I had a weird epiphany the other night. I realized that I have so many ideas drafted for blog posts, but yet I tend to only finalize them for publishing once every 4-5 months. It was odd as I know I have so many topics that I want to express, any many of those are in draft form, so I thought, “Why are they drafts and not published? What’s holding me back?”

First, I know I have accepted requests from peeps close to me, that although I said I’m a drunken raccoon writing these, that maybe I would at least wait one or two days before publishing. Mostly to ensure I don’t write anything that I can’t take back, or I will regret (that actually seems rare in my life to be honest), but mostly so that I can re-read and edit to ensure that my special drunken language isn’t so embarrassingly bad that people will read and think “Ummmm, I think I know what she was meaning to say, but bad grammar, and just weird wording, isn’t making her sound like the old beat poet writers of the 60s, but rather just a drunken confusing fool!”. So, yah, I’ve accepted in my brain that no matter how profound I felt I was one night, that I would hold off before making those thoughts public.

But why have I held off on so many draft stories? Yah, I can blame covid, or tech issues, but more it was me hesitating on whether I really had anything interesting to say. Or was I just spewing mundane crap that no-one cared about? But even with that idea, this blog was not to make me sound profound, but just a way for me to purge the inner demons, deep thoughts, or sometimes semi-brilliant thoughts, I had rumbling around in this head of mine.

So, I do have posts that I have drafted that I will finish and share, but I have decide to start anew with the original idea of trying to have random thoughts that I would share more spontaneously as they came in onto my brain.

On that note, I had a hilarious night with our new gadget gift, the “Oculus Quest 2”. A virtual reality (VR) system that I was surprised that for the first time in my life I was the one that pushed into getting a game system. While my friends grew up on arcade games, I just never got into them. I was so bad that I lost quarters quicker than I could blink, and didn’t have the patience to bother trying to really learn how to pay them better. I have always been around gamers, and occasionally tried them, but I have always tended to enjoy watching rather than playing. I loved being a spectator at the complex version of games that had intense story lines. The only ones I would participate in were racing games, which I tended to do okay in, and occasionally some shooter games where my tendency was to go kamikaze while my friends did strategic sniper shooting and tended to kill me quickly. I am the epitome of a button masher. I haven’t had the patience to learn strategies.

Then, I heard about the VR game “Beat Sabre”. So, I have to backtrack and explain a bit. I was trained as a fencer for over 10 years. I did the typical training in Foil fencing, and some Epee, but felt that these styles were too stuffy “Poke poke,” old school for me, and the rebel in me wanted to learn sabre (I wanted to feel like a pirate)! So I did! I only wanted to learn for fun. I wanted to indulge the inner pirate in me. But for some reason, my only way to learn sabre, was to train with potential Canadian Olympic candidates. I Learned that Sabre techniques was a skill that was only taught after you had mastered the others. So once again, I found a way to learn the technique that I wanted I wanted to learn. I had to travel a fair distance, and work my butt off to train with intense athletes working their way to the Olympics. The trainer knew that I was not in any condition to train for the Olympics, but that I was willing to still work hard to learn this skill. I didn’t do too bad, even thought I wasn’t dedicated to training as much as them. I even won a bought or two to the dismay of some of my highly-trained team mates. Sadly, eventually, my knees got too angry at me and I had to stop. I wasn’t surprised with my bodily injuries that this happened. Although it was still a sad reality.

So, even that didn't deter me. One day I learned about Japanese Kendo. It is basically an old school Japanese samurai fencing style. I had 60 plus year-old men kicking my ass, and being way more dexterous than me. It was a lot of fun, but once again, my body rebelled, and my back and knees injuries said, “NO MORE!”. And I had to come to the reality that I had to stop. Sigh.

Now, back to where this story started, many years later this game comes out called Beat Sabre. It’s dancing mixed with what looked to me like two-handed sword fighting. This inspired me on many levels. First, of course was that this intrigued the old fencer in me.

