Letters to Holly

Thursday, March 11

Singled Out

The Missus is off to a convention, and I'll see her again tomorrow night. We said our goodbyes before she drove to work, and she got teary. She always did, but now we can blame it on the pregnancy. She dabbed her eyes, and now my hanky has her tears on it. I tell her things like "neither of us are gong off to war," and it does no good.

I will do more thumbnails and sketches for the hero mini. If I can open up my style a bit -- more cartoony -- I can draw this quick. I've again tweaked the script for dialogue, but the panel layout from yesterday remains. I'm sure I'll adjust the words right until it's printed. My panic over the deadline is assuaged a bit. I can do this. Probably.

Picture of the Day
Or maybe I'll just drink tonight and watch basketball.

Wednesday, March 10

Progress

Just to prove work is getting done. These are shaded panels from the medieval comic.


I also started another draft of the hero minicomic and changed the layout of the ending. It has the tone I wanted, now in simpler panels. I'm getting up earlier and going to bed later to work on it. Not that you know anything about that.

I'm taking Saturday night off to see local roller derby.

This week's Lost is the goods. See it when you can.

I think Your Aunt wants to buy us a new car, site unseen. I'm trying to dissuade her. Also, Your Mom is anxious to learn the baby's real name. I may suggest Roo-sevelt.

Monday, March 8

Milestone

We start the third trimester today.

A student teacher gave Your Sister two big Tupperware bins of maternity and kid clothes. We dug through them Friday night. The tubs are organized into age-months for the kid. Most of the clothes Your Sister tried on were too small. She translates this as being fat. I argued that any pants with leg hems that short wouldn't fit most adults. This student teacher must be tiny. I also suggested that she gave us hand-me downs from someone else, and the student teacher may not have been able to wear them either. A number of items for mom and kid still have tags. She found a few shirts that fit, including one hideous frock we dubbed "the Dharma Shirt" that looks like it's from the mid-'70s scenes in Lost.

The next evening, we stepped inside a mall maternity store and found some new pants and tops. I sat in the changing room with her to help with shoes and pants legs. The cashier said she didn't look so far along in the pregnancy, and I repeated that throughout the weekend. She sometimes gets down about being big, but she's nowhere near as large as she thinks. Also, she's pregnant. I underscore the word repeatedly: pregnant. From behind, you can't tell she's carrying.

Speaking of babies, Your Baby Daddy signed a three-year deal with the Chicago Bears. Peppers is too good a player to stay in a small-market team his entire career, and I hope he becomes a marketable figure in Chicago.

Before the maternity store visit, Your Sister worked a Saturday makeup day, and that ruined her weekend. We drove to Asheville to do our taxes and walk through downtown. A few months back, I picked up a print by a local painter named Sarah Faulkner. It's hanging in our bedroom. She has a booth at the Woolworth Gallery, and her work clicked with me. It's miles away from the usual folk amateur styles you usually see in local galleries.



Your Sister thought the art would make for good nursery decor. We visited the artist's booth and picked out two prints, but they're for the rest of the house. They're a bit gloomy for the baby room.






We still may use the brighter art for the nursery. We'll see. I like the idea of staying away from pastels and primaries for the nursery. I want Roo to be exposed to the wide range of colors.

Before we bought maternity clothes, Your Sister escorted me to into the teen-jewelery stores so I could buy new earrings without looking creepy. I now have new adornments. No new piercings, mind you. Just new baubles.

I finished inking the medieval comic while she was at school, and now I must pencil the hero minicomic. I have just over two months to complete it. I measured out my art board dimensions, and now I need to make tighter sketches from my thumbnails. It'll be a pinch, but I can do this. I need to script the medieval comic, and Your Sister needs to do the calligraphy for the original poem's stanzas.

I can tell we're gonna change the clocks soon, because the morning daylight feels different. I want to run again, but I need to do the comics instead. I'm debating internally some ideas for table decoration at the convention.

We had some buddies over last night for supper and conversation, and one of them admitted to never seeing Star Wars. I gave her a standing invite to come by and watch one of our copies. I also offered to crank it up that minute, but it was too late in the evening. I fast-forwarded the Oscars afterward. The ceremony looked small and rushed. The pretaped nominee readings were breathless, and I'm convinced final presenter Tom Hanks improvised his comments for brevity. I'm OK with who won. I've liked Jeff Bridges since seeing him in the second King Kong remake. I was very disappointed that they eschewed the performance of any original song nominees, but I appreciate the tribute to John Hughes.

Moving Picture of the Day



The new Iron Man 2 trailer. While I'm not crazy about the team-up of new villains -- seemingly obligatory since Luthor worked with the Krypton 3 in Superman 2 -- Paltrow and Downey look like no time has passed since the first film. I always enjoy Don Cheadle. But the final bit here sold me: They developed a logical portable-suit solution. In the comics, Stark kept his suit in a briefcase. In the film, the briefcase IS the suit. And it's the red/silver variation which a number of IM fans grew up with.