Celebrity Isn’t Everything, Mrs. Angel

My mother comes home. I pour her a cup of black coffee with cinnamon and nutmeg, and perch on the back of the couch while she shakes rain out of her short, silky hair and shrugs out of her tailored leather jacket. She’s wearing chocolate brown slacks and a russet cashmere sweater.

Perched in my hole-ridden jeans and white tank top splattered with blue and green paint, it must amaze her that an elegant woman such as herself could ever have wound up with a ragamuffin daughter.

“Did dinner go well?” I ask her, as she takes her coffee and reaches out to tuck a black, stray strand of hair back into my braid.

“Not quite,” she answers, but she’s smiling at me. “I always love cooking for Jennifer and Cris. Helping out. But sometimes I tire of your fan club.”

I laugh. “Who?”

My mother shrugs and sits down on the couch, slipping off her boots and stretching her long legs (how did I wind up only 5’3”?!) along the cream-colored cushions. “Oh, a college student who wants an internship. Cris kept asking about his communication skills and he kept talking about Mardi Gras.”

“Guess that’s his answer,” I chuckle.

“Jennifer mentioned that I was your mother–obviously my singular claim to fame–”

“And your cooking, and beauty, and theological brilliance, and crazy skills as a CCG player, and—”

“I’ve already completed my Christmas shopping, darling. Your Wii is already wrapped.”

I zip it.

She continues, “He just had to know everything about you. What college. What degree. Your birthday. Your cell phone number—”

“Mom!”

“—What raves you’ve attended. What ferry you take. What color your motorcycle is.”

“Mom!!”

She winks at me. I glare.

She squeezes my hand gently. “Sweetheart, very few people under the age of forty, or outside the realm of celebrity, are going to understand your desire for privacy. Drawing a dozen or even a hundred authors and designers into Mardi Gras isn’t going to stop people from wanting to meet *you.*”

I narrow my eyes. “You didn’t...”

She smirks. “What?”

I groan and collapse along the back of the couch. I can just imagine her growing more and more annoyed by the would-be intern’s rapid fire questions I’ve forbidden her to answer until, finally, in desperation to save her sanity, she plays her only trump card. The picture of me in her wallet.

When I was four.

At Halloween.

Dressed as a teddy bear.

A...

Pink...

Teddy bear.

“Come on, sweetheart,” she stands and pats my head in a way that I know I’m right. “I’ll beat you at a few rounds of Mardi Gras.”

Insult on top of injury. She's one mean mother.

E.J.

Ticket to Fly

Standing, at midnight, at the window overlooking the ink black Puget Sound, I imagine I am you, a world away from America, I close my eyes and grow five inches taller, more than twenty years older.

You speak proudly of your home, built by you and your mother when you were eight. No electricity but running water, which was rare in the area. You speak confidently of your path in life, Shepherd Lauriat, an impassioned road that you walk with God. You speak gently of your love for my mother, unshaken, unbroken, a constant for almost half a century. You are without doubt, worry or shame. Your God has no room for shame.

Solin? If I buy your plane ticket, will you bring your God to America?

I’m not sure who is killing us faster: The foreign extremists who hate us for our “opulent liberalism” or the native extremists who feel the same way. One set of terrorists take our lives. The other set takes our God. Without God, we are desolate and alone.

In the spring of 2005, when the first crocuses pushed into the cold, fresh air, a friend of mine attempted suicide. He left a note behind for God. He grieved. He was so sorry. But he could no longer live a lie. Alone in the world, no family, no partner, few friends, he had devoted his time to scripture, to art, to writing. His God, seen only through a mirror darkly, was a God of shame. Of fighting every thought, impulse and emotion. And at twenty-one years old, after eight years of actively fighting himself, Jared had had enough of shame. It would be better, he thought, to end his life, than to disappoint his God.

You wouldn’t disappoint Solin’s God, Jared. It was Solin’s God who sent Jay and Mike, then strangers, twenty year old Mormons on their mission, to your door that day, to glimpse you through the window, break the glass and call 911. It was Solin’s God who blessed you with Jay, still in your life to this day, and for forever.

When you bow your head in prayer, He is already there; He has been waiting for you all day. And shame isn’t in His vocabulary.

Happy first anniversary, my friends. God bless.

E.J.

Musing on the Divine

From: Christian Bloggers
To: ejangel@windstormcreative.com
Cc: Christian Bloggers
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 5:08 AM
Subject: Invitation to Join Christian Bloggers

Dear blog author:

We recently came across your site, ejangel.blogspot.com, while searching for fellow Christian bloggers.

A small group of us have started a new site called Christian Bloggers. Our prayer and intent is to bring Christians closer together, and make a positive contribution to the Internet community. While many of us have different "theologies," we all share one true savior.

Would you be interested in joining Christian Bloggers? Please take a few minutes to have a look at what we are trying to do, and if you are interested, there is a sign up page to get the ball rolling. We would greatly appreciate your support in this endeavor.

May God Bless you and your blogging efforts. We look forward to hearing from you.

Craig Cantin
Christian Bloggers
info@christian-bloggers.com
www.chritian-bloggers.com

Okay. I admit it. I almost deleted this message. The truth of the matter is, I thought it was spam at first glance... and at second glance.

I *want* to believe the best about people. I *want* to accept first and doubt only after cause. But, to be honest, in this day and age, that can be hard sometimes. A lot of times. I was about to delete the message as spam when I gave it another chance and a quick read. I found myself frowning and squinting my eyes. Hm. Christian, huh? What *kind* of Christian? I surfed on over to their website.

Interestingly enough, it wasn’t the site itself that really grabbed me. They’re new and their mission is admirable, but the thing that grabbed me were the ads. I know. Strange, right? Who really pays attention to those little text banners at the top of a webpage? Ads are just a necessary evil, right? But the three ads at the top of the site that night amazed me. One was for Christian outreach to teens. The other two were for GLBT Christian groups. Now the site is not a teen site or a GLBT site, but when they wrote in their email to me that they bring all "theologies” together, it obviously wasn’t lip service.

Once again, I find myself shaking my fist at mankind (and bowing my head for answers) over the corruption of God and Christianity as a whole by hate-mongering, hypocritical fanatics. Their God is not my God. I’m not even entirely certain that their God exists.

Admittedly, in terms of religion, I’m not much one for “hey, whatever works for you is cool.” I think there are a lot of spiritual paths that are hugely, massively detrimental to the mental health of the practitioners and, in some cases, even to the lives of nonbelievers, I’m pretty much all for deconstruction and recruitment. However, if someone tells me they’re down with turn the other cheek, righteous anger, impassioned path, and the ten commandants, I can abide.

That leaves a *lot* open. Wide open for individuals to talk *directly* to God. To ask him their own hard questions. To search themselves, with His guidance, for what is right for them, the world, their children.

And I’m not just talking about some great websites where GLBT Christians can feel at home. I have never brought questions of my own sexuality to God. I’m cool with my sexuality. But I have brought *my* hard questions to God. My hard questions might be someone else’s givens. Things that might seem petty to someone else. In the way that I think it’s ridiculous that if two women fall in love and stay together to raise a family in a safe, positive, monogamous relationship they’re going to hell.

I think about God quite a bit during these times. But I suppose my blog keeps turning to things Divine because of the season. My father will be in Armenia through New Year’s helping build homes in the town where my parents grew up. Usually, my family goes together to celebrate Christmas but my parents were concerned about travel safety. They went back and forth between who would go to help and who would stay. My mother, in particular, was torn. She waits all year to visit, I think. But in the end, through some reasoning that wasn’t shared with me, Dad went and Mom is stuck with me :)

Having the family split during this normally family-focused time has me thoughtful. It makes me wonder why loved ones so often wind up far part. It makes me wonder why the world is so big. Does God look down and say, “Why do my people scatter?” Or does He smile and say, “I made them such a big world. It certainly took them long enough to invent the telephone and the Internet so they could finally keep in touch!”

E.J.

Thankful to Forget

Excerpted from the “Mardi Gras 3000 Sourcebook” (which is a free download from www.windstormcreative.com/fandom/mg3ksb.htm):

“Though I’ve lived in America since I was four, I was born near Kapan, Armenia, and while I was a small child, my parents traveled quite a bit. My earliest memories aren’t of the anticipation of the night before Christmas or pony rides at a birthday party but of walking, on hot summer nights on cobblestone streets in Josefov, hand-in-hand with my father, or riding a massive roan-colored horse, my back to my mother’s chest, across what seemed an endless expanse of deep green plains spotted with snow-white stones. It never seemed like we had much money but we had family every where we went. Looking back on those times now, I understand why nothing has seemed to hold my interest for long until game design (which is in itself an “endless expanse”).

“Another early remembrance was of a great clock with many overlapping faces, brilliant colors, arcane symbols and multiple hands which, in my twenty-plus year old memory, seemed to move with incredible and erratic speed. Someone told me it was a “celestial” clock but it wasn’t one of my parents as they never could place where I would have seen such a marvel.

“The Mardi Gras 3000 Terrapyres were formed first in my mind when I began thinking about the MG3K universe and I knew that their opposing race needed to be as ethereal as Terrapyres are grounded. The other race needed to be mysterious, maybe even a little bit scary. I immediately thought of that clock and the word Celestial stuck. But I kept coming back to the clock. Where had I seen it? Who had been with me? Why didn’t my parents remember it? It really haunted me.

“Eventually, what human memory couldn’t supply me, the Internet did: Constructed in 1410 by the clockmaker Mikulas of Kadan in collaboration with Jan Ondrejuv, professor of mathematics and astronomy, the Astronomical Clock is part of the Old Town Hall building in Prague. A wonderful detail of the clock’s face became the image for one of the Celestials’ Outpost cards.”

I have seen these few paragraphs reprinted on no less than a dozen websites. I’m not sure why this glimpse into the flashpoint of the Celestials is so popular but I do know that inspiration can come at any time.

As children we see and hear so many things. What do we remember? My mother once shared with me a moment when I was very young (about two) when she was holding me on her lap and singing to me while we sat and looked out at the vastness of an unbroken sea. She started to cry, silently, tears running down her face and into my hair. She realized that this moment, which to her was so powerful and important, wouldn’t be remembered by her toddler daughter. I was too young.

And I don’t remember the actual event. I only remember being seventeen and her sharing the story with me. I remember the way her voice cracked and she looked away. I remember the image she painted in my mind with the unconditional love and the pure desire and sorrow in her voice.

