Mako's Message: Back to school season has been nuts. We do more business now then we do during the Christmas season. I also don't handle heat well. With my son back in school and temperatures starting to drop, I hope my productivity will increase. Fingers crossed.
And right now I'm too tired to write anything else.
Enjoy.
I haven't been in a writing mood lately, so I guess now I have to play catch up again.
I don't know why. Just haven't been...itching to get stuff out of my head the way I usually am. I guess that's a good thing. But then nothing has really happened worth writing about. Everything has been pretty tame since the invasion. Which, again, I guess is a good thing.
It's left me pretty bored though.
Even with John and Teddy there, things have fallen back into a routine at The Clubhouse. Dave jogs to my house, then we meet up with Angela, then Katie, then to The Clubhouse. I give the three of them some things to work on, and I work on my own things, we work out, then some sparring practice. Dave is pretty good on his own by this point though. He almost doesn't need me to help him anymore. Only when he starts working on something new do I have to help him with his form. Otherwise I've already given him plenty to work on and he just does it without me telling him to.
He's started working on the rings a lot surprisingly. I put those in for me, but he uses them more. Probably because he ends up getting to them first. He's also never gotten really comfortable with aerial moves, so I end up just working on my acrobatics while he's on them.
I can't really blame him though. It's not like he's ever had to jump to hit someone in the face. He also doesn't have to put all his body weight into it to knock people down.
Kinda makes me wonder how he'd fare in a fight against me if he was going 100%. I think the only time he ever hit me full power was that time he kicked me in the face, and the only reason that it was full power is because that was back when Dave thought he had no chance of actually hitting me. Now I know he always holds back a little. It's kind of annoying. I mean, how am I supposed to get better if he's not pushing me as hard as he can?
Okay, I hold back on him all the time, but that's because if I didn't hold back I'd kill him.
Angela and Katie don't have that problem though. They beat the crap out of each other on a daily basis. They just seem to have come to a mutual agreement to not hit each other in the face. I don't blame them though. Black eyes and split lips are a bitch to hide.
Sometimes one of them will slip though, and then it's anything goes.
Dave gave me shit the first couple of times I stopped what I was doing to watch, but he stopped when he started doing it too.
I took them both out to lunch after training the first time that happened and it didn't devolve into hair pulling.
Angela kept asking if this meant I was going to let her make a costume and go out with us. I just looked at her and said, "You're lucky if you beat Katie, and I wouldn't trust Katie to win in a fight against more than one person."
Katie, for some reason, seemed pleased by that. Not sure why, but I definitely caught her smirking when I said that.
Angela pouted for the rest of lunch.
Maybe I should have Dave hand them both their asses at the same time. Then they might get it into their heads that they shouldn't be on the streets.
Actually, maybe I should have Dave, Angela, and Katie spar against me at the same time... That'd show Angela and Katie what they should be striving for, and adding Angela and Katie to my spars might be just what I need to keep me on my toes.
I will definitely have to try that next time.
Anyway, we turned one of the upstairs rooms into a playroom for Teddy. It's not like we have the other two rooms rented yet so it's not exactly a loss.
Teddy is starting to get big though. He must have been born pretty close to when we got him, because back then I could pick him up pretty easily. Now... not so much. I mean, I can still pick him up, it's just... It's not like picking up a stuffed animal anymore. I wouldn't do it for fun and cuddles.
He's still adorable though. He's super fluffy and he LOVES to play. He's starting to put on some muscle though, so he's not as cuddly as he used to be. And if he gets excited he can bowl me over if I'm not ready for him.
I'm as excited as I am scared to see how big he's going to be when he's an adult.
John is having a little trouble finding a new place. Mostly he doesn't know if he wants to reopen his bar or if he should just take this as sign that he should retire since, "The Lord has plans for us all."
He is retiring as field member of Justice Forever though.
He hasn't told anybody but me and Dave yet though, since we haven't had an official meeting since the old place burned. He's still going to run the group and organize volunteer work, but he's going to stop going on patrols and start sitting out our raids. Unless we really need him of course. But right now he says he's "just too old to be getting into brawls." and that "the Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."
Dave said he thought John was still a tough as nails badass and I agreed.
He said, "You're too young to understand. I'm probably still in better shape then most people, but I can tell I'm slower than I used to be. Even light tussles have me feeling it for days. If The Guardian hadn't been there that night I'd be dead right now."
