2019: A Year

I don't generally do these year-end kind of things. Not that I haven't done them before... or maybe I haven't? I don't know. I'm not going to go digging back through my posts to find out. I'm pretty sure I haven't done one recently, but I suppose that depends on how you define "recent." But 2019 has been... a year, and I feel like talking about it. Not that I know what I want to say about it, so let's see where this goes.

The last few years have been... tough, to say the least. Mostly, it's the world and the fact that everything is descending into madness and chaos. If you've been around my blog for any length of time, you'll know that I spent 2017 mostly writing political posts. A lot of 2018, too. Not so much in 2019 but not because I didn't want to or don't feel they're important anymore but because they felt redundant or that whatever I was going to write about was no longer exactly relevant by the time I was going to write about it.

So, yeah, there is this existential gloom that has been getting worse since the election in 2016, and it might be okay if it was just the US, but it's the whole fucking world. People everywhere seem to be hellbent on sending us all to Hell. Or turning the world into Hell, even more than it already is, and even the best politicians, the ones really out there trying to make things better, are not able to stand against the tide of right-wing fundamentalism who want us all to burn.

What, then, to say about 2019? Politically, I mean. I don't really know.
I want to be happy about the impeachment, but it's hard to be. McConnell, the truest evil in Washington, is just going to dismiss everything as quickly as he can, so, really, what is the point to all of this? And it's not that I don't understand this idea of "making a statement," but, from a practical standpoint, it's worthless and difficult for me to feel good about.
And don't even get me started on Britain. They seem even more determined than the US to wreck their country. I mean, voting for fucking Boris? Clown Trump? That's more insane than voting for Trump, and Clown Trump makes fun of Trump! Not that every leader outside of the US doesn't make fun of Trump, but Johnson is demonstrably dumber than Trump -- maybe not his actual intellect (because it's very difficult to be more dumb than someone already dumber than a box of rocks), but the total package of him is just... dumb -- and Britain gave him the victory, anyway. They gave it to someone determined, vocally determined, to destroy Britain at all costs.
I don't understand!!!

Apart from all of the meta-angst, this year has just been... difficult. It has been the year of home and vehicular "disasters," some of which I've written about, like the whole sewage escapade, which was, arguably, the worst of the disasters... other than being without a fully functional refrigerator for something along the line of two months, which I haven't written about, but could also be argued to be the worst bit of 2019, especially considering we mostly lived out of an ice chest for three weeks or so. There were also six new tires, one new battery, three calls to towing companies, and one dead computer. Mine. Again. I'm pretty sure there were some other things, too, but I'm not really feeling the need to dredge down past the things that bubbled up on their own. Oh, yeah, and one fire evacuation. There was that, too.

Needless to say, the year has been... challenging. Which is not to say that there haven't been good things that have happened but, overall, the year has been tough. And, I think, in the future when I look back on 2019, the things that are going to most come to mind are the sewage incident and the refrigerator.

I am, indeed, ready for 2019 to be over.

And, man, I hope 2020 brings better things. Which is not to say that it's not going to have its own foreseeable issues, namely, the election. I can't say how much I am not looking forward to this campaign season. But it is what it is and, hopefully, 2020 will end on a much more positive note, with the GOP losing the White House and the Senate and, maybe even, a lot of them going to jail. I can't wait to see the orange on orange look of the "peach" fake-president.

Get Your "Soul Cakes" Here!

If you've been around here for any length of time, you'll know that it's that soul cake time of year. If you haven't been around here, you're probably asking yourself, "What the hell is a soul cake?" Which is a very appropriate question since a soul cake is like a get-out-of-jail-free card but for Hell. Yes, a Get-Out-of-Hell-Free cake.

If you'd like to know more and see what they look like, you can go here and, for an actual recipe, here. They're pretty tasty treats.

Unfortunately, we didn't make any this year. It's just been that kind of year. Of course, we didn't make any last year, either, but that's because Sonoma county was on fire last year, and we just didn't do it. Of course, I am writing this ahead of Halloween, so I suppose we could still make some, but I don't think it's happening this year. If it turns out I'm wrong, I'll make pictures about it.

Anyway! Even though we didn't make any this year, you can still get yours by buying my story of the same title and which features soul cakes prominently. Come on, it's a Halloween story, and who doesn't need a Halloween story? NO ONE! That's who! So pick up your copy of What Time Is the Tea Kettle?... Oh, right! You get stories for the price of one! Because it's "What Time Is the Tea Kettle?" and "Soul Cakes"! What a bargain!

Come on, help a guy out. It's even got a flying cat! And, no, he wasn't launched from a catapult. He does the flying, of sorts, all on his own.

Look, I don't ask (tell) you guys to buy stuff from me very often, so pick up your copy today and READ it. It's fun!

Oh, and, hey! There's another story featuring the man and his cat coming soon!
Just soon, okay!
As soon as it's finished!

