit me, but I waited because it was a bit too much work to try to box up everything in my life deciding what pieces could go with me and which had to be thrown away. I knew that I would have been better off in a different city with a different set of friends, but getting there was just too much work, and so I waited. Each week I would tell myself that I would start to clean out a room. That each night I could start to think about cleaning my life up so that I could move, but I waited to start it all because my work days were long and I got tired.

I waited for the will to be read to still hear the words that I knew were to be true. Everyone else was sad to hear that my dad had died, but throughout the funeral I didn’t cry. I didn’t care about his body being put into the ground. I didn’t care that I would never be able to talk to him again, because I knew that the will was going to be read and the truth would finally come out about me. It was the last chance for my dad to tell me what I had always known, that he was not my father. I waited for the lawyer to give away the china cabinet full of nick knacks to my sister. I waited for the house to go to my older brother. I waited as all of the heirlooms and chotskies were given away. I waited while everything else was debated over, because apparently I should have had strong emotional ties to the standup piano and argued over it for an hour with my brother and sister. I waited because I knew that at the end of that will was going to be the lines that I knew to be true, that I was different. That the people arguing about silverware and blenders weren’t my actual blood, and that I was something more. I waited for him to pull me to the side and tell me. I waited for the phone call to come and tell me in secret for a month after the funeral. 

I waited for my bosses to give me a promotion because I knew that I was doing a good job and doing better than everyone else in my office. I knew that I was better than them, and that my manager had to be seeing that. I knew that they would see just how great of an employee I was, and that they would do what had to be done and give me a raise. 

I waited to enter retirement. I still had work to do. I still had things to get done, and no one at my job could do my job. It was my job, and no matter how smart they thought a new hire was going to be, no one could do it faster or quicker than me. I waited to go to finally see the cities I had dreamt about looking at. I waited to be the old guy who could yell at kids to get off his lawn at all hours of the day. I waited to even be that old guy who lived at the library and read books for the entire day because that’s all he had to worry about. I knew that I wanted to do those things, but I also knew that I needed my job and so I waited. 

I waited to see a doctor about a small little lump. It was a birthmark. A doctor wasn’t going to tell me any different. I waited to see one because he wasn’t going to say anything that I didn’t already know. I didn’t care if the lump had grown in size, changed colors, or any of those other worry wort things. It was just a birthmark – a birthmark of stage four skin cancer. 

I waited for someone to come and visit me in the hospital. Someone was going to come. My boss, my neighbor, or anyone other than nurse Tyson was going to come and see me. 

I waited for permission from my body to stop breathing.