"Just let go," he said. "Let go. I'm right here."

Okay then, letting go now. Seeing where I land.

I'm in the process of reading Babylon's Ashes, book six of the Expanse series. In it someone important, one of the main characters, dies. Now, part of me is thinking, ugh, I don't want to give away any of the plot, but really, come on, of COURSE someone dies, a billion people died in the previous few books. That, and the George R.R. Martin effect: every author has to kill off a main character these days.

After the character dies, different parts of the solar system (yes, read that correctly, the Expanse series is a space opera after all) react in different ways. The side that liked the deceased mourn the loss. The friends of the deceased mourn the death. The side that was against the deceased celebrated the death.

Celebrated.

Party and joy at the death of a person trying to make the human-known (fictional, of course) universe a better place.

Okay, so, for as long as I've been aware of these boxed cards of questions (I'd guess back in 2002 when they were first created by TableTopics as a plastic cube), I've wanted a set. Aside from the idea of "whoo hoo infinite writing prompts!" having a number of conversation starters available would be fantastic, as I often struggle with small talk in unfamiliar crowds.

Anyway, excited about them.

So, when in Great Britain last year or the year before, I picked up this set of cards. Excitedly, I recently opened the box to use a card as a writing prompt.

And came up with this card.

What is your most embarrassing moment?

I haven't managed to move beyond that card, because, well, here's the thing.

I spent an hour or so today chatting with a younger developer. He was pondering going back to school, and wanted some input, some guidance. I'm unsure I helped him out, but I did give solicited advice, and that's usually fun to do when you like helping people.

Our conversation did what most "I don't know what I want to do with my life" conversations do: it meandered. It wandered from motivations ("I want to be happy." "I want to have fun." "I want to do something meaningful."), to entertainments (stories about various adventures), and various places in between.