What games did I play as a child? part 3

This post follows on from two that are nearly ten years old, here and here. There's no sense in which it is important. In fact, it would probably never have occurred to me to write it at all if I hadn't drunk an entire bottle of cheap wine with dinner.  But that can send your mind down interesting byways.

Ten years ago I explained that Dale and I used to make up pretend countries. In principle these were micronations, though I hadn't learned the term yet. It was silly, but fun. Back when I wrote about this before, I fit this game into an understanding of my adult life by saying "(Making up useless systems. Check.)"

But there was another side to it that was odd. Sometimes several of us would all join a single country, and then we would debate what its political structure ought to be. My experience of this is that usually I was outvoted. I'd have some idea that I thought was really cool, and I could never persuade other people that it was nearly as cool as I found it. So far, this is pretty consistent with my self-understanding later in life. (See all my discussions of Sister Failure, for example.)

The weird part—the part that contrasts with my adult self-understanding—is that even when I was totally incapable of convincing anyone else to vote for any of my ideas about how this or that micronation ought to be organized, I was usually elected President anyway. At the time, this seemed normal and I never thought about it. Today, in retrospect, it is a great puzzle.

Marie, after meeting Son 1 and Son 2, has started to talk about a phenomenon she calls "the Tanatu charisma." This is the same whatever-it-is phenomenon that makes it impossible for me to blend into the wallpaper even when I try my damnedest. Maybe that's what this game displayed … already at work, long before I was old enough even for college.  

                

Intoxicology

I woke up yesterday morning with a hangover, rolled over, and went back to sleep. Later in the morning I finally dragged myself out of bed and puttered through a whole list of errands all day. Because I was away from home until late afternoon, I managed to avoid my midday nap (which I seem to need most days). Finally had something to eat about 5pm. (Dinner? Breakfast? Both?) Dessert at 7:30. Read for a while, dithered on the Internet, and went to bed a little after 10:00. I drank no alcohol last night.

This morning? No hangover. (Well, duh.) And I was able to get up earlier. (Yeah, not staying up till after midnight will do that.) We'll see whether I need the midday nap, but so far the signs are hopeful.

I want to watch the nap, as a marker. I had gotten to the point where I pretty much had to have one every day, where my head would be foggy and in low-levels of dull pain until after my nap. This was regardless how much coffee I had in the morning. Not until yesterday did it occur to me that this might be connected to whatever I'd had to drink the night before. So it will be an interesting experiment to see if cutting out the alcohol for a few days also cuts out the need for a nap. If so, that would be a pretty clear indicator of causality.

On the other hand, I also notice that the amount I drank the night before last would have counted as a pretty normal amount for much of the last year. Normally I don't expect to reach for the Tylenol until I've had half again that much … or twice that much. Maybe I'm getting old. Or maybe the stuff is actually toxic. That's the root of the word intoxicate, after all.

Things to notice.