You been watching my internet presence this week? You know what the title means.

1. “I Will” – The Beatles
2. “Diseases of Yore” – MC Frontalot
3. “Wanted Dead or Alive” – Bon Jovi
4. “Rockin’ In The USA” – Kiss
5. “Black Diamond” – The Replacements
6. “This Is The Day” – The Cranberries
7. “The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide is Press Coverage” – Panic! At The Disco
8. “Bring Back the Light” – Saraya
9. “Chain Gang of Love” – The Raveonettes
10. “Bendin’ The Rules – The Badlees

Huh, two Kisses in a row. That’s the universe taunting me. Interesting. Also, #11 would have been the Replacements’ “Seen Your Video”, which is a really great riff.

I’ve been following with some interest the recent news regarding the Boy Scouts of America’s overtures over the last week or so regarding it’s consideration of lifting it’s ban on gay Scouts and Leaders. I’m encouraged, yet a little surprised, given that as recently as last year, they publically doubled down on the national organization’s policy of descrimination.

I’ve been hoping to see this sort of move for a long time. See, I’m an Eagle Scout (Troop 309, Class of ’92), and as a boy and young man, I got a lot of value out of the program. I learned important life skills, made great friends and memories, fostered a life-long love of gaming thanks to some of my older peers, witnessed my first screening of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” on a purloined VHS player in one of the staff cabins at summer camp, and developed a personal working definition of the concept of “character”.

Of course, the definition of character that I developed as part of Scouting has nothing to do with concepts like discrimination and intolerance. In recent years, I’ve had a troubled relationship with Boy Scouting, at least on the National level. It seems that in the last decade, the BSA has become a lot more active in proclaiming it’s allegiance to discrmination with regard to faith and especially sexual orientation – an allegiance that, in my mind, is squarely in opposition to many of the concepts in the Scout Promise and Scout Law.

My son is reaching the end of his tenure in Cub Scouting, and looking forward to joining a Boy Scout troop – I hope he finds a unit that fits him, just the way I eventually found one that fit me. During his time with scouting, though, I’ve always been troubled by the rhetoric of the national organization, as well as some of the stuff that’s come out of more local levels of the organization. I stayed involved because the program still has a lot of good points, but I’ve spent a lot ofo time swallowing my discomfort regarding the organization’s policies for fear of being outed as a “militant liberal who hates Amurrika”. As such, I was never particularly comfortable offering up my charitable donation dollars toward the National organization, preferring to support the local pack directly, where it directly benefitted my kid, rather than the discriminatory policies at National.

When I was a Scout, I knew of gay leaders, and I knew scouts who eventually came out as adults (it was the 80s and 90s in semi-rural Pennsylvania – things are different now). Although these individuals, perhaps in fear of being ousted, mostly kept quiet, I don’t remember the BSA being particularly political when I was a Scout – the organization from top to bottom, was more focused on the experience. My local units were more about having fun in the outdoors, serving the community, and building really big fires than discriminating against anyone.

That all said, I’m really encouraged by the Scouts’ recent statements about being “close” to ending the ban on gay members and leaders. I hope it gets there, which is why I’m writing this post, shouted from the rafters on social media, and have written a letter to the organization stating my support for the ending of the ban.

If you’re reading this, I’m going to ask you to do so as well. A good place to start is here at GLAAD, who’ve set up a page to conveniently express your support for ending the ban on gay Scouts and leaders in a variety of ways.

I hope you will.

Today has turned out to be a pretty big stress day for me. The actual events of the day, not so much, but rather the day when my body and mind have decided to just surrender to the ongoing siege that life has decided to conduct on my psyche over the last few weeks and months. I don’t quite see the end coming, certainly not on the schedule I’d like to see, at any rate, and the eventual resolution I’d like when it does end feels further out of reach all the time.

I don’t feel particularly in control of my life, at any rate, and if you know me, you might have some idea about how this sort of circumstance works toward grinding me down.

