Fading Friends

When I was in sixth grade a new girl moved into the neighborhood—we’ll call her B—and within a couple weeks we were pretty well attached at the hip. We were best friends through middle school and high school. We had our fights, but nothing world ending.

And I wholly admit, I needed her a hell of a lot more than she ever needed me. As shy, insecure, and anxious as I am now I am galaxies away from where I was in school. She’s one of those people that can walk into anything and make friends. She was my safety blanket. We went to our first concert together, we went to each other’s family gatherings, did sleepovers, went through boy trouble, went through friend trouble.

After high school we started to drift. I lived on campus and she went to a local beauty school so we didn’t really see each other. But in the spring we hit up greenhouses and nurseries and in the summer we did lunch and went on a couple road trips together.

I studied abroad for three months while in college and if there’s one thing that will boost independence and self-confidence it’s being in a different country with minimum adult supervision. The professors were still there, of course, but I took weekend trips to different countries by myself. And, while I didn’t feel much different when I got back, I know I was. I was less “Hey, I want to do____, do you want to come with me?” and more “Hey, I’m doing this, you can come if you want.” I learned to own myself, who I am, my opinions. And…I don’t know. We just stopped talking.

It’s weird.

Middle school me would never have guessed this would happen. Even high school me wouldn’t have known. We spent evenings planning a road trip to California. We considered getting an apartment together after high school. It’s so strange how quickly someone can drop out of your life when they were a constant for so long.

Last year as I scrolled through Facebook her name popped up in my feed. Someone I didn’t know had commented on her wall, something like “So excited to have a nephew!”

It was kind of like running face first into a wall. I knew we hadn’t talked in almost a year, but I hadn’t realized the gulf had widened so far she wouldn’t call or text or even DM me to tell me. It’s no secret I don’t like small children or babies, but that’s still big news.

I didn’t say anything, maybe I should have? But I thought she would text me since it was out on Facebook. She didn’t. Then I thought maybe I’d get a baby shower invite. And I didn’t. I saw the pictures and comments from the three different showers she threw.

And that really fucking hurt.

So I put on my big girl panties and sucked it up. Clearly we weren’t even a fraction as close as we used to be. I let her do her and went back to figuring out my life.

And then one day, another girl we went to school with posted she was on her way to the hospital to deliver her second child. Even in school I wasn’t super close with her, we knew each other because we both knew B.

I was on my way out the door for work and commented “Congrats!” and didn’t think anything else about it.

Another girl I’d known since grade school had DM’d me. “So just real quick I wanted to let you know that your best friend since 5 th grade is pregnant and you haven’t congratulated her and then you publicly congratulated [Other Woman] in my opinion that’s the worst fucking thing imaginable you cld do. Like how heartless are you that you can’t congratulate [B] on her baby?”

I’m still pissed about this. Had I known at the time where this woman lived I would have fucking gone to her house and beat the ever loving shit out of her. If I see her on the street, I will beat the ever loving shit out of her. She had to contact me via Facebook because the bitch doesn’t know me well enough to know my number. I blocked her and I haven’t spoken to B since.

But B is at the local mall right now. It’s fifteen minutes from where I am. I thought about going. I still have her Christmas/birthday present from three years ago. It’s in my trunk. There’s a card in it I got after I saw her baby news. It says “Congratulations!” and a note that says I want nothing but the best for her and though we haven’t talked I’m glad we were friends.

Last week, her name popped up in my feed. Apparently she’s pregnant again. And I found out about this one the same way I did the last one; an offhand comment on some pictures.

There was a time when I dropped everything to help her, to make sure she was okay, and that she knew no matter what someone was there for her.

I didn’t say anything.

I Finally Watched Harry Potter

So on most Friday nights there’s a group of us on Twitter that live tweet pre-selected movies. We just finished the Harry Potter series, which I’ve never seen or read.

Yes, I know, shock and awe.

I'll wait while you fetch smelling salts. — I’ll wait while you fetch smelling salts.

And no, I don’t want to read the books now that I’ve seen the movies.

I’ve tried. I really have. I tried when they first came out and I’ve tried in subsequent years but it’s just not something that holds my interest. No like or dislike, just resounding ambivalence to a pop culture phenomenon.

Anyway, I learned a lot about the series by watching the movies with hardcore Potterheads and I can see why so many people love the books. Rowling is an awesome writer. And while watching those movies I did ask myself why I wasn’t into the books. Really, anyone who knows me would think I would be a Potterhead. It’s got magic, magical creatures, death incarnate, supreme evil, high stakes, and a heroine who can hold her own.