But Is It Really Just "Stuff"?

We just had the one year anniversary of the devastating Tubbs fire here in Sonoma county. Of course, that wasn't the only fire happening at that time; it was just one of many. You can read my perspective of what happened here. Anyway...

One of the things that gets said a lot about the physical losses people suffered is that it was "just stuff." Stuff can be replaced. And, to some extent, all of that is true. I said something similar about my own stuff back around the time of the fire when I decided that all I needed was my writing paraphernalia (laptop, flash drive, notebooks) and my people (which includes animals). The rest was just stuff. And I still agree with that on the whole as evidenced by my efforts during the past year to get rid of a lot of my collectibles. [If you're interested in buying comic books and gaming stuff, let me know!]

But! But...

The Museums of Sonoma County is doing an exhibit, right now, of art "from the fire" in honor of the anniversary. One of the things said in one of the pieces was, essentially, "Yes, but it was our stuff." It included a list of the things lost in the fire that were actually irreplaceable. And I could go a lot of different directions with that including doubling down on the original "it's all just stuff" proclamation, but, instead, I'm going to go in just one direction:

It's not just "stuff;" it's memories.

As I mentioned, I'm working on selling off my old collectibles and some of that is just stuff. It's like a byproduct of earlier days when I worked in comic/gaming retail and stuff that accumulated because I was collecting something or... whatever. Just stuff. But some of that stuff that I'm going through is more than that. Some of the things have memories attached to them and, when I find something like that, it brings those memories bubbling back to the surface of my brain (which, now that I think of it, is a gross image; I may have to use it in a story some day). Some of those memories are things that in all probability I would never have thought of again if I hadn't come across the item associated with the memory.

For instance:

There was this game called Mage Knight that came out about 15 years ago. It's a miniature battle game I used to play... which was really all I remembered about it as I started pulling out boxes of surplus figures to sell off. But, then, I found one little box of figures that were set aside from all of the rest, particular figures: They were my army from a campaign I ran with a group of friends back when the game was new. I would never have remembered about that if I hadn't found that particular box, because the memory of it was tied to the army.

Going through a box of comics recently (and I have a LOT of comics), I came across some old X-Factor comics which included issues from "The Fall of the Mutants" story line and the issue with the death of Angel and the introduction of Apocalypse, and I was immediately taken back to when I first got those issues and read them and what it felt like when Angel died and the anticipation involved in waiting for each new issue. Things I haven't thought about in at least two decades, maybe longer, and only remembered because I had a piece of stuff in my hands.

And then there's the fact that one of the places I grew up (my grandparent's farm in East Texas (and my great-grandparent's, too, for that matter)) burned down in some wild fires in Texas several years ago. Those places are gone, and I can never take my kids there, now, to see them, and I don't have any clue as to the memories in my head that may have drifted away in a smokey haze because I know longer have a thing in existence to call it forth.

So, you know, sure, it's all just things. And some things are replaceable, but the cross-stitch owls I made for my grandmother when I was a teenager (which is actually in my garage because my mom sent it to me after my grandmother died) is not. And the rope art piece I made for my grandfather is also not replaceable, and that was still at the farm in East Texas when it burned.

And none of what I'm saying is in defense of having stuff, because I do believe that, as Americans in the US, we tend to have way too much stuff. I certainly have way too much stuff, which is why I've endeavored to lighten my stuff load, but, also, it's not my place to devalue someone else's stuff with the declaration to them that, "Well, it's just stuff." How am I to know what memories are tied up in that stuff? How am I to know what they permanently lost? What memories are gone forever and what things can't be passed down? What things are significant and what things are not?

I can't; that's how. So, if someone is devastated by the loss of their things, well, that's okay. They get to be devastated. And if someone else shrugs it off with "it was just stuff," that's okay, too. It's not for me to know or judge. But you know what I think you can do? You can listen to someone tell you about the things that were important to them that they will never see or have again. You can let them experience that memory by telling you about it. Maybe, that way, they can hold onto it just a bit longer. And, really, what are we without our memories?

Photo Month: Day 20

Four Months, Give or Take, Later

Some of you are probably aware of the fires we had around here last October, followed not long after by additional devastating fires in southern California. The fire here, though, the fire where I live that destroyed nearly 3000 homes, about 5% of the housing stock in an area that was already in crisis due to lack of affordable housing, has gone down on record as the most destructive fire in the history of California. I wrote some about it back when it happened, but those posts have all been taken down, now, and collected here:

There's some additional stuff at the end that wasn't on the blog, because why not, right? Anyway... Here's the part where you get to show support for your "local" (online is local, right?) indie artist. Yes, writers are artists. If you read the posts back when they were live and you enjoyed them, pick them up now to show your support for the artist who wrote them. I mean, come on, it's only a buck! (I'll take that as jerky, please. (Kidding! Bad joke.)) Plus! For your $1, you will get the added political commentary at the end, and we all know how much you like that!