Or maybe....

Maybe we remember everything. Maybe that day, in my mother’s arms, before the endless sea, on a shore far from home, in a country where we didn’t speak the language, maybe that moment shaped, indelibly, who I am today. Maybe feeling safe in her embrace, maybe knowing the beauty of her singing voice, left a mark not on my memory but on my person, my whole, my soul.

I’ve read that what occurs in the first five years of life shape everything of what a person will be. I’m not sure I believe that entirely as I’ve known so many people who faced such unspeakable hardships when they were very small yet have risen above and beyond that past (though perhaps they were strengthened by it). But what if we are formed by the events that come before we can hold them in our memory? What if, like lines of code, those unremembered moments build our program and create the algorithms that everything else, everything that comes later, that is remembered and achieved, is analyzed with and ruled by? What if who we are is made of not what we remember but what we have “forgotten”?

If you knew it was true, would you draw your infant son into your lap more often? Lay on your belly in the cold grass with your three-year-old and count the ants? Would you turn off the TV and gaze into your child’s eyes, memorize your moment together, even as that moment is making him the man he will grow to be?

The sweetest parts of my life, I suppose, are the parts I have forgotten. And I’d have it no other way.

E.J.

Oh, Heck...

I need to be careful what I blog. First I tell my secrets to the surfing world (instead of to a Chia Pet), then I scare a very loyal MG3K player! I will now post for the record: I do not swear.

At the end of my blog on 11/29, I joked about getting so mad about copyright infringement that I swear. Late last night, I got a very sincere and disappointed email from Julie C. in Los Angeles, California. Julie is an "avid MG3K player" and a "dedicated reader" of my blog, and she was dismayed to read that I swear.

Mind you, Julie, I don’t much mind others swearing, to be really honest, but I don’t myself. I have been known to say “freaking” (as in “This coffee is freaking incredible.”) and “flying fig” (as in “What in the flying fig were you thinking buying that plaid couch?”), but I’m just not a traditional swearing type of grrl. Sorry for my joke.

And, by the way, Julie, I’ve covered some kinda heavy-hitting stuff in my blog, especially for an eleven-year-old. Is your Mom cool with you tuning in? Whatever your answer, thanks for having the conviction to write me about the swearing issue. Keep sharing your opinions. I hear you.

E.J.

Saying Two Things at Once

I draw rain drops in silver Sharpie
Across my window
The glass is ice against my fingertips
my cheek
The world is quiet here
Until you call

Until you call
My world is quiet


I scrawled that bit of verse in the margins of a cluttered notebook page five years ago. I was writing about God. How when our minds our quiet, that's when He speaks to us. That's when we receive answers, courage, peace.

I often find myself seeking that quiet space to discover what I need. But I also come back to those lines when I find myself in love or involved in a passionate friendship or an intense project. There is a type of stillness in the world unless I'm with that other person or working on that project. But when engaged everything is motion, music, motivation. I become, just as when God speaks to me, fully alive.

Cris DiMarco, my publisher's Senior Editor, is also an author. Actually, that's a requirement at Windstorm (IDP's parent company) -- that all staff be published authors and/or published artists. Cool. Primarily, Cris writes science fiction and fantasy but a few years ago she published two volumes of erotica. Reviewers adored the books ("1001 Nights Exotica" and "1002 Nights Exotica") and they even got picked up by Book of the Month Club. The stories are smart and sexy, interesting, emotionally charged, and almost all of them are true. One of the collections even included a sweet, romantic story about expecting the birth of her first child. "Thinking person's erotica," wrote one reviewer. "As beautiful as they are steamy."

The stories all have unique twists. One of the few poems (selected by Cris but written by her partner) reads:

Obsession

I stared at you for days
intently
possessively.
You belonged to me.
You... you were already mine.
I stood at my window
saw the sunlight spotlight you
the spring wind set you trembling
rain turn you translucent.
I knew you were waiting for me
even when you knew nothing.

The day I made my move
there were others around.
I had my pick
but I wanted you.
You weren't perfect.
You had your scars.
But you were glorious,
your texture, your bearing, your life.

And you were not
as I had expected

beyond my reach.

Years before songs like "(You're) Beautiful" (with its nonsensical lyrics), I loved this poem of longing and desire. I loved it because I knew it could be speaking of so many people, things, ideas. In the back of each of Cris' erotica collections, there's this incredible section called "The Stories Behind the Stories" that provides backstory for each selection. You can imagine my delight when I read that Cris' partner had written that poem, in all sincerity, about... a leaf. An eighteen inch big leaf maple leaf.

I guess size does matter ;)

E.J.

P.S. The poem quoted above, written by Jennifer DiMarco, is part of a copyrighted work by Cris DiMarco called "1002 Nights Exotica" published by Windstorm Creative. I'm not a lazy punk. I took the time and asked permission to use it. I was granted permission by Mari Garcia, head of Windstorm's legal department. If you'd like to reprint the poem, then you need to email Ms. Garcia at mgarcia at windstormcreative dot com. Just finding a poem, image or story on the Internet doesn't place it in the public domain -- no matter what your buddies or your uncle or the dude at the computer store tell you. Don't be a punk, okay?And don't get me going on file-sharing, bootleg rare cards and copyright infringement. I'm already on probation with God (see yesterday's blog) and He hates it when I start swearing.

Proof that God Reads Blogs

11-25-06: I blog that it never snows here.

11-26-06: I wake up to three inches of winter wonderland.

Moral: Don’t blog smack about the weather. God doesn’t appreciate it.

E.J.

Drug Culture

I haven’t hidden my attitude about drugs and alcohol. I don’t drink. I don’t drug. Includes cigarettes. Doesn’t include coffee. But despite my strong feelings on the subject of substance abuse, in America especially “drug chic” is seen as a legitimate fashion statement. Street smart. Savvy to the underground. Able to make things happen, get things done. Good fighter. Persuasive hustler. Leather jacket, engineer boots, bling on the fingers, neck and ears. If you fit the bill, don’t be surprised when a stranger propositions you with a little sampler as you’re sitting at your favorite club sipping Cherry Coke with your mother-of-two, Christian publisher.

So this problem (not really a problem) cropped up on the MG3K forum (which is a happening place full of wit, banter and hard questions about gender, sex, war and religion... as well as hilarious escapisms like Chocolate Wolf Morphing). Where do you put your freaking cards when you aren’t playing?

Hardcore players keep their cards in the traditional plastic protective sheets (oh, yes, darlin’, they fit... I ain’t that stupid) while others, like little ole me, keep theirs in small index card boxes, separated with the nifty cardboard slips that come with those things. But whatever the solution, it isn’t provided in the Starter Deck. I got to thinking about that and I, well, didn’t like it.

Enter my publisher (again).

Me: Jennifer? Hey, here’s the deal: Sorry to hassle you in the middle of Thanksgiving and everything but I really want the Starter Deck to ship with a box.

Jennifer: The deck is packaged flat.

Me: Yay, I know. Is that going to be a problem?

Jennifer: Have you been drinking?

Me: Of course not! (Pause.) Can we do it?

Jennifer: Anthony (the MyPyre booster designer) designed a gable box to be sold separately. It’ll carry cards. It has a nice little handle.

Me: I don’t like gable boxes.

Jennifer: Why not?

Me: They remind me of Happy Meals.

Jennifer: When were you to tell me this?

Me: I just did.

Jennifer: (Pause.) Okay. If you don’t like gable boxes then what do you like?

Me: Coffee. Chocolate. Brown eyes. That little flowered number you wear to conventions—

Jennifer: E.J....

Me: I want two boxes. One box the shape of a perfect cube with a built in Kamon-ori lid that folds seamlessly. I want a stone pattern on this cube and it’ll be called a Rock. The second one is the size and shape of two Rocks side-by-side. This one is patterned like a brick. It can hold two stacks of cards. Same built in Kamon-ori lid. It’ll be called a Brick. One would be in the Starter Deck. Unassembled. Easy to slap together with just a bit of tape. Cool?

Jennifer: (Long pause.) You want me to create a box called a Brick?

Me: Uh-huh. A brick of cards.

Jennifer: A brick of cards. (Pause.) Like a brick of marijuana?

Me: But it’s a brick of cards.

(No answer.)

Me: Or a rock of cards.

(No answer.)

Me: Please?

Jennifer: I love it.

And so, working with a independent publisher willing to bend the rules, reshape culture and stir up trouble once again pays off. Watch out world.

E.J.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Wind? No problem. Snow? Barely ever. Earthquakes? Once every twenty years or so and just not that bad, you know? But rain? Well, about 100 inches a year. You’d think we’d be used to it. But we drive like idiots, sliding all over the place and into everything (including each other). Streets flood. Fill dirt turns into roiling mud and tumbles its way down hills and into houses. Oh, and our sunken broadband cables? They short circuit. Or become water-logged. Or whatever the heck it is that makes me lose Internet every single time we get any substantial rain!

When my Internet goes bye-bye I feel like I’m missing my favorite TV show. I feel like I’ve lost my cell phone and I’m missing calls. Lots of them.

I try to project, when I’m away from the MG3K forum, that I’m living an exciting life with multiple projects and twenty-hour days full of design work, marketing decisions and painting $2400 paintings on the side. But... in reality... I was just sitting at home waiting for the drowned rat workers to tear up my drive way and fix my freaking cables.

E.J.

P.S. OK, I did take the time to work on boosters, boxes and paintings... but, mostly, I just offered to the rats coffee. To make them work faster.

Temporary Insanity

Whow.

Do I need to buy a diary or what? Geez. If I drank I’d wonder what I was drinking when I blogged last night. Man. Should I get a cat or a Venus Fly Trap or something? Or maybe like a freaking Chia Pet to tell my naughty little secrets to. Gracious. I’m starting to feel like an unscripted (melo)drama on The CW or, worse yet, MTV.

OK. Today I will blog a little tamer, yes?

Topic? Uh. Well. Um. Oh yeah! Topic... Christmas cookies.

Hmm hmm. Golly gee. Aren’t Christmas cookies so tasty? Yum! I love mine with a mug of hot soy eggnog... with a few shots of espresso. Yes, sir-ee. Nothing like a great big plate of all-American, heavily frosted, amply sprinkled Christmas cookies. Good, decent, morally up-standing Christmas cookies. I could blog for years about them there Christmas cookies.

’Nuf said. Must now go and crawl into a hole.

E.J.

