December Sucks

Transcript

You're listening to No Plot Only Lore, a

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Welcome back to No Plot Only Lore. This

week brought to you by seasonal

effective disorder.

Sad?

Have you ever thought about just getting

a little sad?

Why do they have to give it such like a

cutesy nickname?

No.

I a little bummed out, buddy.

Yeah, just just a little sad. I I think

it's the same people who made like the

the phobia of long words an incredibly

long word.

Oh, [ __ ]

Yeah, basically. Or like the fact that

palendrome isn't a palendrome.

Oh yeah, that's pretty bad.

Yeah, there is however um the opposite

word which is ednap.

What?

Eronarp uh palendrome backwards, right?

Whatever that is. Uh is a

Okay. Yeah. What is that?

Uh it's a word whose meaning changes.

Um, hold on. Now I need to look it up.

Would you read it backwards?

Palendrome backwards.

Uh, a simordinap

is a word that becomes a different word

when you read it backwards.

So,

a palendrome is a subordin.

I This is an English major just having

literally nothing else to do with their

lives. This is why you must only allow

your kids to to get STEM degrees.

There is a dungeon in Oxford where they

just have people churning this [ __ ] out.

It's

how you get your doctor from there. Like

you got to make something that offends

somebody.

You can have this tweed jacket as soon

as you've made a word that makes Josh

Vardy make that noise.

Yeah, they they send me a new PL platter

of them every January. It's like, well,

uh, could you imagine if you were

actually like the person who had to

decide whether or not somebody's thing

was egregious enough to warrant

Oh my god. Y that that is what's going

to be that's my punishment when I go to

hell because like on the one hand I will

be motivated to like want to do a good

job and get to pick like the new thing

but also it has to make me so angry that

it like qualifies but now I have to live

with the knowledge that that's real

forever.

Uh yeah,

crafting my own torture devices.

Uh December sucks.

December is

not great. I'm not going to say it

sucks. I I

I like the month like as a whole, but

Mhm.

You know, it's cold here today. We're

not having the best time.

For me, it it's definitely the I wake up

and it's night and I go to work and it's

night and I come home and it's night and

the entire day happened while I was at

work.

Right. Right.

Right.

I do work by a giant window so I kind of

get to see the day happen but I don't

get to participate.

I don't currently I I I'm in a dungeon

that doesn't have a southacing window,

right? Um, so like I I see some light

filtering through my blinds

occasionally, but it's not like bright.

Yeah.

And just like Yeah. From the time that I

am working to the time that I am not

working, the entire day has happened. I

I will go out for like my lunch and see

sunlight for a minute and touch some

grass. But

it is

or snow.

Great.

Just grass because I live in Victoria.

Oh, right.

Yeah. What a what a weird thing because

like I love snow. I miss snow so goddamn

bad.

Hey, let me tell you, you can have it.

Well, part of it I think is that it does

make winter brighter, right? Like the

reflection of snow makes the dreiness

less. And in Victoria, I have found that

like the fact that it's always raining

for one thing means that it's always

like slightly darker than it is anywhere

else.

Yeah.

And then we don't have that reflection

off the snow. So it's just like our

winters are incredibly green and

incredibly drab.

Yeah. Ours are bright and frozen, I

guess.

Yeah. And I prefer that.

Okay.

Um,

and also it's just like there there's so

many things

that happen in and around December. Like

you got the the Christmas holidays and

the Hanukkah holidays and a bunch of

other holidays plus like the New Year's

and planning around like family

vacations because that's when all the

family vacations happen. The kids are

out of school.

There's just like there's so much going

on.

Maybe too much.

Maybe a little too much. So, like,

how do you get your game group together

over December? You do what I do and you

finish the campaign and don't think

about it till the new year.

That's that's what we've done. We we

wrapped it up uh few weeks ago and I was

like, "Hey, I need a break. So, goodbye

and I'll think about it." So yeah,

that's often the direction I take too

where it's just like we're we're going

to take a hiatus. Like even

even if we haven't wrapped up the

campaign or even the adventure

necessarily, just like cool, December

is a no. Like we get together bi-weekly

at the best of times. The idea of trying

to do that around the Christmas holiday

is just a a nightmare.

