Checking in for 2023-09-21:

• Managed to get up today and start tackling the creatures of Hereva in the Pepper&Carrot RPG. This is the part that I love about designing; where I can sit down and think about a particular entity and give them some personality. Of course not everything will survive into the final version but that's where playtesting and other design decisions kick in. Creation is where it's at.
• The creation this morning was in highlighting the Phanda, a fearsome creature in Hereva. Pepper stumbles upon one after she crashes for a brief encounter. There's not much to go on in the comic (we only see it briefly) so the creative part is thinking about what these creatures can do and how they live their lives when they're not in the comic spotlight. Are they fast or slow? What do they eat? Are they intelligent by human standards or do they have their own intelligence? Things like this really get me excited about world building.
• I started my first dose of Lonsurf for this round. Hoping to keep the energy up this time.
• JoDee and I had a conversation about my cancer last night that helped me to refocus what my goals are. I've been a bit down on myself because I feel like I'm running out of options for treatment. It feels like if the Lonsurf doesn't work then I'll need to wend my way through the nebulous forest of "clinical trials", which is a polite way of saying that you'll become a living experiment to find out if there's drugs coming down the pipeline that can help. I was thinking in the negative: what if this doesn't work. So I did what I usually do when I don't know things: search the internet to find other folks experiences. I found a thread where some folks were crowing about how Lonsurf actually did work for them. Even better, I found folks for which it wasn't as effective still living their lives. It got me thinking that there is still life after treatment. All this time I've been thinking of my life in terms of sprinkling the thriving part onto the living part as an after-thought. What if I just worked on the thriving part instead? It got me thinking about what is holding me back from the thriving part. One thing is the side-effects of my treatments. I'm not diminishing them in the slightest but they have subsided significantly. I can actually think about being in a car and not wonder if I'm going to need to make an emergency pit-stop. It's still not perfect (there are times when I've had some near-misses) but that's something that can be managed. Plus I need to be here to help my family and friends as much as I can while I'm still able. None of us are getting any younger and health is fragile and precious. We can find ourselves needing support for something as simple as sneezing hard enough to wrench our back. It's thinking of a world outside of myself and opening myself to the possibilities that I can still be a part of it. Sure, I was and still am a part of it through my computer but I may be part of it in a larger, more tactile sense. I know I sound like I'm babbling but it was pretty revelatory to think this way. Instead of just enduring my cancer I might, just might be able to open up even more possibilities through it.
• I'm going to need to start exercising again. Now, when I say this I mean things like going for walks, playing drums, and the like. This might open into other things but for now I just want to get into some shape so I can continue to be a part of this crazy world.

More as I know it.