BUT, the other aspect was that I was not only a club kid/dancer in my youth, but to the shock of many people that know me, I was actually a paid “Speaker dancer”, aka Gogo dancer, for an alternative club! That’s a much longer story, but needless to say, as shy as I am, the one place I could always let loose, let go of the world, was when I could hit a dance floor, or speaker. As cheesy as the saying is “Dance like no one is watching” is a very true concept for me. I was often one of the first people on club dance floors, and often one of the last. Not only did it keep me in amazing shape, but it also helped save me from the alcoholic state I was in those days.

Fast forward mannnny years later, this VR system comes out with a sword fighting/dancing game and I knew I needed to get in on this. So, during the most recent holidays, we got the Oculus Quest 2 system, and within one day, we had downloaded the famous game that I have mentioned, “Beat Sabre”. I was prepped to be semi-disappointed, but my initial trials were fun. And then upon more test runs, I found myself being more happy and present in the moment than I been in eons.

Tonight, I had a night to myself, and after warming up with some VR viking drumming races (aka “Ragna Rock”), I clicked on Beat Sabre. Within no time I had lost more than two hours of the night, and was dancing my ass off while sweating, and swinging my arms like the fencing I loved, and have felt more joy than I have in eons. I have never lost myself in a game like this ever before. I was sweating so bad, and laughing inwardly that, “I should take some water breaks to rehydrate” that I had to laugh at how much I have matured. As in the club days, not only would I be wearing PVC clothing and wigs that would cause me to sweat out any, and all hydration I had, but sadly I would never take care of myself, and I would continue to keep drinking which would dehydrate me so badly, that umm, let’s just say that I had some messy ends to many nights that my closest peeps had to take care of me.

Now, I am wearing sweat pants and a comfy top, sipping wine with a giant water bottle nearby, dancing my butt off in my living room. It was glorious. Much of the music was unknown to me, which has never mattered to me as long as the beat was good. In fact, the old DJs, when I was a speaker dancer, used to hate the fact that this military chick was dancing, that they assumed I wouldn’t know much of their music, so they would try to throw me off by playing hard, new unknown songs to hope I looked dumb. To their dismay, they had no idea the eclectic music this old school punk loved, but I could also dance to anything, again as long as it had a beat I could enjoy!

So who knew that some silly VR system game could make me re-live some of my good old days, but also bring a giant smile to my face as I danced my ass of in my living room and danced “Like no-one was watching!” Which unless you include dogs, no-one was, but damn I had a giant smile, and sweat dripping down my face like the old days! Maybe next time I will throw on some fun club clothes that are gathering dust in my closet due to getting older, and covid, and sadly club closures, etc. Unfortunately, I won’t be adding any of those picture anytime soon! But I will continue to dance and live in the moment! Huzzah!

TV/Movies: The Imagineering Story - a look behind the scenes over the years of making Disney theme parks. I found it interesting to see the highs and lows of the ideas tried and how the company handled it.

I just enjoyed the initial season of Harlem. The 10-episode series follows four girlfriends who met while attending New York University and are now in their thirties, living in Harlem, as they try to balance love, life, and their careers as working professionals.

Finally, I will say that I have truly enjoyed the quirkiness of “The Great”. Which is titled onscreen as “The Great: An Occasionally True Story” and is a British-American-Australian comedy-drama TV series described as "anti-historical" loosely based on the rise to power of Catherine the Great, Empress of All Russia.

Reading: Another indulgence has been continuing into my love a series called “The Iron Druid Chronicles” by Kevin Hearne! Lots of fun, and some great insight into the various spiritualities around the globe with tons of great characters! The final book of the series just came out, which is always a sad thing when you have fallen into a great world that an author has built.

Podcasts: I’ve been continuing to enjoy the famous storytelling podcast “The Moth”! It’s always great for inspiration.

I have been asked to submit a story to “Risk!”, and will be working to perfect my first submission to a story-telling podcast that will force me to use my voice, rather than just writing words!! Wish me well and I will keep everyone updated!

Music: Hmm, I’ve been pretty eclectic on this. I’ve been enjoying music from Santigold, London Grammar which was a new discovery for me, and an even newer discovery of Brother Dege who I learned from listening to Sean James.