It's not happening.

Um,

what what do you find is the hardest

thing to like work around?

Oh, it's scheduling. It's just

it's people have 500 work office parties

that you have to dance around plus

family commitments. Um, you know, like

the kids will be in more productions.

They'll have, you know, concerts and and

and

like

adorable

people might have to travel for the

holiday itself. Um, even just so even

just scheduling actual Christmas for my

family is a little tricky because like

there's like my brothers and I

and we all have other people in our

lives that we now have to like negotiate

around because they still have wives who

for some reason want to hang out with

their families. Um,

it

Yeah. No, you should be. It's weird. Uh

but that means everyone wants to compete

for the same day. So

now they have to like

prioritize or whatever, right? So like

for us this year, we're doing actual

Christmas with like the whole family on

Boxing Day. Um

Okay.

Because that's just like how it's going

to work. Like there's nothing we can do

about it. Um, I will do Christmas with

my kids on Christmas because I have them

this year for Christmas, but other years

I have to like trade off. So, I'll have

them New Year's next year. Now,

okay,

every year I have to have an argument

with my mom about how I can't just try

to steal a day around Christmas from

Caitlyn because it's her year. Uh, but,

you know, I'll have to negotiate a day

that we can do Christmas with the

extended family that's like a week

after. Um,

yeah.

And it's it's the same way for D and D.

Yeah. We don't we don't really deal with

that on on my side. Like I

don't celebrate Christmas specifically,

right?

So like my family and I like we we don't

get together for this holiday. Like I my

mom is not coming into town. My brothers

are all going to hang out in Alberta.

like they'll probably get together for a

thing, but there's no way that I'm

flying out to Alberta, right,

for it.

And uh yeah, so I have the week off

mostly because that's a week that my kid

has off from school and I don't have

enough money to throw at child care for

a week.

Yeah,

we're just going to do other stuff.

Watch a bunch of watch a bunch of

movies.

Yeah. Yeah. I like I deliberately

scheduled the week off, but yeah, like

you have moved away from Well, first of

all, like there's just not the same

number of significant others that you

have to contend with cuz I've got four

brothers.

Um, sorry, I'm one of four brothers. Uh,

and so we have to negotiate with three

other wives. Um,

yeah.

And we're all within 20 minutes of each

other max, more like 15. So there's no

like good excuse to just avoid them as

much as I want to sometimes. Um

yeah, and even when even when we're full

up, right? Like even when

my brother has a boyfriend,

I we still don't have the kids situation

that we have to contend with. Like

neither of my brothers has kids.

Yeah.

And one of them has the romantic

inclinations of a particularly lazy

rock. Mhm.

Um, so like, yeah, it's it's never

really an issue on on that front. For

for me, it's more like negotiating

around everybody else's schedules.

Yeah.

Right.

But even then, you've only got Natalie

to contend with, right? So,

Oh, I don't mean that. I mean like if I

wanted to get together with my friends

Oh, sure, sure, sure.

any friend. It's like, cool. I have like

an hour and a half on the 22nd of

December unless something happens,

right?

And it's like [ __ ] cool. I guess

I guess that's when we're hanging out.

Unless we've got like standing date

stuff going on like like this business.

Yeah.

Like Yeah. The the getting together with

my friends is is kind of few and far

between.

You heard it here first, folks. We're

dating.

Are we? Oh [ __ ] Does that mean I have

to get you something for Christmas?

[ __ ]

Hey, I I'm getting no one outside of my

immediate family anything for Christmas.

Never have.

I get two presents every year. Well, I I

get presents for my son,

right?

And we get one present for his mom that

is from him.

Perfect. Keep it that way.

That's the entirety of my presents.

Yeah.

Yeah, but that is like another weird

pressure of just like the money anxiety,

right, around December is also kind of

brutal. Like everybody's just kind of on

edge.

Yep. Yeah. Cuz I mean like it used to be

I feel like it used to be a lot more

clear who you had to buy for, if

anybody.

