Yet Another Long Pause

Howdy, all.

I know, I know. I have a habit of doing this. I wrote a piece about boycotting the internet in an effort to make my life better and that was part of it, but mostly it was my own laziness.

On a better note, here are some updates!

1.) I’ve been married now for a year to my lovely husband, Adam. We celebrated our one year anniversary on Halloween just last month. (I got him a comic book for a present. It’s paper, okay?)

2.) It’s been over two years since I’ve owned the coffee shop. That means that my SBA loan restrictions have been lifted! Which, in reality, doesn’t mean much, but it’s a milestone, regardless. People ask what my one-year goals are for the shop. My response is always to be here the next year.

3.) BYRON IS MOVING FORWARD. After the long-decision-making-time, I’ve chosen to self-publish. I’m waiting for editing changes and then I’ll edit-edit-edit like crazy and hopefully have a beta version this January.

4.) I am going to fail NaNoWriMo horribly this year, but THAT’S OKAY. I’m hoping to have another novel done by January to enter it into the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest. (Byron didn’t even make it through the first round, but I knew it was going to be a tough sell.)

5.) I’ve been taking some time off from work for my own mental health and have been working out/writing/generally lazing about so as not to make my anxiety/depression any worse. That will most likely have a bloggy post of its own (as will most of these subjects) but I’ve made progress on my worry-scale and have been rethinking what I define as success and have been trying to get better at being okay with my life.

6.) I have visible triceps. I can do, like, four pushups. Yeah.

I’ll update more regularly. Maybes like, every few days or so, you know? Chaa.

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Four! (And a flood)

4.) Fatale (Image) 2012 – present — by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.

STORY TIME, KIDS. Everyone gather ’round.

Just this last September, in the town of Boulder where my coffee shop is located, there was a little ol’ something called the 100-year flood. This doesn’t mean that the flood happens every 100 years, but, rather, there is a 1/100 chance that any given year, such a deluge will fall and cause massive flooding.

It started raining, and raining, and then it rained some more. This is somewhat unusual for sunny Colorado in that, after one day of cloudy skies and rainy weather, people start to grumble that they haven’t seen the sun in 36 hours. It started on a Monday, nothing more than the beginning of an early fall shower and then by Wednesday afternoon, there were flood sirens going off so that I could hear them from my shop. We watched out of our window as the rain pounded down on every available surface, already seeing streams of water washing down the storm drains and carrying along sticks, plastic bags, debris from off the streets and rising at a fairly alarming rate. We heard reports from people who lived up the canyon that there was a seven-foot wall of water washing down the roads and that it was on its way.

The shop is only a few hundred yards from the Boulder Creek, which had risen to levels not seen in 70 years. Parking lots and apartment complexes next to it — like The Millennium Hotel, just a mere block away — already had several foot-deep puddles congregating in low areas from the overflow. The Creek — which, usually is what it is — had turned into a dingy brown raging river with rapids, white frothy waves that you could hear whooshing through underneath the bridges.

My shop is located in a floodplain; there are signs everywhere around it saying: “THIS AREA IS SUBJECT TO FREQUENT FLOODING.” I had flood insurance, it was something that was necessary for me to secure an SBA loan to buy the shop, but that still didn’t calm any fears that, when I left the store early on Wednesday, driven by the sirens and the texts from family members and the Flash Flood Warnings constantly popping up on my phone saying to evacuate immediately if I feared for my life, it wouldn’t be there whenever I would be able to get back.

I made sure all the girls who worked at the shop — and still lived in Boulder — were okay and sent everyone home while I made the twenty minute drive back to my house in Northglenn. It took forty-five minutes because the highway had started to flood. Other spots were already shutting down as the river raged past Boulder, into surrounding Louisville, Longmont, Lyons, washing away US 36 to Estes Park and cutting a swath miles wide in some areas. Lyons and Longmont were virtually cut in half by the water. People’s homes were damaged, basements were flooded, people started to die, and by midnight that Wednesday night, it felt like the entire state would soon be covered in water.

What does this have to do with comic books? Not much, other than the fact that when I woke up early Thursday morning, I couldn’t get back to sleep. I fervently checked my phone and found that US 36 was closed at Louisville, several offramps before Boulder because it had flooded. There was no way for me to get to work, so I didn’t go in and decided to shut down for the day. Unable to go to sleep at 5:30 AM, I picked up Fatale, thinking it would soothe me back out of the incredibly worried state I had been in for a day and a half.

It did and it didn’t.

