To be honest, I’m not going to DragonCon this year.  I decided that instead of incurring more debt for a luxury, I would deny myself instant gratification and apply the money towards paying off all of my outstanding bills.  It’s un-American, I know, but here we are.

Anhedonic: an·he·do·ni·c (ān'hē-dŏn'ĭk) n. The absence of pleasure or the ability to experience it.  Maybe that’s what I am.

In the flush of my younger years I found that I had the spirits to stay persistently awake for titanic lengths of time.  My nights were spent leaping across rooftops, hunting or being hunted by the enemies of peace and order in a violent sanguine ballet of gunfire and intrigue… in my brains.  My body, on the other hand, was more often than not wedged into a chair, my right hand slowly gorging myself on Mountain Dew and Combos while my left hand tossed dice in my struggle to control the forces of destiny and Justin’s Machiavellian role playing scenarios.  Had our tabletop adventures actually occurred in the banal world that we live in, not only would I be a mass murder, but werewolves would be fighting to kill vampires, vampires would be fighting to control the Earth, the United States government would be fighting to control the vampires, and I would still be fighting to avoid the United States government, the vampires, the werewolves, and would probably STILL be hopping rooftop to rooftop firing off pistols John Woo style.  So basically, not only would I be fucking exhausted, but my knees would be aching like hell’s bells.

Back then we would game straight through the night.  Around the time that the whispers of the sun began brushing the edge of dawn we would shovel our character sheets and dice into our bags and shuffle back into the world of the Mundane.  I would go to work, and I presumed that Justin, Andy, Jade, and Sam would just go home and fall into comas.  The weight of exhaustion would bog my mind throughout the working day until the zombie me would clock out and take a disco nap so that I could do it all over again, repeating this cycle of wonderful fantasy and painful reality until Sunday. On the seventh day my soul and body would finally collapse under the strain of it all.  After 12 hours of a deep and dead sleep, I would rise refreshed and start it all over again.  This was fun.  If I tried doing that now, I would probably go insane, shit myself, and then die weeping and stinky.

I have found that I don’t really hunt gaiety like I used to.  The passing years have stuck themselves to the seventeen year old that I have been for these sixteen years and have wedged themselves into my joints and behind my eyes, weighing me down and making me… old.  Shit.  I thought I’d be dead by now, but no… Mark never gets the EASY way out.

My back hurts, I fart a lot more than I used to, and where I used to hound tomfoolery like a jungle tiger that was also an asshole, now I simply lie in ambush scanning for any merriment that may wander near me like some lumpish python… that is also an asshole.  It’s not that I don’t like having a good time, but I like not having to drive to a good time just as much.  I may be too lazy to be fun right now, and I’m kind of fine with that.  Owing to my nature of streamlining any task I am given for optimum efficiency and minimal exertion (ie: laziness) one could never accuse me of being an overly industrious person.  Well, you could accuse me of anything you damned well want to, but when Judge Judy asks for the receipts to prove your accusations, everybody’s going to find out that you a damn lie.