I bet you were wondering whether, early this Saturday morning, Maria and I were going to fly out to San Francisco and visit Leonard and Sumana and Kris.
Well, GUESS WHAT!
Update 10.08.2004 0022 hrs: Possibly I am lying about Kris.
Category: Maria Barnes
That accursed picture
First Leonard called me out on it, then Maria called me out on it, then Leonard sent me a text-only debunking, then tonight Jon of all people sent me the definitive Snopes proof. Yes, I would have noticed the weird TV shadow and the odd intersection of the panel and the teletype if I’d been looking for it, but I wasn’t, OKAY? OKAY! I TAKE IT BACK! I’M SORRY! I QUIT!
I don’t actually quit.
Here’s some things.
Thing One I never write about my life in here anymore, because I’m increasingly disconnected from school (a drive-through with occasional stressfalls) and work (a drive-through). Of the interesting things I do in my free time, everybody who’s interested in them is, well, already there (see Blognomic, Anacrusis and Tuesday now Thursday Night Basketball).
Thing Two But there is something I need to write about my life, which is that last Tuesday, Maria and I accompanied her mother on a trip to Sam’s Club. While hungry.
Never do this.
You can pretty much guess the results. We got all American on that place, and will never be able to eat everything we bought before it spoils. Anybody need, oh, an acre of croissants or two stone of grated parmesan? Come on over! We ran out of cabinet room!
Thing C I can’t figure out if I like Buttercup Festival or not, but it’s hard to resist a Sharpie-drawn strip that features Space Björk and mouth harp-loving frogs.
Thing F I have succumbed to clickolinko.
Thing Last Ergo, PUPPY!
I live with a GIRL
Our apartment building has a two-stage entry system: you have to buzz yourself in at the lobby, or call from the special phone there and have someone else buzz you in, and then all the individual apartment doors lock automatically as well. This is relevant because I went running, today, and forgot the key and buzzer I usually lace into my shoes.
I got back and tried to call up via the lobby phone, which redirects to my cell phone; as I’ve mentioned before, however, my phone is always (always) on silent, so Maria was unaware and couldn’t buzz me in.
I went downstairs and tried the parking garage door, which also requires buzzing but had been propped open when I left. It was closed now, though. I tried the auxiliary back gate, which frequently sticks open, but not today (you may have picked up on the fact that our apartment building is not terribly secure).
Then I noticed that, about a dozen yards away, the car-sized automatic parking garage door was still open. It was about four feet off the ground and closing rapidly.
I sprinted, dove, and rolled under the door with just inches to spare. I didn’t even trip the electric safety eye. It was that close.
I related this story to Maria. “You were rolling around on the floor of the garage?” she said. “Eeww.”
Yesterday I received two things in the mail for which I’ve been waiting all summer: my first student loan residual check, so I can pay my roommate for back rent, and my new credit card. My new credit card is interest-free until May, and its credit limit is three times as high as my previous credit card.
You know what that means? After nearly six years of life with my beloved, battered P2-450, it is time. I’m going to buy a new computer. It’s going to have two monitors. It’s going to dual-boot XP and some distro of Linux (any recommendations, by the way?). It’s going to have some insane beastly muscle under the hood. And I’ve finally decided–I’m going to build the whole thing from the ground up, or processor out, or whatever. I am going to purchase thermal grease.
I’m going to Minnesota with Maria and her brother Michael! I’ll be back Monday! That’s four capital Ms in a row!
Actually I’ll be back Sunday, but I think you saw what I was trying to do there. Anacrusis will hopefully be updated as usual.
New friends and old friends
I have had occasion in four separate instances, lately, to play with a new baby puppy. It’s a girl puppy, a Yorkie, who has recently taken up residence at Maria’s family’s house to keep her mom company. Her name is Sadie. She is very small and not at all yappy. We are napping buddies. How it works is this: I pick her up and put her in my lap, and then we both fall asleep almost instantly. This is basically the best of all possible worlds.
