We're All Mad Here, and It's Okay

Hello friend.

I'm doing an awful job at keeping you updated. Promises and assurances may not be the best move on my part, considering my history; however my intention remains to keep this blog up, going, and fun to read. That said, I'll stop talking about my guilt for not keeping it so!

Personally, not much has been happening aside from work. I did go to an excellent concert headlined by Lindsey Stirling. Such a good show. The opener, Karmin, did an excellent job as well and I haven't been able to stop listening to their music. My friend Lindsay Mead vlogged the experience and you can watch that here.

Speaking of Lindsay Mead, she has a new book coming out near the end of this month. It's being released on ebook first, then making its way to paperback and hardcover. It can be preordered on Amazon. If you have a Nook device, it should be available to purchase on June 22nd! I've had a chance to read The Beast, and it's an excellent steampunk retelling of Beauty and the Beast. /shamelessplug

At any rate, the concert thrilled me. I haven't been to a live concert in several years, and this may not have been the show to do it. Lindsey was just too good. Her songs, while excellent in just listening or enjoyable to see the music video for, were turned into pure performance art. Lights, shadows, screens, and all kinds of other special effects she employed to tell moving stories. It moved me how well she told stories with, for the most part, songs that had no lyrics.

Thank you for listening.

What is the Force that Binds the Stars

Good evening friend!

It's part three of my epic journey to New York! Time to get this story on the books. 

To recap: my bags have been packed, everything has been planned, and I was just waiting for Jewel to arrive with the rental car.

In a few short minutes she arrives! Many hugs are had as well as nervous screams of excitement. I grab my things and we start our epic adventure! 

We drive south towards the Ohio Turnpike - we'll take that most of the way to the city. It's just like old times between us - we start talking as if we're in the middle of some great theatrical production that we're in technical rehearsals for. The new Into the Woods movie, the upcoming The Last Five Years, local community theater gossip - nothing is off the table for us. Life, family, work, changes in all of the above. 

I'm honored to have a friend like her. No matter the time that passes, we pick up just where we left up and grow from there. 

At any rate, in a few hours we decide to stop and take a break at a rest station. The turnpike rest stops are fantastic for having great amenities and actual eateries. Well, a couple of fast food options instead of a vending machine. Still, salad in hand and Jewel at my side, we sit in a corner of the pavilion that isn't being cleaned. (It was about 9:30 PM at this point, so the janitorial staff were hard at work)

We sit there eating, minding our own business when a true character comes to sit right behind us. I managed to snap this picture before Jewel's giggling made being sneaky an impossibility.  In retrospect, he wasn't all that odd, just out of place. I suppose we were too - I wonder if they were taking pictures of us characters? 

After some giggling and a few uncontrollable salad-spitting laughs, it becomes apparent that what we need at that exact moment of time is more caffeine. Right? Sure, this sounds like a great idea! It will definitely help silence the giggling. 

I guess this 24 hour Starbucks in the rest stop will be handy. 

Before we knew it, we each had a single shot of espresso ready to down. I tell her I like mine with some raw sugar (it tastes like espresso candy at the end), and she tries it. 

Mmmm... coffee. This will go well. With eagerness we bundle up again and wade out into the harsh January night. 

At this point, I hoped the night would never end. Somehow the espresso allowed for a more honest conversation. Maybe it's like ADD medication and brought us back down to earth instead of hyping us up? 

Religion, science, politics; open discussion, respectful disagreement in some cases. The miles of road passed underneath us as music played on underneath our discussions. Into the mountains of Pennsylvania we drove. Wait, the fuel tank is how low? How far do we have until the next town? 

Until part four

We've Spent A Stolen Season Taking All That We Can Take

Hello there friend.

It's a difficult blog I write today. Have you heard the term "the dark night of the soul?" I really enjoy its connotation. In essence, the term speaks about a time in a person's life where that person goes through great struggle. Things seem dark and most likely depressing. Things that don't bother the person become mountains to overcome.