(P.S. Dear “BobbyB,” you have now won the “Best Darn Fan Mail” award. Quoth Mr. B in my inbox this morning: “Ms. Angel, We’re big fans of yours out here in Jersey. We love Mardi Gras 3000 and we especially love your “In the Rain” blog entry. Do you hear that sound? That is the sound of a cold shower running. For my wife.”)

In the Rain with You

I’m painting into the night. Passionate about a piece I’m doing for a friend far away. She asked me for a self-portrait but I’ve turned it on its ear, slice and dicing an 8 x 10, collaging in feather for wings.

I love twelve dollars easels. Cheap and spindly, they do the job, shuddering with each stroke and job of my brush. My sparring partners, they bend and weave like willows, taking my assaults with nerve; they’ve never dropped a canvas or gone down for the count.

There are four easels, twelve spindly legs, set up tonight, each painting in a different stage of assembly: some wet, some taped, others still pinned with blue prints. The windows are open. The room smells like pine trees, maple leaves, salt water and rain. The wood floor is cold beneath my feet. I started out in Levis, crew socks and a green flannel shirt, but it wasn’t long before I stripped down to black boxers and a white tank.

Around midnight, you braided my hair.

You asked to come watch me paint -- from primed canvas to art – and I found I couldn’t say “no.” Don’t think I ever would with you. You arrived without fanfare or words. Just a tired smile, your eyes set in dark circles.

I didn’t ask your prognosis. You’ve stumped Western doctors. They make up fairytales and write articles about your maladies. You are thinner.

I paint. You watch me as much as you watch my canvases. It reminds me of when we use to box. You unnerved me, your denim eyes, after-thought of a smile. Like you had a secret. Like you knew something about mortality that the rest of us had forgotten. I had such a crush on you.

Still do.

The wood floor is cold beneath my bare knees as I kneel down to add detail to rendered feathers. The rain is pounding on the sky lights, gusting in the windows. I groan and you laugh as the wind tumbles wet brushes off a stool, dabs of gray. blue, white, black, repeating across the floor.

You stand up from the window seat, the only closed window, and you take my hand. We’re almost of an age but your skin feels like rice paper, delicate and impossibly soft. You lead me outside onto the deck.

It is pitch black except for the rain drops reflecting, flashes of gold, the lights from inside. You raise your face to the rain and my heart rises to my throat.

You blink and smile. Paint is splattered across my face, arms and chest. You rub at a smudge of green on my shoulder, a close encounter with a tipping palette. “You’re so rough,” you half tease me.

I’m shaking my head “no” so hard that my untied braid is unweaving. “Not rough,” I insist. “Just bold.”

But I don’t kiss you.

In that perfect moment. In that heartbeat between rain drops and wind. I could have. But I didn’t.

But I should have.

E.J.

Virtual Friendship

Despite my addiction to clubbing, I’m actually not a very social person. (Why are you laughing, Micki?) I prefer to be alone even when I’m dating someone. I like to ride alone because I’ve never really gotten the hang of a rider (though, okay, it does have its advantages.. wink, wink) and I ride just to ride not to go someone. The speed and power is what I’m looking for. Riding a motorcycle through dark streets makes me feel like I’m part of the city. Like a living part of a complicated machine.

I like to paint alone. I went through my “I need a model” stage in college. It was, um, fun. But I got that wild streak out of my system. Now I want to alone with my palette, my canvas and my nifty little Lyra mp3 player. I want to fall into stroke and color.

Working on games is probably the only different arena. I like to chart it out alone but I really enjoy (okay, live for) hashing out ideas with other people interested in the idea. The Mardi Gras 3000 forum members have been amazing for this. I really do think that they find holes in ideas I never would have caught as well as enrich ideas and flesh them out. Think about it all: I talk to LoneLobos (Chris), AreaneCreator (Launa), Brianne (um, Brianne) and Alison at Night, Angelus, MasterDonny and everyone else and, off-line, they talk with their room mates, teachers, partners, parents, doctors, etc. and we wind up with a body of knowledge and ideas that is vast and varied. I know I’ve talked about this type of co-op idea building before, but I really do love it.

But there’s another aspect to these type of online “elantionships” (as Jennifer coined for me). I find that I’m more willing to write something very honest and maybe not too upbeat or even pretty to an online friend than I am to a pal sitting across the table from me. I am more willing to discuss a honest and perhaps embarrassing issue online. I’m more willing to confess an idea or feeling that might be silly. I’m more relaxed, more at ease, less defensive.

Now, Psychology class wasn’t that long ago and I know very well that the Internet provides a type of anonymity that a table and a cup of coffee just doesn’t allow. I understand that it is easier to post something on a blog or forum than to look someone in the eye and tell them. There is a safe detachment involved with an online community.

I don’t think one type of friendship should or can replace the other but I do think that online friendships are valid. An additional way for us to connect with each other. And I’m not talking about one-time wonder chat rooms. I’m talking about reoccurring forums or the like where members keep a single identity and relationships build day after day.

In the fifteen minutes it takes me to make a cup of coffee and a bagel, I can post two hundred words about space/time, cultural clash or the Ascension of Christ. I can get my brain juggling thoughts and ideas that will be flashpoints for the rest of my creative day. In fifteen minutes on the phone, I can say, “Hey. How are you? How was work?” and get a similarly limited response.

The world is changing. I can consider myself close friends with someone I’ve never met in person. Someone I’ve never spoken to on the phone. What someone looks like means very little to me. What (and how) they’re thinking means a lot more. I’m not a nomadic tribesman who needs to pick her companions according to physical brawn and mating prowess ;) Which is a darn good thing since online gender is always suspect!

E.J.

Eye of the Beholder

Lately my palette has pulled me away from my computer. I’ve been commissioned to do a set of paintings (gotta pay the bills, my friends) and my attention has been on the initial sketches, color selection and canvas size. I haven’t really painted much since I moved to the Pacific Northwest and only with these commissions was I finally prodded to find a decent local supplier of raw canvas and other consumables (I eat brushes).

After being spoiled by Windstorm for these past several months, being able to call the shots, it has been odd to have clients again. “The customer is always right” adage only goes so far when a customer commissions a piece of artwork but I do want clients to feel like they get the color tones, size and shape they want. Yes, ultimately, the image I create is from my mind and utilizes my style but it needs to be able to fit in the client’s living room, bedroom, etc.

It usually happens like this:

A person sees one of my pieces in a gallery or in someone’s home. My (old) email address is burned into the back of the frame. When someone writes me, it forwards to my new address.

The potential client writes and tells me what type of image they’re looking for (“forest scene,” “mountain landscape,” “portrait”) and I tell them whether or not I have something like that in my existing portfolio. I also discuss the difference between a print and an original.

If the client isn’t interested in anything in my portfolio and wants an original (almost always true), I tell them what my package and price includes, which is:

Written tutorial about how to find where in your house your painting will live.

Based on that placement, colors, tone, size and shape are then chosen. A written tutorial also guides this process.

Based on colors, size and shape, I offer a price, which is nonnegotiable. The painting will be unframed. 50% of the price is due up front, and 50% is due upon completion. All forms of payment are accepted.

Upon receipt of the first payment, sketches are created for the client (usually about ten). We discuss, in-depth, the sketches. Sometimes the client sends photos for me to work with. (I haven’t worked with “live” subjects since I was painting nudes back in college.)

I then purchase my supplies (canvas, frame, paints), stretch and prime my canvas and begin to paint. It usually takes me three to four days if I work for two four-hour stretches each day. Most of the time I wind up working much, much longer days and finishing sooner. I don’t like to leave a piece once I begin because I feel like when I come back everything can change – anything from temperature to consistency to more emotional aspects like my ability to clearly envision where I’m going and where I want to add more depth.

Losing myself painting is like going clubbing for me. The way I love to give everything over to music and movement is how I feel about letting everything fall away to the stroke of the brush. I don’t always feel that I’m in control of exactly what I paint (perhaps a better painter would be) and that adventure of faith is exciting and magical.

Interestingly, of the four pieces I’m doing write now (not at the same time), two are naturalist pieces (a combination of a child and a bird, and a blue moon rising), and two are religious pieces (the Rapture, and the Ascension). I’ve never done religious pieces before and these have real fascinating back stories. I began with the child/bird (now completed) and have only done sketches for the others. I’ll do the blue moon next (which uses paints and layered collage techniques) because I’m nervous about the others... excited but nervous. Neither of the religious pieces include Christ as I might see him. One is based on a dream the client had and another is based on photographs of the client’s son. I have butterflies just thinking about them.

It feels good to be painting again. I wasted a few pre-stretched canvases warming up. It was fun. Knowing the first few pieces would be garbage. Knowing that my father would snatch them for his own and proclaim them beautiful the way all good fathers do from the first finger painting on.

I liked over-hearing a new family friend say to my mother, “Pahmela, just to be honest, I see what E.J. is doing and I just don’t see what all the fuss is about. She isn’t really very good.”

My mother was silent and I couldn’t see her face from where I was (hiding) in the hallway. She could have gone on and on about how art is in the eye of the beholder. That what one person finds life-changing, another finds base. But eventually she only hummed and said, “Just wait, Tam. You’ll see.”

A week later I was done with my warm up and had begun a small piece for myself (my transition from warm ups to working for clients). Mom made a point to invite Tam for dinner. After flan for dessert, and a speedy clean up, I excused myself to paint. “Oh, show us what you’re doing now, darling,” mom demurred. “Now that you’re done warming up, sweetheart.”

By the end of the evening, the painting was done and tucked into the back of Tam’s Saab and I was two hundred dollars richer ;) I suppose I owe mom a cut off the top?

E.J.

Rant and Rave

A Mardi Gras 3000 Forum member ("Rune") introduced a "rant thread." This universal given for online forums, I came to learn a rant thread is a place to complain, to whine and to basically share with each other that life can suck for all of us at one time or another. We're never alone in temporary misery. Strangely, the rant thread is a lot of fun to read. I wish I were better at the ranting itself but, hey, we all have our limitations.

I do have something that has been bothering me. One of those things that I keep coming back to. Two years ago (oh, E.J., let it *go,* grrl!) I helped friends raise money, clothes and other every day items for a family we'd been told needed a little help. There was a baby monitor, shirts, pants, toys, books and two hundred dollars. The four care packages were huge and cost eighty dollars to ship. After many months (now two years), no card or call of thanks ever came.

