You can't choose your race, but you can choose your class

Welcome to the campaign!*

We're playing a long-term game of Dungeons and Dragons here, and if you're new, there are a few things you should know. 

First, we have to function as though there's no Dungeon Master. (Or if there is, we don’t know who they are, but that gets into a whole ‘nother thing, so.) We’re all just going for it with the information we have. 

Second of all, we’re a big group of adventurers with different priorities, but in general, we’re fighting for social justice. We often come together to work on a specific campaign or battle. (For example, right now, in June of 2020, a big group of us is focusing on racial justice.) 

Third of all, unlike real DnD, you don’t have to stick with one class if you don’t want to. You can choose a different class each day, or overlap which class you’re a part of at any given moment. 

Okay! Ready to join? Here are the classes you can choose from: 

Fighters

Probably the largest and most visible class. These are the folks who march, carry signs, attend rallies, who are vocal on social media. 

Barbarians 

Warriors whose rage fuels them to (often violent) action. Throwers of bricks, topplers of statues, and painters of graffiti. They primarily fight for causes by disrupting the economy. These folks are definitely valuable to any cause, although some argue that too many on your team can become a liability. 

Monks and Paladins 

These folks focus on the spiritual and emotional aspects of the fight. These are the psychologists, the writers, the podcasters, and the friends reminding you that it’s okay to take a break. They provide a good balance for the fighters and barbarians. 

Bards 

The artists who use their art to critique the social order and provide hope for those fighting for change. Singers and songwriters, painters and other visual artists, theatre companies, TV and filmmakers, and creative writers. 

Clerics and Druids 

The healers and suppliers. They support the fighters during rallies and protests by providing medical care, food and water, transportation, and protection. This can sometimes be a dangerous job, but their involvement makes a huge difference at large protests. They’re the ones with first aid kits and bottles of water.

Rangers 

These folks are fighting on the fringes, having tough conversations with friends, family members, and acquaintances. Rather than participating directly in rallies and protests, they work to challenge the status quo wherever they are. This work isn’t as visible, but it’s deeply meaningful, and crucial to any social justice movement. 

Rogues 

The folks who use subversive tactics to fight against “enemies” of the movement. The internet group Anonymous is the perfect example. Standard tactics include things like hacking social media hashtags (like when KPop fans started using #WhiteLivesMatter to flood social media with KPop instead of white supremacy), crashing websites, sending memes to surveillance apps/sites to drown out any actual surveillance, and doing otherwise generally “legal” activity to stop immoral activity. 

Casters and Support Casters: Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Wizards 

These folks take direct action through donating, calling representatives, showing up at government meetings, voting, drafting letters, etc. These folks do the work “on the ground” even when there isn’t a protest or news story. Consistent ongoing work is key here, and it’s often most effective when you prepare a specific spell to utilize. 

Take a breath

No blog today. Beckah and I are both exhausted. 

Hug the people you love. See you in two weeks. 

Short Imagined Monologue: Coronavirus edition

Listen, man. I get it. I suck or whatever. But at the same time, you gotta admire how f***ing powerful I am. Right? Like, I’m basically invisible to the naked eye and I am still pwning you all so hard right now.

Sure, you’ve got your “strong economy” and your “healthcare systems” and your “toilet paper.” But one particle of me, between 0.06 and 1.4 microns big, and BOOM. Unemployment up to 14%! Refrigerated trucks being used as temporary morgues! You’re wiping your butts with rags made from old t-shirts!

I did that. Me. All on my own.

Okay, well, I guess TECHNICALLY y’all helped. All that coughing and sneezing and breathing on each other. Skipping the handwashing. You’re disgusting animals, all of you. And I love it.

I especially love when y’all disregard all the recommendations that are supposed to protect you and your loved ones. Please, keep gathering in large crowds to protest the government “taking away your freedoms.” Please don’t wear a mask in public. Please stand way too close to each other in line. You are the true MVPs of my campaign to f*** up humanity.

But I simply can’t go any further without acknowledging the folks in power who made me so powerful. I’d like to thank my boy, P Trump, and his gang for basically disbanding Global Health Security two years ago. Y’all really opened the door for me. Hell, you f***ing rolled out a red carpet. (I don’t really get how that Cheeto-d*ck perv is your PRESIDENT, but whatever.) Make America sick again, libtards!

Hm? What’s that? You miss sitting in restaurants? You want to get a haircut? You still want your “really good friend” to come over because you can’t survive two weeks without getting laid, even though y’all are “just casual”? Tough titties, all you cool cats and kittens. You can’t have any of that. Because of me.

Because of me, the line to get into Home Depot winds around a city block. Because of me, aisles in grocery stores have “one way” signs. (Shout out to all my peeps who blatantly ignore those signs, btw.) Because of me, there’s caution tape fluttering in the breeze around every public play structure. Because of me, everyone who works in live entertainment is f***ing out of a job for the foreseeable future.

Ha. The future. As if you could make any plans beyond tomorrow’s to-do list. I know some of y’all are counting down the days to when things are “back to normal,” but f**k you. This is your new normal, b*tch.

See, I’m forcing you to face the delusion you’ve been carrying all this time—that you ever had control over your life in the first place. Your bank account, your career, your shopping trips, your travel plans, your daily routine are all subject to the whims of fate. Or in this case, the whims of a badass coronavirus like yours truly.

It’s like in Jurassic Park. So many of you are John Hammond, sitting in a room and eating melting ice cream and saying things like “When we have control again.” But you should be Ellie Sattler, yelling across the table “You never had control! That’s the illusion! I was overwhelmed by the power of this place. But I made a mistake, too. I didn’t have enough respect for that power and it’s out now. The only thing that matters now are the people we love.”

