Juy 4 Break

This isn't hyperbole: Ratatouille is the best movie of the year.

I saw it Tuesday night, with a lot of kids and some adults who laughed at the slapstick, but I found myself engaged in a film to a level I haven't in a long time. It's ingenious, charming, and more than once deeply emotional in a clean, overpowering manner.

Brad Bird, the screenwriter/director, made The Incredibles work so well, but more importantly he crafted Iron Giant, a film that remains in the my tiny hierarchy of perfect stories. Also, it has a scene that never ever fails to make me blubber like a child. Ratatouille has such a scene -- distinct in set-up and wallop -- but nonetheless suddenly wrenching. It got me and Your Sis, and we agreed afterward that we didn't see it coming and were still surprised it worked so well.

Aside from this scene, the film is a love letter to cooking and kindness, specifically how the latter can stretch too far and be withheld too often. It has a very slow beginning despite some top-notch animation, but once we get past the first 10-15 minutes, the movie moves to Paris, and comes alive. The kitchen scenes are masterpieces of choreography, direction, and timing.

Surprisingly, the rat isn't talking that often nor is he specifically onscreen. The film moves from character to character very well, but more important, it works a specific formula with novelty. When we encounter the Meet Cute, the Crisis of Friendship, and the Calamity from All Sides, they happen organically and credibly. And whoever roped Peter O'Toole into playing the food critic should get a raise.

I thoroughly enjoyed and adore this movie.

We had a free dessert at a local hidden restaurant, free because a waiter tripped Your Sis right out of her shoes.

But Wednesday was the race.

I slept horribly the night before. I took a Naproxen and two Advil to numb my raging jaw pain but woke up several times. I got out of bed before my alarm went off at 6:20. I ate two bananas and had a small OJ before stretching. I got to the race at 7:20. There were already many more folks than at the Halloween race, and most of them were from out of town. The registration line was eight to ten-people deep, but I walked right up to the pre-registration line for my bag of goodies and race number (29). Another table had our timer chips and t-shirts (note to self: offer to design their shirts).

As I was pinning on the number and affixing the chip, I saw folks loosening up in several ways: sitting and chatting, jogging, stretching prone on the parking lot of the town resource center (which serves as the tailgate market in the summer), running hard on the small roads around the lot. There were casual runners, people of various muscle definitions, and a few birdlike marathoners. The race was again taking place in downtown and was timed to jumpstart the holiday street festival. I discovered that the best thing one can do right before a run is to poo. The majority of runners visiting the two porta-johns, and the sheer number delayed the lines and forced the organizers to cut the lines off so the race could start on time. I heard this just as I was exiting the john, and, yes, I felt like I could run a few extra miles.

I recognized and chatted with a few people as we congregated at the start area. I was about 15 yards away from the starting line and chatting. The organizers were instructing us via a megaphone, but we could hear none of it. I had the advantage of familiarity with the route. It was the opposite of the Halloween race. Jailhouse Hill -- the soulcrusher -- was now an downhill for us just after the race began. But, more important, I ran the majority of this route before I switched to running on the campus. Those people who didn't know the geography were going to be shocked by the last mile of the race: It's all uphill, and it's steep. But this was traditionally the first mile of my almost daily run through town.

The crowd was so deep, and we were limited to one road lane, that when the gun fired, I had to stand and wait for those ahead of me to move so I could at least jog. And then I was off.

The first 100 yards was uphill, a significant slope that starts at the beginning of the library lawn. The starting line was at the library itself, halfway up this grade. Unfortunately, this was also the boundary for the street festival, and vendors had already set up their tables along our route. And I mean on our route because we suddenly had a bottleneck where the tables sat in our road lane. This was not fun to navigate, and I had to kick into a lower gear to push up the crowded hill. The slope levels out right at the main downtown intersection, and then you drop like a rollercoaster down Jailhouse. We sounded like floppy-footed horses. I noticed then the wide variety of ages. I was behind a smattering of college-age folks and some 60-year men. Beside ran a kid about ten years old. I was in the back half of the pack, and I concentrated on stride and breath. I wanted to pace myself for the last mile.

The turn onto French Broad is a pleasant flat stretch, just a bit after Jailhouse levels out. But French Broad is long, and it contains two hills. The first you can almost see from the turn. But the hill at the end, where the road meets Park, is a sudden, heartbreaking incline. I heard people spot it and grown in despair. It was before the first incline that I started to pass people. Some simply gave up and walked. Some were slowing down to what I assume was their race pace after bursting out the gate. An older man who settled into a pace was breathing very hard and clopping his feet. I was a little worried, and then he started blowing snot rockets, and I decided that not only was he OK, but he also needed more space, so I moved ahead. I noticed the ponytails of the college girls right up ahead, and this is some small way gladdened my heart as ponytails do. But this was nothing compared to the thrill of passing them once we got onto Park. I had a smooth pace, almost a jog really, but it was consistent, and I again knew this territory.

I knew when to relax my breath and when I needed to bellow my lungs around hills. I also knew when to run by focusing on my thigh muscles instead of the feet. I found myself right behind a kid who was flailing along in exhaustion. Couldn't have been more than eight. And his parents had cruelly dressed him in a thick polo shirt and dress shorts. If he was running from a fire in the church bathroom, he would have looked normal. Here, he might as well have been escaping explosions or zombies. I felt bad for him. I had my running shirt with extreme wicking action and my running shorts. I was also bolstered by fantastic weather. It was maybe 60 degrees with no wind. I was enjoying this climate as I passed Flailing Child.

Park is a winding road with some rises and flats. It's a nice street to run at a cruising speed. Nothing dramatic. When it ends, you're halfway home. I hit the intersection with the Greenville Highway and took inventory. Breathing was OK, legs were a little sore. I think I had a toe blister or maybe a cut from a toenail. Systems were nominal.

The highway leg is maybe 50 yards, and then we turned on Gallimore. Now, it was here that the organizers offered the race's water station. They didn't have this at Halloween. Nice gesture, horrific execution. The station was a cardboard box sitting at roadside with a woman filling up cups. One woman with a jug of water standing next to a box about a foot tall. We couldn't simply stick out our elbow, grab a cup, and maintain our stride. No, you had to, if able, squat at a full clip, snag a cup, rise, and continue running. Or you could do as one woman did and run orbits around the jug woman while she poured a cup, anxiously yelling out "It's almost ready!" Then she take the cup from her hand and joined the race again. Me, I don't drink when I run. But other folks may have needed that, and this is where the organizers failed them.

Gallimore dips a bit, but otherwise its a deceptively rise. Again, I'm passing some folks along the way but rarely being passed myself. Gallimore has a hard curve to the right, lined with trees so you don't know what awaits you: a high dome. I slowed my pace a bit because this immediately precedes the last bad mile. It was here I caught up to a mob of runners -- some kids, some surrendering teenagers, some surprised thin marathoners. We also started to collect by-standers applauding us on, including three cyclists. If I had the time and breath, I would have asked one of them if I could rent their bike for the next ten minutes. The dome levels out right as Gallimore connects with Broad, and this the last real leg of the mile. This is all uphill. This is my road. Literally. I live less than a mile other direction. I make the turn, and note that vehicles have slowed to a crawl behind some of the runners ahead. They're blocking the road, and we have to file onto the sidewalk to run past them.

Here's what Broad does: It slopes down for about 20 yards and then goes up hard. It dips to a brief bowl about 200 yards later, again goes up hard for a half mile, and then it becomes a sly grade. Its very easy to relax after leveling off, ignorant that you're still shoving your way uphill. This is a quad-killer. Your only inspiration here is the cemetery across the road, and it's fantastic for me. I got it better than they do, I can run harder. Up I go. This always reminds me of Six Feet Under.

Unfortunately, stupid, stupid people are standing on the sidewalk watching for friends. They aren't even gesturing to move aside for the runners, and I practically ram one clueless woman backward. I'm also managing to pass runners who are starting to suck wind. A clutch of college gals passes me a bit up the road, and I don't mind. I feel OK. I'm getting tired, and I've w0rked my lungs like pedals, easing up and goosing them on this incline. But there's no side pain at all, and I have zero pain from the wisdom teeth extraction. This is as good as it can get for me, the casual runner. Behind me, I hear a man coaching his son along the way. "Almost there, Patrick. You can do it. Two more minutes. Hardest part's behind us." I saw Patrick earlier. He's as tall as my navel, and he was about to crumble before we left Gallimore. He was one of the kids who would run a while, walk, run a while, walk. I passed him and others about four times before I hit Broad.

