Returning to my crafty roots

We just came back from vacation in New Harbor, Maine, where we go every year. We have a family cottage on the ocean. We spent a week walking around Damariscotta and Wiscassett, checking out Fort William Henry, Fort Edgecomb, and Pemaquid Point Lighthouse. Quick! Go find a US quarter--the Maine one. Look on the tail side. That's Pemaquid Lighthouse. They also have a fisherman's museum, which was very fascinating and inspiring for Tales of the Fisherman's Wife. Being in a fishing village had its own bit of inspiration, too, so much so that I'm just about done with the text. I'm aiming to be done with the text next week.

So I'm taking Tales of the Fisherman's Wife to GenCon as an ashcan. This evening in the shower I decided that perhaps pre-orders might be a good thing. I won't announce it at the Stone Baby Games website just yet. A shower-birthed idea needs time to dry off, but if I do decide on pre-orders, here's a preview of my spiel:

Tales of the Fisherman's Wife is a quick role-playing game for two to four players. The Fisherman is about to leave for the sea. Whenever they part ways, they have a few little ritual. The Fisherman asks his Wife how many nets he's mended, and what his boat is like. The Wife asks the Fisherman how long he will be at sea, and what premonitions he has of his journey. Then the couple exchange six words which they each weave into a quick parable about their own story.

The Fisherman and his Wife go their separate ways. While they are very ordinary people, they both attract all manners of demons and ghosts who try to seduce, serve, devour, possess, or supplant them. In defense, the Fisherman and his Wife attempt to seduce, enslave, steal power, merge, or destroy their preternatural visitors.

The game is set in the Japan of the Ukiyo-e woodblock prints, but is more about the working class consumers of this art. The original inspiration for the game is
the Hokusai print Dream of the Fisherman's Wife. This simple setting--a Japan that exists in art and folklore--offers games themes that can be sensual and erotic, creepy and horrific, or somewhere in between.

Fisherman's Wife is designed to be played in one session, and will appeal to seasoned roleplayers and non-roleplayers alike. It uses a standard deck of playing cards.

The ashcan version of Tales of the Fisherman's Wife will be a miniature hand bound collage book, with handmade paper cover, and full color illustrations throughout(with a few exceptions). No two books will be alike, although the text and pagination will be the same. There will be several versions to choose from:

* Pacific--Full color, illustrated with Ukiyo-e, your choice of mature audience (joyfully and bizarrely graphic erotic images), or general audience (naughty pictures replaced by more full color images of Japanese ghosts and demons).

* Atlantic--Some full color, illustrated with images of life by the sea European style, your choice of mature audiences (naughty images of European Fishermen and their Wives) and general audiences (naughty images replaced by vintage illustrations of sea creatures.)

So you can gift the game to your mama or your lover. All books will be signed and numbered. If you pre-order I can inscribe it for you, too. Price will be somewhere between $[rethinking pricing and can't commit]. I'm still gathering supplies. The dimensions will be somewhere in the park of 5.5" x 7" and 7" x 5", and about 22 pages short. Short game, short text, pretty pictures, pretty handmade book.

Here's how I envision pre-ordering will work. If you pre-order and will be at GenCon, I will give you your book at the Con. If you won't be there, I will likely (realistically) assemble and ship after GenCon. There's a good chance I will offer a less labor intensive (still fully illustrated and in color) version (the "Pacific" series, both adult and general) at GenCon as well, for about $10.

If I don't do pre-orders, and after writing all this, I can't see why I shouldn't, the only thing that won't happen is you won't be able to get a personally inscribed book. Before I got into game design and rpg's, I was (still am) a crafty chick, working mostly with fiber, but dabbling occasionally in collages and bookmaking, among other things. TOFW is the perfect project to combine my love of handmade things (see my hand made banner on the left), and homegrown storytelling.

I'm looking forward to making these books, and I've enjoyed working on TOFW. This week, if my box of handmade paper arrives in the mail, I'll put together two prototypes to see what style book works best.

Which brings me to another shower thought--a reflection on the past year with Steal Away Jordan. Quite a rewarding and character building experience. I'll save it for another time.

Since I don't have a real preview to speak of (and this is really a preview of the preview), here are some of the design elements and resources I will be using to make my books.

Articus Studio Design. I love this place.
Washi paper.
ATC (artist trading cards).
Ukiyo-e Gallery (No copyright laws will not be violated in the making of the book.)
Art credit

Getting ready for GenCon

JiffyCon, yay! I did two games of Tales of the Fisherman's Wife, which went amazingly well. I got some excellent feedback, and when we go to Maine next week, I hope to spend a nice chunk of time working on the TOFW text. I'm going to take it to GenCon as an ashcan and be part of the Ashcan Front booth.

