It has been often remarked around the office, and my little neck of academia, that no Civil War scholar knows or cares less about the Civil War than I do. (This whole post will disappear before I hit the job market...) Now, I've read fairly widely in the war's academic literature, but there's a grain of truth to it. I can't name the corps commanders at Gettysburg--unlike my other ACW scholars-in-training--and I can't imagine getting to the point where I can. I mean, who cares, right? There are a zillion books on Gettysburg out there, and they all have orders of battle. And if I want to do something scholarly about Gettysburg--I'd have to be crazier than I already am, since there are all these people out there who have the background knowledge.
So, I stick to the byways of the war. The Trans-Mississippi's Camden Expedition, military occupations, etc. Places where I'm just about the only one studying the area, and nobody has much background knowledge. It's a clear field. It doesn't matter that I never read a serious book on the Civil War until my early twenties, and never considered making it my job until my late twenties. And I hope to move on to another war (Korea? Haiti?) after my PhD is in hand.
So, I can't do "normal" Civil War stuff.
In much the same way, I can't really do "normal" game stuff. I'm willing to bet that no "serious gamer" (which some people still consider me, oddly) plays games less often than I do. I've played--against other people--maybe three games this calendar year. I may play no f-t-f games at all this summer, and who knows what the fall will bring. My friends aren't too enthusiastic--and the three who were relatively most enthusiastic are moving away. I'm still oh-for-life on getting a girlfriend, so that's another avenue closed off. There actually is a little knot of serious grad student gamers in town, but the one person who can put me in touch with them (none are on BGG) has thus far declined to do so for reasons that are kind of mysterious but I'm informed are also perfectly normal under the particular circumstances. (EDITED to remove some frustration from one clause there.)
(And I'd just like to add my voice to the chorus of people bemoaning the demise of Amun-Re on SBW.)
So I don't see a lot of regular gaming happening. But, then, I've never gamed as much as many others do. There are people out there who have played games, fifty, seventy, a hundred times! I've played Mah Jongg and Zooloretto that much on my iPod, but that doesn't count. There aren't many games I've played ten times over the course of my life, never mind in the short period that Dominion's been out. And this goes back to my time in Austin, where I'd play games three or four nights a week...and there still wouldn't be that much time to play just one game over and over.
So I need to stay in the hobby. The megacollection idea went bad, real bad, and has been taken out back and shot. (I do have a few games coming in, but they've been seriously vetted and considered, and usually are games I've played, enjoyed, but not owned, like Fabrik der Träume.)
I basically have to make a virtue of necessity and somehow embrace the solo gamer concept, and make a point of connecting with the outside world about it--via this blog. On those rare occasions where I play against other people, that'll make an appearance, but it'll mostly be about wrenching enjoyment out of the hobby while playing alone.
It'll also have other content, mostly about research I'll be doing across the country this coming year. I'm still reading books, so if something comes up there worth mentioning, it'll be mentioned. (There's a good graphic novel out there about military occupations; I may give it a review.) But, mostly, this will become how I'm a Big Time Gamer again, despite playing six f-t-f games a year. We'll see how this works.
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