When Broad bleeds toward downtown, the road widens, which again helps us spread out from the jerk who's blocking the sidewalk with his dog. But the asphalt bends toward the gutter so strongly that I'm afraid I'll roll my ankle. I drift back to the sidewalk. The route then turns between the library and the unitarian church, and an organizer informs us we only have to "run 200 yards and turn left for the finish line." And now I'm starting to wind down. It's here, I made it, and I didn't walk one step. I ran it all.

Speaking of running, when I run at the college, I always make myself open up the throttle for the last quarter mile. I have an OK jog stride, and it's pleasant to find that notch and work along the college paths. But I love to flat-out run. And that's what I do to end these training runs: Crank up the elbows, throw forward the feet, and push. Sometimes I'm on fumes, sometimes I got power. I never know until I start that last bit. This is where I make up for cruising in earlier spots of a run.

When this road meets South Gaston, the spectators are loud and cheerful. This is where everyone gathers to see the finish. The road leans upward behind the library, and a blue inflatable finish arch sits about 100 yards up. I've paced myself to this point. I turn onto Gaston, and I tell myself to run. I ask myself what remains. And, honest to God, It's like I found another gear.

I'm flying. I'm zooming. I'm passing people like they're standing. Some are; the spectators, but also the dogged racers chugging themselves along, looking down at their feet and forcing themselves farther. Me, I'm making a jet stream. What I hear changes from "you can do it, you're almost there" to "wow, he's really running." And no one is more surprised than me. It actually gets quieter as I approach the line, and a little voice in my head says three things at the exact same time:

1) You should have started this earlier.
2) This feels unsportsmanlike to the other runners. They're struggling here. Look at that guy. He's about to collapse. He's gotta be about 50. That woman has the back of a distance runner, and she's toiled to get up these hills. She's gotta be from out of town. She didn't know what this would be like. You're mocking them with this outburst. You should be ashamed.
3) "Whose house? Run's house!"

I keep it going -- with an accompanying giddiness, probably what all these kids felt half an hour ago -- until I cross under the arch. The chutes quickly shoot left, and I hop to a stop before I crash the barriers like a skier. I make eye contact with one woman praising me on the finish. Yeah, so there. This is my town. This is my street. I've run this leg since September. I can't run a half marathon, but I can run this.

An organizer collects our timer chips, and I didn't see the finish timer anywhere. I learn later it was hidden among the chute-standers. I grab an orange and water from the recovery table and walk back to my car. I feel like a million damn dollars. I grab my camera only to learn the batteries have died. I meet up with some of those I talked to beforehand, and we talk about the fireworks later on in the evening and meeting up for that. I find the times printed and posted about a half hour later. I am tagged as the 119th person to cross the line at a time of 28:53. Five minutes better than my Halloween run. I can definitely live with that, and now I know I can do a bit better if I kick into that gear sooner. I'm already thinking of the next race. And now I have to go home, wake up the wife, and have a decent breakfast.

She's already up, to my surprise, and we snag stuff at the bakery before hitting the grocery store for cookout materials for tonight. We drop those back at the house and go right back out to Asheville. I grab new camera batteries, and she gets an external CD driver for her school laptop. She piles up on books at B&N, and back home we go. I spend the remainder of the day in a weary euphoria.

We make a poundcake from scratch while watching the Twilight Zone marathon. That bakes up OK (my first cake), and I start the grill. The lighter fulid reliant charcoal fails me, and I cool them off enough to load on the quick-light coal, and they combine to make a superheated pyre. Everything cooks very quickly. Kathy and Travis come over for a dandy dinner and we head out to the college to catch the fireworks. The racing folks are there and confess they laid low after running. I confess I'm hopped up on frappuccino.

And when I go to bed that night, it's with a sudden and almost painful collapse. This morning? Yeah, I feel it in my calves. But if I had to, I'd run the race again tomorrow.

Picture of the Day
The closest I could come to Simpsonizing myself at the movie website.

One Day To Go

A break in the rain allowed me to run yesterday, and I clocked my best time yet -- 26:40. That's just seconds under my previous best, but considering the mouth pain, I'm happy with it. The race is tomorrow.

Your Sis made lasagna so I'd have soft food. It's great. I hope we have the leftovers tonight. We couched ourselves for some TV and reading. After I verbally picked on a cat, she thought she'd get back at me with a gentle poke at my cheek. Right where a tooth used to be. I had to laugh it off before doing something stupid. But I was tempted. Sorely tempted, one could say.

We bought our flight tickets and room reservations for Washington. We leave in just over a month. I. Am. Gassed for this.

Moving Picture of the Day
I'm not saying the dentist visit was necessarily like this. I'm not.




In the News (after a hiatus)
Commuting Scooter Libby's sentence is stupid and wrong and wrong and stupid.

First, it tells the country that the federally prosecutor did a bad job, a job so bad that it required presidential action to correct. Second, it allows the GOP to again rail against what it deems "activist judges" who so cruelly apply judgments against those found guilty by a jury. Third, it further cements the notion that the executive branch is a corporate clubhouse. Fourth, it keeps the CIA agent scandal alive in the middle of a campaign cycle. Fifth, this action states that impeding an investigation warrants only a light sentences, an inconvenience at best. That gives ammo to the Democrats to say that the president hopes any further obstruction charges are brushed aside when former associates deny testimony in future investigations against the administration.

Drug-Induced Weekend

We met up with Kathy and Travis for dinner at the steakhouse. I ate gingerly. Just fries and mac & cheese. The two of them couldn't believe I wasn't wearing an ice pack or downing pills like Pez. I traded out the pills before I slept and slept no better. So it's not the hyrdo- or oxy-. It's the codone. After waking up really, really early, I stayed awake enough to try a run. I managed to start right at 8 (the same start time as the race Wednesday), and I completed a 5k run within 28 minutes. No side pain, no shortness of breath. Either the drugs cut my usual run discomfort, or I've lost enough weight to make a difference. I tried to forgo pills at all today to clean out my system. My heartrate is elevated, I sweat at night, and I'm impatient. I don't want this.

We had breakfast before shopping for new office desks for Your Sis. She's redoing her office, and it involves a floor-to-ceiling demilitarized zone. I ate-- again, gingerly-- at another restaurant but it included small burgers. My mouth feels like I have to cloves on either side. My upper jaw is not a problem at all. I did have to take an Advil to cut the lower jaw pain, and I'll take two tonight before going to bed. I can syringe the back of my mouth with warm water to clean out the wounds starting tonight. I might get to brush again by Monday.

I developed a fever Saturday night and stayed in the sick bed. I was fine the next morning after Naproxen and Advil. Also got my first full night of sleep since Tuesday. We tried to buy a desk at Office Max and were told the one she wanted must be special ordered but does include free delivery. Should arrive Tuesday. I did not run Sunday, but I'll need to today, rain or no rain. And it's rained very day for a week now. We found out Travis and Kathy's buddies will run, and I'll join them if I can keep their pace. They are very healthy, fit folks. Luckily, they'll run with their 12-year-old daughter, and she might slow them down enough for me to stay with them. We're hoping to hold a cookout with everybody for dinner.

The potato plants are blossoming with tiny white flowers.

We decided to try Washington, DC for our hopefully annual summer vacation. We bought travel books and checked out a bed-and-breakfast online. I've never been.

I finished off Stephen King's Cell this weekend. It's light-weight king horror, like he tried to slip on the old horror-maven clothes, and they didn't quite fit. His novella Gingerbread Girl in the latest issue of Esquire is a better read.

I ate homemade pizza and soup with just a bit of mouth pain. Again, the cheek gouges are worse than the extraction sites.

Picture of the Day
It's rained so much that the neighborhood is crawling with rabbits looking for dry ground.