Yeah. And then for the same reason that

like diamonds suddenly became a thing

that you had to worry about, like every

stupid consumer angle started telling

you like, "Hey, you got to buy this for

the mailman or this for your drama

teacher or this like it was just

it was just a lot." Okay. So, Thor's mom

every year

goes and gets like presents and cards

and like gift certificates and things

for his teachers.

Why?

And that is not a thing that I ever did.

No.

As a kid, like one cuz I was poor

and two just like that that wasn't an

expectation.

No, it shouldn't be.

She She spent like a 120 bucks on why

teacher presents.

I There are Okay, there are two people

not related to me that I'm getting

something for for Christmas and each of

those things was $8.

And I I was not obligated to. I just I

saw that they were $8 and I was like,

"Oh, I would like my friend to have

that." Which also like side note, people

should get used to doing that more,

I think. Okay. So, generally speaking,

when I buy presents for people has

nothing to do with the time of year.

Yes.

Right. Like

the the most recent thing that I bought

for you was the microphone for this,

right?

Where it was just like, I want to do a

thing with my friend, so I'm going to

throw some money at a piece of equipment

so that we can do this thing together.

Yes. like that. That's the way that I do

presents.

You had ulterior motives.

Always.

Yeah. Always. Always

uh you know, I I needed to start dating

you somehow.

But no, like that. Yeah. I I don't

usually buy much in the way of like

presents, but like even just kind of the

the dayto days get kind of more

expensive around December where like you

have to buy like the big feast meal.

Yeah.

Right. Like everybody's pitching on like

bringing a thing to a potluck.

Um we've got a a Christmas party thing

that's happening at work that's going to

have a white elephant gift exchange. So

like I've got to throw 30 bucks at

buying a thing that I don't know who is

going to get it.

Um

that is

I don't want that social pressure.

And then like the other side of it is

that like for for me a lot of times

especially as a DM gaming feels like

doing my budget.

Yeah.

Right. Like if I'm if I'm crunching

numbers and doing a bunch of tables and

like hanging out behind the screen, I'm

like, "Fuck, I did this yesterday trying

to figure out my groceries that included

a [ __ ] turkey.

This is so much [ __ ] math."

Also, why are you buying a turkey?

I'm not.

Okay.

Yeah. I was worried. For one, I don't

I don't really do turkey and like my kid

doesn't really like turkey.

Turkey is delicious.

You It can be

Do a Do a turkey chili.

Oh, yeah. No, I I love I love a turkey

chili. I love basically anything in a

chili. Um,

no. This year, I'm not actually sure

what we're going to do for the feast

meal, if anything.

I want to do KFC like we talked about in

one of our previous episodes.

Yes.

I might order a bucket the day before.

Mhm.

And just like fridge it.

Hey,

Christopher.

Yeah,

that's vile.

I'll just air fry it the next day. Fine.

Don't consume it.

Please don't consume it anymore. I don't

want I don't I don't want you to do

that.

I I don't want my friend to get hurt.

It's uh Yeah. Also for like dieting

stuff. So I I' I've lost a bunch of

weight this year.

Yeah.

And the fact that like

I think our listeners can hear it.

Yeah. Yeah. There's there's less fat in

the throat.

Um not gargling around my own fat face.

the the turkey chin is is wobbling less.

I think it's actually wobbling more. I'm

really concerned that when I get down to

my goal weight Yeah.

I'm going to look like Kevin Smith.

He lost weight.

Yeah. Just

where he's just like

turkey neck and looks sad all the time.

But like Yeah. Feast holidays. I I don't

want to watch what I'm eating, so I'm

not going to. But I'm also kind of

worried that that's going to set me

back.

Sure, that might it might. But hey, it

not that much. Like, what could you do?

You gain like 20 pounds. Big deal.

I Yeah. Try Let's see. How many calories

could I conceivably pack away if I was

just like guzzling olive oil?

Well, that's not how I would consume it,

but I guess that's one thing you could

do.

Yeah, I mean like all the sugars and the

the barbecue sauces and things that are

going to be at the the holiday party.

Anyway, I am worried that I'm going to

stall out on weight loss stuff as well.

Okay,

that's that's a fear you can have.

Yeah. Uh how does Christmas stress show

up in your gaming? Like do you do any

gaming? Like not just role playing

games, but like I assume you play like

board games and stuff over the the

course of the the month of December.