And there I found the answer.

I don’t care about Harry. Not one bit.

Hermione Granger. Now that is a story I want to read. Yeah, Harry is stuck with the Dursleys and they are fucking awful people, but after the first movie they only pop in every once in a while so we don’t forget how terrible they are. Harry’s the chosen one, The Boy Who Lived, blah, blah, blah. Whatever.

But Hermione. Think about it. She comes from parents who aren’t magical but know that she is and support her magical studies. Is it the first or second movie Draco brings up mudblood? I’m certain that’s not the first time she’s heard it or really considered the word. Think of all the hateful people in our society that don’t have any qualms calling children racial epithets. I doubt the wizarding world is much different. So already we have a great set up for character identity conflict. I mean, the first time someone yelled an epithet at me I was in third grade. That shit sticks with you. And she works so hard to get her spells right. Is she a perfectionist or is she trying to show herself and others that just because her parents aren’t magical that doesn’t make her lesser.

Next, she has all the answers. She is the Wikipedia and Google of Hogwarts. The Boy Who Lived needs to know where the bathroom is or how to whip up a face warping potion? You bet your ass Hermione knows.

And as the movies progressed Ron and Harry almost always looked to her for answers in nigh impossible situations. What kind of pressure does that put on her? She went from random Hogwarts trivia to trying to stop the end of the world. Was she ever afraid she wouldn’t have the answer or she wouldn’t see the solution in time?

And in the middle of all of this saving the world nonsense, she has to deal with all the regular problems of growing up. Awkward teenage school dances, heartbreak. Death of classmates.

Crushing hard on Ron.

I mean, that alone calls for a great deal of quiet contemplation, which she never gets because she’s trying to figure out how to destroy horcruxes.

And just think of all the amazing one liners we could have.

And all of this character conflict leads up to the final two movies. The Dursleys get the hell outta town, I’m guessing of their own volition, it’s not really explained in the movie. Not a big loss there. I mean, by this time, Harry’s pretty close to the Weasleys. And Ron gets to stay with his family to the bitter, bitter end because they’re all magical and can fight back. But then there’s Hermione. She has to erase herself from her parents because they can’t defend themselves. Her parents who have loved and supported her all her life and she makes them forget. She’ll spend the rest of her life mourning her parents who are going about their days with no idea they ever had a little girl. And in the movie it’s never mentioned. She just pops up at the Weasleys and they head off to whatever they do next.

And I loved it. I'll take emotional turmoil over explosions any damn day. — And I loved it. I’ll take emotional turmoil over explosions any damn day.

Seriously, if I was reading Hermione Granger’s book it would take me a week to finish that section. Can you imagine the emotions not only of that moment but of the days and weeks leading up to it? That certainly wasn’t the first thing she thought of. All that intellect and intuition, all of it focused on how she can keep her parents safe and she slowly realizes if she wants to keep them safe, she needs to leave. Not just leave, but make it so they can’t be tortured into giving up her friends and their families. They need to forget she even exists.

My. Gods. I mean, that alone could be a novel. I would read the hell out of that novel. That would tear you up like road rash. So if Rowling ever wants to write that book, I will have it on pre-order.

Adventures Abroad: China Confirmation

Probably should’ve skipped the coffee this morning. I am bouncing off the walls.

So yesterday I got my official start date for my Cambodia adventure, January 25^th. (squeee!) Which I am totally still flailing about, but this morning I woke up and found an e-mail from the staffing agency that is in charge of placing me in China. (SQUEEEE!)

So I have over 100 locations to choose from, thankfully, I already figured out about which city I want to be in, Xi’an—the city with the terracotta warriors—so it only took my about an hour and a half to narrow down my top three choices.

First up, Yanliang which, according to the staffing site, is a “small” town of about 200,000.

o_o

Yeah, not in Kansas anymore.

Actually, that might be the population of Kansas.

But it’s about an hour away from downtown Xi’an and busses head that way every fifteen minutes. And it’s only an hour and five minutes away from the terracotta army. And it seems to be far enough from Xi’an that residents don’t have the heavy amounts of smog and pollution to contend with. Double points. I’d post some pictures, but it seems Miss China 2014 is from Yanliang and no matter what search I put in I just wind up with a thousand pictures of her in a bikini.

…what…

Second choice is Xingping, which was very close to being first choice, again, another “small” “rural” city of 120,000. But this one is in a mountain valley surrounded by farmland. The perks listed on the school site are that a short bike ride gets you out into the countryside.

Seriously, people, look at this.

