Personal Posts

Wired has an interesting article that spotlights a few employees of comics shops.

I put in a few years working a dream job in a comics shop. From 1996 to 1999, I worked at several of the now defunct Shinders stores. I even rose through the ranks to earn the title of Assistant Manager at the Maplewood store.

I’d been going to Shinders since I was a kid. A trip to Shinders was a big deal for a kid who grew up in a tiny town about 50 or 60 miles from the Twin Cities, and who’s only local access to comics was the squeaky spinner rack in the local drug store. I dreamed of being able to spend hours in that store rather than the 15 minutes my parents allowed me whenever we made that rare trip to Ridgedale.

I clearly remember the feeling of elation as I walked out of the Roseville Shinders store having just shaken the hand of Ron the manager and accepted a full-time job. It was quite literally a dream come true. I didn’t even blink as I turned down what would, in hindsight, have been a much more practical and beneficial entry-level position as copywriter with some company that called me the next day. I know I should feel regret for that decision, but I really don’t.

I started just running the register, restocking the coolers with soda, and refilling the candy displays. But eventually, I took over as the games guy which came with the great responsibility of buying cards and books from the public. It was kind of a thrill haggling and swindling kids out of their precious collections (not really, I wasn’t evil), but I hardly played any collectible card games.

I had a ton of fun with the crew in Roseville. Scherber, Wayne the lifer, Thomas the bass player, Justin the goofball, and Ron the manager. Easily the best group of people, the best team I’ve ever worked with. Everyone had their area of specialty, was responsible, and enjoyed their job.

At my peak, I was the comics, games, and, much to the entertainment of my friends, ‘adult material’ manager**. And while I do not, DO NOT, miss managing the porn section, I do miss the excitement that Wednesday brought as tote after tote of new comics showed up.

** *Despite the distasteful nature of the material, the porn was the most profitable sector in the store, with profit margins of up to 80% on much of the movies and magazines, so I was trusted with some pretty big, bouncy responsibilities.

And while I gained a number of funny yet disgusting stories, a part of me died during that year.*

Links

Secret Lives of Comic Store Employees – Wired

via – BoingBoing

Shinders closes remaining stores – MPR.org

As I write this, I’m still in the grip of the Grippe. It’s gotten after me in a crazy way. My lungs and voice have been the primary targets in this attack, but my sinuses were hit hard as well.

Most of the last 7 days, my blood and other bodily fluids have been tainted with foul-tasting lozenges, fizzing cold remedies, and other modestly effective tinctures. It is a pitiful existence to be certain. But I keep on, following a dim, ghostly hope that one day I will again draw a breath that doesn’t rattle and hitch in my chest, that my larynx and esophagus will be free of the unseen abrasive that rubs them raw.

Thankfully, my mom was scheduled for an extended stay with us, and she was up to the task of wrangling the small children for a couple of days while I weathered the worst of this vile pestilence in a prone position. I prayed for the solace of sleep, but it would not come. However, Saint Netflix On-Demand saved me from days of staring at the ceiling in utter misery.

The Grippe lingers, but I have summoned the strength to post my missives not chiefly to provide some modest entertainment for you, my readers, but more to prove to this rot, whose black and glistening tendrils still coil tightly around my insides, that I am not yet defeated.

My favorite hobby and source of entertainment is role-playing games. D&D, Vampire, Mage, and the like. It’s been years and years since I picked up a polyhedron, but the stars have aligned, a new group has gathered, and (most importantly) I’ve been given permission to leave the house to play! I get to game again!

This past week, I pulled down my trusty gaming binder, a 17-year old black binder that holds the mummified remains of characters. And in these creased and yellowing pages, I see nearly a dozen fractured reflections of me from years and years ago. Whenever I page through this binder, it’s always astounding how vivid the memories are that come flooding back.

It’s like hearing a song and remembering where you were and who you were with and these memories are like that…but they’re also memories of strange worlds, epic adventures and fantastic characters:

Late nights and pizza in the swivel-chair room in the UMM Social Science building / wielding a holy sword and enduring the maddening taunts of a ghost.

Sitting on the floor in the candlelight of Travis’s off-campus apartment / crashing a plane as one half (the insane half) of a vampiric Lewis and Martin routine.

Playing in that big old house in Minneapolis where Martin lived / tolerating human mages and pulling political strings from the sewers as Nixon the Nosferatu.

I also lifted my venerable, worn dice bag from where it squatted on my shelf. A hand-me-down from Martin, this fringed leather pouch has traveled many miles with me since college. The talismanic dice contained therein were never overly kind to me, but I think may have been a blessing in disguise.

The only time they performed exceedingly well was in rolling up a nearly perfect character, Bwiste, a character who’s ability scores should have brought limitless might and power…but who ultimately was killed in his first session. I gave Bwiste to a friend in need of a fast character, but the curse remained; Bwiste again died in his first night of adventure.

These dice told and rolled the fortunes of my many characters who, while they slumber pressed between the covers of my binder, are still very precious to me. Among my favorites are:

Rolly the warrior who suffered hernias and died nobly but alone (and unaided) by the claws of a wild beast. (DECEASED)

Baron Don the Paladin, holy warrior with a loose-ish interpretation of “Lawful Good”, hater of ghosts, and friend of Untz the barbarian.