Groggy

Your Sis delivered KFC for me last night. The mashed potatoes and gravy are always divine, but getting an actual meal was the highlight of the day. I can't sleep through the night, and I suspect the oxycodone is acting as a stimulant for me. I awake about six hours after the last dose, sweating and alert. I'm going sans pills tonight. I also gave up on the elevated pillow; I can't sleep that way either. I'm still taking the anti-inflammatory though.

I'm at work again and feeling OK. A little tired, of course. I plan to run tomorrow. I have less than a week before the race. I emailed the race organizers asking for a race map as we have yet to know where we're running. That's kinda crucial. They pulled this last year too, and runners veered off course.

Picture of the Day
Sunset over the Pacific.

The Day After

The anesthetic screwed up my short-term memory. Your Sis insists I was chatty and cracking jokes just after the operation, although I recall none of it. She thinks this is adorable; I think it's a bit spooky. I also have the knowledge that we went to CVS for the drugs (the lovely, magic drugs), but I have to take her word for it. I do vaguely remember us going into the local bookstore to kill time between submitting and receiving the prescriptions. I looked at the graphic novel section and bumped into a few endcaps, but it's all swimming like a dream. The few hours of our return home are fractured too.

I ate some Jello, mac and cheese, grapes, and tomato soup. I swapped my gauze a few times. We watched some House, and, well, something else I can't remember right now. The anti-inflammatory pills work the best so far. I started to nod off around 8:30, with the sun still up, for crying out loud. I slept until 2:50 a.m. and couldn't sleep for another 2 hours. I swapped some more gauze before going under and woke up around 9:30 this morning. The pain is virtually gone except where the lower gum scars touch the lining of the mouth. I'm still groggy, but I intend to go back to work tomorrow.

In the News
Egyptian archaeologists claim they found Hat-Shep-Shut, the influential pharaoh queen . According to the NY Times, "scientists said this was the first mummy of an Egyptian ruler to be found and 'positively identified' since King Tutankhamun’s tomb was opened in 1922." I remember reading about her in art history classes. She has quite the legacy.

+ + +

The Benoit coverage is dwindling as all anyone can do is wait to see what drugs may have been in his system. The murder-scenario rumors are disturbing as they are all based on wild speculation. One says the son, hopped up on human growth hormones, killed the mother.

Removals

A Mexican dinner followed by ice cream, and then I couldn't eat until after the procedure. After eating, we watched the Tuesday night wrestling show. It started with Vince McMahon deflecting criticisms of Monday's tribute to Benoit. He said the details that have come to light mean Benoit's name will not be mentioned again on the WWE, and the following show would help with getting past by being entertaining. And it was, I suppose. The networks are gunning for the "roid rage" angle, but the WWE wisely points out that this murder-suicide stretched over three days, demonstrating deliberation and not the tell-tale sudden outburst. The cable news networks found two out-of-work performers to poo-poo the WWE, the expected workload, and the use of steroids to become successful.

I'm still trying to reconcile the words "Chris Benoit" with the news. My mind can't grasp it. And occasionally, I have the urge to breakdown again, for the entirety of this horror. The press conference details were gruesome and clearly point to Benoit as a deeply troubled person. I put away my Benoit shirt and action figure. When I unearth them again in a few months, I may burn them. I can't enjoy what this man was, not when his character was so indistinct from himself.

I am devoid of three wisdom teeth.

I managed not to eat anything for 13 hours before the operation. I decided on using the knockout drug, administered through an IV. I sat in the chair and the plugged me in. I was given a blood pressure cuff, a finger pulse monitor, and three EKG patches. They stuck a needle in me and then hooked that up to the IV drop. It was saline initially, but then the dentist added some syringes of drugs to it. I first felt it in my empty stomach and then the back of my head. I don't remember anything after that. I was out within 30 seconds. I woke up cleanly with a mouthful of gauze 45 minutes later.

Your Sis drove us to the CVS for the prescriptions (Oxycodone and anti inflammatory). I took out the gauze and had soup and Sprite. My tongue was a dried out wad, and my lower lip is dead putty. It made drinking and sipping difficult. I took my first Oxy and am now changing out the gauzes after 30-minute applications.

I feel clear-headed, but my lower left tooth area hurts. It feels like a jaw ache. But otherwise, I feel OK. I'll post teeth pictures later.

Horrible and Sudden News

EDIT: I won't be online tomorrow as I am having wisdom teeth yanked out. Might be away Thursday too.

One of my favorite wrestlers has died, and police are calling it a murder-suicide.

Chris Benoit was one of the guys who, in the mid '90s, brought a new degree of realism and intensity to rasslin at a time when it was flush with cartoony characters and gimmicks. He was a product of the fabled Stu Hart Dungeon, a basement training center run by the patriarch of Canadian wrestling. Benoit was small and quiet, and that kept him from advancing beyond the midcard for many years, but the fans took to him because he never coasted through a match or a feud. He always showed up ready to play, and his matches would often steal the show from the main event, even if it included Hogan or Rock or Austin.

I first noticed Benoit when he moved to WCW, the Atlanta-based national promotion. The organization had the financial backing of Ted Turner and later Time-Warner and was able to sign and maintain a huge roster at high salaries. Benoit and his smaller compatriots were deemed the "Vanilla Midgets" backstage by the larger boys who ran the show. They were considered unmarketable because they relied on performance and choreography instead of catchphrases.

It wasn't until the bloated budgets and diva tantrums threatened to sink WCW that Benoit was given the world belt. But because the talent had largely soured on the management and backstage hierarchies, Benoit and his popular running buddies walked out the door not 24 hours after he won the title. Management let them, saying anyone who wasn't happy at WCW could leave with no financial entanglements. Within a month, they were on the WWF and working in a significant storyline.

Benoit was placed against the Rock for his first singles feud and worked the main event on consecutive PPVs. He held the tag belts and the Intercontinental title before finally getting the WWF belt in 2004. This was not long after he was sidelined for a year with spinal fusion surgery; his hard style of performance had ground away at his neck. But even after that, his style remained the same. He never changed his repertoire. He had just been moved to the WWE-owned ECW roster to capture that group's world title and bring respectability to a floundering franchise. He was going to win the belt this past Sunday.

But he no-showed, saying he had a family emergency. Word spread that his one-time tag partner in Canada had died, and it was assumed he was taking time off (even from a world title win) to pay respects. But late Monday, he was found dead along with his wife and son in their Atlanta home.

Even plugged in online as I am, I heard nothing of this until I turned on the weekly Monday show. It was supposed to be a three-hour special devoted to the storyline that owner Vince McMahon had died in a car bombing. We were going to see a cloying tribute to the character and watch as the feds investigated the matter backstage. But when 8 p.m. rolled around, the show began instead with the now-traditional memoriam screen, and it was naming Benoit.

The screen then cut to an empty Texas arena where the show was supposed to broadcast live. Vince was in the ring (the first time he'd appeared onscreen since his character's apparent death) to say the show had been canceled, the storyline has been halted, and the next three hours would pay video tribute to Benoit who was found dead in his home along with his wife and son. I thought initially the family's plane may have crashed on the way to the Canada services. During commercials and match highlights, I checked online. The Atlanta paper would say only that the family had not been shot to death. Message boards claimed that Benoit had told the company that his wife and son were coughing up blood. But today, the paper quotes police as saying he killed them then himself, and the eventually released details will be bizarre.

It's a shock. I'm used to seeing sudden announcements of wrestler deaths. So many of them die after their hearts give out after years of steroids or painkillers. But this obituary is eclipsed by the circumstances. Benoit dead after killing his family. I don't know the guy, had watched him perform for about ten years, but the news hit hard, abetted by the fear that this would be an ugly story, and apparently it is.

His was the first wrestling shirt I ever owned. I still have it. Unfortunately all the performers whose shirts I bought are dead now. And everything I liked about the guy will be overshadowed by what ultimately will be announced about his death and especially those of his family. His wife was in the business too; that's how they met. It became a funny scandal: They were put together by a writer who was also her husband and Benoit's onscreen rival. The story dictated that they would fall for each other and team up against the husband. Then it happened for real. She left the writer/wrestler and took up with Benoit. They got married and had a son. He was seven when he died. Benoit had just turned 40.

