To continue on from three weeks ago, the week before last and last week, in which I discuss running a Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) role-playing game (RPG) for some middle schoolers at my local public library (for pay!), I’ll note that the party in question continued its work against the thief that had stolen a particular ceremonial object from the town from which the members hailed. Progress was made, and the party has a good one-session return to their home town, one session because the program will have but one more meeting. I’ll hope for renewal, of course, but I cannot count on it.

I try to do more in these discussions than simply give a gloss of in-game events. The practice of composing recaps of games, however, is one that I’ve found useful in running tabletop games. (The play-by-post forum games I’ve mostly involved myself in function differently; while the tabletop game is, as an artistic object, ephemeral–here, again, I borrow from Mackay’s The Fantasy Role-playing Game–the forum-based game is not, but creates a stable [-ish] textual object by its very nature. Recaps still help in such cases, but they necessarily function differently in them.) I’ve not done it with the middle-schoolers yet, although if there is some kind of return to Hanlon, I think I will employ it.

The practice is in fact much as it is labeled. One or more players will volunteer or be assigned to take notes on party deeds and doings and compose a summary of what happened in the previous session or sessions so that everybody at the table is operating from a common understanding of events thus far. When a player has to miss a session, that player can come abreast of events easily. When the person administering the game has to refer back to something, there is a stable record for them to use to that end. From a narrative perspective, then, it is a helpful thing; the record allows for more internal consistency and easier access, both of which increase immersion and therefore improve the narrative flow and engagement with the same, enriching the RPG experience.

Getting players to do such things can be easy. Sometimes, particularly motivated players will take it upon themselves to do so–and it’s fine to let them, although the person administering the game should keep an eye out against the tendency to self-aggrandize (and, less commonly but still an issue, the tendency to run down other players and their characters). It is easy, when doing the writing, to make one’s self look better than events actually bear out; “history is written by the winners” is an old adage for a reason. When multiple players are thus inclined, the recap of events can be a bit more fraught; the question of whose vision of history is the “right” one becomes an immediate concern, and while negotiation is possible, it can also lead to tension at the table that helps nobody sitting at it.

(Having the record be an in-character thing offers a possible workaround, and there are many character types for which it might be an appropriate option. Sometimes, however, action is obliged to stop in the middle of things, and it would break narrative sense to have a completed record of an uncompleted action. It does, at least, make any disagreement an issue of the character instead of the player, which experience suggests is easier to address; players are a lot more likely to tolerate Meador of the Rock Wall trumpeting himself than they are Bob, playing Meador, doing so.)

When players are perhaps less eager to do the work of compiling such a record (and even when they are quite eager), there is an easy remedy: give a meta-game award. To use the example of D&D: characters advance by means of acquiring experience points (XP), an arbitrary and nebulous measure of having done things. Most commonly, XP are acquired by defeating opponents and overcoming challenges. At my tables, XP also result from making things better for the other people at the table, something I’ll talk about in more detail later on (but probably not today). Compiling and presenting a solid record of party events is something that does make the game better for the other people at the table, and while it is the case that everybody at the table should have that as one goal of play, it is also the case that composing such a record requires work away from the table. (It’s writing, and I’ve talked about writing processes before at some length–such as here, here, and here. The remarks still largely apply, if with adjustments for medium and context.) It’s outside effort, and that kind of thing deserves some acknowledgment; a small bonus to XP for the session in which the record is presented isn’t out of line in such a case. Such has been my experience, at least; others’ may well vary.

Now, again, I’ve not put this into practice at the middle-school table. Given the players and what I know of them (and I know quite a lot about one of them: my beloved Ms. 8 is one of the players), I don’t know that any of them would be keen on the task, and given the nature of the program, I’m not sure there will be a return to the present game as such. I can hope for such things, but I cannot be assured of them. Still, I expect that some time will come when I run another in-person table, and when I do, I may see if I can get a party scribe started. Because there is one other thing that such tends towards…the player willing to put in the extra outside work is also one who is apt to take on administering a game, in turn, and much as I enjoy running a game, I do look forward to playing in one again sometime.

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I remarked a couple of times last week (here and here) that I was away from my normal place in the Texas Hill Country. I also noted that I would make some report of what I was about while I was away. I try to be a man of my word, to do what I say I will do, and so I note that I was in Baltimore, Maryland, attending the IRS Nationwide Tax Forum. Since my day-job is managing a tax preparation and bookkeeping office, it’s the kind of thing that makes some sense for me to do; since my company paid for me to go, I really had no reason or ability to say “no.”