For me, the dark night comes every few years following a great change. My father going to war, leaving college, job changes, moving. This time it's trial by fire. The first few days were the hardest for me. I got terribly sick and terribly depressed. My family and friends surrounded me and protected me from the worst of myself. Still, I haven't felt those feelings off loss and emptiness in years. Every day I come back to my new apartment to find totes off crap and piles of things that still need to be sorted in every area of my space. It leaves me disorganized and almost dizzy.

I imagine it almost feels like someone who has lost memory with age. Where do I keep glasses? Bowls? I need a cheese grater and I know I have three and can't find any of them in the cupboards. So I do the same two meals with the things I do know where to locate. Frozen pizza or a canned meal.

I have been trying to get out of the box and try new things - for instance I've been trying to eat smaller portions and incorporate a fruit and vegetable smoothie in the place of one of my meals. It's helping me feel better physically, but my feeling of confusion and inadequacy continues. So the totes stay stacked around the apartment and I've learned just to walk around them.

So I've come to the fork in the road. It's the place where I need to be bigger than the issues that surround me. Bigger than defeat. Bigger than not knowing. Bigger than depression. Bigger than anxiety. Big enough to not just get on with my life, but to start living it again.

In truth, I wasn't aware of how bad it had gotten. Then, this weekend I went on a small camping retreat with Patrick that was much needed. However it was just long enough, and just relaxing enough that when I was thrust back into reality and life it was as if someone had dunked my head in cold water. Wake up call.

The dark night of the soul is a time of testing. It's time for me to wake up. To be.

I Can't Believe You Really Came

Good evening, friend.

Sorry I've been away for a bit. Life has a bit nuts - I'll give you a hint. This was my view at 3:03 AM just over three weeks ago:

Needless to say, it kind of threw a wrench into my life. I had never known before what it was like to be without a home. For several minutes I stood, just watching the apartment I'd worked hard for get closer and closer to being consumed by the flames. 

In that moment I had to face the possibility that everything I had gathered would be gone. A rather wordy way to say that I was scared shitless. 

I had never had to face the possibility that at the end of the day I would not have shelter over my head. That kind of realization changed me to the core. 

It was remarkable how fast news of the fire spread. I hadn't even begun texting people to let them know I was okay when coworkers who had seen the fire on the news and started sending me messages. Was I okay; did I need anything; was that my building? Thank goodness I had grabbed my phone in my haste to leave. 

My mother picked up the phone within the first few rings. She and my father would be down soon. All the while Patrick - who I'd called first - waited with me. The 24 hour doughnut shop down the street from my apartment was a buzz of activity that morning. Patrick and I grabbed some doughnuts and waited there for my parents to arrive. Around us all the regulars chirped on and on about the fire. Speculation flew through the air as several of the tenants of my old apartment wandered in and out. One even slept in the far corner. 

All the while friends and family were sending me messages, asking what I needed. I could feel their love and support from many miles away, across the country. Honestly, I'm not sure how I would have made it through that day without all of their support and love. 

The hours passed and the days went by. People came out of the woodwork to support me and help me out. I eventually did get into my old apartment. It was unreal going in after all that had happened - and yet most everything was the same as I'd left it. Just wet. Dishes were in the sink, waiting to be washed. DVDs were in a pile by the doors to my deck - where I had set them to be organized. Several board games sat at my kitchen table, never to be played again. One that I had just gotten, Onirim, had popped out of its box - the cards in it had gotten so waterlogged that they'd expanded. 

Over two days several friends, family members, and I put my old belongings that we thought we could save into plastic totes to be carried to my new apartment. I'm still amazed just how much we were able to salvage. It's been a long process sorting through the old stuff, washing old clothes and blankets, trying to get the smell of smoke off of everything, but it's coming along. I'll get back to blogging regularly, but I beg your forgiveness for being silent. I've had a few other things on my mind. 

Much love to you, my friend. Remember that everything surrounding you is just stuff in this physical world we inhabit. It's the people and the connections you make that matter. They'll still be there when you have nothing else to hold you up. 

It's All There in the Gospel

Good evening, my friend.

