Today was my usual weekly trip to the comic shop. And every once in a while, I walk into the shop to find a surprise. I forget, sometimes, what I have ordered months ago. Two different items came in today. One I expected, and one I had forgotten about.
First the one I had forgotten about. It’s been awhile since I played Bayonetta on the PS3. With Final Fantasy XIII, Heavy Rain, and Disgaea 3, not to mention my actual life, I haven’t gotten back to Bayonetta to finish it. Though I keep meaning to. Maybe that’s why I had forgotten I had ordered figures of Bayonetta and her rival Jeanne from the game. But I picked them up today.
The other item was one I had remembered, and for some reason wondered if it was coming out today as I drove to the shop. Sure enough, the four disc soundtrack for Final Fantasy XIII came in, making for a spendy day. But now I have new video game music to listen to.
I am currently working on a novel. This is a novel that was born, in some form, more than a decade ago. But while I have returned to the character and the idea several times, I’ve never managed to stick with it long enough to produce anything usable. Now I feel more focused on it.
The main character is a magician named, Ice. The name is swiped from Rickie Lee Jones’ song “Satellites.” In one lyric: “Ice was reading fortunes by the moonlight, casting runes on the rooftops and alleys…” So I got the idea of a mage, Ice, who used runes to cast spells. At some point, it occurred to me that his runes were carved into his skin, and thus was born the peculiar idea of Ice’s magic.
Also, not coincidentally, was born my interest in getting a rune tattooed on myself.
Ice has appeared in several stories I’ve worked on and even a few D ∧ D campaigns. Now I’m finally starting to write the novel I meant for him to have years ago. When I started writing earlier this summer, I remembered a story I had conceived regarding his apprenticeship. During the current novel, he has occasion to tell the story to Cassie, a young girl who he rescues at the beginning of the novel. She has asked him to explain the scar on his forearm.
Many people think mages are solitary. That is not exactly true. Mages find it useful to live together, to easily share secrets and seek advice. It is just that they have the social grace of . . . well . . . They have no social grace, which means they don’t really live well together. They fight. They get in each other’s way. And generally, they wind up destroying each other’s labs. But they still live together.
Or rather, they used to when there will still enough of them to make the effort.
So during my apprenticeship, my master and I lived in a tower with two other mages. Each had their own apprentice. When we were able to get some time apart from our chores, we – the three apprentices – would sneak away to tell stories, show off, and generally act like the children we were. (Yes, I know that it is hard for you to believe I was ever a child, but it was true nonetheless.)
My master (Saric was his name) was a stingy, overbearing man. He wanted the benefit of an apprentice, but did as little work as possible teaching me. This meant that, while the other apprentices were learning minor spells that might make them more useful, I had yet to inscribe my first rune. To be sure, I could draw them to achieve the necessary effects during my duties, but I had none to call my own.
This was a growing source of embarrassment to me. One day, one of the apprentices was showing off a spell his master had taught him. It could light a room full of candles all at once. Truly an impressive spell. (They were not runecasters, but I won’t bore you with the intricacies of different types of magic.)
The other apprentice, a girl, oohed at his display. Then he turned to me, “Have you learned anything yet?” It had become a common taunt at our meetings.
And I had had enough. “As a matter of fact, Saric will be helping me inscribe my first rune tonight. Then we will see how stunning your candle-lighting trick looks.”
What made me say it? I do not know. I am sure we could speculate about my frustration, the impetuousness of youth, bravado. . . They likely all played some part. But I was in it now. I had to get a run inscribed or I would never hear the end of it. I know it is not a unique tale, but it is what happened.
Back in my master’s study, I found myself the beneficiary of coincidence. My master had locked himself in his lab and left strict instruction not to be disturbed for a week. (This was not an uncommon occurrence.) So I found a manual of runes (you might think of it as a spell book) and located the necessary materials.
Working in the study would be foolhardy. If anything went wrong, I would not only have disobeyed my master, I would likely destroy much of his research and carefully collected reference materials. Going into the woods meant risking discovery by one of the other mages, but the alternative was by far riskier, so off I went.
You likely do not care to hear the details of my grand experiment, and you are even less likely to understand or appreciate them. Let us just say that I spent a night and a day at the task and was lucky to come away from it with all my limbs – and my mind – intact, though my eyebrows were not so fortunate.
I returned everything to my master’s quarters and then sought out my fellows to show off my new found power. Unfortunately, they were both set on tasks of their own, and it was days before we could once more gather together.
We met behind the stables. I had been determined to show up my associate, hence I inscribed the biggest fire spell I could find. It was silly, really. It is almost always better to invent your own spell than copy someone else’s. Understanding the intricacies built into another’s creation . . . Well, it is not worth the trouble. But I was young and impatient, as though those two words are not synonymous.
