Doctor Doctor, Give Me the News

The sidekick saw the ENT today, and his Prevacid dosage was cut back to a half pill a day. If the original symptoms return, we go back to full dosage for a kid his age. I think he'll be fine. He doesn't make any snoring noise the way he used to.

I heard back about my blood tests, and my total cholesterol is elevated from December but still within safe numbers. HDL is up but not enough. LDL is up but still safe, and my triglycerides dropped like a rock. I checked my exercise heart rate (128 a minute), and that seems optimal.

We're planning to take the boy to his first zoo tomorrow. There's a celebrity animal refuge near my hometown, and it offers a "safari" bus ride and the ability to hand feed animals. Your Sister is seriously jazzed for this; I wonder how well he'll recognize animals from the storybooks.

Picture of the Day
Looks like more exercise for me!

Waiting for Results

Our regular GP is out with a new baby, and I met her temporary replacement yesterday. He asked to run a follow-up blood test to see where my HDL is now. It was low enough last year that I was put on fish pills. I went in this morning for the blood draw and was told the office would call me tomorrow with the results. If further action is needed, they'll bring me in all quick like to get me fixed up. I feel fine. I'm running again and gardening and chasing the sidekick and biking (but not this morning; I was told to refrain from eating and exercising before the test).

The neighborhood was whacked by a strong summer storm complete with hail. The deck was covered in dead branches, and the garden was lucky to duck a strong blow. I added tomato cages this morning. I need to read up on trellises for the pea vines.

Your Sister took the sidekick to a local stone store for lawn accessories, and he went ape shit over the giant vehicles. We don't have any of these toy types, and he doesn't seem them on TV or in books. Yet he adores --suddenly, completely -- big construction real-life Tonka trucks. Maybe it is gender genetics.  

The new blog artwork is from Time Bandits, an early film by Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin which I adored as a kid. It's about little assistants for God yoinking a map of the universe to hop through time and steal as much as they can carry. They accidentally team with an English boy and move toward The Most Fabulous Object in the World, unfortunately located in the lair of Ultimate Darkness. It's a fine boys film.

Picture of the Day
We must choose the right outlets for assistance.

Up and At 'Em

This marked my third consecutive morning of running. Monday and Tuesday were boot-camp jogs intended to assure me I could at least make the route without stopping. This morning, I decided to push it, and I cut more than a minute off of this week's run time. I hoped to bike, but I forgot we keep the bike helmets in the nursery, and I didn't want to wake up the deputy.  I need to switch up my morning exercise, and I like the idea of biking to supplement the run and floor exercises. I have a doctor's appointment today to follow-up on my check-up some months back. The exercise and triple-omega pills should be paying off by now.

I can't take credit for getting up early and running. I'm naturally waking up a good half hour before my alarm goes off, and we've had enough rain that I don't need to water the garden. I've got the time, and summer fashions tell me I need to shape up.

HBO showed Little Shop of Horrors often and daily. It might have been the movie from my teen years that prepared me for the classic musicals I saw a few years later. In the space of about four years, I was introduced to Fiddler on the Roof, Rocky Horror, and Oklahoma. The latter hooked me on the genre. I was probably in my late 20s before I realized Wizard of Oz was a musical. Back when CBS aired it in the time before VCRs, you saw it once a year.

Moving Picture of the Day
Sesame Street takes on the cursed Spider-Man musical.

Just An Excuse to Post Videos from The Tony Awards

For our anniversary, we hired a babysitter Friday night and caught the new X-Men movie.  It's the goods. It cobbles a number of classic X-Men comic moments and makes new story with them. The acting is top-notch, and the action is good. It also rewards loyal viewers of the first three X-Men movies.

The local comic store informed me that three minicomics had sold in the past two weeks. Woo.

We biked between thunderstorms Saturday afternoon. The sidekick is taking to it well. We can't ride the bikes back up our hill, and I shoved the boy-burdened bike as we finished riding. It sucks to run it too. But run it I did this morning. I got up before seven and ran our route in under 21 minutes. The school traffic was thin enough to assure me I wouldn't get plastered by a bus. I dunno if I can do this every day, but I did get a good weekend workout between the bike and gardening.

Also, a neighbor's tree rotted and collapsed across the road on Sunday. I only noticed it when I saw traffic slowing in front of our driveway. None of the tree parts landed on our property, but I didn't see anyone cleaning it up. Out I went. It was light work as the tree felt like Styrofoam. The neighbor thought a branch had fallen and thought nothing of it. He didn't seem too concerned when I rang his doorbell and informed him. The pieces were all there as we left town later that morning and returned that night.

We went back to my hometown for a reunion of my maternal grandmother's family. The deputy was cooed over the whole time. Because I was carrying him for the event, we put his nametag on his back, and people knew his name before they talked to us. He watched the older kids play basketball, and he was itching to join in. After, we had our first swim in My Mom's pool. He took to it with relish after weeks of being trained to splash in the tub. He has a swim bodysuit with a hood, and he floated in a small tube raft. When we poured him back into the car, he slept like a coma patient.

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As Your Sister wades into the deeper waters of the teacher pool, she learns many a thing:

1) One teacher is moving. His departure surprises us both.