In the midst of the most recent puppy-time but one, I got an unexpected phone call from Jon, which at first I believed to be the unintelligible noise of somebody who has accidentally called you by not putting on his key lock. After a moment, though, I perceived it as actually a live bootleg from the BNL concert he and Amanda were attending at that very moment. It was the sound of our collective favorite band playing “Lilac Girl,” which they never play because nobody but us three and Canada knows it–it was on their first release, The Yellow Tape, and nothing else. So it’s a rarity and a great song, and I was really gratified that Mr. and Mrs. Brasfield thought to call and share it with me.
- Gave away what, 60 copies of HONOR? Something like that. Two of them I traded for other ashcans (Yeperynye and The Last Sane Cowgirl), which I totally count as sales. And every copy given away was to somebody whose work I (or Will or Stephen) really respect, which is a worthwhile transaction, in my opinion.
- Left my hat at Preview Night. Never got it back.
- Got to meet a lot of cool people from the online.
- Cool people I met from the online all had a curious need to run off to important, distant engagements within seconds of meeting me. Either I smell bad or I’m Creepy Interweb Fan, or (probably) both.
- Had a really good time with Monica, Will, Stephen and Maria. And Stephen’s lady Erin, at whose residence we crashed, is maybe the coolest person on the whole planet.
- Ran out of plane-ticket money and was unable to visit Leonard and Sumana. That was a pretty stupid mistake, and I feel really bad about it. Hopefully, a post-student-loan trip is in the works.
- Tycho and Gabe were the coolest, most professional people at the whole freaking Con.
- Speaking of Tycho and Gabe, I had one of the world’s most random encounters: passing by their booth, I recognized Paul Mattingly, a great guy who was in Richmond Children’s Theatre with me a billion years ago and who now works as a Klingon and Second City understudy (!) in Vegas. I literally hadn’t seen him in over a decade. He even has a site, The Famous Paul, though I understand that’s mostly a placeholder for the moment.
- Getting to California by train was interesting, right enough, and I’m glad we tried it. but the people who work for Amtrak seem unhappy and unhelpful and it’s very bumpy. I think I’ll pretty much be flying from here on out.
- I thought about taking a whole bunch of stuff to get signed, but eventually decided against it. I had a better idea. Thanks to the unlined pocket Moleskine my family got me for my birthday, I now possess what can only be referred to as
The Greatest SKETCHBOOK
Ever In The History Of Time
which basically means I win.
I managed to take a whole roll of film, which is good, considering I frequently manage to wish I had a camera while holding one. Probably more updates after I get that developed, but considering I still haven’t posted the pics from my San Francisco trip in February, one shouldn’t hold one’s breath.
I highly recommend the Brother HL-1435
There exist exactly 100 copies of HONOR, the first comic book anthology from The Fake Middle Names Collective. They are in a box. I helped make a comic book! Life goal #22 gets a BIG FAT CHECK!
We were supposed to print it this morning and leave by 1, and it’s been kind of a torture test on the printer and humans involved, but it’s done. And now Maria, Monica, Will and I roll for Alton, nine hours late but moving fast.
CALIFORNIA HO!
In two days we’ll be on our way to Alton, and thence to California; I’ll finally be meeting Stephen and Erin and Kris, and a great host of other humans, not to mention buying a great many new comics. And I’ll get to see Leonard and Sumana again! And it’ll be my first cross-country trip on a train! I EXPLODE WITH AWESOMENESS!
It’s strange to think that we’ve been planning this for almost an entire year; I was investigating possible trip companions and talking about prices with Stephen before the last Comic Con was over. My enthusiasm for the trip has yet to diminish even a whit, despite the fact that I’m desperately behind on… The Secret Project.
Which Will already talked about, so I guess I can too. He, Lisa, Stephen and I are putting together an ashcan comic to sell to or throw at Con attendees–something we’ve also been planning for a long time. It’s only natural that I’m not done yet, and will probably be up all night tonight finishing my section. We investigated printing prices (Kinko’s, et cetera), then ended up buying a totally sweet laser printer and an extra high-capacity cartridge for less than it would have cost to get it done at a shop. We’re going to bind it ourselves and sell it cheap, and I’ll probably put at least my section up on this “web site” once I get back and have time. I’m drawing my part based on Stephen’s script, which is a new and interesting experience for me, and I hope I get it right.