The spell worked. The fireball that resulted from activating the rune was the most impressive display any of us had ever managed. Unfortunately, my lack of familiarity with the details of the spell caused me to misjudge the effect. I destroyed the stable, and two plough horses were killed. We survived, and my master, just then emerging from his lab, managed to prevent any further damage. However, I was not to be so lucky.
He knew immediately what had happened. The rune on my forearm merely confirmed it for him. It was not the damage to the stables nor the death of the horses that upset him. No, it was that I had wasted precious space on such a silly spell, for such a mundane purpose. A runecaster’s power lies in the runes he has easy to hand, those inscribed on his skin. And we have precious little skin for the purpose. I had wasted several inches on someone else’s spell without good cause.
He could have removed it. The process is painful, but it allows other runes to be inscribed. Instead, he intentionally botched the procedure, ensuring I would never be able to inscribe another rune there.
* * *
Ice stared into the fire silently. Cassie waited for a few minutes to see if there was more to the story. When it became clear that there was not, she spoke. “That is horrible.”
A confused look came over Ice’s face as he turned to look at her. “What is horrible?”
“Well, why didn’t he remove it properly?”
“Oh. He was teaching me a lesson. He taught me a lot of lessons that way. And I became a better mage for it.”
“What did your parents say?”
“My parents? Child, Saric raised me. He paid my parents good money for an apprentice. I never knew them.”
“That’s horrible, too, then.”
“No, it is not. I became a mage. I never wanted for anything. And I have seen and done more than most people dream.”
“It sounds awful to me.”
“Maybe it does, to a simple peasant girl who has never seen anything outside her own village. Story time is over. I am going to sleep.”
He stood abruptly and walked to the far side of the fire where he laid down with his back to her. Saric would never have put up with this kind of disrespect. Who did this girl think she was to speak to him so?
A girl who had recently lost her parents, his mind reminded him. So he lay awake for a long time regretting his tone. A state he was finding himself in all too often of late.
So I’ve been trying to write blog posts and failing miserably. Mea culpa.
To tide you over until the writer’s block finally falls off my desk, I thought I would share a scene from earlier today. I’m sitting on the chair in front of the AC (because I’m HOT!), and before too long, I’m surrounded by all three cats.
Ronni took the picture.
I’m just glad a fight didn’t break out on top of me.
Frankly, I needed a break. I wanted some mindless fun, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World seemed like just the thing. So after I made sure Ronni had read the description and agreed that it sounded like fun, we headed to the movies for the first time in a month.
The simplest way I can think of to describe this film is that this is what happens when the Nintendo generation makes a romantic comedy.
There are the obvious elements that suggest that: the animations that accompany dramatic elements, the bad guys turning to coins when they are defeated (which actually makes more sense to me than how all the beasts in Final Fantasy games seem to carry Gil), the music, the refusal to obey the laws of physics. The fantastic elements are obvious to anyone.
But there is also the more subtle, yet still bizarre, elements. The fact that Ramona seems to dig Scott, even though there is almost no reason for her to. The fact that Scott lives with Wallace, who is gay, and they sleep in the same bed, usually with Wallace’s boyfriend of the moment. In short, the plot makes very little sense.
Really, this is a video game made into a move. And it is wild and fun. Don’t expect too much by way of sensible plotting, and there is no reason not to let go and enjoy the ride.
In many ways, Wallace, played by Kieran Culkin, is my favorite character. He is wry, and funny, and is phased by almost nothing. Several other supporting characters are nearly equally likable, such as the drummer of Scott’s band, Kim. And the foul-mouthed, and work-a-holic Julie. Scott’s teen-aged ex, Knives. Even Scott’s sister, played by Anna Kendrick who was terrific in Up in the Air.
In fact, the only actor I didn’t care for was Michael Cera, who plays Scott. Cera has never struck me as a good actor, and I think he was an awful choice in this role. He’s not cute. He’s not likable. And it strains plausibility that any girl would be interested in him, much less the three beautiful women who like him in this film. I really liked the entire film except for Cera, and that’s too bad. Maybe others see something likable in his talent. In the past I have found him rather inoffensive, but here, he lessens the enjoyment of the film for me. Considering I was willing to suspend so much disbelief, I think it’s telling I couldn’t quite do so when it comes to Cera as the lead in the film.
Still, there is enough here to like, plenty of fun performances, and just so much kitsch, that it’s hard not to laugh and smile along. In the end, even my dislike of the lead performer wasn’t enough to ruin the film for me.
I have, for many years, considered getting a tattoo. I knew that, if I got one, it would have to be a rune. And because runes play so deep a part of my spirituality, I could not trust just anyone with doing the art. It would invariably have an impact on my own spiritual life. So I needed someone I could trust.
Unfortunately, I never really met anyone I got to know well enough who also did tattoos. So I sat on the impulse for over a decade.
