Remnant Of Israel, Luck Factor, Anime Fest, The Lonesome Loser

in a strange way, I’m spending a lot of effort deluding myself.  I’ve said to more than one person that I went, and I’ll go again but I don’t know if it’s a “just one more time” thing, or the beginning of a change.  More like than not, it’s the latter.  Remnant of Israel fits me in very odd ways.  Of instance, take this exchange:

David, from the pulpit “My wife an I were at Panera Bread, and I ordered a bagel-“

(Random heckler in the congregation) “Amen!”

The entire Synagogue bursts into laughter.  David laughs, shakes his head, and continues with the rest of the story.  OK, come on, if that isn’t within my style of life, what is? 🙂  

Getting there was pretty much like I predicted.  My hands shook walking up to the door, and the Rabbi’s wife greeted me, and remembered who I was (she couldn’t remember my name immediately, but talked for a moment and joked around.)  I sat down, and Phillip, who’s the youth minister sort of guy, came over and chatted with me.  He asked where Kat was, and I explained I had no idea – I was here by myself this time.  We talked for a bit, and he asked how my week was – Excellent, I explained, though this was both the high point and low point of my week all at once.

And that’s very true – it was a high point because I pushed through a whole lot of anxiety to get there, to get to that point that I was setting in a pew ready for services. The low point, because of that anxiety it’s self.  

I enjoyed the services, and I think it may well be a match for me.  Only time will really tell on that.

There was some additional luck, when I thought about it.  Devvi was originally supposed to go with me, but couldn’t – it was Don’s birthday.  Kat didn’t make it to Synagogue either – I remembered seeing something about the overtime fairy coming for a visit in her Facebook timeline.  (Aside: Later the Rabbi’s wife asked me where Kat was, and I repeated that.)  This wasn’t really what I expected – I expected to sit with Devvi, and have some social support.  It didn’t work that way.  Additionally, I also didn’t have any possibility of social support (or distraction) by way of Kat.  I got to experience the services as solo as possible.  That might have been a good thing – I removed any excuses I could make later like “Well, I only enjoyed it because Devvi was hanging out with me,” or similar such bull.

I did get whacked in the head by God.  OK, actually, it was a tent pole used for a prayer done with the children.  🙂  I’m standing there for the kiddish, wine in one hand, bread in the other, when randomly someone bumped the tent poles that were hanging against the wall, and to come loose and whacked me!  Which meant a good number of people had to comment after the kiddish, ranging from it being the hand of God thumping me, it was good luck, or it was my inner child (since it was the tent used for the prayer with the children.)

I’ve got about a week of Hebrew study in me now (OK, look, and language who’s first letter DOESN’T make a noise is a sign this isn’t gonna be easy.  And it’s not – reading biblical Hebrew is bizarre!), so the songs and prayers that I couldn’t quite “get” how they were pronounced were a lot more comfortable now – I had a better grasp, though far from perfect.

I didn’t do the fellowship meal that occurs after the servies – I decided I’d keep that part for another day.  I was excited and worn down all at once after it was all done.  But I felt… good.

This is one of two things that fall into the “you can believe it, or you can ignore it – but that’s how it is” category.  I knew a while back that my luck was about to change.  It was a deep seated feeling, and I was mystified when it didn’t suddenly change.  I can pinpoint the day I felt my luck was changing – it was the day I met Kat at the Great Plains Ren Fest.  That day I was sure of a couple of things: One, Kat was a female of interest.  That unto it’s self is of importance, just because it happens so rarely.  Two, I my luck was about to change, across the board.  And by that, I mean everything that was going wrong was about to start going right. 

Except… I was a bit bewildered.  Kat and I started going out, and I expected the rest to start falling into place.  I was working my butt off… and things only got worse.  What the heck?  But I didn’t stop – it had to work.  Heck, at this point my life is damned near depending on things to turn.  I had put a prediction of 3 – 4 months, possibly as long as 5 months at worst, for things to start happening with my great tuning of the Midnight Ryder Technologies ship.  But it was still all going to crap.

Kat and I broke up, and I was really mystified, and I was further mystified – I mean, come on, couldn’t I have at least ONE part of my life go right?

Then this last week it turned.  

The checks started rolling in, along with new entertinment jobs, and a potential second (actually, potential THIRD) teaching gig, this time at Butler.  It didn’t just make a slow stately turn, it swung into the wind, and through, without hesitation.  Incredible.  I’m not sure I can even begin to list everything that went right this week (and started last week, actually).  It just all started falling into place – all the things I had in the works began doing what they should have, and more.