The only reason it didn’t get first choice is because I can’t afford my Japanese Encephalitis vaccine and it’s listed as being an issue only in rural areas. I mean, I’ll take my chances and go first chance I get, but I figure I better at least pretend to do some preventative measures.

And third choice is Weinan. A “small” city of 900,000 *falls over laughing*

This place has the Hyde Park of China, though. It’s surrounded by mountains and rivers, one of which is HuaShan Mountain, one of the sacred peaks of China. 56 emperors made a pilgrimage to this mountain.

Look. At. This.

So I’m just running around screaming right now. Like, I’m stressed trying to make sure I’ll have my stateside business taken care of before I go, but SERIOUSLY, LOOK AT THIS

Book Review: Wanderlust and Lipstick: The Essential Guide for Women Traveling Solo

Last month I read a really wonderful book by Beth Whitman called Wanderlust and Lipstick: The Essential Guide for Women Traveling Solo. I picked this up a couple years ago at Half Price on a whim. So glad I did. I read it for the first time last month as I really started kicking my preparation for Cambodia and China into gear. It’s a really smooth, easy read. Even if you’re only looking to visit another city in you state or country, I think it would still be beneficial not only for solo women travelers, but for anyone traveling alone.

This is of course aimed at women, so if you’re a guy and want to pick this up there are some parts that won’t apply, such as the section discussing tampons, birth control, and interrupted cycles. But other than that, I’d say the advice in this book applies to all solo travelers.

My favorite section of the book is the “Idea Generator” chapter. There’s even a helpful chart you can copy down or write directly in the book. It’s a really simple way to make that dream vacation a reality. I used it to chart the logistics and costs of three trips I want to make: An Antarctic cruise, a road trip visiting a couple National Parks out west, and a two week Egyptian antiquity tour.

Let me tell you, dream trips aren’t cheap.

But, now that I have a ballpark estimate of what kind of expenses I’m looking at I can start saving now. So maybe it’ll be five years before I get to take an Antarctic cruise via the Chilean fjords, but, if I keep up with my savings then in five years I’ll be writing to you with a penguin looking over my shoulder. So if you’re serious about traveling, even if it’s to visit NYC for a week or see the lighthouses of Maine or fly to Europe for a month, map it out. Start saving. It might take a little time and you might have set backs, but start saving and you’ll get there.

Another two chapters that are really helpful is “Let’s get Booking” and “This Bed is Juuuuust Right”. They go over the different travel and accommodation options you have. In chp. 5 (Booking) some of this information is a bit outdated—it was published in 2007—and you’ll be disappointed to find that you can’t readily book cheap flights on courier flights anymore. I spent a week trying to find a way to do it, but post 9/11 a lot of companies now only hire professional couriers and won’t accept anyone off the street to hang out in their planes. The explanations on a lot of things are also a little outdated, she spends a great deal of time discussing e-tickets versus paper tickets, sites like Priceline and Hotwire and how they work. But some of the cheap fare sites are still active and if you’re looking to book last minute on the cheap they’re a really good source.

Chp. 6 discusses accommodations ranging from resorts to campgrounds and gives the pros and cons of all depending on your preference and budget. We’d all like to stay at five star resorts, but for most of us the budget won’t allow it. That doesn’t mean you have to sleep in your car. Whitman mentions the often overlooked family owned Bed and Breakfasts that can add a really unique twist to a vacation and are often cheaper than the local Fairfield. There are also tips on booking European lodgings such as Hostels and Pensions. Did you know that women can overnight at YMCAs? I didn’t, so there’s a handy fact if you need somewhere to rest for a night.

The chapter I’ve been rereading the last couple of weeks is “Pack it Up”. There’s a list in there of handy first aid supplies, and honestly, I 100% forgot about a first aid kit. I don’t usually bother with band-aids and antibacterial stuff. But I got hellaciously ill for a week while in London and if taking a dose of Nyquil and eating a cough drop will keep even half of that kind of sickness at bay I’ll fucking take it. I know I’m going to get sick, it’s inevitable as I’m being introduced to radically new environment with new bacteria and whatnot, so anything I pack to keep me ahead of the game is a win. There’s also a general packing list for clothes, toiletries, and accessories/documents. Again, really helpful if you need a jumping point on what to pack or just a list of reminders for obvious everyday things. I almost forgot to throw deodorant in my packing box.

