gewgaw

I made it back in one piece! I am over my jet lag. I am insanely busy.

I’ve been through/dealt with/seen so much in the last few weeks (trips, interviews, illnesses and injuries, deadlines, dead fish and hurricanes) that I went 15 minutes over just brining my therapist up to speed this afternoon. And still so much to do!!

So, in lieu of a real entry – three movie links:

• Justin’s TGS short which features yours truely hard at work photographing cosplayers.
• The Egg Song which helped ease my transition from Japan with its excessive, goofy cuteness.
• Craziest a short flash film about Scrabble and madness (thanks Warren).

I missed blogging! I miss sleep! But I *must* play the Sims2… It’s my homework!!

Ahh, Tokyo. My feet hurt, my belly is full, and I’m really, really tired. Within hours of arriving, I was stuffed full of sushi and shopping in a 9-floor toy store. Within a day, I was eating dinner with some of my favorite game designers. Then – Karate poses with guys in tights! Not so bad for a zombie with jelly for legs!

Overall, the show was kind of a bust. While the PSP stand was slick, nothing in it was really groundbreaking (and the DS was nowhere in sight). The biggest surprise for me: Caucasian cosplayers. [UPDATE: there is apparently a fairly healthy manga-based cosplay scene here on the west coast - which I am now delving into with great interest!!!]

After I took about 300 photos (and Justin recorded the ambient sound of the floor) we headed to the Ginza for some skewers and drinks. I spent some time catching up with Gonzalo and Jane (when not stuffing my face or downing Kirin Milk Tea). Then, in a fit of tired, Justin decided to hunt us down some strawberry shortcake. We narrowly avoided a minimum-charge fiasco, ditching some weak-ass, wood-paneled faux-Frenchitude for chocolate/green-tea waffles. But at least we left smiling!

Tomorrow I go with Alan on the fashion death march… window shopping in exclusive stores and people-watching for style hints. So far I’ve observed a lot of white shoes, baggy jeans (rolled at the ankle) and brown. So much brown. If I make it out of this city without a giant LV bag (real or fake – they’re a plague!!), it will be a miracle.

Ok so maybe traveling wasn’t such a good idea after all.

I packed light, bringing my EastPack (it doubles as a backpack) instead of a wheely-bag. Usually I pack all toiletries and extras (jewelry, gifts, books) in my carry-on.. or carry all bags on. But I was feeling tired, so I put most of the weight into the pack and checked it at the curb. No need to lug it around, right?

Waiting for the cab, I briefly considered moving medication and a few other items back into my carry on – but the cab arrived, and I dismissed the idea. Paranoia will get you nowhere. Besides – it’s a short flight, and I’ve made it a zillion times. Why worry?

On the plane there was plenty of room – I had the entire middle row to myself. I laid down, and devoured the second half of The Queen’s Gambit. I turned the last page as we landed, with a tear in my eye, and a rumble in my belly. I needed dinner!

—

I rarely check bags. Standing at the crowded carousel, I was reminded why. Idiots! As if cramming together at the edge of the platform will make a bag arrived any faster? Older travelers struggled with boat-sized luggage. Grunting, sweating, impatient, frowning – a scene of disarray and dissatisfaction. The nervous energy set my teeth on edge. I fantasized about wine and appetizers at Lavenda.

Ten minutes later, the bags were starting to repeat. I spaced out and scanned the crowd to the far side of the platform. And there, amidst the proles – was Jerry Springer himself! I snapped a couple of shots using the F828 (which I borrowed for my Tokyo photo assignment) and made a mental note to blog it.

I turned my attention back to the carousel… ten more minutes passed. As the crowd thinned, frowns grew. Where were our things? Fidgiting, I ventured to the “bag cage” at the end of the aisle – looking in vain for my slim, light, totally carry-onable bag. No dice. Jerry was also still waiting.

—

In half an hour the United folks informed us (while looking at Mr. Springer) that a cart of bags from the plane was missing. In 45, the lost bags had been located. To pass the time, Jerry joked with us about lost socks, talked about his scheduled speaking engagements. Turns out he was going to talk about education and computers.

“I’m going to talk about the middle class, and how they are getting left behind because rich people are the only ones who can afford to send their kids to learn how to use computers.” Hrm. I mentioned the work of Ken Perlin and others, gave him a card, told him to check into it or email me. Turns out he is a NU alum – law school. “Really? I had no idea. We have lots of great alums…”

“Sure…” he replied, smiling broadly. “And then you have me.”

