Patron Saint of Falling Over Things

I'm feeling very frazzled, not sleeping well, worried about things at work.
When I'm stressed, I find list-making to be very calming, so I'm working hard on my PB Wiki. I've been listing planets and systems that are involved in my Star Trek RPG, and now I'm working on people.

It's very interesting to work up a database of Starfleet personnel. Do I list them by name, rank or race? (Answer: name, and race, but not rank, because that may change.) And what naming system? First name, then surname? Surname then first name? (Answer: the first name that you say, regardless of whether it's the first name or the surname.) And we will speak not of the race that I created who change their names from time to time, depending on life cycle and profession. Why do I do this to myself? (Answer: I am a glutton for punishment.)

Wiki uses a system where any word surrounded by square brackets becomes a link to a page of that name. So anytime I use the words [Jean-Luc Picard], a link will be formed that connects to my Jean-Luc Picard page. You have to spell consistently, which can be a problem for me, as my spelling is rather fluid.

I find it easiest to type up a block of text, then go through and put the square brackets around all the important words. If they connect to a page with information on it, the square brackets disappear and the word turns blue, just like on Wikipedia. It's really incredibly satisfying.

PB Wiki is the place where you can sign up for a Wiki of your own. It's free, which is cheaper than therapy.

A strange thing happened two nights ago. I was half asleep, it was close to dawn, and I felt Ajax walk across the bed and settle down on my ankles. I knew it was him, I recognised his tiny, dainty footsteps. This is all very strange because firstly, my bedroom door is always closed to keep the cats out, and secondly because Ajax has been dead since early December. It was probably a dream, or one of those sensory echoes that the mind generates as part of the grieving process. Whatever, it was nice, peaceful.

I couldn't tell you at the time, lilacsigil, because it all sounded so silly when I was actually saying it, but I patted the air where he was lying. You know, just in case it was him.

PB Wiki is a way to make your own wiki, which is basically an easy to use, cross-referencing online database. I found it in minisinoo's friendslist, in a post made by goblintastic, whose post caught my eye because it mentioned that it was good for world building. I have mountains of handwritten notes, and hundreds of files that hold my Star Trek RPG together, and I'm using my PB Wiki to correlate everything. I tend to write lots of backstory for all my NPCs, and now I'll be able to cross-reference details, I won't have to flip through bound notes, or search files, or devise complicated index tab systems that I forget about five minutes later. You can set your wiki to be private, or public (I've left mine private), you can download zipped back-ups (so I won't lose my data when the apocalypse comes), and it really is easy to use. I'm not all that computer savvy, and it's easier than HTML. And it really satisfies the OCD, list-making part of my personality, because of all the sorting and arranging that I get to do while inputting the data. I'm a bit frightened of the amount of data that has accumulated over the last twelve years. That's a whole lot of stuff.