Last week, many Americans, including myself, got sucker punched right in the heart. Since then, we’ve floated in an awful, nauseating realm of fear and loathing, while receiving this oft-repeated and well-intentioned advice:

• accept outcomes
• focus on the positive
• dole out love and kindness to all
• forgive
• hope
• care about America

But you know what? I don’t feel like doing any of those things. If you’re familiar with me at all, you know that I usually focus on gratitude and respect, but right now, I don’t want to. In fact, I’m doing just the opposite. As my fury-clouded mind swirls in a sea of despair, I find myself making comprehensive mental lists of everything I hate about humans. And although that is where my thoughts keep going, the exercise doesn’t help in the least.

A friend once told me this story: after the sudden death of someone he dearly loved, he made a list of all the people he wished had died instead. After completing that task, his reflections were as follows: (1) the list was way too long, and (2) writing down all those names made him feel like shit. His conclusion, once it was all over, was that he would’ve been far better off making a list of all the people he loved.

In the spirit of learning from someone else’s mistakes, I will now take a few moments to push aside the desire to create a really long, comprehensive hate list, and will try instead to make a different kind of list.

Here we go ~

A Different Kind of Hate List (aka: Things I Love)

• Cornbread & collard greens
• Warm blankets on cold nights
• Funny cat video compilations
• Water droplets on spiderwebs
• Hugging my dogs (I read something recently that said dogs don’t like being hugged, but my dogs told me that’s bullshit)
• Lions, skulls, and dragons
• S’mores
• When people trip and fall (without hurting themselves, of course. I’m not a monster.)
• Train whistles and church bells
• Those videos of military folks coming home to surprise their kids/dogs
• Finding little bridges in the woods
• Hot sauce
• Sleeping in
• Inter-species friendships
• Uproarious laughter
• Snow falling at night (preferably viewed from inside)
• Pizza and beer
• Teachers, firefighters, and EMTs
• Getting lost in a book
• Seeing people hug each other after a long separation
• Red leaves against a blue sky
• Large family gatherings in public parks
• Whiskey

Okay…I must admit, I do feel better now. Positivity wins again, dammit. There go my hate list aspirations.

If you tell someone you wrote a book, the next words you’ll hear are: “What’s it about?” (This is good for you to know if you’re lying about having written a book, so you can craft a basic plot line to accompany the lie.)

When people ask what Aret is about, I say, “Dragons.” If they don’t run away, I continue with: “It’s the first book in a fantasy trilogy. It’s about a girl who finds out on her twenty-first birthday that she’s actually a dragon on another world.”

That is, in a way, what Aret is about. It’s at least the basic premise under which I began writing the story. But really, Aret is about relationships and social evolution, subjects that have felt particularly pertinent throughout this miserable election year.

In case you’re wondering, she voted for Smaug.

I wrote Aret during the 2012 election season, and while that one seemed ugly and contentious at the time, it was like a moonlit stroll on the beach compared to this year’s. As luck would have it, 2016 was the perfect year to release Aret, what with its themes of hope, strife, fear, and forgiveness. I think that’s why so many people who don’t read fantasy like the book. The ideas resonate with them, regardless of the subject matter.

Two of Aret’s central characters – the Red and Blue Matriarchs – reflect a few of the author’s flagrantly disparate personality traits. The Red Matriarch is calm and reasonable, while the Blue Matriarch is more like: “HOW DARE YOU DEFY ME? I WILL DESTROY YOU!”  So while the Red Matriarch understands that true, lasting social change comes about through diplomacy and relationship-building, the Blue Matriarch would make the counterargument: “If all of your enemies are dead, there’s no need to build relationships with them.”

“Ima pop you right in your stupid face!”

But we can’t make everyone who disagrees with us just disappear, despite what the Blue Matriarch would have you believe. Many monstrous dictators have attempted that tactic over the years with predictably horrific results. In the case of our country’s current circumstances, when the winners are declared and the dust settles, we’re all still going to be stuck here together, and it sure would be nice if we could coexist with more grace and dignity than we’ve demonstrated over the past year.