Benoit's best friend Eddy Guerrero died within the past two years. His heart failed him after he cleaned up from drugs. Eddy was a fantastic ring performer. He had the gift of gab Benoit lacked. His death was a shock as well, but this is different because of the offscreen events. And I feel horrible for Chavo, Eddy's nephew and fellow wrestler. He's lost Eddy and Chris within such a short time, and the latter through an apparent domestic tragedy.

I'm sleepwalking through the day, saddened and burdened by the whole damn thing. This will do nothing to help the mainstream image of the business, and that's an anathema to everything Benoit tried to give it inside the ring.

Go, Team Venture

I rented two films for the weekend, Nacho Libre and Children of Men. Nacho is a kids film, through and through, complete with random fart sound effects. Mildly disappointed with this one. I decided later that Children of Men looks like something Your Sis might like; I put off watching it until she got back.

I mowed on Saturday, cleaned up, and hit downtown. I perused the library periodicals, paid the water bill, tried unsuccessfully to order a coffee behind a pack of elderly tourists (suddenly we're swarming with them), strolled an art gallery featuring works by my first painting teacher, and bought lawnmower sparkplugs and peppercorns. When I got home, I vacuumed the house, cleaned the stove (gas ranges get very messy, much to my surprise), did the laundry, and composted the old leftovers. I'm so fucking domestic.

I rewarded myself by watching the Season One DVD of Venture Brothers, a cartoon that got so much right at the very beginning. It didn't have to find its footing. I have no idea how well this cartoon would work for people who didn't watch Johnny Quest cartoons though. I drew a bit to flesh out the revamped cat comic and went to bed during a terrific thunderstorm.

A wrong-number call woke me up tragically early Sunday morning, and I decided to try to run. And I failed miserably. I ran the opposite direction on the campus, thinking the change of view would enliven the now-routine run. I had initial trouble with the stopwatch function on the iPod, I had to pee almost immediately, and I never found my stride. I was aching within two laps and couldn't complete the third. I bombed out. I suspect now that I was sunburned and dehydrated. It's humiliating, honestly.

I slunk home, cleaned up, and went back out for groceries. As I approached the Starbucks booth, the barista started to recite my usual order. But I had already decided to make a change and shocked her with my order of the double chocolate chip frappuccino. Never had it before and now I may never drink anything else. It tastes like chocolate cake batter. I almost bought Your Sis a welcome-back cake but thought better of it. She's eaten travel food for a week; she may want healthier fare.

She did arrive around 4:30, and she immediately showered so we could go out to eat. OK, there was a small nap in between, but then we hit the pub. And she decided she wanted a cake (argh!), and we picked up a red-velvet half cake from the grocery store as we watched TiFauxed House and Jeopardy.

Picture of the Day
Harrison Ford on the set of the upcoming Indiana Jones film. My reflexive notion is that they waited too long. I remember selling the last film's VHS when I worked at Wal-Mart during my senior year of high-school. Remember the line "it's ain't the years, it's the mileage?" Sometimes it's the years. Indy looks small. Thin, reedy. This is the shrinking of all mature men. This is not what I want to see from my pulp hero. Should they have found another Indy? No. I would rather they made a big-fat CGI film and let Ford voice his character.

New Time

The first day of summer was hot, but I needed to run. And I did, in my best time yet: 26:43. That's almost ten minutes off my Halloween race time. I ran hard for the whole 5k, despite a lack of lungpower. I'm feeling it this morning. The town is stampeded with runners; seeing their unmistakable runner physiques, I have no illusions of winning this race in two weeks. As races go, Halloweeen apparently was for fun; this one is for reals, yo.

I rewarded myself with a burger from the new drive-thru place, and it was underwhelming. I should have gotten a Whopper. It's been a while since I've eaten from the big-name fast food joints, but I'm getting that craving.

I may take advantage of the Bachelor Week and catch a film in the theatres. I hate to go alone, but I can also see something Your Sis won't even sniff at. I don't have much interest in the new Fantastic Four film, even though it's playing within 2 miles of the house. I'd consider the Fine Arts theatre right down from work, but this is the first night of the Smashing Pumpkins 9-night stint, and downtown will be a zoo. And as I look at the fandango listing of films offered right now, there's nothing I want to see. A trip to the Buster of Block may be in order.

Picture of the Day
The Cats Eye Nebula, somwehere out there.

Toil and Try

The weather was perfect for yardwork. A little wind, a lot of clear air, many shady trees. The half of the garden that we didn't cultivate is overgrown. Well, was overgrown. It was a mess of ivy, weeds, and a thick-stalk brush. Attacking it made my weed-eater line vanish in a hurry. I fetched the hedge trimmer, squatted, and mowed the plants away. I think we're gonna have to -- excuse me, I'm gonna have to -- dig up the root balls. We won't grow anything on that half of the garden, not for a while anyway, so there's no hurry. I raked the successfully hewed greenery into the compost pile. I worked hard enough to skip running until later on today. The potato plants are about a foot tall.

I tried an experiment mixing honey, lemon juice, and pepper for a baste on broiled chicken. It may have worked better had I not used a frozen fillet pre-coasted with a "seasoning mixture." This mixture eclipsed the recipe and made it taste eggy, like a heavy pancake. This is not my favorite flavor. Thankfully, I made mac and cheese as the side.

I tried to watch a film called The Dreamers about three youngsters playing at sex and art in mid-'60s Paris. It's no fun. It's Moulin Rogue without the charm or energy. Also, the last ten minutes feels like a bad play. Watch only if you want to see lots of full frontal nudity. The gal from Casino Royale is starkers for half the film.

Picture of the Day
I often check in on my old newspaper's website to see how it's chugging along. The website is the same as before, but the publication is technically a new animal. The old paper is gone, and this new publication is a product of the former news editor dressing up his material in the clothes of the original publication. What was a small operation is now a tiny one, and he wasn't able to find a graphics guy with my expertise. He's making do with what he has, and I suspect he's trying to keep it afloat until he can sell it for a tidy profit. I don't think that's possible in such a glutted publication market, but that's another rant.

When I was there, we used to butt heads over packaging articles. He wanted certain art styles to accompany his cover stories. Once, he gave me a page from a Sunday New York Times with an industrial Soviet illustration and told me to hold on to it so I would make something in a similar style for a story he would write later. My point is, he would put the cart before the horse, packaging his story before he wrote it, and at the very least this puts into question his journalist ethic: Would he leave out crucial material in order to maintain his established desire package? I didn't appreciate this degree of input. We had specialized jobs; he'd write, I'd package. He criticized my covers often, not because they were bad, but because they weren't what he had in mind when writing the piece. He claimed more than once that he was the only one who cared about our product, and we were all letting down both him and our duty to the readers.

Anyway, I bring this up because the current issue includes what appears to be a sit-down with Barack. That's a very nice get for a paper this size. But, jesus, look at that headline.


Who pronounces his name "Buh-RACK?" Why reference a movie more than 20 years old? This cute style of headline removes any dignity and importance from the biggest story of the paper's short life. Here's how you package a story about a conversation with Barack Obama: "A Conversation With Barack Obama." Save the puns for county council scandals. And that top-left graphic looks like it took five minutes in MS Paint.

I hate to see the paper -- even a descendant of my old paper -- reduced to this. We won national awards when I was there. And despite our conversations on the subject, neither version of the publication contacted me for cover work when I moved here. Not that I think Jim would contact me; obviously we didn't get along well. Also, I hear he doesn't pay; he offers trade for advertiser coupons. He then likely can't attract the artists he needs, the artists the paper needs.

Rain. More Rain. Followed by Rain.

So, yeah, it precipitated all over the place yesterday, and now I worry that our potatoes are going to be mashed before I can pull them out of the ground. There's little I can do except bury them further in soil, but that only protects the green stalks, which are useless and toxic. All the tubers remain buried for now, so they might be OK after all. The weather has been odd; both towns have received hail within three days of each other. Big hail too. Not the simply annoying variety.

