It is peculiar that even for a misanthrope like myself, wargaming does pull me out of my hovel into the daylight. When I have been able, I have routinely attended conventions, darting between booths, picking up whatever I could find for miniatures gaming. Once, out of desperation I attended a toy soldier convention and ended up with a fine group of Thoroughbred Miniatures ACW ships.

Which is to say that gaming is ultimately a social experience. Sadly, this has too often involved board games since relatively few people collect miniatures but ultimately, I end up at a convention somewhere. Even so, I have fond memories of playing board games as when an over enthusiastic player in a 3-player game got into some strange death match with another player and left me virtually the only player on the board by game turn 3. Easy win.

At the moment, I live on the edge of nowhere so everything has changed but I look forward to a return to HMGS or any other convention. In the meantime, I continue to paint and paint and paint.

I sometimes think that with responsibilities bearing down, games are an escape. And as I make a last mad dash to the weekend, it seems as if life has become one long mission of avoiding responsibility.

But the reality is that wargames are for when you can afford the cost, cost in time, cost in energy, and whatever costs accrue for devotion to a game for a few hours. I find that when responsibility looms, when stress bears down, I head towards the mindless simplicity of a computer game or an old movie, something I can participate in without needing to do much of anything. I can play computer solitaire till the sun rises. It gives me the illusion of doing work.

But wargames are for happy times. They are never remotely like work. Which comes around again in the simplest way to the purpose of writing, to focus on wargames and to focus on miniatures, to turn away from the TV or pacing the floor or staring fixedly at the wall and pay attention to something worthwhile.

I have so far learned that photography lights would have been a very good thing, that I have more stuff packed away in boxes, and that I love my wife for her special tolerance. So things are off to a good start.