A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to Reading

I got distracted. These things DO happen, the reason for my distraction is worth note thought, I am enjoying this part of the book to the point where I want to save it so I can mull over it at work tomarrow afternoon when I read it at lunch. Weird no?

Books are funny things, or rather they can do funny things to you. Me? I know the communist manifesto. I know communist thought, rhetoric, and all that other stuff that Mr. Marx wanted us to know and talk about. It wasn't just the amount of time I spent reading the Communist stuff in Lit theory, it also played prominatly in several of my classes throughout the year. It is a piece of literature that keeps bounding back to me like an old friend. "Against The Day" Pynchon's 1100 page romp through history is very much into the idea that all of human history is the history of class struggle. It litters the books in all sorts of ways that conjures up one of my easy relaxed smiles as I snuggle deeper into the chair. It is some good stuff, and at more than one point I kind of want to dredge up the communist manifest and give it a read through. I might just do that the next time I get a few days off. So yes all of that had a point.

See at one point in the book a father shows his union card to his soon to be fatherless kids, on it is written, "Your labor has value". Plain, simple, and stunningly pure. I look out over the way me and some of my friends get treated at thier jobs and I know that some where along the lines these words are forgotten. This doesn't even go so far as standing up to abusive bosses, but rather people letting thier jobs steamroller over them to the point where work becomes their life and then their life becomes work. Perhaps it is the nature of my job, but man I can usually think of 22 million things I'd rather be doing than working. Every time someone tells me they just got a job because they are bored I just can't under stand what that would be like. I mean jobs are just so unpleasent.

Of course my favorite board game involves 2-4 hours of play time at the end of which you might loose due to randomized disasters. So who knows.

What I do is valuable, and I'll be damned if I'll let anyone think otherwise.

I was going to write about work for a bit but I've decicded to switch directions and instead write about my past...by starting with the present oddly enough.

SO I bought Arkham Horror, along with a couple of expansions. God damn am I excited! I love this game in the way I love few other things. Yet the game where I abolished its virginity... I didn't enjoy very much. It wasn't the fact that I got cursed on the first turn. Or the fact that the elder god ate me, or the fact that we lost. Nope. Instead it was the people I played with. I could go into a detailed account of what went wrong over the course of the game but I'll leave it at, having someone second guess you for relentlessly for an hour and a half really sucks. Especially when they are wrong half the time...and that was only one of the players.

Rude gamers. A blog entry all on its own let me tell you. I can handle body oder, social awkwardness, and autism. I can not handle rude gamers. They piss me the hell off. Today I was wondering as to why I just don't handle the situation, why I let them get away with it, and I realize that it has something to do with "the luke thing". I realized it when I thought about how many times I've brought it up in the last few weeks. So I guess it is time to put some things to bed.

I have certain instincts. I suppress most of these certain instencts because fuck, if I didn't bad things would be happening all around me all the time while I laugh. I dunno. I get worried when people listen to me. A large part of this has to do with the fact that I lost a group of friends over them listening to me. It sucks. I don't ask to lead anyone, it just sort of happens. I get skiddish about taking charge of certain situations because I don't want it to happen again. I realize now though that this is nothing to be afraid of. I can't let the actions of a couple of mentally unbalanced people haunt me. I mean shit, not cool. Especially when it comes to Arkham. It isn't so much the fear of hurting thier feelings it is me being worried about having to keep doing it.

THe thing is though that this is gaming and there are a lot of ass hats.

The wierdest thing is that I talked to mr "I'm going to second guess you for the whole game and sit in a corrner" and he enjoyed himself. We related fun and interesting moments talked of the game and how diffrent things affected this or that. He had fun, he just made it so no one else did. Isn't it wierd how things like that work out?

Back to the start of this all (bet you didn't see this coming!) my labor has value. However that is only part of the story. My recreation also has value. In fact it is a value that increases or decreases based upon my labor. I love my games, I love how we "supposedly" work together twords a common goal, and how we rise and fall in our struggles. The thing is that it is more than easy to toil alone. Labor is almost a uniquely solipsistic endevour. You can work with someone all you want, but at the end of the day the closest you are going to get to working together is pouring your labor into the same pot so that it can be wasted by some other burgeosise asshole. Recration? Well just as labor is uniquly solipsistic recration is just as much a group endevour. This is wierd coming from me, the ultimate recluse. But hey it is true.

I smell that I may have lost some of you on this last point. Its cool, it is out of left field. Looks like I really will be busting out the commie manifesto to clear up the solopsistic nature of labor especially when contrasted with fun frantic frivolity that is recreation. Crazy, this could get big. Busy week though don't know when I am getting around to this one.