The rain kept me from working in the yard or running at the school. I considered running at the gym, but the treadmills alter my stride and make my calves and hips ache.

I stayed home instead and drew some more. I decided my next minicomic will be an expansion of the cat comic I did for Your Sis when she visited you in Snazzyland. It's already thumbnailed and scripted, but I will polish it up for the general audience. Your Sis still refers to its punchlines, so I know she likes it. The super-cool previous idea remains on the back burner until I can decide how to print it: in multiple parts or as a regular size comic.

Picture of the Day
My Geek Card will be revoked unless i post an image of the motorcycle from the next batman movie. I'm cool with a Batcycle; that big tank he drives is too cumbersome to go through alleyways. He used to have one in the comics, until he moved full-time to the Batmobile and Robin became the cyclist of the duo. Of course, Bats also used to have a Batcopter, Batjet, Batboat, and I think a Batrocket.

Convention Follow-Up

Three things to add to the previous post:

1) There were a lot more women attending this year. I'd say the gender ratio is 65/35 now, a vast improvement over previous years. The ages were varied, and I noticed more female creators. There were some costumed folk but nothing on the scale of Atlanta's DragonCon.

2) I narrowly avoided acknowledging a guy who stalked me in high school. We met through a mutual friend, and apparently he switched from shadowing that guy to me. Just wouldn't leave me alone. He knew my class schedule and was there virtually every time I turned around. I had to give him an ultimatum. Figures, the first time I'm the one to break up with someone, it's a guy. He was at the show, but I'm not sure he recognized me. He looked the same however.

3) Turns out, the Sandman sketch I did was for one of the message board people I didn't get to meet later. We had no idea. He saw my convention comments on that board and identified himself and had the photo of me with his son. Again, the odds are astronomical.

I ran my fastest 5k yet at 27:24. My feet are hurting this morning. If the weather holds out, I'll do yard work tonight. The potato plants are getting so tall that they're falling over. This may be a sign they need more stabilizing soil. I can't tell if the scattered yellow leaves means the plants are ready for harvesting or they're receiving too much water. It has rained a lot here.

Your Sis had a full first day at the conference, and she called to say good night around 11.

Picture of the Day
The pic of me after the sketch.

The Con Weekend

Your Sis worked late at school Friday night, giving me the chance to run at the college for the first time since Sunday. I managed a 28-minute 5k. As I walked afterward, I saw the couple whose puppy I ran over and ran up to them to inquire about her. There she was, loping around with her big puppy tongue, somewhat larger than I last saw her but OK just the same. That's a relief. I was home and showered before Your Sis got home. We had a late pub dinner. Your Sis had two rum and cokes; she was wasted and deservedly so. I gathered up all my con gear, and we discussed route maps before we called it a night.

We had a languorous breakfast from the bakery before I left for the convention. It's a nice enough drive for almost 3 hours' time. I took it as a good omen that I knew the answer to the Car Talk puzzle, a rarity (Why can't kids find the gas tank on an old Cadillac? You have to move the license plate to get to it.). I arrived right at noon and talked to Your Sis about her preparations for the AP conference starting Sunday.

As I bought my ticket and started to enter the convention, I was spotted by my old comic gang. Now, you have to imagine the odds of five people recognizing each other during the busiest day of a con that might host 20,000. And for us to arrive at the same time? Another omen. We walked the con floor for a bit, checking out the various stands. At a con like this, you'll find toys, collectibles, bootleg DVDs by the score, and back issues of comics. Sellers use cons to get rid of their inventory, and Sunday's last hours can provide bargains. But I was only here for the one day. We noticed two Christopher Reeve Superman movie costumes priced in the thousands. After an hour of gawking and window shopping, we split up. I was distracted by original art for sale, and they were looking for toys. Those don't catch my eye anymore. I mean, I look at them and hope to find one thing that will demand I buy it, but that doesn't happen. I did want to find two particular comic issues and did so to my surprise within ten minutes of looking. Again, the odds are against that sort of thing. Needles and haystacks and all that.

I spotted the booth for my hometown comic store, admiring all the swag before I realized who the booth belonged to. I gave him one of my new business cards. I gave them out to almost everyone I talked to. The comic gang each got one. I think I gave the turnstile guardian one. I was pimping. But I had no idea where my publisher table was with my minicomic. I couldn't find him in the con program (and didn't until I got home and spotted his name right away, of course). So I strolled the artist section. Unlike the previous years I attended, the con was split in half: one side had the merchants, the other was all artists and creators. This is a big sea change, and I like it. I don't need bootleg copies of Dark Shadows or Tron nor do I want a statue of Catwoman, a collection of Ant-Man comics, or t-shirts with online punchlines. But I want to look a creator in the eye, shake his hand, and tell him how much I read his Spider-Man comic when I was four years old and laid up with the flu. That's why I love cons.

The first guy I talked to was Brian Defferding, who I know from online but never met. I bought the latest issue of his homemade comic and gave him my cell phone number so we and other online folks could meet up for dinner. This was 80% of my reason for going. I didn't know what to expect for the minicomic experience, but I had talked about the message-board rendezvous for weeks. I could finally put faces and voices to names. I walked a bit further and met Chris Kemple, the one-time comics editor for my university newspaper. It was with his encouragement that I was able to produce a weekly strip for almost three years. We caught up on jobs and comics. Right down from him was his predecessor, Jeff Parker, who has since become a rising star at Marvel Comics. I bought a book of Alex Toth sketches from his personal company. Toth was the design genius for the Hanna-Barbera's cartoons that didn't involve talking animals. Johnny Quest, Super Friends, Space Ghost, Herculoids -- that's all him. He also did comics work. The man was a prolific monster of simplicity, and the guy Parker and Kemple both instructed us college cartoonists to learn about and emulate.

A few tables later, I spotted my Wide Awake compadres. And right there was my minicomic, amongst the HUGE selection of WA products: pins, comics, shirts, etc. They had lucked into a massive floor space when another artist moved and handed over her booth space to them. I slipped behind the table and suddenly I was on the other side of a convention. I had a chair and some table space to hawk my comic and business cards and sketch. And there I was for three hours. The guys I sat between were WA contributors and stepped away from their stuff at different times, and I watched their merchandise for them. I even sold some of their items. My comic was part of a printer mishap where a good number of the copies were spotty, but since I wasn't paying for publishing costs, I wasn't going to complain.

This is the booth. That's Duane, a WA regular.

The publisher and the guy to my right left for about 90 minutes to talk about mincomics for a convention panel. During a lull at the table, an attendee walked up, and I was alone to greet and cajole. Just like that, I sold my first minicomic. Two dollars. Didn't even think to sign it for him, that's how surprised I was. A little bit later, I talked an eager shopper into getting at least one anthology and my minicomic. Didn't sign either of those. I did sketch in and sign a copy of the horror anthology for another attendee.

I sat and sketched in hopes someone would ask me to draw for them. Chris, the publisher, handed me some folded paper and told me to make a sign saying I'd sketch for $5 a pop. I didn't even think of that, but I made my sign and drew in the most obvious manner possible to win some business.

Scarlet Witch and Namor, done at the con.

There's two things to draw if you want convention people to ask for a sketch: Wolverine and women. It's that simple. So I drew the Scarlet Witch. My card caught some eyes, and most people commented the location of Transylvania, incredulous that such a place existed. I assured them all. I knew that'd get attention.

I got to work on a jam comic. Someone folded pages of drawing paper, and we took turns making up a story page by page. It started off with a rabbit and a bear rendezvousing for a picnic, but the rabbit was late, and the potato salad had spoiled. This is where I came in. I made the bear realize he could get more if he prayed to the tater salad god, and with that I handed off the comic.

It was during this work that a guy came up to me and asked if I could draw Sandman. I'll put money that my Witch drawing caught his eye. I asked him which version of Sandman he wanted; I knew of three off the top of my head. He wanted the Spider-Man villain and explained he was asking folks to sketch in his provided art book for his son. He even had reference pictures ready if I needed them. Which I didn't. I've seen this Sandman since I was four. I could draw him with my eyes closed. Because he had his young son in tow, I did a quick sketch and inked over it. Took maybe five minutes tops. I signed it, and he asked me to personalize it. I took a photo of it (my first con sketch, for gosh sakes), and then he took a picture of the kid standing with his new sketch. This was as perfect a con sketch experience as I could ask for. And the guy handed me $5 before I could shoo it away.

