Why am I doing this again? :)

The default question before embarking on any new adventure. Equally applicable to here, except that I know why I'm doing it -- because two friends of mine have suggested it, and because it might possibly be good for business. So there we go.

Currently, my status is less than happy, because it looks like it's going to be a migraine weekend (haven't had one of those in years) and because I HAVE TO FINISH this assignment I've got this weekend. Throw in being desperately homesick for FASA and my life in Chicago, as well as missing the husband (who's been gone since January in basic training in an attempt to both serve his country and finish his degree) and it has all the earmarks of a bright, shining plug nickel of a weekend. Sigh. Ah well.

Not everything is bad, btw. My youngest is making strides toward mastering the use of the toilet (YAY!), I have online friends to talk to, and GenCon and the husband's return are both imminent. David will be home in two weeks or a little less now, and that will be a good thing. We all miss him, far more than I'm prepared to go into here.

I had great fun at Origins, by the way. While coming home reopened a lot of wounds I had thought healed and done with, I met a number of great people there -- none of whom seemed inclined to duck out the back of the booth when they saw me coming. :) Many people gave me much free stuff (most of it related to work I've done for them) and all was basically good. I picked up both Children of the Sun and Nobilis, along with Silver Age Sentinels, a few White Wolf books I was lacking, and a number of other nifty things I can't remember at the moment (due to dehydration and the kindness of friends, all my books are currently in Chicago, waiting for me with open arm-... er, bindings. Or something like that). Oh, and I bought David the new Master Maze traps set for his birthday, as we are both geeks, he's addicted to the stuff and it's just plain cool.

Anyway, that should be enough for starters. I'll check back soon enough. :)

Faust and stuff

So, the other night I'm working on this assignment I have, and it's actually going somewhat well. I'm trying to come up with a literary or historical example for this archetype I'm using, and the immediate one that comes to mind is Faust. It's pretty much perfect, but the part of me that isn't an English major says, "Are you sure people are going to get this reference?"

Given my smidgen of doubt, I decide to query for an opinion. I don't really believe it would be a problem, but it never hurts to get feedback. So like the good little techie writer I am, I trot over to the local IRC gamer hangout I frequent and posit the question online. The answer I get is a resounding "Who?"

Eep.

So I try again, this time querying the residents at the local writer's IRC hangout I frequent. This time the resounding answer is "Everyone will know who that is. No worries."

Ewwww-kay.

Now, I've spent the larger part of my college career enraptured by literary discussions of novels past and present, so if I'm overeducated in this field, so be it. But are all writers just that out of touch? Has modern culture moved so far from the literary motifs that meant so much to previous generations that they've become meaningless, or is it just that the names and faces have changed; the aliases are different, but the faces (barring a new coat of techno-makeup) are the same? Or is all this on some different scale that I'm not addressing here, with the ideas presented above being rather meaningless in the overall context of today's culture?

I dunno. It's all too much for my paltry brain. But I'm damn sure teaching my kids about Faust, all the same.