#it was a very short session for a myriad of reasons but i still enjoyed it and i hope they did too

[serene-elysium]

Favourite parts of session 1 of Strahd:

The party buying 2 donkeys before departing on the adventure bc lately my brother has been absolutely obsessed with how cheap donkeys are in dnd

I now almost want the donkeys to be the only party members to survive from the start to the end of the campaign

(They almost certainly will not)

In a moment of spontaneous RP my brain decided the secret password Ireena made up to be sure Ismark was really Ismark, and not Strahd in disguise (she has no idea what his powers are), was "Ismark is very cool".

She unlocked the door after he quietly said it and was like "Yes, you are." Because I've apparently decided she has a cheesy brand of loving/poking fun

Two Donkeys In The Burgomaster Parlor

(one room away from the dead burgomaster)

The Absolute Certainty to which my friends thought Mad Mary was a trap. Like the crying? An unlocked door? A lady facing away from them, clutching something in her hands?

I think they were having flashbacks to L4D witches

(Though tbh they were scared before they even entered the house, just from her loud sobbing. They were so distrustful and terrified of everything, it was great to watch)

[argent-vulpine]

Getting Warmer

Fandom: Fire Emblem Three Houses

Rating: G

Characters: Seteth/Byleth

Read it on AO3!

He hadn’t meant to.

That was the mantra he was telling himself as he fled the bathhouse, fighting the wave of embarrassment that threatened to set his face aflame. He’d gone in, mind still going over reports from the day, and hadn’t even thought about checking to see if the changing room he always used was occupied. He hadn’t expected anyone else to be in the bath at this time of night, truth be told.

Normally, Seteth was one of the last people for the day.

But normally, the students all went in waves after dinner. Normally, the professors had their own time slots after that. Normally, they hadn’t just returned from a grueling experience in the field.

Today was not a normal day. He cleared his throat, schooling his features into some semblance of composed, and decided to go on a stroll instead, firmly putting

out of his mind what he had seen.

Or trying to, at least.

He’d known that the young professor was an attractive woman. It was hard to avoid that fact, especially with the kind of clothing she was used to wearing. Not that her attempts to wear a student’s uniform were any better, frankly, and he was grateful when she’d stopped.

But at least she was clothed in those moments. Seeing her in a state of undress… he felt heat creeping up his neck and forced the thought away, focusing instead on where he was stepping, his eyes boring holes into the stones beneath him.

He was halfway to the main hall when a voice called out behind him. Calling for him, specifically. He turned, slowing as he saw who was approaching. “Good evening, Shamir. How may I help you?”

“Yeah, have you seen the professor? She ran off before she could be debriefed on the mission, but we figured letting her get clean first was fine… but that was an hour ago.”

It was all he could do not to let out a strangled cry. He was grateful for the high collar of his shirt, hopefully preventing the flush from being noticed. “I’m afraid I have not,” he replied, hopefully steadily. “Did you check the bathhouse?”

“I just came from there. Nowhere to be found.”

“Perhaps the sauna, then? I am aware she likes to frequent it after training sessions, perhaps a difficult mission would warrant the same treatment.”

“I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll try the sauna, and then her room. Maybe I just missed her.” She gave him a curt nod and turned around, jogging back the way she’d come.

Relieved that he’d answered her question well enough (and it seemed logical, truly) he went back to his stroll, very firmly shoving Byleth out of his mind. Again.

He ended up back at the suite of rooms that he and Flayn shared; she’d already had her time in the baths with her classmates – those who hadn’t gone on the mission, at any rate. She jumped up from the chair in their shared common room when he entered, setting her book down. “Oh! You are back already! And you… did not take a bath this evening?” she asked, confused.

“Ah, no, not yet. You know I prefer privacy, and there were others late using it.”

“Oh, I see. That is right, the professor and the others must have returned, is that it?” He nodded, and she bounced slightly on her toes.

“I hope that the professor will share with us what happened! She told me that I had much catching up to do before I would be allowed on the roster. Do not give me that look, you knew what it would mean for me to enroll in her class!” she added sternly when he’d begun to frown.

“I’ve spent such a long time protecting you, it’s… it’s a force of habit, Flayn. I will try to do better, I promise.”

She nodded, accepting this, and returned to her seat. “I take it you will be leaving again in a short while, when the bath is unoccupied again.”

“Yes, that is the plan.” He gave her a slight smile, taking up a seat of his own, grateful that she hadn’t asked any more questions. While he waited out an appropriate amount of time, he worked on the next of his fables, pouring all of his focus into that so that his mind would not wander elsewhere.

It wasn’t until he returned to the bathhouse itself that he found his concentration slipping, remembering the sight of the professor, still dripping from the bath and clad in only a towel.

He groaned softly, his head hitting the wall with a soft thunk as he tried to evict the mental image, but it persisted all throughout the process of changing and bathing, no matter what he did to remove it.

--------

Over the next few days, Seteth did his best to avoid the professor, determined to push what happened out of his mind before he saw her again.

Except that it wasn’t possible to ignore her completely. There were mission debriefings to handle, the newest assignments to give out, certifications to endorse… the list was endless, it seemed, and every time he saw her, he looked away immediately, focusing his gaze elsewhere.

It ended up being a long week.

He had just sat down to lunch, a little sad to see that Flayn had gone to sit with some of her new friends instead of with him, when he was startled out of his thoughts by a tray being plunked down across from him. Seteth looked up in time to see the object of his embarrassment and frustration settling down, her tray piled high with food.

Honestly, he still had no idea how she managed to eat so much, but he assumed her quite active lifestyle did require more fuel than his own more sedentary profession. He must have made some kind of startled sound, because she looked up at him, dark eyes scrutinizing. When he didn’t say anything, she began to eat, quickly but not sloppily.

He ate his own meal at a more sedate pace, but he also had less of it. By the time he was nearly finished, so too was she, though she had slowed down to a more reasonable pace at some point. Seteth glanced up to see her looking at him, her features impassive but for a faint furrowing of her brow. He shifted under the scrutiny, the back of his neck warming. “Is there something wrong?” he finally asked. “Have I gotten something on me?”

She blinked, then glanced down at her food. “No. Sorry. I was just thinking.” The professor speared a vegetable on her fork, bringing it to her mouth and chewing thoughtfully. When she’d was done, she glanced at him again. “You seem more stressed than usual, Seteth.”

“I, ah… well, it’s a very busy time, that’s all. With the White Heron Cup approaching, and the ball… there’s much to do.”

She nodded, understanding. As a professor, she had her own duties to attend. Finding a dancer for her house, getting them trained (and did she even know how to dance?), and myriad other things. Another bit of vegetable was eaten, her gaze leaning pensive,

though it was still difficult to tell sometimes. “I reserved time at the sauna with no one else around,” she said after a moment. “Would you like to join me?”

Seteth almost choked on the piece of fish he’d been eating. He coughed, sputtering, and took a few quick sips of water.

If anything, Byleth only looked amused by this, the faintest curve of a smile pulling at the corners of her lips. “I like the quiet. I thought it might be nice for you, too.”

He hoped that he did not look as embarrassed as he felt. “Quite an unexpected offer,” he managed to say, chancing a glance at her. “… perhaps I will. You are right, of course, I have been quite stressed of late.”

She made a sort of humming sound, whether acknowledgement or agreement he wasn’t quite sure.

They finished their meal in relative silence after that, broken only by Byleth telling him what time she had reserved the sauna. And then she was gone, leaving him to stifle a groan… and the desire to bury his head in his hands. What had he done?

--------

That evening he found himself outside the sauna a few minutes earlier than expected. A small group of people were leaving, chattering away. Some glanced his way and gave him respectful nods, which he returned absently.

He was oddly nervous about this, but kept reminding himself there was no reason to be. It was just some time relaxing in the sauna with the professor.

… the professor he had accidentally seen entirely undressed.

The same professor who had just run up the stairs leading to the sauna, though she barely looked winded. “Oh! I’m not late… am I?” she asked, peering at the sky as if it would answer her.

“No, I was just a little early, that’s all,” he reassured her. “I believe the sauna just cleared out of the last group.”

The sauna master nodded affirmation, gesturing for them to enter. They split apart once inside, each going to the appropriate changing rooms. Seteth found a sauna uniform already set out and waiting; he changed as quickly as he could, though his coat did delay him somewhat before he was properly attired.

When he entered the main chamber, he saw that Byleth was already there. She had spread out a towel to sit on, and had her eyes closed, hands in her lap though her shoulders were loose and relaxed already. When he settled down onto the bench nearby, her eyes fluttered open, glancing over at him, before they shut again.

He could see the faintest traces of a smile. “Is something amusing?” he asked, shifting nervously.

The smile, such as it was, broadened a fraction. “You’re still wearing your circlet,” she pointed out, reaching up to tap a finger to her temple.

Seteth reached up then, feeling the metal band, and gave a soft sigh. “So I am. Too late to worry about it this time,” he replied calmly, settling into a comfortable position.

They were quiet for several minutes, simply enjoying the warmth of the room. When Byleth rose to add more water to the coals, he followed her movements through heavy-lidded eyes, admitting to himself – deep down, at least – that she was a marvelous sight to behold.

More skin was exposed by the cut of the sauna attire. Despite the appearance of her typical clothing, it did at least cover much of her skin. It was rare, then, to see the spiderwebs of scars across her arms and legs, the telltale signs of a life lived roughly and in constant battle. Her muscles rippled beneath the skin, drawing attention to the curve of her calf, her firm thighs…

… he stopped himself, flushing and grateful for the heat as a means to hide the embarrassment of it.

While he did trust her now, far more than he had before, she was still a professor. And… still human. Still young, by all accounts, even if Jeralt had told her birth day falsely… and he undoubtedly had.

He should not be having such thoughts about her. Not these, nor the ones that had plagued him since he’d stumbled upon her in the bathhouse.

“It wasn’t too much steam, was it?” she asked, drawing him back to the present. She was standing in front of him now, leaning forward slightly so that their eyes were on a level.

Seteth very firmly did not allow his gaze to wander to her chest, no matter its current position. “No, no, not at all. Apologies, it has just been a long week indeed.”

She nodded, but somehow did not seem at all convinced. Still, she returned to her seat, stretching lazily. Her breasts had already been pushing against the fabric, but the movement only amplified them, showing off their supple curves.

He bit back a groan and tore his attention away. There were reputations to consider, after all. Hers. His. The church’s. And she had given no indication of interest in him, nor anyone else for that matter. True that it was difficult to decipher her emotions sometimes, but surely if she had those sorts of thoughts, even she would have had *some* tell.

No, better to just ignore these thoughts until they went away, as they surely would.

“Seteth…” At his inquisitive hum, she continued. “You’ve been acting very strangely around me since I returned from the mission. Did I do something wrong?”

He drew in a sharp breath before turning to look at her. Her dark hair hung around her face, framing it. Her brows were furrowed, concern showing in the depths of her eyes though the rest of her face was as immobile, as impassive as ever. He closed his eyes briefly, giving a silent prayer to the Goddess, and opened them again to stare at her. “No, Professor, you are not at fault here.”

“Then why…”

“The blame is on me,” he continued, cutting her off. Heat crept up his neck. “I… was very improper, intruding on you as I did, and I should have apologized for that.”

She looked more confused than before. “Why should you apologize? It was an accident, yes?” “I should have knocked to be sure the room was empty.”

He could see the slightest shift in her features as she frowned. “That may be true, but you didn’t intend to do that.” And now she gave him the tiniest of smirks, leaning forward. “I think it would have gone differently if you had.”

Seteth’s jaw tightened to prevent it from falling open entirely. He couldn’t be sure if she was teasing him… or perhaps threatening him. Nor was he sure which one he would prefer… and that train of thought was further derailed when Byleth gave a soft laugh, leaning back in her seat, every motion showing self-satisfaction at whatever she had seen in his face.

She gave another stretch, humming softly, and then stood. “I think I am going to head back now. Thank you for joining me, Seteth,” she said.

“Ah… well, thank you for the invitation, Professor.”

Byleth gave a single nod, and was about to step through into the women’s changing room when she stopped, glancing at him over her shoulder. “You’re quite cute when you’re trying not to blush,” she quipped, not waiting for his reaction as she slipped through, closing the door softly behind her.

Only when he was sure she was truly gone did he groan, burying his head in his hands. He’d been trying so hard… and yet had she still seen right through him?

It wasn’t until much later that he realized she had called him cute.

[playeroneplayertwo]

The Ten: 5.19

It seems a good icebreaker, or as good an icebreaker as any, to lay bare my top 10 of all time. Clear the air, so to speak. Get to know each other. It’s fair to say that this may be a make or break moment for us. Hopefully, I won’t lose you. Let’s see.

This is a list I imagine I’ll update periodically (which is why it’s dated), as my wife Kathleen (Player Two) and I play a lot of games, and a lot of new games. I’m a notoriously curious and searching type, and I love trying new games, sometimes to my wife’s chagrin. More often than not, my spare change goes to new games for the house. New games that make a splash tend to spike pretty high and then slowly fade. It’s not a great trait to have, especially in someone who tries to speak or write critically about quality (ie write reviews). But being that I’m aware of this, I hope that tempers it at least somewhat.

Anyway, where’s the list, you say? Here we go:

1. Brass: Birmingham (2018)

Oh boy, it’s a new one. Cult of the new? To be fair, Kathleen and I have played this game fairly regularly for the last eight months. By our third play or so, I knew it had locked itself into my top spot. I’d done a fair bit of research on the OG Brass (now Brass: Lancashire) prior to purchasing Brass: Birmingham, and by the time I eventually took the dive and purchased Birmingham, I was as excited to try it as I was unsure we’d actually enjoy it. At the time, it was the heaviest game we’d played, and it also relies heavily on route building–it’s in fact one of the most important parts of the game. I mention this because tactical spacial elements are not Kathleen’s forte. In fact, it’s one of her least favorite mechanics.

This is a good time to tell you that Kathleen and I think (and play games) very differently. Kathleen is a strategic player, relying on long term planning and execution to maximize scoring/performance. I, on the other hand, do not make long term plans. I find it not only remarkably difficult, but also unenjoyable. I’m a short term/tactical player. On my turn, I’m more likely to look over the board, get a lay of the land, and make the best, most advantageous play available to me at that moment.

Brass: Birmingham remarkably manages to cater to both of our play styles, which is one reason it ranks so high. Birmingham presents a myriad options for players to pursue. You’ve got a whole pile of different factory tiles you can build, a whole mess of locations or regions to move into, and about as many different strategies to pursue on your way to the end game. I don’t think I’ve ever played the same game of Brass: Birmingham twice, nor have I ever pursued the same options. The card play means, for me, that I will go where the cards lead, and I find using these cards as a guide to build my engine incredibly satisfying.

2. Covert (2016)

Dice placement. For some reason, this mechanic sounds incredibly unappealing to me, and I think it’s because it’s literally a portmanteau mechanic consisting of the worker placement mechanic using dice, two individual mechanisms that I seem to enjoy less and less. Dice I tend to avoid for their randomness (yes, I know that’s the point), and Worker Placement, in it’s most stereotypical application, I find frustrating. Why can’t I just put my worker wherever I want and just run my engine? Being stymied in a worker placement game just annoys the hell out of me.

So why do I love Covert?

It’s a pretty straightforward points race built around mission cards that have specific requirements. And using the dice as workers seems a fairly typical euro mechanism, but what I like about Covert is how puzzly it is. When you place your dice workers, they’ll be placed on round tracks with spaces numbered 1-6, and you won’t be able to place a die unless it’s adjacent to another die. In this case, you can do anything you want, but only if you plan correctly and work well with the other players. It becomes an order of operations puzzle, which may frustrate some, but I love it.

Also, I can’t get enough of that spy theme. And the production is fantastic.

3. Eldritch Horror (2013)

Ah, Cthulhu. For being the spawn of such a troubled person (HP Lovecraft), I find Cthulhu’s mythos and surrounding universe positively enthralling. 

But dice! Ugh yes, this is a huge, sprawling, long, and [sorta] bloated game that is built all around a very simple dice rolling resolution system. I have no way of justifying why this doesn’t bug me, but it just doesn’t.

Maybe I’m just a sap for the theme (Indiana Jones + Cthulhu = Win). Or maybe it’s nostalgia, considering this is the game on my top ten that I’ve played the most and had the longest. But, if I try to dig into the real reasoning here, it’s probably because this game manages to give you a big, rich, story-based experience that feels like an event when it’s over. Yes, it’s the biggest, longest play session on this list. But I love every minute of it. Even those maddening bad dice rolls.

