The Big Four-Oh

Not mine, you understand... but that is a mere two years hence. No, this weekend, my sister turned forty. I had decided not to attend, since the plans for the day were a little vague. It was described as an 'open house' for the weekend, which invariably turns into one of those awkward situations were the various factions of family and friends form into their usual groupings, and there aren't enough chairs to go around. I'm told the food selection (Waitrose, apparently) was excellent, but that the in-laws rather overstayed their welcome. This is not unusual.

But... My sister, forty?

It sounds impossible, because only last week we were in high school, and middle school the week before that. All these memories I have of growing up with my sister, seeing her go off to university, going to work, attending her wedding, visiting her in two different homes, the birth of her daughter - my niece - and still it hasn't quite sunk in that time really has been marching on, all these years.

It's a sobering thought, and yet still completely unreal.

The most aggravating part is that I still find myself spending my days virtually idle, expecting my life to fall into place sooner or later. All these 'projects' of mine that are still occupying space in my head rather than being worked on. I'll sit here, typing away into my blog, but can't focus on any of the stories I want/need to write, some of which might actually be worth a damn.

I mean, who knows, right?

Occasionally, I'll catch myself thinking "well, at least my sister has a family..." which is a comforting thought, though I can never quite pin down why. It's hardly an excuse for me to rest on my laurels and not accomplish anything, and the fact that my niece is now approaching her third birthday and I'm still single (and, for the most part, not too bothered about that for a whole host of reasons, but very bothered about of for many more reasons)... Part of me suspects I've missed all the opportunities I'm going to get, while most of me realises that's just the self-fulfilling prophesy of my own laziness and reluctance to look out for opportunities or to even try because it's all so very complicated. The really daft thing is that it's not as if I've ever been terribly hurt... just... disappointed.

Oh, and still being out of work doesn't help.

It'd be nice to get a few things out of the way... Sort out the art for my mother's commissioned birthday/Christmas present for this year; sort out all that fucking t-shirt printing, one way or another; sort out some of the stories that are bouncing around uselessly in my head.

I'm probably repeating myself, but the most annoying part of the 'not-writing' issue is that I keep having all these cool ideas just before I go to sleep, and then forget them before I even find some paper to write them down on. Naturally, I can't remember them the next morning, either.

Draining my attention, I played a bit more of both Pandora's Tower and Xenoblade today. The former is impressing me with its interesting play mechanics, even while it frustrates me with its camera angles. The latter... is still fun, but I'm finding it difficult to motivate myself to play very far, because I know I'm only ever half an hour or so from something completely epic, frequently involving a huge battle. The intermittently unresponsive controls are very frustrating, but I seem to be past the huge level spike in enemies, and the ones I'm encountering now are pretty easy to take down... And I've come so far from those first Bunnits, Skeeters and Vangs...