I thought this book was pretty thorough on dealing with language barrier and culture shock and ways to work through it. The language barrier, of course, is to purchase a phrase book beforehand and practice a little so you’re used to the language. Or, you can do like I did and download a language learning app and practice a couple hours a day. Memrise is the app I have and of the free apps it has the most languages ranging from French to Icelandic. As for culture shock, you just have to know it’s coming. I didn’t get it too bad on my trip to Europe, but I wasn’t dealing with an unknown language and I had a professor who from day one explained some of the differences in culture. This time I’m a bit more anxious because I’m heading into two unknown languages and two very different cultures both from each other and from my home culture. So I’m certain the “shock” will hit me this time, but Whitman gives a list of common culture shock symptoms and the best ways to ease yourself through them.

In one of the final chapters “Coming Home” she also deals with reverse culture shock. That I can attest to experiencing. I spent three months in London and after a couple weeks of being back on US soil I was patently irritated with the “odd” way people spoke, the way people drove—although that could be my road rage—and I was irritated with how far away everything was. I could walk everywhere in London or catch a bus. Here? Maybe if you live in a big enough city. So I’m glad this book mentions reverse culture shock because I feel like a lot of travel books forget to mention that part of coming home. Yes, it’s nice to see your pets and sleep in your own bed or eat your favorite food, but there will still be an adjustment period where you have to reorient yourself to home culture.

Another great chapter that I don’t think a lot of general travel advice books mention is “Responsible Travel”. It gives tips and sites that help you do low impact travel both on the flora and fauna but also on the native cultures you might be going into. Remember, if you’re going to visit a little town or village no matter where it is, these are people you’re meeting, they’re not zoo animals for you to gawk at. Also avoid taking pictures with exotic animals such as monkeys, tiger cubs, etc. Often these animals are taken from their parents—or their parents are killed—and their teeth and claws are removed so that when they try to snap and bite when frightened they don’t harm the paying tourists. They’re often not kept in humane conditions and once they’re too big or wild to be cute they’re sold or killed.

The only chapter that’s a real bust is “Gadgets and Gizmos”. Technology has come a long way in eight years and when this book was written it would have been prudent to choose between phone and laptop if you were backpacking across Europe. But now, we have smartphones, tablets, and featherweight laptops. All of which you can download a compass onto or already have one installed. Buying an international phone isn’t really worth it when you can just upgrade your phone plan to an international one. And packing a camera is up to you since the phones you can get now take excellent pictures.

Overall, this is a quick read with a lot of great information streamlined in the chapters to make it easy for you to either read cover to cover or to pick and choose the sections you want/need at that moment. If you’ve ever wanted to travel, I highly recommend Beth Whitman’s book Wanderlust and Lipstick.

A Series of Weird Events: I’m Going to China

Okay, so I posted my fundraiser on Facebook (this one: https://life.indiegogo.com/fundraisers/teaching-english-in-china–5/x/9369737) and I know a couple people are going to want a lot more detail on WTF I’m doing going all the way to Cambodia and China. Here’s the absolutely crazy story on how decided to go to China.

Last year, for the first time in probably five years, I went to the local pumpkin patch because I wanted to roam the fields and find the Pumpkin King. I was wearing a hat, as has become my signature, and this particular hat is one I picked up while I was studying abroad in Europe. It has buttons and pins all over it that I got while I was overseas and it’s always a point of conversation.

So I’m standing out the checkout with my pumpkins and gourds and one of the ladies comments on my hat, asking where I got it. And since I was the only one there we chatted for a few minutes. She told me her granddaughter had done some traveling as well and went to China for six months to teach. And I was reminded of an Anthropology 101 class I took where a woman came in and told us about how she went to Vietnam for a year and taught English. The woman at the pumpkin patch told me all about the different tours her granddaughter had gone on while she was there. She saw the Great Wall, she saw the preparation for the Olympics, she hiked mountains, and picked up some Mandarin.

The conversation stuck with me all the way home. This woman’s granddaughter went to China for six months, six months!, with room and board paid for by the school and a salary a helluva more than I was making at the time. And she got to go to China. For six months.

So I got home and started racking my memory for what program the woman who had visited our class some four or five years ago had been in and started looking around on today’s Delphi, Google. I found all kinds of great programs for working abroad. I was seriously looking into a summer work program in New Zealand.

The fees though for those programs were always really high, the New Zealand trip would have cost me about $5000 and it was only for three months and I would have to start looking for a job as soon as my feet touched the ground and if I didn’t find one…well…

Then I looked into National Park jobs at coolworks.org, awesome site and I still have my eye on a couple positions by the Grand Canyon. I submitted applications but never heard anything back, so I went back to my search for working abroad. On a catch-all site for working abroad I found several companies that did TEFL—Teaching English as a Foreign Language—certifications. There’s no second degree required for it, if you’re a native English speaker, you can get your TEFL, or TESOL, same thing, different acronym.