It’s a fantastic comic, filled with disturbing Lovecraftian plotting and even worse nightmare-inducing imagery about Jo, a femme fatale, who makes any man who comes into too much contact with her fall irrevocably in love. So much so that they will do whatever she wants them to — and some things she doesn’t. This extends past torture, past murder, into strange cult happenings with flesh-eating cannibals and squid-headed demons. The heavy mood of dread only builds with every turn of the page as man after man falls in love and then is killed in gruesome ways because of the mysterious power surrounding the deadly Jo.

The plot weaves from the 1930s to the present, intermixing stories from different decades in-between. The main story that shapes the rest of the vignettes is about Nicolas Lash, the godson of a writer who became entranced with Jo in the 50s, and Lash’s pursual of Jo and the unfolding of events previously unknown in his godfather’s early life. The most confounding question — and one which has yet to be revealed — is why this woman seems not to have aged in the last 50 years and how she got the powers that seem more of a burden to her than a blessing.

Which is where the interesting emotion comes into play. It’s clear that Jo has had some run-ins with a particularly nasty cult that sacrifices people and seems to worship Lovecraftian horrors, but did she get her powers from them? Why are they still pursuing her? Instead of reveling in her power and beauty (as she did when she was younger), Jo, at one point, tries to cut herself off from all contact with men so as to spare herself yet another skeleton in her already-full closet.

It’s a tragic story. No happy endings or warm fuzzies from this one. The art is messy and brutal when it wants to be, and classy and wonderful at other times. It’s a stark contrast from a dismembered group of cultists to a rising, hazy sunset in the 1970s in California, but it just leads to the creeping defamiliarization of the world around us and the horrible lurking chaotic mess just underneath. I’ve never been so unnerved by a comic before — well, maybe not since The Walking Dead — and maybe that was partly due to my state of mind at the time and partly due to the excellent compounding dread, but Fatale is so compelling, I had to get the next volume immediately after reading the first, but yet, I felt a rising nausea in my stomach even thinking about continuing.

So, I was soothed by the intricate story-crafting and unnerved by the sheer creepiness of the comic. Told you I like to read horror novels in order to fall asleep.

Fatale is equal parts horror, detective story, and savage look at what happens when love becomes obsession and beauty becomes gnarled. I was worried about this raising my feminist hackles, but I find Jo a well-rounded character, if not always of the cleanest conscience. She is the most consistent character and develops interestingly throughout time, but never in a way that I think is disingenuous, given the context. She manages to walk the line of the Madonna/whore contrast without falling whole-heartedly into either category.

I’ve heard that Brubaker and Phillips’ other series Incognito, Criminal, and Sleeper are also good, but I have yet to read them. Fodder for the next emotionally disturbing nights, I guess.

To end my other story, once the roads opened back at 10 AM, I drove to Boulder, just to see if the shop was still around. Miraculously, it had survived. There was one drop of water from the ceiling and everything else was perfect. I realize that I was incredibly lucky. Just eight stores down, the Tokyo Joe’s next to us had their backroom flooded. A block away the Sprouts grocery store had water up to chest-level and all of their produce had been ruined. Another nearby business had their ceiling cave in from the weight of the water. I opened the store, thinking that no one would come in and I would leave in a few hours only to have a line out the door until I could call for backup. Everything had turned out.

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Five! (And a brief intermission)

Now we come to the halfway point of my Comics! list. Adam surreptitiously got me to think about why THESE particular comics, making me rethink the reasoning behind this list. Simply put, it’s the comics I’m reading now, those I currently enjoy, those that may not necessarily get as much exposure as others (but, of course, neither Thor nor Hawkeye fit into this category), and those that are a good introduction into comics for those uninitiated (with the exception of Angel & Faith).

I first got into comics because of Guillermo del Toro’s magnificent Hellboy movie starring the incomparable Ron Perlman. (Who is in EVERYTHING.) Before that, I, classicist that I was, thought anything written before 1950 was not any good and that contemporary literature was passe and uninteresting, lacking any sort of relevance or power that novels before that had. Comics didn’t even enter into the equation, me thinking that they were just picture books for those too unaware of the greatness of Dostoevsky or Dickens. Then I saw Hellboy and realized that if a movie that awesome was based on a comic, well, then it was time for me to see what all these comics were about. Mike Mignola’s interesting blend of dark and stark panels, the magnificence of the statues and corpses he draws and the beauty therein in ruination and dilapidation made me realize that comics could be just as interesting and worthy as the dustiest piece of Russian Literature. I hope to inspire others to take the same chance, to read something new in a way they’ve never read anything else.

