Random talk from a random nerd named Random.

Everything in my life has changed since my last post.

Nothing in my life has changed since my last post.

To be more accurate, things began to change in my life, and then things happened that negated those changes.

Man, where to begin? My mom retired, and moved back to Austin. We rented a house together, which we still live in today. That was…I dunno…4 years ago? I never mentioned it here. Or maybe I did. The cool thing about my Livejournal is that everyone moved on from Livejournal, so no one I know is reading this anymore.

Anyway, when we moved in together, the idea was that I was my own man, and I wasn’t living under my mother’s roof anymore. That sounds great on paper, but in reality I have slightly more freedom than I did when I was 17. We settled right back into what is most comfortable: her taking care of me like a child and me accepting that because it’s all I know. I’d love to move back  out on my own, but my financial situation is just as bad as ever.

Actually, somehow it’s worse, despite making more money and having one of the credit cards completely paid off. I started a new job in August, which thankfully got me away from TDS after 9 painful years. I freaking love my new job, and that’s the first time I’ve been able to say that since 2004. After 5 years with no raises at TDS, I have already had 2 nice pay increases; the first when I started, and a hefty 11 percent raise a couple weeks ago.

All good things, right? Weeeeell, not exactly. The new job is way out in Lakeway, which is an hour commute in rush hour traffic, as opposed to the 10 minute drive I used to have to TDS. On top of that, overtime is a rare commodity, whereas I would get at least 5 hours a week at the old job, and oftentimes even more. I’ve also gone from a weekly check to a semi-monthly schedule, which I just can’t wrap my head around. I’m so bad with money, and not only am I still living paycheck to paycheck, but the last couple I have literally been limping to the finish line with nothing in my account. It’s rough, and I only hope that I have some more overtime coming to me, or that I eventually get to a point in this new company where my income can mitigate the stupid amount of debt I still have.

I’ve gotten ahead of myself, though. Probably the biggest thing to happen since last I wrote is the fact that I got a girlfriend. Well, had a girlfriend, past-tense. I had joined a biggest loser contest through Facebook with an old…well, not friend, but acquaintance from middle school. When she found out I’d never even been on a date she fixed me up with someone. I had actually lost a lot of weight by this point, and I was feeling good about myself for perhaps the first time in my life.

Her name is Genia, but you pronounce it like Geena. We hit it off really well, and things progressed quickly. I met her on a Wednesday, went out with her that Saturday, and the following week I was out of town for E3 and we talked on the phone every night for hours. So by the time I got back we felt like we knew each other well enough to become a couple, along with doing the things that couples do.

I’ll just leave it there.

We dated for about a year and a half. I ended the romantic part of our relationship the day before I turned 32. For a long time it had felt like we were just friends than anything else, and to be honest, I never felt that intangible spark. I never fell in love with her, and I felt like I was wasting her time. We are still friends to this day, and that’s a great thing, because as I sit here writing this, I find myself with very few of those left.

The day after I broke up with Genia I began a juice fast. I was inspired by the documentary Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead, and I encourage anyone who reads this to check it out. Unfortunately, Shanna didn’t agree with me doing this, and it tore a rift in our friendship that almost didn’t get repaired. 2012 sucked as a result. Even though I lost almost 50 pounds through a combination of the juicing, heavy gym time, and eating better overall, my best friend was MIA. All I had through that time was Genia, but of course that was a little weird too.

I went to Vegas with Teresa that summer, and totally torpedoed my diet. When I got home, old habits kicked in, as well as emotional eating, which is something I had never done to that degree. I gained the 50 pounds back and then some.

I managed to patch things up with Shanna, but things were never really the same after that. I was pretty miserable, but if 2012 sucked it was only a warm up for 2013.

So, it’s a long, long story, but I had reconnected with Neena, a girl who used to come into Gamefellas in that last year when we were gasping our last breath of life. At the time I wanted to ask her out, but she was in high school. Sure, she was 18, but it weirded me out. I had become Facebook friends with her after running into her when she worked at Jack in the Box, but we really didn’t start talking until late 2011. She had a group of friends that would get together to play board games and D & D, and eventually she invited me.

That was a wonderful thing that came at just the right time. I can’t tell you how special it was to be hanging around a group of nerdy people again. Besides Joe and Shanna (who weren’t speaking to me at the time, mind you), I really had had to contain my geeky side, as it just didn’t gel with my workplace. I could be myself at gamenight, and that was something I had been missing, even if I hadn’t realized it.

