A Leif on the Wind.

Only…I just looked up to pronunciation of the word to find that it’s not said the way I thought. XD OH WELL!

It doesn’t matter, because Leif is the name of which I first met my boyfriend back in either 2002 or 2003 at my very first LARPing event. LARPing, as in Live Action Role Playing, is where you go off to some rented sight, dress up like your character and play make believe with weapons made of foam and PBC piping and little packets of seed. Someone who was introducing my group to the other important characters in the game brought me…a healer…over to the leader of the healer’s guild. “Calita, this is Leif.” He was too busy to be introduced or tell me anything about the healer’s guild, and rather rude about it as well. My character immediately decided that he wasn’t worth her time, and with him in charge…neither was the healer’s guild. The group I came in with didn’t return to the game for another year.

After that, we tried to go as regularly as we could afford…but keep in mind it was a four hour trip for us, so it wasn’t as often as we would have liked. But Plot loved us! We were fresh and new and they wanted to include us in as many modules as possible. Leif messaged me about running a MWE Stew module. MWE being Mystic Wood Elf, which was the character race I played. Calita gets captured and put into a big pot for stew, and the people she traveled with would come to her rescue. The people she traveled with…and half the town. Apparently, Calita was much loved by more than I would have ever expected. My favorite story was of her accidently getting obliterated by a big and powerful plot character during a pleasant conversation that was interrupted by some outside confrontation. She was thankfully brought back for the abyss, but the big and powerful plot character was scolded for it. “Now Nihil…you should know better than to obliterate everyone’s favorite MWE…”

But I digress…after that little module, and me attending less and less events and Leif and his wife leaving Plot due to the internal politics behind the game, we started to chat more and more over email, AIM, later making up new characters to RP on GaiaOnline, and over all…strengthening the bonds of our friendship. When he and his wife started to flounder in their marriage, I was the ear he chewed on as he tried to figure out what it was he wanted in the marriage, how much he loved his wife, and how to let her know how he felt. He thanked me for saving his marriage, just for simply listening and being supportive when he was able to sort out his thoughts.

For a good eight to nine years we kept in touch on a pretty regular basis. We’d complain about our jobs, make plans for me to go to Atlanta to visit them for parties and gaming weekends, or for them to come and visit me in Savannah, primarily having a free place to stay while we hang out with some friends they met through a video game. We watched movies, played video games and role playing games, he commissioned me to draw several character pictures for him in trade of computer related services, including building me a computer from the spare parts of my very first one and leftovers from his wife’s upgrades, as well as maintenance. He is my go-to guy whenever I’m having computer problems, even with living so far away from each other.

When things blew up between me and my previous boyfriend, they offered me a place to stay. I never went, because with their other roommate and numerous cats they had…their house felt too crowded. And then things started falling apart with their marriage, as well as their losing the house and both of them looking for work farther and farther away. With my move to the north, I did everything I could to remain cheerful for Leif and his wife, being supportive and saying a fresh new start in a new area will do the both of them good. They ended up separating in the end.

But Leif and I didn’t stop being friends. We stilled chatted, still RPed whenever we got the chance. It wasn’t until early last month that his spirits had gone downhill. He couldn’t stop focusing on how much he hated his job, how much he hated where he lived and how the women…just didn’t make sense to him. They either stop talking to their guy friends when they start dating, or abandon their friends and families all together when they start dating. Why would anyone want to do that?! It made no sense to either one of us. Even when I was dating my last boyfriend, Leif and I still talked on a pretty regular basis!

We are each other’s best friends!

I’m not sure, but I think it took me threatening to stop talking to Leif that helped to turn his life around a bit. No…wait…he recently told me that it was during said threat when I told him that I loved him that turned him around. Afterwards…after a lot of talking and suggestions and attempts of being supportive during his depression, he thanked me…thanked me a lot for being his friend, for talking him through it, even when I was really upset with him; for pretty much not abandoning him.

And in all honesty…that has thus far been the only time I’ve been upset with him ever in our friendship. That’s how we’ve always gotten along with each other. We have always been open with each other about every topic that’s come to mind, we understand how the other feels about a variety of subjects, what experiences brought us to how it is we react and deal with certain situations…and we’ve figured out that we have so much in common, especially in the way we think and act…that…the primary things that make us different from each other is our genders…and the fact that I’m skilled in the Arts while he’s skilled in Computers.

So…as we talked over the past month, about the changes we were making, how we dream of ways to better our lives…we reevaluated our friendship. It wasn’t entirely the first time we thought about dating, but we always came to the same conclusions that it wasn’t worth the risk. We lived too far away from each other…and we didn’t want to risk ruining our friendship. But then further thoughts and discussions came along…we’ve always been long distance friends…we weren’t looking to rush into anything with anyone else…and we trusted each other more than anyone else. Not to mention that we were a weird couple of people to begin with so…why not give a try? On Xmas Eve…after coming home from work, I made a suggestion, he asked if that’s what I wanted…it felt like we were either way…and…it became official.