His bags came. He posed for some photos and joked with a fellow passenger “You know it’s a really bad day, if all the bags come, except yours!” We all laughed, he wished me well in Tokyo, and departed, socks in tow.

—

Twenty minutes later the United baggage claim attendant informed me that my bag was still in Chicago, waiting to be scanned by security. I asked when it would arrive, and she shrugged. “The government really doesn’t care about the flights or the bag timing. They pull the bags, and then you have to wait. The take their time, because they can.” Exhausted, starving (it was past 9, I landed at 7:20), I fumed. “Yeah, tell me about it. We are seeing upwards of 100 people a day with this increase in… security”.

Go America!

I stalked out, claim paperwork in hand, and headed for the car rental hub. At National, there was a line. I started eating chocolate (a gift for someone else) because without it I would bite off the head of the nice man with the green nametag. He checked me through with a smile, and informed me that there would be a 30 minute wait for the car. “We have them – they just have to drive them over.”

The people in line were cheerful, for the most part. As we waited, I chatted about my airport disaster with a freelance accountant, watching her bag during her cigarette breaks. It took an hour. First come first serve, you got what National drove over from Oakland. Two ahead of us, a Seabring convertible. Then, a Buick SUV (incredibly ugly AND inefficient). For the accountant and myself: The Cheavy “Classic”, in K-car silver.

Driving down to Menlo Park (and dinner for Christ’s sake) I kept a close watch on the traffic, scanning the rear-view for flashing lights, and the other lanes for drunks. But I sped the entire way.

Just try it, I double-dog-dared, gripping the wheel like a kick-board in the Y-pool deep end. Just you fucking try.

—

My bag arrived this morning, delivered by a cheerful, short hispanic guy with a mustache… who without aid of my glasses (in the bag) resembled Mario. He joked with me about my blindness when I asked where to sign. “That’s ok, I can see for the both of us. And what I see is allllriiiight!”

Drifting back to sleep I wondered – by the time their bags are returned, do most people just gush with thank yous? If so, all this bullshit security crap is making his life a lot happier.

I guess it all goes around.

Thanks to all for the well wishes, phone calls and email – I am feeling much better. Drinking a ton of water, avoiding caffeine and generally resting up – when not seeing doctors, filling out health care paperwork, dealing with my registration, and running errands for my next trip.

Yes – despite the drama of this last week, I’ve decided to keep moving forward. On the paper tab of the herbal tea I’m drinking, a quote:

What is it that you are afraid of?
That you might lose?
What’s to lose?

— Nike

—

This trip, I’ll be flying first to SF for some interviews, then out to Tokyo – where I’m shooting some photos of TGS for a magazine (and eating TONS OF RAMEN). It’ll be my second trip to the show, and I’m interested to see how my eyes have changed since the last visit.

To clarify: Each year at E3, I find new themes or ideas threaded through my photos. In the first couple of years, I was just dazzled by the color and lights, the texture of the thing – focusing mostly on macro closeups. With time, I’ve managed to pull back a bit – to the people, interactions and happenings that characterize the feel of the show (tho I rarely capture the scale of the event itself).

I think my first experience of TGS (and in particular, Cosplay) was very much a product of that synthesis. I focused a lot on “pose” – the ways that ideas and images/character were presented to the public eye (very different from what I was accustomed to). I was especially interested in the hands and eyes of my subjects. Gaze, I suppose – as anticipated by the subtle arrangement of fingers across a shoulder or arm, or repeated in the eyes of the posed.

—

But I must admit – as excited as I am to return to Japan and experience new things, I am also tired and a bit sad to go. Sabine has been missing me (she takes it out on Paul by peeing in his room) and in my last absence, one of my beloved parrot fish went belly-up. This will be my last major trip before graduation – and I’m glad of it. I miss the familiar clockwork of at-home routines.

In what little downtime there is, I have been reading, and thinking a lot about the big picture – the larger gears and levers that exert force on my life. Despite immense dynamism, the people and choices in my life seem clearer, more present. In a meetings, discussing projects, mulling over job prospects and contemplating relationships – trends feel natural… the way dotted like a landing strip.

