So I’m nearing the halfway point of my book and that fact has me thinking very hard about whether or not to pursue getting it published. Without permission from SquareEnix I doubt I would be able to other than as fanfiction, but it’s still interesting to think about. The thing about writing out a flesh and blood story to the skeleton that is Final Fantasy is that I get ideas for how to take these characters into all sorts of new directions. What began as a project to personally immortalize my favorite game as a kid has become a chance at a real career. But fame, as every celebrity(or non celebrity like the Kardashians) knows, has its’ pitfalls. So this had me thinking about the pros and cons of getting published. Perhaps the first book wouldn’t bring fame, but write out five or six of them to enhance what I’m calling the Final Fantasy Expanded Universe, and it will come.

So what are the pros? I would be able to afford a great many luxuries. I could buy my brother the Astin Martin that he drools over every time we watch a James Bond film. He loves nice cars, he just can’t afford them! So maybe I could earn some decent money and buy him one. As for my other brother, well he always beats me in poker. So maybe I could buy him a copy of supersystem for now and eventually pay his 10,000 dollar entry fee to the world series of poker one day. On a more serious note, I can easily see the ability to stockpile some serious money away to support my parents in their retirement. I can easily see the ability to stockpile some serious money for the retirement for me, my family(wife and kids), maybe even the grandkids if I make enough. Is that not a great enough reason to start getting published?

But what are the cons? Were I to start publishing books in the Final Fantasy Expanded Universe similar to what Timothy Zahn and others do for the Star Wars Expanded Universe, I would be under just as much scrutiny by the fans of Final Fantasy as they are by the fans of Star Wars. The characters and worlds I am creating from my imagination right now would pretty much enter the public domain and fans would feel like they are theirs, not mine. I know this because this is how I feel about Han, Luke and Leia. Yes, George Lucas created them, but they belong to the fans now. I don’t know how I would feel about Wes, Stan, Eve and Tova no longer feeling like they are my characters. And then there are other drawbacks to being famous. Yes there would be financial freedom, but how much personal freedom would there be. The life of a celebrity is always under a microscope. Right now I can ride the bus around Columbus and get pretty much anywhere at anytime. But if the local media gets wind of the fact that a well known writer is a well known rider, how long will that freedom last? Celebrities are supposed to have big homes, nice cars, and buxom wives. I don’t want any of that, but if I get published, will public perception turn against me if I don’t have things like that?

So I guess what I’m saying is that right now I’m just a normal guy who happens to write. I would like it to stay that way even if it means that my family(both now and down the road) have to deal with just being middle class citizens like everyone else. I kind of think that personal freedom is more important than financial freedom and all the fame in the world.

My question for you: If someone you were friends with became suddenly famous, would you think your friendship with them would change terribly much? If so, how?

My family and I went to a Columbus Blue Jackets game last night. They played, and beat, the Edmonton Oilers. It was 3-3 heading into the Overtime period, and ended up going to a shootout. The Jackets scored 2 shootout goals to the Oilers 0. This means they WON! Last year I went to four games and they didn’t win any of them. This year I’m 1 for 1! And here are a few photos. Sorry about the lack of zoom, but I took these with my new digital camera from Christmas and didn’t know how to zoom yet. I know how to now.

This photo gives you an idea of where I sat in the arena. We were practically center ice! Nice! This picture is of an early power play which did lead to a goal for the Jackets by Vinny Prospal.

Gotta take a picture of the zambonis!

According to my Mom, the guy there in the Hats for Heroes cap is a bigwig where she works. This was as close as I came to getting his picture. Don’t know who he was but people kept stopping by to say hello.

This is just a picture of the brand new Scoreboard installed during the offseason. Pretty cool.

There is a chance that this will not be my only game this season, but next time I hope to take a few pictures with the dumb zoom feature working. lol. Have you ever been to a hockey game?

@TheWeeklyQuestion posted “Best dream you’ve ever had? Can you remember it?”

I sure have had a few best dreams, and I can remember most of them because I write them down.

I do feel as if last night I had my best dream ever. As with all the best dreams, it was a romantic/sexual dream. Now I have had a great many sexual dreams before. I dreamed of being with Britney Spears once in high school. I dreamed of being with Jennifer Lopez once shortly after seeing The Cell with my friend Jon in 2000. To my great humiliation, I will admist that I have even dreamed of being with Paris Hilton.