2) Another teacher is staying. Her continuance surprises us both.

3) It's presumed that Your Sister will be department chair. She'd rather not. I'm trying to comfort her by saying that the sidekick's sleep cycle and time at daycare affords her a lot of time to be chair and do chair things.

4) She's teaching AP again, requiring her to scrape together a syllabus before summer.

5) The county manager's budget proposal calls for $38,000 to be cut from the library, virtually all of it from new-acquisition moneys. That affects the teachers who want to order books for their classes. To secure enough copies of one book, she contacted an Asheville bookstore, and they had four copies of it. By the time I got there the next day, they had eight more copies. The cost of these books is, of course, coming out of our pockets. (Oh, and the library budget cuts means they're scrapping periodicals for a year. That's my favorite library section.).

6) The state budget has decreed that schools will have five fewer teacher workdays as they become full school days. This is packaged as a cost-cutting measure, but it adds five days to the 180-day mandatory schedule, and it requires five additional days of utilities, buses, and school meals. The governor vetoed it, but the legislature says they'll override.

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We watched the Tonys last night, and it may have been the best broadcast of the show I've seen. The musical numbers this year were all stellar, and let me post two great examples.

If you don't watch the Tonys -- if you have no real interest in Broadway -- I can't blame you. Broadway has catered to the tourist crowd hard in the last ten years and only recently pulled itself out of the jukebox musical genre (take the biggest hits of a mainstream artist & build a plot around it -- you know, ABBA, Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, etc.). But I think the American musical is swinging back to a proper display of talent and skill. Now, yes, the new trend is to make musicals based on popular films, and this clip is from the adaptation of Catch Me If You Can, the Spielberg/DiCaprio film. The star of the show -- Norbert Leo Butz -- won the Tony for Best Musical Actor last night for this show (and maybe this number), and he won a Tony a few years back for his work in the musical based on Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

Anyway, in a Tonys show that was PACKED with talent this year, this number stood out even against hot, hot performances from The Book of Mormon and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and Sister Act. This number, I think, stole the show, and god damn if I don't want to audition for a show right now.

And here's Harry Potter tearing it UP in his show. This kid is good.

Your Sister asked if, in all my theatre interest, if I ever wanted to be a song-and-dance man. Of course, but it's only been recently that I felt like I had the pipes to do a decent job. For example, the dentist in Little Shop of Horrors? I can do that.

 

Leo Bloom in The Producers? I can do that.

As I finished my run this morning, I passed a neighbor who's been in a few local shows with me, and he asked if I was coming back to work with the local company. If I didn't have such sour memories of bad choices and backstage drama, I'd hop at the chance to do the latest musical (Annie, by the way). But I can't risk shouldering Your Sister with a revived work schedule and the boy for such a chunk of time only for me to regret working with people who can't learn their lines.

Summer Doings

Yep, he's sleeping through the night. Victory.

For Father's Day, I bought a new video game. It's my first Father's Day present, and it's a game I've wanted for a while. I played it last night for an hour. The main character seems to move faster than the camera, creating a dizzying rate of motion and a fear that I'm becoming too old for this stuff.

The Doom Gallery has, as they say, blown up. I bought the domain name cookingwithvillainy.com through Blogspot and discovered domain names for their blogs are only $10 a year. That's a bona fide steal.

We are preparing for a reunion with my family this weekend and the deputy's baptism in July. Your Sister revels in organizing, and now that she's relatively well rested, she's eager to tackle the specifics of hosting a baptism party. She considered renting another bounce house for the attending kids, but there aren't enough of them to justify the high rental cost. Maybe we'll set up sprinklers for them to run through.

I hope we get to bike Saturday. I got that jonesin'. I was scheduled to give blood that morning, but the continued dithering and hard sell by the local organizer soured me on it. His repeated calls to confirm and micromanage vexes me. I'm protesting by sitting out this local donation drive. I can go to another location if my sense of civic duty starts to itch.

As a result of meeting with a longtime -- and I mean, elementary school -- acquaintance at HeroesCon, I'm thinking of organizing an anthology comic to sell at next year's show. She seemed excited for it. But indy anthologies are common, and we'd need a really, really great idea to gin up submissions.

Picture of the Day
Barnes & Noble expanded their comic selection recently. The photo shows the new comic shelves on the lefthand side, right next to mainstream magazines. This is kinda a big deal for the industry after decades of comics dwindling in mainstream outlets in favor of comic stores. Those stores compete directly with the Barnes and Books-A-Millions and Borders (soon to die) over the graphic-novel and manga markets, but enjoyed the advantage for single issues (or floppies, a term used derisively for a format some see as outdated).

This is the display stand in the Asheville B&N, and those comics represent what used to be stocked in convenience stores in spinner racks. I still want a spinner rack for the living room. I'm stymied in every search. I don't see this new initiative hurting comic stores so much. They stock many many more singles each week, and they allow customizable pull lists for customers. Making such a list guarantees you won't miss an issue and allows you to pop into the store when you want, without fear of sellouts. 