I do. I do. Um again, so yes, scheduling

is probably one of the biggest ones. Um

I I will I still try to maintain my

weekly commitments, but they get

frequently impinged upon by, like I

said, holiday parties, what have you. Um

so it is what it is. You just kind of

live with it, and

there's not much you can do to change

it, unfortunately.

um no one out there is going to be like,

"Oh, well,

this board game is far more important

than my work obligation or what have

you."

I don't know. I'm the type of person who

would absolutely be like, I need to make

this game even if it requires me taking

time off work.

True.

You definitely would be that kind of

person.

Yeah. Like I I I made a promise. I'm

going to be there. I'm going to [ __ ]

be there.

You also take more responsibility for

the games that you are involved in than

I do. Like I am just I'm there for a

good time. You know, I'm not running

anything. I'm just kind of being loud.

I think that kind of shows through in

the way that like holiday stress comes

into my games, too, though. Like my my

biggest thing with gaming over the

holidays is burnout.

Mh. because I'm already like low-key

burnt out all the time anyway.

Sure.

Um adding like the emotional labor of

the month of December on top of all of

the normal emotional labor that I'm

doing plus planning for a game. Yeah.

It's just it's so much. Yeah.

It's a lot.

Yeah.

I feel for you.

And it like

I think it comes with a a weird kind of

guilt too where like okay understanding

that I am neurotic AF.

Yes.

The tendency to cancel plans around

December. I want to be as understanding

about that as possible. But there is a

nugget of my self-esteem that is wrapped

around my gaming that's like is

am I boring? Am I more boring than

Christmas? I can't be more boring than

Christmas.

You okay? Listen,

you have to allow yourself to recognize

you are more boring than Christmas.

That That is unfair to put on yourself.

Am I not as cool as Jesus? I feel like I

I need to like figure out how to get as

cool as Jesus.

Never gonna be as cool as Jesus.

Never mind.

Is that an actual song?

Yeah. Uh, no. It's the song is by Audio

Adrenaline. It's called Never Going to

Be as Big as Jesus.

Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. But no, I I there

is part of me that worries over

Christmas about like the the drop off of

enthusiasm that happens because like

whenever you stop gaming for a little

while,

right? Whenever you haven't had a

session in a few weeks s a tasty sesh,

you build inertia, right? And eventually

you have to get over that inertia to get

back at the gaming table.

Ah, yes. Well, spite.

Yes, but I have less of that than I have

self-esteem issues. So, that's the

struggle.

That is a problem.

We need to figure out how to up my

spite.

Oh, I have lessons I can teach you, my

friend.

Uh, what do you do to reduce your

stress? What do What do you do to like

manage stress around the holidays,

especially in like a gaming context?

Oh, I play games with my friends. Oh,

wait a minute. There's a a negative

smile or my feedback loop got broken.

Oh, no.

Um, for real though, like it the

holidays definitely do add Okay, so I I

have many layers of stress uh when it

comes to the holidays. Um, the first of

which being like Christmas is like very

important for me, you know, not just for

like religious reasons, but you know, uh

time with my kids and that sort of uh

familial aspect. But um it it is a

period of the year where I like truly go

through like the highs and lows of

human emotion during the month. And it's

tough to regulate cuz you know

especially like you'll appreciate this,

but having my like my routine and my

schedule really [ __ ] with for like a

month and a half straight usually is not

great. And then all of the normal like

safety valves that I have for releasing

pressure and stress are again tinkered

with. Um

we need to start a separate drinking

more. I think

I think we need to start a separate

podcast just for like our weird neurode

diverent [ __ ]

Oh yeah yeah yeah.

Like having your routine [ __ ] with and

then drinking about it is such [ __ ]

like ADHD coded.

Yeah.

For the viewers, I don't drink about it.

Thank you very much. Um,

I make jokes about drinking about it

because it's funny to me. But, uh, in

all seriousness, like, yeah, the the

stress does like pile up a lot. And part

of the reason I take a week off is to

just like hang out with my kids and kind

of relax because the rest of the month

has just been

building up pressure. So yeah, I'll I'll

spend that time just I if I had to work

in that same week like you'd see me on

the news, you know, like unironically.