Most of the time that I was in the City that Reads (I’ve seen it called such), I spent either at the Forum or asleep. I don’t travel so well as I used to, after all, and I’ve gotten very much out of the habit of walking a walkable city, so getting to do both was taxing. (Pun intended. I’m a dad. Deal with it.) As I’ve commented to some people since I made it back home, “My body remembers that I used to do things; it doesn’t remember how I used to do them.” So much said, I was glad of the exercise; I got a lot of cardio in, and carrying my luggage back and forth gave me a couple of solid strength-training sessions. And it was good to remind myself that, yes, I can actually do things that aren’t behind a desk every now and again.

I took copious notes while I was in the Forum sessions, training from graduate school reasserting itself. So much is helpful; I was able to bring a lot of information back with me. There is the challenge, though, of transcribing my notes into a useful form; I was concerned with recording information, and now I have to organize it. I’m back at my day job, so while I can make some time at the office to attend to the project, I do have other work to do that was put off for the time away or that has come up since I got back; it will be a little while before I have the notes set up so that I can actually use them–two forms, most likely: a printed form and an HTML document. Cross-referencing is a thing for me, as those who read much of the other materials I have in this webspace see.

I did get out and do some other things, though. I made a point of getting around to local eateries in the Inner Harbor, Federal Hill, and Otterbein areas, trying to avoid the ones that seemed “touristy” in favor of those that looked like they cater to folks who live in the area. It was a good choice, I think, even if I did end up eating and drinking far more at a time than was good for me. I did have the experience while in Federal Hill of running into a group of regulars at one pub who all come from Texas–two of them from the Hill Country, even. It was not something I expected to have happen, but it’s something I’m glad did happen.

(I also tried to make a call of courtesy to a fellow franchise office in Pigtown, but I found the place had not only closed but vacated, so that didn’t work.)

It’s not as if I didn’t do any “touristy” stuff, either. I spent a day touring the Inner Harbor, climbing aboard and through historic ships moored there. There was a commissioning ceremony getting going on one of the ships, so I didn’t spend as much time aboard her as I might’ve done–I didn’t want to be in the way, even though nobody was trying to chase me off–but that gave me time to tour the others and provided for fewer other folks to move around. (One of the ships is a WWII-era submarine, so space was tight, and I am bigger than I probably ought to be.) Nor was I immune to checking out some of the Babe Ruth and Edgar Allan Poe stuff, the latter of which really shouldn’t be a surprise; I was an English major, after all.

In all, it was a good time, and I’m glad to have done it in itself. I don’t know that I would go at the same time of year, though. I missed out on a few things at home while I was away, and I did have some fun with deadlines when I got back; I’d rather avoid those issues if I can. And I am a homebody; it was not long until I got to a point that I missed being with my people. It made coming back a good thing, even if it has taken me most of a week to get back to myself and who and what I need to be.

I’m there now, at least for now, and happy to be so.

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It’s possible I’ve mentioned that I had a busy series of weekends for about the past month at this point. It’s likely I noted around this time last week that one more of them was coming. It’s certainly the case that this past weekend, the last one before Ms. 8 started back to school, took my family and me afield, and it ought to be the case that I let you know how all it went. Hence what follows.

We left Wednesday for and returned Sunday from Foxfire Cabins, where we lodged at around the same time for the last couple of years, as noted. On Wednesday, we made the drive out, and, as in previous years, the drive was pretty. We did go by a bit of a circuitous route, admittedly, one that showed the ongoing effects of the 4 July 2025 flooding in the Hill Country (rebuilding continues, and having support continue would also be helpful); had we gone by our preferred route, I think it would have been harder to see. But we arrived in good form and good time, and we were able to settle into our cabin–which was lovely, with an expansive deck and direct access to the upper Sabinal River–easily. I even joined my wife and Ms. 8 for a brief swim in the river, something I don’t often do. (Since I sink with a life-jacket on, swimming isn’t usually my thing. But it was hot, the upper Sabinal is usually fairly shallow and cool, and it seemed the thing to do.)

On Thursday, the three of us stayed more or less at the cabin. My wife and daughter spent a lot of time at the river, wading and swimming; my daughter also tended to a loose rockwork dam that had been set up to help pool some of the river-water and which a group of hooligans had spent the morning doing their damnedest to destroy, hucking rocks at it loudly to the cheers of their father. She also conceived of a like for frogs, and I have to wonder if she will take up batrachology as a field of study later on. For my part, I joined Ms. 8 and her mother on the water for a while, enjoying short floats on borrowed inflatables–but I also made a point of getting in a long nap. I’ve been tired, and for a while; it was nice to be able to rest quietly for a time, and I did feel somewhat refreshed by the time it came to light the grill and start dinner. I appreciate it greatly.