I’m the power she’s talking about. And I’m out now.

Granted, you guys have tests. Although it kinda makes me happy that it’s soooooo uncomfortable for your fragile little bodies. Raise your hand if you want to have your brains scraped out of your head through your nose to check to see if I’m hanging out in your cavities! That’s what you gotta do to get to me, dude. You’ve got to go somewhere and have your brain scraped out of your head through your nose, and then wait 2-10 days for someone to call you to tell you whether or not you have to stay alone in your room for two full weeks.

And also, granted, you do have masks and social distancing practices and medical teams working around the clock and coordinated efforts to control me in these “unprecedented times.” And okay, FINE, so you’ve made strides in recovery and treatment and containment or whatever.

But I’m just trying to survive, you know? And if I have to kill a few healthy cells in your fragile special little snowflake respiratory systems to stay alive, then so be it. I’m not so different from you, you motherf***er who refuses to wear a mask. We’re both just trying to live our damn lives. Who gives a damn about anyone else.

COVID-19 blah blah blah, for posterity

Here’s what it was like. Here’s what I will remember.

I spend early January to mid-March dismissing everyone’s fears, before actually doing the research and realizing that this is serious. Not necessarily because of the mortality rate, but because our healthcare systems will not able to handle the load, and that will lead to a loss of life on a terrifying scale.

Early on, grocery stores are chaos. They’re quickly cleaned out of hand sanitizer, bottled water, and toilet paper. When I go grocery shopping, I can’t find eggs, flour, baking powder, vegetable oil, or frozen lasagna. A lot of other things are almost gone—butter, cereal, sour cream (for some reason?), canned veggies, fruit, beans, meat. With toilet paper being so hard to come by, I decide to take a “greener” route and learn how to use and launder “the family cloth.” I get into the habit of ordering my groceries online for curbside pickup. We all wear masks when we're out in public. (AT LEAST WE'RE SUPPOSED TO.) When we do go into grocery stores, the lines all have markers six feet apart, and the aisles are all one-way only.

Schools close for “two weeks,” which quickly becomes “until the end of the school year” as the governor publishes a “shelter in place” directive until the end of April.

Early on a Wednesday morning in mid-March, we’re awoken by a 5.7 earthquake in Utah. My roommates and I feel dozens of aftershocks, and spend the whole day sitting in the living room together, for comfort.

America collectively loses its mind over a Netflix documentary series called "Tiger King," which has everything from polygamy to arson to murder-for-hire, because in the hours we're watching that, we're not thinking about the pandemic.

K goes to Boise to be with her parents for a few days, although things are so uncertain when she leaves town that we say goodbye accompanied by “See you in a few days! Or a few months…?” She stays there for four weeks.

A and I have “reading parties” in the living room most nights. We trade book recommendations back and forth and read the same things at different times. There’s one memorable night when we get high and watch “A Goofy Movie.” At one point, early in the movie, A struggles to reach the remote to pause the movie and say to me, very seriously, “This is important. I need to tell you this. All of the teenagers in this movie are dogs.”

When K comes back into town, our reading parties turn into “reading, stitching, video gaming, writing, puzzling” parties. We spend one week watching films based on/thematically related to novels written in the 1800s. All of our home improvement projects are put on hold, since we can’t go to Home Depot for supplies. I work from home roughly 4 hours a week, and spend the rest of my time cycling through the same half dozen activities.

I complete jigsaw puzzles on an app on my iPad. I journal. I read. I watch TV. I listen to podcasts. I stitch. I write. I do some work for Royter Snow. I do chores. I go on so many walks that I grow bored with my neighborhood and drive out to other neighborhoods to walk there. I come to enjoy the solitude of the days when A is at work and K is out of town, although I joke to A that I understand why housewives in the 1960s rebelled because this is “boring as f***.” Lock-down has turned me into the housewife that my Mormon upbringing has trained me to be. When K does return from Boise, it takes me a few days to adjust to someone else being there during the day.

My sleep schedule, despite my best efforts, reverts to its preferred pattern of 1:30 am – 10:30 am. I take a lot of naps early on, dealing with the stress of it all. Time has ceased to matter or make sense anyway. I rarely have a strong sense of what day of the week it is, and the passage of time is impossible to measure. At any given moment, it feels like we’ve been under lock-down for at least three months.

On a morning in early April, I awake longing for the pillowy soft sweetness of a freshly made donut, and lament that it’s out of reach for who knows how long. I attempt to make beignets to satisfy this craving, which is only sort of successful. I do learn an excellent apple dumplings recipe a little while later.

After a while, I find myself applying COVID-19 social distancing rules to the characters in books I’m reading. Sometimes the characters will be having a big gathering, and I’ll think, “No! You can’t do that!” before realizing that it’s not real.

Around mid-April, my dreams start to get strange and vivid. I mention it to A and she tells me that multiple people have mentioned the same thing. Later that day, National Geographic publishes an article about how the pandemic is causing widespread vivid dreams—both because of the lack of new stimulus to process, and because of our anxiety about a virus that’s essentially invisible to us.

Beckah and I begin a tradition of watching bad Netflix movies together once a week, via Skype and a Google Chrome extension called “Netflix Party.” By far the best one is “Iron Sky 2: The Coming Race,” the sequel to “Iron Sky,” a Finnish-German-Australian-comic-science fiction-action film. Major elements of the film include a reptilian Sarah Palin, a cult of Apple lovers called “Jobsists,” a hollow earth, a moon-Führer, and Hitler riding a T-rex. At one point, Beckah and I get really hung up on one particular plot point regarding how a compass would work in the middle of a hollow earth before remembering that no part of the movie made any sense.