Now, I'm one of those geeky chicks that actually listened in school and I know better than to expect a few care packages to soothe the sting of hard times. The emotional economics of poverty don't allow much room for positive expression. But I don't think apathy is the culprit this time.

I came to know through bizarre circumstances that the reason no card or call ever occurred is because the packages truly weren't appreciated. As a matter of fact, they were rifled through and then thrown out, the cash going completely unnoticed.

I drove from friend to friend gathering items for these care packages. I remember my publisher's kids donating toys they adored and my mechanic handing over an incredible flannel work coat. It was nice stuff, given with kindness. But it wasn't new. And because it wasn't new, it was seen as insulting.

What kind of world is that? Where is the intrinsic flaw in the human character that causes a family in need to throw out a board game because the shrink wrap is gone or a shirt with a button loose?

As a quintessential "starving artist" (which means I joyfully pinch my pennies and hustle my butt every month to pay my bills without getting a straight job) I have no problem buying shirt and jeans and coffee mugs, all thrice-used, for ten cents a piece at a thrift store. It allows me to support my coffee and flowers habit. Every time I set foot into St. Vinny's I'm benefiting from somebody else cleaning out their closet.

Sometimes I'm afraid in this throw away society that we've accidentally packed our common sense and our sense of humility off to the dump. Without ever even considering to recycle/reuse.

E.J.

Let the Game Continue

When you’re walking in the woods, in the dark, funny things can happen. You can walk into trees, you can fall in holes, you can trip over a raccoon. None of these things happened to me but only because I was very lucky.

The game space (the same central area of the property) includes a stream (very cold), a forty-foot embankment (pocked with mini-caves and woven with roots), and many, many copses of trees surrounding small patches of moss and wild grasses just big enough to swing a Gladius and just small enough to force fighters with longer swords to pull some blows.

To be honest, I have to confess that the main game space is lit in an eerie way. More than a hundred large flashlights are tucked into root systems and hanging from overhead boughs. The effect never ceases to impress me as spooky. The contrast of black shadows and white pools of light make for interesting moments.

Normally, there are five or six teams that group up, but today, with the special Mardi Gras 3000 theme, we have an incredible division – Terrapyres against Celestials all the way – with the scattered elves and spies aligning with the Celestials (I guess all the leather, piercings and studded belts scared the fantasy creatures away).

My once-a-year constant companion, tonight called Faith, has fallen into the role as leader, which works pretty well since in the “real world” she’s military. She used to keeping people organized, even our wild, hyped up team of twenty-six Terrapyres. The Celestials can climb and they’re really enjoying pegging us with stinging paintballs from treetop perches. They’ve also gained the embankment which we’re pretty sure they have the chest (and the Grail) up there.

Most the Terrapyres are armed with fists and swords (hardwood) with a few rubber-dart crossbows. There isn’t a paint gun among us and this is really proving to suck. But we’ve making our way toward the embankment now, taking on sentries as we go. There’s no “death” in our game. If you want to take someone out of the game you have to capture them. This is accomplished by managing to disarm a character and slip a felt bracelet over their wrist. The bracelet is attachment to a string. The string is attached to another bracelet which is worn by the captor. Captives can escape but often don’t. Over the years, captives have been nicknamed “pets.”

“Come along, my pet,” croons Marco, a willowy Terrapyre man, to his burly Celestial captive, their blue bracelets linked with a green string. The Celestial could easily pick Marco up and run into the woods with him, but unarmed, and surrounded by more than twenty Terrapyres, Mr. Ethereal has decided that getting group-tackled into the cold dark dirt just isn’t worth it. Three other Celestial pets agree and walk along without much trouble (except occasional grumbles and cryptic but hollow threats).

We face the embankment rises before us. We stop in the shadows. The Celestial pets start calling out to their companions telling them all our supposed weaknesses like our weapon count and which of us can’t dodge a paintball worth a fig. They neglect to give them a head count but knowing that our full game compliment is forty it shouldn’t be hard for the Celestials on the mound to figure it out.

We knock the pets down and sit on them. Silence.

Faith steps out of the shadows into the pool of light made by a dozen or so flashlights shining from above. She puts her hands on her hips. “Your friends are full of bluster, which isn’t surprising with the way you fools dress. We’ve taken out all your sentries. We’re armed with their guns. We live in this world and we’re used to pain so we have no problem with a frontal assault. Keep the coins. Just throw down the Grail and we’re gone.”

There’s utter silence then a huge commotion from the Celestials on the mound. They’re arguing among themselves and yelling various and contradicting things down to Faith.

“Crazy woman!”

“Don’t make us laugh!”

“Give her the damned Grail!”

“Bring it on, Pyre!”

Faith just stands there. Then, a quiet falls over the Celestials again. After a moment, the small Celestial I saw at the West entry point comes to the edge of the embankment. “We’ll give you the Grail, Terrapyre. We’ll keep the treasure,” she pauses and you can almost hear the smile in her smooth voice. “But you have to give us the gamer girl.”

This time it’s the Terrapyre turn to bust out with shouts from the shadows.

“Dream on!”

“No deal!”

“Out of line, freaks!”

Faith’s voice shouts over the others, “Not going to happen. We don’t—”

I step forward into the light. Faith turns to me. I strip off my biker jacket and push the left sleeve my cream-colored cable sweater up to the elbow, baring my wrist. “Whose getting a pet?” I smile as sweetly as I can.

There’s a very un-Celestial-like whoop from the embankment and masked creepies start swarming down, shouting their victory, throwing insults into the shadows behind me and Faith, paint guns and other weapons hanging limp at their waists or over their shoulders.

“Where the Grail?” Faith demands as they get closer to us and she steps in front of me.

“In good time,” says the Celestial leader with a smirk, already reaching for her captive bracelet. “In good—”

There’s a shout from the top of the embankment. Six Terrapyres have gained the summit by circling in from behind, just as Faith planned. Three of them are holding the chest high and another is clutching the Grail. There is laughter met with profanity.

“In His time, Celestial, not yours,” Faith smiles and sweeps the legs out from under the Celestial leader as I draw my sword and smack another back. The rest of our team rushes from the shadows and the Celestials are pinned against the slope as we fight, disarm, and find ourselves with an awful lot of pets.

Next year it will probably be back to dragons and elves and fey and spies, but this year the games were quite literally a dream come true.

Thank you, friends. And thank you, once again, to every one who has helped make Mardi Gras 3000 possible.

E.J.

Live! Tonight

Once a year, I join a long-time group of forty (forty including me) men and women for a night time live-gaming adventure. If you’ve never done one of these before, let me tell you, they're worth it. This particular group was formed in the late ’90s and banded together to buy a twenty acre parcel of utterly undevelopable land on the Olympic Peninsula (Washington State). We have a newsgroup that isn’t very active and a couple of us have unrelated blogs. Over the years a few (less than five) members have left the group and been replaced. All members equally pay the annual property taxes (less than $100 each) and pay into an annual “treasure trove” of $5000.

That’s the technical part. Here’s the kick-butt part:

Once a year, usually on Halloween, forty twentysomethings and thirtysomethings, leave the real world behind and come together in the pitch black icy night to achieve a goal. Players are fully in character from underwear to crossbows, and profiles (500 to 5000 words) of each character have been sent ahead of time through the newsgroup. Characters cross time and space. There are dwarfs, elves, World War I soldiers. There are werewolves, spies, aliens and even a dragon. Characters can change year to year but most of them remain the same. There are four entry points to the property and everyone is randomly assigned to one.

This year, at a spit before 10 PM on Halloween night, a Terrapyre roared up the badly overgrown dirt trail to the West entry point.

She killed her bike among a few others (beside a Soccer-mom type minivan and a few sedans). She climbed off her Kawasaki and lifted off her helmet, shaking long dark brown hair out over the shoulders of her black leather biker jacket with the bright white cross painted on the back. By the light of twenty or thirty oil-fueled torches, she knows she’s being watched. But the other adventurers starting at the West entry point aren’t necessarily her traveling campaigns. Some will be her enemies tonight.

Her black leather hightops replace her usual engineer boots. The Nikes are better for running and climbing as well as front kicks to the chest and leg sweeps. Black leather chaps over blue Levi jeans. Black leather gloves, fingerless, padded across the knuckles. With tangible excitement in her belly and her chest, she lifts her sheathed Roman-style 21 inch short sword (steel hilt, blade of fine black hardwood lacquered a million times) and slings it over her shoulder to hang at her waist, positioned for quick draw. Buckled to each thigh: four heavy rubber throwing knifes (steel core). Her skills as a kick boxer give her the advantage she needs against the plethora of board swords (34 to 42 inches) that will be wielded tonight.

She tries hard but can’t wipe away her smile.

The goal is clear. Find the Holy Grail (which happens to be in a hidden chest filled with five thousand golden Sacagaweas). The Holy Grail isn't the usual goal but a special one congratulating a long-time member of the troop. As she takes in the other West entry adventurers she sees some familiar elves and a spy, but mostly she sees Terrapyres. Punk. Goth. Rockers. Spiked hair. Lots of piercings. Way more attitude than should be legal.

“You ready, Baby?” asks one Terrapyre woman, dark brown skin, black hair in dreads. Perfect cleavage (brr!) cradling a gorgeous diamond cross. Her tell-tale blue eye liner gives away her namesake, Faith.

Hands are grasped. “You know it, Darling.” They’ve fought together before but never in these incarnations. They see each other only once a year but consider themselves best of friends.

Then, minutes before the 10 PM start time (tracked by the single pocket watch dangling from the West-most torch) an old, black, beat up SUV tears in. Everyone expects Terrapyres to pile out with hoorahs and high-fives. No deal. After a pregnant pause, five coifed Celestials waft out of the vehicle. They are ethereal. Their automatic Eclipse and Tippman paintball guns look like they’ll hurt.

A few of the gathered Terrapyres guffaw.

Mistake.

The smallest Celestial (maybe 5 foot, slender, dressed in deep purple, billowy pants, a long-sleeved indigo shirt, and a black mask slashed with red and gold held on by straps hidden by a real-life mass of fiery auburn hair) stares at the laughing Terrapyres. Then she/he lifts one hand and points at them, two fingers outstretched. Silently. The other Celestials turn and look. They nod.

It is ten o’clock. The game is on.

To be continued...

E.J.

Autumn Flowers

My house always smells like cinnamon and nutmeg. Sometimes a touch of cumin or vanilla. Always warm, inviting and open. The word “clutter” was never allowed to enter into my vocabulary. Maybe because as a family we were always traveling (one small suitcase or rucksack each) or maybe because we valued each other more than any object we might own.