Syncronicity (real or imagined?) is everywhere. Reading The Hustler I relish the ascent, descent and rebirth of Fast Eddie Felson. As he begins to understand his core goals and talents (and struggles with his ego), there are familiar highs and lows – realizations that peak in moments of play, and then fade into something broader and more influential:

But there was the rule – possibly the only real rule – that he had had to learn himself, the rule that Bert had not actually told him, the one that had come to him with such clarity when he had been playing Findlay, the rule that was a command: Win. And yet maybe that was what Bert meant by character – the need for winning. To love the game itself is a fine thing; it is loving the art you live by. There are many things to love in the art – the excitement of it, the difficulty, the use of skill – but to work at it only for those would be to be like Findlay. To play pool you had to want to win and to want this without excuses and without self-deception. Only then did you have a right to love the game itself. And this reached further. It seemed to Eddie now, sitting in Bert’s car, his body sore and his mine tremendously aware, that the need to win was everywhere in life, in every act, in every conversation, in every encounter between people. And the idea had become for him a kind of touchstone – or a key to the meaning of experience in the world.

But as he became gradually more tired, more hypnotized by the steady movement of the sunlit road before them, the awareness and the insight began to fade, leaving, as these things always do, a few new ideas or prejudices. And possibly, a little more knowledge of what his own life was about …

What Fast Eddie calls winning, I would call communicating. But in a lot of ways, they are the same thing. Am I successfully communicating my goals and ideas to the people in my life? Am I guiding the gears and levers around me to their most beneficial places, choosing the right issues and making peace with the things that just *are* and cannot be changed? Knowing you want to “win” is the first step to accepting that losses are inevitable, and hardly as bad as they first seem. Knowing what you aim for will reveal the fear of losing for what it is: a losing attitude.

A lot of the dialog at the Women in Games conference could be framed in a similar light. Are we working together towards change, or just sharing our view on what defeat looks like? Do we play what Bert calls “the world’s most popular indoor sport” – the game of agonizing over – and then rationalizing – our losses? My article, as it leaks out in bits and pieces, will comment on this at length.

—

I’ll probably not blog much while traveling. Between my work, the jet lag, and various plans I’m sure to be tired and even more inward (which is a rare state, as most who know me will attest). But if I get some nice photos, I’ll attempt to post them, with commentary.

I had a strange day today.

I got up around 8 am and packed, and then went to brunch at the Omelettry with Warren and Art. I ate about half of a short stack of delicious ginger pancakes and drank 2 cups of coffee – careful not to overdo it.

Around 10:30 we headed back, so I could pack up and prepare for my trip home – with a plush Nemukko Nyago and a copy of Domination in tow. I’d had a great time, but I was looking forward to home. I was feeling a bit… worn out.

—

My flight was at 2. Around 11, I started to feel odd. My right side ached a bit – as if I’d pulled a muscle. I figured I was dehydrated, and drank some water. The pain got worse.

At 11:30 I decided to call the airlines and see about pushing my flight back – just because the pain was so strange, and so acute. By the end of the phone call I was weak in the knees. Half an hour later, I was laying on a gurney in the emergency room, moaning like a lost child.

The culprit was a kidney stone – they run in my family. At it’s worst, pain crested through my side and legs in waves – pain more intense than anything I have ever experienced (including a dislocated shoulder, a tattoo, and severe menstrual cramps).

By the time they got a Morphine IV into my arm, I was swearing like a sailor, snapping at the nurses, and throwing up from the pain. Between gags, I apparently said “The only thing that would make this worthwhile is a BABY!”

—

Once the meds had a chance to settle in, they wheeled me upstairs for a CAT scan. It revealed that my right kidney was swollen – blocked by a stone that the doctors couldn’t see. They perscribed pain meds (including an opiate nasal spray – hot damn), had me sign some papers, and told me to drink a lot of water. In two days, if it wasn’t better, I’d have to see about getting it smashed up with sound waves!

Back at Warren and Caroline’s, the narcotics and meds made me sick, and I had trouble keeping anything down. But by 5 I’d emptied my stomach and fallen asleep. At 9, I woke up to purring (cat at my head) and a twinge in my belly. I got up, wobbled to the bathroom, and passed the stone.

It’s a tiny thing: maybe 2 mm across. Brown, curving back on itself like a snail’s shell – hard like a grain of carbon from the filter on my fish tank. All that, from this? I look at it, resting in its special container, with total disbelief.