My cousin starts a movie watching group and we meet weekly on Zoom. I do a lot of Zoom/virtual meetings. We all do. Patrick and I are stuck in separate homes, and connect through Skype a few times a week, and I long for his arms around me so much I can hardly stand it.

I learn how to play Risk on my iPad, and decide that I’m a Risk prodigy, winning 51 out of 56 games by the beginning of May, at all levels of difficulty, against both bots and humans.

I deal with my anxiety about the current situation by small-scale compulsive internet shopping, purchasing new sheets, new cookware, fridge organization sets, and a dozen other things I probably don’t need, but will definitely use.

Most of the time nowadays, I’m okay with our “new normal.” I feel guilty about the times when I’m not…when I wake up in the morning and fill with dread at the realization of being stuck at home for who knows how long. But we’re all taking it one day at a time.

At the time of this writing, from January on, I’ve played 56 games of Risk, completed 31 jigsaw puzzles, and read 9 books. I could look up how many stitches I’ve completed and how many hours of podcasts I’ve listened to, and all of the television and movies I’ve watched, but the answer doesn’t interest me enough to do the work required.

That’s what it’s like right now.

Newcastle, California

I’ve been thinking a lot about my late Grandma Jo’s house lately. I have only snippets of memories of the place, but something about it has been floating to the surface a lot lately. And recently, it has become deeply important for me to find it.

I follow a winding path through the internet, from FamilySearch to burial records, until I narrow my search down to one small town outside of Sacramento, California that “feels” right.

I’m fairly certain the house was on a hill. I remember my cousin Hillary falling down the gravel driveway. I know there’s some kind of large body of water within walking distance. There was a summer when I found “fool’s gold” in the mud on the shore and was certain I’d struck it rich. There are lots of trees and blackberry bushes—or at least there were in the early 90s.

I search “Josephine Avellino Newcastle California,” and instantly, an address pops up. 520 Mandarin Hill Road. I look at the satellite image on Google maps. Lots of trees. A long winding dirt road. A nearby reservoir. I think this is it. There’s no Google Street view available, but…I think this is it.

It’s hard to verify. I only have one picture from the house, of all of us cousins on the back deck, which doesn’t provide much “corroborating evidence” for this 520 Mandarin Hill Road house being Grandma Jo’s.

I check Zillow and Realtor.com and half a dozen other realtor websites, hoping for pictures. They all say the same thing. “Single family home built in 1973. Approximately 2,584 square feet, 4 beds, 2.5 baths. 5.7 acre lot. Last sold in June of 2000.” None of the sites have any pictures.

The problem is that I know how unreliable memory can be. I have a distinct picture in my head of the color of the exterior paint, of the garage on the right side of the front door, of the layout inside. But I have no way to check the reliability of these memories. And for some reason, I want to see it. I want to remember the house as it was.

I doubt I could find any old internet listings for the home from June of 2000. The internet was barely a thing in 2000. But I keep thinking about my old backyard on Rio Street in Medford, how it was one of my favorite places in the whole world, and now it’s gone. There’s a whole additional house built on the lot where I spent my teenage years gardening and reading and swimming and eating. I don’t want to lose Grandma Jo’s house, too.

My memories are fading, and if I don’t see pictures, if I don’t draw it, if I don’t write it, it will be gone forever. In this time when so many things feel uncertain, I need this to be certain. I need to know that my grandmother lived in a house on Mandarin Hill Road, because I know that I loved that place dearly.

Maybe I’ll have to write it.

The one picture I have is of warm red wood planks. A railing and a bench. To the left, a gazebo with a hot tub. There was a thermometer with birds on it hanging from the side of the gazebo. Trees and trees and trees all around. One growing right through the deck. There was a large field of grass down further left, with rhythmic sprinklers watering throughout the day. The sound still makes me think of Grandma Jo’s.

There were blackberry bushes all along the left side of the road near the house. In the summer, we’d go out and pick buckets full. Grandma Jo would put them into bowls and pour heavy cream over them, and we’d eat them with a spoon.

There was a two-car garage on the right side of the house, which I don’t have any memory of every going into. The house was painted with a weathered grayish green…the color of homes near the coast. The interior was decorated in this antique Victorian style, with late 1980s sensibilities. There was a cabinet full of antique dolls. Needlepoint samplers and lace doilies everywhere.

The living room was wide and comfortable. Overstuffed couches and armchairs, and lamps on end tables. I think the carpet was thick brown shag. A large sliding glass door led to the deck, where that picture of us cousins was taken.

The kitchen was a territory where children were in the way, and I don’t have strong memories of it. Light wood cabinets, maybe? White patterned linoleum?

The dining room is giving me some trouble, too. It was either through the kitchen, on the farthest left side of the house, or it was through the living room. Both feel equally accurate in my fading memories. I remember the continued theme of Victorian décor. Finely decorated china on the table, which was covered with a white tablecloth.

And I remember the food I ate there. Breakfasts like American gods. Breakfasts I still dream of and attempt to find at diners and restaurants around the world. Thick, buttered slices of toast. Plates of bacon. Orange juice and waffles.

There are two bedrooms and one bathroom down the hallway, off the living room. The bedrooms are forbidden territory. I don’t know if I ever even saw inside of them. The bathroom was small but available for use by guests. There was a soft pink toilet seat cover.

There’s a narrow staircase near the front door. If you walk up it, dead ahead is one of the bedrooms. (I think.) Right next to it is the upstairs bathroom, and at a 45 degree angle to that is the other bedroom—the one Beckah and I stayed in when we visited. And alongside the staircase, with a wooden railing protecting us from falling, a large landing. Right above the front door, there was a window seat. My memory is that books lined the walls, but I’m not completely certain—I may have just filled that in with my own description of a fantasy room.

