And yes, there was much rejoicing in the achievement of this milestone. Rather odd rejoicing yes, as no one besides myself is in on the accomplishment or could particularly imagine why it's something one should be celebratory about ... well, there was the two in-game friends I was playing with at the time -- who, fittingly enough, were picking this last uber-level-making mission to begin talking to each other about how one was bipolar and couldn't really work well anymore as a result of the years of medication treatments for this, and the other suffers from severe and debilitating depression. Seeing as this came up because the bipolar guy was saying he didn't join groups in the game because he tended to creep people eventually, I refrained from stating my suspicion that, at least amongst the adult players, their situations are not all that unique for gamers at all.

Anyhow, these two guys did congratulate me, and in an in-game way there was much rejoicing. Which is to say, we picked up on more member and did a celebratory mission before I headed to bed.

But getting to the weird part: I would defy any of you to guess what I did this morning. I mean, what I specifically went to bed at a reasonable hour last night in order to do, and honestly crawled out of my bed at about 7 a.m. and dived into? It truly is bizarre.

Like snapping out of some sort of trance, for some reason this weekend it occurred to me that I really needed to tackle the pile of bills that had completely overwhelmed my dining room table. And, I actually did. I mean, I don't have enough money to pay off all of them, or even most of them, but I did make good-faith efforts to pay at least something on each of them. A couple I did have to pay in full, because they were demanding it and they were for fairly essential things in my life. Though, as far as that goes, my car is pretty dang essential and that one's not nearly paid up, so they're either gonna have to find some big hearts or I'll have to come up with something.

I'll tell you a couple of things. For one, I'm impressed at my ability to go through the evidence of my finacial screwdness without becoming emotionally upset. There was a time when such a situtation would have had me stressing myself into ulcers and guzzling maalox straight out of the bottle. Sadly, I'm no exaggerating there, I have a truly impressive ability to translate emotional upset into physical problems. So I'm glad to see that's not quite so reflexive anymore.

Another thing? I have this one credit card that has low monthly payments, and all they did was keep adding up the payments. So even after many months, paying that one off in full is still less than a hundred bucks. Alternately, I have another one where the payments tend to be high, and with every missed payment they tack on all sorts of fees. Seriously, the amount this second card is saying is required as a minimum payment is over ten times what the first one is. And I mean, they're for cards that had similar balances originally. I know that there's unique contract aggreements with each company and all, but I still have to wonder if this sort of thing should be legal. It clearly isn't very ethical.

I remember the last time I'd worked myself into such a fantastic financial hole -- this would also be towards the end of a stint in college, imagine that -- and I remember thinking, it's the normalcy of business practices like this that are designed to keep people in poverty. First, you give people who desperately need money a loan with essentially no questions asked. Then you charge incredibly high interest on that loan, so that even if they are paying regularly they're unlikely to be paying any of the debt amount off. The killing stroke is to increase that debt exponentially should the debtor become unable to pay at some point.

Because that makes sense, right? If you already can't pay, how about we start multiplying what you owe? Sounds reasonable, right?

See, this is why I stopped answering my phone a while ago.

In other, but related news, I had an odd sort of awareness come upon me last night as I drifted off to sleep. Whereas I was thinking this weekend that perhaps getting my high-level character would allow me to spend less time in-game and become somewhat more centered in the real world again, one aspect of immersion could from one light be considered beneficial. Okay, from a purely objective psychological viewpoint, I'd have to say not so much, just because of what I know is considered "normal" psychologically. But I'm not concerned with that, so I still say good.

Basically, it hit me that my interest in dating and sex has for months been more or less a habitual or reflexive thing. I mean, my sex drive is still there, I still notice beauty and I can still get a bit randy. But just like I've been a minimalist of socializing on the friend front, I've truly been one half-assed casanova as far as the ladies are concerned. I mean, that was what occurred to me last night -- I think I even mentioned it a couple of times, here. How there might be someone who might be interested, how I might even be sort of flirting with ... but basically, a week or two of gameplaying could easily go by before I even really considered contacting an object of my supposed affection.

This is funny to me because, back when I started playing this game, I was definitely still smarting over the loss of CG. And true to the tendency of the rebound, getting my heart broken normally would most assuredly up the energy I put into meeting someone new. But I was laying there last night, recalling all of the women who I may have had some passing flirtation with and yet basically just stopped calling. Or never called at all, beyond meeting them once, despite exchanging numbers.

I mean, truthfully? I've even had sex since CG, and never bothered staying in contact, because I was too wrapped up in playing my game. Now that's just bizarre. Except for the fact that I could most obviously relate, I couldn't imagine a more insulting thing than to have someone prefer playing some computer game over spending acutal naked time with me.

Tho, in complete fairness, it's not actually that I'd put a couple of hours of gameplay over a couple of hours of sex. I think it's more like the game is just always right here. It is a helluva lot of fun, and getting to play requires no more than entering my living room. Should everything in life be so easy.

Which reminds me, tho, that two of the bills I sent out today were my phone bill and electric bill. It's really bizarre, but on some level I feel like it's some kind of game to me, the wondering if I'll suddenly find myself deprived of things I take for granted, because I stopped paying for them. Most likely, it only requires actually losing any of these things to make it stop seeming like a game.

What I predict that I'll lose? My car, since I couldn't pay anywhere near what I owed on that. My solution for such an eventuality?

Don't have one. But, I do have an uber-level character in my game of choice now. And the severely depressed guy who tagged along to team with me through most of the last two weeks has commented several times on how l33t I am.