I started hanging out with Neena. We got close. Really close. We spent a lot of time together, and things got a little intimate. Even though I really feel that I probably don’t deserve another girlfriend until I can get my shit together (read: not bloody likely), I began to feel something for Neena. She’s a single mom, and even though I hate kids I don’t hate her kid, and I even started to think up ways for the three of us to spend time together.

And then she just started to pull away.

I don’t know what I did, but it became obvious to me that she was pushing me away. It was almost impossible to spend any time alone with her, and even when I did she seemed standoffish. It was Amanda all over again.

That began at the start of the year, which was already off to a fantastic start, thanks to health problems that had me off my feet for a couple different reasons for the first three months of 2013. But the devastating thing wouldn’t happen until May.

Joe and Shanna left.

Joe went to college in the time since I stopped writing, and he was almost done when their lease came up. He decided to move them out to Colorado, which is what Shanna has always wanted. Even though she’s lived in Texas longer than anywhere, she somehow still considers Colorado “home”. It’s something I don’t understand, but she finally got her wish.

Even though I had spent half of 2012 without her friendship, even though I knew it was coming, it still destroyed me.

I had underestimated how much I depended on Shanna as my confidant. I had also underestimated how much I enjoyed talking to Joe about dumb nerdy stuff. I had underestimated how much of my world they were. And all of a sudden, they were gone.

I still haven’t recovered from that. It’s been 7 months, and it still hurts like hell. I’m on the verge of tears as I write this, and it’s been that way since they left. I can’t even talk to other friends about it anymore, because it hurts so much that it’s weird now. I should be able to handle it, but I can’t.

2013 was the year where, all of a sudden, I felt all alone. More alone than I’ve ever been. It felt like my support system vanished. Sure, a huge part of that was no longer having Joe and Shanna to hang out with multiple times a week, but it was more than that. John got himself a girlfriend and I almost never hear from him anymore. Genia started working a ton more hours, and once I started my new job it became difficult to spend time with her. Besides, I don’t feel like I can talk to her about my profound sense of loss over Joe and Shanna, or the Neena situation. Even though we’re no longer a couple, I think anytime I mention other women, even in a friendly context, she gets a little jealous.

And that Neena situation. Wow.

So, I had been trying to spend time with her for months. Pretty much since I started the new job. There were things I wanted to say; things I wanted to ask. But she was unavailable. So I finally laid it all out on Facebook. I asked her if she still wanted me in her life, and if so, to what extent. She completely ignored me, and the following gamenight she was cold and dismissive of me. I messaged her again saying I guess I have my answer, and got off of Facebook for a few weeks, afraid of having a public meltdown like I did with Shanna the year before.

I got back on tonight, and she promptly unfriended me. So that’s that, I guess. I had been planning on not going to gamenight for a month or two, but I think now that’s a door that’s closed to me. So yeah, 2013 is right up there with 2005 as one of the worst years in my life. I look around and I feel so alone that it hurts. I feel like I’m on the verge of a total breakdown. If it wasn’t for the fact that I have a job that I enjoy and feels fulfilling I think it already would have happened.

I think about suicide a lot lately. I’ve written about it here before, but more and more I feel like I’m running out of time. I have to do something with my life and become a real person, otherwise I don’t think I deserve to life. I’ve wasted so much of my life already that it’s almost disgusting. And yet, I really don’t know how to fix it. I never learned how to live. I never learned how to make friends. I never learned how to be comfortable in my own skin. When I’m dead, I want my tombstone to read “He never got it.”

I’d like to write in here again. I actually have become something of a writer since I left LJ, but the hour commute really saps my energy, and the depression I’ve been going through certainly doesn’t help. Weekends are the worst. I don’t do anything. I just sit on my couch, watching Netflix or playing games. Most of the time I don’t even shower. We had a total of 5 days off around Christmas and I barely left the house, wishing I could be at work instead.

Yeah, so that’s 2000 words of despair. I wish this post could have been lighter, but that’s just not where I am these days. I’m glad to have 2013 behind me. If 2014 is awful it will be an improvement.

So, it's 9/9/09.  I don't give a damn.  There's nothing special about 9/9/09.  But there was something very special about 9/9/99: the launch of the SEGA Dreamcast.

Hyperbole? I don't think so.  Forget that the Dreamcast was an amazing system.  Forget that it had the greatest launch titles in gaming history.  Forget that it was the SEGA's last stand as a console developer.  No, the thing that was special about the SEGA Dreamcast launch is that it was the first console launch that I was ever a part of. 