This “room” was a perfect playroom for all of the cousins. Out of the way of the adults, but still within eyesight and earshot. We kids could peer through or over the railing (depending on our heights) into the living room below, spying on our parents. (What DID adults do when they weren’t taking care of us?) We played games up there for hours. A crowd favorite was “animals,” which didn’t seem to have any rules, in that way that children’s games often don’t. It mainly consisted of just…pretending to be animals. There was a rule about no two people being the same animal, so there was often some fighting over who got to be certain creatures. For some reason, “flying squirrel” was the most coveted species.

Maybe I’m drawn to memories of this house because as I imagine my own dream house, it looks a lot like Grandma Jo’s. In the trees, with wild blackberries all around. Enough room for the entire extended family to stay. A deck and an upstairs landing with a window seat. Rooms crowded with things that mean something.

Of all the things I love now, so many of them can be traced back to those summer visits to Grandma Jo’s. Outdoor decks and big sumptuous breakfasts and big family gatherings.

Maybe that’s how Grandma Jo’s house stays alive. Through more of those things.

(That said, if any Whittakers or Fortuners have pictures of Grandma Jo's house, and/or can verify that it was on Mandarin Road, let me know.) 

Grave Concerns, Part 1

An attempt to write a darkly comedic short story that feels almost like a farce, based on where my mind wandered once during a real funeral, while my psyche attempted to reject thoughts of my own mortality. 

*

Dead people creep me out.

In a fascinated kind of way. Like a car wreck? You don’t want to look but you can’t help it? Like that.

I’ve only seen two dead bodies in my life. My grandmother, and now, my husband’s great grandmother. Both times, it gave me the heebie jeebies.

I mean, the whole thing is weird. Do you have any idea what morticians do to the human body to get it ready for a “viewing”? I won’t go into the details, but there are a lot of chemicals involved with names like “Lyf-Lik Tint” and “Flextone” and semi-surgical procedures that give me a stomachache to think about. They do all sorts of crazy stuff to the body to make it look like it’s still alive.** Which is weird.

Anyway, I was thinking about all of this at the funeral of my husband’s great grandmother. Everyone was in the viewing room, but I was sort of milling around the hallway outside, along with my 15-year-old sister-in-law Lula. We weren’t really milling around with one another, so I’m not sure if she shared my repulsion at the idea of looking at a 5-day-old body pumped full of formaldehyde, but that’s what my problem was. That, and all of this grief that I didn’t particularly feel a part of.

My 11-year-old sister-in-law Audrey came out of the viewing room. She walked over to me and said, “Hey. They did a great job. Grandma looks great.”

Which terrified me. Not necessarily because my husband’s great grandmother’s dead body looked great, but because my 11-year-old sister-in-law said so. And it was the way she said it. Like she was an adult talking about centerpieces at a wedding reception. Like we were discussing a dress that’s been re-tailored. Like she was aware of the embalming process.

But I didn’t want to offend anyone with my treatises on the flaws of Western Culture burials, so I took Audrey’s hand and we walked into the room.

There she was. “Great Grandma Wynn.” She didn’t look like a person at all, really. She had eyes (closed), a mouth (painted a loud red), and hands (folded neatly on her chest). She had all of the other defining features of a human being. But something was so off that it made me shiver.

Maybe I’m just struggling to confront my own mortality, I thought to myself. My intellectualism is just masking my own fear of death.

Well, fine then, I thought. I’ll just confront my mortality. Just gonna walk right up to that corpse there and say hi. She’s just…a dead body. Won’t kill me. Death is not contagious. In this case.

I waited until everyone else was talking in small groups and the coffin was temporarily abandoned. Then I walked over and stared into her face.

When she was alive, I had met her once. She was in a rest home then, only a few months ago. She kept getting confused…not sure who any of us were. But she told us about going to nursing school at Stanford, about seeing The Jazz Singer in theatres, about paying her roommate to share her clothes. I remember thinking how small she was that day. She seemed to flatten and spread into the bed like fabric, and if you picked her up, you would have had to fold her in half to keep her from slipping to the floor.

She looked fuller in death than she did in life. Her cheeks were plump and rosy. Her hair was shiny and perfect. Her hands looked strong and able, with two gold rings on one hand.

I leaned in to look at the rings further. It’s a little morbid, but I started wondering if they put the rings on before or after the embalming. People tend to think of embalming as an external process, but it’s very much internal. You’ve got to drain everything out and replace it with something more lasting. (Thanks, ancient Egypt!) I wondered if they only made the parts that showed look life-like. It would make sense, financially. I mean, why waste embalming fluid on the feet if they’re never shown? I’m sure that stuff isn’t cheap.

What if they really only embalmed the parts that showed? I mean, what if the palms of her hands weren’t…treated? Just the tops?

I have a curious mind. I am a believer in the scientific process, in testing hypotheses. Even if I don’t think through them completely. Because right then, I did something a little crazy. I gingerly lifted Grandma Wynn’s hand to look underneath it.

I’m not sure why I did it, but the next moment it ceased to matter, because I found myself holding Grandma Wynn’s index finger.

And nothing else.

Her cold and waxy finger was no longer attached at the knuckle, but was now separated from her hand entirely. I was holding a dead woman’s disembodied finger.

I glanced around quickly. Everyone was still deep in conversation. No one had noticed. Oh my God. OH MY GOD.

Could I lay the finger back on the body, making it look like nothing had happened? I glanced down at Grandma Wynn’s hands. It was pretty obvious that she was missing a finger. I wished briefly that it was a thumb I was holding, or some other finger that was less noticeable. Something that could just look like it was tucked under.

Tucked under! I could tuck her de-fingered hand underneath the other one! Just switch them! Put the finger underneath! I reached into the coffin.