With the outpouring of superhero movies in the last twenty or so years — yes, twenty, as I count Blade to kind of be the start of a ‘serious’ comic movie instead of a very comic-y movie like Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman or the Dick Tracy with Warren Beatty — it’s easier than ever to pick up a comic and not be intimidated by the last 60 years of history behind it. These are stories that are just, simply put, good storytelling, just with pictures and speech bubbles.

So I guess I’m attracted to a certain type of story, which isn’t necessarily what most comic book lovers are looking for. I like the complete universe stories with definite endings. Though the DC and Marvel universes are escapist and so richly detailed, they’re not as alluring to me as something like Sweet Tooth or four out of the top five left on the list.

Number five is the last of the superhero comics. Remember when I said that JMS was one of two movie guys to make the list? The other is the exceptional Joss Whedon.

5.) Astonishing X-Men (Marvel) 2004-2007 — by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday.

Now, before you start dissing on Whedon for his somewhat loud-mouthed fans, or for disliking his series, know that yes, I understand that Joss Whedon can be rather…difficult to work with and that his legions of rabid fans can be somewhat off-putting, but that doesn’t dissolve any of his talent or ability to make a good story. The dude is dang-talented and sometimes that lends itself to a big ego. Is that a bad thing? When interacting with people, maybe. When making fantastic TV shows and comics? Not necessarily.

This was my first (legit) superhero comic of the Marvel variety, not even to say of the X-Men variety. I was told that it would ruin other X-Men comics for me and while nothing can come close to its brilliance, I find myself still being able to read, say, Wolverine: Weapon X; Insane in the Brain and still enjoy it, even though it’s not nearly as well-thought out and detailed as Astonishing X-Men.

In case you haven’t gotten the memo, Buffy is just Joss Whedon’s take on Kitty Pryde, his favorite X-Men and she is featured prominently in this series and does she ever become much more than just the shadowy (ha!) figure. Sometimes writers don’t know how to handle superpowers well. Someone, like Kitty Pryde, may not necessarily seem useful, until given the right platform from which to evolve her powers and showcase just exactly how awesome they can be. Whedon does this perfectly, bringing a somewhat minor character to the shining forefront.

Like other Marvel stories, there is a whole lot of background for these characters and it can be daunting and somewhat difficult to jump in the middle. This being my first X-Men comic, I only had the knowledge base from the 1990s animated series to inform me who was who and sort of what had happened to them before this adventure. But, a few issues into the run, I found myself not caring whether or not I knew how Colossus had ‘died’ earlier, caring only that now he was back and that complicated things for Kitty Pryde. I didn’t mind that Professor X was off somewhere doing something with someone I didn’t know, only that his absence caused a disruption in Scott Summer’s leadership abilities. It was inconsequential how Emma Frost changed from being a member of the Hellfire Club to co-leader of the X-Men with Cyclops, only the ramifications that presented. Whedon’s story is so good that, even though I was missing huge chunks of X-Men history, I only became concerned with what was happening to these characters NOW.

It follows a few major story arcs, some being about the Danger Room becoming sentient and attacking the X-Men — as a friend of mine succinctly put it: “Was Star Trek mad?” — to everyone becoming victims of their own personal fears, leading to some of the most brilliant comedic scenes I’ve ever read in any comic, ever. Whedon has a biting sarcasm that mixes well with witty dialogue and truly heart-wrenching character development. To go from laughing to shock in a short time is one of his fortes in Buffy and, given how things change so quickly in comics anyway, Astonishing X-Men is no exception. Just like his other works, too, his X-Men run has a fairly complicated plot (for comics) and is best over a long-range, rather than issue-to-issue.

It was also very refreshing to have him take a step back from the (somewhat) ridiculous Wolverine obsession. I too, like a good short, hairy, clawed berserker, but, especially with the X-Men movies, Wolverine has become something more than he was ever intended to be. At his core, he’s a warrior, one who loses his temper, gets brain-washed entirely too much, and, at the end of the day, likes a cold beer more than he likes brooding about the things from his past he may or may not remember. The film version is a little bit more romanticized (not that there’s anything wrong with different interpretations of characters, especially from comics to the big screen) but I find I like the simplistic brawl-y, bub-talking Wolverine, than the Hugh Jackman version. Whedon utilizes Wolverine rather effectively, even parodying some of his toughness, while not alienating those who want a little more emotional depth.