During the Spring, I called two of my biker friends and the three of us helped my father plant fruit trees and flower bulbs throughout the yard. I didn’t want him digging eight two foot deep holes or hauling around trees with giant root balls. So I made Nic and Jess do it.

My mother brought strong iced tea out for us at one point. My father put his arm around her waist and motioned to the three of us, still digging. “I’m surrounded by beautiful women today. No wonder so much is getting done!”

I like to buy myself flowers. At least once a week. Roses aren’t my favorites. I like carnations, mixed arrangements, baby’s breath, eucalyptus, mums, lilies, irises, straw flowers. I place bouquets around the house in simple glass vases. I “weed” regularly, removing anything wilted, and sometimes I dry them for more permanent collections.

On stormy days (gray, rainy, windy) I place bright flowers on the wide window sills. I love the contrast of color and form. The wild two tone of movement outside and the vibrant rainbow of the still life inside. Sometimes I can just sit with a hot cup of coffee on days like that and stare at the scene – color and storm – and find such clarity of thought. Everything becomes very clear. Very distinct. Ideas come to me fully formed.

It seems like such a simple thing. To buy flowers. It seems too simple. Maybe even a waste. But all I have to do is skip a mocha or latte out to have that bit of extra spending cash... and the rewards are so much more tangible.

A friend emailed me. He was feeling down. He had “writer’s block.” He's doing everything he should (singular focus on the book, attention to his goals and deadlines, immersing himself in the music and images that originally inspired him) but he feels panicked. His apartment is a wreck, he wrote. Dishes are piled in the sink. There’s no clean clothes. The fridge is empty except for yogurt and dill pickles. He takes frequent breaks but every where he goes he just sees distraction and chaos.

I showed up with broom and mop in hand, groceries on my hip. A new lined journal and $8 fountain pen were at the top of the brown paper bag. As were an arrangement of autumn flowers -- orange, red, brown, yellow.

After the “remodel” of Bo’s apartment, I walked six blocks with him to a café/coffee house he’d never visited before. I ordered a coffee for me and a Green Tea for Bo. I got us a huge chocolate brownie and two forks. We sat silently, eating and drinking, for about thirty minutes. The lined journal and fountain pen lay on the table between us. After a while more, I started to causally cruise the sexy barista and Bo started writing.

What is your external writing space like? It will influence your internal writing space. Seem too simple? Only as simple as bright flowers against a gray sky. Still colors against raging black and white.

E.J.

The Race Race

I have yet to read a novel involving human first contact that works for me. It seems so simple, right? Humans are visited or contacted by an alien race. Changes occur. But the sheer magnitude of those changes – the ripples throughout all of society from what you think when you open your refrigerator to what you feel when your preacher opens his mouth on Sunday morning *will* forever be altered. To be blunt, because we haven’t experience first contact as a species, we are fundamentally unequipped to write about it. We limit ourselves to what we’ve seen in movies, on television and in novels. We *think* we know but we simply can’t.

One ripple I often muse about is the way we see one another. Would the introduction of a new species eliminate our disgusting need to segregate and categorize each other by our race? To an alien race, we’re all just human. I really don’t think they’d care what color, height, attitude or flavor we are. We’re all human. The ultimate equalizer. Us. Them.

History, of course, repeats itself. In America (and elsewhere) various non-majority groups fight for the same darn rights in turn. They rarely band together or share past experiences or resources. Us/Them is in full force. Differences can be found more easily than bellies with stars when the Us/Them evolves (de-volves?) into the Haves/Have-Nots. “We deserved our rights. You don’t.” Wow. The Oxford English Dictionary needs to change the definition of the word “equal.” At least so it matches what the State courts are doing coast to coast.

I saw a bumper sticker today: If you aren’t angry, you don’t know the truth.

Emails I get from players and authors casually say, “I understand that you’re trying to bring religion to the masses.” I’m not. I’m a designer who simply folds more of what she is into her games. I’m not as interested in a complete departure from reality. I can play for escapism and still feel like my moral core is kicking butt with me. Like all good SF, I can comment on society from the safe confines of make-believe.

There is no race in Mardi Gras 3000. There is species. Human. Terrapyre. Celestial. Angel. No black, white, brown, red, yellow, etc. The rainbow has been reconfigured to categorize only by base genetics.

Dear God, I wish it were true.

I went to see friends last night (a twelve-year “married” couple who can’t be legally married). We drank Green Tea with ginger and spoke quietly while their two children (who are unbelievably beautiful, intelligent, well-behaved and Christian) watched “Cinderella.” I wasn’t really paying much attention to the musical until the four year old girl said to her six year old brother, “The real Cinderella is so much prettier than the cartoon one.” He agreed and I looked over. They were watching the musical version of the fairytale where the actress and singer Brady plays Cinderella.

I stopped mid-conversation with my adult friends and just watched with the kids. What a difference one film can make. What if the media showed as many brown-skinned princesses as there are “pink-skinned” (as the kids say) ones? Living in an area that is primarily inhabited by “pink” people, these kids might equate an African American young woman with Brady’s tough and honest Cinderella or an Asian young woman with smart and brave Mulan. Since their parents have several brown-skinned friends, they have real world examples, too, but if you ask them to draw a princess or a girl warrior, her skin color will wind up pink as often as brown as often as blue. Are they color blind? No. They just see race like hair color or cultural tradition. These kids see humans as a species. The only Us/Them in their lives are Humans and Spiders... which, to be honest, they aren’t very fond of.

Wouldn’t that be a great world? Humans. Terrapyres. Celestials. Angels. And Spiders. I could live with that.

E.J.

Look, Mom! No Board!

Thank all of you for your amazing patience and support while I've been away (from the forum especially). Yes, I can blog remotely by sending in my blogs by email but I've missed visiting the forum and talking with all of you. I missed reading the incredibly fun, unique and saucy "On the Waterfront" online RPG, too! I've become kinda addicted, I must admit.

I'm back now though (and Master Donny will lift the hiatus on the RPG). This time away really allowed me to think through the stumper of a problem about the game. That being: Should I develop a way to play the game without a board?

Most of you who are reading this blog already have your copy of the Starter Deck. It shipped between October 6 and October 9. The Limited deck is now in your hot little hands. You now see firsthand how important and exciting and exacting setting the board is. Every game you build a new board and that board informs and shapes all the play that comes after. "Building" the board is building the game. You see how much part of the game it is. But I'm really driven about this. I want to be able to give this to you. Play rules without a board. It saves space and a bit of time... and it creates a CCG experience more like what most of you are used to.

And guess what? I did it. With help from four excellent play-testers (Donny, Nick, Alison and Sarah), the rules envisioned, reworked, smoothed over and finalized. And you know what? They rock. They'll allow you to play without a board but without losing the importance of building the board. The Skills are still balanced. All cards are still used. I'm going to create a PDF with the rules and a few quick charts and post the URL at the forum. The download will be free, of course.

I want to add one small bit here and say thank you to everyone who helped make this possible. Down in Los Angeles: Donny, Nick, Ali, and Sarah, you guys were amazing and supportive. Back home in Washington: Launa and Chelyn, thanks for keeping the forum running smoothly; Jennifer and Cris, thanks for setting me "free" for these two weeks without worries that you'd need to call on me. All of you have given me a gift... and a gift to every MG3K player as well!

Thanks again, everyone. You all rock. I promise not to go away again any time soon.

Um... by the way... how many messages are waiting for me in my inbox? :::gulp:::

E.J.

Did I Scare You?

Let’s get personal, yes?

So my ex calls me a year, one month and four days after I was dumped for a blonde bombshell who paints toe nails for a living. Hey, darling, I know what you’re saying, “How could that be, E.J.?! What fool would leave you for a toe chick?!” Hey, what can I say, pollution is destroying brain cells in record numbers.

Okay, so my back pocket vibrates and I answer my cell without checking the caller ID. “Hey, >>insert my first name here<<...” ...pregnant pause... “Saw your game in a store up here.” “Up here” being Vancouver, B.C., where Exie is shooting a show (don’t you dare be impressed). “It’s counterfeit,” I growl. “Play testers sold the tester cards.” Laughter. “Sneaky >>insert vulgar adjective<<...” ...mouth breathing... “So, who’re seeing?”

Let’s stop here and rewind two years. Two year ago is now present tense. I meet Exie through a friend. Exie is thirteen years my senior (which is about my usual dating range) and is an employed sushi chef / unemployed actor. Exie has a thirteen year old daughter from a previous relationship (the biological mother died in a motorcycle accident ten years ago) and a crummy little house that’s literally falling apart (the front porch is wrapped in yellow caution tape). This is a dream come true for me. A ready-made family that needs me. I can cook, clean, and be a prime bread winner. Yeah, painting and gaming don’t pay a ton but I have a real knack for keeping my finances in order. Not only that but I’m a great tutor for pretty much any jr. high or high school subject and I *love* kids. I’d have twelve of my very own if I could just found a guy who could keep up with my reproductive libido (hey, that’s a joke, no emails!).

We start dating. I start cooking, cleaning, and bread winning. Daughter’s grades go up. Porch gets torn down and rebuilt. Ant and roach problem get zapped into oblivion. Many candle light dinners ensue. Much bliss as I begin to think that This Is It.

Then Exie gets cast in a TV show. Reoccurring character. Full season commitment. Most likely more. Sushi chef job goes bye-bye and so does Exie who flies home on the weekends. I hadn’t moved in but I do now because I don’t want daughter to be a latch-key kid. After a month, then two, I decide maybe we should stop renting and buy a place. Safer neighborhood. Little bit bigger. Exie agrees. I search and I buy. My earnest money and the loan in my name. Daughter and I move.

Exie starts to skip coming home on weekends. Exie starts to call Daughter but not me. Hm.

Exie comes home. It has been two weeks. Smiles. Knock out smile. Kisses me. Knock out kiss. Then says, “We need to talk about what you’ve been eating.” Snorts and walks into the kitchen to get a beer.

Okay.

Exie comes home. Candles are lit. Chicken marsala with capers. Garden vegetables. Rice and mushrooms. I’ve been prepping and cooking for three hours. Even bought a bottle of excellent red wine (though I don’t drink). Daughter is thrilled with helping and all the wonderful smells filling the house. Chocolate mousse for dessert. Exie says, “Good God, what’s that smell? Come on, Daughter, let’s go grab a burger.” Loyal daughter runs to Exie’s side and before I can move, standing in the middle of the dining room like an idiot, I hear Exie’s car roar to life and off they go.