I spent today in a daze, not wanting to work.  Only my body was at work.  My mind was at Gamefellas, ten years ago.  A time of excitement.  A time when I was still happy.  A time when I loved getting up and going to work.  A simpler time.  I didn't have crushing credit card debt.  I was in the first flush of love, even if I didn't know it yet.  I had confidence in my abilities.  I still felt like I was worth a damn.  Yeah, 9/9/99 was pretty special.

I remember getting to work before the mall opened that day.  I remember seeing people lined up in front of the store to get their Dreamcasts.  I remember looking down below at the people waiting in line at Kay Bee.  Seriously? Why would you want to buy your system at Kay Bee?

There was excitement in the air.  You could reach out and touch it.  I was all ready to open the doors to the flood of gamers anxious to get their new white boxes.  I was wearing a white Dreamcast t-shirt.  We had gotten them from Japan, and even though it said XL on the label, it was XL for a Japanese man.  A fat man should never wear white.  And his shirts should always be at least a size too big.  So I had to wear a shirt over my shirt to hide my unsightly rolls.  Still, I was pumped.  I wasn't buying a system...I was going home with Final Fantasy VIII that night.  But there's something special about a system launch.  Even if I'm not excited about the system itself, I still turn into a giddy school girl when a new system releases. 

I remember the day going by in a blur.  It was Alex's first day on the job, and he was just supposed to help us with getting people's games together and observing.  Fat chance of that: we needed every hand we could get.  We had tons of systems, and it felt like we were moving from open to close.  In hindsight, it was a good preview of the upcoming Hell Christmas.

The further I get from my time at Gamefellas, the harder it is for me to let go.  Is that normal? Isn't it supposed to get easier as time goes by? Today, as I was subjected to the Christian Rock stylings of 102.3: The River, the rednecks treating me like crap, and the Mexicans pretending to understand me when they actually didn't understand a word, I felt a deep sense of longing.  Gamefellas was my domain.  It was a place where, for those glorious 8 years, I could forget how pathetically average I was.  I was the best there was at what I did, and everyone knew it.  I guess this is what it's like for big shot high school football players that went on to do nothing with their lives.  They live in the past, remembering the glory days.  All I have are the memories.

Memories, and pictures.  I just wish there had been more pictures...my memory is fading already.






After the mayhem.  You can tell we were tired. So tired, I had to take another photo.


Take two.  Joe's expression is priceless.


And, just because, here's the group a few months later, after Hell Christmas.


Posts are coming.  I have a lot to get off of my chest.  But it's ten years after the Dreamcast launch.  I had to do something special.

EGM is coming back.


I repeat:

ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY IS COMING BACK.

http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bI…

This is excellent, excellent news.  I have had to listen to the 1up.com and Rebel FM podcasts, watch Area 5 TV, and check 1up and Gametrailers every day, and it still doesn't equal that one issue of EGM each month.  If they can get back some of the people that made this magazine the best in the business, it's a wonderful thing indeed, and the best pre-E3 news I have heard.

File this under "short enough to be a Twitter":

Best.  Star Trek.  Ever.

I've been fat for almost as long as I can remember.  Except for the five years from when I was born to moving to Austin, I have been fat.  I was fatter by proportion when I was in elementary and middle school, but for the most part, I've looked the same.  I really didn't think anything of it until I started liking girls, really.  I mean, my father HATED the fact that he had a lardass for a son, and would attempt to stomp out the flab in single, desperate gambits.  One time, he made me walk about, oh, I'd say about ten miles until I was about to pass out from the fatigue.  He had to leave me where I was and walk back to the motorcycle and pick me up. 

The point is, I am fat.  Always have been.  As you can imagine, my least favorite class in school was P.E./Gym.  During elementary school, it was ok, because we did fun things like dodge ball, tug of war, and that big parachute thing.  But gym class in middle school was humiliating.  We would always start class off by stretching out and then running a mile.  I was always, ALWAYS the last person back in the gym.  And they had always moved on to the lesson for the day by that point.  Ok, so besides this, each six week period you were forced to pick a sport to learn.  But remember...I was FAT.  Things like basketball and softball didn't come easy to me.  In fact, they didn't come to me at all.  Do you have any idea how annoying it is to be a straight A student, then have a C in Gym class because you can't run a four minute mile or sink a jump shot?