Overall, this is a comic not to be missed. Yes, it’s hard to get into, especially at the beginning with so much background being needed for contextualization, but by the end of it, you won’t mind. There’s a big omnibus of Whedon’s run, which I recommend, because you won’t like the wait in-between trades if you start reading it.

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Se7en

7.) Angel & Faith (Dark Horse) 2011 – 2013 — by Christos Gage and Rebekah Isaacs. Holy smokes, where do I begin? First off, this series just ended, as it was only meant to be 25 issues, but as I trade-wait, I have yet to read the finale, so I’m going to go all River Song and say NO SPOILERS.

The awesomeness that is Angel & Faith is that it carries on the great tradition of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in comic form. This series, Buffy Season Nine, the Willow five-issue Wonderland and Spike’s five-issue A Dark Place (and also a Drusilla series!) all fall under the banner of Season 9. This is also the frustrating thing about this series IN THAT THERE IS SO MUCH TO READ AND I HAVE TO HAVE SOME MONEY LEFT OVER TO EAT. I’ve prioritized Angel & Faith because Angel has always been my favorite (his series too), so that means I’m a bit behind on the rest.

After the shows went off the air after seasons 7 and 5 respectively for Buffy and Angel, the series both went into comics to continue the stories. Buffy went to Dark Horse (my favorite comic distributor) and Angel went to IDW due to the split between UPN and WB at that time for the television rights. Now, under Season 9, all of Angel and Friends was bought by Dark Horse so that the two could make cameos and stuff without a bunch of legal hoo-haa. Buffy Season Eight had some…issues. And so did Angel: After the Fall and the rest of the Angel IDW run. Confused yet? So were we, the audience. The writers of the various comics for Season Eight of Buffy and Season Six of Angel went big-budget — oh my god, Dawn’s a giant and Angel and Los Angeles have been sucked into hell and Spike is on a spaceship with giant cockroaches and there are giant Hindu gods smashing out of the ground and eating everything — so that by the time Buffy finished it’s Season Eight run, I was a little distanced by what made the show so great: character driven plots that adhere to everyday life with some awesome supernatural sidelines thrown in to make it interesting. Buffy and Angel were so great because of how people reacted to the things happening to them, not because of robo-battles and helicarriers and special effects.

But, after listening to much fan feedback about the flamboyance (caution, that link has S8 spoilers) of Season Eight, they hunkered down and created the masterpiece that is Angel & Faith.

I always liked how Faith and Angel had their similarities espoused in the series and the comic is a continuation of their strange relationship in which each of them strive to make the other better, regardless of whether the other wants to change or not. In a new world created by the events of Season Eight, Angel and Faith find themselves living in Giles’s apartment in England where SPOILER ALERT Angel is trying to bring Giles back from the dead after he became possessed by an alternate dimension that he and Buffy created by skrawnking and killed Giles. (Yeah, Season Eight…let’s just move on.) Faith is also dealing with a magic-free world and what that means for those left who depended upon magic to survive. Faith, not thinking that bringing back Giles is a good idea — because when is resurrection a good idea in any TV show? — is trying to dissuade Angel by getting him to concentrate on the here-and-now. The interplay between the two is as great as ever and I, for one, am excited to have a series where the two main characters have little to no sexual tension driving events. Angel’s a little shell-shocked and Faith has more responsibility than ever and the two desperately need life-savers in order to cope with their new lives. Which is why they were teamed up in the first place: they have a little Master-Yoda-Luke-Skywalker feel, a bit of veteran-camaraderie, and a smidgen of healthy disregard for stereotypical relationships. Yay for interesting storytelling!

The best part is the intrusion of Giles’s aunts and how they liven up the broodiness that has been known to seep into both Angel’s and Faith’s lives. It’s much needed comedic relief and, once again, the story is driven by how the two eponymous characters react, not to big-budget effects and extravagance.

Also: LADY ARTISTS.

If you’re only going to read one series from the Buffy comics, read this one. You might be a bit confused, as there’s about nine years of backstory, but what comic series isn’t loaded down with lots of history? It’s nothing more than jumping into the middle of Superman comics, or, even better (worse?) X-Men comics. You won’t be disappointed by its excellence.

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EIGHT

8.) Chew (Image) 2009-present — by John Layman and Rob Guillory. What’s exciting about Chew is that, like Sweet Tooth, anything (and sometimes everything) can happen in the crazy creative and zany world presented through the character of Tony Chu, cibopath and FDA agent extraordinaire.

