Dear Aunt Ruth,
Thank you so much for the $20 check you sent me for my
birthday. A little extra money will always be helpful to me. My kitty girl
Piper had to go to the vet and the bill took a lot out of me. But she’s very
much worth every penny. I love petting her and listening to her purr while she
rubs her head against me. I hope to keep her for a long, long time even though
she’s in her elder years now. She’s my little grandma kitty!
In a year full of creative burnout and generally low
productivity, I did manage to find some silver linings in the first half of
2023. One of them was a rock concert in Seattle put on by Nothing More with
Crown the Empire and Thousand Below opening for them. I had no idea who the
openers were prior to going, but they delivered when it came to putting on a
damn good show. I hope to own their entire discographies someday. Nothing More
(yes, that is their band name) brought out the big guns with their energetic
performances and emotional brand of rock and roll. They even have a machine
made out of auto parts called the Scorpion Tail, which is used to create
electronic sounds and basically give the lead singer something to go crazy on.
This was my third time seeing Nothing More, with the previous two times being
when they opened for Papa Roach in 2018 and opened for Ghost in 2019. Now that
they had the stage all to themselves, they proved why they deserved to be
headliners for many years to come. The fact that Nothing More has so little
exposure just makes them criminally underrated. Anyone who likes heavy rock and
roll should give them a listen. They won’t regret it.
But of course, not all of my silver linings can be about
going out in public and mingling with strangers. Sometimes my introversion
takes over and I need a good book to read. One of those good books was a
collection of poetry and photography by Rachel Oates called “Reflections on
Healing”. If you don’t know who she is, she’s a British Youtuber who make video
essays about feminism, left-wing politics, atheism, and sometimes book reviews.
She also occasionally shows off pictures of her Staffy dog Kyra, who has these saggy
jowls and a permanently happy face. As good as Rachel’s poetry is in her book, the
subject matter was incredibly heavy as it dealt with topics like psychological
trauma, domestic violence, and growing up poor to name a few. But even with
these difficult parts of her past, Rachel Oates has grown up to be a loving and
kind human being, forever breaking the cycle of all the evil things that have
happened to her. We celebrate cycle-breakers in this family, so her book gets
five stars out of five, no question about it. Because the book contains poetry and
it’s less than a hundred pages long, the reading experience goes by quickly,
but the emotional connection stays with you forever.
Another book I read over the summer was a graphic novel
called “Ghostbusters: Spectral Shenanigans, Vol. 1”. If you’ve ever watched a
Ghostbusters movie before, then you know what you’re going to get out of this
book: smart-ass characters, paranormal goodness, and a nice combination of
comedy and drama. What fascinates me a lot about the Ghostbusters franchise as
a whole is the names of the lead characters: Peter Venkmann, Ray Stantz, Egon Spengler,
and Winston Zeddemore. I don’t know how the creators of the franchise came up with
these names, but the style is definitely something you associate with Ghostbusters.
Same thing when the 2016 all-female movie came out and had characters named Erin
Gilbert, Abby Yates, Jillian Holtzmann, and Patty Tolan. Yep, those sound like
Ghostbuster names to me. As an author myself, character names are interesting
to me. I sure as hell won’t have any of my fictional characters be named John
Smith or Jack Anderson. Boring! Anyways, before I get lost in my tangent, the
graphic novel gets an easy five stars out of five. It was good, simple fun that
didn’t appear to have any major flaws that I’m aware of. Sometimes that’s all a
book has to be: good, simple fun.
The progress on my own writing has been slow due to constant
burnout, but then again, resting up is just as important as the work itself.
That’s something I have to constantly remind myself every time I feel like beating
myself up. I’ve often referred to the 2020’s as the Golden Age of Tiredness,
because everybody’s feeling exhausted due to one thing or another. We’ll get
through this together. We’ll have up days and down days, but the exhaustion isn’t
permanent no matter how many times it feels that way. I’ll have my day of
victory, even if it’s not today or tomorrow. That $20 check will go a long way
in making sure that happens. Thank you, Aunt Ruth. Thank you so much!
Love,
Garrison