If there’s one thing I can maybe hang a slightly tarnished silver lining on, it’s the fact that at least some of the expectations piled on me are self-inflicted, and if I can convince myself to just let go of a few things, at least temporarily, it might take the edge off, not all of it, but a little bit.

Most of this stuff is work stuff. Without getting terribly specific, I can safely say that my expectations of myself are significantly higher than anybody else’s in my workplace. I can’t move some of these projects along fast enough to satisfy my own ideas of what should be done. However, the fact that I’m moving things along *at all* has, in more than one instance over the last month or so, made me the office hero for the day. However, in my own head, it still doesn’t feel like I’m pulling my weight, and there’s the constant fear that eventually, someone’s going to realize that I’m in way over my head, and they made a terrible mistake adding me to the team, because I’m clearly not qualified…

…which, as you may be aware, is the textbook definition of Impostor Syndrome, and I got it bad.

As for why I feel this way, I don’t know for sure: low self-esteem due to lingering effects of past rejections from corners where such things really hurt, social anxiety stemming from an awkward, socially difficult childhood, or the fact that despite the fact that I seemingly manage to project the image of a competent, good, and generally pleasant (if a little shy) person, deep down, I know that I’m barely keeping it together, and more than occasionally have feelings and impulses that I know aren’t remotely good or pleasant.

You know, just like everyone else. But given that I only see the outward projections of other people, and not their dark, tormented interior monologues, it’s hard to develop a reasonable comparison, even if I logically *know* that the feelings my brain is conjuring are distorted and not entirely rational.

It’s nice to know that other people have similar feelings and inclinations. My friend Ryan recently wrote something along similar lines, and I highly suggest reading it because it’s awesome, inspiring, and familiar to any of us who have dealt with this sort of thing, particularly in terms of body image. As I said, go read it, but I wanted to quote this little bit, because I appreciate the wisdom contained within:

It’s a powerful lesson that our brains, though powerful machines, can be our worst enemy. And sometimes our thinking can’t be trusted.

I need a reminder that my perception of reality can be distorted and that I need to reach out to check my perception with trusted others… And it means trusting that other’s perception of reality may sometimes be more accurate than my own.

Sometimes, you have to know when to stop trusting everything your mind tells you, because, despite the commonly administered advice about going with your first instinct, that instinct can sometimes be self-defeating.

If Firefly’s ever going to come back (for Christmas or otherwise), perhaps this might be the best way to do it, given the fact the show’s been off the air for ten years now, and the tight pants might be too tight these days.

An animated series would pretty much be appointment television for many of us.

Once again, the threat of weather has me working from home, which I don’t mind at all. I have plenty of official sorts of things to review and wordsmith, which should keep me busy for my requisite eight hours of workday.

That said, otherwise, the week’s been kind of a dud. I was ready to bag it and start over by Wednesday lunchtime. All the work projects I’m involved with have, through no fault of mine, gone some flavor of pear-shaped. Non-work life, what there is of it, is other varieties of stressful and frustrating. Plus, I earlier this week, I discovered that my beloved Sansa Clip mp3 player got crushed in an unfortunate backpack accident.

I have managed to replace it with the current model, which is still, thankfully, uncomplicated and linux friendly, just the way I like it. Doesn’t really salve the overall feeling of utter defeat, however.

Anyway, I’m spinning Pandora today behind my flailing out at the world:

1. “The Lucky One (live)” – Alison Krauss & Union Station
2. “Never Mind” – The Replacements
3. “World At Large” – Modest Mouse
4. “The One I Love” – R.E.M
5. “Copperhead Road (live) – Steve Earle and the Dukes
6. “Every Time I Try” – that dog
7. “Somebody That I Used To Know” – Gotye
8. “Dangerous Type” – The Cars
9. “Sledgehammer” – Peter Gabriel
10. “Bicycle Race” – Queen
11. “Ride the Wind” – Poison
12. “I Crush Everything” – Jonathan Coulton
13. “Sweater Weather” – The Neighborhood
14. “Bright Morning Stars” – The Wailin’ Jennys
15. “What I Like About You” – The Romantics
16. “Radioactive” – Kings of Leon
17. “The Middle” – Jimmy Eat World
18. “Tribute” – Tenacious D
19. “Strong Enough – Sheryl Crow
20. “So Here We Are” – Bloc Party
21. “I Won’t Back Down” – Tom Petty

This is funny to me, because several women in my life are utterly fascinated by this particular fellow (the less furry one), if not full-on card-carrying members of the Cumberbatch Brigade (which is a much more polite way to describe them than is the common term):

“We solve crimes, I blog about it and he forgets his pants. I wouldn’t hold out too much hope.”