A cibopath — and the only reason why I knew this beforehand is because I like the band Cibo Matto, and only then, because of Buffy of course — is someone who gets a psychic impression of whatever food he is consuming. Like when a psychic touches someone’s hand and gets a glimpse into their unknown, a cibopath knows where his food comes from and what has happened to it in the recent past. Understandably enough, Tony is a vegetarian in a world where chicken is illegal and a black market has sprung up to deliver the illicit poultry.

Tony gets drawn into many food and murder-related adventures, finds many other people — those who can describe a meal so well that others feel full when reading about the encounter, those who can cook memories into their food (similar to Like Water for Chocolate, I guess) — both allies and villains, embroiled in the cases he’s investigating. Which is maybe the best premise for a cop-type of comic drama I’ve ever heard of. When an idea can be stretched and pulled to cover so much territory that the possibilities will never became stale, you know the idea is rock-solid.

Chew also has an interesting story technique: each issue starts out with a seemingly random first page that somehow relates, either as a flash back or a flash forward, or sometimes just an amusing side story, to the larger plot. So, not only is the slightly-satirical story out-of-sync, it also oftentimes begins in media res, my favorite kind of res. Nonlinear narratives for the win!

The art is pretty amazing — being just realistic enough so as to make the squigier scenes pretty squigy and just enough comic to give depth to the more flamboyant emotions with a cartoon-like flair, the witty dialogue is on par with any Joss Whedon show, and of course, the wacktastic happenings are enough to keep even the most out-there minds entertained. When I have a hard time continuing to read a comic or a novel because of my jealousy, I know I’ve found something good and Chew is no exception. It has just enough humor to keep it lighthearted, just enough gore to keep it comic-y enough for the hardcore fans, and just enough creativity to outlast most all other comic writers, which is saying something.

It’s an ongoing series, so who knows what’s still left to happen. I’m still pretty early on, since my comic book fund was severely depleted by my buy-a-house, buy-a-business, and then get-married fund, but Chew is in the top contenders always for my money. Also, having the main character be of Chinese descent is a nice twist in the white-dominated main character arena. What’s even more refreshing is that the creators wished for Chu to be “a totally unstereotypical Asian-American.”¹ Many of my friends find the concentration of a fictional character’s entire essence into one personality aspect (i.e. being gay, being a woman, being of a different ethnicity) will be pleased to note that Chu is not defined by his nationality, but instead just…is.

I don’t even really have any qualms with the series, either. It’s solid, interesting, and still has lots to explore, even a few years in. Do yourself a favor and (requisite pun) give this one a nibble.

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Number 9 on the Comics! List

9.) J Michael Straczynski’s Thor (Marvel) 2007-2009 — Now, JMS I HAVE heard of. And maybe you have too. Babylon 5 is his most famous piece of work and he’s also the second television-writer-turned-comic-book-aficionado on this list as well. Which speaks well for the guy, actually. Adam has a theory that all movie stars want to be rock stars and all rock stars want to be movie stars. The same holds true for television guys wanting to be novelists and novelists wanting to be movie directors and so on. Which is why some things are fantastic books (Queen of the Damned) but absolutely horrendous movies (e.g. Queen of the Damned); they are simply different formats and it’s hard to make what works for one work for the other. By succeeding in multiple ways, it shows that the creator truly knows what makes a story tick and conveys that to an audience well.

Which is why JMS’s Thor is spectacular. Guy knows how to tell a story and tell it well. Captain American has just died, the Avengers are disassembled, Asgard has been destroyed — don’t worry ’bout it, ’cause with comics, sometimes you just dive right in — and Thor, sharing a human body with Dr. Donald Blake (eh?) — has to undo the events of Ragnarok. But, oh noes! Loki is back too — and HE’S A GIRL. Promising not to betray Thor (have we heard this before?), Loki offers his help in restoring the Asgardians to a new home: Oklahoma. From there, it’s all about the interactions and how a small dustbowl town deals with an influx of gods and their enemies.

It’s a nice intro into the Thor mythos, if you’ve never read a Thor comic, and is just a darn good plot. Time travel, Dr. Doom, love triangles, Iron Man getting pwned…It has everything! Oftentimes comics fall short in the emotions category and, looking through my choices, the ones that have a good ability to express and make the readers feel tragedy, loss, and longing are what make this list. A superhero like Thor — really, just Marvel’s version of Superman — can be hard to identify with and even harder to make interesting, but JMS has done it and I feel he really breathed new life into a character that can be, at times, stagnant.

