Say it like you mean it!

I love and hate when this happens. I had a really disturbing dream the other night. In short, I dreamed that a bunch of people seemingly forced their way into my house, although my door was always unlocked. A couple time I tried to lock the door, but people kept coming in. The weren't really doing anything other than walking around the living room. They weren't terribly friendly. I was frightened and defensive at first, and then I asked them all to remove their shoes and coats, and put them at the front door. The I asked them to sit down, and I asked them to tell me their names.

In the past week, pieces of the dream have turned up in my waking life. Not that people just came into my house uninvited, but the whole range of feeling that I had in the dream. First, a total stranger extended a stunningly sincere hand of fraternity. Then one of my patients answered a question before I asked it, and extended a sincere hand of fraternity. And three times, my heart found a clear voice and spoke out. Loudly. In the first instance I realized that I needed something intangible, and needed someone to help me get it. In the second, I asked for it, and received it within hours. In the third, I let go of some anger and pride, and I found a long neglected wound where they once sat. This has otherwise been a craptastic week, and at first I didn't notice the emotional parallels with the dream. Yeah, that's all vague, it's probably impossible to see the parallels, but they're there.

Best of all, it's okay, or at the very least, it will be soon, and I believe that now.

Malice: Not just scary dolls

I have been working on Malice, the game formerly about scary dolls. Now it's a game that celebrates the low special effects and high character development horrow movies from the late 60's to the early 80's. Before the obvious thing to be feared could be seamlessly and realistically featured onscreen. I'm thinking of movies like The Omen, The Brood, and The Shining.

I just happened to misplace my handwritten notes from the last time I worked on the game. This has turned out to be a very good thing. I have the bare bones, the pieces I really like, and I've been able to look at the game from a fresh perspective. A few nights ago, we playtested character creation, which is done in character, and in conjunction with establishing a plot. That was really fun. We ended up with the beginning of a story set in the summer of 1972, Michigan, with a cast of four teenagers who witness "Mark" die at a party, from excessive drinking. They call the police and an ambulance (after a lengthly discussion), but when they arrive, Mark's body and any evidence he was ever there are gone. That's about as far as we got. In subsequent scenes, the GM would play Mark--the Malice--of the story. I'm still working on the dice mechanics, and how exactly how to propel the story.

Another fun thing is the character sheet, which looks like a smudgy mimeograph of an Intake Form for therapy, institutionalization, etc. You fill this out in character as well, and talk about who your character is while you create her. The GM acts as a Case Manager to help the dialog along, and players establish which character (a PC) is their character's nemesis. It was all terribly fun, and I look forward to seeing how this story unfolds.

And I should be finishing Tales of the Fisherman's Wife by June, so if you ordered a handbound ashcan, it will arrive as a finished game. Hope it's been worth the wait!

Nothing to See Here, Move Along

Almost two years ago, I wrote here about an experience I had at the Y. I mentioned being an unclothed woman sitting amongst other women in a room where such activities are appropriate (at the Y, in the women's locker room). It was one of those typical day-in-the-life observations. According to Sitemeter, I get more hits to that post than any other, and given the keywords that send people to the post, I have a feeling people are looking for some kind titillation. I'll bet they're disappointed, but they keep coming, from all over the world.

For the time being, I'm taking the post down. It probably won't help my site's traffic, but oh well.

I have nothing against people looking for titillating photos of unclothed women. This is just not the blog for that. If you want to read about my rather uneventful life, adventures in role playing game design and other creative endeavors, kombucha, cooking, pets, octopuses, tattoos, midwifery, religion, spouses, and offspring, then welcome! Read on. If you're looking for images of the female body sans clothes, perhaps sitting with other unclothed beauties, there are zillions of other websites out there that offer that kind of fun.

If you're the traveling type, you might consider a vacation to Finland, where the activity I described is very popular.

Anyway, thanks for visiting!

I lost my superpower!

And I'm okay with that! I've been nursing an infant, toddler, or preschooler since May 29, 1999, with a 1 year hiatus during pregnancy. Ingrid is my last child and my last nursling. Now we are on to another era. My body is once again my own.

So there's some bittersweetness here. A few months ago we came to the conclusion that our family was complete with two kids. No third or fourth baby. I'm a little sad about that, but now I'm Auntie (or Tia) Julia! How cool is that? I'm an only child, so I never really thought about the prospect of being someone's aunt until my sister in law got pregnant.

I'm a bit of a breastfeeding evangelist. I'll hold back for now, except to say that I loved breastfeeding and at times I hated breastfeeding. Plugged ducts, thrush that wouldn't go away, nursing strikes, night nursing, nursing while sick, nursing a sick baby, nursing in public, nursing in front of people who made their disgust apparent, nursing while walking down the street, I've been there, done that. I have heartwarming breastfeeding stories, and stories that would make me (and you) blush. I wouldn't trade any of it. I won't judge any woman who cannot breastfeed and I am a firm believer that breast is best. Period. The more encouragement women get from their families, care-givers, and the rest of the world, the more healthy a nursing relationship she and her baby will have. (stepping off the soapbox now.)

The best thing about weaning is that now that Ingrid is older, I can see that goal of being a midwife with much more clarity.

The thing I'll miss most is that I never got a tee-shirt that said, "I make milk! What's your superpower?"

While we're on the subject...

This is a tangent from a conversation happening elsewhere online.

The African American Woman's Headwrap: Unwinding the Symbols

Terry Howcott: Ravaged Cultures Spark a Cultural Revival.

Dreamation Drama!

See this from Stone Baby Games (which is me, in case you didn't know). I mean drama in a good way!

I'm really looking forward to Dreamation this year! I'm also going to bring Werewolves of Miller's Hollow to play, inspired by the awesome story that was created in the Knife Fight Werewolf forum game. I'd like to play this bluffing and strategy game with lots of character development and story.

The picture above is of the character in Brotherhood of the Wolf who was the inspiration for my NPC Parthenia, who was the twin sister of my PC William Christian Ellsworth the Printer. Wrong time period, but I imagined her wearing red. How could an unmarried woman named "Parthenia" not wear red in a story about werewolves? Poor Will, by the way, was the next to last character to be hanged.

Parthenia's Dad

My parents visited us from December 18 to the 28th. It was a fun visit, except I spent the better part of their stay concerned about my dad's health. The last time I saw him was in March in Atlanta (see above) and he was almost 6 months post recovery from congestive heart failure. This time he did not look well. Apparently he wasn't feeling well.

Without getting into the particulars, he was admitted to the hospital on Saturday, and has been in ICU since then. He was a blockage of the large intestine. They performed a sigmoidoscopy Monday and biopsied a section. We'll know more tomorrow.

My dad will be 66 in about two weeks. I am very concerned about him.