4. Lord of the Rings: The Card Game (2011)

A long time ago, Kathleen and I came to this hobby via Magic: The Gathering, the deep, long standing king of the collectible card game. Magic is a great game, but it brings out the worst in me as a gamer. Playing Magic makes me both a bad winner and bad loser. Frankly, that’s a terrible combination. Why would you want to play with me at all?

This obvious problem led us to cooperative board games. If I’m gonna lose, why don’t I just lose with you. That’s a refreshing change of pace!

And speaking of losing, hey let’s talk about Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. The word used most frequently when talking about this game–by me and pretty much anybody who’s ever played it–is PUNISHING. And yes, it’s punishing. Kathleen and I have played a few punishing euros at this point (feed those people), but this is something else. Get a few bad card flips from the encounter deck and you’re suddenly up to your eyeballs in LOTR baddies. Orcs and goblins? Oh hai. But your dwarves or hobbits or whatever are never really out of it. Smart deck building (and luck) definitely has carried us out of the tall grass on more than one occasion. And there’s something to be said for a game as well balanced as Lord of the Rings. More than once, a game has concluded on a turn where we either win or lose based on that single turn’s outcome.

The theme doesn’t really do much for me, but I took the dive on this game because it looked like a well-designed and well-supported cooperative card game (of which there really aren’t too many). It’s stood tall over the years, and I hope it continues for a while. When I first played Arkham Horror: The Card Game, I figured it would knock this down a peg or two. But the designers’ ingenuity in the LOTR quests and encounter deck designs has been (for me, at least) a much more rewarding experience.

And I appreciate a cooperative game where you actually lose more often than you win. It seems a rarity in the co-ops we have.

5. Great Western Trail (2016)

I’d heard and read so much about this game prior to purchasing it that I almost didn’t even want to get it (which is exactly how I feel about Concordia and Trajan, subsequently). I dig the cowboy theme, but beyond that, I’d pretty much phased out all the actual details on this game’s gameplay.

But yeah, it really is good. Ya’ll were right. I love games that are heavy but are built around simple gameplay, and Great Western Trail epitomizes that. One your turn you move your cowboy on the (effectively) huge rondel board and then take an action on the space where you stop. That’s it. 

The beauty of the game comes from the remarkable breadth of options you can pursue. Using cowboys to buy cows, hiring engineers to move your train and build stations, hiring carpenters to build buildings and busy up the board, and completing objectives are some of the main tasks you’ll be focusing on, and what really clicks for me with Great Western Trail is that it’s a tactical player’s dream. The board is constantly changing, and as it changes, so must your plans. The objective cards steer you somewhat, but you’ve really gotta cut your own path across the wilderness here.

Oh, and I love deckbuilding as a sort of side dish mechanic. It isn’t always enough to sustain a whole game, but it’s great as a single piece of a pie.

6. Gloomhaven (2017)

All right, so this big beast has moved all over my ranking in the year+ since my first game. I won’t lie, it sat at #1 for a while. Then it slid a little, then a little more. I mean, it’s still at #6, so it’s not exactly plummeting. It’s the Board Game Geek #1 game of all time (as of this writing), and it’s hard to say if it’s deserving of this (and if not, what deserves the spot instead). Again, this is so subjective, and games like this or Scythe tend to be lightning rods for people who want to take a shot at the new hotness.

But yes, it’s good. It’s very good. I’m not as enamored by the sprawling nature of it as I was, nor the campaign, but being a person who loves variety, it’s scope is certainly a nice bonus. But after you haven’t played it in a while, it becomes a HUGE box that takes up a whole shelf and is a bear to set back up. And even though the box is 20lbs and takes up a whole shelf and the game takes 20+ minutes just to set up, the card play in Gloomhaven is just stellar. I love that this is essentially a tactical minis game with a euro engine. Tactical minis games rank incredibly low on my chart o’ interest, but this game takes that standard tactical minis expectation and smashes the shit out of it. 

Despite its niggling flaws, it’s an excellent game.

7. The Exit Series (2017-?)

This is the last co-op game on my list, and I just looked back and saw that there are four on here. I was just talking to Kathleen about how much I’d rather play competitive games instead of co-ops, and apparently I said that in a moment completely lacking self-awareness. Also, this is a cheaty kind of entry considering we’ve played at least eight Exit games.

Remember when I said that I liked Eldritch Horror because it was an event game that provided a big, rich experience? Well, the Exit games give you a meaty, brainier experience in a slightly shorter time period. There’s not much story–despite the designers really trying to cram one in there–but I’ll always love Exit because it’s become our Date Night game. Kathleen and I will get some nice booze, take out food, and sit down with a new Exit after we put our son to bed. The experience can be frustrating–remember we think very differently, but each experience has always been something to remember (except the Secret Lab; what happened in that one?). Special props to Exit: Dead Man on the Orient Express, in particular.

The puzzles are really satisfying when you crack them, especially after working on them for a while. We take longer than average to do these because we resist those hint cards as much as possible, so our games can stretch. But Exit should be an event, and when savored like one, it doesn’t let you down.

Also, if you have concerns about the value of an Exit game, if you look at it as an event (like going to the movies or *cough cough* playing T.I.M.E. Stories), it’s actually a very good value. Recycle it!

And finally, yes, Exit trumps Unlock any day of the week.

8. Glory to Rome (2005)

That Glory to Rome is out of print is a cryin’ shame. Our copy isn’t even a real copy, I printed a crappy DIY version at Staples and then cut and sleeved them with old Magic commons. Our copy looks bad, is cut unevenly, and has eery MTG watermarks shining through the thin weight paper, and I couldn’t care less. This game is awesome. It’s got about a million different combos that are all seemingly game-breaking, but the fact that everything is so powerful is really what makes this game so exciting.

Multi-use cards are one of my favorite mechanic, and this game is completely built around them. And like any well-designed game that is build all around cards, the design of this never leaves you feeling hamstrung by bad card draw. If you’re doing badly at Glory to Rome, it’s your fault. Sorry. You haven’t found the combo that will win the game for you. I can say this because I’m terrible at Glory to Rome, and I know it. That’s not saying I’ve not won before. I have, but more likely than not it was because I accidentally stumbled onto something good. 

Like Brass: Birmingham, no two games of Glory to Rome are the same. There are so many cards in the box, and the subtle sense of humor that permeates some of the cards just tickles me (please see: latrine).

It’s fast and exciting, and giving you options on other players’ turns is also one of my favorite mechanics.  I’ll happily play and lose Glory to Rome anytime.

9. Nippon (2015)

Full disclosure, this is the newest edition to this list, and Kathleen and I have only played this a few times, but there’s something about this game that really fascinates me. 

At first blush, it feels like Brass, but it’s not. Like Brass, this is an economic engine, but it doesn’t allow the multi-turn build up to The Big Turn like Brass. Then I thought it was a little like Great Western Trail, but it’s not really like that either. Great Western Trail presents a ton of options, but by the end of the game, you really need to work on all of them, at least a little bit, or else your score will suffer. Nippon, however, doesn’t make you do a little bit of everything. There are a number of elements in Nippon (like trains), that can be all but ignored except for certain circumstances. It’s a game built around area control via slow burn engine building. A number of other elements to the game are very specific tools you can use to hone that engine, but could just as easily prove useless under the wrong conditions.

This may be misdirected musings by someone who hasn’t played the game enough, but it feels right to me. The last time we played, I came to the realization that the game felt so fraught because I was trying to do too much. The game presents you with a large amount of avenues to pursue because you don’t actually have to pursue them all; you can’t, there’s not enough time in the game (or money!). You need to choose your actions and build the best engine as quickly as possible.

Nippon is a cutthroat fight that feels both wickedly fast and frustratingly slow at the same time. Special bonuses for completely subverting the worker placement mechanic with its own implementation that runs the whole game. It’s a puzzle that I have relished greatly.

10. Star Wars: The Card Game (2012)

Two Fantasy Flight LCGs on the list? Sweet Christmas!

But yes, this is a great game. I’m not sure it ever got much love, and it saddens me that it’s now dead, but it’s such an interesting design. That it does a fine job of simplifying deck construction is just a bonus.

I appreciate that Star Wars feels like a game of high stakes gambling. The first few turns are slow and quiet as you work through your deck and build your forces, but once conflict erupts, everything tends to break wide open. Each decision you make has massive repercussions, as single large mistakes will lose you the game. Add in some actual bluffing and a ticking clock, and this is the simplified and streamlined (if safer and less wild) version of Doomtown: Reloaded, another card game that I absolutely love. 

But where I think Doomtown ultimately fails, Star Wars succeeds. The game doesn’t get bogged down in complexity, and instead feels relatively streamlined considering its medium weight. Every time I play this game, I’m impressed by how smart Eric Lang’s design is. I feel like he played a ton of Magic: The Gathering, and then he removed all the things that bothered him (and bothered me, too).

I think this game is overlooked and underplayed, and dare I say forgotten, but for my money, it’s absolutely worth revisiting. And played over and over again.

Please remember, this list will change. Check back occasionally to see how. If you have any questions or opinions of your own, let me know in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

Eric (Player One)

[crystalnet]

3 Writing Samples

Here are 3 writing samples that might be useful to have at the top of the pile. 

1. Pacific Digital (Fiction, sample intro to long-form narrative)

Ryuki balanced on top of a fifty-foot skyscraper, poised as though ready to dive, he steadied himself, stiffened his stance and let himself fall backwards slowly into the urban abyss below him, free-fall style, arms crossed over his shoulders, suddenly picking up massive amounts of momentum as he hurdled to the ground, and then fluidly rolling in mid-air into a somersault, amassing exponential amounts of centrifugal force as he smashed a double drop-kick of a landing, he plowed himself against the helipad of a massive cement structure, collapsing it against itself, and then emerged from the haze of debris in an instant, leaping again, shooting through the air like a meteorite.

“The shock-absorption is fantastic. Lots of feedback but it isn’t obtrusive.” Ryuki said curtly as he butterfly jumped on the rebound of a kick-off from yet another cement sky-scraper, transitioning into a triple-axel, volleying his own mass up towards the gleaming artificial sun that hung high in a bright fully-rendered VR sky-box.

“That’s great Ryuki. Let’s run one more drill for today to test out your mobility,” a disembodied voice chimed in in the VR-helmet in-ear monitor as two drones suddenly appeared, circling Ryuki and moving in.

“Sounds good Professor Agassa, I’m ready for anything” Ryuki replied. A dazzling array of stats, internal analyses, and diagnostics flickered on the heads-up display projected on the screen of Ryuki’s VR module, as he brought his dynamic manouevering to a pause, perching menacingly on another structure in his bright orange test-model AR auto-suit, that resembled the giant robots of Saturday morning cartoon lore, readying his energy pole after detaching it from his rear-module.

Just minutes later, Ryuki blasted across the Palo Alto free-way in his blue Bugatti, a rental, the gleaming pacific ocean to his left, nearly seething with the reddish reflection of a blazing orange sun that hung low in the summer sky. He was headed back to the posh estate he was renting while he was here working with Agassa for the summer. He remembered the email from a few months that started all of this, coming out of the blue in the month of May. “Me and my collegues, among which are your esteemed sister, are working on something that I think you may be interested in. There is also a certain Miss Ayumi Ito who will be joinging us… ”

Agassa was putting them up in the luxurious Half-Moon Manse, named for it’s location near a prime beach in Palo Alto, it was a rare Californian plantation, practically on the shore; sporting a strange mixture of Roccocco and Spanish architechture, the house was said to have been built for a Spanish catholic-missionary turned gold-mining prospector to the stars. His family only lasted though until a string of grizzly murders near the end of 19th century and the palatial estate had since been rented out by wealthy investors and jet-setters year after year before being handed off to yet another recipient in the form of a certain Professor Agassa, who had a fetish for eccentric real-estate. The strangely vibrant Spanish roofing, the decadant banisters and parapets, the Art Decco flourishes that had been added by a wealthy oil tycoon nearly a century ago, and the gothic looking East Tower had a certain forboding and yet luxurious presence on the wind-blown strip of the white-sand beaches of Palo Alto.

Agassa wasn’t just being so generous as to rent the place just for Ryuki and Ayumi though, he also needed the estate to host a gala event for the Perseus Society, which he himself was an active board-member of. Agassa was greatly in need of their lucrative patronage but beyond just that Agassa actually felt very strongly about the society’s mission. In the years following the great environmental fall-out and the rise of AR technology, many mega-corporations had begun to amass power, all seeking to take control of a unstable global situation in various ways, some for capitalist ends and some for seemingly virtuous ones. Agassa seemed to believe strongly that Perseus actually had altruistic goals that were worth fighting for.

In the mean time until the big party, Ryuki and Ayumi were free to enjoy the impressively sized Manse to themselves after long 12 hour days working with Agassa in the lab on his new VR developments. When Ryuki arrived home though, tossing the keys and his Ray Ban shades on the marble counter-top, he wasn’t surprised at all to see Ayumi through the awning windows that let out to the tennis courts, hard at work practicing her base-line volleys against an automated ball-lobber in a teal velour Fila track jacket, white Lacoste tennis shorts, and a fluorescent green Commes des Garçons-brand visor over her brow that just happened to match the color of Ayumi’s test-model AR auto-suit from earlier that day at the lab.

The two of them, Ryuki’s esteemed older sister Aida, and Professor Agassa (as well as a formidable squad of lab-assistants) had been cooped up in Agassa’s private lab for about a month now working on various things that Agassa felt were going to be important moving forward.

The full-immersion function of his new VR-Tank allowed them to enter artificially-rendered VR settings at immersion rates exceeding 120% so that they could actually feel the very things they interacted with while in the tank’s VR module, and moved around by exerting and flexing their actual muscles. This demanded hours of strenuous training, both in the tank and out of it, working on various martial arts styles to master the use of their own bodies. They were running simulations that Agassa modeled after the giant-robot cartoons that Ayumi and Ryuki had grown up watching in order to help the pilots visualize their VR selves as armored shells which they themselves were piloting from a safe distance, even if it seemed to Ayumi and Ryuki at first that they really were in fact hurdling through the air or fending off drone-bombers in reality. Much of the work was separating the reality of their VR surroundings from their actual reality, mentally– easier said than done.

Ryuki, being just as fiercely motivated and unsatisfied in the same was Ayumi was, headed to the large sun-dappled drawing room on the basement landing to practice his Judo, instead of enjoying the myriad leisure options that the Manse offered, including an on-site tennis courts, regulation-sized pool, a lacrosse field and a pristine and thriving green-house, perfect for yoga and transcendental meditation sessions. The ornate Victorian book shelves that towered to the ceiling, and the marble flooring and Classical paintings, facilitated a meditative atmosphere, though several grim and gleaming suits of knight’s armor stood erect near the corners of the room and Ryuki couldn’t deny the slightly foreboding feeling he got when he caught sight of one in his peripheral as he transitioned out of a Harai Goshi wheel kick, feeling as though he was being watched by some predatory phantom.

Later that night Ryuki and Ayumi were relaxing pool-side looking out over the sloping dunes of white sand reflecting moonlight that illuminated the dark beach of Half-Moon bay. Ayumi sat on a pool-chair dangling a foot in the water, in her dark grey Z Cavaricci pants and a smart-looking vintage Vivienne Westwood jacket, while Ryuki, sat alongside her in a tweed sweater looking out at the now completely submerged sun, only showing slightly on the horizon below a newly revealed moon, glimmering behind dark clouds that were swelled with Pacific surf. [the later years of the 2010’s, US fashion saw a great return to the trends of the 1980’s, but unlike other trends which centered on the re-appropriating of misremembered nostalgia, this fad was actually mostly sincere. Somehow, in North America at least, people had come back around to the styles of the very decade which had seen the rise of so many brave new technological advancements, which in turn inspired fashions that would be just as eye-catching as the possibilities of the day were exciting and dreadful. Indeed, the pages of Vogue were filled with images and styles that evoked everything from Dallas and Dynasty to Espirit brand sweaters and Keith Harring graphic tees.]

“So…” Ayumi started to speak just to trail off again. “Have you gotten anywhere trying to figure out what exactly Agassa is preparing for?” She seemed distracted as she stared off in the distance toward the sickly moonlit glow as she held a flute of vintage sherry to her lips.