Oliver Coipel’s art — especially the looks that Lady Loki gives — will stop you cold. I have never personally been afraid of a panel of ink drawings, but holy guacamole, does Coipel know how to draw a woman that Thor hath scorned. I got goosebumps — GOOSE FLESH — all up and down my arms with some of the panels and the sprawling Oklahoman landscapes almost don’t do justice for the wide-open vastness that Coipel achieves. Usually I’m not a big fan of realistic comics — I want artwork, not Renaissance Faire fantasy drawings — but Coipel makes it work for me with his little touches of elegance. Having Heimdall’s cloak turn into the vastness of space, even to the lack of eyebrows on Lady Loki all are such little details that others wouldn’t have necessarily put thought into.

A drawback is the somewhat slow pacing of it all. Loki’s eventual betrayal (believe me, that’s not a spoiler) takes some time to build in which everything almost seems as if it’s just a day in the life of. Which, I mean, if that life is Thor’s and the day is when he decides to rebuild Asgard in Oklahoma, that’s interesting, but it’s still comics and explosions are still demanded at least every twenty pages. Once the plot does get going and Dr. Doom’s presence ramps up, it’s hard to find any fault at all.

However, I was less than impressed with his Midnight Nation, so don’t lose any sleep over that one, m’kay?

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A Serious Moment.

You can even tell how serious it is because there’s punctuation in the title.

Here at the The Sauer Press, we try to keep things light-hearted. Which is ironic given that “we” is me and I’m a horror writer. Whatever. The point being that the things I complain about and the things that irk me are usually rather insignificant and I take a fancy to waxing poetic about them because I’m a writer and that’s what we do.

However, because of recent events and because talking about things makes me feel better about them, I’ve decided to post a rather personal outpouring of a sticky situation that’s been affecting me for a few months.

I’ll start out by saying that I consider myself a strong, independent young woman and all of the diatribe that goes along with that. I was never really bullied as a kid, but my friends were and I always stood up for them. I gave a voice to those who didn’t have the courage to speak their minds because of youth. Then, as a business owner, I’ve learned how to play hard ball with a lot of vendors, wrangling about pricing, delivery dates, minimum orders, and the like. Needless to say, I’ve no trouble speaking my mind and standing up for myself.

And yet, I recently found myself in an abusive relationship. Not with Adam. No, of course not. But not all abuse comes from a partner. Sometimes it takes the form of a family member, or a close friend. We’ll call the other tango partner in this manipulative dance Tee to avoid confusion. And to give us a starting point.

Tee and I lived together for two years. During that time Tee talked to me on several occasions about keeping the communal areas clean. Now, I’ve lived with many a roommate before and so has Tee. My previous roommates were messy and gross; they would leave dishes out and various types of mold and semi-intelligent life forms began to live in the fridge. Yeah, I’d talk to them about it, but if they didn’t help clean up, it would just eventually get to the point where I’d do it and then get on with the rest of my life. And I’m sure Tee has had messy roommates before too, but the difference between me and my previous roommates is a box of flour.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I was admonished the most recent time over an opened box of flour and a measuring cup, after several discussions that were more like lectures over the past two years. It wasn’t even that flour was all over the place, just an opened box of flour and a measuring cup carelessly left out after cleaning up the rest of a home-cooked meal. When Tee confronted me over such, I finally had to say what was really on my mind: “I am a clean person. I clean up after myself. Maybe your standards are too high and you need to figure that out.”

Which led to Tee asking me what my problem was. When I responded, “I have no problem with you, just your perception about how dirty the kitchen is,” Tee began to repeat the question over and over until — and here’s where my natural response to cry in every emotional situation, appropriate or not, kicks in — I was sobbing and Tee started yelling shrilly, without any control, and then slammed a door in my face. I was truly afraid of Tee in that moment unlike I had ever been by another human being in my life.

Not that I thought Tee would do anything, and I know for sure now Tee’s boundaries do not extend past physical abuse, but that’s when the first inkling that something was very wrong popped up. I walked around my own home in a constant state of egg-shell shock, wondering if I had cleaned enough — it was my duty to clean the kitchen every week, regardless of whether I had used it or not — or if the next time Tee wanted to ‘talk,’ it would be another twenty minutes of me mumbling, ‘No, you’re right. Yes, I’m sorry. No, it won’t happen again.” Like I was a dog or a child to be punished for something I didn’t even do.