As we move forward into the tremulous atmosphere following this hideous election season, I vow to do my personal best to emulate the Red Matriarch, not the Blue. There’s a good reason why a critic of an early Aret draft wrote “Blue bitch!”  in the margin of a Blue Matriarch scene. While stewing in righteous fury and violent revenge fantasies can feel really satisfying in the moment, the fact is this: the Blue Matriarch is an asshole. Let’s not be like her. No one likes jerks, and acting like one weighs on our hearts.

Here’s to a happier, healthier, more hopeful, red-matriarchal future for us all. Cheers.

Caution: Scariness ahead

Lots of people like to be scared. They adore those horror movie moments after the tension has built to an excruciating level, the creepy music hits its crescendo, and something terrifying happens. With shrill screams, they leap into each other’s laps, clutching their hands over thundering hearts. And then they laugh, because they love that post-terror feeling.

I am not one of those people. Despite believing things like skulls, snakes, huge, predatory cats, and extreme heights are really cool, being frightened out of my wits does not please me. Therefore, I avoid horror movies as if they were a cinematic form of poison.

Skulls = Cool. Horror flicks = Nope.

Unfortunately for me, my husband and I watched something really scary last night. I feel like I got tricked into it, because the show we were watching is normally eerie, not jump-out-of-your-skin scary. About ten minutes into the episode, when I realized the nature of its content, I commenced the internal dialogue normally used to get me through these awful experiences:

You can handle this. People do it all the time. They even like it. Try to channel whatever weird qualities those people have. If that doesn’t work, put your hands over your eyes.

So I sat and watched the horror unfold, which it did in a predictably awful and disgusting manner. When there were five minutes left and I was almost out of the woods, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a black blob pop up at our front window. Thus, I commenced another internal dialogue, this one used to soothe myself when I know my brain is being a jerk:

Don’t be ridiculous. There is nothing at the window. You’re just torturing yourself. This is why you’re not allowed to watch scary things.

With newfound confidence, I turned and looked at the window, and THERE WAS TOTALLY SOMETHING THERE, STARING RIGHT AT ME!!!!  😫

While my breathing ceased entirely and heart tied itself in a knot, I dove towards the window, and the intruder/murderer/ghoul/poltergeist bolted away. Knowing I would never sleep again if I didn’t get to the bottom of the situation, I peered out the window onto my front porch, where a little, black cat, looking quite alarmed, crouched at the top of the stairs.

Here is the number of times in my life that a random animal (cat or otherwise) has appeared suddenly at my house to leap up and stare in a window: ZERO. So why that had to happen while I watched a terrifying show on the night before Halloween, I’ll never know.

Next time I have the chance to make an offering for voodoo protection, I’ll take it.

My uncle once told me that a sigh is the equivalent of the wistful sentiment: “If only…” I’ve thought about that a lot lately, because I have a great idea for an Aret-related design, but it will never come to fruition, because I cannot draw. (Truly, my attempts at drawing are nothing short of absurd. Most recently, I tried to draw a leaping stick figure, but after I made its legs the length of arms and put its feet on backwards, it just looked like a jumbled pile of insanity.)

If only I could draw, however, I would create a fabulous 2016 election poster featuring Aret’s protagonist, the Red Matriarch. [She would be a great president, by the way. She has hundreds of years of governing experience, and is (not always, but in general) diplomatic, level-headed, and thoughtful. As a bonus feature, she happens to be a totally badass dragon.]

Here is what I would draw, if only such a thing were possible:

PICTURE THIS:  A tremendous, blood red dragon with giant, curving black horns protruding from her gargantuan head, blasting a ferocious stream of fire onto the word HATE. Printed above her are the words: Red Matriarch 2016; and below: Feel the Burn.

If only…

In lieu of all that, I’ll share a couple of images from Studio BE (an exhibit in New Orleans by the artist Brandan ‘BMike’ Odums), which was perhaps the most stunning and powerful art installation I’ve ever seen.