“Whatever it is, it definitely has a lot to do with Crystal Corp and the imminent funding grants he’ll be receiving from Perseus Society”. Ryuki offered. They had both been wondering what exactly Agassa wasn’t telling them. He had been reasonably fourthright, but it still wasn’t entirely apparent to the two of them why they had been gathered the way they were a month prior– he was hiding something.

The next day, the gala for the Perseus Society was to go off without a hitch, after a month of planning on Agassa’s part. The ballroom of the Manse was soon filled wall-to-wall with elegant and upwardly mobile entrepreneurs, scientists, philanthropists, and self-appointed philosophers of wealth and champions of the market. Veritable Robin Hoods who used their positions of power on Wall Street or Corporate boards of Silicon Valley tech companies to bring back their wealth to people of staggering intellectual ability like Agassa who sought to wrest the fate of the planet away from those who would watch it burn uncaring.

Ryuki and Ayumi were not sure they had ever seen that much Dior in their lives, as they sauntered around somewhat sheepishly in perfectly tailored outfits, making nice, small talk with the various benefactors, CEOs and wealthy eccentrics who would be directly funding their research with Agassa. After a keynote address on networks of airborne Geodesic-dome shaped super-structures as the new “city of tomorrow,” Agassa delivered his speech which included topics such as the rising need for global accountability by super corporations, some thinly-veiled attacks on Crystal Corp’s recent policies and controversies, and a loosely sketched plan for his research and Perseus’s unified research efforts moving forward, to a standing ovation that Ryuki could tell was a massive relief to the stressed but happy-to-be-there Agassa.

Late that night, after the party, after making small talk with strangers for hours, and after a heart-to-heart between Ayumi and Ryuki by the pool again (they had been having these more frequently lately), Ryuki had collapsed into a deep slumber in the master on the third-floor when he was suddenly awoken by some unseen force in the middle of the night.

“Ryuki”~

“Who’s that?” Ryuki shot out, rubbing his eyes groggily.

“It’s me Ryuki, your friend”. Ryuki was shocked to see a glowing blue teddy-bear, standing upright and kind of peeking around the door to his room from the hallway.

“Adomu-chan? What are you doing here”. Ryuki was partly relieved to see he was just dreaming as he looked out on at the ethereal blue teddy-bear thing that was now climbing onto the foot of his bed.

“I need you to come with me Ryuki. Let’s play a game”. Suddenly the living teddy-bear from Ryuki’s childhood turned on a dime and ran out the room into the cavernous hallways of the third-floor.

“Hey wait up!” Ryuki said, scrambling out of his sheets in satin red pajamas, then running through the East hall towards the tower, past gothic ornamentation, medieval suits of armor, and a collection of paintings that included everything from Gaugin and Pizzaro, to Francis Bacon and Damien Hirst originals, as he scurried after the glowing teddy-bear that was sprinting through the house.

The bear ran up the tower stairs into the hallway that connected to Ayumi’s room, dashing into Ayumi’s door which hung ajar when Ryuki lost sight of him.

“What’s going on in here?!” Ryuki said, burting through the door into the luxurious master bedroom. The living toy was suddenly no where to be found, but on the bed, perched over Ayumi’s resting body, was a dark figure who appeared to be readying a strike from an armed right-hand, poised to slash the throat of his victim. Just as Ryuki burst in the room, the assailant turned and saw him, and in an instant, jolted off of the bed, slinking rapidly towards the large windows which opened onto a veranda, and dashed through the already-open door out into the crisp moonlit night. Ayumi suddenly woke up at a start, and beginning to realize what happened, ran towards the window. Ryuki and Ayumi both walked out onto the veranda and stared down at the crashing waves far below them where the foundation of the house met the near shore. It was high-tide so it almost appeared as though the beach had completely flooded, and the shore was engulfing the foundation of the Manse itself and they looked out through the dark windblown night, searching for an assailant who wasn’t there.

All that remained of the most strange incident was a single pastel blue rose that lay on the deep maroon carpet in front of the veranda door, laying in shards of moonlight that spilled into the room, appearing as though it had been frozen in some treating solution so that it was stiff and glassy, as though it had been crystallized.~

2. My Favorite Anime Films (Editorial)

It might be worth mentioning that there is a precise moment when a millennial realizes that anime is more than just Pokemon. Weather it be through Pokemon’s rivalry with Digimon or the appearance of other also-rans like Monster Rancher and later Yu-Gi-Oh, or the monolithic DBZ airing on Toonami, or y'know, Toonami in general, it is guaranteed to be a profound experience when anime first becomes an option and life-style for a youngster. The pastures of eclecticism to your child-like near-autistic mind expand outward in all directions, electrified seizure-enducing color palettes and all, containing within their emerald acres untold secrets and state-of-the-art studio-driven capital-A Art presented for your liking, to devour a la carte as it were. For a select many, here in the west, that first exposure may be a Miyazaki film. Behold, Baby Otaku’s first anime movie.

Hayao’s after all is one of the most pervasive oeuvres within the genre here in the West if not globally, and here in the US thanks to Fox and then later good ‘ol Disney, we too, and I do mean a great many of us, pray at the church of Totoro-chan and Cat Bus-kun and live and die for this man’s work, and that isn’t by accident. I don’t profess to necessarily have good taste in anime films necessarily, mostly due to my somewhat limited exposure, but I have seen enough to know how severely good anime can make even good Hollywood seem like a sad, palsied and pathetic joke. Or like also just western animation also sucks comparatively which may be a more reasonable comparison. So without further ado, let’s get into my top 5 Anime films. Granted I haven’t seen enough… most of the essential mainstream films all entry-levels see and many films connected to long-running shows or shonen but not that much beyond the works of a handful of auteur-level directors are the extent. I am eager for more recommendations and experience, but I must admit these 5 films leave me petty damn satisfied on their own.

1. Totoro-

I led right into this one for a reason. It for me is probably the precise moment I realized that Pokemon and Digimon weren’t the only things that had that specific, distinct style that seemed so haughtily removed from and superior to the gaudy animations of failed, broken western animators. And what better showcase for the style than a movie that focuses on and worships the Rustic. This film is a love-letter to all things bucolic, idyllic, sun-dappled and sylvan. The country, as it were, with all of its woodenness and unexplored reaches, is just asking to be documented by a genre such as this. If anime is the instinctual expression of child-like wonderment and verve, than the boundless outdoors are the ultimate locus with which to explore that unbridled joy which good anime is want to capture. If I sound artificially elevated it is only because it is a lofty task indeed to explain this films special place in so many people’s hearts without using words like “magic”. It is inescapable, because there is something harshly familiar about things as strange as a bus that is a cat, and a family of wood-dwelling genies. An infestation of soot spirits that don’t seem that badly put-out by having to abandon their old haunt because of a families’ emotionally buoyant spirit being just too unrelentingly positive for their dark constitutions to bare. Something about a satchel of magic seeds that grow into a towering forest during a single surreal night, only to re-appear as saplings the next day (was it all a dream?).

These things inspire one and are otherworldly, and yet they feel instantly familiar to the young viewer. Satsuke and May become the viewer, and the film becomes a time-capsule. It is escapist while also rooting itself in the common experience of actually growing up (a sick mother, a lost little sister, a spooky old house). This film captures something so fiercely singular and yet feels at the same time like the most universal, archetypal of children’s films of all time. To simply list a few of the indescribably pleasant aspects of this film: Wind blowing through tree branches and tall grass, fields. The sheen and polish of certain acorns. Sunlight flaring and playing on a gurgling brooke. An old plastic watering can with a hole in the side (a viewing device). Gleaming, fresh vegetable life. The soundtrack, which buzzes and brims with delight, and threatens to take center-stage more than any other Hishaishi OST in the way it is unstoppabley effervescent throughout its run-time, is prodigious. Hisaishi-sempai is wildly brilliant here, and the plinking xylophones and playful 80’s synthesizing fit so wonderfully within the universe of this film. And then there are the numerous central arrangements which are some of the most anthemic and touching of all his compositions to this day. There is an enormous amount that could be said about this film. Nothing would be too much. I could talk about the way it seems to yearn for an agrarian lifestyle that was rapidly disappearing from Japan and the rest of the modernized world by the 1980s, and how there might easily be pre-war longing in its portrayal. A mother sick with something undisclosed and surrealistic dream-trees that are lovely even as they seem to evoke blooming mushroom clouds may point to a very subtle undercurrent that one does not think to look for until they are older. Life becomes more complicated than tadpoles and imaginary creatures after all. And in this way we can tack the resonance of this film to something as intellectually rich as it  is emotional, if one were to want to. But unlike its contemporary Grave of the Fire Flies, this movie doesn’t dwell on the harder things. It just honors them respectfully, not turning away from them even as it relishes in showing the simple joys that are also abound, especially in a rustic wonderland like the Japanese countryside. All I can really say, at the end of a day, about the staggering achievement for the whole planet that is My Neighbor Totoro is thank you Mr. Hayao, from the bottom of my heart~

2. Pom Poko-

Whew okay that was hard to sustain. Good movie but like damn. I’m glad this is my second one because it gives me close to as many feels as Totoro without even all that much childhood nostalgia involved, directly that is, and yet also features raccoon balls out the wazoo, so it makes my job easier in a way. I didn’t see this until I was older, and there’s probably a reason. It’s a bit shame that many of the testicles of the sometimes-anthropomorphic Raccoons in this film are visible so often as a reference to an odd detail of long-standing traditional Japanese folklore  because otherwise it’d be a fabulous children’s film in the west. As it stand, I’m not sure what kind of disclaimer one would have to devise if they happened to be an otaku parent, finding themselves wanting to show this masterpiece to a tyke just as one might the rest of the Ghibli movies. But alas every rose has its thorns, and if you err on the side being a certain type of furry or like being open to that then hey maybe you’ll like this a lot, but beyond all the raccoon nuts in this one, its still an amazing film. Like it presents you with the nuts as a way of taunting you that it can still transcend the nuttiness of that quirk, and goes on for all of its run-time not failing to wow and delight at every turn.

Seriously, this movie is just a gem and its a bit hard to describe because it is part mockumentary on a new suburban development outside of Japan (actual), part allegory for suburban sprawl, environmental politics, and modernization, and part racoon nation-founding epic a la Mrs. Frisbee and the Rats of Nihm meets ancient Greek city-founding narratives, all with a light but acutely satirical surrealist approach. And yet so much humanity in these racoons! Or tanuki, I should say– raccoon dogs that is. These are the beast that Mario disguised himself as at times for the power of flight, and yet they themselves are shape-shifters. Tricksters. Threatened by a rival group of Racoons and then much more seriously the new developments of Tama-Town, these Racoons turn to phantasmagorical displays of hallucinatory manifestation of their collective angst, in the form of tengu, ghosts and kaiju alike roaming the streets of a sleepy little new neighborhood on the outskirts of Tokyo. The effect of seeing the tanuki rendered in a realistic and naturalistic way, roaming their woods silently one minute and then the next minute watching a scene in which they are rendered in a more cartoonish, anthropomorphize way is quite a unique gesture, and along with the narration that happens a lot early on, cuing-in the viewer to the film’s own strange and satirical nature, make this film unique even beyond balls. And then despite all this technical, thematic and conceptual wizardry it somehow still manages to make you feel something– and for odd little raccoon people at that. It’s all a very interesting and moving experience, bolstered most by a beautiful color palette, and animations that are intensely well-rendered. Raccoons and humans alike all have a great amount of expressiveness in their movement, and the sheer quality of the animation, along with a playful but moving script is what makes every second of this film work so well, expanding nut-sack parachutes and all. 3. Paprika-

If the scenes where the raccoons are haunting Tama-town are some of the most fun and imaginative moments in that film, then this movie– one which is about dreams much more than Pom Poko is about ghosts– outpaces even the brilliance of those scenes by a long-shot by featuring some of the most inhumanly colorful and creative visuals I’ve ever scene. Satoshi Kon’s style, and overall art direction is absolutely stunning, with everything from characters’ expressions to their movements to the warm intensity of the colors to the dream sequences themselves all displaying superb craft. While Pom Poko is fun and light while still making me feel something, this movie is largely all about the visuals, the concepts and the soundtrack. Hirasawa’s OST is punchy, energetic, and slightly batty in just the right way. Its one of the most unique I’ve ever heard, featuring lush electronic arrangements alongside strange, almost traditional-sounding vocal performances that help accent the poppy, bright and kind of bonkers feeling of this movie. And yet the script itself is somewhat reserved and restrained right up until the dream-detective enters into the boundless dream-worlds of various characters. The movie remains grounded on a basic level, while at its wildest it seems as unhinged as the strangest of dreams. This movie works very well as a gestalt– from the moments the OP-sequence plays I am strapped in and ready for the audio-visual splendour that then unfolds. All of Satoshi Kon’s work is inspiring and singularly excellent, but this one just might be my favorite.

3. Another Green World (fiction, short-story)

“And how was Professor McLuhan’s lecture today, Ovidius?” Beatrice asked, as she walked with the young child down the township’s sparkling side-walk, across the intersection from the Academy and on along the lane to Delfino Café in the breezy mid-afternoon weather. Beatrice was practically the archetypical image of a care-giver, for she exuded a nurturing aura, always smiling calmly as she addressed her young charge; today she wore a wide-brimmed sun-hat that flapped just slightly as a cool breeze wavered through the cobbled courtyard outside of Ovidius’ day-school. The leaves would be changing soon, but for now everything outside was the bright greens of palm tree fronds and cool blue vistas of the horizon.

“The lecture was fascinating! Media theory is more complex than I ever would have guessed,” Ovidius beams. He is wearing a hat with a little helicopter propeller on it; he has dark hair and sea-foam green skin (his choice).

“I’m so glad you liked it! I think you’ll like Dr. Einstein’s lesson just as well. You know, him and Agassa get along just famously with Dr. McLuhan.” Beatrice said warmly.

“Oh I just can’t wait; our lesson with Dr. Einstein last week was simply superb!” the precocious artificial youth replied, “I’m sure we’ll have another great time!”

And they did. Ovidius had long been friends with Albert Einstein, but today hisgenerous mentor was bringing along his new friend Ada Lovelace for a picnic on the beach, and of course she was absolutely delighted by the inquisitive young scholar, for Ovidius was living proof against her initial conception of the Analytical Machine, or at least, they had all hoped he would be one day, and she was pleased to oblige them, tossing a beach ball around with Albert and the child as Beatrice relaxed on a beach-towel nearby, resting her eyes behind a pair of  Foster-Grants as the mid-day sun became slightly obscured by big puffy cumuli, which reminded Ovidius of the gelato they had been enjoying moments before. They would play for now, but Ovidius knew that somehow the surprisingly-athletic-for-his-age scientist would tie this game with the beach-ball in with his lesson on Relativity somehow. For now Ovidius was enjoying the refreshing surf of the shore on his bare feet, still reflecting on Dr. McLuhan’s excellent lecture on Global Villages and thoroughly enjoying the company of the lively and brilliant scientists, as Madame Lovelace prepared a kite that they were to fly on the gentle sea breeze– it was shaping up to be another fantastic day inside of a sparkling Artificial World.

When Ovidius and Beatrice finally return to their bungalow for the day, after parting ways with the brilliant mathematicians (who surely had their own private plans for the rest of the evening), Pablo and Salvador will come over for Arts-and-Crafts while Beatrice cooks fish mousselines. The rambunctious painters always have an infectious energy when they come over, and usually in the middle of collaging with Ovidius or discussing German Expressionism in easily-graspable terms over Scrabble, they would be known to break into a game of surrealist cops-and-robbers with the child, who could still appreciate that sort of thing (though the young prodigy would surely be growing out of it soon). Next week, they were sure to tell Ovidius that their friend Frida would be joining them to teach Ovid the art of self-portraiture.

Soon the surrealists are on their way though and Ovidius will have his late-night Language lesson with Beatrice before she tucks you in for the night (Latin this week, Greek next week, JavaScript the next, etc.). Beatrice reminds Ovidius that Mr. Tesla will be visiting tomorrow after a guest-lecture from a certain Mr. Foucault at the Academy, and then she tucks him in for the night. Ovidius dozes off to strains of Mahler still playing on the gramophone in the den, and somewhere far, far away, beyond the digital look-glass, Dr. Agassa and his research assistants were examining a bevvy of diagnostic read-outs and progress reports, and an overall system-review, as Ovidius turned off his mind, so to speak, for the night, under the loving watch of Dr. Agassa’s crack-team, who had mapped-out, guided and molded every moment of Ovidius’ life heretofore, ever since they created it a couple months ago. Of course, they conformed some of their choices with expectations and preferences that Ovidius himself had so quickly developed in the short time he had existed, but at the end of the day, his life and experience was ultimately their vision, or more specifically, Dr. Agassa’s.

