Running Into Joy

It may come as no small surprise to those of you who know me well that video games were a huge part of my life growing up.  Or, it actually may surprise you, since I've been more or less on a gaming hiatus since I moved out of my parent's house and away from our PS2.  This March, when I moved in with my boyfriend, I also moved in with (drumroll please) an Xbox One. Initially this functioned primarily as the machine on which Andy played Warzone online with his friends, but in the back of my mind hummed the memories of long sessions spent on the red floral couch of my youth, playing my way through countless RPGs of the early aughts.  Videogames were one of the few activities my polar opposite younger brother and I had in common. He played sports and ran around with his friends while I read books and cried a lot about how I didn't have many friends.  But, some of my fondest memories of growing up with a sibling are of playing Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance together, or of p

 Happy Monday, friends!  You may have noticed I've been a little MIA the past couple weeks. That's because we started our Fall 2020 semester at the university where I work.  Because of my dual roles of full-time Student Affairs professional and adjunct faculty in the English department, August is a busy time for me. I took a few weeks off the pressure of regular blog posting while welcoming our incoming Class of 2024 to the strange new world of being on campus during the COVID-19 pandemic.  In addition to these hectic work life, Andy and I finally followed through on something we've been talking about pretty much since we decided I'd move into his house in 2020: getting a dog.  My family had dogs growing up (a pup named Mandy when I was born and a sweet little Jack Russell Terrier named Ginger throughout most of my young life), but I have yet to own a dog as an adult.  My sweet cat, Artemis, was my sole responsibility for a number of years, and I loved so many aspects o