Yesterday and today, in RPG format

RANDOM ENCOUNTER!
ILL FORTUNE appears!
DAVE used Positive Outlook!
DAVE’s attack fizzles.
ILL FORTUNE attacks DAVE with Common Cold!
Hits! DAVE takes 72 damage.
DAVE rests. Common Cold removed!
ILL FORTUNE used Chronic Flareup!
It’s super effective! DAVE takes 932 damage.
Status ailment: Returning Chronic Episode of Lower Back Pain!
DAVE is knocked out!
ILL FORTUNE flees. No XP or GP awarded.

Warp back to town? y/n
Y
You are at the inn. Rest for the night? y/n
N
DAVE used item: 1x Last Leftover of Codeine Prescription!
Nothing happens.
DAVE: "Rats!"
Rest for the night? y/n
Y
The party has restored HP! However, DAVE has not cleared status ailments!
DAVE awakens in pain. 297 HP depleted. No AP replenished.
DAVE: "Ouch! This sucks!"
Where to?

O Warp to the Pub
O Warp to the Marketplace
X Warp to the Dungeon of Employment

You are at the workplace!
DAVE used item: 1x Energy Drink!
1x Daily Grind!
The day passes quickly. 80 GP awarded. Chronic Episode of Lower Back Pain hinders progress! 12 XP awarded. 362 HP depleted.

Warp to home? y/n
Y
DAVE is still in unremitting pain! 488 HP depleted.
DAVE wants to use Alchemy!
Use which Items?
- 1x Brandy
- 1x Honey
- 1x Tea
DAVE created item: 1x Hot Toddy! Alchemy skill increased!
DAVE used item: 1x Hot Toddy!
Status ailments cured! Chronic Episode of Lower Back Pain removed!
DAVE gained status ailment: A Little Tipsy
DAVE gained status ailment: Kind of Sweaty
DAVE: “Say, if it means I can walk, I’ll drink to that!”
Rest for the night? y/n
N
DAVE used item: 1x Next Episode of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia!”
DAVE: “Now we’re talking! Let’s go!”
DAVE used item: 3x Leftovers! All HP restored!
Rest for the night? y/n
Y

Details, Details

NOTE: Events have been hyperbolized for effect.

Me: “Good morning!”
Them: “Hi. I’m looking for a patient?”
Me: [Attempts to ask the patient’s name.]
Them: [Without stopping] “They came in like two days ago, through the emergency room? They thought they just had a head wound, but it turns out they have a renoberation of the doohickey, and the injury got all infected and stuff so they had to amputate the head and they say...”
Me: [Tuning them out.]
Them: “...that they’re gonna be fine, but what they really wanted to look out for was the cottonmouth and the hairy nipples, which is a weird development for the particular gender of the patient, a tidbit of information which I’m not going to reveal at this point in the conversation...”
Me: [Thinking about something else.]
Them: “...and anyway, they had like three MRIs done at the same time: one of the jaw, one of the left big toe, and one of the neighbor’s dog because apparently that was like an inciting factor in the whole thing, and because of that I’m told the patient has the dog as a roommate, and the room’s supposed to be on either the second floor, the fifth floor, or the third and fourth simultaneously...”
Me: [Mentally orbiting Neptune.]
Them: “...so it’s one of them, and I’m not sure what floor you keep that kind of patient or whatever. Is there like a hairy nipple floor? An entire floor where you keep people with hairy nipples? Anyway, I’m looking for this patient.”
Me: “You done?”
Them: “I guess. Why?”
Me: “The massive amounts of information you’ve given me offers absolutely no indication of where the patient might be. You know what you could lead with that is the easiest possible unit of information? The sound bite that could maximize my usefulness to you, and minimize the length of this already egregiously long conversation?”
Them: “What’s that?”
Me: “The patient’s goddamn name.”
Them: “Oh. I don’t know it.”
Me: [Violently murders the visitor.]
Them: [In the throes of death.] “I think the first name starts with a consonant... does that help?”