But last night was not a strictly sexual dream. No, it was far more on the romantic side of things than just sex like the others I mentioned. I remember dreaming about Jennifer Biel at one point during the dream, but for the most part the girls I dreamed about last night were unknown to me. But I didn’t have sex with any of them. It was more like cuddling and some 2nd and 3rd base action than anything else. But the main thing I remember is that whether it was with Jennifer Biel, or other girls, it always occured on a very soft comforter with a few real feather pillows.

When I was dreaming about Britney, JLo, and Paris, I remember a certain awareness that had me thinking, “Yeah baby, sex dream!” This time not so much. It was more along the lines of, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but this is nice.” I also remember coming up to one girl(not Biel) from behind while she was standing and cupping her breasts in my hands and giving her one of those romance novel cover type kisses when she leaned her head back and to the right a little. It didn’t feel like, “Yeah, you’re about to get some honey.” It felt like, “Yeah, someone is attracted to you, and now you know who.” It wasn’t a pervy thing(I don’t think), it was just…nice.

That’s the best I can explain it. I do notice that although the dreams that are sexual in nature only come(wink) once every few years, during the interval they seem to get more and more mature. Britney back in high school was just raw sex. JLo in 2000 was a more intimate and fun kind of sex. Paris Hilton in 2008(if my memory is correct) was more about me comforting her through physical affection. And now last night I didn’t even dream about actual sex, but much of the kind of foreplay that I figure women appreciate in order to later have sex.

This all makes me wonder what will happen in four of five years from now. Could foreplay be better than sex? Hmm.

I must admit that I am getting the hang of the CBT appointments. You could say that my doctor and I have found a groove. I can’t say that I can predict what he is going to ask, but when he does ask certain things, I’m not surprised anymore. I can more or less understand understand the thought processes going on.

Friday we talked about Facebook. I had joined the site under a pseudonym, and in a matter of days got an email saying I might know these three people. One was Brad, one was an ex from 2005 named Meg, and the last was my stepmother. How in the world, with a false name and just my shadow81dan email, did the powers at be at Facebook bring together three people from such different parts of my life? I, and my therapist agreed, found it incredibly creepy. I have since deactivated the account and consider myself done with Facebook.

Before I go on to my three main goals, if you would like to catch up HERE is a link to part 9. In there I go a little more in depth as to what Cognitive Behavior Therapy actually does. I would recommend reading it to anyone who is thinking about getting therapy themselves.

Goal #1: Separation Anxiety. I don’t get to work on this one as often as I would like. It is just entirely too unpredictable a situation to be able to plan for in advance. I suppose the best thing would be for it to happen without me knowing it is going to happen. But the next time I am alone later on at night I have the positive experience from two weeks ago to draw upon for support.

Goal #2: Dogs. I have not even seen Leanard since the last session or two, so I did not get to work on this one. I do want to mention that I don’t feel tense when dogs of any kind are around anymore. On the anxiety scale I mentioned in part 9, I would say that around part 1 my anxiety would have been an 85 out of 100. Now it’s about a 15 out of 100. Much improved, no?

Goal #3: Social Anxiety(or Social Phobia). I had dinner with Brad last weekend. That was a lot of fun. I really do like that little hole in the wall pizza place we go to. Good food, good company, and hot waitresses. We talked about old classmates from high school for the most part. I thought it was really nice to hear what everyone we used to know has been up to. One of the topics that came up was the idea of the 15 year high school reunion. Has it really been that long? 2000 I suppose. Wow. So the reunion would take place in 2015. That will likely take place before any potential weddings so perhaps it would be worth it to go? Just a blip on the radar for now. The other thing that happened is that Brad gave me the majority of the Star Wars cards he collected back in the late 90′s like the kind that my brother and I played with a couple weeks ago. My brother was actually home this weekend, and late Friday we took some time to go through the Cloud City cards. I had already told him(my brother) that I would keep the light side cards and he would keep the dark side cards. I think he was as excited to be getting some cards of his own and not have to rely upon mine all the time when we play games. The only downside? He beat me twice. Oh well. Can’t win em all, eh San Fransisco?

