If I knew what it was called, I'd try that, but I don't. Longing? That's close, but there's more.
On my writing blog, I mentioned that I'd been missing the blogosphere, that place where you could linger over the written words of a friend or someone else you liked and maybe leave a comment so they know how you felt about what they said. And most of the time, it was polite.
Then came facebook and other social networking sites and something happened. Instant gratification of expression, where you could check your account and see all these likes and comments that gave you instant feedback. Blogs are different. They take longer to read, resulting in people needing to pull out a square of time and devote it to you and what you've written. We had to think more, practice patience, and do our best to be interesting for more than a tweet or a paragraph of whatever we're thinking.
That instantaneous gratification of post-get liked-get comments RIGHT NOW! has done some damage to blogs. Even if you write the blog, you can link it to facebook (like I'll be doing with this one), and comments can arrive there, but they don't reach the blog itself). Blogs have become that special dessert that only your grandmother knows how to make, and while you can buy a slice at the store, it's not really the same. It's missing something important.
I checked out the links to some of the blogs I "follow" here and while they're still up, they're not active. They're the room after the party has gone, with echoes of voices and laughter. Some of them announced their departure because the author was moving on, but many just... stopped. No warning other than that feeling they were done, and a few, with even sadder endings, no longer have a door to the past, just a memory on my sidebar.
I miss the blogs. I'm sure there are still many out there, but not the ones I want to visit right now. Ballpoint Wren, Corndog, Selma in the City, Notes from Botswana, Hannah, and the list goes on.
I'm just feeling a little nostalgic at the moment. I'll get over it.
I could blame it on Tammie. We've been playing D&D for many years, and she has several more on me. There's one character of hers, a very tough fighter-mage who has managed to survive a great deal of crazy stuff the DM has tossed her way. But recently, Tammie had her character go into an old watering hole and place two items on the bar: a glove and a shot glass. The shot glass was upside down. That's what she used whenever she ordered "demon rum" that her character would drink. It's ugly going down and uglier going out. The glove is what she used to cover the top because it would spit acid at you while you drank it.
Like I said, her character was tough.
But things change. "This is for the shelf," Z said.
The DM/Barkeep said, "Really? Why?"
"Because I have nothing else to prove."
It was a strange moment. I think the DM may have gotten a bit misty. This was one of his go-to characters for big adventures. Need a dragon removed? Call Z. Need a Litch taken down? Call Z. She didn't do it alone, she had plenty of help, but she had the most attacks and hit points and could make it easier for the rest of the team to get in and clean up.
Z was the one to call when the odds were next to impossible. And now... now she was sipping wine at a table and didn't even have to start a fight to get there.
And I realized things were suddenly very different. No more encounters in a bar where we would gather together and set out to thwart an enemy, or just go to start a fight and see what happens. I miss those days of "let's see what kind of mischief we can get into" and the game would run for hours with tons of laughter, inside jokes, and someone was always losing a die under the table. I miss THOSE days of sitting in the basement watching the DM draw the map on the laminated grid paper.
Now we zoom the game, and I am grateful that we can, since we live over three hours away which makes weekly in-person games a non-option. Still, we miss that instant comradery we had while savoring the game.
I'm going to go look for a blog. Maybe... maybe I'll find an unlocked door and the party is still going.