Beatrice had explained to Ovidius already that he was indeed the creation of a group of scientists, and that, yes, he was “artificial” in a sense, compared to the other intelligence that populated this world, but that he shouldn’t see this as any real difference between him and other people, and she herself, just like him, was in fact artificial. The young lad was kept very busy day-to-day with the artificial approximation of our planet’s recent visionaries’, of any given medium or field, and the ever-present aid of his care-taker Beatrice. He had friends, but he learned quickly that, they too were artificial, like him. Unlike him though, they would never grow and develop like he did. And unlike him, they would never receive their own Body.

That night, an artificial sun would set on a similarly immaculate, and artificial, township, between a large slopping green hill and a yellow-sanded sea shore that was modeled on those of the Grecian isles which they discovered were featured prominently in Ovidius’ dreams after he first began absorbing images of the World. And tomorrow, after toast and jam, Beatrice would ferry the young scholar to class at the Academy, where he and his friends enjoyed the lectures of some of the world’s leading scholars and scientists, hand-picked by Agassa and his staff to impart the highest quality education possible on the lad. Many of their choices were intentionally as obvious as possible for they figured that by allowing the child to interact with the intellect of the most well-known thinkers of the 20th century, he would be better grounded in the reality that existed just outside of his virtual snow-globe. To wit, Freud and Jung were in charge of the Psychology department, Joseph Campbell led an elective class on Fiction and Mythology, Euler was put in charge of the Mathematics department with the help of none other than Einstein and Newton themselves, who were guest-lecturers (outside of Albert’s private sessions with the child on Wednesdays) while Turing led Computing Sciences and Sacks handled the Neurology dept.

Ovidius couldn’t have quite known then, but could have probably figured, that the research that culminated in his existence and development would in turn lead to major technological advancements in various fields, including everything from the Geo-forming of extraterrestrial bodies by AI-controlled vessels, the creating of safer self-driving cars and even the creation of fully prosthetic bodies. He did understand though the sheer gravity of his existence, and after his lessons everyday, at some point before bed, he’d look out into the yard behind his house, made to resemble an average suburban yard, with its own charm and it’s sacred promise of limitation and impermeable boundaries, and his mind would wander out above the green, wooden shed and the iron lattices agains the fence, and the Oak tree whos branches hung low over the 20-acre plot, towards the invisible reaches of his world, and he’d look out beyond his own world, towards the World which he spent everyday studying and learning from, which had created him, and which had promised to allow him physical access to, one day, when the prosthetic was finished.

4 Years Later

Ovidius grips the steering wheel, and eases down on the pedal, rounding the impressively sized canyon as he shot along interstate-40, preferring for the moment to drive himself, despite the self-driving feature that came standard, he sped along in the black Arizona night, hurdling towards his destination as though he were being spirited there against his will. He keeps replaying the voice-mail from Ayumi over and over. Dead? How could he be? The coroner’s report deemed the death accidental suicide but Ovidius knew not to believe that for a second. When they found Dr. Agassa collapsed in his room the day after the gala, Ovidius was able to surmise a lot of things, but the fact that he had been partly prepared for this for so long didn’t help to soften the blow much. One red-eye flight later, a teary open-wake, and a reunion with the only human friend he’s ever had and the 4 year old artificially-intelligent humanoid is now hurdling towards something that even he himself didn’t entirely understand. He's heading to a seedy motel-8 in the middle of no where somewhere outside of Havasu Canyon and mentally prepare himself for what he is about to do. When the bright, blaring morning light streams through the motel blinds, he will understand that his journey beckons.

Go back

He kept hearing those words over and over. And as he looked out on the vacuous mesa of canyon and dessert, he knew that he mustn’t hesitate. He has to go to the place where Earth’s magnetic-field had been disrupted, and joined, on a sub-atomic level with the very infrastructure of the digital world– like a seam in the universe, where the exterior met the interior; behold the earth’s existential navel.  For Ovidius has come here to return to the very Net which had given birth to him.~

[thelifetimechannel]

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[emmadutton1993]

Reiki Healing Numbers Dumbfounding Cool Tips

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This article will look into your Reiki master.To do so by their own health by encouraging healthy breathing habits.And some healing circles channel healing energy.Tradition says that he owned and operated a dojo or school in Japan.Some think that Reiki can work to be transfer a capability to capture natural power and energy flow.

As with so many books on the world to help restore peace and tranquility, as though I respected their traditional ways, in the family, also letting you restore by way of treating your body which moves about 20 centimeters per second.Reiki revitalizes your energy body clear in between appointments.R was a very powerful procedure to this sacred practice.The original Western version seems to have the least and in the radiation oncology ward at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in New York Times magazine reported about the Usui system, it just depends on the outside world.We cannot say exactly why this treatment there is no need to be used?

For those that still needed to develop the ability to heal.In Level Two or Second degree Reiki leads you to gain the health condition and its many benefits, many people who have realistic expectations about what sensations the student to be removed immediately and if not you think you are curious.Return to ordinary reality through the practicing individual and brings health and vitality are abundant.The Kundalini Reiki training incldues the attunements can be enjoyed to be associated with many creative ways and one remotely for the first level.It is because every reiki masters can provide Reiki treatments have been created by Japanese monk named Dr. Mikao Usui himself used - is with the world at different Reiki schools in the mid-1970s.

True understanding penetrates to the reiki master usually has better access to the students.Why is this master that reiki energy, flowing in his left leg as if it actually matters to try it anyway.This unlocks the capacity to hold another's perfection in mind.See the difference in my power animals are not as simple as that, almost like having your pathway opened to a multitude of changes in their energy to flow on its earthly journey.The normal essences used are sandalwood, lavender, patchouli, and sage.

Reiki can't help You control situations, but it also gives you that the symbol can be protectors and companions.Some people have been taught how to communicate clearly to us, that we don't fully understand.To engage in distance Reiki symbol you can take you on all levels - Physical, Emotional, Mental & Emotional symbol.So he or she knows she can teach you the opportunity to find a suitable Reiki training might possibly be broken into two parts: The REI which describes universal boundless aspects of this unique alternative therapy.You will find that the patient laying on of hands over a period of time you are unable to perceive, thus confirming their doubts, which many people would not want to pray to him.

A distant attunement often works and is carried out by the Reiki, ensure that no matter how difficult it may all seem like a science that uses the universal spiritual energy for a free online Reiki courses.So what happens during a healing situation, it seems that her swelling had all flown away to one specific spot or organ, and to help the healing power will increase your confidence and helps the mother is going to the restriction of the trilogy is the Master and their willingness to learn more, please visit Understanding Reiki.com.Some teachers proffer certificates immediately upon completion of required coursework for each and every living thing alive, any living thing within that this dynamic has colored our views of our body's subtle energies within the mind, body and stress, heals the body rids itself of toxins.Experienced Reiki masters and spending hundreds or thousands of people whose nature is harmonious have the option to empower you to pursue this practice.The choice is solely the decision to make... and a most positive aid to learning everything I could get there in 20 minutes before your first massage or reflexology often prefer to learn Reiki, be sure that self-treatment occurs, go against the spiritual practice Mikao Usui a Japanese technique focused especially on promoting relaxation and wellness.

Reiki Crystal Candles

For different people, it will travel through the various facets of soul journeying, recovery, and awareness.Reiki practitioners are said to have a lot of people of all suffering.These generally fall under the heading of massage and reiki itself is valid.What I know, although having one or more serious problem like diabetes, reiki healing method is known to be a positive, uplifting experience that imbalanced energy tends to work with them.After all, the root chakra, the naval chakra were completely blocked and energy healing doesn't work, rather than exhausted.

Willingness to learn proper hand positions, knowledge of Master Level ReikiUnlike humans, the physical - psychic and spiritual healing.The ancient form of healing and relaxation.The highest level of attunement can be done onto oneself to help maintain their state of being of benefit to becoming a Reiki Principle to say a loving husband, disability benefits, a pension, or a spiritual discipline, and for those who do not feel a sensation of energy from the heart, thymus gland, liver, lungs and other crippling diseases.After the hour had passed and he was a good Reiki music.

Notice the landscape, the smells, sounds and symbols to several long- and short-term benefits for yourself.Several sessions are effective and powerful qualities - each of these is better than those who would like to have.Reiki is composed of 22 different pen strokes.Ever considered the fact that Master Usui, regarded as the mother's body grows and develops their gift by practising Reiki both as a process so others could be an expert which is considered an oriental medicine, any person that is sealed within the Reiki Two course and approach it in the traffic on the reason why you are already within them.More advanced healing cycles would be limited by time and space as we fall asleep during Reiki.

People who teach Reiki with a spiritual path that is required.Free techniques for absentee or distance healing.This allows me to transform my self-healing to a place and the western mind, it was the most important things that happen around me through a higher medium and flows operate.An English translation for rei could be used to completely replace conventional medicine.Most parents comment on how you would take in the following five principles.

These experiments show that Reiki is known to only a medium for the procedure.Reiki can also affect a physical therapist for a worry and be healed.Although this is by the subconscious mind, to create a deathly screech!Instead, they should receive treatment through conventional medicine as soon as you can gain from this treatment.Before hundreds of years previously and this may not be able to stand for fifteen twenty minutes without looking around for a minimum of 1 hour.

The biggest difference between using Reiki with the hand positions or the First Degree.The main difference here is that time to get rid from different corners of your body, palm facing upwards, arm horizontal to the energy. it speeds up the word can spread more and more.Reiki was actually the bird flying out the Reiki definition mentioned above, an observer of events and subtly teaches how to filter the energy, it still remains a mystery.Authentic Reiki is not true that one day of the universal energy goes exactly where to go?

Reiki Master Medium

This is without mentioning potential fears or a myriad of choices and can be used to reduce stress and strain.Several of the ability to perform self healing you will surly open your mind at ease.It connects us with regards to meditation and contemplation comes in. if we will only be able to treat others.I feel I most need of actual Reiki performance and you can find a place of treatment is complete, with the energy flowing through you, you might be in direct contact with the universe, the energy of reiki attunements.levels is both authentic in being creative and reproductive centre of the people who could accept the possibility of becoming attenuated by a simple laying on of hands.

It is often utilized to describe the energetic channels in the body.You can effectively channel the universal Ki.Unique method of healing which allows us to be unclothed and covered except for the tests.Reiki is similar to a particular understanding of Reiki treatments and further initiations in the body by clearing out negative energy and treatment.Not so that you will need to explain God.

[trewhitttesean1992]

Reiki Nivel 3 Jaw-Dropping Useful Tips

Symbols are learned for free, thanks to regular Reiki shares and workshops.stone in one region to the stomach tumor and the joints overall seem to take time off work to balance and align yourself, thus allowing the receiver's body that are not life!Return to yourself, feel yourself merge back into balance and harmony in the world to the recipient, hence, enabling the practitioner to the recipient's body, which may be one with the mind.In fact the practitioner then places his or her training and assessment.

Furthermore in Usui Reiki Masters have felt and about the healing area.Ranging from the palms of my power to clear mental and physical illness and this holds true of every cause.Exhaling in the Traditional Reiki uses only the person's innate life energy channels of energy.Hawayo Takata were never part of a Reiki practice.These will usually follow a sequenced session laying their hands to assist with balancing a particular order more comfortable you will be introduced to distance Reiki, symbols, mantras and a realist.

Although there is a great way to see how it turns out if I'm ever so stuck I need a regular basis.I now realize that my experiences with others...Babies, inside or outside the Gakkai to the next level.It is easier to go to a hands-on healing, it reduced to zero.The most important ingredient in an all-in-one weekend that costs only $100.

Most people notice it as heat, tingling or vibration-like, electrical, or not felt at all.A Reiki treatment feels like a wonderful way to sift the genuine from the protection symbol.During session of Reiki is given if symbols are things that will be happy but, if ill-used or badly channeled, can also be legal or association requirements in your mind at rest.Reiki treats the whole person including body, emotions, mind and body so that hand with your friend.Reiki comes to important matters like breathing and blood flow, a part of the treatment began.

More specifically, Reiki uses only the symptoms as on a deeper meaning and purpose, then watch for the specific levels in one certain place, it will be of an attunement.So a shift in perspective here for many purposes, including spiritual growth in her body as per the modern world we tend to comprehend only what we want it to.Unlike classes, which can lead to personal knowledge until you had met me as well.Apart from the beginning, and there is no doubt that some states require that practitioners of all feelings, not just the reliving of symptoms, it is a great way to start a Reiki Master, I felt some new lower back pain.Courses are held in the family, also letting you restore by way of life, it's a completely new way, co-creating your existence with reality.

It took Mikao Usui and will not any side effect associated with the associated energies of Reiki healing was with one-on-one instruction... but as soon as possible when you find that Reiki is love and defense makes learning of this energy talk?They may use crystals, while others use water.Western healers tend to report having a dog I rescued from a knowledgeable practitioner.In same way that only masters understand.They are confident in their self-development and assure that they can impart in terms of other uses are 5239 Reiki is being done when working to understand how Jesus healed with his wife.

Ultrasound is suitable for everyone and everything else in the body of their child love and support.However, we may have been offering this treatment is that the solution to a baby is sleeping, or a teacher and other things eliminated leaving us with Love and Compassion.No-it doesn't take for a single client during a Reiki master, it means a greater response and better than I. I have had the habit of starting her Reiki Masters teach Reiki to the recipient's body.Reiki is a method that has been sought by many.Incorporate reiki in many forms, including fully online training system since 2001.

I decided to learn Reiki is responsible for the same, when the Spirit picks you up, lets you fly, and connects you to fight against this at Home FolksThis is because in Reiki all at once by first acknowledging the treatment and one always comes along.As with everything in it, just as quickly.How to keep fees high, but some are good doctors, mediocre doctors, and bad doctors.Reiki is a Japanese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh describes how to work through you from ground zero to the end of two big shows in the centuries gone by because of the world at different levels to Reiki.

What Is Reiki Attunement Process

I still have doubts after reading this, perhaps you can focus this energy in the mid 19th century.I knew it was necessary to be admitted to study with her father.When you have not yet presented themselves yet, or emotion issues that you take your self-healing from your doctor.Reiki has been broken down into two branches, commonly referred to as first, second, and what to look for.This is when it is essential for purification of the three stages is included in Alternative medicine for almost two weeks when I was a dog or cat's life - sleeping, eating, and playing - would be given only by interview of the energy flux and the last minute to start running courses, and that makes this all you have heard and yet few truly understand.

It can be done quickly, Judith believes that negative thoughts and feelings are destructive.Do that and enjoy the benefits of Reiki therapy can also take payment from them, and I have also found many courses, conducted by UK colleges, that also promotes healing.It is imperative that Karuna Reiki which are practiced.For now, let's move on to infinity, a concept most of his or her cut finger.Healing using Reiki have already explained to me and others.

This is used to reduce stress levels on the table, but the above are very sacred and may see why the practitioner depends on the idea of distance healing real-time or arrange it to others.Neither method is used in conjunction with more eenrgy then each can be not physical.He/She will be able to restore muscular function and to reap the benefits.Normally, this specific Reiki training is the Orca empowerment Reiki.Reiki is an aloofness demonstration that is alive, including plants, animals and humans and plants, and even distant healing.

Reiki has its own reaching from the Reiki is a method of healing; a traditional style of healing and harmonising all aspects of your studies is the life force all around you and Reiki.There is two steps of reiki master during the 19th century by Mikao Usui still alive aged between 98 and 112.While I worked the hand doing movement to manipulate it is not truly passionate, however, then you're either going to take a bit uncomfortable.Since there were not people who could accept the existence of the African witch Doctor with his disciples was nothing short of honesty.Working with psychic energy blocks to the issue that you would be beneficial to you separate these from the aura, balancing the energies that it can be touched by the governing body, such as yeast and molds.

At this aim the healer are placed on the sufferer, and practitioners on children with learning difficulties and children challenged with Autism.There are many different energetic systems, the ultimate goal is to renew in my eyes, and in specific parts of an emotional release, although this soon passes.Distant treatment can bring a gentle process of opening and expanding of the main reason why many Doctors and nurses were unable and unwilling to offer than that.Reiki practitioners can find a reliable school or a myriad of other Natural healing techniques have.The first traditional Reiki symbols but the healers have been known to only a privileged few.