HeroesCon 2011

I went to HeroesCon with the Doom sketchbook and came away with fewer than I hoped but of a better variety than I expected. Saturday is the big-money day, and many of the more recognizable star artists were already working on commissions or in panels. I couldn't get their attention, or they had to decline. Understandable. Luckily that allowed to troll the independent artists, an ilk I like to pretend I'm now a part of. Many folks were nonchalant about doing a sketch for a theme book until they got the full sales pitch; once they got the joke, they were in.

The Chef Doom artwork is here. It's gotten some good responses on other sites.

It was a great crowd as always. The Greenville comic people asked me about joining them next year, and I will if I can make at least two books before then. It's very feasible.

The show also offers collectible shopping, and the vendors are taking a bath on Star Wars items. The market has bottomed out, and what were once top-dollar toys are dirt cheap.

Costumes! These in no way represent the number of costumes on display. These are what I could get between waiting for Doom sketches. I spent the majority of the day hovering over tables waiting for the sketches. Closer to the end of the day, I was invited to scoot and come back for the book. I did that, and I was able to see the whole convention.

Captain America, Harlequinn, Batgirl

 Cobra!

 Firestar

 Kick-Ass and Hitgirl

Superman

I had dinner with online friends and got home right at 11. I slept like the dead.

Speaking of, we may have finally trained the sidekick to sleep through the night. We are almost drunk on a full night's sleep.

Putting My Notion in Motion

HeroesCon is this weekend. This is one of the biggest conventions on the East Coast and is regarded nationwide as the friendliest for creators and fans. It will be about five times the size of Fanaticon. It runs Friday through Sunday, and I will be there tomorrow, hobnobbing and networking. I'm taking comics to hand out 'cause I'm shameless.

A few years ago, someone came up with the idea for a theme sketchbook. You pick an idea and go to each artist at a show and ask them to draw that idea. I haven't done this before, and I decided rather late in the week to start one on Chef Doom. I think this will go like crazy. I'll post the images on the Cooking With Villainy! blog. The convention scene has been tainted in recent years by artists doing free sketches only to see the recipients sell them for big bucks on eBay. They resent that. But sketches in a book can't pull in the kind of money as would sketches on artboard, so they're considered less of a risk for artists. I suppose I'll get dozens of sketches for this. I hope to.

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The sidekick is adjusting to our new policy of ignoring him at night. He slept all night last night, and he may have been helped by a security blanket (actually a burp cloth). This is the only thing we've seen him cling to during feedings.

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I still haven't heard from the Asheville bookstore that offered to stock my comics. I also haven't yet found the online sale the museum claimed they'd hold for the leftover auction pieces. No idea how my piece did.

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The garden survived a flash hailstorm yesterday. Things are growing very slowly, and I don't know why. The potatoes haven't blossomed. The squash plants have, but the blossoms haven't turned into gourds yet. The tomato blossoms remain closed. The pea plants are still underground, and the sweet potatoes are at a standstill. The garden gets water every day. We got sun, we got compost. But we don't got progress.

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Your Sister dashed out last night to ambush the county commissioners before another budget meeting.

Picture of the Day 
Well, that's just rude.

I don't think I mentioned that an unknown neighbor posted signs throughout the 'hood, including on a pole on our property, warning folks that someone is shooting pets with a pellet gun. I have to admit, I've been tempted to use one on the cats that shit in the garden.

Baby Baby, Let Me Sleep On It

In the face of waking up several times each night to comfort a baby who snaps back to sleep as soon as he's picked up, we've decided to use the nuclear option: ignoring him. I've wondered for a while now if we're coddling, if we've trained him to wake up just enough to want help going back to sleep, and Monday night may have put Your Sister on the same wavelength. She was sleeping on the floor of his nursery as I left for work the next morning. That shit won't do.

For the last two nights, we've put him down after a bath and supper and some cuddling and left him be. If he's awake, he's awake. And when he is, he screams for company. But that's all he wants. He's fed, he's warm, he's dry. It's nighttime, however, and he must learn to downshift when we finish the routine and set him in the crib. We turn the monitor down and let him wail his lungs out until he's unconscious. Last night we decided to test him and not wake him up for a diaper change and nursing. He slept until almost daylight. Eight hours straight. That's almost six glorious hours of uninterrupted sleep, and that is a rarity. But hopefully we can make that the norm. We had also agreed last night to ignore him if he woke up in the middle of the night, but we didn't have to.

I admit it feels cruel, but it's the kind of literal tough love that we agreed to before we knocked ourselves up. If he can learn to accept bedtime and switch off now, it can only help Your Sister prepare for the school year.

Our new supper schedule sees her putting him to bed each night while I cook the meals. If it was her night to make dinner, she'll prepare the ingredients, and I'll cook them according to the recipe. She still does yoga on Wednesdays, and those are the nights I put him down and make dinner. It's my best opportunity to pull my weight.

I'm tweaking the website soon. I'm making more use of Flickr to host my images. I'm tempted to combine this blog and my site, but I still want to keep Your Sister as private as practical.

Picture of the Day
Save me, Super Lightning Tiger. Save me from the sleepless toddlers.