Earlier this year, I saw an episode of Flashforward where a woman had a Japanese character tattooed on her wrist. It occurred to me then that I should get a rune tattooed on my wrist.
But I still needed someone to do it, and I needed a design. At first I thought I would have just a simple character, but I realized I should get something a bit more unique. I did look at designs online, and I found one or two I liked, but I wasn’t sure I wanted the runes I was finding (including Eihwaz, the rune for defense). I liked them, but I wasn’t sure.
Earlier this week, I finally decided I needed to get a rune tattooed. It was time, and I had to do it. But I still needed a design. When I began thinking about it a couple of months ago, a friend had offered her services. This is a good friend from the online adoption community I’m a part of.
I told Devon what I wanted. The rune for the Self, Mannaz, seemed the only real choice for the tattoo. I showed her a picture and told her what it meant. Then I gave her almost no direction in designing a stylized version of the rune.
Here is how Ralph Blum describes Mannaz in his work The Book of Runes, which I have used as a resource for more than twenty years. The following are the opening and closing paragraphs from Mannaz’s entry (in the upright position):
The starting point is the self. Its essence is water. Only clarity, willingness to change, is effective now. A correct relationship to your self is primary, for from it flow all possible correct relationships with others and with the Divine. . . .
If you take the Rune of the Self and cut it down the middle, you will see the Rune for Joy with its mirror image. There is a subtle caution here against carelessness. The dancing acrobatic energy of balancing is called for now – the Self is required to balance the self. Nothing in excess was the second phrase written over the gateway to the temple at Delphi. The first counsel was Know thyself.
With almost no guidance, but for a few comments on early drafts, here is the final piece of artwork that Devon came up with for me.
There is a lot of meaning in this for me. The first thing I noted in her original draft was the wooden look of the various stems of the rune. It seemed natural, made of twigs, and that look really appealed to me. That is preserved in the final artwork.
More, though, on the first draft, she already had the wrapped joints. I couldn’t exactly say at the time why they appealed to me, but I can now. It looks to me as though the rune is actually several parts joined together with twine. I do think that does wonderful job representing the different parts of myself, bound together, but not fully united as a single whole. My Self is made of various elements. Notice, too, that the central wrapping binds together Wunjo, Joy, with its mirror opposite, as Blum suggests in his entry. Devon didn’t know this when she created the piece, but her bindings were perfect.
She then mentioned to me that she was thinking of adding roots but worried that it could be offensive in some way. It was the whole adoptees not having roots thing that she was thinking of, I believe. But I liked the idea. My Self, cobbled together as it is, still has roots. So I encouraged Devon to add them, to see what they looked like.
She added roots to both the top and the bottom, but we agreed that it was a bit too much. She took them off the top, and I knew she was on to something. A couple of changes to the proportions of the legs and the width of the rune, and you see the final product.
When she sent me the picture above, it was a text message on my phone. And I knew immediately that she had given me the design I had long wanted. It was perfect. She had gotten everything so perfectly… I was in awe. I immediately wanted to show everyone. Heck, I wanted to go out and get the tattoo that day.
But I had to wait. She needed to hook her scanner up so that she could send me a clean copy. That happened Thursday. But I was too busy with other things Thursday to go to the tattoo parlor. So Friday, I went almost as soon as it opened at noon.
I guess Friday the 13th was good day for tattoos. The parlor was packed. I went up to the counter and showed them the artwork Devon had created for me. The guy thought that going smaller would lose too much detail. But a woman behind the counter immediately took an interest and set up and appointment with me for later in the afternoon.
I left for a few hours to pass the time. I was anxious to get the work done, but I managed to wait. Barely.
When I returned to 46 & 2 Tattoo, Stephanie had me fill out some paperwork and then ushered me into her chair. We discussed how it should go on my wrist, and she convinced me that, rather than going up or down the arm, it should be sideways, so that I could look at it upright, and also show it to others.
She shaved my arm and placed the ink trace on my arm. After discussing the process, I sat down and she got to work. It didn’t hurt much at all. I don’t know if I have a high tolerance or if I have few nerves on the inside of my wrist, but it was an easy twenty-five minutes.
As she worked, she talked to me. She asked me if my mom knew that I was getting this today. She said that she asks everyone, no matter how old they are. I said that she didn’t. Then I remembered I had mentioned it to my biological mother, so I said that, actually, she did. And then, in a fit of the weirdness that happens to me as an adoptee, I explained that I have two mothers, and one of them knew.
She then said, much to my surprise, that she was an adoptee, too.
Seriously. I mean, come on. There is a way this whole thing was unreal. She talked to me about my search and reunion. She asked me about my relationships with all my different families. She mentioned that she was from Kansas (one of two states that never sealed records) and had gotten her information five years ago, but had yet to actually search.