“Did you ever get to meet her?”

I jumped. My husband’s aunt was standing at my side. In my panic, I stuffed the finger and my own hand into my pocket.

“Once,” I said. Don’t look at her hands, don’t look at her hands, don’t look at her hands! I silently begged. “She seemed like a really special woman.”

Aunt Ann nodded. “She was. She had a great sense of humor. She—”

“Brothers and sisters,” a voice said.

Ann smiled at me and held out her hand. “I’ll talk to you later,” she whispered. “It’s great to see you.” I looked at her hand, extended, waiting for me to shake it, or squeeze it, or something.

Except the hand that should be shaking hers was curled around a dead woman’s finger in my pocket.

I removed my hand. For a moment, I had the urge to wipe it off on my shirt or something first. But that would have been a little too suspicious. Aunt Ann shook my hand and turned to listen to the funeral home director.

“Brothers and sisters, now that each of you have had a chance to say your good-byes, we’ll be closing the casket and moving it out to the chapel where services will be held. Would the pall-bearers please step forward to assist in closing the casket.”

And then, in the next few moments, I watched as the casket was closed. And sealed. While the cold and waxy finger of the deceased sat in my pocket.

* * * * * TO BE CONTINUED * * * * *

*I got this image from an Amazon.com listing for a casket. This is entirely true.

**When my mom was in high school, they showed a video presentation on embalming. But it was considered too graphic to show teenagers, so instead they showed it in NEGATIVE. So like, 800 times more terrifying. (This is also entirely true.)

A Handful of Potential Topics

Time for my bi-weekly 750 words of writing practice. It’s good to have a writing habit. Even if you have no idea what to write about.

In my defense, I HAVE been writing.

It’s just that I’ve been writing OTHER things. Which are either not complete or not for public eyes. I could probably put the finishing touches on that draft of an essay about lying, or the one about how to help when someone is in crisis, or the one about the lessons I’ve learned from love or whatever. It’s just that...

Schitt’s Creek is so good and it just feels like watching eighteen episodes is the right thing for me to be doing tonight?

I don’t know. Maybe I could write something about dog-sitting, about the strange intimacy of living in someone else’s house for a few days. I’m at a new client’s house tonight, with their cuddly chihuahua, their energetic golden lab, and their extremely mercurial cat. (I’m allergic to the cat, but there are meds for that. I’m more concerned about the fact that an hour ago, the cat climbed affectionately onto my computer keyboard and did that cute thing that cats do when they bump their head against something all nuzzly-like, and then ten minutes later, clawed at my ankles and hissed angrily when I walked by it on my way to the kitchen. The owners warned me that the cat was a bit mean, but this unpredictability is alarming.)

Or maybe I could write something about intimacy direction. About how I’m passionate about the strange and fulfilling task of blocking everything from kissing to simulated sex acts onstage in ways that honor actor boundaries. But I’ve already been writing about it endlessly the last few weeks, in everything from resumes and website content to guest blog posts. Is this sounding too much like a shameless plug? Probably. It’s a bit of a shameless plug.

(Yes, Netflix, I’m still watching Schitt’s Creek. You don’t need to automatically pause to ask me that. Again.)

I could write about BYU and the Honor Code, but I’m so tired. I don’t have anything in me to say about it anymore. I hope people already know my stance on this. I hope I’ve spoken enough about this that people know I will stand with my queer brothers and sisters and siblings.

I could write about coronavirus? Maybe? I don’t have much to say except DON’T PANIC. Wash your hands. Be careful if you’re immunocompromised, elderly, or pregnant/nursing. But I promise you don’t need all this bottled water and toilet paper. Why is it bottled water and toilet paper? Hand sanitizer I kind of understand. (Although it should be noted that it should have 60% alcohol in order to be effective against things like coronavirus.) All of this apocalyptic panic IS making me realize that I don’t have good emergency preparedness, but I refuse to address that now. It will only fuel the hysteria.

I could tell the “harrowing” tale of my wrist surgery? Except it isn’t actually harrowing. “I had wrist surgery.” That’s the whole tale. My De Quervain’s tenosynovitis should be completely resolved within 6-8 weeks. The end.

(The cat just came downstairs and is staring at me. I’m feeling deeply uncertain about this…I welcome snuggles, if that’s what is going to happen. And black cats are so cute! I just have no idea if this cat is about to attempt to eat my face, and I’d like to avoid that if at all possible. Okay, the cat is wandering away now.)

A muse in the corner just whispered that I should write about the election, but I DEFINITELY do not have the energy for that. I barely have the energy to experience it. Your suggestion is respectfully declined, muse. Maybe I have some ideas listed in a note on my phone somewhere…

“Documentaries That Changed My Life.” That’s a good one. I used to do way more documentary recommendations on this blog. But my deadline is in two and a half hours and I’m pretty sure I don’t have enough time or energy to go through my huge list of favorite documentaries and write up stuff about each one tonight. I mean, maybe I do, I just don’t want to, because Schitt’s Creek is really good and I have to keep an eye on this volatile cat.

I suppose I could write about how I don’t know what to write about. Or write very briefly and vaguely about a handful of potential blog topics and call it good.

The Crypt, Part II

Part 2 of the tale of Dominique and Tricia, and their attempt to release the spirit of Dominique's sister Sarah, before being interrupted by a terrifying creature called The Carrier. Read Part 1 here.

Then a growl echoed through the empty chapel. Tricia leapt through the air and knocked into the Carrier, pushing it away from Dominique. Dominique had just enough time to scramble backwards and stand up before the Carrier turned towards her again. It swiped at her again with its chain, and she ducked as the chain shattered the wood of the pew in front of her.

