Excuse me, I need to rant a little bit.
The last year hasn't been very good to me. I lost my job last summer and despite my education and experience I can't seem to get hired, much less interviewed, for even the most menial of jobs. I'm beginning to worry that returning to school--and consequently running up thousands in student loan debt--to peruse a career in computer programming was a wise choice. I've got bill collectors hanging on the bell and my piddly unemployment checks aren't helping cover my bills. I keep waiting for the next shoe to drop; cancer, heart disease, or some other massively expensive medical condition that would send even the most well-insured individual into a lifetime of debt or bankruptcy.
As a result, I haven't done as much gaming as I'd like to as I wallow in depression. anger, and a fruitless search for a new job. I haven't been able to afford to go to any of the major conventions and it looks like that's not going to change anytime soon, if ever. I was looking forward to going Origins and "Savage Saturday Night" again this year, but that dream was shattered each time I received a letter from a respective employer telling me that I don't even warrant an interview. Even an evening at the friendly local game store is getting prohibitively expensive; gasoline, food, incidentals, etc..
And all of my ideas for campaigns lay fallow as well; a Realms of Cthulhu campaign where the PCs play mobsters as well as my Lovecraftian Dark Fantasy setting, my attempts to create playable (and possibly marketable) Savage Worlds rules for Tekumel, playtesting Totems of the Dead, running Space 1889: Red Sands, etc.. All of these cost time, money, effort, and enthusiasm that I no longer have access to. It's hard to get excited for anything when you're constantly worried whether or not you're going to end up living in a cardboard box by the end of the month.
I don't know that the Hell I'm going to do and I shudder when I think of what lies ahead. I don't want to hear maudlin reassurances about how things are "going to get better." because they're not. If anything, things are going to get a lot worse. So, "good bye" civilization and "hello" long, slow, slide into extinction. It was fun while it lasted.
