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Month: September 2022

I’m Going on an Adventure!

I, KD Sarge, seriously lucky duck, am going to Australia at the end of the week. Australia, then New Zealand. I’ll be gone for a whole month. Did I mention I am soooooo lucky? For reals. The plan was to go last October, but it wasn’t deemed safe enough yet by my traveling companions (those doing the planning!) I was afraid it might be that way, so I didn’t think about it. And then this year it was on, but another COVID wave could still cancel everything. Stuff could go wrong. I wasn’t the one planning, so I didn’t think about it. If it happened YAY!! If it didn’t–well, if I didn’t think about it, I would be a lot less disappointed if it didn’t happen, right? So here we are. I barely got my passport in time because I was working very hard at Not Thinking About It, but I did. I have it. I have all the other paperwork required. I’ve made my packing list, and done a practice pack to make sure I can take what I need within the weight and space limits. I have people set up to drop in on my kid. I have to-do lists written up, and rewards for doing the to-dos, and I am as sanguine as I can be about leaving her alone here for a month. Zoe: You sanguine about the kind of reception we’re apt to receive on an Alliance ship, Cap’n? Mal: Absolutely. [pauses] What’s “sanguine” mean?…

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A Queen and a Princess

It’s been a weird couple of weeks, friends. Between the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the release of the controversial new Little Mermaid trailer, the Internet has been busier than usual fighting with itself. It’s hard not to see parallels between (1) the rage against those pointing out that the British monarchy has done great harm to much of the non-European world (with a side note of “any guesses as to why the British press hate Meghan Markle so much?”) and (2) the rage against those who are excited to see a Black woman play the live-action Ariel. Let’s break those down. I’m a bit of a royal-watcher, I confess. I thought King Charles III seemed absolutely shattered, Princess Charlotte looked like an adorable Edwardian orphan in her flat black hat and coat, and it was bittersweet that Her Majesty passed away in the place where she loved to relax. The Queen did her duty to her country, for so many decades, unflaggingly and with flashes of humour that humanized and endeared her. She meant something to an awful lot of people, who have been grieving her loss as if she were their own grandmother or at least a dear family friend. I don’t wish to belittle those feelings. At the same time, she carried on an institution — the British monarchy — that has done immeasurable harm. The Queen is invoked and commemorated in various ways all over Canada, she is (was) the head of state, she appears…

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This is My Emotional Support Game

Hi, friends! I’m deep into the preparation for Hallowed Hill’s release on Oct 1, and so I’m also operating with more stress and anxiety than normal. Yay! Life is fun. I don’t know if you remember, but in the depths of lockdown (late 2020/early 2021) I was playing a lot of Among Us. I mean, a LOT of Among Us. I joined a Discord server specifically for that, where we played for hours a day, and I even did a few tournaments (and placed). At the end of March, Among Us released the long awaited Airship map, and–the whole thing fell apart. As lockdown restrictions lessened, everyone went back to work or school or wherever, and no one was available to play anymore. No one wanted to play anymore. We’d burned out. My server stayed together–we still hang out and chat–but we didn’t really play AU anymore, aside from every now and again, or the odd round of Vent Tag. Now, about a month ago, two of the mods on said server started organizing AU games again. Regularly. Turns out they’d accidentally found another server where people WERE still playing on a regular basis (and weren’t jerks–I had to leave one AU server because of that). Those of us that were interested got invited over, and now I’m playing AU again, on a regular-ish basis, eighteen months after I more or less stopped. It’s not the same game. Oh no. The bigger lobbies actually make lying way easier, because there’s…

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Lessons from The Tarot: Empress

So, if you’ve been hanging around here awhile, you know that I’ve been reading Tarot since I was sixteen (thirty years!) and Lenormand for the past two years. And while I originally, as a kid, used it “to tell my future” LOL, I now use it mostly for guidance. And writing, but that’s another post. Today I’d like to talk about the Empress card and the lessons it has taught me. First of all, the Empress is Key 3 (of 21) – Major Arcana (major life themes/karma/big things) and she represents creativity, abundance, nurturing, motherhood, a mother figure, home and hearth, and, in some contexts, pregnancy. (She’s actually HUGE for pregnancy if the question is about that). The interesting thing about the Empress is that she is my personal significator card. See, the Tarot selects a card for you when you start reading. And that card will show up in a lot of your readings. And the Empress is totally interesting as my card because, well, I’m not really maternal, and I’m not a mother (except to a cat), but I am creative and I am all about home and hearth and I can be very nurturing. So it’s kinda like an inside joke. Here’s me, the woman the least likely to pop out kids, and I’m the Empress. Ha, ha. But there’s another aspect to her. She’s also the Divine Feminine, counterpart to The Emperor, Key 4, the Divine Masculine. The Divine Feminine what, you say? Well…that’s all about…

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Introducing Hallowed Hill: Cover Reveal and Excerpt

Hallowed Hill, a YA gothic horror, is currently available for pre-order and will be released on Oct 1. Martie’s class was near the end of the row, with a spongy blue floor and a mirror across the entire front of the room. Eight other students were there, only one of whom she recognized from her own grade. And, of course, that one person was Sinclair. Martie took a deep breath. Sure, she’d gotten off on the wrong foot with Sinclair, but aggravating her was only going to make things harder. And things were already hard enough. If she wanted to survive where apparently others had failed—and she should really follow up on that—she needed allies, not enemies. “Hey,” she said, walking up to where Sinclair was stretching her arms over her head. “I wanted to apologize for the gas station thing earlier.” Sinclair was wearing a gi. It was black and had no ornamentation. Without replying to Martie, she bent over and touched the floor behind her feet. Oh well. Baby steps, she guessed. The instructor stood near the front of the room, watching everyone stretch. She was a small Asian woman, wearing the same gi as everyone else. She stared at Martie as she approached, then, without a word, beckoned for Martie to follow her to a closet off on the side of the room. She selected a uniform from several unlabeled piles and handed it to Martie, then indicated the locker room across the way. Okay. Maybe talking…

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