—

I am a feeler… a heart-on-sleeve, head-first fan of life. Give me a reason to get excited – and I can stay wound up for days – coasting on butterflies. Get me talking about ideas or dreams and I’ll happily thrust aside plans and duties for a throat-parching, excited chat.

But after the rush, there’s the lull. I get frustrated, disappointed, low. What good are the ups, if the downs always follow? In those moments, its easy for me to get stuck… to forget just how relative it all is.

I’m sure I’ll forget the sensation of this stone. It’s in our nature to do so – as people, as women. The miracle of forgetting, in no small way, is what makes humankind possible.

And yet I feel transformed. Something shifted over as I curled into a fetal position in that emergency room – desperately clinging to Caroline’s hand. Laying there, waiting for help – I realized something. Something too tiny to pinpoint – and yet, too large to ignore.

—

I fly back tomorrow. I’ll be slow, weak and distracted. But also – a little lighter.

I have been in Austin since Wednesday, attending the Women in Games conference and the AGC. Such events are always a heady mix of socializing, evangelizing, and mealtime theorizing – but because I was here just to attend (no slides to write!!), I had an especially nice time. I’m looking forward to collecting my notebook scribblings into an article for GGA… perhaps two, if I can take the time to address design thoughts as well as those related to gender.

But I can’t write when fried, and even at its most enjoyable, conferencing wears me out quite a bit. So today I recovered – chatting with friends and eating (more) fabulous food.

—

Every time I visit Austin, I get spoiled in both categories. The people are friendly, and the fixins are fine. Over the last few days I’ve visited Club DeVille, the much-blogged Mojo’s coffee shop, Ironworks BBQ, Toy Joy, LoveJoy’s (where the interesting costume of a fellow traveler won us a free round of shots) and of course, Changos. I think I am now addicted to their tacos (not to mention the agua fresca).

I also visited Cream, where I thrifted some cute cowgirl shirts, a Wrangler denim skirt (with that great horse logo on the change pocket). I also made some friends at the store mirror, including this fine gentleman. It’s his first jacket purchase, and he’s promised to send photos of the suaveness in action!

Despite the heat, I could imagine myself living here. In addition to all the aforementioned perks, it sounds like there are interesting opportunities here (with respect to AI and games). Perhaps SF will have some competition?

See a (tiny) part of Austin’s glory here.

The BBC reported yesterday on some interesting research in the UK, into the hormonal and brain activity of video game players. Results suggest that playing puts people in a mood equivalent to that of competing athletes:

“Playing a game puts you into an altered state. It’s like a runner’s high, where sports athletes are aware they are doing well. They’re not sure what they are doing, but they know they are functioning at their peak.”

As the article points out – Bill Fulton and MSResearch have been working on this problem for a while – and I always look forward to their GDC talks. I am really excited to see money and time (and expertise in human biology) being put behind the task of finding flow.

What also I found interesting is that despite improved response times on post-game tests, subjects “feel guilty” about play. It’s no secret that a lot of people still think games are bad for you. There is increasing interest in the connection between marketing, children’s culture, and games.

I wonder… if the studies generate concrete and repeatable results – will they help improve our understanding of games and game design – or bolster claims that games are evil zombie-makers?

For a long time I’ve only posted text to this site – not really sure why. I guess when I started, I wanted to focus on the writing, and not overwhelm everything with images. I think I’m over that now – so it should get a little more colorful around these parts.

To start – here are two overhead shots courtesy of this week’s Chicago Tribune.

Hurricane Frances, which is bearing down on my Florida family this very moment. It’s big, lumbering and mean – lots of flooding is expected if it passes over Orlando. Once again, my dad has prepared for the worst – done everything short of board up the house. They have dry ice for the fridge and everything.

Let’s hope it takes a turn for the water and leaves all those nice trailer parks alone.

A corn maze, designed to raise voter awareness on 25 acres of land at the Weston Red Barn Farm north of Platte City, Mo. Owner Steve Fray used a global positioning device and a brush cutter to carve the shape in his field. If you’re out that way, you can walk the maze for free… that is, if you are an active-duty serviceperson or reservist, family of a serving officer, or a first-time voter. Bring your registration card.

If you can’t make it out to Steve’s farm, but still need motivation to vote – perhaps this site will help. Sweet Jesus, indeed. Thanks, Alan!

And just in case you were wondering, the formatting errors in old posts *are* driving me totally crazy. I am *barely resisting* the urge to re-categorize, re-organize, and repair. So please do me a huge favor and ignore that old junk. I’ll get to it, someday….