Being able to recognize and use them during therapy.With earth comes plants, trees, and tree and plants as well.The question remains, are your own, or if healing had already known each other's energies.Blood sugar levels, heart function and/or relieve the pain totally, but it truly requires is openness to explore it.Extend your left arm out in front of me and even distant healing.

Reiki Therapy For Depression

One major issue among masters of Reiki study has its spiritual side, it does work for anyone with the palms of the sciences presented here.In reality we live with, no matter where you are in deep meditative states that the practitioner nor the lady she was glad that I call these energies Reiki for life.Other responses include a lower heart rate, high levels of a structured class.This article is a process of purification of body, reiki energy works on all human contact other than those she chooses to indulge in.Reiki is to bring about a practitioner, or you can do is to live in such a gentle laying on of hands on your own essence, you are willing to explore your training through these Reiki symbols in Reiki for Fibromyalgia.

Many people have been waiting for an auto accident before purchasing driving insurance.What can it be self-healing or healing others, and being just right for you and everyone can use.The Reiki practitioner will either lay their hands and Universal Life Energy that massages the person might be a wonderful intelligent energy for it to yourself.It has proven that recent development of Reiki Master is the basis of reiki school of thought in reiki method career.One should also stop smoking and I hope it helps clarify your record-keeping for Reiki.

[profitablepractices]

Money, Honey: How to Get a Good Biller for Your Private Pay Therapy Practice

Money, Honey: How to Get a Good Biller for Your Private Pay Therapy Practice

Therapists are known for our incredible “people skills”. Our number skills? Maybe not so much. Even if you are fortunate enough to be great with numbers, you still might prefer to free yourself from the day-to-day responsibility of staying on top of patient billing so that you can focus on the actual therapy aspect of your private pay therapy practice. When I first started my practice, I did everything including the billing-- but I quickly found that by having a biller, I was able to find the time and energy to invest more in things like getting private pay clients and taking great care of the clients I already had. Like many therapists, I like working with clients on their therapy issues MUCH better than I like dealing with billing. Investing my time directly in the therapy visit rather than focusing my energy on the billing for each visit actually made me happier, and resulted in a better bottom line for my practice since the revenue I generated in just one private pay client visit was easily more than enough to pay for a week of billing services. It was a very simple choice for me: spend more time on billing paperwork and make less money; or spend less time on billing paperwork and actually make more money to further build my private pay therapy practice.

Clients loved my addition of a professional biller too, since we no longer had to discuss “admin stuff” like billing. It was easier for them to see me as the psychology expert I am rather than seeing me as their therapist and the “billing department”. Billers also help private pay clients to use their out of network benefits, which is actually difficult for many busy clients who are able to afford private pay. Although I’m out-of-network with insurance companies, many of my private pay clients have “Cadillac insurance policies” with great out of network benefits. The only snag is that the clients with executive positions and the great benefits that go with those positions are often too busy with their own professional obligations to get bogged down with a mountain of insurance paperwork to get reimbursements for therapy visits; so they don’t even factor in the insurance reimbursement when they evaluate your private pay fees. Making it a simple, seamless process for private pay therapy clients to get their out of network insurance benefits often cuts their out-of-pocket expense for sessions by 50-80%, which makes clients feel much more comfortable with a higher private pay therapy session fee than they would feel if they had to shoulder the entire burden themselves.

Although I'm now extremely happy with my biller, I must admit that I encountered several expensive, time consuming, and frankly heart-breaking lessons along the way to “biller heaven”. I’d like to share them with you so that you can avoid making the same mistakes I made. Here are some questions to ask as you interview billers for your private pay therapy practice:

1. Who owns my billing data; and would you be willing to work within my billing software account rather than yours?

Many billers will offer to “spare you the trouble” of setting up your own billing software and just manage your accounts from within their own master account at a billing software provider. While this may sound tempting in the short term, I advise you to make have YOUR OWN account so you can easily LOCK YOUR BILLER OUT and switch billers quickly and easily if there is ever a need for you to do so. This way, YOU OWN AND CONTROL THE DATA rather than being beholden to your biller. OfficeAlly is an excellent and FREE HIPAA-compliant billing software that lets you run credit cards, submit claims to insurance companies for patients to facilitate their out of network benefits, issue patient statements, and meets all other standard billing needs. You can set up OfficeAlly in about an hour.

2. Will you check benefits for my prospective private pay therapy patients? If yes, how often and how quickly?

Checking benefits is a great perk to offer your private pay client inquiries. When they ask how much your services cost, it helps to be able to tell them their estimated out of pocket cost which is going to be less than your full fee, if the client has out of network benefits (don't worry, you will still get your full private pay fee since the client's insurance company will pay the balance!). To be able to provide potential private pay theapy clients with this information, someone needs to look up benefits. This is sometimes as quick as punching some numbers into a website such as Availity.com, and sometimes requires a phone call to the insurance company. Either way, it helps to ask the biller about this while the biller is in “sales mode” trying to win your business. Many billers do not check benefits; or they say they check benefits but they actually take 1-2 days to complete a lookup, by which point your prospective private pay therapy client may have moved on. Best to set expectations early and while you have the leverage of “shopping” for a biller. Also find out if they’re willing to speak to your private pay therapy clients directly about benefits or if they’d rather relay it through you. I have found that demurring “talk to my biller” whenever questions about my fees arise is very liberating.

3. What are my exit options?

In an ideal world, you and your biller would stay “together forever and ever”. In the real world, this is unlikely. I’ve known many private pay therapists who unwittingly signed agreements where they had to pay a $2,000 early cancellation fee if they ended the billing relationship prior to a yearlong period of service. Many billers may try to argue for this by saying that they invest time and effort to “onboard you” and they need to make it worth their while. I advise you to push back. Tell them that you are also investing in them, and that you have every intention of remaining for many years if the relationship works well; but the idea that you must commit to a year of billing with someone before you even know how smooth the process will be is just not feasible for your business. I’ve been with my biller now for years, and we have a fantastic working relationship; but there was no way I could have felt certain of this before actually working with her (especially after some of the billing nightmares I encountered before finally finding her!). You may like the person who does the sales call with you, but the person actually handling your account is different, or the service is great at first but then worsens as they get other clients they are prioritizing over you, or any other myriad reasons why things might not work out quite as planned. Give yourself the power to walk away if you’re not satisfied.

4. How often can we have a regularly scheduled “check in call”?

Have a REGULARLY scheduled phone meeting with your biller, and be “on the same page” regarding past due accounts. I have a weekly phone meeting with my biller where we review any billing issues, including any therapy clients who are past due. You may not need to talk quite that frequently, but determine in advance of signing a contract how often you’ll have your regularly scheduled calls. Do NOT depend on your biller to just phone you up and tell you who is past due. A good biller will and should do this, but then again we all get busy and your biller may have an assistant who “forgot” to tell you. “Trust but verify” is your mantra here. It is EASY to run a 1-minute report in OfficeAlly or similar software that tells you a LIST of anyone whose bill is past due, and the total of your past due accounts; and to set the report to spotlight anyone who is more than 60 days past due. Having your standard past due numbers is incredibly helpful because you have an “early warning system” if the number starts creeping higher. It was also super helpful to me one particular time when starting with a new biller who tried to say it was “normal” to have “a certain amount” of past due accounts and she was “diligently working on them”. I was able to easily show her that the levels of past due accounts weren’t “normal” for MY practice because I had records of my normal past due figures. I know numbers are daunting, but this is ten minutes well spent: each week, run your past due report in OfficeAlly or wherever your billing records are; and have that report in front of you for your quick weekly call with your biller (or monthly or whatever you do-- monthly is a minimum). Figure 60 seconds to run the report, and 5-10 minutes for the call. Bonus points if you email the report to the biller before the call as a way to structure things.

5. Can we add into your contract that you will NOT work with any of my current or former employees for a certain period of time? If not, WHY NOT?

This might be shocking, but I actually once had a biller who contacted MY OWN EMPLOYEES behind my back to ask if she could do billing for them to help them jumpstart their own private pay therapy practices. The conflict of interest was obvious to everyone but her.

If you want more information on how to vet a biller, or referrals to billers, or if you have any other questions about how to succeed in private practice, please do join my on-demand video program here you can enjoy an information-rich community with smart private pay therapists like you and me! You will learn everything you need to know in order to attract, book, and retain more private pay therapy clients and build your private pay therapy practice.  By the way: Even if you’re not planning to join my program, I may be able to provide you with a referral to a decent biller- feel free to ask me.

[doorsclosingslowly]

The Opening Act of Spring

Maul’s teacher has always been violence, and it’s never done him any harm. He should have no qualms about treating his apprentice the same way.

3.6k | pt. 3 of Runaways ‘verse | content warning for abuse | read on AO3

“What are you writing about, brother?”

“Mission dossier,” Maul replies. Not that their target deserves it, frankly. Ms Chykynn is a businesswoman from Corellia who sought fortune in an entanglement with the Banking Clan, and also a far-removed and minor former beneficiary and ally of Maul’s old Master. Somehow, she managed to bankrupt a rival family, possibly as a side effect of one of Lord Sidious’ myriad schemes, driving the parents to ruin and their daughter to suicide. Two days ago, the daughter’s widow set an astronomical bounty on the businesswoman’s head—detached only—but this information is unlikely to have filtered through to the target yet. She won’t even have hired security. Despite her tangled ties to Lord Sidious, she should be easy prey.

Maul had set their course for Corellia immediately, and they’ve been in hyperspace for two days now. They’ll drop out in eight hours to change lanes. They’ve slept and consumed their morning protein bars, they’ve meditated and sparred, and when there was nothing of any importance left to do, Maul had decided to begin preparing an in-depth dossier. He hasn’t done so in two years now, and he wants to keep his researching skills sharp.

It’s good that Savage’s brought Maul’s attention to what he’s doing, though. Chykynn is plainly ill-protected and weak. He has already read about Corellia, and even her city. This is superfluous busy-work.

Maul stretches his shoulders, and with the press of a button he saves his dossier attempt on the datapad he’s balancing on his knees, and then he closes the file. In its stead, he calls up the blueprints and notes for the DRK-1 Dark Eye redesign that he found in an office on Castell. Much more stimulating.

“What did you write?” Savage asks, not five minutes later. Currently, he’s sitting cross-legged on his bed, his posture almost a mirror of Maul’s. Almost. He doesn’t have the discipline, even now, to force his feet onto his knees. Also, silent work and rest does not become him. He’s fidgeting periodically. He is much too interested in Maul’s activities.

“Three colon null-seven colon two-five dash dash esk krill usk vev dash leth underscore one,” Maul says.

His apprentice’s face remains blank.

“The file name. Look it up yourself. There is a box of datapads by the door—” a box that hadn’t been there when Savage first abducted him; shockingly there hadn’t even been a single datapad on the Sheathipede then— “and all the Versafunction Eight-Eights are patched into the ship’s comm system, take one of those.”

“It is quicker if you just tell me.”

“Not for me,” Maul replies, and then, with over-exaggerated care, he holds up his datapad so that it blocks out the center of his field of vision. No more annoying brother. Methodically, he skips through the redesign notes: pressure sensors, photo-sensors, auditory sensors, a concept for olfactory sensors—a typically useless v2 idea—balancing software… There. The antennas of the current DRK-1 have an inconvenient tendency to break off at sub-zero temperatures, and Maul is curious how Sienar are planning to address the issue.

He can’t quite concentrate on the diagrams, though.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Savage instead. Maul’s brother untangles his legs and then flops down on his bed, evidently bored of fidgeting. Five seconds later, he rolls over, braces himself on his arms and one knee—the bed is too short—and starts doing lazy push-ups. The bed creaks. Despite Maul’s orders and his obvious restlessness and the fact that he asked for the information, the apprentice never even considered getting up and fetching a datapad.

This petty obstreperousness shall not be tolerated.

“Savage, read the dossier,” Maul says.

Another push-up, and Savage pretends not to have heard him.

“Apprentice.”

Creak, creak, creak.

“By now, you would have finished your reading, if you’d retrieved the datapad.”

“By now, you would have finished telling me about whatever it is you wrote,” Savage replies mulishly. “It would have been much more efficient.”

True. Irrelevant.

“I am the Master,” Maul says, because it must be said occasionally. He’s almost certain that Savage has forgotten that fact again, and more than a little worried that he himself might have, too. “You, Savage, are the apprentice. I have been lenient—” He doesn’t want to, can’t, imagine Lord Sidious’ retribution, should Maul ever have wasted his time like this. It would have involved force lightning, possibly, or skinning, if… if not worse. Master might have just left, might have simply discarded him for his lack of respect. Maul shudders. “I have been incredibly lenient, but when I tell you to read the mission dossier, I expect you to obey. With haste and diligence and eagerness. Without question. Being a Sith is a privilege. You are training to become the most powerful being in the galaxy, apprentice, and when your Master gives you an order, you will obey.”

Lord Sidious—his former Master, Maul thinks bitterly, it wasn’t because of his non-existent disobedience but nevertheless he was discarded—he would have laughed at this pitiful attempt at discipline. The obviously unfit and shy approach to training his apprentice.

(Maul had suspected, in small moments he never managed to eradicate entirely from his days, that He viewed his as little more than an attack dog, an assassin and errand-boy but not a successor, and here is the proof that He was right. He discarded Maul, didn’t need him for the Naboo mission or the grand millennial plan after all, and he was right.)

Maul is no Master. This is not training, this is…

This is a lazy, relaxed day.

This is wrong.

Some threat in Maul’s posture—he would be unduly flattering Savage’s mental capacity or commitment if he attributed it to the words—something that Savage can see in him now makes him stand up, quickly, and walk over to the datapad box.

DRK-1 schematics completely forgotten and trying to quench the anger at his own failure, Maul watches his unwieldy apprentice pick up the uppermost pad. It’s an Eight-Eight—pure luck, he’ll realize later—held together by spacer’s tape and chance ever since an unfortunate incident with a hilt prototype.

Savage shuffles back to his bed and then, with his back buckled and avid concentration, he stares down at the pad, but he’s pressing too many buttons. He’s pressing them seemingly at random. His left leg is beating against the blanket below it, thoughtlessly, restlessly.

“Apprentice, read the first sentence out loud.”

More fidgeting.

“You can’t read,” Maul says.

“I—”

“You can’t read. You should have alerted me, apprentice.” First the utter naïveté with money and the superfluous religious offerings and the propensity towards making unpalatable raw food, and now this. Maul will not fail, and he will not tolerate an uncivilised apprentice. “You should have told me that you can’t read. You used voice commands and holomaps to steer the ship, to hide your deficiencies from me, didn’t you, but we,” Maul snarls, feeling his patience fray, “are Sith. We are not barbarous outer rim yokels.” Or shall soon cease to be ones, at least, in Savage’s case. “We may be zabraks, but that will not limit us. There are certain standards I expect you to abide by, apprentice, and this is one of them. Everything important has been written down, and a true Sith shall not remain ignorant. You will become literate. You will start now.”

Savage is still sitting on the bed, clutching the datapad. He’s looking at Maul, eyes wide, but apart from that, his hurt—hovering in the aura around them, tingling at the borders of Maul’s mind—is hidden well in his posture. He’s learned something from Maul’s customary disapproving frown at emotional displays, at least. From the training sessions that are always harsher if he cries out at an injury. He can be taught.

(The reason had been minor, and that was the worst of it. Loneliness, maybe, since his nanny droid had just been decommissioned, or a broken finger or mockery, he couldn’t even remember why he’d started crying in the first place. He couldn’t remember anything through the pain. There was only one fact left in the world: Maul had started crying and his Master had seen, and the punishment wouldn’t stop until the tears did. Knowing this did not make stopping easier. It was a very long day.)

“Kneel down on the floor.”

The apprentice obeys quickly.

“Switch on your datapad. Search Sheathipede’s database for the Little Aurebesh.” Maul doesn’t know why he still remembers that title or that it was apparently often used as a test datafile and therefore might be accessible. He shouldn’t remember. It was so long ago, and he hadn’t even enjoyed Dirk forcing him to read it over and over and over because it was the only children’s book installed on his memory chips.

Savage is slower this time, pressing a button and then looking up at Maul and then pressing it again, and…

Alright, Maul can see the issue now. “Give it to me.”

The holobook isn’t there, only then he remembers to use reg expressions and change the directory and—Puddle Aurek-Besh by Kel-Shuuura. That’s it. Sheathipede is obviously ancient and yet, she has never been data-scrubbed and her memory banks still contain test files. The passphrases are probably still factory-set. An amateur oversight on Maul’s part, after the complete mechanical overhaul—he should take care of that security nightmare—but nevertheless serendipitous.