Suddenly it let out a long shriek. Tricia had leapt onto its back and was about to sink her teeth into its shoulder when the Carrier’s chain knocked her onto the cold stone floor, where she lay, not moving.

Dominique glanced around quickly. With her dagger in pieces on the floor, she had no weapon, and she couldn’t imagine fighting the Carrier off with her bare hands. As if it had heard her thoughts, the Carrier looked up at her again and began to advance, its chain swinging.

Dominique thought fast and turned to dash up the steps of the platform where the priest’s body lay. That conversation she had with Tricia about not eating people seemed like it happened ages ago. The Carrier swung its chain again, but she was out of its reach. She grabbed the crucifix off a nearby table and got into a fighting stance.

I’m getting too old for this, Dominique thought, as she used the crucifix to block another swing of the Carrier’s chain. Maybe she could have kept this up 20 years ago, when she was Tricia’s age, but fighting off dark creatures in a church at midnight was not how she had envisioned spending her retirement.

The Carrier swung again and again, the sound of rattling chains reverberated off the chapel walls. Dominique blocked every blow, but the Carrier was advancing. She was having to take a step backwards every time the chains came near.

All at once, her foot met with something and she slipped and pitched backwards. It was the vial of holy water Tricia had filled. As it rolled away, Dominique looked up just in time to see the Carrier’s chain whip towards her. She closed her eyes and threw her arm up to protect her face, and the metal wrapped around her wrist once, then twice.

But…it didn’t hurt. Dominique expected a bone-shattering pain, a cold grip, but the metal felt warm against her skin. She opened her eyes and looked at the links wrapped around her arm. They didn’t bite into her flesh. She was so surprised that she reached up with her other hand to touch the metal. It was as soft as a flower petal. It was like a vine had grown around her arm, with the appearance of a rusted metal chain.

A small cry made Dominique look up. The Carrier was gone. And in its place, holding the other end of the chain, about fifteen feet away, was Sarah.

Dominique was too shocked to do anything for a moment. She simply sat, staring up at the sister she had come to release. It couldn’t be Sarah. Could it?

“Sarah,” she said. “Is that you?”

Sarah didn’t answer. Instead she looked up at the ceiling and let out a mournful wail. But it wasn’t a human sound. Her keening seemed to multiply in the room around them, and it went on and on and on. Dominique stood, the chain still tight around her arm, and took one cautious step forward.

“Sarah?” she said again. “Sarah, it’s me! Sarah, are you okay?”

Sarah tilted her head forward and looked at Dominique. The two stared at one another for a moment, and then suddenly, Sarah’s face contorted in fury. She yanked on the chain she was holding and Dominique stumbled forward. Suddenly, it was no longer the caress of a vine on Dominique’s arm, but the cold shock of metal. Whatever magic had made it feel harmless before had dissipated.

“Sarah!” Dominique cried out. She tried to brace herself but Sarah yanked on the chain again, closing the distance between the two of them once more. Sarah’s mouth opened and she began shriek. Another yank of the chain, with a strength so far beyond human, Dominique couldn’t fight it.

“I’m sorry!” Dominique yelled. “I’m sorry!”

But her voice was drowned out by Sarah’s angry cries. Dominique didn’t know what would happen when she reached Sarah, but she knew she wouldn’t survive it. She was only five feet away now. Three feet. Sarah’s screams were deafening. Dominique closed her eyes and tensed against the pull of the chain, when suddenly she felt it go slack.

She opened her eyes to see Tricia on Sarah’s back, biting and snarling. Sarah’s cries of anger turned to cries of fear as she struggled to fight the beast behind her. The two stumbled down the steps and into the aisle below.

“Tricia!” Dominique yelled. But Tricia was relentless, and a moment later, Sarah went limp and collapsed onto the stone floor. Dominique ran and knelt beside her. Sarah was staring wild-eyed at the ceiling above her, her breathing labored.

Dominique fought back tears. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "Sarah, I'm sorry." She was about to reach down and touch her face when the sound of a thousand rattling chains filled the church. There was a mournful cry, and a shadowy figure slowly rose from where Sarah lay. Dominique recognized the shape of a Carrier. It circled above them for a moment, keening, and then disappeared. Tricia, still panting from her fight, watched the ceiling with a frown.

Dominique looked back down at Sarah. Her labored breathing had stopped. But her wild eyes had closed, and her lips were formed into a soft smile.

“Sarah?” Dominique said quietly. She reached down to touch Sarah’s face once more, but before she could, Sarah’s form disappeared, and Dominique and Tricia were left alone on the floor of the old church.

Dominique looked up. Tricia had resumed her human form. She stood and smiled. Dominique smiled back. And they strode out into the sunrise.

The Crypt

Beckah and I are in the same place this week! So we decided to write in tandem, like we did for this entry about a year ago. In two weeks, each of us will continue/conclude this story individually, in our own ways. Here was the prompt we started with: "A woman in her late twenties, who is very selfish. A woman in her late forties, who can be quite idealistic. The story begins in a church crypt. Someone is tormented by the memory of a dead family member. It's a story about freedom. Your character has to do some quick thinking to keep ahead."

Tricia ran her finger along the arm of the statue, then brought the finger to her mouth, wiping the blood from the edge of her lips. She felt the angel was a tad sentimental, but it wasn’t her family she was laying to rest. She hoped Dominique would come soon. She was growing bored.

“Tricia.” A voice echoed through the chapel, and Dominique strode out of the shadows near the distant front doors. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she said. She wiped the blade of her dagger clean as she walked, and sheathed it at her side. She frowned at the blood on the angel statue. “Did you have some trouble, too?” she asked.

Tricia smirked, and Dominique scowled.