A Commentary on the Brain

I like to think I am generally realistic about my overall appeal. A guy like me could do way worse for himself than to step back like I do, take a good long look in the mirror like I've done, and evaluate like I like to do.

I am not a handsome man.

When I hear women talk about men they find attractive and alluring, the features of note are culled from a very narrow range. This one's tall, that one's got a great bod, this other has dreamy eyes. Even a sexy voice can take a fellow of less-than-stellar looks into the realm of male deliciousness.

I have none of these features.

I'm not even six feet tall, which seems to be a good standard baseline for one's height having any bearing on his physical attractiveness. I'm overweight; neither slim nor toned nor muscular enough to have that genuine traditional attractiveness that your average movie star has, nor roly-poly enough to be "cute". It's really this awkward state of lead-buttedness that I have, one where I can't play for either team. I'm not an overwhelming fatso, but while there's muscle under there, you'd never know it. I don't have dreamy eyes; they're perpetually just a little bit bloodshot, set a little too low in my head and have too many prematurely aged lines under them for that. I don't have a cute smile. I don't have the nice strong chin I used to, because I haven't got that nice fat-free jawline I had back in high school. My head is enormous and my ears are tiny. I have my father's nose and that is no complement at all to my father. I don't have sexy, luxuriant hair because the hair I DO have is far too wiry; the rest has surrendered to the slow recession of the hairline and thinning at the crown. I don't even have a sexy voice. It tends toward rasp and excessive variability in pitch according to the whims of my allergies from one day to the next, and I assure you it is an unpleasant thing to listen to me narrate. There is truly no factor about my physical presence that is in any way remarkable.

That's why you're missing out on my mind.

I'm probably one of the smarter people you know. I haven't read all your favorite books or seen all your favorite movies, I know; but I know all about storytelling and can still talk with you in an animated and informed way about the things you like. I know how to listen to you. I know how to speak to you rather than at you. I can convince you on Monday that I am absentminded and inattentive for the sole purpose of seeing you light up with delight on Tuesday with some clever remark or welcome gesture which acts upon what I learned about you. I can tell you things about yourself that you didn't know but probably should. I can see into the heart of a problem you have and tell you a good way of solving it that you hadn't thought of before. I can entertain you. I can make you laugh. I can make you think. I can make you see my side, and I can make myself see yours. I can disagree with you and still hold you in a place of respect. I know how to impress you with wealthy repositories of knowledge on a vast swath of subjects and still be able to let you teach me something I didn't know. I can warn you of danger. I can outfox someone who's hurting you. I can introduce you to people you'd like. I can listen to you so intently, extrapolating and deducing from the little things you say to find out what you're preoccupied with so that I can be of greater assistance to you. I can tell if you're a good person to be friends with; and after a few conversations, if we're still talking, you're already in.

I am smart enough be an agent of good in your life.

I don't look like much, though.

I'm smart enough to know that that's why you won't talk to me.

And no amount of well-wishes, of knowing what's troubling you and knowing how to fix it, or of thinking I could be really, really good to you will change the fact that my overly-lined, bloodshot eyes just aren't dreamy enough for you.

Things I'd like to accomplish as an artist, #4

Create a character with a name as distinctive and "household" as those in Charles Dickens' work.

Things I'd like to accomplish as an artist, #3

To write an experience that nobody's actually had but everyone completely gets.

Things I'd like to accomplish as an artist, #2

To create characters, both heroic AND villainous, who readers will love and defend; but these will be characters who the audience will, in equal measure, become angry with, pity, question, and challenge. To characterize these fictional personalities as if they were the reader's friends who have made bad decisions or ignorant mistakes which readers are invested emotionally in seeing righted and rectified, and for which the characters can be forgiven and redeemed.

Things I'd like to accomplish as an artist, #1

To write an event into the lives of my characters that is horrifying, heartbreaking, terrible and tragic, yet so full of human beauty and power that there was no choice but to visit this awe-inspiring misery upon them; therefore, to affirm and sanctify the beauty of the human soul despite all forces, both earthly and evil, which tarnish it.