I e-mailed several local TEFL programs, but really, outside of getting you certified they didn’t look like they’d be much help on the job front. And if I’m going to spend $1500+ on a certification, I’d like to know I’m going to get more than just access to a database of jobs. I have that with Google.

I found LanguageCorps and was smitten by their program. I looked into all of them, especially the Italy one, but their yearlong China program jumped at me. Ongoing Mandarin lessons, and guaranteed job placement before I even left US soil. And that was just with China, before that I would get my TEFL in Cambodia where a weekend excursion was planned to Angkor Wat, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

Sold.

This was in February or March this year and I fiddled with the idea for another month or so. You know how everything seems like a great idea until you seriously start thinking about the details? It was like that. Since that brief conversation at the pumpkin patch in October I had been gungho on working abroad, traveling, seeing more of the world and doing something.

But I’m not good with kids. I’ve never made an effort to be good with kids because I don’t really like kids. So what the everloving fuck am I doing thinking about going to a different country and teaching kids. So I emailed the company anyway and got back a questionnaire and lo and behold, one of the questions: Which age group do you prefer working with?

And I realized from the questionnaire how flexible this program was. Yes, I’m certain I’ll have guidelines I need to follow and goals to meet, but this is my class. I can teach however I want. I have a degree in English, with a focus in creative writing. I can run my own creative writing class. The whole semester dedicated to character development, plot structure and setting. The final can be a finished project. I can teach a creative writing class. In China. For a year.

And it’s not just China. Once I have my TEFL and a full year of classroom experience I can teach anywhere in the world. I can go to Japan or Finland or Germany or Peru or any other country that has a school where they want English taught. I can go anywhere and everywhere and never teach the same class. Because you can give a hundred people the same opening line and get a hundred different stories every time.

So after some emails and verifications on both our ends that everyone was indeed the real deal, I signed up for a January departure.

I’m teaching a short fiction class.

In China.

Review: Catch Me When I Fall + Bonus, Cover Reveal!

Catch Me When I Fall

By Vicki Leigh

“Recruited at his death to be a Protector of the Night, seventeen year old Daniel Graham has spent two hundred years fighting Nightmares and guarding humans from the creatures that feed off people’s fears. Each night, he risks his eternal life, but that doesn’t stop a burnt-out Daniel from risking daring maneuvers during each battle. He’s become one of the best and wants nothing more than to stop
“Then he’s given an assignment to watch over sixteen year old Kayla Bartlett, a clinically depressed patient in a psychiatric ward. Nightmares love a human with a tortured past. Yet, when they take an unprecedented interest in her, the job becomes more dangerous than any Daniel’s ever experienced. Soon, Daniel finds himself watching over Kayla during the day, drawn to why she’s different, and what it is about her that attracts the Nightmares. And him.
“A vicious attack on Kayla forces Daniel to break the first Law, revealing his identity, and whisk her away to Rome where others like him can keep her safe. Under their roof, the Protectors discover what Kayla is and why someone who can manipulate Nightmares has her in his sights. But before they can make a move, the Protectors are betrayed and Kayla is kidnapped. Daniel will stop at nothing to save her. Even if it means giving up his immortality.”

Who doesn’t love a jaded, brooding hero? Daniel is on par with Batman for broodiness. But he’s keeping it together. Like most of us who are sick of our jobs, he’s looking for a good time and reason to turn in his two week notice. He has a very distinctive voice, he’s two hundred+ years dead and while his speech is modern there are places where he’ll slip into an older cadence. He’s also British, so you can read the whole book with Cumberbatch’s voice in your head if you’d like.

Then there’s Kayla. I would love to see a book from her perspective. We get a lot from her just from Daniel’s point of view, but it’s easy to see how much more there is beneath the surface. She’s funny, and maybe because she already thinks she’s lost her mind, we don’t have pages and pages of disbelief, denial, and anger to get through. She passes Go, collects her $200 and jumps pretty much right on board the crazy train that becomes her life. It’s awesome. Again, another reason I would love to see a book from her perspective. Even if you think you’ve already gone off the rails, having Daniel and his cohorts appear like they do would take some mental acrobatics.

Now, if you like Silent Hill you’re going to thoroughly enj1oy the Nightmares. While reading I was reminded somewhat of the faceless, homicidal nurses, except they’re darkness incarnate, featureless with claws and teeth. So, you know, nightmarish.

