Day 9: Mapping and Planning

I returned home to map out the trip so far and look ahead.

Tomorrow, Richelle and head up to Mountain View, where I am to give a keynote at the Coursera Future of Higher Education Summit. I’m looking forward to the talk, and to meeting people. Coursera has a piece of the action, it sure does. We return Friday, and then Sunday I head out for Seattle. From there its Montana, Salt Lake City, and home on the 24th. I’ll try to keep updating my map.

Making that map connected me to other of my loves: Dungeons & Dragons. Dungeons & Dragons is one of four through lines in my life, including Motorcycles, martial arts, and comics. It shares much with the nature of this trip—both are about navigating aventure as “chance,” about quests, storytelling, and imagining life in mythic terms.

I play a weekly D&D game and lead a game that takes place every other week. My game is set in 2028, which I imagine as the tail end of Trump’s second term. It’s not fantasy at all, but a fairly dark international, noir-thriller based loosely in some ideas from William Gibson. 

Tonight’s game is straight D&D, using the old 1991 rulebook which is simple and stark, playful and fantastical.

The lack of rules begs the players to participate imaginatively. My character is a 13-year-old grubby East Ender with a straight razor. Playing him lets me do a Cockney accent and say “Cor Blimey” at every turn of fortune’s wheel. 

I play with a friend who is actually from London. She plays “Darien,” the handsome and dense second son of a noble family, and she is gracious enough neither to take offense at or correct my rendition of Cockney. I think I once even heard her chuckle.

But maybe not.

The visit to LA has gone quickly. There is much I would still like to see, particularly the Museum of Narrative Art, which I may try to wedge in on Saturday. It’s tempting to push back the trip, but my visits are a Jenga tower not to be tampered with.

I will report next from Mountain view.

Cor Blimey!