It's ten pm and I am so weary that even my marrow is lazy. Instead of doing anything productive, instead of creating things of beauty, I am busy killing in WOW. I am a level 54 Blood Elf. My electronic alter ego looks like a dissafected, yet gorgeous, teenage girl, complete with the fists on the hips in attitude of defiance. The laugh of said creature sounds like she already smokes a pack of cigarettes each day behind her Blood Elf parents' backs. Perhaps, though, nicotine and the inhalation of smoke into the lungs is healthy for Blood Elves and raw organic vegetables makes their insides rot.

I enjoy killing things with my moon-bright sword. I like being in another world where there are dragons, goblins and other fantastical things. Ever since I started playing WOW, I've become a nicer person. I never kicked my dog or beat my children, but rage would bubble like a pit of Black Fathom Deep Dungeon lava inside my chest. I exercised. I meditated.  I created.  The bubbling hiss of hormonal angst was roiling in me. WOW, killing animated creatures, is a substitute for slaying those things that irk me, namely my children at times or the sheer drudgeries of keeping a family of four afloat.

I started playing WOW at the behest of my son and husband, who have been playing it for years in their spare time. They play other games, but with all my work and creative endeavors, I only allow myself one game. It is better than the passive act of watching movies. Only the best of movies interact with the viewer's mind.  TV is what rots one's brain, not video games.

My favorite thing is to catch a ride on a griffin's back. High above the landscape, all my troubles left behind. I embark on a quest. I start smashing and spell casting. When the hour is done, I sit my sulky Blood Elf down and log off for the night.  I turn to the pages of a good book before sleep finds me and leads me down to my own dreaming.