And the travel in this book! The Protectors are stationed out of Rome and I don’t know if the author has traveled to this place or the others, but there’s wonderful detail about the buildings that really gives the setting life without burdening the story with twelve paragraphs describing the pillars and flagstones. There’s a scene in Paris that I absolutely loved. She captures how breathtaking the Eiffel Tower is at night when it’s lit up. And the meal Kayla and Daniel share does Lady and the Tramp so proud. Shy flirting and getting-to-know-you cuteness.

But if cuteness isn’t your thing, fear not, there’s still a homicidal maniac after Kayla and there’s plenty of edge of your seat fights and close calls to keep you flipping pages. There’s also the mystery of what exactly Kayla is.
It’s a lot packed into a svelte 197 pages. I finished in only a couple hours so if you jump into it before bed, don’t worry, you’ll finish with enough time for your Dreamcatcher to get comfortable and fodder for your Dreamweaver.

And, coming soon to a bookshelf near you, this lil’ gem:

http://www.vleighwrites.com/#!novels/cjg9

Oh look, a link where you can order both books. How did that get there?

Be Nice

There are a great deal many uncomfortable and cringe worthy words and phrases in the English language (see: Moist) but there aren’t many that can get my hackles raised faster than “Be Nice.”

I’ve been hearing it all my life. Be nice. Be nice. Be nice. It’s been used as a warning for upcoming events. Be nice, she’s new here. It’s been used, more often than not, as an admonishment. Be nice. And I hate it because it implies that I’m being mean. I’m not. I’m being me and whether you like it or not I’m often moody, standoffish, aloof, and irritated. I like to be alone. I don’t like talking to people. I like silence. I like being left to do my own thing and those that interrupt that are often met with silence or an unamused stare. I’m not trying to be mean, most days, I just rarely care or have a stake in anything that’s being said or done. I don’t care.

By whose standards are we being nice? I often wonder if I was male if I would hear that phrase so much. Should I be watching June Cleaver and taking notes? Should I fake laugh and carry on conversations with people I don’t like because it’s not nice to not talk to them? Should I feign interest in someone’s child because I’m a female and that’s the nice thing to do?

But still, I hear it. All The Time. BeNiceBeNiceBeNiceBeNice. Hold your tongue. You could hurt someone’s feelings, don’t say that. Don’t do that. Be happier. Be gentler. Be softer. Be positive. Why are you so angry? Why don’t you smile? Why don’t you talk?

Why Aren’t You More Like Me?

My sister gets away with not being nice because she’s funny and that takes a hefty dose of the sting out. I can’t remember the last time I heard someone tell her to be nice.

I’m a cinderblock wall embedded with blades. Sometimes I don’t even realize I’m not being nice. It doesn’t occur to me that not laughing at someone’s stupid joke or carrying a conversation isn’t nice. I don’t see a point in presenting people with a façade that isn’t true to who I am. If they’re not going to like me I’m not going to come up with a more palatable mask. Why should I?

If that’s not nice then I can’t help you. That’s your problem.

In Memory

https://twitter.com/Vengenz1/status/417011034537213952

Stepping out the back door bright fall sun hits my face causing momentary blindness. In the wash of white-gold there’s a memory of summer sunlight, a different back door. I’m following my dad out to the shed, from the kitchen radio Kurt Cobain is caterwauling something about a Heart Shaped Box. There’s a new box set coming out with “all new” songs never before released.

“I thought they released everything already?” I ask Dad, glad I can’t hear the hoarse voice anymore.

Dad shrugs. “They just tweak the quality or whatever, people will still buy it.”

My nose wrinkles. “That’s stupid.”

“People were really upset when he died. I worked with a guy; he took a personal day when he got the news.” Dad pulls the shed door open and wheels out the lawn mower.
I cross my arms. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s not like they knew him.”

The blindness clears in a second and I continue down the back steps. The weatherman said it would be high sixties today but at ten o’clock it’s still chilly for the midriff top I’m wearing. But I’ve got a concert to hit up and no way am I going to see Avenged Sevenfold without showing off the matching Deathbat and Revbat tattoos on my hips. I saw the Rev once, from the middle of a crowd at the Murat, he was hidden mostly behind his expansive kit, I never even got close enough for a wave, though I hung around in the twenty degree February air with others hoping to catch another look at the band until security shooed us away. The Rev’s skeletal face and batwings are protected with the highest grade of sunscreen made.

I got the tattoo in England in March, three months after Reverend died, I didn’t want to wait until the Study Abroad trip was over and I knew there would be resistance from my parents. I can hear it now they may be your favorite band now, but you said that about Linkin Park. The paper isn’t folded, I don’t know Snappy like I know my guy back home, I don’t want a crease to mess up the design. It’s obvious he’s not expecting a skull with batwings when I hand him the picture, I try to keep my smile from being too sarcastic. No butterflies or flowers for this chick thank you very much. He covers the surprise quickly and heads to the back to trace it out.