In searching the internet for a quote on game design (you know the one about how one of the hardest things a person can do to design a game)… I came across this great commentary from the late Dani Buten – designer of my first real game obsession, M.U.L.E.

Fun is not a fatuous activity. Fun is the meter on your emotional state. Fun takes on an important role as an indispensable part of our lives. It’s a characteristic of intelligent species to engage in activities for which there seems to be no reward. As a culture, we class those activities as play. Those are things that don’t have any extrinsic reward. The reward is all intrinsic.

As intelligence rises, the need for stimulation also rises. For every brain, there is an optimum level of arousal that your brain wants to get to. If your brain doesn’t reach that level during the day, you’ve got to play.

By consuming your daily quota of stimulation, you promote your psychological and spiritual growth. You can also expand your intellectual capacity. Some things have a certain amount of depth that pushes you, makes you think a little deeper than you have, makes you study a little more, makes you connect with things outside of the game environment.

When you become completely absorbed by a game that pushes you to your intellectual edges, you feel like what you’ve done is more deeply significant than what you would have done otherwise.

Good games are good for you. Fun is a vitamin for the mind, essential nourishment for your intellect.

Compute Magazine, January 1992

Alas, I cannot find the quote I’m actually looking for. Does my description ring a bell? It’s driving me crazy!!!

—

Thank you, Dunsany, for saving me from my OCD:

“One of the most difficult tasks people can perform, however much
others may despise it, is the invention of good games.”
— Jung

I drank too much coffee this morning, sitting around in my kitchen with Jane and Jesse, who were in town as part of Dealership’s most recent tour. You know how it happens – you make a pot of coffee, eat a little something, chat – and soon the pot is gone, and you’re blinking 100 times a minute.

It was really great to see them – and I was sad to see them go. But by the time they left I was so jangly and wiggy I could barely stand still (even more spastic than normal, as Paul pointed out with a laugh). Not such a good way to start the morning….

I decided to eat a bagle and drink some water, in the hopes that fat and carbs would fill my stomach, absorbing the buzz-inducing caffine demons. Of course, I ended up eating at my desk, reading mail – where I found this article on an IKEA exec (posted to the WomenDev list):

Ironically, Spiers-Lopez’s new assignment to make major changes to the company’s work/life-balance guidelines pushed her to the brink of disaster. When she was promoted, her daughter was starting grade school and her son was starting pre-school. She and her husband decided not to uproot the family. Instead, she either flew or made the six-hour drive between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia several times each week. In 1999, after struggling through a period of increasing fatigue and decreasing job satisfaction, she cracked. One evening she discovered that one of her arms was numb. At the local hospital’s emergency room a doctor told her that her condition was a reaction to stress.

Ulf Caap says he gave Spiers-Lopez no specific advice but simply guided her toward listening to what her body was saying and asking the right questions. The most basic one was whether she should continue working. She decided she would, reasoning that if she stayed at home, her basic nature would drive her toward becoming something like a golf fanatic or giving so many elaborate dinner parties that her friends would stop coming to them out of sheer exhaustion. Instead, she made a strict rule that her evenings and weekends were reserved for her husband and children. On weekends she enjoys bicycle riding with her family.

I’m not sure what I found most compelling about this quote: the idea that a person in charge of improving the lives of her employees would work so hard as to make herself sick; that she has such a sense of humor about her obsessive-compulsive urges; or that she’s solved her problems (at least, in part) with bike riding.

Later in the day, another woman’s musings on motherhood and stress came to me via Allison. It’s hard to work hard – and it’s hard to be mom. My heart goes out to all of you who manage both, the stress it creates – and the coffee that I’m sure it requires.

—

After eating my lunch, I did as much productive fidgiting as possible. I corrected forms for the IRB report (only 3 of 8 came back to me!!), dealt with some bugs in the Hamlet app – slow progress, but forward motion all the same.

I also (finally) re-formatted gewgaw using WordPress – with some help from Rob who also made the switch. It will probably morph a bit in the next week or so (depending on how much time I have to play with these shiny new tools).

Around 10 pm I gave up and headed home. I ate some delicious hummus and pita (seeing a trend here?) and drank water. But even after 12 hours, I’m still wired and tense. I feel like my entire upper body is about to curl into a fiddlehead.

Tomorrow I’m drinking tea, and biking to work.