The Chronicles of Crosarth – A Steampunk Adventure

I love going on vacation and spending time with my family, but sometimes it’s just nice to be in my own home again.

Crysta and I spent the last week in the Northwoods with my family. And by “my family,” I mean there were ten of us in a cabin together. Besides my wife and I, there were my parents, my brother and his partner, my sister and her husband, and my sister’s two kids. And let me be clear, I had an amazing time the same way I always do. Between the St Germain Flea Market, playing softball on Lost Lake, going to the White Stag, spending time on the lake, and playing Connect Four with my brother, I loved every minute being with the people I love in my favorite place on Earth.

But I also just missed my own bed, my own chair, and just the privacy that kind of disappears when you, again, put ten people in one house.

Of course, the respite will be short. This weekend (Aug 2-3) Ethan Flanagan and I are tabling at Big Minneapolis Anime in the Twin Cities, and then the weekend after (Aug 9-10) I’m going to be at Anime 414 in Milwaukee. But, at least for now, I get to be home.

And it’s a nice place to be.

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So for those of you who aren’t on TikTok, you might not be aware that over the last few days a bunch of people have been obsessed with a particular situation. You see, a woman was invited to a party by a friend, and then the host was super rude to her and she left feeling bad about it. She made a video about how sad she felt, and then the host of the party came online to defend themselves. In that defense, they pretty much just established they were being dicks.

That’s it. That’s the situation. Obviously there are more details, but you’re not exactly missing any nuance. And, as I said before, people are obsessed with this. Videos have millions of views, people are making re-enactments, there is intense discussion… and it’s the lowest stakes thing possible. This isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened. For example, back in 2021 “Couch guy” took over certain corners of the app — where folks spent weeks speculating about some random college kids’ romantic lives. Time after time, that social media app turns random people into the centers of intense attention, only to be forgotten about in a few weeks.

This happens on other apps too, of course, but I feel like the algorithmic feed and video format of TikTok focuses this kind of thing far more intensely than any other platform can.

I find myself asking if any of this is healthy, or if it’s remotely good for anyone. People gang up and pile on. Bystanders have their lives invaded, and people speculate about things that are probably nobody’s business. I mean, a lot of people are putting a lot of time and effort into someone being a shitty party host right now. I don’t know if I have any larger point other than how strange this all is — that we’ve built this world the way we have.

But I guess that’s TikTok.

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This last weekend Crysta and I celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversary. Now, you may be saying to yourself “Hey Trae, didn’t you do something in May for your anniversary?” and yeah, yeah we did. But we also did more stuff because we felt like it.

Because sometimes you just want to do fun stuff.

Since the Stardust Drive In up in Chetek didn’t open this year (and we’re really hoping it comes back — but this is the usual death knell of a drive in), we haven’t been able to go to a drive in movie theater this year. We started going to drive ins for our second wedding anniversary way back in 2012, and it’s kind of a big thing for us. With Stardust a no-go, the closest drive in is the Big Sky in the Wisconsin Dells — but that’s a two hour drive, and not something we can easily go to and drive home in a night.

So we got a hotel room.

We actually got a room in Mauston (because it was only a 20 minute drive to the theater and way cheaper than a room in the Dells), and had a wonderful night out seeing the live action remake of How to Train Your Dragon. On Sunday morning, instead of driving straight home, we instead drove back to the Dells and met up with my brother David and his partner Mary for breakfast at Paul Bunyan’s. They suggested doing it a week ago when we saw each other on Father’s Day, and I was 100% on board immediately.

We used to go to the Paul Bunyan’s in Minocqua, but due to some family stuff with the owners and the pandemic, that location never re-opened after it was shut down in 2020. We had a wonderful time hanging out for a bit, and it’s just a fun, kitschy place to spend some time.

Honestly I feel so lucky to have spent these last fifteen years married to Crysta, and I look forward to the rest of our journey. We’re both so different than who we were when we first got married, but we’ve changed and grown together. I look forward to finding out who we become in another fifteen years.

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