No one deserves that sort of manipulation and guilt. I am a guilty person by nature. My empathy extends to almost everyone who has a story to tell me and any bad happenings going on in others’ lives almost always elicits an, “oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, what can I do?” Tee knew this, knew that I am rather easy going and don’t have strong opinions on things like sparkling clean floors and perfectly vacuumed rugs and used this to make me feel guilty for things that had nothing to do with me.

So I left the argument thinking I was in the wrong. That I was a slob and I was making Tee’s life miserable by my slovenly, boorish ways. Until I started thinking about the many times when Tee had yelled at me, thrown things, made me cry, and manipulated me and realized that if Tee had been my boyfriend, I would be his abused girlfriend. Suddenly I realized with alarming clarity that I had allowed Tee to make me believe that I deserved the admonishments dealt and that I was at fault for Tee’s inability to recognize what was really wrong.

I cannot guess as to Tee’s motivations for doing such. Tee is a very angry person and has yet to acknowledge the reasons why. I don’t think Tee was really angry about the kitchen, it was just a catalyst for all of the emotion and stress Tee could not handle. The best reason I can guess is jealousy and an inability to reconcile the bad things that have happened in Tee’s past with where Tee is at now. Tee may be projecting the feelings of worthlessness Tee received in years past, but none of that gives Tee the right to make me feel less than human.

Which is why Adam and I moved. It took a lot of coaxing from Adam and other friends to make me realize the truth of the situation and I’m very glad for their support. I don’t think I would have moved out as soon as I did if not for them. I would have continued to take the abuse for years, thinking that Tee needed my help or that Tee would get better if I just did everything right. What I realize now is that I could never do anything right for Tee and no amount of me changing could change Tee. The only thing I regret is that I did not see the situation clearly earlier and stayed for as long as I did.

When I was younger, I would use my teenage angst as motivation for writing. The feelings of loneliness and isolation I felt as a child, for feeling different and disconnected from those around me, became the backdrops for my earlier stories. Now I’m trying to see if I can use this experience in the same way to both help me get through it and to help fuel my stories with better emotion and description. I’m not there yet, the events are still too fresh, but you know what they say. Time + tragedy = comedy.

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The Honeymooners

Hello, all. Adam and I are back from three major life events in as many weeks. (And boy…are my arms…tired? This is why I’m not a comedienne, folks.)

First, we moved — which was somewhat unexpected — but the valiant Adam worked until 2 AM to get us mostly out of our old place. We’ve settled a bit into the new place, but there are still boxes and kinks to work out. Mostly, my computer needs to be set up so I can blog and write more efficiently.

Then, we got married on Halloween! It was steampunk themed. Pictures, I’ve been told, are to follow shortly. Let’s just say there were lots of tophats, goggles, gears, an African explorer a la Dr. Livingston, a mad scientist, a few cowboys, and Daryl Dixon.

Lastly, we flew internationally (and I’m a horrible flyer) and went to Cabo San Lucas for the honeymoon. There we had a week of intense relaxation, sitting around the pool and/or beach and reading books. I got through four and Adam through a huge chunk of HP Lovecraft — he’s on the Arkham Horror kick too — and another massive novel as well. (We also may or may not have played a round of Arkham Horror each night until we got our asses kicked by Yog-Sothoth.)

Now I’m back and the question burning in all of your minds is…ARE YOU WRITING?

The horrible, horrible answer to that is no. Unfortunately. Our dreams of participating in the NaNo were dashed in hopes of relaxation and ridiculously good Mexican food. Maybe one day, when my looks have faded…

On lighter news: my birthday doth approaches, which means VAMPIRE MOVIE MARATHON. Commencing in a viewing of the best movie known to mankind, The Lost Boys. It’s really hard for me to write and speak about the greatness that is The Lost Boys without somehow using the epithet, “greatest movie known to mankind.” Someone should pay me for this.

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Arkham Horror: Greatest Game Known to Mankind?

It’s no secret that I’m an avid fan of RPGs, especially the tabletop kind. There’s something about letting your imagination roam free, fighting dragons in your mind, and getting into adventures with friends that could otherwise never happen.

But then there’s the allure of board games. Who doesn’t have a ~~fond~~ ~~happy~~ vivid memory of playing Monopoly or Chutes and Ladders as a child, fighting over the racecar, losing pieces and then stepping on them in the dark?

Then, I was introduced to Arkham Horror. Not only is it based on H.P. Lovecraft’s stories, but it has similarities to both RPGs and board games. (Well, I guess it’s more than just similarity to a board game, since that’s what it is, BUT IT’S SO MUCH MORE.)