Gear Shift

I bought some more stands for the minicomics and made labels with a short synopsis and prices. I also added "locally produced minicomic" in hopes that would sway purchases. On Friday, I stopped by the Asheville comic store. The shop owner said the books would probably not sell until they move into their new store, and I can see why. They are a store of piles right now. They need more room for everything. Because he didn't mention shelf rent or any other charges for selling the books, I opened a pull list, guaranteeing I'll buy certain titles when they ship each month. Least I could do. We also talked about the feasibility of paying for a table at Charlotte's convention next year. I could easily team with some local guys and sell four to five comics and sketches for three days. Yeah, I could do that.

I took some comics and stand to the local store. The owner said something vague about commissions, and I probably should worry about that more than I do. I'm not concerned with a profit at this stage -- or more precisely, at this location -- because it's a local venue for getting my name out there. People can get my current minis dirt cheap, but the next books will have the heft of my then-recognized name and higher standards of storytelling. Those will cost a little more. I started a small pull list with them as well.

I announced the store and online buying options on FB and immediately got an order. I bought some simple mailing supplies and started a spreadsheet for the tax man. I'll mail it out Tuesday afternoon right before I check on another potential store location. My first shipment!

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Your Sister spend healthy chunks of time preparing an AP curriculum for next semester. She's slowly getting back into the groove of school.  She took the boy to church Sunday morning, and I took the opportunity to run the route you and I chugged. It is hot here nowadays. I worked in the garden Monday and was dying from the heat and bugs at 8:30. But the garden is weeded and mulched and freshly composted. The squash finally distinguished itself from the weeds, and I was able to get rid of the unwanteds. 

After running and hard gardening, I was actually keen on a bike trip with Your Sister. It was her idea, and I rediscovered my love of biking, thanks to you bringing an extra so we could all three go together. The sidekick seemed to like it too. If I had reason to visit more downtown locales, I'd bike there on a regular basis. Except for one time I rode her bike to the school to remind her to answer her phone, I hadn't been on a bike in 20 years. Wen I went to college, My Dad asked if he could sell the bike instead of letting it rot in the carport. I had a Schwinn with those painful rams-horn handlebars, and I don't miss them the slightest. Yesterday was also my first time in a bike helmet,and I look better in it than I feared. Your Sis clipped bike path locations from magazines, and she's planning late-summer road trips.

First Steps

Your Nephew is walking. It's not consistent, but it does happen. Your Sister told me about it yesterday and showed me video from earlier in the day. He braces on an object to stand, lets go, and staggers forward. He is delighted with himself. When she stepped out to adjust his car seat, I saw it happen twice. He holds his hands together as he moves. I tried to get him to walk with his arms out, and he tried it for a few steps.

We're relieved for two reasons. First, obviously, we're glad to see him progress. Also, this kind of movement can only wear him out more and maybe let him sleep through the night. He's almost making it, but he wakes at 4:30 regularly.

I bought more stands for the minicomics to display them in area stores. AREA STORES. I'm just ... I need to lie down.

I have no idea what to get Your Sister for her birthday. I am Mister Bad Husband Person.

Picture of the Day
I'm just gonna tune out the world and focus on my Shasta.

Fanaticon 2: The Fanaticonning

But first this quick note: Some one found my cooking site by Googling "accursed reed richards." Vunderbar.

The convention is now two days behind me, and I'm still smiling. I'm exhausted and sore and reeling, but I'm tickled with the experience. It was much larger than last year, and I think my table location was better. I sold a ton of comics. I made a ton of money. I drew a lot of cards. And I saw lots of costumes. My Flickr set is here.

All the daunting elements were figments. They came and went and left me unscathed.  Loading was easy. Setting up was easy. Turns out that I didn't feel the need to pee until hour eight, and I held out until hour nine when the show was over. I was brought food by a volunteer (pizza and Catwoman respectively). I sold a card before the sho started, and I sold another right before it closed.

To my relief and glee, my sales pitch for eMMA proved irresistible: This is our female robot mixed cage fighter who inadvertently gets her fight league shut down, and she has to get the title back from a gold-medal winning Olympic werewolf wrestler. It got laughs, and it made sales.

Some details:

• Three stores offered to carry my book in their stores, and that's a stunning option I hadn't fully considered. Of course I'll do it. 
• One crazy woman asked me if I would help her do New Yorker-style artwork for a project. I call her crazy because she made a beeline for my open portfolio pages and said flatly "I don't care about comics" before explaining her desire to find an artists. I offered my card, but I'll tell you now there's no fucking way I'm gonna jump in that. She had crazy eyes, crazy hair, and I'm gonna guess crazy knees as well. 
• Two acquaintances from an online forum stopped by.
• People complained of the heat, but I was comfortable behind my table. 
• Your Sister and sidekick visited very shortly as the crowd and heat wore them down.
• Two different parties came up with e genius idea: Instead of drawing a character on a sketch card, why not draw them as heroes. I took pics with my camera and put masks on them. It makes for a good idea for next year. For almost all the cards, I explained that I would draw it up as they wandered a bit and returned a few minutes later. They accepted happily, except for the last customer who asked to sit and watch me draw. She did, and we chatted about Plastic Man as I drew him.
• One of the volunteers brought me a cupcake as the convention wound down. She mentioned her store could carry my comics as I was walking out the door, boxes in my arms. We said bye, and she absent-mindedly told me her name was Emma. I set down the boxes, said "well, in that case ... ," and gave her a copy of eMMA. She was delighted. How better could my day have ended? What more could I ask? (The deputy slept all Saturday night. Flawless victory.)