People doubt it will work, but we figure the main reason most Long Distance Relationships don’t work for normal couples is because the people are so used to being around each other all the time. We’re not used to being around each other all the time…we’re used to living far away from each other, so…we figure we’ve got a better chance than most normal couples…because we’re not normal couples! XD We’re a couple of weirdoes who like to RP during our free time, who hang out by playing video games online…who enjoy watching the same shows and movies! We’ve got a lot in common with each other, not just in hobbies but in the way we think and figure out problems. We are a good match.

We’re nervous about it…don’t get me wrong…but we trust each other…we trust that we will work through the problems when they come up, and pretty much play it by ear as we figure out where we go next.

There’s no one else I’d rather be with, and no one else I want to give my love to. Happy Birthday, Leif.

Two Very Special Birthday Boys!

Today, though there isn’t any art this time around…and I apologize for missing this last couple of Sundays, as I didn’t have anything I thought worth while to show at the time…today is an extra special day! For it was the day that my boyfriend was born in the year 1972, and my nephew was born in the year 2000! HAPPY BIRTHDAY GUYS!

So, despite having to work all day, as my boyfriend is scheduled to do so, we’ll be going out for sushi come dinner time; my treat to him as it’s something we both enjoy immensely, and can never get enough of due to the lack of funds. I can’t really remember the first birthday present I ever got him, but I do remember our first Christmas together. He’s the first boyfriend I ever brought home for the holidays, and perhaps the only one that I was overly excited to introduce to my parents. I can’t say all of my past boyfriends were bad boys, but out of all of them this one is by far the sweetest and more family sociable.

He loves kids, and when my sister brought her three kids to our parents’ house for Christmas, I knew just who to sick the older two on. While he and my niece and nephew played at one end of the house, Kermit and I were hanging out at the other end. She was startled at how quiet it was, to which I put my arm around her shoulder and wished her a Merry Christmas. “Do I get to take him home with me?” She asked, to which I told her no, because I needed him down here with me.

That Christmas, my dad took him out to gift shop for me. Admittedly, there was little my boyfriend knew for sure what I wanted, and simply got me a couple of books wrapped with an envelope stating that he owed me one LARPing event.

What is LARPing? Live Action Role Playing. Yes, I used to run around in costume and beat people up with foam weapons. But finances got tight, and I’ve had to stop playing. My boyfriend knows how much I love to play make-believe, come up with storylines and pretend to be someone I’m not. So, he made up the IOU so that someday I can play again. I’ve been saving it for an event a couple of friends want to take me to up in the state north of us.

I racked my brain for nearly a month trying to figure out what to get my boyfriend for Christmas, and his best friend who knew him longer than I kept asking me for advice as well. I think I finally got through to him to just simply give the man gift cards, since there isn’t a whole lot of inexpensive things my boyfriend wants. However, I had the luck of figuring out what to get him after “I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” came onto the radio that year. Since my boyfriend started obsessing over it, as we had never heard it before then, I went out and ordered him a CD with the song on it, as well as an illustrated book that had the lyrics, and topped it all off with a stuffed hippo I saw down the street from where I worked at the time. He plays the CD every Christmas at work now, and the hippo is on a gargoyle post/shelf thing that I have on the corner step of the stairs. A part of me wishes I could get Abby’s farting hippo from NCIS, as I think he would love that for the fact that it’s a prop that coincides with our favorite character in the show.


My sister has named my nephew Scooter on her blog, so I will be calling him that here as well. I got to meet him when he was four months old, when my sister brought him to CAMP so our dad’s friends could meet him. I remember when we went to the airport to pick them up, and Kermit handed him over to me to hold for a moment, it was the most awkward moment. When it comes to babies, I can’t hold them for anything; I sign of my lack in motherly instinct. But I managed long enough for them to take a picture of us, and my sister soon took him out of my arms.

There is a picture of have of him and my other sister lying on the couch. It’s a profile of her, with him lying atop of her chest as he faces the camera. The lighting is soft and warm, but it’s still a rather dark photo. Truly beautiful in showing a maternal glow within my oldest sister. They’ve tried to replicate the photo with the children that followed, but they don’t compare to the original.

Scooter is smart, vibrant, energetic, and quick to learn. His first love was trains, soon followed by tornadoes and later by the Titanic. His brain soaks in information he reads, hears, and watches like a sponge, and he’ll pour it all back out to anyone who will simply listen. My dad bought him his first train set, which we’re in the process of getting fixed up after his younger brother got a hold of it. I even remember talking to Scooter on the phone one time, telling him about the shop my boyfriend and I work at, and how it was filled with model trains and had a layout and all sorts of things I know he’d enjoy. “Mommy! Mommy! Aunt Cere says there’s a store that’s full of trains! We have to go so we can go see the train store!” I forgot to mention about all the layouts the train club has up at the train museum…but I don’t see them visiting me anytime soon.

Here’s hoping your Birthdays are special and filled with all the joys of spending time with your friends and family.