…the old and familiar can become something new and interesting.

Somebody with a little time on their hands used some digital trickery to shift all those minor chords in REM’s “Losing My Religion” into a major key. The results are interesting – it’s the song you know, but shifting that third makes it into something entirely new, with a totally different emotional slant:

Oh, those strings, and the shift to A-major on that arpeggiated hook – I like it. A lot.

Makes me want to play that song in front of an audience now, just to see their reaction to the shift from the familiar.

This past weekend, we kicked off our Con season with attendance at Marscon in Williamsburg. This is our third year at this particular Con, and it competes pretty handily with Ravencon as our “home” convention. For me, anyway, the experiences are somewhat similar, because I see a lot of the same friends at both, given that they’re so close geographically. Still, each has a slightly different flavor.

This year was new in a lot of ways, as the con moved to a new, larger hotel venue a little way down the road. In years past, Marscon was a cramped experience – the old Holiday Inn, while a very fine and friendly venue, was a little tight for how large the convention has grown over the years. The new venue, the Crowne Plaza at Ft. Magruder, provided some much appreciated space, although navigating between convention rooms required a lot of walking about from one end of the hotel to the other, especially if you were bouncing between the gaming space and the main venue for music programming. The size of the hotel is deceptive; by Friday evening, everyone had worn out the “bigger on the inside” jokes, however appropriate they were.

Thanks to a pleasantly affordable con rate, we stayed in the convention hotel, rather than at a nearby Marriott property (since as an ultra-Platinum member, I can usually stay for free there), which is always nice, as it better enables full participation in the late-night con experience while still being able to put the kids to bed someplace one can reach in a minute or two.

The Marscon crew always puts on a pretty great spread in my experience, with the universally recognized Best Con Suite In This Or Any Other Universe™, keeping attendees fed, watered and caffeinated with excellent meals, snacks and beverages. The game space is generally pretty wonderful, and there’s usually a pretty great dealer’s room, where this year I totally did not find a copy of the Paranoia RPG like I had planned, but found another game source book and a set of dice to replace the set whose D10 was sacrificed to the gaming gods two years ago during a particularly raucous Toon session when I dropped it and couldn’t find it. Also, I had an *interesting* conversation with vendor about original comic art, and learned that his fascination with comic characters in bondage could perhaps rival that of William Moulton Marston, creator of both Wonder Woman and the modern lie detector.

As is my habit at these things, I spent much of my time enjoying the varied music program (if you’re read my other Con wrap-ups, this is hardly a surprise). On the bill this year were perennial favorites and friends Jonah Knight, Mikey Mason, Wizard (and other sorts of) Rock band The Blibbering Humdingers and Filk stalwart Danny Birt (all of whom I have gushed about many times in this space, and will certainly continue to do so) as well as the biggest surprise of the convention for many of us, Williamsburg locals Griff’s Room Band, who were found, as the legend goes, busking on a bench in Colonial Williamsburg by con organizer Butch Allen, and invited to perform as musical guests. Their crowd-pleasing performance, virtuoso musicianship, and general presence as nice guys really brought a lot of fun and smiles to the convention.

