Years ago, I was an avid miniature painter. I played Battletech and so most of the miniatures I painted belonged to that set. But really I just loved painting the buggers, so I would often paint miniatures that didn't belong to any game and just looked cool to me.

Then I started moving around a lot in college. Away from my friends who played Battletech and Warhammer 40k. It became a hassle to box up and un-box my figures every 6 months or so and I had nobody to battle them against.

So I stopped.

Since the Lord of the Rings movies started coming out, Games Workshop has released a game based on the films and containing extra material from the books as well. This game caught Andrea's eye and she began acting interested in the game.

This woke my slumbering obsession and I began eyeing the games I used to play, I bean reading websites about them and slowly I began to pile up inexpensive items that would allow me to begin painting again. Hobby knives, tiny brushes, makeshift water dishes, discount Two Towers minis after the Return of the King stuff came out early December.

Under the weight of all the changes and new responsibilities I'm shouldering at work, I once again seek the Zen void of applying color and texture to small figurines of metal and plastic.

Soon I shall be using them to play games again.

The nostalgic excitement of it all is almost too much for me!

So cold!

My apartment is frigid. My car is frigid. The road to work is paved in ice. Cars careen off the road from behind, very nearly missing me.

I love winter.

I love blankets and sweaters. I love my computer room/den to be lacking in that stifling heat that it generates in the other months of the year. I love it when my nose stops running from allergies and starts running from cold.

I love the crackling smell of frozen air. I love it when my ears burn in the wind. I love lying in front of a fireplace watching television with Andrea.

I love it when coffees and teas are once again valued for their heat. Their warmth-giving quality.

I love chapped lips and cracking knuckles. I love the way steam caresses everything it touches on its trip heavenward.

I love pulling my head beneath the blankets. Shivering to sleep.

I love the cold.

Welcome to the Monkey House...

I was always under the impression that Kurt Vonnegut was going to be this unholy union of Hunter S. Thompson and Phillip K. Dick.

I picked up his Monkey House collection of short stories at my shiny new library last week and discovered that, while Vonnegut's stories are filled with laugh-out-loud non sequiturs, he is not really the off-the-handle nutcase I was expecting.

Part of me is impressed at how solidly coherent his stories are. Part of me is disappointed that he isn't more of a spectacle.

This past Xmas and New Years has been the wierdest collection of unexpected turns in my memory of holiday seasons.

I came back off of vacation this week and people say:

"Welcome back! How was your holiday?!"

A million potential answers flash through my head-- none of them quite expresses the sheer oddity of those two weeks.

"Good," I say.

I can't think of anything else to say that isn't misleading. Unless, of course, I want to launch into a dozen tales of change and mundanity that don't capture the essence of how different everything went down this year.

I don't want to, it turns out.

New Year's resolutions?

I have one: I will finish the initial draft of my damn book this year!