I'm glad this was a one-day event. If I tried this at, say, Charlotte's three-day party, I'd be dead and gone. But I might consider sharing a table there next year. I might at that. I'm already writing the sequel comic, combining both hero books. It threatens to be huge.

I attended the museum party the night before and immediately regretted not wearing a proper costume. I had a Fantastic Four shirt, and my hair would suggest Mister Fantastic, but no one seemed to put it together. To costumed attendees the next day said they saw me there and identified my costume. I knew nobody and left a little after nine; I promised Your Sister I'd be home by ten. I don't know how the auction went. I'll call the museum later this week to check on my piece. If it didn't sell, do I get it back?

Pictures of the Day
From the Citizen-Times comes a picture of me selling sketch cards to the sons of a friend. The guy in the white shirt is about to buy the monster comic for his grandson. The crowd was that heavy at my table virtually all day.

You can see the convention layout below. My table pops up at 2:56.

Ready to Rumble

It's the day before the show, and I'm starting to get jittery. I won't sat anxious or worried. I can't say it's all giggly anticipation either.

I talked to another local creator today at lunch. I met him last year at the convention; his table was next to mine, and we were shunted into the far-off corner of the convention. Half our foot traffic was for the bathrooms around the corner. He hasn't done anything for this year's show, but he'll be there tomorrow. He'll sell the same material he had on hand then. He also makes buttons from old comics, and he says he'll make a new batch between lunch and the show. I can't do that. I can't go into tomorrow's show with something left to finish. That would be like not knowing all my lines for a play, and we both know I am militant and neurotic about lines.

In talking to him though, I realized there is one more thing to do, and it's smallish. I need to make price signs for my items. I plan to sell the comics for $2 each (all three for $5) and the sketches for $1. But in talking to this guy, I wonder if I'm doing myself a disservice. Maybe, I'm thinking, I should sell them for $2 too. Just sell everything for $2. At least, I also think, start at $2 and lower it to $1 if sales are slow. But I don't think they will be. These are nice cards, and $2 is nothing for clean work at that size.

I realized that the convention makes prices tricky. We local guys have gone to the big shows -- Atlanta, Charlotte, Greenville, etc -- and we've seen what the markets bear at those shows. But Fanaticon is new, and it created a new communal marketplace that didn't exist in this area before. Unlike the big shows, we creators are virtually all amateurs. We don't have the clear achievement and seal of quality that a major publisher provides. A guy who worked on Spider-Man can set a decent price for artwork. A guy like me has no understood status to latch a value onto. I have to be flexible.

I also have the notion that these first years of my convention work should be very affordable. My comics are experiments in resource organization and scheduling. I always had the three-year plan: make a comic, make a better comic, make the best comic. Next year's title(s) will be beyond what I'm selling tomorrow, and that should (and will) command a better price. Currently, however, I can't justify it, and the cheaper I make it, the more I sell. Getting my name into the local market is more important to me right now than making the most profit. But profit is a concern in the long term. This is a hobby, yes, but not a charity.

I look forward to the show. Really. But I don't look forward to the loading and unpacking. Or, worse, the potential to not leave my station for eight hours. I'll have to rely on my neighbors for bathroom breaks. I bought snacks and will guzzle water in between sales pitches. I've heard from at least two fellow parents who are bringing their kids to see the costumes and take in the atmosphere. I look forward to seeing them in my capacity as small-businessman comic creator.

Anyway, here we are. I drew a comic, drew an auction piece, and drew sketch cards. The solitary craft work is done. Now is the time to gladhand and sell it. Sunday will be the first day outside the consideration of this show I've had since July. Tonight is the auction dance party. We're invited to wear costumes. I have on a Fantastic Four shirt. With that and my hair color, I'm Mister Fantastic. Done and done.

Freaky Picture of the Day
This is a schedule guide for upcoming movies. What are the odds that these two names would appear side-by-side in this order on a TV schedule this week? I have to take this as an omen, right? Like when I saw the the deputy's names in the comic right before he was born?

Putting Things to Bed

It was an odd evening for the deputy. He wouldn't eat dinner, but he did chug milk as if he was a few months younger. He even refused bananas. We considered feeding him solids when he woke up right before midnight (as is his routine) but decided that would rouse him up too much. We nursed him as normal and changed him into an overnight diaper and hoped for the best. He woke up three hours later. Your Sister was bolstered to hear that some babies can't sleep through the night until after they reach one year. She seemed to think we were doing something wrong.

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I packed up my convention stuff this morning. It seems a small stack of boxes compared to the amount of work I put into it all. It might take as many as two trips from the parking deck to my table. I am supposedly on the guest list for the museum's com-eve party, but I haven't received word as to how that works. Am I on a will-call list? I called and await word on how I can take advantage of my supposedly free entry as a reward for donating an auction piece.