“We had an arrangement,” Dominique said, pouting. Tricia shrugged.

“No, you asked me to not eat people, and I said I would try.”

Dominique glanced down at the body lying at the statue’s feet and frowned.

“Trish…”

Trish crossed her arms as Dominique stepped closer, lowering her voice, as though there was anyone else within earshot.

“Trish, is that the priest?”

Tricia shrugged again and made a non-commital sound. Dominique’s face filled with worry. Tricia lowered her arms and rolled her eyes.

Dominique closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Well, at least you didn’t eat...all of him.” She began rummaging in her bag. “Let’s just...do this and get out of here. I brought sage and the candles. And chalk to draw a pentagram. Could you fill this up?”

Tricia looked blankly at the small vial Dominique handed her.

“Holy water, Trish. From the bowl over there.”

While Tricia wandered over to the silver dish a few steps above them, Dominique pulled a lock of hair from her bag and laid it gently down on the cold stones. “It’s got to work this time, Sarah,” she whispered to herself. “I can’t keep doing this.”

A clatter came from behind one of the pews and both women spun around.

The church was empty, but Dominique drew her dagger. Trish’s nails grew and she bared her sharpened teeth. They moved forward together, each eyeing the space between the pews as they advanced. The light was dim--the sun had just set and there were only a few candles lit at the altar.
The clatter came again. This time it sounded like something metal falling to the stone floor. It rang loudly in the small chapel, and Tricia suddenly brought her hands to her ears.

“Dominique…” she said through gritted teeth.

Dominique heard it too, but it didn’t affect her as it did Trish. The ringing went on, far too long for a normal object, and suddenly Dominique knew what was in the church with them.

It was the Carrier.

“Dammit.”

Dominique crouched to the ground, squeezing herself in between a row of pews. She was lucky. She hadn’t begun the ritual that would allow her to save Sarah’s spirit, or the Carrier would sense the magic in her. Tricia, on the other hand, was exposed and reeked of the magic that had caused her transformation.

“DAMMIT,” Dominique whispered again. She brought her dagger up to her lips and whispered a few words into it, until it began to glow a faint blue. It was a risk but she didn’t see what choice she had. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and stood.

The Carrier was only a few rows away, its eyeless face turned toward Tricia, who stood stock still near the altar. It took one gliding step, and the long chain it carried clanged against the stones. The chain was long--Dominique had seen grown men strangled by Carriers with chains of only ten or twelve links, but this one was made of at least fifty. The Carrier took one ragged breath in and then let out a wet growl. Dominique heard Tricia snarl in return.

Dominique stepped into the aisle with her dagger raised towards the Carrier.

With horrifying speed the Carrier turned toward her, its chain whipping through the air toward her neck. Dominique quickly dropped to the ground and felt the whoosh of air over her head as the chain swung past, narrowly missing her scalp. Taking advantage of the few seconds she had, she scrambled forward on her hands and knees and lunged forward, burying the dagger with its magical augmentation deep into the Carrier’s flesh.

To her horror, the dagger froze and shattered, falling to the floor in pieces. Had she used the wrong spell? She had felled only two Carriers in her past, but they had been much smaller, much weaker.
She heard Tricia shout. The Carrier leaned down over her, its putrid breath poisoning the air around her. She stared up into the blank face, silently pleading forgiveness from her sister, prepared to be borne away into the darkness.

To be continued...

It's Gonna Be Okay

There are so many things I want to write about. Kathleen and her memorial, opening night of Safe, thoughts on loneliness and friendship and love and illness and grief and self-esteem and romance. But every time I try, my psyche is like NOPE. So I’ll just have to let those things out slowly I think—just let them grow until they’re ready to be set down fully formed, or else put them down a little bit at a time.

So instead, I’m going to write a bit of encouragement to myself. A short imagined letter from the future Liz. If I’m continuing the growth metaphor from above, consider this the Miracle-Gro. (Or maybe this is an oblique way to write about some of those things I listed after all.)

Dear Liz,

It’s okay to feel grief. It’s okay to not “handle it well” and to accidentally fall short while you’re trying to process your sadness and fear. Grief creates a fog that sometimes you simply must walk through. You’re doing your best, and it’s going to be okay.

I know you’ve got the blues lately. It’s partly just January. Keep going on walks—I know you never feel like it, but you can handle the cold for 20 minutes, and those 20 minutes of walking make all the difference in the world to your mental health. You’re always glad you went, even if you never feel like going. Take naps if you need to. Be compassionate to yourself.

I know you may feel lonely lately. In your efforts to be professional as a director, you’ve put up a few walls between you and the cast and crew. In your efforts to protect Patrick from your own sadness, you’ve put some distance between you. And after Kathleen’s memorial, it was hard to leave Medford and Beckah and everyone behind—all of that love felt blinding and you still ache with it. But it will be okay. You are loved and loveable, even in your grief and sadness and confusion.

I know you haven’t felt very pretty lately. That’s okay. We all have those phases. So you’re fatter than you used to be and your hair is kind of at an in-between stage and your body hair is doing weird things lately. You still rock those curves, girl. Your eyes still sparkle, you beautiful soul. Give yourself a pedicure and a face mask just because it feels good. Stand in a hot shower with your beautiful body just because it feels good. “Pretty” isn’t objective. You’ll find it in yourself again eventually.

I know you’re dreading that audition on Wednesday. But I promise, it will be fine. You dread every single audition you ever do, and then you survive it and sometimes you even get to do a show afterwards. You have nothing to lose in doing this audition. The worst that could happen is they could say no, and if you do get cast and are overwhelmed by scheduling conflicts and other challenges, you can decline. It’s good to just practice auditioning, if anything.