All of that being said, however, there was ONE six weeks period that was different from the rest.  I think it was in 7th grade that I took the weightlifting unit.  I remember my first day lifting weights, I thought I was going to throw up afterwards.  But as the days went on, I felt better and better.  I LIKED lifting weights, and I liked the way I felt after I did.  But when the six weeks was up, I had to move on to football or some such nonsense. 

There is a panic in this country over the fact that more and more children are obese.  And I always wonder why there has never been a total restructuring of the way gym class is done.  First of all, get rid of the "education" part of physical education.  Why are there written tests in gym class? It makes no sense.  Gym class should be a mandatory hour long workout session.  Coaches should be there to instruct and motivate students, not humiliate them because they can't do a chin up.  Imagine if I had been able to continue taking the weight lifting class through 7th and 8th grade.  Most likely, I would have actually taken gym in high school, instead of taking marching band and culinary arts to avoid it.  Can you imagine how I would have looked by senior year if I had been working out five days a week for six years? And how I would look today if I had continued to hit the gym after graduation? Maybe I'd have a better job.  Maybe I'd be married.  Who knows?

I'm not saying that I'm still fat today because gym class sucked.  I've had plenty of time to do something about my weight since then.  I'm just saying that, had gym class been a more productive one, things would have been a lot easier on me later in life when it came to my weight and my health.  But frak all of that.  What is past, is past.  I finally went out and joined a gym.  I had been kicking the idea around for years, but a lot of things kept me from actually going.  But when a Planet Fitness opened up not five minutes from my house, and offered a $10 a month membership with no contract, I was sold.  But what really appealed to me was when the clerk told me that 80 percent of their members have never worked out before.  My kind of place.  My mom joined as well, finally determined to get her diabetes under control.  We went for the first time last Tuesday, and I must admit, I really enjoyed it.  Strike that- I loved it.  Right now, I'm just sticking to the treadmill and stationary bike, because I know I'm not in good shape.  But I've also surprised myself.  I'm working up a sweat, putting some good time in the gym, and I'm not killing myself.  Except last Sunday when I did 9 miles on the bike and was really sore come Monday afternoon.  But I pushed myself to go Tuesday after work, and even went on my own tonight.  Not because I felt I had to, but because I wanted to.  I feel really good about this.  I've cut my fast food down to almost nothing, and I'm restricting myself to one Coke a day.  My water and salad intake is up, my milkshake intake is down.  I'm not looking to change my body overnight, mind you.  Right now, I'd just like to slim down the belly a tad and lose the man boobs.  I'm going to stick to the cardio stuff for the next couple of weeks, then get some weight lifting into the mix.  Project: Lonelynerd Rebirth is coming along.

Oh, and you would be AMAZED at how effective WWE Wrestler entrance music is when you're working out.  :P

April 4th, 1984.  Last night to the flicks.  All war flicks.  One very good one of a ship full of refugees being bombed somewhere in the Mediterranean.  Audience much amused by shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away with a helicopter after him.  first you saw him wallowing along in the water like a porpoise, then you saw him through the helicopters gunsights, then he was full of holes and the water round him turned pink and he sank as suddenly as though the holes had let in the water, audience shouting with laughter when he sank.  then you saw a lifeboat full of children with a helicopter hovering over it.  there was a middleaged woman might have been a jewess sitting up in the bow with a little boy about three years old in her arms.  little boy screaming with fright and hiding his head between her breasts as if he were trying to burrow right into her and the woman putting her arms around him and comforting him although she was blue with fright herself.  all the time covering him up as much as possible as if she thought her arms could keep the bullets off him.  then the helicopter planted a 20 kilo bomb in among them terrific flash and the boat went all to matchwood.  then there was a wonderful shot of a childs arm going up up up right into the air a helicopter with a camera in its nose must have followed it up and there was a lot of applause from the party seats but a woman down in the prole part of the house suddenly started kicking up a fuss and shouting they didnt oughter of showed it not in front of the kids they didnt it aint right not in front of kids it aint until the police turned her turned her out i dont suppose anything happened to her nobody cares what the proles say typical prole reaction they never-


But seriously, it's been 25 years since Winston Smith began his journal.  Can't somebody rerelease the film that came out in 1984 so I can see it?  I hear good things, but the prices it goes for on Amazon seem crazy to me.

This is gonna be a long post with a good deal of photos, so I shall put most of this behind a cut.  S'allright?  S'allright.