Newsflash! The museum called to say I'm on the door list. They're encouraging costumes, and I will pass. I will wear my fantastic Four shirt to subtly play Mister Fantastic. My greatest prop is my gray temples.




Picture of the Day
Sound the convention horn(s)!

And You Can Quote Me

We knew the local paper ran press releases verbatim. Press releases have that sales-pitch tone often using exclamation points the way some people use mirror balls to fill up garden space. Exclamation points have no place in newspaper writing except for quotes and sarcasm. I admit I planned for their practice when I rewrote the Fanaticon press release and turned it into an article about me; I thought the paper would bite on a local slant for the story. Not only did they run it verbatim, they didn't contact me to verify anything. I could have claimed to create half the Marvel universe. On one hand, I'm delighted to see my entire article run -- complete with, I think, some fantastic quotes that sell my work, Fanaticon, and comics in general -- but I'm disappointed in the standards of the paper. They have to, have to, have to vet submissions before they see print. A bored prankster could run riot with a email addresses and Mad-Libs article generator.

Also, after having said there was nothing else for me to do before convention, I decided to add a shop to my website. Folks can now buy my comics online via PayPal. I'll take Productive Nervous Fidgeting for $200, Alex.

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The boy did not sleep through the night, but we continue to explore options to affect this. Maybe we can feed him solid food during his usual midnight wake-up session. Maybe we can put on the overnight diaper
then instead of immediately after his bath. Your Sister worries he'll continue to wake up in the dead of night as she teaches, but I think his daycare activities will wear him out. He woke up at 4:15 last night and only once. That's much better than other nights, but we can't figure out why he continues to wake up.

Picture of the Day
"Dear paper, I'm quite awesome. And I assure you I'm not a bored teenager pranking the biweekly rag."

Straight Cash, Homey

I went to the bank yesterday to get money for this week's convention. I made a change purse last year from one of those ubiquitous blue, zippered pouches, and I cut out cardstock dividers to separate the denominations. I debated about how much to withdraw and waffled between $100 and $200. The latter seemed overly optimistic, and I figured that if I was doing that well in sales, I'd just recirculate the money I was taking in. So $100 it was, broken up into four denominations. As I stood in line, waiting and waiting for the uncertain customers ahead of me to ask the tellers about seemingly everything involving money and banks, I tried to remember what I did with last year's money. I couldn't recall anything about it following the convention, and I reckoned I put it back in the bank. Why wouldn't I?

Apparently, it's because I'm an idiot because I found last year's stash in the change purse when I got home. My change purse is now overflowing. (Note to any would-be robbers: I'm freshly instructed in Body Combat. I will air kick you in the air face.) Sadly, I will not be able to shop at the convention. I won't have a chance to walk around while the vendor tables are open. But I will be attending a convention in Charlotte two weeks later, and that show is bigger with more offerings.

I also cut up four more artboards to make blank sketch cards in the again overly optimistic notion that there will be a run on wallet-size artwork. But, hey, whatever I don't use this year rolls over to next year.

With this, I really am through with convention stuff. I might make another sketch or two, but I consider that warm-up exercise than a lingering chore. The museum show is three days away. I can only wait. 

+  +  +

The sidekick refuses to sleep through the night, and we are about to strangle him. He awoke at 3 last night and stayed awake despite all Your Sister's ministrations. I got up to take a turn around 4, and he nodded off only to pop awake as soon as he was lain down. I took him to the living room to maybe play himself asleep, but he only sat there. It was eerie. He sat perfectly quiet and clear-eyed for ten minutes. I decided to change his overnight diaper and took him back to the living room to hopefully wind down. I turned off the lights to help him gear down, and that's when I realized we've always put him to bed with the nite-light and heart-sounds bear. Maybe he's over-stimulated.

If he was fully awake in the living room because the light was on, maybe he thinks it's daylight and time to be awake. In the nursery, I turned off the bear and light, and he again nodded off, but this time he stayed out when I put him down. And thus he stayed for another three hours, allowing Your Sister to sleep away the strangling urges. We now have a theory to pursue, reducing our feelings of helplessness in the face of his inability to sleep. If this works, I'm not ashamed to admit I wanna medal for figuring this out. My alarm woke me up this morning, and I let Your Sister sleep while I made coffee and heard the boy sleeping and strutted to the workshop like George Jefferson. Fatherhood: Fuck, yeah.

Almost forgot: He can point to commonly identified objects. You name it, he finds it.

+  +  +

We began our new diets yesterday. I learned how to use the Weight Watchers point calculator, and we gobbled popcorn with abandon.   

Picture of the Day
McDonald's once had a cast of characters. They seemed to have peaked with the Fry Guys.

Body Combative

I have friends from high school who are now certified Body Combat instructors. They needed a weight-loss program, found this program at the same time, became addicted, and now have part-time jobs teaching it. They live about as far apart in the contiguous US as people can, and they get together to attend BC events and camps. They post about it on Facebook from time to time. I saw enough to be curious, and I certainly saw the results. Rebecca, for instance, lost 100 at least pounds. Looks great.