A quick Sandman for a youngster.

My comic gang walked by and saw me behind the table, as did Kemple. I felt somewhat professional. I missed a few panels by the major publishers, but it wasn't likely I'd spend 90 minutes listening to what I could read online later on in the week. About 5:30, everyone was back, and I took off to see the rest of the con. I had to sprint through; the doors closed at 6. Still didn't see any knick-knacks that demanded to go home with me. But I did spot some original art by John Paul Leon, a guy whose style I greatly admire. I found a page of his from one of my favorite comic issues (and it was the last page of that issue to boot) and snagged it for a very good price. I asked him to sign it to me so he'd know it was staying with me and not marked up on eBay.

Finding and buying this page makes me much happy.

I carried it around gingerly as I checked the rest of the booths until they started to pack up. Your Sis has declared I can buy no books until my birthday as she has bought me one. So I didn't get a few trades that caught my eye. Also, I can find them at bookstores later if I really need them.

It was as I drifted to the doors that Brian called me about the dinner. The online folks had moved the dinner back to 9 p.m. I couldn't do it. I had nothing to do for three hours, and that late start time would get me back home around 2 a.m. But I also hadn't eaten since I arrived, and I figured I'd grab convenience store junk for the drive back. I knew that by leaving then, I'd be home before they sat down to eat. I wanted to stay -- this was why I really came, remember -- but it wasn't practical.

I ran into my comic gang and spotted vending machines. I wanted a large Pepsi but the cost was two bucks, and all my small bills were either the $2 for the minicomic or the $5 bill. I couldn't do it. I couldn't spend them. I wanted to frame them, and even as I told myself I could replace them later, I wouldn't have those bills. Emotional attachment won out. My gang did try to pay for the drink, but I assured them I'd get snacks down the road. We said goodbye after discussing the Atlanta con this fall. I said "hi" to some of the online guys outside the convention and called Your Sis as I walked back to the car. Sure enough, at 9:15, I was back home, having destroyed my voice with hours of talking, a big Sprite, and singing along to the iPod.

Your Sis was still packing, and I vegged on the couch until she was ready to give full attention to the adventure. And I spilled the beans as we threw back an entire bottle of Sangiovese (the brand we said in Italian accents at Biltmore). Because I was exhausted from six hours of driving and six hours of conventioning, I very easily and quickly became pickled. Blotto. And so it was we crawled to bed.

She finished packing Sunday morning before we grabbed Starbucks coffee. We sat on the back deck and sorted out her carload before her driving buddy arrived. They left around 11 a.m. I piddled around the house all day. I couldn't shake the hangover even after guzzling water. She called around 1o that night and said she just found our her AP course was approved. Just like that, first time out of the gate. It was a big weekend for both of us.

That's Much Better

Your Sis runs to the approaching weekend as if the school was on fire. And from an administrative perspective, it sorta is. More bad decisions and spotty communication have created a mess about the summer school and who is eligible. Efforts are made to find volunteer teachers after most of them have already packed up their rooms for the summer. She worries she'll be sucked into another obligation if she stays around too long.

I stopped by the art store yesterday to load up on convention gear:
1 pad tracing paper (great for learning technique)
1 small sketchpad (I needed a more portable one anyway)
3 2H pencils
1 two-tip Sharpie
2 mechanical pens

I also packed up my Silver Sharpie, rubber eraser, portfolio, notebook paper, and the business cards.

We assembled a pizza for a quick supper before watching [i]Kinsey[/i].

Motion Picture of the Day

Liam Neeson plays "Prok" Kinsey as he shifts his obsessive research discipline from gull wasps to human sexuality. While watching the film, I noticed we were seeing it as Kinsey might have directed it. That is, this film's version of Kinsey. It's a straight-forward film, at times falling into bio-pic cliche, but it doesn't play up sex for cheap thrills. In fact, sex is perceived as mechanical activity throughout. Kinsey, a product of this time, takes a workman's attitude to sex research and education, offering humanity in his famous interviews but not in his classroom. The first students gasp as Kinsey shows slides of human sex organs. I wonder how this played in the theatre; would the modern audiences chuckling over antiquated attitudes find themselves equally shocked?

It was a different time, a crushing morale and ignorant time not unlike how I blithely meandered through high school. A time when Kinsey realizes his marriage might never work unless he and his wife find an expert to tell them how sex is supposed to work. And they do. And he does. And everything changes. Kinsey realizes everyone has this problem because no one knows anything about sex. The first examples of normal, questioning folks display an almost charming lack of fundamental sex mechanics and recite the warnings of disease and insanity handed down from on high. And then, during the interviews, we see time and again as the subjects as Kinsey" Am I normal?" when what they really mean is "Is it wrong for me to enjoy what I do?"

And what Kinsey can't prepare for is the social reactions to his studies, either in the world media or among his inner circle of followers who can't quites escape the traditional morals even as they swap wives. Humans can choose to mimic the sex play of animals, but they aren't prepared to shed the human upbringing.

I like this cast a lot. Neeson is in virtually every scene, and he's good. Laura Linney is welcome on my TV screen anytime as are John Lithgow, Oliver Platt, and Tim Curry. It's a smart film, one that casts a clean light on events without romanticizing or eschewing the humor of foibles. I like it, and unlike the majority of porn I've seen, it doesn't erase the appetite for sex as it dissects it. Like Kinsey, the film reveals the trappings of humanity without diluting its joys.

The Day After

Your Sister sounded remarkably alert for someone running on fumes. She did nod off while at the dentist and as I rubbed her back before dinner. We had a fancy-schmancy dinner with teacher buddies, and the conversation did steer clear of school matters. We ate a great mix of food and shared bites of everything. We then showed them the new car and let them drive it around the block. They like it a lot, but the car payments worry them. Once we said good night and went home, Your Sis crashed hard. She was lightly snoring within a minute.

I checked out some CDs from the library in hopes of making a new mix CD for Your Sis while she's away.

Virgin Suicides soundtrack - Air
You asked me about Air when you were in Snazzyland, so I gave this a try. It's good. It sounds a lot like OK Computer mixed with the Alan Parsons Project.

The Best of Gladys Knight and the Pips
Gladys is in my top three female singers list with Annie Lennox and Barbara Streisand. But this is a mostly mid'1970s material, and the low-key, smooth R&B production is all the same. It does feature three live tracks that showcase the group's performing energy, and it's as if an LP were bumped from 33 RPM to 45. She sang the National Anthem at the Atlanta Olympics Opening Ceremony in a moment that made me grin like a child.

Sam Cooke Live
A great singer with an unfortunately small set. Sounds like about 30 people are in attendance at the Harlem Square Club, and that makes for a quieter experience that I was hoping for.

I don't think there's anything here she'd want to listen to.

Picture of the Day
The convention starts officially tomorrow, and, while it does compete with another con in Philadelphia, it will be the biggest show this month. I am jazzed, but accepting of the fact that what I have on display is not my best work. The next minicomics will be stronger. I now have 200 biz cards to take to the convention. I printed them at home to save money.

Workhorse

Your Sister just pulled an all-nighter. She called me at work yesterday to ask if I knew where to find two lost research papers, and I pleaded stupid. She eventually found them in the wrong place at school, but those papers hadn't been graded. When I got home, she was marking exams which of course were done in essay format. Now I understand that she teaches writing, and I clearly remember the brain-melting burden of writing pages upon pages in my English classes. But there has to be be a better way to set up exams so she doesn't face a pile of essays in a short grading window.

Then again, she may have had plenty of time originally were it not for utter incompetence in the administration in assigning teachers for remediation classes. It's a giant clusterfuck. There's no other way to say it. I think Your Sis could handle this if she had a breather between the AP preparation and research papers. But she's had her nose to the grindstone since Spring Break two months ago. Since that time, there has been a constant stream of "oh by the way" notices from the higher-ups and an insufficient pool of teachers available to carry the load.