On Friday, we went into the nearby Lost Maples State Natural Area once again, where we went on a hike on the Maple and East Trails. We made it to Monkey Rock before the heat started really getting to people; temperatures reached the century mark (37°C for the metrically inclined), which takes some getting used to. (I used to be used to it, but I’m older now than I was then, and I work an inside job with no heavy lifting.) Some time in the air conditioning later, my wife and daughter found their way back to the upper Sabinal near our cabin, and I spent some time reading. (It was, admittedly, reading for work, but it was also reading I enjoyed doing, and I might well write here about what I read there. Maybe.) Dinner was grill-work for me, which I was pleased to do; it’s a part of outdoor living that I do actually enjoy, indoorsman though I am.

On Saturday, we went to Concan again, floating on the Frio River with the help of Happy Hollow. The river was higher than when we visited last year, and so there were more people in attendance; I am given to understand that it was a much more normal year than last year was. It made for a decidedly different experience, one that I am not sure I enjoyed; the crowds were friendly enough and seemed to be having a good time, and I’m not complaining about them, but I was unable to relax. For one, I was worried about running into people; I’m not the smallest person or the lightest, after all. For another, I was worried about revisiting the approach to drowning; again, I sink with a life-jacket on, and I had flirted with it on the Frio last year. For yet another, parts of the river seemed intent on beating me up; the riverbed punched me in the butt and back several times, and one cypress tree kneed me in the shoulder rather forcefully. Still, my wife and daughter enjoyed it, just as they enjoyed going to the Frio Float for a bit of refreshments afterward. And I was glad to fire up the grill again that evening to make dinner; I usually am.

On Sunday, we made our way back home. My wife and daughter took one more chance to wade in the upper Sabinal as I got our stuff loaded back into our vehicle for the drive back; they enjoyed it, and I’m glad to have facilitated their enjoyment. We did make a stop in Kerrville on the way back, as it was my nephew’s birthday; we had presents for him from our trip, and we enjoyed a lunch and birthday cake with him before his mother came up to take him off to see her family. The drive home thence was easy enough, and after we packed in and got some briefing on Ms. 8’s coming school session, I fired up my home pit and cooked both dinner and some meat to eat across the next several days (we’re still working on it as I write this, in fact). So it was a good day, and one I’m glad to have had.

I’ve got some more fun and adventures coming up in the next weeks. School has started here, and that means football season is soon to follow; I work with the local band, and so I’ll be driving to a number of games, both home and away. Too, I have some travel for work coming up, and there are already some plans for another brief getaway, depending on how matters go for Ms. 8 as she moves through her new coursework. I’m sure I’ll have something or other to say about at least some of what’s coming after I manage to make it through–which is good, because I like to write, and I like to write here.

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I mentioned at about this time last week that I was looking at another uncommonly busy weekend. So much did, in fact, happen to be the case; I had stuff going on on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Honestly, it was all a bit much for my normally staid and stolid self; I have some hope that this weekend will serve as a bit of a counter to it, offering a time to rest and relax a bit before a bigger push begins again. Until then, though, a bit about what went on might be in order.

On Friday, I went to Kerrville, where I participated in a trash pickup with my daughter and with fellow employees of the family business. Texas runs an adopt-a-highway program in which individuals and groups can volunteer to pick up trash along a designated two-mile span of highway quarterly; in exchange, the state posts signage for the individuals or groups. It’s good advertising, and it does do some good for the area. (Picking up trash is helpful, right?) My daughter and I had a little trouble getting started, as it was the first time for both of us, but once we got moving, we did well, contributing to making what had been expected to be a two-day hitch into the work of a morning. I’m pleased with how things turned out in that regard.

After the trash pickup, my daughter and I returned home. She took time to rest and play; I got to work on a freelance project that had dropped into my lap. It took me through Saturday evening to get it done, but I got it done and submitted, so that much was good. I’m pleased to know that I can still do such work at such a pace, if I have the luxury of focusing on it. I know, however, that I do not often have that luxury; my wife and daughter did a lot to take care of other things while I was pushing through the project, and I cannot always or even often ask so much of them.

Sunday was taken up with a family reunion. Much of my wife’s extended family lives in the Texas Hill Country, although there are kin spread out a fair bit further than that, and they gather annually on the first Sunday in August. Traditionally, they have met at LBJ State Park in Stonewall, but the last couple of years have had the event in Johnson City at the city park. As such, I spent Sunday at the park, helping set things up, cook and cut meat, and tear down, all while enjoying the company of familiar people seen but once in the year and meeting new folks who hadn’t been by in a while. It was a good time, although it made for a long day, and I managed to twist my right knee uncomfortably along the way. But that will heal, I’m pretty sure.

