Camping, misery, epiphanies, August 2020

I went into the car-camping wilderness, endured over 24 hours of on-off downpours. We went through it all―leaking tents, failing rain gear and blow-up mattresses (for those who had them; I used a single foam mattress), soaked gear, crushed spirits, and misery. All of our modest plans, for hiking, walking to the beach and swimming, dissolved. 

But, thanks to my resilient party who re-rigged the tarp to give us cover during the deluge, we stuck it out, rewarded by a clearing sky on mid-Saturday evening and  a waxing moon with clouds scudding past, playing perk-a-boo, and glimpses of sharp constellations. 

There was beer, wine and whiskey and other drugs of choice around the fire, of course, including pre-rolls and drops, but we also shared coffee and food, potatoes; carrots, beans, beans, pork, spinach and all sorts of potato chips, two-bite brownies and even lemon cake. We also shared jokes and memories and grievances and passions to raise each other's spirits.

I went looking for epiphanies and found them, pinned them to the notebook page in the morning of Sunday, the only sunny, temperate day we had. The view of the three-quarter moon and the Sunday weather felt like recompense after our grim uniting experience. Some of us have camped together since 2002. I am exhausted but grateful. This was one for the books.

Five Healthy Coping Mechanisms during COVID-19

These healthy coping mechanisms helped me through early on in the pandemic, and I should be talking about them (consider them recommendations.)

Positive Lists
A regular list of positive things-daily, weekly-all things count, both banal and monumental, from cleaning the kitchen to checking something off my list to getting through a day to leaving the crossroads I reached in revising my second horror novel and the ensuing weeks of blocked agony. Did I pay a bill today? Clean the litter? Did I leave the house? Did I make someone laugh? I make someone's life better? Put it on the list, eh? My pandemic philosophy? Something is better than nothing.

The Physical Stuff
Stretching every morning, working out, doing push-ups and sit-ups every other morning, dancing spontaneously, walking around the neighbourhood when weather permitted. Daily walks became paramount to my daily routine, for so many reasons, particularly in long, quite stretches of time when the street was quiet at night and we huddled indoors too much during the day. Post-pandemic lockdown, I also adopted stretching before bed, and also sitting and meditating for a count of ten slow breathes, letting everything else in the wide world of the household shift and move and breathe around me.

Watching Movies, Shows and YouTube
From renting at my local, Movies 'N Stuff, but also borrowing so many treasures from the Ottawa Public Library, kanopy, as well as itunes, Netflix, DisneyPlus. I explored YouTube for virtual panels, ComicCon@Home 2020, TylerCon, the KGB Fantastic Fiction series out of Manhattan, run by Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel.

Podcasts
Primarily, I dig John Siuntres’ Word Balloon outta' Chicago, my go-to podcast for in-depth, sportscaster-style interviews with comics creators. I found Sasha Wood's Casually Comics on YouTube hilarious, irreverent, pithy and sexy.

And Additional New Podcasts
Theses include Bi History, the punchy and informative Bisexual Killjoy, the amped Comic Book Couples Counseling, particularly their Stampies episodes, with the years'-best lists and guest contributors, the What Went Wrong podcast about successful films that nearly went horribly awry, WTF with Marc Maron, What Magic Is This?, a thoroughly-researched podcast for all my Wiccan and Chaos Magic and Aleister Crowley and Alan Moore needs, The 250 to get very Irish takes on many different popular films, Missing Frames for all things Superman, and Fatman Beyond for my comic-book-film and geek-culture fix.

Books and Graphic Novels
Reading queer-themed books such as Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Sonya Taaffe's Forget the Sleepless Shores: Stories, Adam McOmber's Jesus and John; comics. Also, I discovered John Allison's wonderful and life-full Giant Days recommended by Amal El-Mohtar, Gail Simone's Clean Room, a vast conspiratorial number reminiscent of Grant Morrison's The Invisibles, if that's possible...; anything by Tom King (thanks, rob mclennan, for recommending!), but also modern great comic writers Chip Zdarsky, Greg Rucka, Mark Waid, Jerry Ordway, and Alex de Campi.

Books on Writing Desk

Pictured on my writing desk are:

- The Headless Man, Peter Dubé's new poetry collection from Anvil Press.
These Lethe Press titles:
- Sonya Taaffe's Forget the Sleepless Shores: Stories.
- Adam McOmber's novel Jesus and John (review copy).
- Daniel Braum's short-fic collection Underworld Dreams (review copy) and Braum's mummy-themed antho, Spirits Unwrapped.

Also - very excited to review:
- Jeffrey Round's new Dan Sharp mystery, Lion's Head Revisited, from Dundurn Press.
- Jonathan R. Eller's Bradbury Beyond Apollo, the third and final installment in Eller's rather brilliant Bradbury bio trilogy
(The two above titles are advance review PDFs, and not depicted. Know anyone who wants a review of either one?)