“So, why’d you pick this?” Snappy has an accent, not a heavy one but just enough to give the mundane words an exotic flare. Needles burn across my skin and their hum mingles with the sound of other peoples’ ink and the “rawr-rawr-scream-rawr” music playing softly from overhead speakers.

“You know the band Avenged Sevenfold?” He’s running over my hip bone and the uncomfortable burn turns to a sharp pang. He shakes his head, his eyes never leaving the lines he’s etching. “Oh, well, this their drummer. He died a couple months ago.”

“They were a local band?” Needles nick my hip again and I stare up at the tiled ceiling. My guy back home has the ceiling plastered with tattoo art. “No, they’re pretty big. They’re on Warner’s label, they’ve done a couple of international tours.”

“You get to meet them?”

“Uh, no.” Now I feel like I need to explain myself, but how do I explain to someone who hasn’t heard of the band? Because really, if you don’t know, you don’t know and there’s no explaining it. I go back to staring at the ceiling trying to find the words. “Their music means a lot to me.” which sounds so lame. I don’t have Jack London’s face tattooed anywhere and I fucking love Call of the Wild. “He died real suddenly, I was…upset.” that certainly didn’t help with the lameness, what I really want to say is devastated. The ceiling tiles are no more interesting than they were a minute ago but my mind is starting to get all drifty and woozy from the needle abuse. I’m trying to think of how the Rev would answer Snappy’s question but all I’m getting is the clip of him chasing geese through the park, screaming like the madman he was. Then there was the time he was totally sauced and threw a full glass of Guinness in his face just to make his friends laugh. I prod my wayward thoughts back to explaining myself to Snappy.

This guy doesn’t want my life story, he’s just making conversation like any good artist, but it’s going to take my life story for this to make any sense. He doesn’t care or need to know that I used to have something akin to anxiety attacks if more than five people took notice of me at once, or that until I started listening to and following Avenged Sevenfold I was terrified of meeting new people, I was unbearably awkward, suffered from crippling shyness, and avoided new environments and situations like a vampire avoids silver. I’m no extrovert by any means, but without their music, without knowing the Rev no matter how distantly, I wouldn’t be lying on this table right now in England getting a tattoo.

I can’t tell Snappy I spent the week after I got the news of his passing hardly eating, moping around my room, not speaking to anyone, occasionally bursting into tears without provocation. I can’t tell him I only recently started listening to the music again because hearing his voice in the backing vocals unraveled me. And it’s not that I “can’t” it’s that I can’t, it’s like I’ve lost my friend, my mentor, my guide to life. And I didn’t know him at all.

“It’s kind of hard to explain.” I finish the inarticulate explanation. He nods. “This is the third one this week I’ve done, not with this design, but involving this guy.”

In the car, I pop in Nightmare and the opening piano fades into heavy drums that I hammer on the steering wheel. Doors open in two hours, my sixth time seeing The Boys, third time this year, fifth time without the Rev.

‘Tis the Season

‘Tis the holiday season, huzzah-humbug. I’m not necessarily a Grinch. I like Christmas. I’m just not really excited about the compressed awkward family time.

My grandparents host a family Christmas a week before the 25th and as my cousins have gotten older the event has gotten a bit bigger as they bring their significant others. This year the only two singles in the family will be me, the oldest cousin, and my youngest cousin. That’s it. Everyone else will be bringing boy/girlfriends.

Usually these things don’t bother me, if I even take notice, but the holidays are always different. Someone there is going to ask if I have a date and the short answer is No. But the long answer is more complicated so I usually just go with the shoulder-shrug-and-ask-for-another-roll technique.

I’ve been spoiled by fiction. There’s Aubrey, from Amelia Atwater Rhodes’ book Demon in my View. I can still repeat passages from that book verbatim. I love it. It is one of my all time favorite books and I adore the menace that is Aubrey. Then there’s Nalini Sigh’s incredible “Guild Hunter” series with Raphael and Illium, hell, even Venom. Just writing the names makes me want to re-read the entire series from beginning to current book. And, of course, there’s Rhage and Rhev from J.R. Ward’s “Black Dagger Brotherhood” series.