I think

for me the the biggest

thing that I do to try and like mitigate

the stress around games is just like all

all of the long-term things like

anything that includes like regular

planning, regular meetups, regular

anything gets shelved for a while.

What I will do is like pickup games,

right? Like instead of playing a like

full round of cribage, we're going to

play Crazy Aids.

Yeah.

Right. So instead of playing like a huge

campaign of Dn D, let's [ __ ] play

Honey Heist. Yeah.

We'll play a one-page stupid like roll

some dice with your friends beer and

pretzels RPG and

put zero planning into it. All of the

planning is rolling random dice tables.

Yeah. and [ __ ] go with it, right? So,

like taking as much of that like

pre-planning

organizational stress off of me and just

getting right into the playing.

Yeah.

Really helps.

It's funny. I I do something similar at

like the actual family event where like

I I know that like my family is not

great about like, hey, let's like play a

board game or even a card game

sometimes. But like one thing that I

picked up and have pulled out and has

been a hit that helps me too is claskque

uh which is it's like uh it's like

crokenol combined with air hockey uh on

like a little table that sits on top of

your table.

Um and it's like I find like dexterity

type games like that like one it's

easier for me to just get a random

person to like hop in. We'll play a

game. Um, and two, it's a different type

of focus you have to engage in. Um, and

you just kind of like lose yourself in

the moments of the game and yeah, like

it's it's

it's quick to pick up and you can like

kind of do it all day with different

people, you know? M

um so I I grabbed like

low pressure games like that that I can

just get like especially like the the as

the nieces and nephews get a little bit

older stuff I can suck them into with

that like

flip seven. There's a new one that just

came out called hot streak where you're

a bunch of racing uh mascots and you bet

on a chaotic race to see who will

actually win, who might fall off the

map, stuff like that.

Have you Okay, this is a known Suador,

but have you seen the ridiculous horse

racing anime girls game?

Yes.

I don't know.

I [ __ ] hate horses. Like, for for

everybody listening,

um I have horse fear.

Yeah.

And have for a very long time.

I still find that game [ __ ]

hilarious.

It's

Listen, I want to take those horses and

around the barn and shoot them. Like,

it's I hate everything about it.

Did you see Did you see the comic that

somebody posted when one of the horses

died?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, it was like

their like special handicapped favorite

horse where everyone's like, "Oh, man.

Let's cheer for this."

Yeah. And then they did like a a

touching comic of the horse laying down

in like her owner's lap and [ __ ]

dying.

Okay. Like gh but also [ __ ] peak

comedy.

Uh if only the same could happen to the

rest of the horses. Um

Yep.

So one thing that I I want to try this

May maybe not this year but like next

year. Yeah.

is having a rest session

in a campaign. So like if if I'm in a

campaign,

we have an entire session that is just

like this is us roleplaying through the

long rest.

Wait.

Right. Having

I'm stealing this idea but in a

different way.

Oh, okay.

What are you going to do?

Continue your thought for a second.

Okay. So, like not necessarily having

like encounters, not dealing with like

anything that requires crunchy numbers

or math or anything. Just like sitting

around a fire, telling stories, talking

about backstory stuff, engaging in

relationship

uh interplay, that kind of thing,

instead of focusing on all the the big

crunchy nonsense that normally happens

in the game. just like actually

incorporate rest into the game itself.

Mhm.

Just for one day.

Yeah.

See how it goes.

Okay. So,

same idea uh incorporating a long rest

except it is a tavern episode and

I'm the busty bar wench

and and

It's an excuse to trick your friends

into having a Christmas dinner.

Hey,

just just go full in the theme and then

Oh, by the way, the barmaid brings out a

whole [ __ ] turkey

and

we do this regularly and they're just

called tavern episodes and it's it's

it's an excuse to have a themed dinner

party.

I love that a lot. And also, I'm going

to be clipping the quote of you saying,

"I'm the busty tavern wench."

No.

Putting it everywhere.

It's going to be your ringtone.

Hey, thanks for making it all the way

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Lore. If you're looking for more, you

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