For me, the music in video games has always been very important.  I love music anyway, and I especially have a great fondness for the soundtrack.  I own a large number of movie soundtracks, game soundtracks, and most of my music mixes are basically soundtracks for my life.  I understand how the right music at the right time can put that extra perfect exclamation on a scene, event, or moment.  For video games, I feel this is even more important, because you are an active participant in the story on screen.  I used to make my own NES, SNES, and Gameboy soundtracks by putting my tape recorder next to the speaker.  And once Gamefellas started carrying game soundtracks, I was one of the first eager customers.  I remember buying the soundtrack for Final Fantasy VI and thinking that it was the Best Thing Ever.  Of course the Final Fantasy music has been the core of my game music background, but I have enjoyed and owned the music for a host of different games across all platforms.  I always wished that I could hear this music performed live.  For the longest time, there was nothing.  Then, I would hear of special Final Fantasy concerts popping up, but they were pretty much only in Japan, New York, and L.A.  I had heard of Video Games Live through the pipeline, but it never occured to me that they might be coming to my town.  I just happened to look them up after hearing the Rebel FM podcast, and lo and behold! they were coming here.  What followed was an amazing evening.

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Video Games Live...epic.   A lengthy post will follow, but I are tired now.  For now, watch this:

I'm writing this on the second night of back to back night shifts, both of which were not scheduled until this past Wednesday.  So forgive me if I start to ramble. 

Two things I have experienced recently have really stayed with me, and enter into the foreground of my thoughts unbidden.  Namely, they are the Watchmen movie and the finale of Battlestar.  This was my first experience with Watchmen, and as someone that had never read the comic, it's weight and importance was not lost upon me at all.  It's a movie that really made me think, despite the admittedly low brow use of the "R" rating at times.  Likewise, the Battlestar finale (and, really, the whole of Battlestar) has struck me for how intensely spiritual it is, and how it really makes you evaluate the place that religion has in a modern society.  What if you grew up on scripture and prophesy, abandonded it as an adult, and then began to see that scripture and prophesy coming true right in front of you? What would you do? How would you handle it? The fact that a science fiction show, of all things, brings out these questions goes a long way to say that BSG was much more than the sum of its parts.

My iPod sure does love Sugarcult.  Granted, I do own all three of their CDs, but do they have to pop up every other song on "shuffle"? P!nk and Sarah Mac are also in this category.

I was able to grind to level 58 on my dark knight with Shanna on FFXI before she left.  With it, I get to wield my super awesome (and expensive) Vassago's Scythe.  Now, to improve my weapon skill so that I can learn Guillotine, or as we dark knights call it, the "Win Attack".

Felicia Day was in Austin for SXSW, and sadly, I didn't have the chance to stalk meet her.  I started reading her Twitter, even though I detest the social network service.  Between that and an interview I heard with her on Major Nelson's podcast, I am officially in love with her.  Her geek cred runs deep, and at the same time, she's a math genius and an accomplished musician.  Oh, I also saw a photo of her on her site that made me do one of the faces from the "Jizz in my Pants" music video.

Speaking of podcasts, I am completely addicted to gaming podcasts.  In the wake of the death of EGM, I have been craving intelligent gaming discourse.  Thankfully, between the 1up podcast and may of the former 1up writers going on to do their own things at eat-sleep-game and area5, I have tons of stuff to absorb every week.  These podcasts are immensely entertaining and thought provoking.  They remind me of the conversations we used to have at Gamefellas during slow nights.  I listen to them during my video shifts, and they make the day just fly by.  I would love to sit in with these guys on a show sometime.  Hey, a guy can dream.

I'm stoked for video games live tomorrow, but I don't get out of here till 1 in the afternoon.  That means I will most likely be a zombie at the concert, and that makes me sad.  I was going to break out my S.T.A.R.S. shield from my first E3, but I cannot for the life of me find it.  I wonder...did I give it away when I got rid of 90% of my toys? Surely not!

I saw that Phantom of the Opera is coming to Houston this summer.  I would love to see it.  But I would also love to take an actual date.  Seeing Phantom with Teresa, and again with Tamara 2 years later remain some of my fondest memories, but alas, neither one was an actual date.  I can't for the life of me even think of someone that I could ask, lol.  And even if I met someone in the next two months, taking a trip to Houston for Phantom seems like a bit much.  Sigh.  I'm definitely going.  Probably with my mother.  But that's ok, we saw it for the first time together.