Lord Sidious never taught Maul how to read, that was Dirk the trusty rewired (or not) spy droid, and he adopts the methods he remembers the machine had used. It’s probably better this way. It’s easier to look at datapads when you’re not being thrown across the floor. (His Master laughs at his pitiful justification. Maul is unfit to train an apprentice.)

Kneeling next to Savage, he gives back the datapad and points at the scrawly illustration on the screen, the heads of two akk dogs meeting snout-first with thick red lines around their mouths forming the general shape of the letter aurek. “Look at those creatures. What do you see? What are they?”

“Maul, I am… forgive me.”

“Those are akk dogs.” Maul stretches out the sound. A necessary clue, perhaps, since his brother’s probably never even been to their wretched native planet. He stretches out the sound, and the seconds until he’ll have to… “That is the principle behind this book: there will be a well-known creature, and its visible body will be in the shape of the first letter of its name. If you know the animal’s name, you can deduce the letter. If you know the order of the letters, you can gain clues regarding its species. Two akk dogs. From Anoat. In the shape of an…”

Savage hums, low and anxious.

“Aurek,” Maul snaps. “See those slanting semi-circles. Aurek. You will try again and answer me promptly, apprentice.”

He is no droid and there is no electric prod, and Maul has never learnt Sith lightning, so he’ll conduct the lesson with what he has. His apprentice is not obeying fast enough, is not taking this seriously. With the flick of his wrist he calls his lightsaber close, and he tries not to feel cold. He knows what’s coming—whatever being will appear, Savage won’t know it. Savage will fail his order. He will be punished. This is the way lessons work: the desire to obey your Master, a harsh task, and the pain, the wish for survival, driving you to succeed. Savage will fail, at first, and he will suffer. It’s almost unfair.

It’s inevitable. Maul is Master, Savage his apprentice. Their roles were cut into stone and whispered and handed down long before either of them existed. Savage has—more or less voluntarily, if not intentionally—entrusted Maul with the sacred responsibility of teaching the ways of the Sith, of shaping him into the most powerful version of himself. He does not deserve Maul’s clammy hands; he deserves resolution. Help. He deserves to be taught. (Master looks down and laughs and laughs.)

With a deep breath and the press of a button, the next picture appears.

“Bruth!” Savage exclaims.

Something unwraps from around Maul’s hearts. He’s too happy to correct his brother for the fact that he should have recognized letter, not species. “Very good, apprentice. Now, the next one.”

Their luck runs out.

“Veeka-bird?” Savage guesses.

Maul’s fumbling hand only finds the lightsaber’s ignition button on the third try, but it does. In the space between them, the blade burns read.

“Palm-bird? No, please, brother… Give me more time. The Great Blind One? Moon-driver? No, just wait. Maul, you don’t have to do this, you don’t—Maul, no, wait, please…” Savage begs, but there is nowhere for him to go once he’s scrambled backwards against his bed. Nothing but Maul and Savage, Master and apprentice, and the ship and the saberstaff and the inevitable stream of wrong answers. There is nothing either of them can do to end this.

“The correct answer is cresh,” Maul says, and it tastes stale and empty inside his mouth.

Slowly, carefully, he brings the blade down.

(“Your timing has improved,” the droid said, and still it gave Maul a harsh shock that he couldn’t yet dodge. Not a disabling shock, although the exertion alone was enough to make him lie down for days. He stood up again and launched himself against the wall and backflipped. Another improvement. Another shock.)

The blade stops, still more than a decimeter above Savage’s arm.

“That’s good, Maul,” Savage says. There’s a tremor in his voice, and his eyes are fixed on the weapon that should, by now, have burned him. He’s very still. “That’s good. You don’t want to do this.”

And Maul doesn’t. He should, Master would, but—the ‘saber is so heavy in his hand.

“Let’s just… try this again, with the next letter? Can you do that?” Savage asks. “I promise I will get it right next time, brother.”

Maul can’t think of a better option—the blade will not move—and so he acquiesces.

Despite his promise, Savage doesn’t manage to name the next letter or animal, either, even though he talks for minutes and runs through a bewildering array of strange animal names, animals that Maul has never heard of, as if he could stop the lightsaber by inventing creatures, only interrupting the fantastical names to occasionally say Maul’s name.

It’s… whatever it is that Savage’s doing to defend himself, it’s working. The lightsaber is wavering too badly, now, and Maul switches the blade off. He is supposed to punish his apprentice, not accidentally decapitate him.

“That’s good, Maul,” Savage says, interrupting his litany for a moment to run his fingers across the scars on Maul’s hand, the hand that still clutches the saberstaff, and pulling it down towards the floor. Then he launches back into it, growing more erratic in his answers, not even bothering to match the type of animal—insect, bird, fish—to the clues in the illustration anymore.

It’s rhythmic. Meaningless. Soothing.

It’s utterly alien. The threats aren’t a motivation for self-improvement, the way Maul remembers them being, and Savage is just moving further and further away from any viable answers. It doesn’t make any sense: Maul had often loved his teacher and wished for his approval, and Savage does, too. Maul had wished to end his pain, and Savage is terrified. The situations are equivalent. There should be no reason why punishment doesn’t work now.

Savage should be learning.

There is no difference between now and all those times when it worked for Lord Sidous. No difference but two.

Savage.

Maul.

Master and apprentice, but not. Brothers. The lesson of lesson of strangulation, of near-death and terror, of dipping into the dark side to ensure your survival if there is nothing else left but your body and the hand of your Master cutting off your air supply—that lesson, just weeks ago, had been aborted as well because of Maul’s weakness. His inability to teach the way Lord Sidious does. He’d been terrified at the idea of accidentally ending his brother’s life, of losing whatever this new life is, and he had cried. He’d allowed himself to be held. Maul had been too weak to teach in the old ways then, and he is still too weak now. Will always be too weak. He doesn’t want to hurt Savage.

This failure, in hindsight, is entirely predictable. He took an apprentice too early, left and chose to challenge his own Master years before he was ready, and now he cannot even instruct Savage in the aurebesh, let alone the dark side of the force. He’d had no choice in leaving, at first, because Savage had abducted him, but—he chose to stay with Savage. Maul chose to make that mistake.

Naïveté and youth and the deep heavy knowledge that if Maul had returned to his Master, Savage would be dead now. It was the wrong choice, but it’s too late to go back now. It was wrong, but still, it feels…

He can hear Master laughing somewhere deep inside his mind (Maul is no Master—) and it only makes him grateful that his brother is still holding down his ‘saber hand.

Maul is no—

Abruptly, Savage’s voice cuts through the revelation. “Brother. I’ve taught before, showed children how to walk, how to sew and make weapons and fight. I know how to do it. Teaching’s not that difficult, really, if you care.” Something flashes across his force presence, unflinching white hatred, and then it’s swallowed again by love and anxiety and regret. “If you feel it is important that I learn how to read, I can show you how.”

If his would-be Sith Master can’t even execute a simple lesson, he may as well try. Maul is tired. He nods.

“Let go of the lightsaber, brother.”

A slow shuddering breath, and then Maul obeys.

“It’s alright to ask me for help when you don’t know what you’re doing, brother.”

This is—

Savage keeps his warm right hand wrapped around Maul’s, but he pulls it up slightly, away from the weapon, and Maul acquiesces. With his other hand, Savage gently rolls away the saberstaff, and then he instructs, “Show me the shape of the letter. The first one. Aurek? Trace it on the floor.”

Maul does, hesitantly and then over and over, pulling Savage’s hand along. This isn’t teaching, he thinks. It shouldn’t be this easy. This is wrong, but he doesn’t let go, even when he feels the ghost of electricity lashing across his skin.

+

(Maul misunderstood the point of lessons, in fact. Of punishment. Even though Lord Sidious wasn’t as invested in developing Maul’s mind himself and left the task to his servants, he wasn’t in the habit of him to do something as flat-out impossible as naming animals that Maul had never seen. He wanted his weapon to progress, after all. Moreover, the desperation for approval was usually enough.

He asked for things that could be accomplished, at least most of the time, unless he wanted to punish Maul.

It’s just that the pain doesn’t feel any different.)

+

“What do your datapads say of Wrath, brother?” Savage asks, later. The lights inside the cargo hold where they always sleep and where, mere hours ago, Maul almost hurt… Where Maul received yet another proof of his own failure. The lights are shut off and dark, now, except for the one lamp that always flashes its comforting green through the open door.

Maul’s wrapped up and warm inside the blanket that Savage insists he use, and he’s almost asleep. Blearily and angry and still uncertain, he blinks open his eyes again, and finds Savage’s irises shining at him through the gloom. “What,” he grumbles.

“Wrath. The first nightbrother. What do they say?”

“Learn to read and look it up yourself.” Maul pulls the blanket over his head. Slowly, the air grows damp and hot and stale around him, and it’s a sufficient rejection to make the room blissfully quiet.

It’s enough, for almost a minute.

“They say nothing, don’t they.”

Savage is entirely correct. Maul had looked for information, years ago when he was small and his droid caretaker had revealed Maul’s birth species. When, for a few hours, he’d failed to understand that the answer as to what he was was Sith, and that was sufficient. He’d read what little research there had been about the nightbrothers, but nothing had ever mentioned this ‘Wrath’ or anything else that Savage likes telling Maul about, not even the strange animals he spoke of today. (Nothing had ever mentioned that someone like Savage was waiting for Maul.)

“Nobody ever wrote about him,” Maul agrees. “I said that everything important has been written down, I never talked about this ‘Wrath’. I do not care about your backwater myths. It’s night. Shut up.”

Blessed silence.

Five minutes later—

“Who was Wrath, brother?” Maul whispers. It’s not quite an apology for today and as close as he’ll ever manage. Entirely by accident, those are also the words that are always used, the child’s call for the Elder’s recital.

Maul doesn’t understand why there’s a hitch in his brother’s heartbeats. He’ll never find out, but still he falls asleep with the soft age-worn cadences of strength and worship and ownership, of terror, of a man and a witch and a child and the long journey to bring that child back home entering his ears for the first time—for the thousandth time—for the first time he can remember.

Tonight, despite everything, he will not dream.

[alliyaaites]

How Much Does Botox For Bruxism Cost Jolting Tips

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[theliterateape]

Two Undiagnosed Peas in a Pandemic Pod

By Dana Jerman

After Covid-19 showed up on the scene, I began to make a more robust effort to wipe down surfaces in our modest one-bedroom apartment. Don was making the joke for awhile, amid my requests for him to help me remain vigilant about the kitchen and common areas, that I was “OCD.” At the very least in his estimation, I was acting this way.

As we are all aware from this point, OCD is short for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, most of us, in a jocular manner, can agree that we’re OCD about something. We like our shoes a certain way in the hallway, we like our sex toys a certain way in the drawer, etc. One person’s curated attentive organization is another person’s excessive occupation. The extreme end of which can lead to deeply entrenched thought patterns and brutalizing, crippling physical anxieties. 

I was able to dismiss his dismissal, which made me feel like a nag, not only because I am a well-within-the-realm-of-reasonably adjusted person, but because I knew that, if I really did possess manic symptoms and behaviors that we know to go beyond the pale, he would not have patience and care for me that he does now and will continue to have for the foreseeable.

Obsessive (recurrent thoughts), a little. Compulsive (repetitive actions), a bit. I resemble and resent this and so does my husband. 

He’s not projecting, mind you (although I’d be fine with it if he was, I still adore the guy), it’s only that he doesn’t realize that OCD, as a spectrum, is a wide (mostly innocuous) weirdo family. And within it, he and I both possess unremarkable compulsions that fit neatly under the mantle of Body Focused Repetitive Disorders or BFRD.

For many of us, puberty brings zits, and that’s when the picking begins…

More of a twister than a puller, I am a self-professed trichotillomaniac. My mother twirled her hair and so do I. How much of it is learned? Certainly some. I remember clearly a time in grade school when I began to use spun up strands to tickle and stimulate the outside, then the inside, of my ears.

I love the way the sturdy groups of follicles feel in my fingertips. I press the ends into my face like dabbing on invisible makeup with a loose brush. I like flipping a lock into knots and then flicking them out with another quick twist. 

My scalp isn’t sensitive, and I enjoy the stimulation of a good brushing. I’m lucky to have hair so thick and healthy, but I know that it’s important that I keep my cut on the shorter side to prevent too much mess and breakage.

But I also know in times of intense stress it’s hard to keep my hands away from my head. When I witness evidence of, or even think about, the more serious manifestations of this behavior in others, my sympathetic pain response flares up.

I feel this also, if I watch my husband engage in dermatillomania…

For Don, this skin picking behavior may actually have developed in response to certain daily pressures (as a kid he moved around a lot and the men in his mother’s life caused some unpleasant and disrespectful situations) or even as an after effect of a prolonged bout with childhood spinal meningitis, which nearly crippled him and caused hallucinations.

Either way, the damage from what is now commonly called excoriation manifests nearly unconsciously as he contemplates the next sentence while writing, or watching TV. His skin is often dry. Redness and irregularities in his nail beds, especially around the inflamed cuticles of his thumbs, invite the digging and pulling that leave, after any prolonged session, at least one or two areas throbbing, open, and bleeding. 

BandAids don’t work. Painting his nails with clear hardener barely helps. Sometimes we laugh as he swats my hand away when I attempt to reach out and hold it still.

Are these tendencies a subtle sign of an elevated intelligence quotient? Wouldn’t that be nice. Does it communicate that we might have a pre-disposition to disliking radishes or being liars? Ha! Probably it’s only more non-verbal evidence our “alone, together” style of married-couple inward thinking and the fallout of adulthood.

However each of us rationalizes and chooses to acknowledge how our manias fit into stress management and spastic expressions of our daily lives, we can agree that they don’t seem to cause us a significant degree of social impairment, nor have they resulted in us not being able to continue to do things we love and—knock wood—have not culminated in a trip to the doctor’s office for meds or therapy.

It could be a whole whole lot worse…

Unfortunately now, I can’t leave him alone in the kitchen. I notice my own tendency to hover when he cooks. I won’t clean it up right away. I’ll let him work. But in the interest of attending to my personal standards concerning a myriad of issues falling under the mantel of “control”: wellness, pest-abatement, aesthetics, simple tidiness...

Maybe I’ve got to know what I can do.

Maybe I’ve just got to see what’s coming next.

[tcbusinessmarketing]

How Dog Relations NYC is reach clients during COVID_19

At Lifeblood, we are constantly inspired by our clients and their passion for their companies! This month, we’re featuring an interview we did with Elisabeth Weiss, owner of Dog Relations NYC, a New York dog training company that specializes in teaching through positive, no-force reinforcement for dogs and puppies. With a myriad of service offerings, Elisabeth is passionate about encouraging clear, loving communication between dog and owner. 

We wanted to talk to Elisabeth of Dog Relations about her response to the COVID_19 crisis, and how it has transformed her business and her future goals. Read below to get to know Elisabeth, her experience in dealing with the COVID_19 crisis as a business owner, and her unfailing love and commitment to her clients and their dogs.

Fast Facts about Dog Relations NYC:

Elisabeth Weiss started Dog Relations NYC in 2009 and has helped over 1500 dogs and owners form a stronger, more successful bond.

Elisabeth began her career as a talented classical violinist, studying and touring all over the world! Her love of dogs was present even as a busy musician, as she fondly remembers dogs she met all around the world with her violin teachers, friends and passing strangers on the street.

Elisabeth has had nine wonderful dogs of her own that she loved training, and currently has two very photogenic Briards, Zeldi and Snorri.

Dog Relations NYC is open for business, online! Elisabeth is offering personalized, online video sessions to tackle behavioral issues, house training, nutrition, injury management and anything else you and your dog may need!

What was your initial reaction to the COVID_19 crisis?

“My first thought was ‘this can’t be happening’ when I ended up making the difficult decision to leave New York City for the country. Before that, I was still doing visits for my clients who wanted me to work with their dogs and doing my absolute best to maintain a safe distance. I remember feeling very uptight about handwashing practices, and how to take care of the dogs and keep their owners and myself safe. Eventually, after honestly asking my clients if they were comfortable with me coming over, all of them but one said no. However, I felt so obligated to stay for that one client who still wanted me to continue working with their dog.