Now for the second part of believe what you want… my mother was a precog.  A few folks know this, but I don’t talk about it much.  I can even verify the precog bit a little – she had told me a few times about things that were going to happen, and to avoid them.  

I don’t have that same ability.  Oh, it’s not that I don’t have flashes of insight – I do sometimes.  It’s just always of the most mundane stuff you can imagine.  And I can recall them with great detail.

Today, I had one come to fruition.  But mom always explained it’s not a future, unmalliable in form.  It’s able to change. This one was changed.  

So what sort of detail level to I get to see mundane life with?  Well… I showed up at The Artichoke, and eventually I leaned against the wall, and it hit me.  Adam and Missy were setting in front of me while I was leaned.  Just off to my left a bit was a guy I didn’t know in the flash – now I know the guy, it’s Mark.  There was a black gal next to the group – I the flash, I assumed she wasn’t part of the group, but in reality she was.  I was waiting on someone to show up – I of course didn’t have a name, but she was a heavy set red head about the same height as me.  

Now, first, how screwed up is that?  No, I can’t get the ability to see anything important.  I get stupid stuff.

Second… if the future had changed from that potential flash, what was it that changed that I has been waiting on Kat there.  It actually disturbed me a bit – but honestly, and dealings with those flashes disturb the heck out of me anyway.  The fact it had been Kat?  Even weirder.

I also have to ask myself one other thing about it all – why did my luck turn in the first place?  I mean, I can reasonably see a few things hitting at once.  But damned never everything that was in motion, plus the extra random bonus items, suddenly hitting at once?  What in the world?

Anime Fest isn’t over, but I have to post a bit about it already. 

First off, I set a new record for books sold – 11 in a day.  Not bad.  I want to break it tomorrow, and shoot for the remaining 14 that aren’t earmarked for other projects (IE, sending to Diamond and B&N)  I also sold one copy of The Story of Gamer Zone, but that doesn’t count towards that total.

Even those that didn’t buy it were excited about the name.  Awesome. 🙂

On top of that, a new gaming store is coming to Wichita, and I talked to the owner – he’s wanting to get copies in his store.  Perfect – to sell to a bookstore or gaming store, it’s easier to say you’re already in stores.

I’ve now got enough fodder for the letter to various points of distribution I’ve been wanting.  Perfect.

I also did a panel on Game Design.  Problem – I had asked for 30 minutes, they gave me an hour.  Worse, I didn’t have time to really prep for it – I assumed a lot more downtime at the Anime Fest to think about what I would have to say, and trust me, I didn’t really get that in the morning and early afternoon!  I was too busy talking to people!

I killed.  Seriously.  It was one of the best public speaking engagements I’ve ever done.   I made the crowd part of the panel themselves, throwing questions back at the crowd at one point (which worked amazingly well!)  It was absolutely fantastic, and I more than filled the hour!

On top of that, probably sold a few more projects, and made a few connections here and there.  

I’m not as excited to go back tomorrow – I know a lot of the crowd tomorrow is going to be dragging after being up late tonight. That’s OK though, and I have every intent to try and sell as many of those books as possible, pushing my record of sales even further 🙂

I’ve considered myself a loser for quite a while now.  This is a sort of self designated thing – it’s not that I have other people telling me I’m a loser.  Heck, for that, most people try and tell me I’m not.  But there it’s remained for a good amount of time now.  It doesn’t matter how many people tell me I’m interesting, or that I’m amazing because of all the stuff I manage to pull off doing, I’m still a loser.  Why?  Well, I can just barely pay my way through life.  I couldn’t keep up having supper with Erin because I didn’t have money to do it – how much more of a loser could I be than that?

Well, when I said luck hit this last week, I wasn’t kidding.  I hit hard enough that in my own mind, I’m no longer a loser.  I paid my bills then:  I took Erin to lunch.  I stopped by Heather and Nick’s when she posted on Facebook she was screwed, and handed her $40 to help.  I took Tammy to lunch to repay her kindness of handing me money she barely had available.  

That alone wouldn’t be enough to loose the monicker of “loser” – it’s the fact that I did all that, AND have more money coming next week and the week after.  And more than one project on the table now are projects with long term residuals (I haven’t even talked about “Bang The Keys” yet – that’s for another day).  In other words, not only did I recover at the last possible moment, it pushed well beyond that.  Add a paying job (or two, if I do Butler, or three if I do the other institution that has approached me), multiple sources of income monthly, customers now making payments, etc., etc., etc.

I’m not a loser.  Holy smokes, I’m really not a loser now.  OK, still lonesome, but at least I’m not the lonesome loser anymore 😉