Guess that's about it.  Oh! Finally broke out The Orange Box.  Half Life 2...not as impressive as people make it out to be, even considering it's age.  There are elements of the interface that bug me, as well as the fact that when I look down, I see no body.  That's the way with most FPS games, yes, but I NOTICE it much, much more on HL2.  However, Portal is every bit the slice of genius that people said it was.

The cake is a lie.

Sometime around the last part of the year, I picked up one of Robert Heinlein's older books, "The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag".  I picked it up because it had been rumored of being turned into a movie, and also because I am eager to devour as much of his writing as I can.  The main story is indeed that of Jonathan Hoag, and is a thriller of a caliber that M. Night Shyamalan can only dream of filming. But when that story ends, the rest of the book is a collection of Heinlein's short stories, some of which I believe were only printed in this volume.  Most of them are simply great science fiction.  But the first of these short stories, "The Man Who Travelled in Elephants", took me completely by surprise.  I won't tell you the story...do yourself a favor and seek out this book at a used book store or Amazon.  Even if you turn your nose up at sci fi, read this story.  You won't regret it.

"The Man Who Travelled in Elephants" was a work of pure beauty.  It reached deep into my heart and touched a part of it that has felt dormant for far too long.  Needless to say, it brought me to tears.  This was the second time that Heinlein's writing has had this effect on me, and for the second time, I was not prepared for it.  It was such a beautiful story that I brought it home that day and asked my mom to read it.  She too, was moved by the story. 

Fast forward a couple of months, and I'm reading "Requiem", a collection of Heinlein's rare short stories, as well as a host of speeches he made at various sci fi conventions, and tributes written by friends, peers, and writers that were inspired by him.  It has been difficult to find information on the actual man that was Robert Heinlein.  There was never an authorized biography made, and trying to pick out which of his characters are truly "him" talking is quite a task.  But this book, especially the forward written by his wife Virginia, and the speeches printed here are my best look into the Grand Master of science fiction so far.  Spider Robinson actually had two sections in this book.  The first was an article he wrote about Heinlein around the time that "The Number of the Beast" came out.  The second was written after Heinlein's death for this collection.  In it, he told a story that really hit home for me:

                                         Picture it.  I stammer, a brash twenty-seven-year-old in the presence of my hero.  He remembers my name.  He likes my bar stories.  He appreciates the nice reviews I've given him in Galaxy.  I introduce him to my wife; he bows  and makes small talk with her.  I grin like a demented pumpkin and my heart goes thumpa thumpa-
                                        -then it skips a beat.
                                       Because he is looking down at the book I have carried a thousand miles for him to autograph.  He has just  signed umpteen hardcover copies of his newest novel, and now he sees clutched in my fist an extremely battered  and tattered old paperback with the cover scotch-taped.  It is a collection called The Unpleasant Profession of  Jonathan Hoag (also called 6 X H).  My necktie has come undone somehow, and I am perilously close to babbling.
                                      "Mr. Heinlein, sir I fetched this particular book because it contains my single personal all-time favorite story of yours  of all time, sir."
                                        He is used to people gibbering at him; he nods and waits politely.
                                        "It's called 'The Man Who Travelled in Elephants''-" and his face sags slightly and I panic oh hell what did I just say  wrong fix it fix it "- I mean, hell, that's just my opinion, who am I-" and then I break it off, because whatever he is doing with his face is the opposite of frowning.
                                       "That," he says slowly, "is my own personal favorite- and no one' s ever had a nice word to say for it until now.'' 
                                        " Sir," I say fervently, "I have read that story ten times in nineteen years, and I have literally never seen that last  paragraph when it wasn't blurry.  I end up grinning and crying every time."
                                         Again he...almost recoils slightly, as though I've pinched him.  "That was my single specific intention.  You're the  first person who's ever told me that I succeeded."
                                          He signed my crumbly paperback with a grand flourish, and I thanked him and floated away, moving my legs  occasionally so as not to scare passersby.

It was in that moment, when I read this passage, that I felt a small connection to Mr. Heinlein, a man dead when I was only nine years old.  Is it strange to love someone that you have never met, nor will you ever have the chance?  To say that Heinlein has changed my life is an understatement.  I look at myself and the world around me in a different way now.  My sense of direction has changed because of the vivid characters he crafted.  And my appreciation for the here and now is greater because of the wisdom and reflection that shows in every one of his books.   Reading his works, I have wondered if I would even be worthy of meeting him, if it were possible.

But for a moment, I felt like he and I were of the same mind, at least once.