I know that there are a lot of things that just feel uncertain right now. And you can look for guidance in tarot cards and universe splitter apps and self-help books, but sometimes you have to just embrace the uncertainty. You can embrace the age-old wisdom of that damned Serenity Prayer, which is so trite as to be cloying but is nevertheless one of the truest prayers ever written. You can accept the things you cannot change, change the things you can, and be wise enough to know the difference. Trust your intuition. It hasn’t failed you yet. You are a divine being navigating a beautiful world where you can grow and learn and give and heal. Trust that your journey is perfect exactly as it is. Let yourself be carried where you need to be carried.

And to give you some perspective on the goodness you do get to experience, here are a few things to give you hope and happiness. Between your tax return and your savings, you’ll be able to make a down payment on a car in the next few weeks…one that gets better than 18 mpg. Aaaaand you’ll be able to start saving for a bike soon too, which for short distances will be better for your wallet, your body, and the earth. In two weeks, you’ll be in Disneyland with Beckah and Mom and Ray. You have wonderful roommates and a wonderful boyfriend and a wonderful family and wonderful friends.

It’s gonna be okay. Better than that…it’s gonna be beautiful. It already is.

Gratitude Journal, again

Sunday, June 17, 2019
Wednesday, July 31, 2019
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
Thursday, September 26, 2019
Friday, October 4, 2019
and a dozen others
Today I love my life for naps/sleep.

I rarely want to go to sleep at night. There are just usually more interesting things to do. Books to read, shows to watch, Instagram feeds to scroll. But I find myself enjoying more and more the slow drifting in and out of long afternoon naps, or weekend mornings when I can sleep in.

I’m enjoying the simple possibility of naps. My therapist once gave me permission to sleep if I need to, and I think that absolution is what makes the naps so enjoyable. I don’t need to be productive every second of every day. Sometimes living life to the fullest means listening when your body says it needs rest. My instinct is still to think of naps as a “treat” or something to indulge in on special occasions. But I’m learning to let that go. I’m learning to embrace the “unproductive” “lazy” “indulgent” and “childish” practice of naps.

*  *  *

Wednesday, September 18, 2019
Today I love my life for going on a walk and rehearsing for auditions even though I didn’t feel like doing either.

I don’t feel like doing any of the things I need to be doing tonight either, or even could be doing tonight. I don’t feel like taking this dog on a walk, and I don’t feel like blogging, and I don’t feel like reading, or watching something, or sleeping, or being alone, or being with friends, or eating, or sound designing, or anything. But I’m going to take this dog on a walk, because I’m being paid to and because I suspect it will actually make me feel better. And I’m going to eat, because I suspect that will make me feel better too.

But that’s as far as I’m going to plan ahead. If I don’t actually feel better, maybe I’ll at least have the satisfaction of doing 2 things. I’ll figure the rest out after I get that far.

*  *  *

Wednesday, December 11, 2019
Today I love my life for Aaron and Jessa.

I’ve got some kind of poem building in me as this chapter closes. Right now it feels too big to write. Right now I’m simply holding it in my heart, waiting to see how it grows.

*  *  *

Wednesday, December 18, 2019
Today I love my life for impeachment.

I know it’s complicated. And I know that it all feels so partisan. And I know that it’s very unlikely that all of the Democrats and all of the Independents and at least 20 of the Republicans all currently in the Senate will convict the current President.

But dammit, we did the right thing. Even if it doesn’t lead to removal from office, impeachment was the right thing to do. It showed our commitment to the just laws that govern our citizens and leaders. It emphasized that no one is above the law.

I don’t think impeachment is meaningful ONLY if it leads to conviction and removal from office. No President in United States history has ever been convicted and removed from office. Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were both impeached by the House, but not convicted by the Senate. Richard Nixon resigned before he could be removed. But we remember that Nixon was impeached. We remember that Clinton was impeached. We remember that people stood up and said, “You can’t too that.” And that’s powerful. I like to think I’m bipartisan in this, even though I know my own biases run pretty deep. The rule of law applies equally to both/all parties.

*  *  *

Wednesday, December 25, 2019
Today I love my life for a beautiful Christmas with someone I love.

Here’s the problem with healing old family traumas and wounds. It means that now I miss my family all the time, and especially on holidays.

I think every family has traumas and wounds—it’s just the nature and extent of them that differs. I won’t spend time here describing mine, because that’s not the point. The point is that I’ve spent the last few years in therapy working to heal. And I’m discovering that all of those old wounds and traumas were also a wall keeping me from connecting with loved ones. And now that the wall is crumbling, I miss loved ones. We’re spread far and wide—California to Oregon to Colorado to Nevada to South America.

And holidays can be hard. I wish I could spend Christmas in the kitchens and living rooms of my own family, eating good food and singing and laughing and playing games and watching movies. I miss being with my people. I miss baked goods and caroling and homemade candy and reading aloud. I miss conversations with the people I belong to.

So if I can’t have all of those things with my own family, I’m grateful I could share some of them with someone else’s, and with someone I love.

Patrick and I opened presents together at his mom’s house, along with his sister and her husband, and it was a beautiful chaos of wrapping paper and explanations and thank you’s. We had dinner at a neighbor/family friend’s, where we played games and talked. I read “Angela and the Baby Jesus” and we did a Christmas Mad Libs.

But my fondest memory of Christmas is later that night, when Patrick and I listened to musicals and sang and played Rummikub and talked and laughed. It's so easy get lost in the stresses and uncertainties of life and dating and schedules, especially during the holidays, and in my anxiety, I forget to do the things together that fulfill us: good music and good company and good conversations. That Christmas night, just the two of us, I felt connected to him and to myself and to us as a couple, and it was beautiful. It felt like family.