She went back to the school around 9 last night, found the papers, returned home within the hour, and went back to the exams. I stayed up to offer my help, but she pulled rank and put me to bed around 12:45. She was afraid I wouldn't be able to drive to work. As it is, I'm quaffing a vente crackuccino today. But she stayed up all night, going back to school at 4 a.m. to input grades before today's deadline. She's detail-oriented, she's impossibly organized, and she wants to give the students as many chances to pass as possible. But she was handed a shitload of obligations at the last second, and there's no reason a teacher -- a teacher -- should pull an all-nighter. Her fatigue has subsumed her anger, and she's now just coasting along until she can crash tonight in the giant bed. We have a dinner date with a teacher couple tonight, and it's her light at the end of the tunnel. I offered to postpone it, but she won't hear of it.

She's a rock of professionalism, but she's also a sponge for responsibility. I continually advocate delegation and denial. I hope her new position shows her the need for saying "no" now and then. She can't keep up this level of work. I don't think anyone can. And I feel helpless. I don't know what I can do for her. She feels bad when I make the smallest gesture. Last night, she asked if I could cook the dinner she planned and felt guilty about it. I couldn't dissuade her anxiety which ran rampant because she doesn't have the energy to corral it. She doesn't have enough left to explode. She's going to ultimately ooze into a puddle. When she has the time.

Picture of the Day
I need to take her to an air show. She loves them. We attended one in Greenville when I worked there. It was a disaster of organization for everything except the flights. We saw the aircraft from a superb location as we worked a marketing booth. She was in glee. I was constantly planning where to run from exploding airplane parts.

Papers Down, Blood Pressure Up

The research papers are fini. Over. Closed for the summer. Your Sis wrapped them up with a marathon session on the couch. The end of classes means there's now a small window to get everything done before she leaves for the AP conference, and she is rattled. And angry. Much has been dropped in her lap with no advance notice from the bosses. Anxiety and stress are normal for this time of year, but she's in a new situation and has no callouses for these new grinds. It will get done. It always gets done. But she will need a temporary collapse sometime this week just to reboot. A planned dinner with another teacher couple may be just the thing. We're not sure if we're hosting them for a cookout or going to a local eatery. Either way, it will be cathartic if, and only if, I can get the other three to stop talking shop. Maybe I can thrill them with talk about the upcoming convention.

That's in just five days, by the way. I have to print out my business cards and buy some supplies. I don't have confirmation that I'll have any time at the booth potentially sketching for people. but I want to be prepared.

I may have sprained half my foot, and I'm switching to floor exercise before running again.

Horses, Puppies, and Tonys

Your Sis worked hard this weekend to finish all the grading. She was at work until about 10 p.m. Friday. I used the time to run at the college. Starting Saturday, she hunkered down on the couch and hit the research papers. We bought some produce at a local tailgate market before noticing a book sale at the library. I picked up a "West Wing" script book and a hardcover copy of Stephen King's Cell. I've wanted both for a long time. We watched about five hours of horse racing, and that's plenty to last me until next year. An outdoor dinner preceded some yard work. She weeded while I cleared away the ignored half of the garden. Then we assembled the tree pruner Your Dad gave us and took down some thick branches that kept me from mowing parts of the lawn. The back yard is in full glory at this time of year. The lush trees hide the surrounding trees, and it's become a private cylindrical garden.

I got up early and ran at the college Sunday. Unfortunately, I literally ran over a puppy. I was watching an oncoming car, and he ran up from behind me and under my feet. Suddenly, I was trampling. His owners were in the yard and saw the incident. They assured me he was just scared, not hurt, and would be OK. I felt awful. Another runner unwisely brought along her giant dog that hated strangers. She had to stop running to keep it from charging me. In better news, I did mange to cut two minutes from my pace time. Not because I was being chased by a giant stranger-hating dog.

Sunday night, we attended a graduation party for one of the transplanted Spanish students at her dad's restaurant. We couldn't follow the many Spanish conversations, but we did strike up a chat with an older couple. And they're retired illustrators for NASA. Is there any cooler job possible? (Answer: Uh, no.) The husband also collected his favorite comic strips from newspapers, and we got to talk comic artists. It was a startling series of conversations that lasted three hours. This just can't happen in Mayberry, not at a high-school graduation party.

Picture of the Day
We got home in time for me to watch the TiFauxed Tony Awards. It was a weak affair with too many "gosh, Broadway is great" numbers from high-profile productions like Mary Poppins. A new show called Spring Awakening took the majority of awards. It seems similar to Rent and seems to have just as rabid a following. That's them performing last night. The Coast of Utopia, a nine-hour trilogy play about European revolution, took the awards for that category.

The Procession

A local man signed up for the military after 9/11 and was killed in Afghanistan last week. His body arrived at the Asheville airport and received a formal color-guard procession all the way to Brevard yesterday. Folks stood along the highway with flags as the hearse drove by. I missed all this; I was in Asheville buying business-card paper (I was going to go to a print shop to make my convention cards, but I don't need 1,000 of them, even for $40) . Two local radio hosts decided to use this event to measure their demographic.

Host No. 1 thought the classy thing to do at a funeral procession is to have his listeners honk their horns at the same time. Fortunately, the procession started too late, and he didn't get his communal horn blast. Ass.

Host No. 2, a local preacher/activist, got into the procession and gave live play-by-play during the drive to Brevard. I was about 15 minutes behind the procession and still on I-26 for most of its slow drive to town. When I arrived in Brevard, it was about ten minutes after they arrived. The host described a mob of people all along the route, even some standing in the road. I didn't see any of this. He described hundreds of flags unfurled at roadside. I didn't see any of this. He name-dropped all the businesses he claimed had sufficient patriotic displays. I didn't see any of this. He compared the attendance to that of the Christmas parade numerous times. What I did see was the traffic moving along the secondary roads. All the intersections along the route were blocked by firetrucks, and Brevard was a parking lot when I arrived. People were driving past the funeral home to catch sight of the hearse. Just the day before, the host was summoning his listeners to the route to stand guard for nameless, liberal, anti-war protesters who were sure to vandalize the procession somehow. This, of course, didn't happen, and the preacher can now claim his audience denied the alleged plot. Double ass.

Now, obviously, a smalltown mass gesture of respect for a native fallen soldier is never something I will poo-poo. But blatant radio stunts are, and both these guys have cemented their status as unscrupulous bastards.

Your Parents delivered an anniversary gift and one of Your Grandmother's scrapbooks to me earlier in the day. Your Sis and I sat down to thumb through, and it's all baby pictures. A few of you, one of Penn, and the rest were her. Despite the inarguable cuteness of her baby pics, I was distracted by the photos of Your Mom. I can't see at all what drove her to get reconstruction work. Of course, I'm biased; you're all head-turning.

We then met Travis and Kathy for dinner at the pub and suffered through a tragically overwhelmed waitress. I placed my food order three times. I took the high road and tipped well. Your Sister has her last day of proper school today, although there is remediation next week for the losers who can't follow instructions. We'll probably miss a faculty party tonight in order to grade papers.

Picture of the Day
I have no idea what this is from.

Cooking With Villainy 3

The latest Shakespeare email mentions two more disturbing notions:

1) There is no rehearsal the day before opening night. This is madness. This is Sparta. This is Spartan madness. I've never done a show without a rehearsal before the curtain goes up. Never.

2) The official showtime, not counting intermission, is three hours. Romeo and Juliet is the only Shakespeare production to state how long the show should run. It's in the prologue:

... the two hours’ traffick of our stage ...

How do you add an hour to Romeo and Juliet? Slapstick and extended fight scenes. Once again, madness.

Some fuhntaztic weather allowed me to fertilize and mulch the potatoes. Here's what one does: I bought a 3 pound bag of garden fertilizer. You add one cup of the mix to each 30-foot row. I have two rows of potatoes just under 30 feet each. You sprinkle it about the plants and then water the soil to take in the fertilizer. That lasted about half an hour. I bought three bags of cypress wood mulch (mulch is cheaper than I assumed: $1.90 for a bag) and spread most of them about the plants, trapping in the moisture and preventing birds from eating the fertilizing pellets. This all took a little over an hour, and it wasn't what I'd call laborious. All I should have to do now is water occasionally for the next six weeks, and we can harvest them.

