wanting to keep my brain turned off
My friends and I had our sixth DTL yesterday, held in person with only the six of us who are still local. Our theme this time around was "games," in which each person designed a game for everyone else to play. We took from existing games (mine was Jeopardy-style, and a friend adapted Dropout's Um Actually) and came up with questions or prompts that were more interesting to us and usually prompted fun screaming arguments.
Every time we hold these parties, I'm always floored by my friends' presentations—even though I already know they're intelligent and creative, they continue to surprise me. We all crammed our Powerpoints despite having had this planned for almost two months1, so it's extra amazing to me how much fun our games were for things we cobbled together in the week leading up to the hang. I think it's testament not only to how interesting and thoughtful my friends are, but also to how much fun we have making stuff that will surprise and delight each other.
In the past I've talked about my frustrations as the planner friend, but since then I've loosened my type-A grip a little. Some of the things I would get annoyed with were the result of my micromanaging stuff that, ultimately, didn't really make or break the enjoyment of the hang.
More importantly, I found that when I went lax on planning, my friends would take the reins. I think that's all I really needed: to know that they valued the friendship too and would take the steps to spend time together, even if I wasn't organizing.
Yesterday, we spent most of the afternoon just hanging out and chatting, waiting for one friend to arrive from work before breaking out the drinks and starting the games. I don't remember what time it was when people started heading home, but it must have been very late. One of my friends was sleeping over, and we found ourselves up until 6am, still chatting in bed with the lights off.
I'm writing this still kind of out of it, sleep-deprived and hungover—and will probably read this post tomorrow baffled at how disorganized it is—but I'm very very happy. Between this hang and our upcoming Oops, All Draculas campaign2, I'm feeling extra appreciative of my friends, and I already want to hang out with them again.
To break from the monotony of three sappy gratitude posts in a row, I'm feeling the high of the holidays wear off and watching anxiously as all the tasks I've been putting off become less ignorable. I realize I try not to let myself totally immerse in anything enjoyable, because I hate the feeling of having to go back to everything else after it's over, and that's where I'm at now. After a healing New Year celebration with family and such a fun-filled day with friends, I'm dragging my feet into 2024 proper. It's not often my brain is as peaceful as it's been recently, and I'd really like for it to stay that way for a bit longer!
A page from a diary comic I never finished about all my planners and organizational apps.
I've let stuff pile up while enjoying myself: replies, homework, errands, year-end wrap-ups, year-beginning plans. How can you properly spend time with the people you love during the holidays and also be expected to close out the past year + come out fighting into the new one, especially in the too-short two weeks we as a society have carved out for the holidays? I think we need to designate two weeks for hanging out and two weeks for getting your shit together, at LEAST.
Here's a tiny list of things I must do once I have my brain back:
- Get some documents together for my teaching program.
- Compile my list of favorite fics from 2023 – I've done this every year since 2019!
- Do all my homework before Tuesday.
- Plan the friendship bracelets I want to make for Eras.
- That commission.
- Script and character sheets for my comic.
- Send them in... you promised them by end of 2023!!!
- Reply to everyone. My god. This should not be that hard for me and yet.