Let's set the scene. Saturday night, mid January. I'm all packed in a simple backpack - I have charging cables, a change of clothes, nicer clothes for the show, some water and basic food supplies. All I have to do is wait for Jewel to get there with the rental car and we'll be on our way. 

Everything has been planned - as much as we can anyway. We'll try to get to the city early enough to be on one of the Sunday morning shows, we'll hang around the city a few hours and see the show. Then, it's back off again and back to reality. We've got this. Weather seems like it will be clear - cold, but clear. 

I get a text from Jewel - she's on her way! My nerves are firing with excited anxiety. So many things could be going wrong, but I have to trust that things will be all right. 

It's What You Do

Good evening, my friend.

Remember when I said about a week ago that I wouldn't be browsing Kickstarter anymore? That worked really well for me until I happened upon one that looked oh, so pretty.

It's looks that get my every time, I swear! I scrolled through the new projects in Kickstarter for fun the other day, feeling accomplished after my most recent project Unspeakable Words was backed successfully. With pride, I looked about at the other board games on the table. One of the thumbnails blew me away as soon as I saw it. Be careful, I said to myself. Pretty art doesn't make a successful project.

But then I looked at some of the project details. Entropy is a card game about different characters who's worlds have collided into a nexus point, and the characters have to find all of the pieces to their home to return there. The first one home is the winner. Simple enough, I thought. Now, to look at the art. It floored me. I spent several minutes just admiring the color schemes and the thematic concepts behind this game.

No, I told myself. Don't back it - you just backed two other pointless projects. Do you enjoy the way this game plays, or do you just want it for the art? Did it matter? That was my second voice - you know the demon on the other shoulder. So what if I hadn't seen a game play video and just wanted the art. The art in itself was valuable enough to own at their asking price. And I would get a cool metal token for backing the project!

That evil devil on the other shoulder. Why am I always listening to him? I told myself I'd at least let a day pass - give me time to rest and think on it. Watching a video on how the game played might also help. But no, I couldn't last four hours and I'd already backed it.

Buyer's remorse? Not yet, at least. It looks like a beautiful game - one I'll definitely sleeve. I'm not worried about getting the cards - the project creators have done a project before and people got their product then. It'll be the months of waiting for it to go into production; finalizing rules and art, sending it to the printer, fulfilling orders, sending it all the way from Australia to my little hamlet in Michigan. Those months I might be remorseful. Who knows though.

Do they make a 12 step program for Kickstarter backing?

One Day He Dreamed of A Ship in the World

Hello friend of mine.

So... it's February and I still haven't told you about the events of January. New things keep stacking up - I suppose it makes for an interesting life. I always seem to get behind. Forgive me for that. I do have something rather exciting to share with you, however: my impromptu trip to New York City (part 1)!

My good friend Jewel (I talked about her in an old blog entry) decided to text me mid January out of the blue.

"Looking for someone to go to New York with me overnight next week, interested?"

That fateful text.

"I'm very interested," I responded enthusiastically. Now we just had to plan around my preset work schedule.

Come to find out, Sting had written a musical (I know, right?) called The Last Ship. I knew next to nothing about it, but Jewel loved the idea of seeing it on Broadway. She'd seen a clip of it on The Today Show To give some perspective: I've always been a theater person. I've done many productions in school and out, doing everything from acting to technical work to directing. My dream career used to be working on the Broadway stage. That passion runs deep to me.

Funny thing, though - I've never been to NYC, not to mention Broadway. When this chance appeared, I jumped on it. We looked into flight and as it turns out flying can be expensive booking three days before you leave. No go on that front. How about a drive? We'd worked out that we could leave on a Saturday night and come back by Monday morning - when I had to work at 7 AM. Could we manage the drive in that slot of time? It was a 10 hour drive nonstop.

For some unknown reason we decided to make the trip. We started to make secondary plans - should we leave earlier Saturday? Who would get the rental car? Matinee on Sunday? How is the weather looking?

Meanwhile I'd made plans to play board games with a friend of mine early Saturday morning. I did some quick mental math. 7 AM Saturday to 11 Monday night = very tiring weekend.

Was this a good idea? Was this the most reckless thing I'd ever done? Yes. I'll never forget it.