I knew the local fitness club sometimes offered the class during open houses, and Your Sister told me about the latest round of such classes this weekend. We arranged our time around the sidekick, and I went Saturday morning. I thought "open-house classes" meant "introductory classes." This is not the case, and now I am wounded.

There were three instructors in the BC regalia: camouflage and hands wrapped like boxers. I had Googled Boy Combat the day before, and I knew to expect bouncing and fight moves. Not Tae Bo. No, this is faster and harder. I expected that. Everything else was a surprise.

Such as:

1. No stretching beforehand. Maybe fitness classes expect you to stretch before you walk in the door. I have not taken any kind of organized exercise class since Brevard College. That's 20 years ago. I didn't know the class time would not include this. And I need to point out that the club folk were very cavalier about a brand-new face walking in. I approached this as a prospective relationship, a first date maybe. I fully intended to sign up for a class if things went well (Spoiler: Things did not go well). But when I walked in, I had to approach people and ask what we newbies should do. The people behind the counter seemed disinterested, and when I saw the sign-up sheet for newbies, I understood why: I was the third name. That means they either had only three new people this fine morn, or people had wandered by without talking to the counter folk. There was a third possibility that occurred to me later: The "open house" was designed for existing customers to branch out to new classes, and the public were a secondary concern. But I'm a prospective customer. I thought I'd be, you know, aggressively welcomed.

2. Hit the ground running. After a few walk-throughs of punch styles, we were off. This was when I realized that we would not be working our way up to the regular class pace. We would start fast and only get faster. It seems like I was the only new guy there, and let's talk about that noun choice.

3. Don't be the only guy in a class of women. I think I threw off the usual class vibe. Not only was I a stranger, I was male. It's possible they thought I was arrogant about taking this class the first time among all the ladies.

4. Don't exercise up front. The back section of the classroom was nabbed quickly, and I was left working the open space facing the elevated stage and the instructors. That prevented me from watching and matching the effort of my classmates and left me to try to mirror the teachers. That is where the pain was born. Even though they would say things like "kick lower, this is Level One," they would soon say things like "Come on! Harder!" So, mixed messages. I was working on a varsity level from the get-go.

I had to stop a few time when my thigh locked up, and I suspect my fighting stance was too wide. I could also feel my ankles, probably from all the bounces (or "pulses"). Today, my arches are sore, and I blame that on my shoes. I think I would have been fine had I done that work barefoot or in other shoes. These are running shoes, not cross trainers.

Eventually, I had to pull over and stretch, and another class member came over to ask if I was light-headed. I explained it was only my legs, and I immediately 'fessed up. "I wasn't prepared." My own expectations did me in, not their program. I went out to get water and was met by someone with a cup of fruit juice. Word had apparently gotten around, and there was concern that my heart was the problem. Nope, I said, lungs and heart were fine. I just burned out my legs. I noticed we were 40 minutes into the class, and I decided to tough it out. I could shove through 20 more minutes, I thought.

But as we did a move mimicking a kneelift to an attacker's head, I came down bad and rolled my ankle. That was enough. I know that when I get so tired that I get sloppy, that's when I'll get hurt. I grabbed my towel and keys and walked out, thanking again the lady who checked on me. The instructors didn't say a word to me. I don't know if they had any reason or obligation to, but I walked out of the fitness club with no one saying anything to me. Again, I feel like they were underselling the experience, and I'm left thinking I needn't go back.

I want to get in decent shape, and that class might be the way to do it. But if I have to get in shape to take the class, by the time I get into shape, I won't need to take the class.

+  +  +

I finally have a flyer at Malaprop's. I took the flyer long ago earmarked for that store during a lunch break. I was told it will be posted on their board Thursday. That's not as much exposure as I'd prefer, but they do get much more foot traffic than any other place hosting my flyer. True Blue had taken down my coupon flyer, and I gave them a regular one to put up. Apparently they had forgotten about the similar one I gave them weeks back. Anyway, I was assured they'd put up the one from today, and they seemed happy to post Fanaticon material.

I scouted the museum to check parking and loading access. I wanted to see inside, but they are closed Mondays. I instead went by the bank to get my money to make change at the show.

The only thing I would do between now and the show is cut out more blank sketch cards. I assembled my displays. I customized my portfolio spine, I printed my Monster Comic page for those who buy a minicomic, and I bought the vertical holders for the eMMA comics. That's all there is to do.

+  +  +

Your Sis and I are gonna get in shape. We're adjusting out dinner and dessert portions and committing to moving round more. We got rained out of a Saturday walkabout, but she did bike while I was destroying my legs at Body Combat.

+  +  +

The boy won't sleep through the night, even as we pack him full of more food and get him moving more. This situation is not making for happy parents.

Picture of the Day
Watch the hands, mister.

A New Tactic

The doctor said our deputy can sleep through the night easier if we fill him up before bedtime with food. She thinks we're underfeeding him for his size. Agewise, we're providing the right amounts, but he's taller than average and needs more eats. She said he won't be able to finish the food we provide, but he'll learn to take in more. That will either power him through more play and exhaust him or he'll fall into a food coma.

