Letters to Holly

Tuesday, August 14

Breathing Easy

We have a new air system now. The installation took two teams: One crew to deliver and connect the new system to the existing duct work (now scoured clean), and another to hook it up to a new thermostat. Your Sister made it all happen, mostly because she was home to coordinate the companies. We hired the same restoration company that cleaned up after the water heater collapsed, and they cleaned out the crawlspace. The air company came in just within the last few days. They're not done; they have to apply the finishing touches and test the repaired system. The new system is strangely quiet, so much so that I suspect it's failed, before I feel the cold air circulate.

I turned 40 yesterday. It doesn't feel like the cold hand of death that I expected. I've been in the ages that orbit the big 40, moon-hopping closer to the number each year, that it;s a relief to get here. Ages 38 and 39 are just precursors. It feels like this is the first birthday I've had in a few years, and my brain no longer has that glee of a day that's mine all mine. I mean, I have that virtually every day now. I'm 40, and I make comics. I can run a few miles at a moment's notice. I'm attending a local comic workshop this weekend, I'm gonna have a roller derby party the following weekend, and the big costume party in Atlanta is the weekend after that. Things is good.

School started Monday, and Your Sister is back to the salt mine. This is the first year of a Google laptop distribution program by the district. Every student gets a Google Chromebook. Some parents won't sign off on them, so their kids have to leave them at school, even if it might be needed for homework. Do the parents think the kids have new access to online horrors? Probably. I knew kids who couldn't watch the sex-ed films in middle school and had to sit in the hall for almost the entire science class that day. The local pawn shops have been alerted to the new laptops, and they agreed to rat out anyone bringing them in.

One of the freshman parents informed Your Sister that all academia is now devoted to feminizing boys through cherry-picked literature which makes all men look bad. She also said everything in the Obama autobiography (used by her to illustrate rhetorical flourish) is a lie. Her son, by the by, is the only boy in that class. I've heard that anti-boy argument before, usually from wannabe pundits shilling their books on right-wing radio. Why are boys outnumbered in colleges these days? Because they're victimized by literature, and the entire feminist philosophy is to blame. It's not too far away from the same accusations about white students being shunned through affirmative action. White guys got it bad, I hear. Usually from very rich white guys with book and TV deals who dropped out of college.

My comic is moving along. I lost a week to the work convention, but I feel like I'm making headway regardless because this issue is so short compared to the last one. This one will be fully half as long. I might be able to start inking Sunday. The comic debuts in the middle of October for the new local convention. I'm advertising it in the August rollerderby program and again in September. The image I posted on FB and Twitter over the weekend is my comic's derby team logo. I'll tease more art as the convention nears.

Picture of the Day
Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno from the CBS Incredible Hulk TV show.