These are the men I love. The huge, planet sized, problem with them is that they aren’t real. I can’t go to New York City and catch a glimpse of Illium weaving between the skyscrapers. He’s a golden eyed, blue winged, lethal piece of Nalini Singh’s imagination. But Singh is an amazing writer and when you read her stories, for a moment, those pieces of her imagination are real enough to touch. And then you finish the book and have to come back to the real world where there aren’t any angels buzzing around NYC. There are no centuries old vampires running amok in Caldwell, NY or anywhere for that matter.

You read these stories about these characters that make you laugh and cry and want to hug them and you get to know them, how they think, how they speak. And then you go out and meet some guy who does something pedestrian like bartend. Not saying bartending is a bad thing. The trick bartenders are pretty cool, but you’re not holding a candle to an angel or a werewolf or a vampire or a fae or a geomancer or a necromancer or a dragon rider. It’s like waking from a great dream. Sure there are great people out there, but I’m just not interested.
It is well known to my close family and friends that I’m oblivious to the “hey, how you doing” signals people send out. I say hello to people because I’m from the Midwest and that’s the polite thing to do. I’ll talk to you if I can’t find a polite way to leave or not talk to you. Somehow, this is misconstrued as mutual interest.

Nope.

No fangs? No wings? No supernatural abilities? I’m not interested and not paying attention. And this is why it’s so hard for me to answer the “Are you seeing anyone” question family members like to casually toss out.

Yes, because the newest Guild Hunter novel, Archangel’s Legion, by Nalini Singh is out and I do get to see them. I can pick up Demon in my View whenever I want and see Aubrey. I can re-read Lover Eternal and Lover Avenged by J.R. Ward today and see them.

But as far as the real world is concerned, no, I’m not seeing anyone because it’s just so boring.

The Boys are Back in Town

They blasted “Back in Black” before the curtain drop, as is much more fitting, but I’ve had Thin Lizzy in my head for nigh two days so we’re going with that.

Maybe I should back up.

Last night I saw Avenged Sevenfold for, I think, the thirteenth time. Maybe the fourteenth. I’ve stopped keeping count because it doesn’t matter if I’ve seen them thirteen times or thirty-three times it will never be enough. I have a post brewing about the opening bands Ghost B.C. and Deftones, but that will come later.

The new stage set up is just incredible. They always go all out on their stage shows but the mock throne room with the King himself towering over and scowling at the crowd was more than I had imagined even after seeing pictures. Huge shoutout to the crew that gets that thing up and takes it down every day because, my gods, it’s a massive set. The attention to detail is amazing as well. I didn’t really get to sit back and look at it until after the show because who the fuck is looking at a stage set when AVENGED SEVENFOLD is on the stage.

I don’t know the technical term, but the deathbats mounted at the top of the wall above the corroded banners are flamethrowers. Yeah. They went there. That giant King? He moves. There are some other really cool things they’re doing, but I won’t spoil the surprise. You’ll have to see the show and then come back so we can freak out together.

Last night was the first time I had pit seats to see Sevenfold. I’ve had GA at stadium shows and always managed to get within the first ten rows, but the pit at Klipsch Music Center is tiny, tiny, tiny. There’s maybe room for 100-150 people. I had four short people in front of me, seriously, they came up to my shoulder, so I was pretty much at the barricade and it was glorious.

I had a moment while I was standing there next to the stage when I remembered the first time I had seen them. It was February 2009 at the Murat Egyptian room. For those not local, the Murat is a small indoor venue in downtown Indy. The capacity for the room we were in, 600. I feel like it was sold out, but I don’t remember. It was packed, I didn’t get anywhere near the stage. Last night, I’ll have to ask, but I’m pretty sure there were 13-15,000 people at a venue for 25,000. Pavilion was packed, the lawn, despite the rain and thunder was pretty well filled. The guys have come so very far, I was smiling like a fool the entire time the stage was being set up.

New curtain for the tour, says REV in the banner under the deathbat

The people around me were discussing the Nightmare tour cycle when they had all seen the band for the first time. I love seeing the guys playing Wembley Arena and the O2, because Holy Shit, those are huge venues. I love that I have the memory of seeing them in that small dark room almost five years ago because I can look back at that wall of people, of friends, of fellow fans and giggle and laugh like a lunatic because the guys have come so far. Their stage show has gone from smoke machines and small video screens fixed on risers to a behemoth set with enough fire to be seen from space. And no matter the venue I have always felt at home in Avenged crowds. The shyness that has haunted me all my life and made it difficult to make friends is gone. I talk to people left and right, jump in on conversations two rows back, laugh with people in line. This is family. This is home.

Syn's face and Zacky's smile — Syn’s face and Zacky’s smile

Forever Fiction Books

Book Reviews, Rants, and Miscellaneous Musings

Author: Harley Quinn