The Call

It was a quiet night.

A quiet night on a quiet weekend.  Perhaps the silence is what allowed me to hear the ghostly call.  It started softly, the sort of noise that you dismiss for your imagination a second after you hear it.

Michael...

I paused, but I didn't hear anything else.  Must have been the wind.  I went back to my reading, giving the stray sound nary a passing thought.  Then it happened again.

Michael...

I glanced over the edge of the sofa, but saw nothing.  This time I waited a moment longer, though, intrigued by this second occurrence.  It had occurred, hadn't it?  I'd had a few beers that night well I was gaming with my friends earlier.  Perhaps it had been a few more than I realized.  I blinked, listened some more, then went back to reading.

Michael...

This time I leapt to my feet.  That sound had been anything but illusory.  I looked around, eyes riveted to the shadows, hands groping for something that might be used as a weapon.  Whatever dark specter waited for me wouldn't take me without a fight

"Who's there?" I asked, looking around at the empty room.

Michael... the ghostly voice moaned again.  We are so lonely... so cold... where are you, Michael?

I had now moved from the mildly-freaked-out stage to the knee knocking, hands shaking, heart pounding terror stage.  "I don't know what you're talking about!  Leave me alone!"

You've abandoned us, Michael.  Now we have come for you.

This time the voice was directly behind me.  I leapt, spun around, and let out a manly battle cry that could have easily been mistaken for a girly scream, but was anything but.  There, before me on my kitchen table, rested...

My dice bag.

That was the last thing I remember before I blacked out.  I woke up an indeterminate amount of time later, on my back.  My dice bag was back in its usual spot on my bookshelf.  Everything else was in order.  But there was one thing I knew.  One certain, undeniable thing.  The dice had made it clear.

I needed to game.

I had let them sit idle for too long.  There was only one thing to do.  I snatched up my pen and notepad and began furiously scribbling, planning for sessions to come.  The nights of gaming must rise again.  Maptool must be called forth.  Battles must be fought.  Adventures must be had.  It is the only way to appease the dice.

I just pray that I am not too late.

A Backlit Canopy With Holes Punched In It

Simply beauty.

I had the opportunity to go camping this past weekend with some most excellent friends of mine.  The nights were frigid, what with it being mid October and all, and it rained half the time, but on the nights that it was clear, the sky was downright breathtaking.

We were in the northeast part of Minnesota, far from any cities of note or other forms of light pollution, which made for ideal viewing conditions.  Both due to my lifestyle and due to where I live, I rarely get out to see the stars and really apprecaite them, but as I looked up these past few nights, it left me stunned.

The sky was the darkest black, deep and endless.  When I turn my eyes to it, it's was almost an auditory sensation, as though the darkness had fallen onto the dome of the sky and enveloped it with a deep _whuff_. The stars were bright and pure, tiny pinpricks of light that melded together into a glorious sea of light.  The Milky Way glowed faintly in the background, a soft haze that lent the night a calm, quiet mood.

Looking up into that sky filled me with serenity.  When life is tragic or hard or filled with sorrow, the sky is a constant beauty, an unchanging reminder of God's power and presence.

In it, and in Him, I find peace.

Build

With my own hands.

I've always loved building things.  When I was little, my favorite toys were Legos and Knex and that sort of thing.  We had a sandbox in which I spent many an afternoon sculpting (and subsequently destroying) palaces, castles, or whole cities.  My best friend and I spent dozens of hammers and legions of nails building all manner of forts, half forts, semblances of forts in the woods behind his house.  I grew up and got a degree in engineering, but then decided that I wanted to spend my life building whole worlds instead, so in my spare time I work towards becoming an author instead.

Long story short, I tend to build things.

For just this reason, I'm somewhat of a tool junkie.  For the pasts several Christmases, my wishlist has usually included some manner of tool.  Drills, bits, pliers, screwdrivers, hammers, you name it, I've asked for it.  Built myself up a pretty respectable toolbox, and hopefully one day, I'll be able to move my tools and have a fairly respectable workshop.  The bigger the better, in my humble opinion.  Like, if I can ever get my hands on a lathe, I'm totally going to.

Because these days, there's something I find deeply calming about building things.  In the past, (and recently) when I'm at a low point in my life, I've often found a project to work on, something that I can design and build with my own hands.  I don't know why, but it helps me work through whatever I'm dealing with.  Maybe it's that, when I can't control some parts of my life and they are falling apart and not working , I can turn to something that I control, something that I'm good at, something that I can accomplish simply through my own sweat and ingenuity.  The specific project doesn't really matter, but taking a bunch of raw materials and making something useful or fun or beautiful out of them is deeply satisfying to me.

Makes me long for the days when I can have my own workshop.  You'll be able to tell when I finally do, because the next day, the local tool shop will be sold out.  Of everything.

Truth

I'm tired.

Not the kind of tired where you haven't gotten enough sleep.  Well, that too, in honest.  But I'm talking about being emotionally tired.  The kind of tired that drains your strength and saps your soul and leaves you feeling empty and hollow.