Last night was horrible. Your Sister went to a county budget meeting (and spoke before a crowd of nearly 500) and handed him to me as I returned from work. He had just taken a long nap, scotching our usual sleep routine. I fed him, bathed him, read to him, and gave him milk. He refused to sleep. I removed his sleep sac in case he was too warm. Still wouldn't sleep. Gave him Orajel in case he was teething. Nothing. Gave him a side of sweet potato to fill him up. Nothing. gave him thawed milk to fill him up. NOTHING. This was now 90 minutes beyond his normal bedtime and haggard and screaming. I thought out loud that I wished we could try the whole night over again. And I realized we could. Except for supper, we repeated everything to see if he'd conk out. Before I could dress him after a bath, she came back home and relieved me. I was exhausted. That was three straight hours of intense baby time.

I repeat our parenting mantra: One and fucking done.

+  +  +

I sent my last projects to the printer: a portfolio spine and copies of the monster comic last page. I'll pick them up tomorrow and buy stands for the eMMA comic. That will be very close to it for convention preparation. 

+  +  +  

The majority of the sweet potato plants I ordered through the mail (from a very reputable seed company) are dead. I shan't do that again.

Picture of the Day

He'll grow into it.

A Bad Night for Doom

Yeah, dinner didn't go so well last night. Your Sister liked it. Not I.

She went to yoga, and I put the sidekick down. She returned with a notice of free classes this weekend at the club, including some faux fighting exercise classes I've been curious about. I'm going to at least one of them; two of my high school buddies are certified instructors in a type of Body Combat/Flow/Something Something.

I occasionally try side kicks to see if I've retained anything from my very brief Te Kwon Do and Aikido classes, and I think I can walk into an introductory class and keep up. If nothing else, I'll use this and the recent gardening and lawn mowing to prepare me for running again. I'm keen on the idea of muscle confusion lately; last year's race was a failure because I only ran.

Your Mom dropped off bags of old race souvenir shirts, and I picked out a dozen or so to wear in the yard. She came by the house to watch The Boy while Your Sis talked to the local priest about baptizing him. I've so far heard no details. Maybe we can make him muy macho if we dip him in gasoline.

I printed out my table display signs this morning. We're inching ever closer.

Picture of the Day
There may not be anyone in there.

Pimpin' Ain't Easy

I discovered Monday that the Asheville Ingles cleaned their bulletin board over the weekend, ripping down all the promo materials including my flyer. I put up that flyer just last week after being told they clean the board at the beginning of the month. This is why I keep a stash in the car, and I put up another one that day. Earlier that day, I put one up at our local Ingles after removing an outdated poster to make space. I felt hinkey about that, but that poster was a) outdated; and b) huge. I have become a ruthless promoter of my material. I also added sample face cards to my website to hype them for the convention.

I finally got a press release from the convention organizers and added quotes and info for my comics. I'll send it to the local paper today. They didn't use the one I sent last year, but my material was used by Asheville papers.

+  +  +

The sidekick is full-on crawling now, blazing across the floors with surprising speed. He may also be teething again.

Picture of the Day
I'm officially addicted to astronaut artwork.

Seeds Are Planted

When Your Sister got back from Asheville, she made the following offer: She would do full baby duty for the rest of the day, and I could skedaddle. She specifically mentioned my hope to work on the garden and suggested I tackle it when she got home. I deferred, citing the heat, and said I'd do it after we made our grocery run.

And I did. I went out about five and got back in around 7:30. Between then, I planted the new tomato, squash, and sweet potato seedlings. I can't tell the difference between sprouts from the seeds I planted last month and weeds. Also, I suspect I have wild sprouts from last year's garden, including corn shoots. It doesn't look like the celery came up at all, so I retrenched that row and planted snow pea seeds (which, I think, are dehydrated peas). I added a second row for them between the old celery row and my original tomato seed rows.

I squeezed another row of sweet potatoes between my plantings from last week and the garden fence. Potatoes are supposed to be planted in hills so the tubers will have soft ground to grow in. Instead of doing that for this new batch, I dug deep holes and refilled them with loose soil and planted the new potato sprouts in them.

To avoid the confusion between what I wanted to grow and what grew voluntarily, I snapped off sections of dowels rods (used long ago to stake tomato vines) and stabbed them in the dirt next to what I just planted. I also ran string above the pea trenches to distinguish them from the creeping ground cover. They will need trellises as the vines sprawl, and I may buy cheap garden trim fencing to keep them off the ground. I haven't grown them before. When the squash vines die off in late summer, I'll plant zucchini and pumpkin.

+  +  +

I got my convention seating chart this morning -- finally -- and I am relieved both to confirm my table space and the location.

This is the first floor of Pack Place. The blue circle is where I was last year. While it's convenient to the courtyard and the bathrooms {the end of the gray hallway), it was separate from the foot traffic. The bathrooms may have been the lone reason why people shuffled toward us. The red circle is where I am this year, smack dab in the middle of what's traditionally called Artists Alley, the coagulation of folks selling sketches or comics. We're separate from the vendors selling back issues or collectibles (they're almost all upstairs), and I'm near another entrance, meaning I'll see a decent amount of peds xing from those not seeking us minicomic folks.That entrance will be handy when I load and unload my car.