Nedved the martial artist; hemophiliac, master of the (much maligned) hummingbird style. (DECEASED)

Nixon the Nosferatu, master of the sewers, reluctant ally of mages, and unlikely political power. (UNDECEASED)

Teeth the Life Mage, pusher of reality’s limits, pusher of gamemaster’s limits, first of two characters ejected from a game.

Burser the Malkavian, crasher of planes, annoyer of many (but mostly Rael), and t-shirt slogan writer; still carries a torch for Sammi the Samedi. (UNDECEASED)

Darkson the Bard, master spinner of swords, tales, and lies, friend of Soth, 2nd character to be ejected from a game (but did return some years later due to my vigorous lobbying).

I miss them all, and the sad fact is that I’ll probably never play any of them again. Thanks to GMs Travis and Martin, and all the folks in the various groups I’ve played with over the years who helped me tell great stories with these characters.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been struck by one of the more irritating of writers’ afflictions.

There’s a phenomenon that occurs when one is given too much freedom. It’s the paralysis that you feel when looking at an empty, fresh page in a notebook. It’s the blank you draw when you’re asked to create something, anything, without any guidelines or restrictions.

This isn’t my problem.

I know how to handle the paralysis. I’ve created a number of different categories on this blog that represent areas of interest, and I try to write one post a week that falls into one of these categories.

I collect inspirational materials and ideas sporadically throughout the week, dumping them into appropriately named buckets. And on Fridays I look in the buckets and pick something that might be interesting to write about. As you can see, I have a number of things going in every bucket but one: Personal.

But that’s mainly because I’m trying to take the Personal section in a new direction, one that’s less about me complaining about how tired and/or sick I was this past week (or how much poop I cleaned up), and one that might be more interesting. I just haven’t figured out exactly what that direction might be.

And while this post might still skew somewhat toward the complainy, this is not the problem I’m writing about.

I don’t have writer’s block, an affliction that’s typically considered to be an absence of things to write about Which I think is a misnomer. If it’s a lack of ideas, then it should be called something like writers’ drought or something like that.

I’ve had writers’ drought. It’s horrible. This isn’t that.

What I have, at the risk of again straying near the scatological, could be classified as writer’s constipation. I do have things to write about, quite a bit actually, but I just can’t seem to get it past my internal editor and onto the page.

Last week you may have noticed a marked absence of posts on Wednesday and Thursday. Last week was maddening. I had ideas, outlines, mindmaps, summaries…all the ingredients for a post, but I just couldn’t get it out and onto the page. The words seemed cheap, poorly chosen. I found myself editing sentences before they were even fully typed out! This makes writing a 500 or 1000 word post take FOREVER. And all you end up with is a patchy, unsatisfying mess.

What occurs to me is that this may have been brought on by the loss of my go-to punching bag of 4 months, a certain appliance dealership. Great for the storage of food, but not so good for loosening up the writerly muscles.

So how do I get past this? he asked, resisting juvenile puns.

At this point, I have no answer. I think the best course of action is to just resign myself to having to struggle for awhile. I had a pretty good run of several weeks where things seemed to flow for me. It was bound to bind up some time.

Perhaps I just need to start writing drunk. I hear that works for lots of people. Are there downsides? None that I can see. I wonder if I could smuggle a bottle into the coffee shop…

Caution: Whiny post ahead

This was a tough week at our house. One of those that make you question why you’re doing the things that you’re doing. I guess it’s time for a big-picture perspective on things

Obligations

Erin had a couple of afterhours work functions that weren’t mandatory but still important. She wanted to go, but she didn’t want to go to because it meant that she would be getting home well after the kids were in bed. It’s difficult for her to do that. Plus…it’s work. Work should end @ 5pm and be done. Not drag on into the night. At least not her work.

Oh, and she also had the added benefit of coming home to a sick husband.

Early Tuesday morning, I got hit with the younger cousin of the Thanksgiving Day GI disaster. It was less horrible, but it was still pretty bad. And it was only made worse by the fact that Erin was going to be gone until 9pm that night. meaning that I was putting in a full 12-hour solo shift with kids on 4 hours of sleep while feeling like someone punched me in the gut, and having to make frequent dashes to the bathroom. I had no choice but to adapt and perservere, because, despite all the feedback from my body to just lie down and sleep, I was forced to continue my duties and defend the children from the dangers of the home and vice-versa. I haven’t had many days like this, this one was by far the worst, and I expect that there will be many more like it in the future.

Adaptations

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how well the two of us parents, who really don’t want more than just want a quiet weekend at home watching TV in our flannah buhjammas, have adapted to a life of constant demands on our attention, little sleep, and incredibly little down time.

That’s not to say that it’s been perfect, oh ho, no. But I thought it would be rougher than it has been. More fights, more thrown dishes, more nights spent on the couch (her, not me). I think we’re doing pretty good, considering. I think we are, anyway.

Rewards?

I guess I should acknowledge that health (big picture health, not the sneezing, pooping, or barfing, small-scale health), a functioning refrigerator containing good food, and a roof over our heads is reward enough, right? Yeah, okay.

But secretly, I’m hoping that the promises that parents of children of close ages have made, that the first year is hell but the rest are great, come true. That would be very nice. Long-term, being rewarded with good kids and a nice life would just about do it for us.

It’s hard to keep that long view in perspective. The poop-laden, screechy here-and-now is sometimes a bit too much to take.