Fine.

Exie comes home. I’ve been kinda stressed about the relationship. Raising a teen-ager alone is hard. Looking me up and down over the rim of a RedBull, Exie comments, “You know, if you keep dropping weight the first thing to go will be your t*** and a**, and that would be a God d*** shame.”

Done. These, of course, are only the *publishable* stories. And yet I felt devastated and betrayed when I was dumped. Why is it that American girls allow ourselves to be beaten up like that? What is that *about?!*

Fast forward and resume playing the phone call.

“You have some gall calling me,” I find myself saying with an incredibly steady and very angry voice. “After everything you’ve said to me, all the ugly, hateful, misogynistic things you’ve done, I’m stunned you could even *fantasize* that it’s okay to call me. I don’t harbor a single kind or forgiving thought toward you – maybe, like, twenty years in the future, when I’m laying next to some gorgeous creature and our kids are curled up with us, maybe then I’ll be able to wish you weren’t tied to a concrete block and dropped into the sea! But that’s not now. It’s not even near now. Now is when I’m still feeling that you have a serious social apathy thing going on where you think it’s a-o-k to get close to someone, find out all their little hidden insecurity buttons and then push every one of them just to watch someone break. I don’t feel sorry for you but I feel sorry for anyone with you, including your daughter, and I feel sorry that I allowed myself to be blind to your nature for so long!” I pause and remember to breathe. Exie sighs. I scream, “Are you still there?! What kind of idiot would stay on the phone through all that?!”

“Look,” Exie sighs again. “Besty and I aren’t getting along so well and I was just wondering, you know, if you were available.”

For a moment I am utterly and completely and unbelievably speechless. Then, “No. I’m not available. I’m sleeping with my publisher.”

And I hang up.

LOL. Forgive me, Jennifer, I just had to do it.

E.J.

If You’re a Hypocrite Raise Your Hand

Here’s my post from the Mardi Gras 3000 forum:

“Subject: Prepping Your Deck

“Unlike other CCGs and exactly like the best table-top gaming props and other cardstock models, the Mardi Gras 3000 Starter Deck and all the boosters need to be prepped. As I wrote in the sourcebook and in my blog, this shouldn't be a big deal for the gamer set who enjoy painting their Warhammer figures before a big game or building a scale model of the Death Star

“The cards ship in 9 x 12 sheets (they're 2.5 x 2.5 each) with clear, white cut lines. They're easy to cut apart--trust me. I've prepped more than fifty decks myself (my record is twenty minutes). After the cutting is done, you punch holes with a standard hole punch (the round kind) wherever you see a white circle. The whole thing is fast and easy. And, of course, you only have to prep a deck once.

“The MG3K Starter Deck comes with a Standard Gaming Board (purple on black ships with the SD but other colors are available for very inexpensively). The Deluxe Gaming Board is very expensive but it is what I use. The Deluxe is one piece, 21 x 21, high gloss, laminated. The Standard, though not as shiny, is just as good for play however. It comes with the SD in four pieces. Simple cut out the four big squares and lay them together. Instant 21 x 21 board. I like to slap four little pieces of tape on the back of the board pieces to hold them tight but this is required.

“Personally, I would prep my new deck before my friends arrive to play just so there's no wait on the fun beginning.

“So, just so we're all clear, the things you'll need are:

“Scissors
Hole punch
Six sided die (d6) -- one per player is optional
Pennies (one per player) or another type of coutner
Roll of tape (optional)

“Thanks everyone!”

I’m asking people to do something no other CCG publisher or designer has ever asked them to do. Basically, build your deck yourself. That kinda sucks, no? With other CCGs you just rip off the shrink wrap with your teeth, shuffle, deal and play. With Mardi Gras, you rip off the shrink wrap with your teeth (you beast), cut out the cards, punch some holes, shuffle, deal and play. You only have to “prep” your deck once, of course, but still, this is pretty darn different than the norm.

The decks ship as “Flat Decks” in sheets of cards. Those sheets have skinny white cut lines. Snip, snip. Then there’s these white circles. Punch, punch. Voila! You have nifty square cards with round little holes. Slices of kick-butt futuristic Swiss cheese... uh... or a cool deck of ninetyplus cards good to go.

I don’t think of it as such a big deal but I know that others will so I am kinda stuck on it for a while. I keep thinking about the whole OGL argument. You know, most of role-playing games are based on the OGL operating system which is basically the old D&D system. So you can go pick up an all new game (the world, setting and adventures) but already know all the rules and how to play. It makes everything easy for everyone.

Same deal with the Deckmaster system of playing a CCG, right? You can pick from lots of different settings – Pokemon, vampires, wizards, whatever – but the basic system of tapping and paying with energy cards etc is the same and familiar.

I like to buy OGL games. Okay. Actually, I *only* buy OGL games. I’ll buy *any* CCG but that’s only because I’m a CCG junkie. But I won’t even pick up a RPG unless it has the nifty little d20 or OGL icon stamped on the cover. I’m raising my hand. I’m a hypocrite. I’ll only buy OGL but I’m asking everyone to accept prepping a deck as a given and learn the Stacked system to boot.

I am such a punk.

Does it make it any better if I say “please?” How about “pretty please?” Okay, okay. I’ll do a strip dance. Hang on a sec while I prep the strips.

E.J.

The Good Ole Tube

What is everybody watching this year? The new shows have pretty much all unfurled and new seasons of favorites have begun. I’m a SF junkie (no surprise right?) so this is like my dream year. Of course, I’m not stupid enough to think all the shows I love will last. I mean, the Big Bad TV Godlings only let me have “Joan of Arcadia” for two seasons. (Critiques said it was “getting too dark.” Uh. Sorry that real life was hard to watch... even with a little walkin’ and talkin’ with God rolled in.)

Here’s my picks for the new season. Enjoy or skip. Your choice.

Jericho
It had me from the mushroom cloud. That little doe-eyed boy standing on top of the roof, his round little eyes half-hidden by bangs. Hello. Yep. That would be most of us adults if we saw that flower of destruction in the near distance. The rainstorm rolling in a day later? There’s suspense. Oh, and the night road littered with dead crows? Nice touch. Eerily. They who fly also fall. I don’t think this show will last though (see reason “Joan of Arcadia” was cancelled above). Which will make me very sad... and very glad I record them to DVD-R.

Shark
Can’t stand crime shows. Have never watched more than a handful of epis of any courtroom drama or procedural. Am disgusted by the justifying of violence as drama that is almost every crime show out there. But I cannot – simply cannot! -- *not* watch a show starring James Woods. Watch one epi. Any epi. I can’t take my eyes off him. “I eat prosecutors for breakfast. They’re my main source of fiber,” he quips, and you almost think he’s serious. But put him up against his sixteen year old daughter’s desire for love-yet-independence and he has met his match. Also, Jeri Ryan is always excellent. She truly plays flawlessly. Must be a joy for such an incredible team to work together.

Heroes
Funny. Melodramatic. Little details. Personal dramas. Big conspiracies. Big ideas. Escapism. Social commentary. Pop culture candy. Dream come true fantasy. A fun show to watch. Depth without being too deep. Watched the premiere with my best friend and editor Cris. She exclaimed over the credits, “That’s the best show this year!” I can’t love it that much... yet... but it is a neat idea with great characters and lots and lots of potential.

Returning Favorites: Lost (been hooked from season one, epi three – actually thought the first two sucked), and Battlestar Galactica (Two words: Mary McDonnell).

E.J.

What’s Cookin’, Mama?

I never mind the coming of autumn, the season made as a chilly little excuse to snuzzle under four generations of family quilts patched with memories – my childhood, my parents’ courtship, and other bits of cloth that have long ago become arcane, the alchemy of legacy changing them forever.

Winter is always for work in our household. There’s a lot of cooking and visiting and telling of stories and playing of games. Engagements are traditionally made in the winter. Babies are conceived. Projects are begun. Goals are achieved. But more than any thing else, there’s an enormous amount of eating.

My mother is a serious and intense woman with a very strong sense of loyalty to family and friends and very specific feelings about pretty much every issue in the world. She has an articulate and sharply justified opinion about, basically, everything and everyone. She’s spooky into anything from stocks to politics to religion to biotechnology. She was always the mom that the other moms called with problems. I never saw her stumped. Her mother, my grandmother Raye’sol, was the only person who could rattle her and Grandmother took great pleasure in doing so (often winking at me in the process). Grandmother knew that I, in turns, admired and butted heads with my mother, and was always trying to prove that I should choose my own path by showing me that my mother’s path wasn’t as perfect as it appeared. In the end, I learned that neither one of them were infallible and that both of them are a proud legacy for me to follow.

One of the areas where my mother did and continues to excel above all others in my family is in the kitchen. While she’s quoting politicians and sharing her own foreign policies, she can create a meal that is unforgettable. I’ve asked her again and again to do a cookbook with Windstorm but she refuses to write any recipe down. “I cook with what I have,” she tells me firmly, implying that nothing ever goes to waste and every ingredient is precious.

I have started to secretly write down some of her most successful dishes just so I can entertain friends myself (when she doesn’t insist on cooking) and I thought I might share some of my favorites here because a blog is such a safe and secret place. If you try these out and discover, as I have, that they are the tastiest treats under the sun, please credit my mom when you share the recipe, okay? Her name is Pahmela Angel (said Pah – Me – La, though lots of people mispronounce it “Pamela” or call her “Pam” which she puts up with but which my father and I can’t stand).

Here’s her absolute basics that just so happen to be three of my absolute favorites:

“Sunday Morning Satay”
a recipe by Pahmela Angel (as shamelessly stolen by her daughter E.J. Angel)

3 cups sweet white rice, cooked
3 oz coarsely chopped maple sauage
1 cup creamy soynut butter with honey (tastes like peanut butter)
1 cup dark raisins
¾ cup plain soymilk
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon all spice
½ teaspoon cayenne
1 teaspoon chili pepper flakes
2 teaspoons sugar

Place all ingredients, in the order listed above, in a pre-heated, lightly buttered (Safflower margarine) frying pan and fold into each other until the mixture is uniformly distributed and golden brown from the melting of the soynut butter. Heat to desired temperature – should be warm throughout – and serve. Feeds three.

