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.