There are lots of musical hightlights – everybody’s performances were fun and well-received – Jonah’s guitar playing was haunting and beautiful as usual, the Humdingers brought the magic, laughs and harmonies, and Mikey brought the rock (along with plenty of literary references and dick jokes) – plus, you know, he played that bit of the new tune from his in-progress American Gods themed EP for me, which was really pretty great. Also, one of the highlights of the convention for many people was Saturday afternoon’s impromptu duet by Danny Birt and my daughter Catherine on “Whack-a-Mole” (or as she calls it, “the guacamole song”), which, was very cute and sweet, especially since Catherine’s such a big fan of Danny’s songs, and so many of the Marscon crowd have more of less watched her grow up – in certain circles at Marscon, Catherine’s as much a fixture as Allan Wold’s beard.

I also wanted to extend a big thank you to all the musical performers mentioned above for admitting me, for a little while, into their fraternity on Friday night by being so welcoming and tolerant of my ukulele playing and shoddy harmonizing during Friday night’s Filk and Cookies gathering. I had a great time playing along late into the early morning and easing into filk circles. I even got a couple of positive comments from folks in attendance, which was a nice feeling, given that I haven’t been playing this particular instrument all that long. Maybe I’ll have a couple of tunes of my own next year!

I didn’t hit many panels this year – but I did make time to get to the hospitality suite for the launch party of Leona wisoker’s new book, Bells of the Kingdom, published by the wonderful folks at Mercury Retrograde Press, who I can’t say enough nice things about. Colleen and I are big fans of Leona’s “Children of the Desert” series, of which Bells is the third volume this fantasy series chronicling political intrigue and romance with a definite Eastern feel. Seriously, you should track these books down, especially if you’re looking for some really clever world-building. Also, Leona always throws a pretty good party – thanks for the chocolate!

Finally, I spent a good bit of time in the Marscon game room, run with good humor and ruthless efficiency by Gamesmistress Shadow. As usual, I sat down for many rollicking hands of Munchkin (including the latest release, Munchkin Apocalypse), as well as an epic Saturday evening GURPS adventure set on a steampunk version of Victorian Mars – full of Edgar Rice Burroughs-y swashbuckling, plenty of silly English accents, and two equally amazing players tag-teaming for the role of Lefttenant Raleigh, the proper, if chauvanistic, officer who will not stand for his tea time being interrupted by marauding martians. Also, plenty of increasingly obtuse double-entendres were exchanged, especially once Raleigh #2 started the wine flowing (even if we probably weren’t supposed to have it in the game room). Thanks for the fun, guys!

So, a good time was had by all, especially thanks to the presence of so many good friends – Jonah, Mikey, Scott and Kristen, Danny, Bert, KT and Kevin, Liz, Ora, Ozma and her clan, James, Dan, Scott, Sarah and all the other folks I’m forgetting, but who contributed to making the weekend fun and pleasant.

I sit here in my home office, perched high (well, at least 25 feet or so) above my driveway, watching “rain” drops bounce icily off of the roof of my car that’s totally not still stuck on I-95 weather panic.

Yep, working from home today was totally the right call.

Sunday morning, I heard this piece on NPR and got terribly excited about revisiting my undergrad history degree and writing up a clever treatise about my affection for the filibuster in the traditional Mr. Smith Goes To Washington sense, and my equal distaste for the procedural filibuster rules that we’ve had in place in the US Senate since 1975, but nobody really understands because no one’s ever bothered to teach the current rules in high school civics classes, leaving generations of US citizens woefully ignorant of the way our modern government works, since pretty much every textbook only includes the traditional definition.

It took me only a little while to realize that just a few years ago, I’d already written it.

In any case, we’re talking about this again, and it seems we’re perhaps closer than we’ve been in a while to changing those rules, so that if a minority of Senators are going to block a bill by talking it to death, they’ll be honor-bound to actually do so, rather than simply declaring that they would, and the rest of the Senate simply taking it as read, and not knocking Mr. Dent’s house down while he’s away at the pub moving on to other business, which is pretty much how the current “cloture” rules work, and why the Senate needs sixty votes to get anything at all done, and exactly why, in fact, so little has gotten through the Senate recently, when one also takes into account the increased focus on partisanship over compromise in today’s political climate.

So, if you find this sort of thing interesting as I do, feel free to go back and re-read “put up or (don’t) shut up” again, because I still think it’s kind of relevant.