@mypublicsite @megabyyte @foodhog @light_blue_fables @isitreal_no

I went 1-1 in the Championship games. The Ravens beat Tom Brady, which was awesome. And though I prefer the Falcons because they’ve never won a Super Bowl before, I really don’t mind the 49ers making it. It is kind of a bad Super Bowl for Steelers fans since either the Ravens (our main rival) win, or the 49ers win and get a 6th Super Bowl tying the Steelers for most in NFL history. I guess if the Ravens win I’ll just tell myself that they play such a similar style to the Steelers that it is kind of like seeing the Steelers win another Super Bowl. Then if the 49ers win I’ll just remind myself that if you take all of NFL history into account, the Green Bay Packers are the real championship leaders with like 13 or something. But anyways, here’s my pick:

Super Bowl XLVII: Baltimore Ravens 23, San Francisco 49ers 17

Here’s the deal: If anyone wants to guess the final score here, and they get it right, I will give you a 1000 eprop mini!

Enjoy Super Bowl Sunday!

Option 1: Write book number 1, which I love but won’t ever be published.

Option 2: Write book number 2, which I feel is okay and could actually be published one day.

So it’s a choice between doing what I love for fun that won’t bring in any money and doing what I am capable of doing but just don’t love as much that can earn some money potentially.

Which do I choose? I tried doing both at the same time and it’s just too hard. :-/

Holy Cow! 9 sessions already? Now that the new year is here and there are no more vacations or things like that on the horizon my doctor and I will be scheduling many more appointments in advance. I went into yesterday’s with no others scheduled, so after an appointment on the 1st, it will be until the 15th when I see him again. After that it will be about once a week. It’s funny because I remember when I was originally set up with a therapist(non cbt) and I dreaded those appointments even though they were only once a month. Now I’m learning so much and feel like I’m getting stronger and stronger that I could easily go twice a week. Anyways…

Yesterday’s session, both my therapist and I acknowledged, was a productive one. We covered a lot of ground that included an article in the USA Today, an entry in my 2007 journal, and Tasha. It would take an eternity to cover each of these three topics due to all the backstory that would be involved, so for now I will just say that I am glad I am at the point where I can actually talk about these kinds of topics without cringing. Especially Tasha. Brad, you may remember her as the ‘elf-girl’ we talked about from time to time.

I do want to take a minute and talk about a couple of the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy processes that I use in and out of my sessions to help with the three main goals. One is analyzing the amount of distress a certain topic(like Tasha) causes me on a scale of 1 to 100. There is a proper name for this scale but it escapes me as I read about it months ago. There is no real method to it, you just try and remember where your anxiety was at its’ peak (90 for instance) and where it is now (10). So when I am in my session and we discuss a topic like my breakdown in 2007, it causes me to get fairly anxious. I would say it causes me about an 85 out of 100. Writing about it now causes about 10 to 15 out of 100. The CBT is meant to help you find ways to get from talking down to 75 then 65 and so on, to writing it down to 7 and then maybe 5 or 4. It’s an inexact science but it really is beneficial.

Another method is to look at things according to probabilities. I will take the exampe of me going to a hockey game last year. There are typically about 18,000 people at a Columbus Blue Jackets game. I might worry on a scale of about 50 out of 100 that I might run into someone I used to work with and have them ask about what happened before I left back in 2007. But what is the probablity of that happening? 1 out of 18,000 right? So it is very very remote and looking at it that way helps me calm down and just enjoy the game.

The last method I will go into is an advantage/disadvantage method. Let’s say I was thinking about asking someone out and had the thought go through my mind, “I don’t deserve this person. I have all these issues and she won’t want to deal with them.” Now what I can do is take a piece of paper and a pencil and list all of the advantages to believing that, and then list all of the disadvantages to it. See how that works? There will inevitably be far more disadvantages to believing such a thought than there are advantages. That is how CBT works!

And now I will go on to talk about what I’ve worked on in the past week or so, but if you would like to read the previous entry, HERE is the link.

