June 21, 1999.

Last night I dreamt that Q had run mad. Not in a depressing, lives-are-shattered-what-a-tragedy sort of way, but in an evil genius way. He was off with the still sane Pixie Stix doing something brilliant and insane while the rest of us gathered and plotted our escape. Stacy decided to vault out the window onto a lower roof. It was a horribly long jump, and I got really nervous watching her get ready. At some point I decided, 'oh, it's Stacy. She'll be fine.' And she was gone. Perhaps she's lying bleeding in an alley in some part of the dream that I wasn't paying attention to, but I rather think she made the jump. She has wings, you know.

Anyway, in due time Evil Mad Q came back to the apartment, and I was set guard over him, to stop him from entering. Just as we began to wrestle in earnest, I woke up.

The Boy's off buffing the hog right now.

Perhaps I should explain the phrase. At some point in the last year St. Jack & St. Pete became unwilling to admit that they lived with a gamer (St. Stephen, keep up). So when he'd go to the Slanty Shanty to continue his AD&D campaign and someone would call for him, they would answer that he couldn't come to the phone because he was out buffing a hog.

In short order, a song grew up to the tune of "Diggin' A Hole" by Big Sugar. It's a highly flexible song, and it's supposed to be made up on the spot. Sample lines include "buffin' a hog / my elf is really stealthy / buffin' a hog / this game is real unhealthy...buffin' a hog / the dice are up to thirty / buffin' a hog / this game is really nerdy..." And so on.

A couple weeks ago, Q invited the Boy along on a Werewolf campaign, to be played on Mondays. It was a nice invitation to get...there's a little bit of negotiating for roles involved in Froghopper Nook, which is inevitable when relatives of the same age share a house and some aspects of a social group. Are they peers or relatives? For my part, I don't know if I should be on girlfriend-meets-the-family behavior or early-twenties-peer. The confusion seems to creep into Q's mind sometimes too - occasionally he refers to me as "girlfriend of my brother-in-law" as if he's still getting used to the idea of the kinship tie. It's something that takes time to figure out more than anything else. Pixie, for her part, doesn't seem to struggle with any of this. I wonder how she got everything sorted out so quickly?

I'm writing an essay. Honestly I am.