This coming weekend, I’ll be away from home for a few days. We’re taking one last chance to get away before Ms. 8 starts back at school (on Monday, if you can believe it), one last opportunity to rest and recreate before things get back going in earnest again. I’m sure I’ll have something to say about it afterwards; I hope you’ll read it!

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It’s not often that I have the kind of weekend that bears much reporting. It’s far more rare that I have two of them in quick succession. But the weekend before last was a busy one, and the one just past had some excitement to it. (The one coming up does, too, as does the one to follow that, somehow.) And for so much to happen to and around me so quickly bears some mention.

On Saturday, my stepfather-in-law (there’s some interesting blending at work on both sides of my wife’s family) had his sixty-fourth birthday. He had let us know a while back that he wanted to go swimming at Johnson park and to eat at a Mexican restaurant in Fredericksburg, Texas, both of which seem enjoyable enough things to do on a summer day in the Texas Hill Country. Consequently, my family and I planned to join the festivities–sensibly enough, I think, if perhaps with some caveats.

One of those caveats is that I don’t really swim. Instead, I sink. Even with a life-jacket on. And I have demonstrated this on more than one occasion, including a time or two when my wife has seen it happen. Because I am not buoyant at all, I tend not to go into the water, thinking that, even if there is something of a damper on a good time by my staying out of the pool, it’s not nearly as much of one as having to have a lifeguard pull me out of said pool–which, again, has happened more than once, and across a span of several decades, now, so that it’s in no way a one-time thing.

Now, we had thought that the park in question was LBJ State Park in Stonewall, which suited us well enough. The park itself has free admission, and the pool–recently reopened after a reconstruction previously thought unaffordable–asks for $2 to $3 per user. It’s a small enough fee, and the facility’s certainly worth the price, but I still see no reason to pay for something I know damned well I’m not going to use if I can avoid doing it. And, since the family well knows that I don’t swim, I was able to avoid doing it.

No, I dropped my wife and daughter off at the pool and retreated a little bit down the road to the Gillespie County Safety Rest Area on US Highway 290. I’d stopped there many times before, as might be imagined; I used to commute to Kerrville from Johnson City, taking 290 for much of the way, and there are still times that the cups of coffee I take in each morning tell me they need to get out earlier than anticipated. I’d not had occasion to stay there for any length of time, though, and, since there was a decent breeze and the temperature decided to confine itself to the lower 90°s F, it seemed a decent enough thing to do while my wife and daughter swam and played in the pool. (There are lots of places to set up at LBJ State Park, to be sure, but many of them are at some distance from restroom facilities, and I’d been told there was an event at the park headquarters that would make my setting up there, with access to its facilities, a bit of a challenge.)

While at the rest area, I sat at one of the covered picnic tables that grace it, my back to the highway and the wind coming from the southeast, and I wrote in my journal in the shade. There is something to be said for an occasional chance of scenery for the writing I do. Most of it happens while I sit at my desk at home, and a fair bit while sitting at my desk at the office where I still work. It’s sensible enough; I have the bulk of my supplies in one or another of those places, and the former is where I have such research apparatus as I still maintain. I also have chairs in those places that are not apt to aggravate my sciatica, and I have ready access to coffee and other things to drink (I’ve found I do better when I cycle more fluids through my body more rapidly). That I can also shape my soundscape to a large degree helps; certain music conduces well to how I think, and writing is thinking.

So much noted, and true, I also know well that being at home or at the office presents distractions. In both places, I have things other than my supplies and apparatus, and they call to me. At home, I’ve not only a decent chair, but also a bed and a couch that beckon. I can call the tune, but the cats’ meows and the dog’s whine also ring out for attention, or the phone rings. And even aside from all of that, I fall easily into ruts of thinking and depressive spirals that lead me down into dark places I’ve too often visited before, and at far greater length than is good for me. There are limits to how good my setup can be, given my resources, and I am ever near them.

Consequently, popping out every now and again has a salubrious effect on my work. It keeps me from falling into unhelpful cycles or helps me get out of them, which is its chief virtue. I know those cycles present danger to me; they echo with words perilous to hear and ultimately fatal to heed, but getting out every so often quiets the bitter monologue that delivers soliloquies on nothing but my failures. Getting out helps me to remember that the world is more than me, both myself and the externalization of self that the settled-into home is.

