Well, I can confirm that the June freakout was definitely a hypomanic episode and not just how I get camping (I already knew that, but it is quite clear after this late week). Also I'm so tired. Four days at the lake is a lot.
So Sunday morning I got up early to go running. Did my 4 miles (a little above a 10 minute pace) and then went home to rest and shower. Cleaned house, did some other administrative things and then packed for camping (which was really easy). Got picked up a little before 2 and then we went shopping before taking the east path to Devil's Lake, though Google did some really weird routing. Set up camp (right across from where we camped last year), cooked, played games and chat. It was nice. As people went to bed around 10:30 I went for a walk to try to find a good view of the northern horizon for the possible light show. The stars were nice but Lady A didn't show her face. Went to sleep around midnight I think. Woke up cold in the middle of the night so I actually took out my sleeping bag.
Woke up a couple of other times, but otherwise mostly slept until like 7, which is good for camping. Took a walk after warming up. We had a pretty late breakfast (I don't know how people can sleep in so late camping, I guess being in the trees really helped). Went over to the lake and hiked/climbed a bit. Ate lunch together and then split into groups for different activities. My group climbed a bit more before doing the fastest lake loop I've ever done (going up the east bluff too instead of taking the tracks). Played cards by the lake and swam for a bit. It was kind of a cold day so while I could have swam much longer, no one else was up for it. We went back to camp, ate dinner, played more cards (I got pretty good at this one game before failing epically the third match) and retired after 11. I fell asleep pretty fast and other than waking up once at like 6 slept till my alarm at 7.
After about 10 minutes I got up, changed and started packing up inside my tent. My external battery died in the night and I forgot to turn on airplane mode so my phone was only like 45% charged. Went for a little walk and packed up some more. Ate breakfast and broke camp. We left around 11/11:30. Got back to Madison, took a shower and rested for a bit and then started prepping for DnD. I found a one shot that had pretty good reviews, started reading up on the rules for 5e which are different than 3.5/pathfinder and 4e and got to work. My main goal was to introduce our new people to the basic ideas behind character creation and mechanics so I was trying to keep other things simple. I found some things to use as figures (not the figurines I was looking for), my missing mission journal (I didn't actually write directly about the bad night in it, though it's still a very depressing journal), my demon mask (there was an imp character and yes I did a voice as well), and my lonely planet book (for my trip in October). I went to our apartment business center to print character sheets and a grid but the printer was out of paper so I did a really quick trip to my office instead. I also did the rest of my laundry and vacuumed the living room.
Our first 30 minutes were spent explaining the character sheet and designing characters. Which is pretty good, since we didn't have a big focus on backgrounds for this. That will be more important as we set up an actual campaign.
So the party was extremely good at breaking the game. They figured out one of the twists before we even started the adventure. They were also (accidentally) doing things to find out the different traps before I could even spring them. The monsters not rolling great also helped (I need to get an initiative tracker. Or mini white board). But it was really fun and we had some great moments like completely wrecking a giant frog and some clever ways of getting around various things. For time's sake I skipped some of the less necessary rooms (making a map would've been helpful...though them doing the dungeon out of order made it less of a problem) and the final boss (if someone had managed to spring the trap then I still would've done that fight but they managed to accidentally find it).
But yeah it was really fun and we're discussing ways to keep this casual and easy for people to drop in and out. Probably going to run an adventurers' guild type campaign. That will also allow for multiple DMs which will make it easier for myself as well. I'll send a write up to the group and see how the people who couldn't make it tonight feel about that.
Anyway, tomorrow I have a lot of work, along with like 4 different appointments/meetings. I need to fold laundry too (will probably toss it on the floor for tonight) and also finish my pre-check up paper work before COB Friday. It's a really busy two days for me. Like actual 8-6 days. That is the downside of taking a 4 day weekend.
Feeling pretty good, but tired. I like being normal. We'll see when the depression comes back.
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