The First Rule of Smart Club...

Serious drama at the SMART meeting last night.  And, of course, I can't talk about it at all.  But I felt like mentioning it anyways, just to annoy my tiny audience.  (Sorry, guys.)  What I can say, is that there was a new guy there (which made my sharing about the AGM interesting, let me tell you - it was hard enough to talk about that in front of the people I've gotten to know there over the past few months - it was seriously nerve-wracking to try and talk about it in front of a total stranger), and after the meeting he came up to me and started gossiping at me about the moderator.  And so now I'm all, fuck, why did you tell me that??  I don't want to be in the middle of this shit.

I started writing up my AGM post, but I just now realized that I can't actually post a lot of what I've written, as it contains descriptions of things that went on there that I am oath-bound to keep secret.  So, once I finish writing it all up (whenever the fuck that will be), I'm going to have to go back and edit the fuck out of it to make it safe for posting.

In other news, I have recently become obsessed with old-school, turn-based RPG video games, like the ones I used to play when I was a kid.  They are just so goddamned satisfying!  Enter dungeon.  Kill monsters.  Collect XP and Gold.  Level-up and buy better equipment.  Repeat.

Yes!  Yes, I will repeat!!

I downloaded an emulator for one I played the fuck out of on my old Mac II when I was about 14, and installed it on my laptop - Wizardry:  Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord - fuck yeah!  And I've been playing a demo of the latest version of the Wizardry franchise for PS3 (Labyrinth of Lost Souls), and have been enjoying that waaay more than is warranted by its anime-themed foolishness.  Whenever I've got a few minutes to kill, I whip out my phone and play some Gurk, a classic 8-bit RPG.  And I've been proper geeked lately over Penny Arcade's 16-bit On The Rain Slick Precipice Of Darkness, Episode 3.  Not only is it really fun to play, and totally satisfying to my 14 year-old inner gamer, but it's also funny as all hell.  I honestly get sad if I don't get a chance to play it in a given day.

Ok, that's all the meaningless bullshit I have time to spew forth for today.  Thanks for giving enough of a shit to read it.

Do You Agree To Keep Silent?...

The IOT's Annual Grand Meeting, our worldwide get together, is coming back to the US this year, and my local Temple (such that it is - it pretty much dissolved after I stepped down) is once again in charge of hosting it.

It's just a couple of weeks away now, and I'm really excited about it, and really looking forward to it.  But I've also got some serious concerns.  And I've been turning them over and over again in my mind rather obsessively for a couple of months now, with greater and greater urgency as the date approaches.

And I wanted to write about those concerns here.  That's the "something important that I very much want to write about" from my post yesterday.  But I'm only just now realizing, as I sit down to finally write about them, that I actually can't write about them.  At least not here, publicly.

I can talk about what the IOT is, but I can't talk about what it does.  I can talk about the things that I do at IOT meetings, but I can't talk about anything anyone else does (unless I get their permission first), and I can't talk about the things that go on at meetings in general.  And it's all of those things that I'm concerned about, and all of those things that I want to write about, and all of those things that I can't talk about.

Well, technically, I could, but it would be a violation of my Oaths, and so I really, really don't want to.  It'd be a huge violation of trust, and would make me feel like piece of shit, and just isn't worth the little bit of catharsis I would get out of it.

Sorry for the teaser.

Vow...

I Love you.
More than I ever thought I could Love anything.
I will never stop Loving you.
I COULD never stop Loving you.
And, as sure as I am that the Sun does not shine on my world
without your permission,
I am sure that I want you
to be the last thing I ever see.
I want your voice to be the last thing I ever hear,
and I want your hand holding mine
to be the last thing I ever feel.

And if you would consent to hold me,
even only as my last breath whispered from me,
then I will vow to protect you
from anything and everything that threatens or disturbs you;
to worship you
as if you were the god who gave me life, breath, and soul;
to adore you
as the most beautiful,
the most sexy,
the most compassionate,
the most Loving,
the most brilliant,
and the most magnificent woman that the Gods have ever seen fit
to grace our world with.
And I will vow to Love you
more than any person before or after us
has ever been able to do.

You are Light,
Life,
and Love to me,
and you ALWAYS will be.

+   +   +

I confess, as the years have passed, I haven't done a very good job of living up to this oath.

You should hold me to it.

Please hold me to it.

This is who I want to be.

This is who I thought I was.

Help make me this man.

Let me be him, again, for you.