I need to write a lit­tle love let­ter, here.

Natalie Metzger’s birth­day is today. I have no idea how old she is, I have not asked. She is prob­a­bly older than she looks, or else her hus­band needs to be put in jail.

Over at The Secret Lair, we have started a tra­di­tion of doing spe­cial things for the staff mem­bers’  birth­days. Natalie started it with an art piece for me, and we con­tin­ued it with a piece and story about our friend John Cmar. When it came to her birth­day, hon­estly tried to put some­thing fic­tional together for her, some cute story, some silly anecdote.

I failed.

I failed becase Natalie is cooler than fic­tion. I can­not improve on that. She prob­a­bly thinks that the art and comics she does for the Lair is why I love her so, and she would be wrong.

Natalie is part of what keeps me going. I have a small core of peo­ple that inpire me to action. Natalie was the first of those peo­ple. She’s encour­aged me and, Thor help her, has agreed to more of my half-baked schemes than I care to think about. With­out her, I’m con­viced The Lair would have ended a long time ago.

Natalie’s a won­der, and you all should know it.

Now you do.

Happy birth­day, Natalie. Many happy returns.

Christo­pher T. Miller

Christo­pher T. Miller is a soft­ware devel­oper by trade and a writer by neces­sity. He is one of the co-founders of Podiobooks.com and is the Over­lord of The Secret Lair. He has not yet been eaten by a grue.