Dave suddenly went silent for a minute then said, "I know what you mean. If this is what you think is best then I'm okay with it."
I don't know what Dave was talking about. Sure, he's had a few moments where if I hadn't been there he'd have died. So have I. But it never stopped us. If anything, it just made us train harder. But if Dave was going to support him I wasn't going to argue with him any more.
I mean, it's not like I want him to die. I just think it'd be a shame for him to quit when he's still so good at this.
I don't even know why I feel like this is worth mentioning, since it only happened because I was bored out of my skull. But the other day I was at Atomic comics with Todd, and I'd gotten there a little early and Todd had gotten there REALLY early so Marty wasn't there either and Todd had already finished reading all his comics.
So, I didn't want to start reading my comics without Dave, since we read most of the same ones, so I decided to just wait and get something to drink. Well, Dave texted me and Todd, and he probably texted Marty too but whatever, to say that things were nuts at work and he'd be late.
I started texting Angela, but she was doing something with her family so she wasn't exactly responsive. I even sent Dillion a text but he didn't respond at all. Marty was late too so about a half hour after we were all supposed to meet it was still just me and Todd and Todd had his face in a Pokemon game and I was seriously starting to reconsider waiting on Dave to read my comics.
Then Todd suddenly says, "Son of a bitch! Why can I never beat this guy the first time? Now I have to ride the stupid ferris wheel again."
So I said, "Okay, what the fuck are you doing?" and got up went around to sit next to him.
And he said, "Oh, uh, well, in this game, I have to beat this guy here in a pokemon battle. Before we battle though, I have to talk to him while we ride on a ferris wheel."
And I said, "Okay, weird, but whatever. What's the problem?"
"I don't know! I thought I was ready for him this time but he still beat me, so now I have to go through the whole conversation again."
"Well, maybe I'll see something you're not."
And he looked at me like I was an idiot and said, "Do you know anything about Pokemon?"
And I said, "No but that's why I might be able to help you. I'll see something you're overlooking."
And he said, "Uh...huh... Okay. Whatever. Couldn't hurt."
So I sat over and started watching him play and I said, "Okay, tell me what you're doing and why you're doing it. Actually, tell me why everything that's happening is happen."
So he started telling me about this pokemon liberation group while he was walking, and then about the items he was buying, and which pokemon he was putting in his party, and about move powers and weaknesses and abilities while he was leveling his pokemon up for round two. It was a LOT to take in, but by the time he went back to fight the guy again I was starting to get the hang of it.
He lost again, and then looked at me and said, "Well? Got any suggestions?"
I just shrugged and said, "Two, maybe. But one isn't really a suggestion and the other is so obvious you must have a reason for not doing it."
So he said, "Well what are they?"
"Well, you could level up your guys up more, and just over power him." and he just nodded and rolled his eyes like, "no duh." Then I said, "Or you could get new pokemon."
And he blinked at me and said, "What?"
So I said, "Well, three of your guys got obliterated by one of his. If you just go find something that'll type trump that one, then you don't need to spend so much time leveling up your current team."
He said, "Well, yeah, I could, but I'd have to spend more time leveling that one since it'd-" then stopped and just seemed to stare off into space for a minute, before diving back into the game muttering to himself. About five minutes later he said, "Okay, I'm gonna challenge him again, wish me luck."
So I watched him, and he'd put one of the pokemon he'd switched out before back in his party, and I guess that made all the difference, somehow, because he won pretty clearly. It still came down to their last pokemon, but when he sent his last out, his opponent was hanging on by a thread. When he went down Todd yelled, "For the Queen!" Then said "Yell yeah." and fist bumped me.
That's when Marty said, "This is why you're never going to get laid." Todd started to say something but Marty cut him off with, "That was over six months ago and she was drunk. You can't keep claiming it."
Then Dave said, "Can't keep claiming what? Sorry I'm late. New guy couldn't handle the pressure and bailed on us."
And from there they talked about Todd's non-existent love life and Marty kept trying to give him advice on how to get with girls. Dave offered some advice as well, but his advice was more "don't do anything Marty tells you," than actual advice. Though, I suppose it is good advice in it's own way.
I didn't have anything to add to that conversation. I'm hardly a good example of what girls want and I can't get the guy I want so I ended up inadvertently defending Todd.
And that was probably the most interesting thing to happen lately.
Which is really, really, REALLY fucking sad.