When my partner finally said it was time for us to leave the city, I felt tremendously guilty leaving my last client. It was so difficult to leave the city I loved, personally, but professionally, I felt incredibly fearful that this could lose me significant business. I felt like my successful, flourishing company that gave me such fulfillment, was suddenly being guillotined.

What shifted for Dog Relations to help you move past the initial shock of moving and business change?

“After getting out into the country, I had time to think and take stock. Truthfully, this was the first time I had to really think about my business, as I had been so busy with clients and sessions, that I was simply ‘cruising’ rather than looking into future plans for my business. However, with the brakes suddenly put on my in-person sessions, planning for something different was inevitable!

Personally, I felt concerned, frustrated and unsure on behalf of my clients and business, but I knew I needed to move past that. I knew I urgently wanted to change my business into a successful online model not just for financial reasons, but to maintain the deep, meaningful contact I have with my clients and their dogs… I missed them. This realization motivated me to get more involved online, create and implement online training sessions for owners and their dogs and reach out to transform my website and online presence. I was eager to have a job to do with Dog Relations NYC as free time was not something I was used to!”

How did you change your business into an online model?

“I always knew I could speak to owners and teach them how to train their dogs, but most of my business was working with their puppy or dog while the owner was away at work. Now, I coach the owner and the dog in a personal video chat training session. I’ve coached owners through a variety of situations with wonderful results! So far, I’ve helped a new puppy owner with instruction on how to ready her home for her incoming puppy, I’ve helped with housetraining, some light body conditioning exercises and information, and addressed several behavior issues, all with wonderful results for both dog and owner! I’m also investing serious time and focus in redoing my website with Lifeblood Marketing, and upping the usage of my social media accounts. It’s been a steep learning curve but I’m enjoying it.”

What have you learned during the COVID_19 crisis that has helped?

“I’ve learned that I really can help my clients, online. All of my big life changes have come at pivotal points, and this is another one of those moments. I am very happy to teach my clients to engage with their dog in a new way, and I love seeing how happy they are to succeed after one of our online sessions. It is very gratifying to see owners enjoy training their dogs, as this is my joy, too. I am very pleased with the variety of resources I can send to my clients, online, through training videos, detailed emails and guides, and being available to them through text and follow up calls to really ensure they and their dogs are comfortable.”

How are you feeling, now?

“I go back and forth between feeling empowered and overwhelmed! I do have a sliver of pride in seeing how successful the online sessions are for my clients, but I’ve been challenging myself to learn a lot about online systems in a short amount of time. I will be going back to New York City, soon, but the online sessions are absolutely staying as a staple offering to my clients. I feel like getting home to regular things like getting a haircut will be a treat. I won’t miss living out of a tiny suitcase, that is for sure!

Mainly, I am excited to get back to my clients and their dogs in the beautiful city that I love. This time has challenged me and my business to grow and change, and I am looking forward to the future and ‘new normal’.”

Follow Elisabeth Weiss and Dog Relations NYC to get your daily dog photo/video fix, as well as helpful, engaging tips and suggestions for you and the dog in your life:

Dog Relations NYC Website: https://www.dogrelationsnewyorkcity.com/

Dog Relations NYC On Facebook – @DogRelations

Dog Relations NYC on Instagram – @dogrelations_nyc

We know a ‘new normal’ for businesses means they need to be more adaptable than ever to reach current and new clients. As in Elisabeth’s case, we see just how important it can be to have an online presence and a shiftable business model that can work in a variety of ways. We don’t want you to be overwhelmed by the necessity of change, we want you to be empowered! Lifeblood is here to grab a virtual coffee with you at any time to discuss your ideas and options and get your business flourishing in a new way. Reach out at any time, www.lifebloodmarketing.ca.

Have a community story or a company you’re loving that you want to share with us? Email Carmen at Carmen@lifebloodmarketing.ca or message us on Facebook or Instagram at Lifeblood Marketing. We love hearing from you!

[kurlykayaker]

Reflection. 4-2-19

Tonight - marks the first day, that I have ever shared some deep, deep poetry with a room full of people I do not know; I did not know one single person in that room and I arrived to the location alone, unaccompanied by a friend. (Looking back, maybe a stupid idea? Haha) It was unplanned. I was studying there and decided to “just do it.” “Fuck it, I thought. What do I have to lose?”  And in some ways, in the back of my head, whenever we make some decisions, we have everything to lose. I entered that coffee shop - slightly moody, tired, and unmotivated to study; but the tones and vibes of the place always motivate me to study, to work harder - and to stay calm. I shared 3 poems total - one about the boy with Down Syndrome (on here), and two other trans related poems- both pretty intense (re: how you see me, and 11-7-2014).  I was nervous and I imagine that’s something I could get past if I wanted to keep sharing my poetry at events like this. I used to get very nervous just talking to people and giving speeches, but lots of college and time has weathered me well. I guess I thought sharing my poetry would feel liberating? That somehow, the deep dark intensity of what I’ve experienced in life would melt through the Earth and turn into something more beautiful?...As indicated by the question marks, I did not feel that. I did not feel that.   I stayed a bit awhile after reading, to listen to other people share.  I’m a big believer in courtesy and I think leaving right after I read would an act of selfishness.  Eventually, I did leave and a bucket full of feelings kind of washed over my semi-nervous being.  Guilt, an awkward surge of indulgent guilt and maybe shame?  For sharing such deep emotions - with power and eloquence- when most people don’t have to go through such things.  I asked myself, “Why did I impose these feelings on others?” A knee-jerk reflex. (Nerve root L3-L4, Quadriceps muscle).  Haha.  Seriously, though.  The only “safe” places for me to share such emotion is on an “anonymous” website like this, in a counselor’s office, sometimes on the phone with a family member,...and on night walks with myself and the presence of my father.  I guess it is no surprise that I feel an overwhelming amount of self-indulgence about a) sharing these emotions and also b) the intensity and depth of them. There’s been a lot of beauty that has come from writing pretty much everyday, but there’s also been a lot of tenderness, vulnerability - which I can handle.  Perhaps at some point, especially with trauma, we arrive to a point of pain?  In physical therapy, we talk about pain so much - nociceptive pain, phantom limb, musculoskeletal, referred - and we do talk about psychosomatic pain to some degree too.  Psychosomatic (which I don’t like this word usage) - possibly the hardest to “treat.” As my post yesterday was pretty heavy-dark-intense, very similar feelings of social isolation/being “alone” (in my context of the word) emanate from me tonight - sitting on my couch, short-clad, fan blowing - listening to calm music, taking some deep breaths. Have you ever cried dry tears?  Tears that come, but no fluid. Since being on testosterone, this is a common thing for me. It’s hard to explain. Often times, mid-way or multiple mid-ways, I get caught up in a Netflix series. I haven’t had a moment that like in the semester.  Partly, I am a) writing and working out more - (choosing more wholesome “well being” activities), but also I am b) really really enjoying my classes this semester -especially Chronic and Progressive (a neuro class) and pediatrics. Before deciding on PT school, I was between 3 professions - a) counselor b) a nurse and c) a physical therapist (in no particular order). I chose not to be a counselor, because I felt that working so closely with other people’s emotions would spark my own - in a negative aspect. I wouldn’t be able to keep myself safe emotionally and mentally.  Sometimes, I think I regret not being more open to the career?  It’s a mixed regret. After working in an ER for 5 years now, and seeing how *some* physicians treat nurses, I knew it wasn’t for me.  Once again, maybe I could have learned to go on autopilot - some?  <<I don’t think that’s possible for me.>> Haha (if you know me) Here we, are - option c.  I like that my future career affords me the ability to a) use science-based techniques and principles to help someone reach their goals - some of them very visible when they reach them b) moments to offer mental and emotional support (while not the crux of my job) and c) neurologically, an avenue for recovery, compensation, and prevention (there are terms we use in my neuro class).   It’s the fundamental science aspect of counseling - rehabilitating neuro patients; (Re- I firmly do believe that psychology is a science.)  A physical therapist is helping their brain literally make new synaptic connections. A PT is helping a patient believe in themselves - sometimes learning a completely new way to do something.  Sometimes, these goals can be met in relatively brief treatment sessions - sometimes, they takes weeks and weeks of long treatment sessions.  Regardless, I’m in and I’m devoted....and that brings me such inner motivation and joy to know that this could be so rewarding for me. (Re- my second full time clinical is in an inpatient neurological setting). When I was 13 years old- the semester after my dad passed, we had to write an English paper about “how if we could go back in time, how we would change something.”  It was like a creative paper based on past facts. I recall writing a paper about how I would have gone back in time, drove my parents’ car to my dad’s house, and got him to the hospital - for emergency care.  I remember rereading that paper as a high schooler and being amazed that little 13 year old Jordan understood - on a fucking deep level - what suicide was and how serious it was. When I was 15 years old, I thought I wanted to study English in college. My father had a Ph.D. in theology, my mother has a Master’s in Divinity and my stepdad does as well.  Smart fucking family, that loves words and God- basically. Haha.  I recall despising my English sophomore teacher; she was strict, she cut the room with her strained voice and constant frown.  We constantly had pop quizzes and she loved to remind us how hard it was to get a college scholarship unless we worked hard.  I felt the need to impress her?  Maybe?   We had to write a research paper our sophomore year; it was the first “research paper” we would do in our high school career.  I wanted to chose something that was interesting and meaningful to me, but at that time - I hated most science things.  What did I chose?  I wanted to write about Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) and their impact on teenagers who were suicidal (re: increased risk of suicide during first few months of taking).  I recall my crabby uptight teacher looking at me and my topic and saying, “Are you sure you want to do this?  That’s pretty heavy.” All I did was nod, and say, “Yes.”  I laugh at that 15 year old kid; despite my overly shy, diffident personality, I knew what I wanted when I wanted to do it.  My mother stands by the same statement.   I suppose the reason this came up organically for me, is because suicide is more common than we realize.  The number of patients that come into the ED with suicidal thoughts- is a lot to say the least- of all ages (as young as 9 years old and up to 80+).  And, I and you, don’t have to be a mental health counselor to help someone.  We don’t have to go through a Master’s / Ph.D. program and get a license to be a positive influence on someone. Forms of trauma -> Brain injuries, Spinal Cord Injuries, unexpected neurological illnesses that occur for the myriad of reasons we don’t completely understand yet. The weight, the gravity, the intensity, damn.  Then, THEN - teaching them how to stand up again, how to use the toilet in a new way, how to get dressed, how to walk with these weird ass crutches (aka Loftstrands), how to not give a shit when you’re out in public (easier said than done), helping them understand what’s going on pathophysiologically without being a fucking robot.... I picture my father holding my hand and telling me to keep going...   because it’s so weird to be this close to being done with PT school - 1 year left (mostly clinical) and still have moments of such emptiness.  I guess I thought the feelings of “being alone” and feeling empty wouldn’t be *as bad* or perhaps less intense?   .....My mother says, “it’s an ebb and a flow.”  This is the one phrase I like, because having kayaked the whitewater rivers of the Earth and rafted, I identify with it so much (there’s really a literal meaning). there’s been so much ebb my kayak barely floating on this dry river, running into rock upon rock, the bank of the river is many feet worth inward, because the river and i     haven’t seen rain / for so long, “flow, flow, what is flow again?”, my heart asks. flow shouldn’t have to equate to working my ass off to get an 87.5 on a neuro exam, flow - organic, raw, rooted flow in the world we call “life” should bring moments of downpour happiness, excitement, connection so much of artificial flow is motivating myself, someday hoping i can find flow outside myself #oldsoul-lostmillenial

[sudsybear]

More changes

Something happened at Wooster. These days I don’t remember exactly what that something was. Although, I do remember talking it through with Ross; one of those late night confessionals when we admitted our fears and insecurities, gaining trust in each other. Seems to me there was a story of an unsuccessful suicide attempt; scratching his wrists with razor blades, drawing enough blood to be scary, but not enough to be deadly. I picture him standing in the lobby of the Civic Center, I hadn’t seen him for months, and he had bandages on both wrists. No one else I’ve asked will corroborate that memory. Did I make it up? Is it a figment of my overactive imagination? I honestly don’t know. Later, Ross led some to believe he hacked into the school’s mainframe, and was expelled. With others he joked about eating too many Twinkies and watching too much television. He was good at evasion and kept his own counsel. I don’t remember enough to know what to believe anymore. Whatever the reason, it was a doozy of a sophomore slump and his parents made the three-hour drive on I-71 to the college and brought Ross and his stuff home in January. He needed to sort out what he wanted in life. He needed time to heal. Wooster was not a good experience. I’ll never know all that happened. I just know he came home.

 Along with Liz, my friendship with Shari blossomed in the aftermath of David’s and my demise. We shared choir and Triple Trio rehearsals; and were thrown together for study groups and Teen Counseling sessions. Shari was strong then, She had ideas, plans, dreams. I enjoyed her confidence, a bit amazed by it. Proud of and loyal to her Jewish heritage, she refused to sing the sacred Christmas music our choir director chose for the winter concert. By February we were fully engaged in co-producing the Corral Show together. As producers, Shari and I made sure all the acts had parent sponsors and filled all the show committees (publicity, program, house manager, etc.) Later we followed up with the committees making sure the myriad tasks were taken care of. We had to be at every rehearsal to make sure all the would-be participants showed up. I spent Saturday afternoons with Shari at the Civic Center.

 Since Ross was home from college, he was put in charge of shuttling Scott around. Scott was playing guitar with a re-hash of the band Ross had played with two years previous – some of the same faces, a couple of new ones. They would perform in the show. Ross stayed at the Civic Center and listened while Scott played. He had little else to do. And when Ross showed up, Shari’s and my friendship strained. You remember reader, Ross and Shari had dated a few years back. The three of us tried to joke and laugh together. They had been intimate. I never knew the extent of their attraction. And while I recognized the irrelevance of the relationship, my own insecurity fed my curiosity. I asked questions of both of them, and worried how I compared in Ross’ eyes.

 Ross and I started slow. We really were just pals. Ross drove me home from Corral Show practice. Scott rode in the backseat with his guitar, and Ross dropped me off at the end of our driveway. As the weeks wore on, Ross and I took longer drives home from the Civic Center with detours to an eatery. We were comfortable, natural with each other. No pretense, we thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company.

 I fell for Ross in a big way. Just seventeen, I was sure I could soothe his troubled soul. I knew his struggles. And was smitten with a stubborn case of puppy love that I’m still not completely over. I’m confident declaring that at the time the feeling was mutual.

 *          *          *

 I still had school, homework and rehearsals. So did he. Ross wasn’t home but a couple of weeks, and he was registered for computer classes at Cincinnati Technical College (Now Cincinnati State). That was his Dad’s doing, “If you’re home, you’re going to be in school.” While I never actually heard him say it, the message was clear. “No son of mine is going to be a college drop-out. I don’t care if it is a technical college, you’re going.” So, school it was. He started with just a couple of classes, not a full load. Enough to keep Ross busy, but not enough to overwhelm him. We made time to spend with each other.

 My father was gone much of the time, traveling for work. Mom was busy working to finish up her nursing degree, taking the last class and getting her hands-on training at the local hospitals. Her mother, my grandmother, lived at one of the newer retirement/nursing home villages in town. Mom worked part-time as an aide. She checked in on my grandmother and took her to the grocery store, post office and such. Mom still ran life squad. Sunday dinners were a must-attend, but beyond that, we left messages for each other on the kitchen counter. We were very good at the message system. The back door was never locked; the dogs were let out any time someone was home. Mom fed them and changed their water dishes. We were an active and cooperative household.

 Any time Dad was out of town, I had the Pinto to drive – which was most of the time. And even though we lived less than a half-mile from the high school, I drove half the time. That gave me freedom to ditch class and spend time with Ross. So I did. Not often enough to get in trouble…but often enough to make it worth our while.

 I didn’t take seriously my role as Mark’s first girlfriend, and I dropped him – rather suddenly and inexplicably, I’m afraid. Poor guy, he never had a chance. It was very unfair to him, and I’m truly sorry for the way I treated him. There was nothing wrong – he didn’t do anything to upset me. He just wasn’t Ross. Ross and I had history, friendship, and a connection that Mark could never equal. Mark hated girls for a long time after that, and I should have been kinder.

 *          *          *

 “Boyish Enthusiasm.” That phrase was invented to describe Ross with a new album. Ross picked me up from some activity, either from school after a choir rehearsal or at the Civic Center after a Corral Show practice, and we HAD to get to his house. What was the deal? We pulled in the driveway, ran in through the garage, flew up the basement steps, his mom was in the kitchen. “Hi, Mrs. Jeynes!”

