It’s been quite a while since I’ve written a guest post here, but recent events have compelled me to break out a keyboard and a clean sheet of WordPad and share a tale or two with you guys. See I am currently on vacation and my life is so thrilling that I have chosen to spend my money and my precious time away from work with Alas and her husband. Like actually all up in their grill, staying at their house and not in a hotel. A whole week of Alas, live and in-person. Jealous yet? You totally should be. The (real) world of Alas is so uber exciting, you guys have no idea. For one thing, I totally got to see the dentist office she went to as a child. Okay, I am not sure I actually saw it, but she pointed out the window into the rain and the darkness at one of the buildings flashing by and told me it was her childhood dentist office. This was right after she had just pointed out a street she used to drive down to reach the train station and right before I got to see where she worked a temp job for 2 days. I could hardly contain myself.

I apologize for not having been prepared enough to take pictures of these super exciting landmarks so that I could share them with you guys. I did take a camera on the trip with me, but darn the luck I kept “forgetting” to take it with me the several times I got carted around town to see the people and places that made Alas the jerk she is today. She really is a jerk, you know. Don’t get me wrong, I consider myself very lucky to be one of the few people who has actually managed to worm my way into her inner circle of trust and have a tiny foothold in her little blackened heart. But don’t expect me to tell you about how sweet and thoughtful and funny and caring she really is on the inside, because that’s not going to happen. It doesn’t even matter that those things are true. Her policy is “I’m a jerk” and when you one day realize you’ve made it into her circle, you sign her standard “I will maintain that Alas is a jerk” contract, the act of which completely makes her a jerk anyway so it instantly becomes easy to adhere to.

I will, however, tell you (because it’s also in the contract that I must) that her husband, At, is the greatest and cutest thing ever in the world. Not to mention an amazing cook and a helluva bartender. He is the most non-jerkish person I’ve ever met which is how I suppose he ended up with Alas to begin with. Opposites attracting and all that jazz. He’s the kind of guy who won’t fix himself a cup of coffee without bringing you one or who jumps up immediately when he hears ice clinking in your glass to run and fix you another whiskey and Pepsi, even though you’ve already sucked down 3 within the hour. Then several more whiskey and Pepsi’s later, when he happens to be accidentally standing near you while you are puking, he will politely pretend he never noticed. The dude is awesome, for realz.

My trip out here wasn’t about sight-seeing or being touristy at all. That’s partially because I’ve visited this city several times in my past before I even knew Alas, so I’ve already seen most of the things people want to see here. The other part of the reason is because who really wants to be seen out in public with the likes of Alas? Seriously. I don’t know if you guys actually understand the depth of her crazy. I mean, she does things like insist that we have brunch on Labor Day instead of just breakfast. Then decides we should eat off of her fine china for brunch so we can be all fancy for no reason whatsoever. And then starts rambling on about how if we’re going to be eating such a fancy brunch off of such fine china, we should totally all be wearing top hats and monocles. That’s normal, right? I was starting to get concerned that she wasn’t going to let anyone eat until we figured out how to fashion ourselves some top hats and monocles out of common household items. Although, to be honest, I would have happily worn a top hat and monocle just for the priviledge of getting to nom down the fantastic homemade croissants she spent 12 hours making on Sunday. I mean, this chick may be mostly mean and completely weird, but I’ve never seen or tasted a more perfect croissant. Now I know why the dark side has cookies, because apparently evil people can bake their asses off.

Speaking of cookies, she did also bake some amazing chocolate and mint cookies for me. Enough for me to take some back home with me even. But before any of you start to think that’s a sign of her being nice, you should be aware that she has owed me these cookies for over a year now and had never delivered. She even claims that she tried to mail me cookies before but after a week or so the post office returned them to her. Mmmhmm, likely story. It took me being here 4 days and asking about cookies every day before she finally decided to get off her lazy ass and make them. Then when they were done and ready to be devoured, she waited until I had stuffed my mouth full before telling me she had spit in the batter. Which I don’t doubt a bit. I did manage to get a little bit of revenge on her though because I helped her finish an art/photo project she had been working on and told her repeatedly how awesome it turned out and how much I loved it, even though it wasn’t true. Now she’s got that shit hanging in her kitchen. Lol.

Let’s see, what else can I tell you about spending face time with Alas? She drinks a lot of wine, but that should be fairly obvious already to anyone who has heard her speak in Vent or tried to follow a conversation in guild chat. Or, let’s be honest, even tried to understand some of her ramblings here. She apparently is physically cold 97% of the time, but again, anyone who is familiar with her should have already guessed that as I’m sure it’s simply a side-effect of having a tiny, little blackened heart. Also, I’m convinced she is a liar because several weeks before I arrived she randomly accused me one day of being short and when I argued back to her that I was actually not short and told her I was 5′ 7″, she said she was 5′ 7″ too. Then when I landed and met her and At at the airport, she not only has a 1/2 inch or so on me, she wore a bit of a heel just so she could look down on me. She is seriously such an Alashole.

But I suppose I should probably say a positive thing or two now since I was so graciously allowed to interrupt their lives and invade their private spaces for a week. (Feel free to interpret that last sentence any way you desire).  So let’s see… what are some nice things I can say about Alas? She doesn’t scare me when she drives, which makes her like the 3rd person ever in my life who doesn’t scare me when they drive. So that’s cool. I got to spend time with her sister and her two adorable nephews on a couple of different occasions, which was nice because it meant I had someone normal to speak with other than At. She didn’t make me sleep on the floor or a couch during my visit. In fact, I had the downstairs bedroom and bathroom all to myself which was awesome. Of course, I’m still not convinced that finding a spider in the bathtub on the morning after my arrival was an accident because spiders are my biggest fear in life and I can totally see her planting one just to make me scream like a baby. Which I didn’t do because I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.

My vacation was intended to help me reset some things in my life. I’ve had an extremely stressful summer with family drama and being single, I have no one at home to help me with my stress. Enter Alas and the reason I have chosen to escape into her world for a week. I’m not trying to imply that she cares or is helpful (she totally does and is, but don’t tell her I said so), but she does completely distract me with all of her grumpiness and derpiness and flailing about. I’ve had a few moments here of being lost inside my head, but I expected that to be part of the process of trying to just let the past couple of months go and try and get back to being me. I’m grateful to these two idiots for allowing me to use them to do so. I love them even more now than I already did.

In conclusion, Alas fails irl and in-game.

(she told me that had to be my closing line… true story)