Goal #1: Separation Anxiety. I got to work on this a great deal over the weekend. As I mentioned in part 8 that I would be at my Dad’s for the weekend and that I would be by myself later at night. My father and stepmother were gone from about 4 until 9:30 or so in the evening. Those of you who have been following my CBT posts know that after about 6 or 7 I get really anxious about being alone. At 6 I would say it is about a 50 out of 100. By 9:30 it is about an 85. But on Saturday there was a Penguins game on until about 6, then I wrote in my journal about finishing a book called Thunder Dog. Then I watched the Buckeyes basketball team lost to Michigan State in a close one until about 8. Then at 8 the Blue Jackets season opener came on and I followed them either on TV or the radio until my Dad and Stepmom got home. I also give an assist to Brad because he texted me for awhile during those hours which provided me with some company. I also read some of the Feeling Good Handbook so Burns can get an assist as well. It is strange though, I can’t help but reflect on the fact that for seven years I lived alone and had no real problems, and now I struggle to go a few hours late at night by myself. Honestly? I would like some input as to whether this anxiety makes me weak.

Goal #2: Dogs: Apparently my Mother had my brother, sister in law, and their dog Leanard over at our house while I was gone. Nothing happened other than him being a little wound up from not being on any more medication.

Goal #3: Social Anxiety: I will be at a birthday party for my Stepmom beginning at 1 on Saturday. Sometime after that I hang out with Brad. If any of you saw my post about my youngest brother going back to college and he and I playing some of the Star Wars CCG game, then you may be surprised to learn that Brad saw it too and that he told me he’d be willing to give me a ton of cards from his collection so that my brothers and I can play from all the different movies. I will go into this more next time. I am excited and owe him one!

And before I go I thought I would share with you my little post CBT tradition. A Spicy Chicken Ceasar Salad from Wendy’s with Italian Vinaigrette dressing. Yum!

@mypublicsite @megabyyte @foodhog @light_blue_fables @heytherejoann @isitreal_no

Let’s see. The Broncos lost, The Packers lost and the Texans lost. So I went 1-3 last week. Not only that but all of the teams I even came close to picking for the Super Bowl are gone. My preseason picks were Pittsburgh and Green Bay. The Steelers didn’t make the playoffs. Then in light of that I changed it to the Broncos and the Packers. Well both of them are gone now. So do I continue to pick? Maybe I’ll root for New England and San Francisco so that they lose too? Sigh.

For the AFC Championship: Ravens

For the NFC Championship: Falcons

P.S. That Colin Kaepernick seems like a jerk doesn’t he? So yeah, Go Brady and Kaepernick!

Yesterday’s session was a good session. If you’ll recall, I gave my doctor my journal from 2006-7 to read so that he could glean some information from it that would help him prepare for future sessions. Well so far it hasn’t worked all that well. He will read some of the journal and ask me about an entry or a certain line, but they were written so long ago that I just plain don’t remember them. So he suggested I take my journal back, and I will read it and bring up entries that would be good to talk about.

We did go into the area of why I am a non-confrontational person. Honestly, in real life I am so terrible at picking up social cues and body language and facial movements that I just can’t detect when someone is annoyed with me or worse. So by the time I do detect it, it is almost always full blown hostility that no one can miss. So from my perspective someone will go from being completely nice to being completely hostile and I just don’t know how to process that. So I react with confusion more than anything else. Now if I am reading the exact ssame thing as what is being said I can pick up the between the lines stuff relatively easily. But verbal confrontation is just not in my arsenal. I figure this has something to do with my very mild form of autism (undiagnosed but that has to be it).

Before I move on to the three goals, HERE is a link to the last CBT entry.

Goal #1. Separation Anxiety. I will be at my Dad’s next weekend and during the day on Saturday he and my Stepmom will be away at a party. This will be my next chance to work this issue.

Goal #2. Dogs. I will probably see Leanard tonight when we go to my brother’s house to visit. I don’t have much anxiety about this.

Goal #3. Weddings (or from what I will now on call Social Anxiety). In a couple weeks my Stepmom will have a party at their house and I am invited. Yikes! But another opportunity I suppose to work on this issue.

@mypublicsite @megabyyte @foodhog @light_blue_fables @heytherejoann @isitreal_no

I went 2-2 last week. The Texans and Packers won on Saturday and I was off to 2-0. Then the Colts lost to the Ravens and Shanahan may have screwed up RG3′s knee in the process of not beating the Seahawks. And I make my picks this week with a disclaimer, I think the Patriots will win their game, but am going to pick the Texans because I hate them. I really do hope the Steelers get one more shot at Brady in the Playoffs. It would be nice to knock him out just once after he did it twice to them. ANYWAYS….

Broncos
Packers
Texans
Falcons

I’m rooting for Peyton Manning to win it all, btw.