I also got to play Steal Away Jordan as a player and not GM for the first time. My character was a 30 year old pregnant runaway seamstress, and one of my goals was not to give birth on the road. I completed my tasks and failed at my goal. Evan Torner, the awesome GM ran a game that was the funniest Steal Away Jordan ever. It was certainly a tragicomedy. There was a sacrificial suicide, a haint induced birth (my character's), a terrible betrayal which caused another character to get caught (we were runaways), and the hope and promise of freedom for a nine year old. It rocked! I like playing my game!

I'm also going to be working at the Indie Press Revolution/Forge booth, working the cash register and stocking the shelves. I will not be demoing Steal Away Jordan. SAJ is my first attempt at game designing, publishing, and selling. What a long strange trip this past year has been. I mean that in a 75% good way, and the 25% unpleasantly strange trip has been character building, to say the least.

All that to say that I do not plan to demo Steal Away Jordan at GenCon. First, logistically it just wouldn't be fun. I really want to push Tales of the Fisherman's Wife. Demoing is emotionally and physically draining. This GenCon I want to work my ass off and have fun, too. Secondly, demoing Steal Away Jordan is particularly emotionally taxing, and not in the positive character building way.

Okay, I'm going to say it, and gentle reader, especially you gentle gamers out there, please don't take this the wrong way. I am well aware that SAJ is not for everyone. I get that some folks out there find it off-putting to game race, and no matter how many times I deny it in a podcast, in a 15 minute demonstration of my game, race is what a good number of people will focus on even if I say, "this is a game about historical narratives and [African American] folk tales..." And I'm well aware that my skin color and gender are not typical among gamers and game designers. Last year at GenCon I felt my blackness and womanness--my otherness--more than I've ever felt it before.

Steal Away Jordan was not meant to be an "educational" game. African American history is rich in adventure, drama, and story, which to me seems to be perfect material for a role playing game of the "story game" type. It's not a game designed to make people feel bad or guilty about where they come from. Steal Away Jordan is not a game about hopelessness.

In other words, I don't want to spend my weekend explaining and defending my work (a celebration of my American cultural heritage) to people who glom on to my otherness. I was described as a "nice black lady" in one review, and my ethnicity was mentioned in several other reviews of the game. It would be naive of me to say I don't know why it matters, but the uppity part of me says, why should my race and gender matter? And maybe I'm actually a mean black lady! I don't think the writer meant it to be patronizing, but... Anyway, I'm taking myself out of the equation with the hope and fear that my otherness may be a barrier to some people's interest in reading the text and trying the game.

That said, I'm really looking forward to GenCon. I'm excited about seeing and playing with the kind people I met last year. I'm looking forward to buying some cool games and eating sushi.

I can't believe I bought this dress

So I wear lots of patchwork-hippie, simple shirt and skirt combos. I sort of have a uniform. It's a style that works for me. My clothes are practical for a mom with two kids.

I've been wanting to get one of those cute handmade patchwork hippie dresses with the ties in the back, but I can't ever find them in my size. One that would have been a perfect fit came up on eBay recently, and I almost bid on it. Ultimately the price was too steep. I had just bought yellow kimono sleeve patchwork dress to wear to JiffyCon, and I didn't have much more to spend. (Come to JiffyCon and you'll see!)

I really like the new JiffyCon dress, but it's makes me feel a little crunchier than usual. Silly as this may sound-it is a fluff post, after all-I want to go on a fashion adventure this summer, get gussied up, and go out on a hot date with Chris. I feel the urge to branch out of my earth mama hippie crunchy sugar magnolia mold.

So on a whim I started looking for less crunchy dresses. I tried to push out of my comfort zone. I found that I like the halter top maxi dress style. It retains some crunch, and still looks charming and hot date worthy. I narrowed the choices down to 7, and I showed them to Chris. He helped me eliminate 4. In the end, this shimmery salmon backless plunging neckline floor-length halter won out. Even better, it was floor-length for little old 5' 9" me. Even better still, it was my size. It's as far out of my comfort zone as one can get. Chris said he picked another dress over this one because he wonders if I'll wear it. It's up there with the pirate bikini I got last summer in Puerto Rico as far as how much skin I tend to reveal. I wore that (a couple times). I picked up the vintage lace paisley shawl to go with it. The shoes I got a few weeks ago. I also got two packages of adhesive bras. Adhesive Bras! I just got a dress where the only bra I can wear more or less consists of giant band-aids.

Thanks to the platform heels and the lace shawl, the look retains just the right amount of crunchiness that I won't feel completely out of my skin. My mom had a shawl like that from the 70's.

So the big question of the day is "where the heck am I going to wear this dress?" Who knows, but I can't wait to go.

JiffyCon this Saturday!

Come one, come all to JiffyCon this Saturday. More details at the official JiffyCon website.

I’m running Tales of the Fisherman’s Wife, and Evan Torner is running Steal Away Jordan. I’m thinking about playstorming Murder Ballad Blackjack to put it back on track, but we’ll see.

See ya’ll there! I make no guarantees, but I have no plans to get sick this time.