You are an investigator in a the war-ravaged and murky city of Arkham in the 1920s and OH MY GOODNESS you have to stop evil Cthulu-y demons from coming into the city from gateways to other dimensions before the Ancient God wakes up. You have stats like Sanity and Stamina (just like in RPGs!) and those help you fight demons and have encounters (just like in RPGs!) by rolling dice (yep, like RPGs again!) and picking random cards!

There are many different investigators to be (my favorite right now is Gloria Goldberg) and many different Ancient Gods to pit them against. Depending on which investigators and Ancient One are chosen, the game varies wildly in outcomes and offers so many unique challenges, I can never see it getting old. And if you’re a loner and hate friends, you can have a single person mode! Try playing D&D by yourself. It doesn’t work, does it?

The bad news is that it takes a while to learn to play since its system of complex rules run a good 25 pages long in the instruction manual. After that, it’s easy-peasy! The game play says it can happen in 2-4 hours, but I’ve yet to have a match last under four with more than four people playing. So, be prepared to spend your afternoon HAVING THE MOST FUN YOU’VE EVER HAD WITH CARDS AND GATEWAY TOKENS AND A MONSTER CUP.

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Coffee Shop

The question I get asked the most is, “how do you like owning a coffee shop?” (That’s not true. The most common question is, “you’re a writer, huh? What do you write?” And when I respond, “horror zombie steampunk novels, some sci-fi, and some Cthulu fan fic,” I get in response: “But you seem like such a nice girl.” But, for the purposes of this blog, I’ll pretend that the former question is more prevalent.)

I’ve worked in coffee for almost a decade now. That’s pretty much more than a third of my life. My first job is still the one I have, basically. Out of it, I’ve gotten amazing heat immunity in my hands, a resistance to all forms of caffeine, and espresso eternally encrusted under each fingernail.

Now, because of it, I have a small business. I worked for my previous employer, Michele, for about six years before she asked if I wanted to buy the store off of her because she was moving away to Durango, CO. I jumped at the chance and it’s been a year later.

There have been many ups and downs. I feel that just now I’m getting the hang of everything I have to do. A rhythm has appeared and knowing that things come in waves and cycles helps a lot, instead of just being a scared Russian Lit major wondering why she never took a business class. (Answer: too many bros.)

It eats up a lot of time. When I graduated college with said Russian Literature degree, I told myself — after a stint as a receptionist at an electrical company run by my father — that I would focus on writing, since I couldn’t do that all throughout high school and college. It’s difficult, knowing that I have to put writing on the back burner, once again, in order to pursue my other passion of serving great coffee and having a place where people can enjoy themselves.

It’s also probably the biggest thing I’ve done to make my parents — especially my father — proud. They’ve always supported me, but raised a few eyebrows when I said I wanted to be an author, around age 7, and then again, when I majored in something rarely useful outside of academia. He’s owned his own business for more than twenty years now and he feels proud knowing I’ve followed in his footsteps.

That also opens the door for a lot of pressure from him. They never got angry if I didn’t get straight As (which I ALWAYS did), but the unsaid thing was that anything less was unacceptable. I’ve been a perfectionist for a while and the coffee shop doesn’t help. I’m my own worst enemy when it comes to berating myself if something goes wrong.

Which many, many things have.

Refrigerators broke. Pipes broke. Neon signs broke. Sanitizing machines broke. I had to buy 40 boxes of coffee sleeves and 50 boxes of sprinkles. A lot of my first 8 months’ worth of profit went back into the shop for repairs and inventory. (But, hey, at least there was a profit!) Having my dad wonder why the shop isn’t as profitable as it was under Michele (yo, loans, different payroll, increase in rent, etc.) is difficult to deal with, on top of everything else.

The big shiny finish line, however, is knowing that years from now, if I stick with it, I’ll have a prosperous business that will allow me to set my own hours and give time for writing. I’m already down to working just five days a week (ONLY FIVE?!), and I’m trying to alternate between five and four to allow more writing time.

It’ll depend on business, however.

I get asked a lot if I’m glad I did it. The truthful answer is: I don’t know yet. I would probably make the same decision over, but it’s been a lot harder than I thought it would be, with more stress than I’ve had since my senior year of college, defending a thesis and trying to graduate in three years with a 3.9 GPA.

Let’s just say it’s been interesting and shall, more than likely, continue to be so.

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