#StudioBE

I was so grateful for this reminder that there is beauty in the world. Sometimes a bilious fog of fury and hatred can obscure that truth. It’s a blessing to have it blown away.

[For more on the artist, visit: http://www.brandanodums.com and http://www.exhibitbe.com]

Have you ever pulled a rune? If you’ve never heard of such a thing, here’s the process (at least my process – there are lots of different methods): You hold a bag of stones, each of which is branded with a letter of the runic alphabet, ascribed with a particular meaning. You contemplate a pressing issue in your life, reach into the bag, and pull out a stone. Ideally, it offers some illumination or guidance.

For example, here’s a picture of me holding the “Joy” rune (and demonstrating how I would feel if I ever pulled it legitimately, which I never have) ~

Last week, I had a vague sense of trouble brewing on the horizon, so I thought it might be a good idea to pull runes. After they informed me twice in a row that life was about to suck royally, I decided the runes were mean and stupid, said some nasty things about the universe under my breath, and tied the bag shut.

Despite what the runes had tried to tell me, I got all excited about the prospect of releasing Aret as an audiobook that day. I’d had the audio files for several weeks, listened to all 12 hours of them, gone back and forth with the editors and narrator, and was ready at last. After I spent the morning uploading 67 individual files without a hitch, then clicked “I’m done!” with a triumphant flourish, I received this message:

Congratulations! We will now conduct a brief review to see if you’ve complied with our rules and regulations. This process will take 10-14 business days.

“So, ya know, just put your feet up…”

The serene image featured above is not at all representative of how I felt about this “brief” delay. My feelings were more along the lines of: “AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! FTW! And I mean that in the bad way!”

But alas, there was nothing I could do. I glared at the bag of runes, determined that’s what they’d been trying to warn me about, and went to work, where I proceeded to damage a large, expensive piece of equipment beyond any hope of repair. Truly. I punched a hole straight through it. My boss was not amused.

It was such a ridiculous and costly accident that I wondered if I was being karmically punished for locking my baby nephew in a dog crate the previous weekend. (Before you contact the authorities, please know that I only left him in there for a brief period of time, which, as we all know, is 10-14 business days.) (But really it was just long enough to snap a picture.)

Following that debacle, I came home, shot daggers at the rune bag once again, and began packing to head to the coast for a 3-night camping extravaganza. My husband, a couple of friends, and I had booked an amazing beachfront campsite six months before and were beside ourselves with anticipation. We loaded our truck with paddle boards, bikes, coolers, the tent, inflatable mattress, tarps, chairs, etc. etc. (camping is kind of a pain in the ass), drove 5 hours, built up our campsite, ate dinner while discussing what a great time we were going to have, and went to sleep with our heads full of dreams of the next day’s adventures. And when my husband and I awoke the following morning, we both had the stomach flu.

A fierce red dragon to label the campsite’s quarantine

For a few hours, we tried to deny our fates, but when we took an ill-conceived bike trip down the beach, and my poor husband fell off his bike and puked, we knew we were doomed. We spent the remainder of the trip avoiding the sun, hurrying to the bathroom, clutching our midsections, and moaning. (There was a lot of moaning.) Meanwhile, our friends spent their time paddle boarding with a pod of frolicking dolphins. And I was very happy for them. 😐

Well, I have learned my lesson. From now on, whenever I feel concerned that things may take a turn for the worse, I will not consult the runes. In fact, I may never speak to them again. If I find myself wondering what the future has in store, I will consult this pretty butterfly of happiness.

Butterfly of Happiness says things are looking up

There were several incidents of interest at the 2016 Dragon Con.

My husband got arrested

We saw a sweet band

We met a robot

But the most fascinating thing of all was something I heard from a lovely young woman who sat at a table covered in leather bags shaped like monster heads. When I asked if she’d made the bags, her answer was this:

“No, my friend makes them. I’m just helping her out. My real  job is filling packets with fairy dust and creating custom-made elf ears.”

😮