I was a new mama today

Nine years ago today I became a mother for the first time. We named our daughter Amelia Beatrice. I liked the name Amelia, Chris liked Beatrice. When the midwife asked what we wanted to name our baby, Chris chimed in first. He said later that he used my choice because, as he put it, I had worked so hard to birth her. Still, Amelia is very much a "Bea". It's rare that we actually call her by her first name. Here are some more funny tidbits about Bea's early days.

We couldn't agree on a boy's name, so if Bea had been a boy (we didn't find out until she was born) she might have been Joshua, Jacob, Jesse, Jedediah, or Primo. I preferred the J names. If Ingrid had been a boy (we found out before she was born) I was really pushing for Jedediah again. I liked Josiah, too. I really like Clint Eastwood westerns, and old fashioned names.

Bea was born with a very distinct "WTF???" look on her face. The whole eviction from the womb apparently threw her for a loop. To this day, she still has trouble with sudden transitions.

She was 7 lbs 14 oz and 21 inches long. She was the exact same weight as I was. Her little sister was nearly a pound more. She had blue eyes until she was about 5 months old, then they turned gray, and then they turned green/hazel. She had a head full of black hair.

One of Bea's first words was "no". Others were "mama", "papa" and "bear". She was an early talker and walker.

She and our late dog Kaya the rottwieler got along famously. When Bea grows up she wants to be a vet.

For about two years (age 2-4) her favorite article of clothing was a pink shorts and tank top set with batiked shells on it. She called it her pink outfit, and she would wear it for days on end. She was way too big for it by the time I hid it in my drawers. Ingrid's worn it a couple of times, but she's not obsessed with it.

Bea nursed until she was almost 5. She hadn't nursed for about 3 months when I got pregnant with Ingrid. She called nursing "nip".

Bea's imaginary friend was named Annie and she lived in a castle.

Bea's favorite book as a baby was Big Little Lion.

Bea has an aversion to buttons, and hasn't worn anything with buttons (even just for decoration) since she was 3. She's not fond of snaps and zippers, either, and try as she might, she really doesn't like jeans. Her aversion was so strong at one point that if someone else was wearing buttons she wouldn't touch that person, and she wouldn't sit in a chair with a buttoned shirt or jacket hanging on the back. She once told me she was afraid of them.

Bea loves reading and math. She's an amazing artist.

Bea and I bicker because we are so much alike. I think she's much cooler than I am or ever was, though. Her persistence and tenacity will serve her well as she gets older. She has a dark sense of humor. She is a loyal friend with a sensitive soul.

Happy Birthday Blooter!

New Mama!

I'm organizing our stuff in the attic for a tag sale. I've been going through boxes and boxes of photos, children's clothes, baby stuff, books, toys, files, journals. My head is swimming in memories (and dust).

Today I am sorting things we no longer want or need, setting boxes aside that we still want or need, throwing away things no one would probably want or need. Making way for more stuff. It painsme to part with some of the baby stuff, but hopefully my sister in law will find a use for them because....

I'm an Aunt! Moya Ezekiela Sofia... was just born around 1 pm today.

Bad Friend Foods

When Ingrid was an infant she was allergic to dairy products. They gave her weepy, oozy, itchy, eczema patches all over her face, the back of her legs and her elbows. The best way to prevent them was to avoid all dairy. That meant I had to avoid all dairy. Goat, cow, sheep, water buffalo. No dairy. No cheese, yogurt, no fun for me, pirate dairy queen that I am.

She grew out of it, and now dairy doesn't bother her, and now I can eat it, too.

Actually, no I can't. I've been battling another health issue since Ingrid was born, too. It comes and goes, and when it comes, it does so with a vengeance. At times I've been miserable and uncomfortable. I've tried everything, except a change in diet, because I know it would require a radical chance in my eating habits for at least 6 months, and this radical change in diet will mean no more of favorites. No more comfort food.

I can't stand it any more. I'm back to being physically uncomfortable, and I don't want to go the pharmaceutical route again, because it's only a temporary fix. So starting tomorrow, I'm getting on the restricted diet train. In a word, I'm bummed. Here's what I won't be eating for the next six months:

Sugar in all forms, including honey, except occasional whole fresh fruit.
Fungus, molds, and yeast in all forms, including vitamins and minerals.
Most B vitamins (unless label states otherwise).
Most breads and commercial baked goods.
All alcoholic beverages. (At least I can still make wine!)
Mushrooms
Starchy vegetables like corn and potatoes.
Dry roasted nuts.
Barbecued potato chips.
Most commercial soups.
Apple cider and natural root beer.
White flour.
Bacon and other pork, which often contain molds.
Wheat, oats, rye and barley, (gluten).
Fruit and diluted fruit juices, high in fructose (fruit sugar)

Then there are the things I will have to limit:

Whole grains
Nuts and seeds (small amounts).
Beans and other legumes (small amounts).

I can have kombucha, meats, fish, poultry, vegetables. No bread or pasta.

Bummer.

UPDATE! Fermented foods and vinegar are back on the list! Hello Kim chee! (And no way was I going to give up kombucha!) Still no dairy or alcohol.