I've had a long weekend. 

So I'm sitting here on Sunday night, trying to come up with something clever and entertaining and I'm just not getting anything.  That usually means that I'd write something dark and dreary instead, but I can't even come up with that.  I trying to sift for ideas, but they just drain through my hands.  None of them are worth hammering into something coherent.  Maybe because there's nothing left worth saying.

So instead of saying something, I'll instead offer up the words that other men and women have penned, words that have served me well.

"Everyone is down on pain, because the forget something important about it: pain is for the living.  Only the dead don't feel it.  Pain is a part of life.  Sometimes it's a big part, and sometimes it isn't, but either way, it's part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game.  Pain does two things: it teaches you, tells you that you're alive.  Then it passes away and leaves you changed.  It leaves you wiser, sometimes.  Sometimes it leaves you stronger.  Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve in in one degree or another."

-Harry Dresden, White Night

"You go on. You just go on. There's nothing more to it, and there's no trick to make it easier. You just go on."

-Harra, Memory

These words are not exactly a comfort to me, at least not in the sort of way where you feel warm and fuzzy and happy on the inside.  I don't have much use for that kind of comfort, cause in my experience, it's not often real.  

They do remind me of the truth, though, and the truth, while not always a comfort, is real.  You either find the strength to stand before it, or you're crushed beneath it. 

And I would rather bare my teeth and take my chances with the truth.

The Storm

This moment is graven into my mind.

The wind was blowing;
it usually does.
Your cheeks were red,
seared by the chill air.
Your eyes, blue,
as though the spring sky had surrendered its color to your gaze to make way for the roiling clouds.
Your hair, golden,
a wavy halo swirling with an untamed ferocity whose appeal you will never understand,
dancing unchecked with the outriders.

You were a Norse legend, a shieldmaiden of old,
fair and beautiful, a harbinger of the storm to come.

And the storm did come.

Rains crashed down, lashing my unprotected body,
thunder shook the ground beneath my feet,
as the lightning ripped the sky asunder.

And in the midst of the whirling downpour,
I gloried in it,
because the storm is life.

The gray overcast, the empty fog,
that drains until there is nothing left,
so softly that you hardly notice,
and leaves you bloodless and cold,
that is my fear.

But the storm rages on,
a churning mass of pain and hardship and heartbreak,
and though it may shatter me on the rocks,
blood courses through my veins, hot despite the icy rain,
and the storm is nothing to be feared.


For some, the sun shines and the sky smiles,
but I've always chased the lightning.

On the Odd Proportions of the Awkward Engineer

Revelation has been given to me.

So I'm a working man now.  A real, bona fide engineer who does all kinds of captain-y things.  Okay, actually I just sit around and bug the people who actually know what's going on and are good at stuff.  Whatever.

Anywho, as an engineer, I'm around a lot of other engineers.  And among those other engineers are a number of awkward engineers.  These men seem to exude awkward energy from there very pores, projecting it out onto those around them so that as you walk by, you feel the slight a slight cringe run down your spine.  The awkward force is strong with these ones.

Now I was wondering to myself one day, "What makes an awkward engineer so different from the rest of us?  Why are there some guys who seem totally chill and relaxed and others who leave you shaking with the sheer power of their oddity?"  For a while, it was a mystery that I could not solve.

Until one day, I was walking down the hall and it hit me.  It's all a matter of proportions.  Allow me to illustrate.  In our first example, I present to you a normally proportioned engineer.

Well, he's poorly drawn, so maybe he's not perfectly proportioned, but he'll serve our purposes.  Alright, now we're going to perform some science on this guy to make him awkward.  Step one: the waistline.

Woah!  Did it suddenly get more awkward in here?  This guys seems to think so.  But wait, we can do more!

Oh yeah!  Look at those shoulders!  That hunched posture is practically screaming awkward!  It's as though he shambles through the abandoned cubicles day after day, preying upon the social graces of those unfortunate enough to stumble into his dark domain.  Let's just add the finishing touches now...

He is complete!  Look upon his wretched form!  Bask in the radiance of his awkwardness!  We walk in the garden of his turbulence!  Yaaaaaaa!

As some of you may have noticed, the key to the awkward engineer's awkwardness is a matter of proportions.  To increase the awkwardness, you must simply push some of the normal dividing lines of the human form UP.  Waistline, shoulders, hairline, and the bottom of the pants legs.  Move every one of those up about 4 inches and BAM!  Instant awkwardness.

And now you know.

Righteous Right Hand

Beautiful.

A friend and I were talking earlier and we got onto the topic of favorite Bible verses.  The one she told me about totally blew me away with how awesome it was.  It's Isaiah 41:10 and it goes a little something like this...

"So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

I was just struck by the incredible imagery of that verse.  The thought that, when we are weak and lacking for strength, God is there, holding us in His righteous hand is one that I find both powerful and comforting.  Definitely something to keep in mind when my own strength runs out.