I do not always do well with remembering as much. It is easy for me to withdraw, to retreat, from a world I find confusing and frightening. It is easy for me to see what is wrong and what might well grow worse and to take myself where I feel some sense of control. It is this all too easy for me to fail to look outside myself and to focus on what might well go well after all. So much is a problem with which I struggle, with which I have struggled and likely long will. I try to take what are ultimately small steps to get away from it…when I remember to do so, which is, again, not often.

When I do remember, though, and go somewhere else to put my thoughts down, I am the better for it. I cannot always do so, of course. I do have tasks as demand I be in one place or another. I do have to be findable for a few folks at all times and for some more folks a fair bit of the time. And I do get a lot of good work done in my accustomed places; they’d not be my accustomed places did I not. I have worked to make my places good ones from which to write, but I am still glad to get out and about every now and again, to air myself and my places out and return to them ready to address what needs doing.

So it was that my time at the Gillespie County Safety Rest Area was a pleasant enough experience, the decent weather and available shade doing much to help it be so. The facilities are constructed and maintained well, and, the noise from the highway aside, things were rather quiet. Some birdsong and what I think was the chittering of cicadas reached me, and a few people stopping to make use of the facilities happened by, but the last were content to keep their own company and leave me to mine. I appreciate the courtesy, and I appreciate having gotten to have the peaceful time to myself. I think it’s something I might do again, go there to write, as duties and weather permit.

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I‘ve written on occasion about weekend goings-on for myself and my family, reporting on going out for a wedding anniversary, celebrating my wife’s birthday, going on vacation, or taking a few days off to tool about another town. The weekend just past was another busy one for my wife, my daughter, and me, and a good one; I enjoyed it, and I thought you, dear readers, might like to hear about it a bit.

On Friday, I took my daughter, Ms. 8, up to the last rehearsal day at her theatre camp. She was wrapping up the second week of the two-week intensive program, and she had already given one performance in Matilda, Jr., at the Hill Country Community Theatre in Cottonwood Shores, so the day was given over to fine-tuning the performance for the remainder of the run and getting a preview of next summer’s show. Ms. 8 reported to me that the day went well and that she is enthusiastic about the coming show, already thinking about what character she’ll try to land. And it seemed to me she had good reason to be enthusiastic; I went and saw her in Matilda, Jr., that evening, one of a number of her family to do so, and I enjoyed watching the performance greatly. It was clear to me that she and the rest of her company had put a lot of work into the show, and I was and am proud of her for it.

On Saturday, Ms. 8 had a matinee performance of Matilda, Jr., so my wife and I took her up to Cottonwood Shores for her midday call-time. After dropping Ms. 8 off at the theatre for her performance (both of us had already seen her show at that point, and so we figured we’d give others a chance at seats), my wife and I headed to nearby Round Mountain, where a cider mill and event space had recently opened. Admittedly, we put in at an off-peak time, such that we were among very few in attendance when we arrived, but other people came in as we remained on site, and it was clear that the place is already gaining something of a following. I’m glad of it, because it’s the kind of place I could see myself visiting fairly often. The taproom setup is of interest, as is the selection on offer through those taps, and I have to note that the doughnuts they have for sale are excellent. The flavor is sweet enough to satisfy without being overpowering, and the texture is solid without being heavy; I could easily eat far more of them than would be good for me. Ms. 8 also appreciated them, as well as the loaf of home-kitchen sourdough we picked up there.

On Sunday, Ms. 8 had a second matinee performance of Matilda, Jr., so my wife and I once again took her up to Cottonwood Shores for her midday call-time. After dropping Ms. 8 off at the theatre for her final performance of the run, my wife and I went to a coffee shop a couple of miles up the highway from the theatre. It was a familiar enough place; we’d been there in previous years in similar situations, and my wife had spent more time there. At the coffee shop, my wife caught up on some of the administrative tasks she had to do for her job, while I thought and wrote and read. When the performance was done and we had collected our daughter, we went to eat at LeSturgeon Seafood, where we found ourselves in the company of several of Ms. 8’s fellow thespians and their families; it is evidently a popular place with the area actors. The food was good, and it was good to have eaten before what we did after: grocery shopping for the coming week.

Altogether, it was a good weekend. I don’t know that it’s the kind of thing I can do often; there was an awful lot of revelry and fun for me, sedate as the weekend might sound to others. I am not a young man anymore, and even when I was one, I wasn’t prone to doing a lot of things that other people thought of as being fun; there’re reasons I learned the words “stolid” and “staid” early on. But all that said, I am glad to have had the weekend, and I do look forward to the next such time. Another is coming up for me soon enough, after all…I suppose I’ll write about it, too.

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