“Coffee in the Morning, Coffee in the Evening”
a recipe by Pahmela Angel (as shamelessly stolen by her daughter E.J. Angel)

4 tablespoons freshly ground espresso roast
(Mom uses Starbucks French Roast)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg

Using a Bialetti Mocha Express stovetop espresso maker (9 oz) – or, if you must, a French Press – brew the above mixture. If using a French Press, steep for four minutes.

“Rice Pudding aka The Ultimate Comfort Food”
a recipe by Pahmela Angel (as shamelessly stolen by her daughter E.J. Angel)

3 cups sweet white rice, cooked
1 ½ cup dark raisins
1 1/2 cup plain soymilk
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon all spice
1 tablespoon sugar

Cook all ingredients in a pot until smooth and hot. Serve immediately. A pinch of extra cinnamon on top after spooned into bowls gives this perfect “comfort” food an earthy and natural flavor that will make and later inspire wonderful memories.
E.J.

Friends with Benefits

You wanna get all interactive with me, or what, baby? So check this out:

The Mardi Gras 3000 Starter Deck ships with six Level One cards (one for each character). These cards allow your character one (Level *One*) attempt to hit or defend in battle. This is referred to as the character’s constitution score. On a Level One card is six white spaces. Every time you beat another player, that player signs and dates your card. When all six spaces are signed and dated, you can swap your Level One card for a Level Two card and your character will then be granted *two* attempts to attack or defend in battle (and so on up to Level Six). You have to keep your Level One card in your stack (at the back) to prove that you’ve earned your level. You’ll also have to show your various level cards before entering a character stack in an official tournament.

Now here’s the rub:

Players don’t sign their names. They aren’t allowed to. They have to sign their Mardi Gras 3000 forum handle. Signing up for the forum is totally free, of course, and it takes literally two minutes (often less). We never use your email address for anything (we don’t sell or rent addresses; we don’t even contact you ourselves). So it’s risk free. When you show up for a tournament (either in the real world or the virtual world) your level cards will be checked against the forum member list. Forum members because the official players of the game.

There are other benefits, too. All forum members who ordered the game before October 1, 2006, got a free pair of scissors and a hole punch sent with their Starter Deck. Any forum member who ordered the Starter Deck and one of each booster got a free Deluxe Board. Just some smooth little thank yous.

Forum members will receive discounts and rare cards not available to anyone else, including an autographed “Eye” card which grants a +2 Presence Skill. They’ll be credited by handle (and name, if they wish) for their Mardi Gras ideas used in the sourcebook and they’ll have direct access to me – the boosters they want are the boosters I’ll do. I’ll even be sending out gold-plated d6 to really amazing players who post incredible games.

And did I mentioned the spicy online RPG that’s running right now? It’s on hiatus between October 10 and October 24 so you have just enough time to catch up (and get ready to read on or join in on the 25th).

Mardi Gras 3000 is all about the interactive universe, right? So why are you reading my blog all alone at midnight? Why aren’t you chatting me up about which is better, brown or black leather jackets? Or whether the T1000 shimmys to the left over 75? Huh? Come on, baby. Let’s talk about everything you can roll a d6 to determine ;)

E.J.

P.S. I miss you, forum friends! I’m away with my editor and a bunch of the play-testers until the 25th of October. I’m sending in my blogs by email but I miss you guys on the forum! Can’t wait to catch up!!

Sweet Dreams

Exhaustion lowers my lids and spins my head
one hundred eighty degrees inward
like flotsam down the funnel.
Sleep tugs
many insistent pairs of little hands
children of dreams, drawing me in to play.
What adventures await me?
Riding a carousel with midnight’s children.

E.J.

Set It Free

I had no idea how passionate responses would be to Thursday’s post. There was a lot of loyalty and support that I was amazed by and truly appreciate. Thank you.

Among the messages of encouragement was one email that was unsigned. It said, simply, “Sorry about your troubles, E.J. But you should be glad that people love Mardi Gras enough to want to buy any card they can. Maybe you’ll appreciate your success more if you don’t make any money off it.”

Is this the “music should be free” argument? The “artists need to create for the people” position? I hear this a lot whenever I have a group of my peers (twentysomethings) over for a movie or a game. But here’s the problem: Who then supports the artists? How are their basic needs (food, home, etc) met? Or is the argument that artists (like athletes) are paid to much? $200 concert tickets. Million dollar advances.

Those numbers do seem big. Disproportionate to the work maybe. But here’s the rub: A musician tends not to have a career as long as your average Joe engineer or even school teacher (oh, there’s another blog right there). Public interests are changeable and fickle. The majority of musicians don’t have careers as long as, say, Madonna or Sting. The same is true for athletes but now we’re talking about physical burn out – injury, etc.

Now what about painters? This is a career path I know a little bit about. When was the last time you went to a gallery show? Did you see the prices? Four and five digits before the decimal, right? Why? Well, the two NYC galleries that did my only two shows took 65% of my asking price. Not quite as much coming to the painter, after all. Plus, canvas, paints, brushes (which I burn through), fix, etc. Oh, then there’s rent, food, and heat.

So let’s play. Now you say, “Too bad, so sad, E.J. Get a real job, baby! Go flip burgers to pay the rent, punk. Your art – your paintings, your game – should be free to the people. You capitalist pig. Get real. Where do you think the phrase ‘starving artist’ comes from?!”

That’s totally fair. It isn’t correct but it’s fair. I know very, very few artists who don’t have a “straight job” that they work 9 to 5. They do flip burgers or deliver packages or work construction. Some of them even have families. So they pay the bills. They don’t have a savings account. They’re thrifting it for school clothes and supplies. They’re strapped. Car breaks down? Rent goes up? Too bad. Living hand to mouth doesn’t really encourage creativity though. It doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for anything, actually.

So, just a little gentle request. The next time you lend that new novel to all twelve of your friends that are die-hard fans of the series, maybe encourage them to go buy a copy – even used at half.com or where ever, because someone, at one time, at least paid for those used copies. And as for downloading music via P2P... well, I don’t want to tell my “prime demo” to give a flying fig, but, you know, think about it, okay? Just make sure you aren’t downloading as opposed to buying used or on sale just because downloading is so much easier. Yeah, easier is always cheaper. But it’s not right.

E.J.

Picasso for Hire

When I was in school (in NYC in the ’90s) I shared a loft apartment for a year with a gay male friend who went on to become a successful architect. I mention his sexuality because (1) he always did and (2) ironically, he had a girlfriend.

Justin believed that a person’s sexuality was a matter of genetics and that convenient gene also influenced a myriad of personality and life-skills predispositions. How a person – regardless or in spite of their genes – chose to live his or her life was another matter all together.

“What about love?” I once asked him over steak and French beans in mushroom sauce.

He finished chewing then, “What about it?”

“Can you be in love with a woman if you’re genetically supposed to be gay?”

Justin smiled at me indulgently. “Oh, E.J.. My biological attraction to men doesn’t mean I’m unable to maintain and enjoy a monogamous relationship with a woman.”

“It doesn’t?”

Justin laughed and tossed his white-blonde hair out of his bright blue eyes.

“What if there’s a lesbian,” I proffer. “Who has a deep desire to procreate and have a family?”

“Then she’s not a lesbian.”

Yes, Justin was a lot of fun. A great flashpoint igniter at parties and a loyal friend. Over the years, though, we lost touch. To be honest, I didn’t really buy his “genetics vs. conditioning” absolutes and, to be blunt, I had been raised that sexuality is a non-issue. Whether or not a person is a Christian, whether or not a person is loyal and respectful and speaks with God, one-on-one every day – these are the things that matter. Not who you happen to find attractive.

Then, today, my mom and I are at the mall in Silverdale. I need a suitcase for my trip and I want some flannel pjs because sleeping in boxers and a tank at a semi-stranger’s house just ain’t my speed.

We’re done shopping, sitting at a round table in the food court, chatting over coffee and a shared Cinnabon about how my father loves anything dubbed “American Food” (fried chicken, pizza, burger, mac ‘n’ cheese) and how we’re always wondering why we can’t get goat’s milk in our lattes.

“Angel? E.J. Angel?!”

I look up. Standing in an expensive suit is Amy, Justin’s long-ago girlfriend turned, come to find out, his ex-wife and mother of his two children (shared custody, very amicable, good child support). Without sitting down and without ever acknowledging my mother’s presence, Amy catches me up on six years of her life without pausing for breathe or ascertaining my interest level. Then, with a quick glance at her flashy wristwatch (I notice she still wears her large diamond wedding band) she excuses herself.

I’m about to turn and start laughing with my mom over this bizarre, rapid-fire interruption, when Amy spins back around and asks, “E.J., do you still paint?”

(Justin paid for my first galley show.) This is the first questions I’ve been asked since Amy confirmed my identity. “Well, I’m working in game design now but I still occasionally—”

“Nudes?”

I bite my tongue, then, “Sometimes.”

“How about dinner? Sunday. I have a place in Poulsbo. My parents will have the kids. Is that enough time for you to get what you need? Cost is no object. We can settle in cash. Here’s my cell number. Call me for directions.”

And, with a flurry of black combed silk and four inch heels, Amy is gone.

My mom laughs so hard that people turn and stare. “She wants you,” my always-blunt mother guffaws around the last bite of Cinnabon.

I know I’m blushing. Good thing I’m a brown girl. “I’m a painter-for-hire now?”

Mom is still laughing as we stand to go. She gives me a quick peck on the cheek and takes out her cell phone. “Let’s call your father. He can help you work out an hourly rate.”

I chase her to the parking lot with a plastic fork.

E.J.

Amen

When I’m feeling down, I usually want to be alone with God. I wanna go ride. I wanna feel the speed and the freedom that God made it possible for my body to feel when I’m traveling 70 mph with very little between me and the world. I feel so isolated in a car, insulated in a muffled, stifling kind of way. I want to get where I want to go on my own accord, or at least with as little help as possible.

However, sometimes, when I grab my helmet and stomp toward the front door, I hear a soft, baritone voice call, “E.J...?”

My dad is five foot seven which is an inch shorter than my mom. His skin is olive. His hair is brown and feathery and down to his shoulders. He’s slender and has brown eyes that are always smiling even when he’s serious. I’ve always kinda thought he looks like he could have walked with Christ, you know? I mean, he really lives as a Christian. He’s the first to forgive and understand. His heart is always about others.