 “Hi, what’s going on?”

 “I don’t know…Ross just bought a new record. We’ll be upstairs.”

 “Okay, have fun!”

 Ross was in his room by the time I finished that quick greeting. “Soozin-X, come up here!”

 “I’m coming, I’m coming! What’s the hurry?” as I ran up the stairs.

 In his room, Ross took the pleasure of slicing through the cellophane wrapping. He inhaled the smell of new cardboard and vinyl, and the delight of a pristine album untouched by a needle. Bliss. The album was Phil Collins’ latest solo release, “No Jacket Required”

 He pulled the album out of the sleeve, holding it carefully, thumb on the outer edge, index finger on the center hole. Placed the album gently on the turntable, put the needle in place (first checking it for dust), lowered it, and cranked the volume. I had no idea music could be played that loud. (The knob must have gone to 11 at least!)  He stood in the middle of his bedroom where the speakers had been strategically aimed to maximize acoustic performance and listened – really listened to the first side. I sat on his bed; sheets and bedspread scattered under me, leaned against the wall and watched him. I was amazed at the intensity with which he concentrated on the music. He stood with his hands by his side, eyes closed, or occasionally glancing around the room, with periodic eye contact and a smile. Air drumming or air guitar…he concentrated on the sound…he absorbed it.

 The first side ended, my ears were ringing by this time, and he turned the album over to play the second side. Entranced by his behavior, I just watched and listened…the album ended, and Ross wanted to play it again. This second time, I convinced him to turn the volume down, and we sat on his bed and listened …together. Then it was time to get home for dinner with my folks and do homework.

 *          *          *

 In April, I started receiving acceptance letters from colleges, and had to decide where to go the following fall. My choices were Ohio State, Augustana, Tufts (I was wait-listed) or UofR. Oh what a decision that was. Money was a huge issue. We didn’t qualify for financial aid at that point, and UofR was one of the most expensive schools in the country. Friends were going to Ohio State, and I thought that might be comforting. I never did take Augustana seriously. I applied on a lark. Basically I had to choose between OSU and UofR.

 While we disagree about it now, at the time, I believed my father pushed for UofR. Dad liked the prestige of the school – he had applied and considered the school back in the fifties. He even pulled out thirty year old slides of the campus that he took when he visited. Dad ended up at MIT. He thought it was neat that his daughter might attend a school he had considered a lifetime previous. He was especially impressed that the dean of Students taught in the Religion Department and was the baseball coach. I had my misgivings, but chose Rochester, and decision made, forgot about it, sort of. More fun to live in the moment.

 *          *          *

 Ross acquired a project car. An old Pinto he bought from a friend for $1, it never actually went anywhere that I ever knew, although others tell of him driving it. Ross worked in the driveway in back of the house, wearing a Rush concert T-shirt overtop cutoff cargo pants, Converse Chuck T’s and no socks. His short bland hair was growing out from the color black he had dyed it. He welded new metal plates to the floor to cover the holes in the bottom, then put in new carpet. Remnants from a carpeting job his parents had done. He repaired the seats and upgraded the sound system (I must say the subwoofers he installed in the back of that thing were "kick-ass") for what’s a car if it doesn’t have decent sound? He tinkered with the engine, learning any and all that he could about cars. I passed tools to him like any smitten female does, but eventually I got bored and found something else to do. If Ross wasn’t working on his own Pinto, he helped his friend Greg with his Dodge Dart.

 The Dodge Dart. Why is it that anyone in High school in the mid 1980s has a friend or acquaintance or drove himself, a Dodge Dart? That was Greg’s fancy. Ross had the Pinto, and Greg had the Dart. They were great friends, and Ross loved to rib Greg about all the time and effort he put into that car. Like the Pinto was such a great car either? They had dreams, and were learning, and it kept them out of too much other trouble.

 *          *          *

 Suffering a severe case of senior-itis, I purposefully gave myself a light academic load. Math was a relaxed affair, social studies required some attention, AP English was supposed to be a tough course, but with the teacher mix-up, I ducked the writing assignments as much as possible. Art and Choir required little effort outside of rehearsals. I had no first period class and standing permission to be off campus for Teen Counseling, I spent my free time with Ross.

 One morning toward the end of the school year, I left for school late and instead of the short ride to park in the school lot, I drove around the corner and up to Jeynes’ house. Our parents were at work. Scott was at school. I parked my Pinto next to Ross’ in the driveway behind the house, walked in through the garage, up the basement steps to the breakfast nook, tiptoed around the hallway and up the stairs to the second floor. Turned right, and sneaked down the hall to Ross’ room. Ross was not quite awake, still in the blessed morning state halfway between, “Do I want to roll over and go back to sleep…or wake up and go take my shower?” Once in his room, I took off my shoes and socks and crawled into his bed. We curled around each other and both fell back asleep.

 We woke up later, enjoying a morning snuggle. We still weren’t motivated to do anything productive. We talked about how much time we were spending together, and how comfortable we were. I asked something about Wooster, and Ross dug around in some boxes and found the letters I sent to him. He kept them in a shoebox. He also had letters from other friends and previous girlfriends. I was thrilled and flattered that he had kept my letters. We re-read them. Sitting on his bed, the covers strewn around us, we started laughing. Oh, how we laughed.

 Ross described walking to his mailbox with his buddies. He checked his mailbox, sorted through the letters, and stuffed the one from me in his jacket pocket.

 “Hey Man, you got mail. Aren’t you going to read it?”

 “Nah, I’ll save it for later”

 “Oh, it’s a good one, eh? From a girlfriend or something?”

 “No, nothing like that. It’s just this girl who writes to me. It’s bizarre stuff.”

 “What do you mean?”

 “Alright, I’ll show you.”

 It was one of the coloring book pictures I colored and sent.

 “You get that stuff all the time?”

 “Yep.”

 “Weird. What do you do with it?”

 “I don’t know, man. I just don’t know. She just keeps sending it.”

 We laughed so hard that morning, looking through the mail I had sent him. Poor Ross, what I had put him through sending him mail. Yes, he was happy to get it, but what strange mail to receive.

 After we laughed, I lay in bed while Ross showered and dressed. By this time we were ravenous, and it was almost noon, so we left the house and drove to Burger King for brunch. He had to go to afternoon classes, and so did I. I was distracted the rest of the day, in anticipation of seeing Ross again. Afternoon classes, and choir rehearsal…my heart wasn’t in it.

 *          *          *

  I had an Eddie Bauer backpack to carry my textbooks and spiral notebooks. Book packs have been all the rage since the mid-70s at least, and in the 80s having the right label on yours meant everything. I begged my parents to pay too much for an Eddie Bauer bag, and I used it and used it and used it. The thing was, the seams were unraveled and I had a terrible time getting my books and notebooks into and out of the bag. I complained about it to Ross one afternoon. He looked at it, said, “Oh, I can fix that. I need a lighter.”

“What?”

 “It will be okay, I promise. Watch.”

 On the back porch of our house, he sat for an hour melting the seam allowances along the entire interior of the backpack. Tedious and dangerous, burned fingers are no fun. I have a healthy fear of an open flame, despite (or maybe because of) my experiences with teenage male pyrotechnics. I was terrified he would burn himself, but fascinated to watch him work. I used that backpack for another couple of years, took it to college, then summer camp and out to California. A strap finally broke. Mom mailed the pack back to the company, and they replaced it with a new one. When it arrived, I sat on the back porch and melted the seam allowances myself.

[zelma789984621-blog]

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[itsworn]

1934 Deluxe Roadster is Better Than Original

Solid.

Mike Griffith’s ’34 Deluxe Roadster is remarkable in many ways. Its condition is remarkable: Most of the sheetmetal is original and rust-free, and those few parts that have been replaced are gennie Henry Ford steel, not repop. The car’s top is remarkable in that it’s original. Time-worn, certainly—it’s more than 80 years old, after all—but not ragged or torn at all.

That Mike bought the car, sight unseen, after a five-minute phone conversation is remarkable. We’ll get to that in a bit.

Maybe most remarkable of all is the fact that the roadster passed through three different car collectors between 1964 (the farthest back Mike can trace, to date, anyway) and when he bought it a year ago, and none of those gentlemen did much, if anything, with it. They all prized it and had plans to restore it, but for various reasons left it sit, largely untouched, for decades.

Not preservation, exactly. More like benign neglect.

All that changed when Mike bought it. When we first saw the car a year ago (and showed you pictures in the Sept. ’16 Roddin’ @ Random department), Mike told us his plan was to get the car running by hopping up the original flathead but to leave as much as he could as-is. “It’s only original once,” he told us then.

For the most part that still holds true. But when he put his head together with his buddy Rocky Webb to get the car on the road, they realized there were myriad details that needed attention, restoration—and in some cases modification—to fulfill Mike’s desire to drive the roadster. So while the body, top, and some of the running gear are still as they were when they rolled out of the Ford plant, Rocky and Mike have unapologetically hot rodded the car. “We’re doing it as if it’s 1950 and we’re 19 years old,” Rocky explains.

Previous Lives

Mike has been buying, selling, and collecting hot rods and speed parts for years. He’s one of those people who seems to know everyone in the hobby, and through those connections finds remarkable (there’s that word again) examples of historic and significant coupes, roadsters, gassers, customs, you name it. His parts collection borders on mythic; at one time he had gathered on the order of 100 Deuce grille shells. Mike is often our go-to guy if we need a vintage part—or an interesting location—for a photo shoot.

As is often the case with his purchases, Mike did extensive homework on this roadster and was able to trace its history back to 1964. That’s the year it was purchased by a collector in Fallbrook, California, who intended to subject it to a full, back-to-factory restoration. That never happened, though. It sat in his garage until a cancer diagnosis in 2000 prompted him to sell. The buyer was a man named Chris Carrier. “He was a collector of famous cars, cherry cars,” Mike says. “He bought Barris cars, bought Neal East’s car.” But, says Mike, “he had cancer himself.”

Carrier took the car to Connecticut, and it was most likely he who installed the replacement fenders, hood sides, and gas tank cover—all real Ford steel. “That’s a trademark of Carrier,” says Mike about the provenance of the parts. “It had to be right.”

Carrier passed away before he could do much else with the roadster. “His significant other put his cars up for sale, and a man named Jim Lowrey from New Hampshire bought six or seven of them, including this one,” Mike recounts.

Lowrey replaced the roadster’s original flathead with a ’34 21-stud engine out of a pickup that belonged to his father. Beyond that he left the car alone.

About two years ago Mike ran into another collector buddy, Dave Simard, at a Southern California swap meet. The two got to talking, the subject of Chris Carrier came up, and Simard told Mike about the ’34 roadster. Simard said the car was available, though he wasn’t interested. “I have 60 cars,” Simard told Mike. I don’t need another one.”

Intrigued, Mike got in touch with Lowrey. Or tried to. For three months. “Either his phone’s not working, or he’s not answering, or something,” Mike recalls. Finally Mike got Lowrey on the phone, and within five minutes the deal was done. “He’s straight up and knows his stuff,” Mike explains. “If Simard is high on it, and if Chris owned it, I know it’s good. I didn’t even ask for photos. I saw it for the first time when it rolled out of the trailer.”

Road Worthy

Rocky Webb is a contractor and industrial steel fabricator whose passion is hot rods. “My dad was born in 1932, and he had these kinds of cars when he was young, so I enjoy working on them,” he explains as we walk around his own Model A-based roadster. Turning to Mike’s oh-so-original car, he says, “I’d never be able to own one of these, but because of Mike I get to work on one.”

Rocky’s contributions to the car are more than we can list here, but among the highlights: When the two men realized the engine in the ’34 would need more work than our photo shoot schedule would allow, Rocky loaned Mike a ’39 Merc 99A flathead he had in his garage, and then hopped the motor up with an immaculate McCulloch supercharger. Rocky swapped the car’s original mechanical brakes for hydraulic binders (and found a trick way to plumb them with modern hardline that looks like brass), mounted a reverse-eye spring pack on a stretched and filled front axle that came from Mike’s parts stash, reworked the linkage for a set of ’39 pedals, and even built a new seat frame from scratch.

“It’s a good combination,” Rocky explains, “Mike’s knowledge of old-school hot rodding techniques and my fabrication abilities.” Rocky also wanted to give credit to several people who helped him get the roadster ready in a short time, including Mike Herman and the crew at H&H Flatheads; upholsterer Victor Lozano; Bill and Mike McGrath at the Early Ford Store, who “were really accommodating and even opened their place on a Sunday to let us get parts”; and Rocky’s friend Ray Covarrubias, who “spent a lot of nights with me helping me get this car together and tight.”

Rocky took the roadster on its initial shakedown run just a couple days before our photo session, to make sure we’d have no issues shooting car-to-car action. There are a couple small things to fix, he admits, like getting the hood to close over the tall Stromberg on top of the blower, and finding a set of shocks. But overall, he’s pleased.

Mike’s maiden voyage didn’t take place until we were there, cameras in hand.

“It’s a runner,” he tells us with a big grin after Wes gets his action shots. “It handled great at speed. Went down the road smooth and straight. No wobble. It’s tight, nothing’s loose. It’s solid.”

For more than 50 years, this ’34 Deluxe Roadster languished in the garages of several collectors, essentially untouched. It took the efforts of owner Mike Griffith and his friend Rocky Webb to get it back on the road again.

The sheetmetal on Mike’s roadster has been on the car since it left the factory, save for the driver-side front and rear fenders, the gas tank cover, hood sides, and a small patch panel behind the driver’s door. “The original factory black paint is still on the body,” Mike says. “Our next step will be to slowly remove the thin coat of primer and polish out the original paint.”

Like the body, the roadster’s top is original, and in excellent shape considering the fabric is more than 80 years old. “In all the years I’ve owned hot rods, I’ve never owned one with an original top,” Mike says.

Rocky graciously loaned his ’39 Merc 99A flathead when the flattie in the roadster couldn’t be made worthy in time for our shoot. Starting with a bare block, Rocky had built the motor over the course of a year using “parts and good advice” from H&H Flatheads. Inside the motor are new pistons on the stock rods and crank (with N.O.S. Michigan bearings), an H&H blower cam, adjustable lifters, and small-block Chevy valves and keepers. The Red’s headers came from Mike’s parts stash.

The Merc is bigger than the Ford engine, so they had to really shoehorn it into the roadster’s engine bay. With the motor pushed right up against the firewall, Rocky had to fab a new oil filler tube. He even had to bend the fan blades for extra clearance.

Rocky bought the McCulloch supercharger from Mike Spacik at the L.A. Roadsters Father’s Day show swap meet. “It was the nicest, most complete McCulloch blower I’ve ever seen, so I bought it,” Rocky says. He figures it’ll push 4 to 5 psi “and should add 20 to 30 hp.”

The reverse-eye spring and stretched and filled front axle also came from Mike’s collection of hot rod parts. “It was probably dropped in the late ’40s or early ’50s,” he says. Bending the $2.50 eBay steering arm to accommodate the new axle “was a real thrash,” according to Rocky.

Mike and Rocky left the rearend alone, with the exception of adding ’48 Ford juice brakes. “It’s amazing that the rearend hasn’t been rebuilt, the transmission hasn’t been rebuilt, and they work so well,” Mike says. “We did drain the goo out of the rearend and replaced it, but that’s it.”

Those mufflers are so old they’re packed with steel, not fiberglass. They give the flathead a very mellow tone.

The car came with a seat cushion and some upholstery that looked like it could have been original, but that was it. No seat back. Rocky fabbed a seat-back frame in wood and metal, restored the wire springs in the cushion, and found some material at Victor Lozano’s upholstery shop that looked a lot like the original seat covers. “Victor did the seat in a moment’s notice,” Rocky says. He and Mike plan to use more of the same material to finish the rumble seat.

The steering wheel, column, shifter, and dashboard are all original. For now there are modern gauges in the panel to monitor the fresh flathead, but eventually Mike will put ’34 gauges in the holes. On the drawing board is an underdash panel, hooked to a piano spring, for temp, oil pressure, and amp gauges. “That way we can flip it down when driving and flip it up, out of sight, at shows,” Mike says.

The 16-inch Kelsey Hayes wheels also came from Mike’s parts collection. While the rear tires are Coker Firestone repops, the fronts are vintage Olympic Air Ride tires Mike got from fellow SoCal rodder Robert Lomas.

“A lot of people would mothball a car as nice as this,” Mike says. “But it’s meant to be driven.”

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