We are safe; regular updates coming again soon
I donāt know if any of you are keeping up with the news, but I wanted to give a general life-update because boy have things gotten hairy.
First, I had to work every single day in May to get my finances in order then I spent a week in upstate NY assisting with filming for Babysitter Massacre: Heavy Metal. I thought I would just have to work on makeup and SFX, but turns out I was also the only qualified crew member to operate the boom mic. So I got absolutely no time to work on the TM which is a little disappointing, but at least thanks to all the active work I got a great 7-day full-body workout! (Honestly I think my arms and shoulders are only just now recovering. Youād be surprised how heavy a boom mic feels after 8-10 hours of holding it, every day for almost a week.)
While I was in NY, on Saturday, there was a rally of the KKK in our city (only 9 cowards showed up) which was met with over 600 peaceful protestors from all walks of life. Christina did her part with the peaceful counter-protest, and met some amazing people. National news outlets are praising our city because despite tensions being high the counter-protest remained peaceful and loving and nothing bad happened.
I got home on Monday, literally just in time for the Tornado-pocolypse. Last I heard as of this morning, 17 tornadoes hit down across the Midwest, 12 hit our state, and 9 hit our city directly. Some of those 9 tornadoes were up to EF-3, which has absolutely leveled parts of our city. Honestly, driving through parts of Dayton it looks like a war zone; buildings are collapsed, roofs are gone, power lines destroyed, rubble and debris everywhere... itās a nightmare.
Weāve all been under a boil advisory since Monday night/Tuesday morning, and a lot of areas lost water entirely. Luckily the water plants are up and running again, but the EPA still hasnāt finished its survey so we donāt know when the boil advisory will be lifted. Many areas were without power until late last night, and some areas still donāt have power at all.
But, in true Dayton fashion, weāre all banding together. Local businesses have been donating food and water to people who have lost their homes to the tornadoes, pretty much everyone I know is donating food/water/time to local non-profits to help the effected areas, and some businesses have even been hosting free block parties and BBQās to unite everyone together and help everyone get back on their feet. Rideshare services are even offering free rides to those effected by the storms, and those who are volunteering in disaster-areas.
Because there are disaster-areas. There are places that will absolutely never recover. Housing complexes are gone and the residents displaced and homeless; businesses destroyed; even the Hara Arena is just gone. Which is wild, and she and I are still emotionally processing all this.
The good news is, Christina and I are safe and our homes were not effected by the tornadoes. Which, trust me - when you look at the maps of the swaths of destruction left by the tornadoes you can see how both of us were spared by as little as 1 or 2 miles. I drove home during the tornado warning, and missed getting sucked up into the largest tornado by probably only 15 minutes. That tornado literally followed my path home and then swerved south-east when it got about 2 miles from me. One smaller tornado looks like it skipped just a mile or so north of Christina like a tiny wind-god playing a destructive game of hopscotch.
I am without internet, and to be honest considering how bad this could have been Iām counting it as a minor annoyance.
So weāre counting our blessings and moving forward. Now that my work-schedule is clearing up a small amount Iāll get back on schedule with editing, and even trying to map out book 2. I also have plans to make some new TM-related art for a big fancy gallery show I have in May and August. I have a little non-sequitir short-story I wrote a couple weeks ago that has nothing to do with the TM but does take place in the same universe, so Iāll be uploading that this weekend (once I have internet back and donāt have to use up my phoneās data.)
Tl;dr: Dayton, OH suffered some big problems over the past week but Christina and I are safe. Weāre working to get back on track with our update schedule.