Poulon (said Paul-Lon) never asks me what’s wrong. He just takes my hand and leads me to the kitchen and puts on the kettle. I’ll lean against the counter, all leather jacket and attitude, not ready to calm down or let go yet. He’ll just talk to me while he makes us coffee. Mostly, he tells me stories from when he was a boy. Often there’s something funny about my mother because they’ve always known each other.

My father believe he is the luckiest person on Earth. He feels blessed by the Divine. “Your mother was the most beautiful girl of all the girls. She was just like you – sharp and smart and confident. But she only had eyes for one person and that certainly wasn’t me.” He laughs. “I was a good runner and a kind boy but I was skinny and hairless and so terrified of your mother that I couldn’t look her in the eyes.”

I usually laugh about now. I know that my father’s mother use to brush his long hair and braid it with strips of leather. I know that once a neighbor said he looked like a young Jesus and was certainly as gentle. I know that my mother was a girl to pick fights and arguments and my father was a peace maker.

When my mother’s family decided to come to America she asked the love of her life to come with her. That person was not my father. But Solin said no. She didn’t want to leave her family’s farm. She didn’t want to come to America. She had lost a leg in an accident when she was a pre-teen and she felt that my mother could “do better.” That two young women trying to make a life and a family for themselves – even in America – would be impossible and full of sorrow. My mother was devastated. Solin said, with honesty, kindness and sincerity, “Poulon is a good man. He’ll be a good father to your children.”

My mother always laughs that she responded with, “Poulon who?” But I know (from Solin) that my mother said nothing. Solin tells that at that moment, she saw pain in my mother’s eyes for the first time. Solin turned away from her because she couldn’t handle that look and because she knew she’s give in and go.

Solin continues to be an important part of my family. Almost like another mom. In a lot of ways, she’s like a female version of my dad – faithful, gentle, calm, impossible to anger. She and my dad have long conversations in Armenian that are full of laughter.

Dad says, “When your world seems the darkest, that is when the Divine places an angel in your life. Selfless, kind. I am blessed among men, E.J., because God has blessed me with a fleet of angels, all when I needed them most.”

Then he hugs me and he pours my coffee. And he tells me a story where the main character is a goat or a pre-teen version of my mother, fifty years younger then now but just as steely and brilliant.

One act of kindness and selflessness created a chain of events that led to an incredible marriage, a deep and beautiful friendship between three people, and an atmosphere of fascinating history, respect, and faith that brought me up to be everything I am today. You may indeed be blessed, Daddy, but so am I. Thank you.

E.J.

Anonymous Caller

How is it that deep breathing crank callers always find twentysomething women home alone as opposed to ninety-four year old men with tattoos and no teeth named Bruno? I mean, is there some code for finding our *unlisted* figging phone numbers?! Like divide 1980 by a prime number and – voila! – sexy chick will be found!

I’m stepping out of the shower tonight – no flying joke, here! – and the phone rings. After a nasty break up, I found myself living in a large house all alone until I invited my parents to move in with me (insane but wonderful). But tonight they’re at a friend’s home theater watching “Brokeback Mountain” (yes, I’m serious) and I’m home alone and due for some quiet time working on some new boosters.

So the phone is ringing, right? I’m toweling my hair. The stereo is playing “The Open Door,” the new Evanescence CD. I suspect the call is my mother deciding to share with me that she’ll never let my father pick the movie for “date night” again, and so I pick up the cordless with a jaunty, “Hey there!”

Silence.

Open line.

“Hello? Mom?”

Quiet. Then... a breath... another breath... another.

Hm.

I’ve always preferred the talkative types, so this isn’t really my speed. I hang up. Eeew. Weird. Creepy. Whatever.

I refuse to rush. I go about picking out my comfy work clothes – an ancient MTV tee and a pair of faded jeans. I braid my hair. I put on the kettle for hot water and grind some beans for a bold French press of java. Hey, it’s only 9 PM. Perfect time for an ole cup of –

The phone rings.

No way.

I consider letting the machine get it. But then I’m like, isn’t this *my* figging house? I mean, come on, people, right?! But then I think about this really ugly argument I once had with a close friend (Hi, Sarah! Do you still luv me?) about date rape and whether or not dressing and acting provocatively is truly “asking for it” and who is truly to blame and other evil and sharp issues like that. I think about my blog (you know, this one) and how I don’t censor myself and I have a lot of fun and I’ve been told that there appears to be a lot of sexual innuendo... especially for a Christian girl.

And the phone is ringing and I’m thinking, “Did I ask for this? Is this a message? Because I’m all saucy, is this what I deserve? To be semi-silently harassed by a stranger? Is this a wake up call to a mistake I’m making in my life? A divine call to redirect onto a straighter and narrower path?”

I pick up the phone.

“Hello?” I say, nervously. “God?”

Strangely, the caller hangs up.

Hm.

It must not have been mom. She would have loved being called “God.”

I’m such a kill-joy ;)

E.J.

Counterfeit My Heart

I can’t believe I’m even having to write this blog. I was expecting maybe a small post on the forum months from now but not this. Robbery is the highest form of flattery? Spare me.

I appears that some of my more zealous (and entrepreneurial) play testers have kept their decks (which I might be able to look past... though they did sign an agreement to return them) long enough to sell singles to their local gaming stores or online. Not cool, folks. Grass roots buzz is one thing but selling Beta Deck cards is not okay. Here’s why:

1. It is stealing. You did not pay for the cards you are now profiting from. If you had purchased the cards, I would have no problem with you reselling them any where and to any who, you know?

2. The Beta Deck cards are set to a seven basis. The final game is set to a six basis. That means that the Beat Deck cards are not compatible. They will make characters that are too powerful to play fairly.

3. You were paid to play test in exchange for the agreement that you would return the Beta Decks. Did you return your check instead? Hm.

Okay. So, players out there? Be forewarned. There are false cards out there. Don’t get excited if you find a Mardi Gras 3000 Starter Deck in stores before October 10, 2006. The *real* decks ship on October 6. Here’s how to spot a Beta Deck (read: false) card:

1. The Grail has red wine or blood in it. The real Grail holds blue tears.

2. The URL on the back of any weapon, armor or character card must read:
www.windstormcreative.com/angel/ Also, the numbers are boxed in black.

3. There is basically no way to spot the difference between a Beta Deck or final deck Terrain and Lair card. Both Beta and final deck Terrain and Lairs can have either the above URL or www.windstormcreative.com/immortal/ Luckily, these cards are cross compatible.

It should go without saying that people shouldn’t sell or use tester cards. Likewise counterfeit cards (which can be created by anyone with access to a laser printer that can handle gloss cardstock or a quality print shop). I can’t stop you, of course, but I does suck for me if everyone is enjoying the game and I can’t pay my little old bills.

Thanks for looking for and only buying official cards, every one. It makes a difference.

E.J.

Industry, Oil, and Twelve-Dollar Popcorn

I was going to write about something else today -- namely my evolving plans to fly all over the country and pick the brains of some choice play testers -- but I just can't shake this pesky pest of an idea.

Okay. So it seems that we all accept that the development of electric, solar and other non-gas powered automobiles isn't really moving forward at lightning speed because of the oil industry's financial interest in traditional car manufacturing and vise versa. I mean, I understand that there are some design errors and limitations in non-gas cars that still need some serious research (whatever) but in an age when technological advances are made pretty much daily, wouldn't you think we could whip out a tasty little number that actually looks and runs like a traditional car?

Fine. I'm over it, right? After all, I'm not saying everyone should run out a buy an alternative car and I'm not saying I would. Giving up my T1000 would be like giving up my legs (and I do know that this attitude fights against the industry's willingness to go there). But, I'm just saying, the R&D is stalled because of joint interests.

So, last night I was sitting out on my deck, perched on the triangular little cat bird seat on one corner of the railing. Way, way below is the Puget Sound. I like to sit here and watch the ferries at night. Huge beasts peppered with lights, carrying their young across the black and silent crossing. This is my thinking time. This is where I contemplate life, death, negative-sum, and the process of learning. Yeah, I do live a kinda introspective life sometimes. Yes, I get just as many ideas when I'm riding, or clubbing, or foruming, but my cat bird seat is (almost) my favorite.

So I start thinking what a great shot those night time ferries would be to open a movie with. They can be symbolic of so many things. And I start thinking about how this friend of mine won a short screenplay contest and a distribution deal like four years ago but how she couldn't get her funding together to shoot the thing and the whole deal fell apart. I feel bad for her, kinda sick about it, and then I think about how she should move forward on her own now and release the film direct to DVD because every entertainment magazine is always saying how DVD is where the runaway sales are really made lately. Then I find myself asking, "What's with the movie industry these days, any way?!"

Folks aren't going to the theaters the way they used to. The tickets are over priced, the food is even more expensive transfat wrapped in cheap cardboard and glossy wrappers. The seats are cramped. The audiences are loud and rude (and pretty much uncontrolled and uncontrollable by theater staff). It's hard to find the films you really want to see -- you know, the indies, the thought-provoking ones -- and it seems the stuff that wins all those nifty Sundance and Raindance and Cloudance awards are always only in "limited run" which, let me tell you, doesn't include towns like Bremerton and Port Orchard which are where my "local" theaters are located.

Then there's that whole "digital" vs. "film” argument, which appears to be a leading reason why so many films are in limited figging release in the first place. Last time I checked, producing a copy of actual film – you know, not a digital files that can be beamed via satellite to thirty billion theaters at once but rather huge, heavy, reels of actual FILM – costs upwards from $1800 a feature. That can be cost prohibitive, no? Plus shipping. But, getting every theater set up to screen digital would be massive costs falling on the theater owners. Oh, what a problem!

The enterianment industry has so many shared interests and broken parts I not sure what we’ll see first: a solar car or a pleasant movie theater showing digitally delivered features.

In the meantime, we wind up building our own little theater in the rec room. Big screen TVs are getting bigger and cheaper. Surround sound systems that make me wonder if it’s live abound. Theater-style lighting (wrapping around the ceiling), extra-butter popcorn (jumbo bags are still $10 less than theater bags), and a plush couch for you and your girl, boy, buddy, whatever finish off the charm. All the wonders of the theater in the perfect environment. With enough friends over for the show you can even achieve that whole group-mind I-am-Borg effect. And a month after that blockbuster movie leaves the theater you have it all to yourself on high-def DVD for the price of less than two movie tickets.

Of course, you won’t get the unbridled excitement of Alanis Morisette going down on some dude in the back row... but, heck, some realism I can do without.

E.J.