I knew, somehow, that this was right. In Devon, I had found the perfect person to design my tattoo. And in Stephanie, I had the perfect person to actually ink it into my skin. Sometimes, the universe will have its way with or without our planning.
I know you’re probably wondering by now, so here it is…
Now I really want to take excellent care of this. I want it to look good for years to come. I think the lines are even sharper in person than in this picture, but this gives you a pretty good idea what it looks like.
I cannot stop looking at it. It’s a beautiful piece. Thank you to Stephanie for doing an amazing job. And thank you especially to Devon for designing exactly what I wanted.
Editor’s Note: We don’t have an editor! Haven’t you figured that out yet?! Things have been crazy here in crazy town. Most of the things going on are things I have no intention of posting. But I am trying to find something to post about so that you don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, my loyal reader, altogether.
My plans for today, which seems to be just another day on the calendar:
Walk under a ladder.
Have a black cat cross my path.
Spill some salt.
Break a mirror.
Say “Beetlejuice” three times out loud.
Cross the streams.
Forget to knock on wood.
Assume Boba Fett is not as smart as I am when I hide in the trash.
Okay, even I think that last one was a stretch. But I haven’t made a reference to the Holy Trilogy in far too long.
My real plans for the day include a little clothes shopping (I need new jeans) and perhaps getting a gorgeous piece of artwork drawn by a good friend indelibly inked onto my skin. If that last one happens, there will be pictures. But I’m not modeling jeans for anyone. Sorry.
Enjoy your Friday on this, the thirteenth day of the month!
One more bit from the Louisville protest a couple of weeks ago. A YouTube video from still photos (including some taken by yours truly) has been put together by the organizers. I wanted to share it with everyone who might be reading here.
Please go view, comment, and add the video to your favorites.
That’s it for the moment. I’m sure that details on next year’s gathering will begin trickling out soon. Until then, you should go the Adoptee Rights Deomnstration website to see how you can help.
Whenever I have taken a personality inventory, I come out as a very high F (feeling) and hence a very low T (thinking). In the Myers-Briggs typology, this determines the kind of decision making one engages in. (In Kiersey’s sorter, this plays out a little differently, but the details aren’t really relevant to my point.)
I mention this because I’ve been thinking about my writing. It’s not that my Myers-Briggs type is directly relevant to my writing, but thinking about it shed some light, for me, on my writing process. And it has to do with my preference for F over T.
My best writing, in my opinion, comes when I let go. When I just write with little censoring or planning ahead. But too often, I write from the head. My natural inclination is to “think” from the heart, but I keep trying to write from the head.
Is this a function of being in academia, where intellect is valued over emotional response? Where everything must be explained and defended? That’s not how I function. I don’t think my way is better, but I think I have, for too long, tried to make myself into a more rational and coherent person. Maybe I’m just not built that way.
It’s okay to play pretend when I’m working at my academic job, when I’m arguing policy online or in the letters page of my local paper. But when I’m working on my passion, my writing, I do violence to myself by ignoring my natural functioning, by trying to make sense and fit into I think people need. This is not an excuse to write crap and defend it as brilliant. Rather, this is about the drafting process. How does the first draft come off the pen onto the page? Does it go through filters before it is properly born? Shouldn’t it be born, then have the chance to grow and develop?
By writing from my head, I was trying to make it come out perfectly the first time. But for me, maybe for everyone, that is wrong. I need to let it come spewing out. Then I can go back over it with a filter to get it into the form I want.
The birthing process, the writing process, matters. The more I write carefully, the more i let my head get in the way. I need to work on that.
I had a different blog post planned for today. But that will keep. There is a photo I’ve been wanting for many years, and I finally got it.
Years ago, at least five by my count, I took a series of pictures of the sun setting over Maine. I was on the western shore of Grand Manan island in New Brunswick and just began taking picture after picture.
Here is the only one I have available at the moment, though it’s not my favorite:
When I say “series,” I mean I took roughly a hundred photographs of the sky changing as the sun set. In my favorite, the sun is more obviously present, but this picture is a fair representation of the photos I took.
Ever since, I have been wanting a photo of the sun rising from the eastern shore. In theory, this should be simple. The house we stay in, the house my in-laws own, is on the eastern shore, with only the Castalia Salt Marsh between it and the Bay of Fundy.
But sunrise happens rather early in the morning, and, as many of you will realize, I’m not much for going to bed early.
Last night, however, I did go to bed around midnight or so. So when I woke up a little after six, I wasn’t shocked at all that my body had given up on actually getting some much needed sleep. It did give me a chance to get my picture, though, and I think I got the one I wanted, though I do wish I had managed to get up a little earlier so I could have gotten several between pre-dawn and this one. Who knows? Maybe I won’t sleep tomorrow morning, too?
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