Your Sis feels guilty for not doing more to help out, but we're not growing that much, and she's dealt with school stuff at home for weeks now. The regular classes ended yesterday, and now students are taking exams for the next two days. She got home late last night, but it was my turn to make dinner anyway, and I made what turned out to be a really great recipe. And that leads us to ...

COOKING WITH VILLAINY!

Doom again demands you to engage your underdeveloped culinary brain cells. Doom requires delicious chicken scallopini! Do you heed Doom? SCALLOPINI!

Doom commands you to mix 1 cup of bread crumbs, 2 teaspoons of parsley flakes, dashes of salt and pepper, and 2 minced cloves of garlic.

Doom commands you to whisk the white of one egg with a half cup of water.

Doom commands you to place two chicken breast pieces within their own cling wrap veil. Flatten the pieces to a 1/8-inch thickness. Dip the chicken in the egg mixture and then dredge the pieces in the seasoned crumb bowl.

Doom commands you to heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a medium-hot skillet. Place chicken inside. Cook chicken for 2-3 minutes each side.

Doom commands you to prepare the side of your choosing (surprise Doom, cur) and cut one lemon into wedges. When eating, drizzle chicken and side with lemon juice.

Doom affirms the deliciousness of this dish, if you but do as Doom commands. Do not deviate from Doom's master Scallopini designs.

Picture of the Day
The Mach 5 for the upcoming Speed Racer film made by the Wachowski Brothers (The Matrix, V for Vendetta). Your Sis knows the cartoon. I missed it entirely. Knew of it, never saw it. But if the Wachowskis are involved, my ticket is purchased.

A Matter of Timing

You might remember my disastrous audition for the outdoor Shakespeare. Even though I didn't get a speaking role and had to bow out because of car troubles (and concern that the production was veering into camp), I'm still on the email chain. The recent communications from the theatre folk suggest mayhem. The rehearsal schedule is shifting often, and attendance is sporadic because of spotty weather. If I had stuck around, I'd pull out my hair. I'd drive an hour to get to the theatre and find out the evening is scotched because performers stayed home to avoid a drizzle. I'd be fired for flattening people with fury-fueled wrestling moves. Long story short, I dodged a bullet. This isn't counting everything I would have missed if I did the show: the comic show, the prom, the school awards ceremony, the run preparation, the minicomic, etc.

I shuffled over to the local Home Depot (which isn't at all local; the closest is more than a half hour away) for a mower spark plug, mulch, and fertilizer. The spark plug was the answer, by the way, so I didn't have to borrow the neighbor's mower. Your Sis was detained with work and a pharmacy visit, so we had pizza for a late supper. We had a confab over the remaining research papers and gave ourselves two deadlines to finish them.

Picture of the Day
Lego art.



In the News
I watched the GOP debate last night on CNN. Aside from the overwhelming volume of candidates, one is struck by the bad format. True, they had two hours and two styles of debate (a formal exchange and a town-hall session), but the number of people makes that amount of time insufficient. It flew by without anything of substance delivered. This was my first chance to hear from the fringe hopefuls, and aside from Texas representative Ron Paul, none did anything more than pander. Not that any of them presented a presidential carriage. The moderator conducted the debate as if it were The Dating Game ("If I were an illegal immigrant with no healthcare, and I had drug-resistant TB contracted from an Al-Qaeda operative in Iraq, what would you say if we met on a street corner?"). The only benefit from this show was to affix faces to the names. Each was equally anxious to show their enthusiasm for the job, a fidgety initiative that made them look almost desperate.

I think this is why Fred Thompson has become the sexy candidate; he doesn't convey any shimmering desire for the presidency. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy to drop sound bytes or toss off a smarmy grin while kissing babies to win your vote. At a time when we're allegedly more concerned with presentation over substance, Thompson emerges as a grumpy uncle whose nomination would denounce the slick, glad-handers who currently make up the candidate pool. Not that I think he has a chance of winning. He's entering the race relatively late, and the herd of current hopefuls may have left him with few financial resources to lobby. His Senate experience lends him credibility as a Washington veteran, but he's been out of office for some time now. Does he have any lingering pull? Will his alleged swinging bachelor days come back to haunt him? Also, except for grandstanding comments on immigration (this is our home and we can choose who walks in), he has no established policy stances nor any ideas to attack the big problems of foreign policy, deficits, and healthcare. Before long, he'll have to stop coasting on his celebrity cache and offer a platform.

Oh, and the current official candidates clearly targeted Hillary last night. I don't think any other Democrat was mentioned by name, and none was referenced as often. She's the bullseye for them whether it's because she's the nominal frontrunner or the perceived constituency is rabidly misogynist and conditioned by the dozens of GOP talk hosts. Maybe a mix of all. But ten guys taking shots as Hillary starts to look unchivalrous. Yes, it's a double standard. Yes, she's a public figure with equal opportunity to be criticized. But by not commenting on the other Democrat candidates, they appear to specifically target her as a person, not a candidate. And that could appear mean-spirited to the public.

Mowing Monkees

Mowing the lawn is much easier when the mower agrees to run. I was about halfway through with the front yard yesterday when the engine faded to silence. It's got oil, it's got gas. The spark plug is coated in oil, and that's the obvious problem. I'll stop by the hardware store for a new plug today, and I'll pick up garden mulch and fertilizer as well. The potato plants have launched themselves higher, and now it's time to smother the shoots to trap moisture.

As I left the house today, the next-door neighbor stopped me to offer the use of his mower. He also casually mentioned my lawnmower never sounded right to him. I'm a relatively new homeowner and the two of us rarely chat, so maybe we're still establishing our camaraderie and all, but that's a lousy thing to say to someone. That's my mower -- my oldest piece of hardware -- and I've kept it going for ten years now with diligent care. It's not supposed to be whisper quiet. It's a lawnmower and, despite occasionally bathing my plugs in oil, it still works. I would have taken him up on his offer, but now I'm not so inclined. If the mower is shot, I'll have to buy a new one anyway.

Your Sis is much better and managed to eat yesterday. We've got about four days to finish up two classes' worth of research papers, and I think that will take up all our time this weekend. Graduation is Sunday, and so are the Tonys. It's also our two-year jailhouse-iversary.

Moving Monkees of the Day
The audition footage for the Monkees. You know, I still haven't seen an entire episode of this since I was maybe five years old. I was in nursery school/kindergarten until first grade, and the babysitter let us watch afternoon TV, including syndicated reruns of "F-Troop," "Brady Bunch," "Monkees," "Batman," and "Ghostbusters" (the show the predates the Bill Murray movie). She used to feed us butter cookies, the little ones shaped like flowers, and we would eat them by sticking our pinky fingers through the center hole and nibbling from the edges inward. She pavloved us; whenever I see the Brady Bunch or Batman TV shows, I get that taste in my mouth thirty years later.

A Lot Actually

The weather was nice enough Friday for us to eat outside Jason's on Main Street. I like drinking Bass Ale on what amounts to a front porch while tourists wander by.

On Saturday, after Your Sister filed grades at school while I did laundry and ran a 5k. I went back to the college and again ran 3 miles within 30 minutes. I didn't have a talk podcast to work with this time, but the random music playlist helped quite a bit:

Welcome to the Black Parade -- My Chemical Romance
(such a good running song, I replayed it immediately)
Jive Talkin' -- Bee Gees
Head Like A Hole -- Nine Inch Nails
Four Leaf Clover -- Abra Moore
Battle of the Planets theme
a KRS One/Celtic music mashup
La Discoteque -- The United States Of Electronica
Come On Home -- Franz Ferdinand

And just like that, I was done. I tried to keep going, but it grew hot very quickly, and I didn't want to hurt myself. I'd like to do this at least twice a week, and I bet I could do it everyday if I made myself.

We ate again at the new steakhouse diner, which is as close to a Japanese Waffle House as you'll find, but the food is great. We rented two films, and watched one that night.


Tristram Shandy is an odd duck. I'm not sure it even qualifies as a movie. Half of the film is an adaptation of the novel; the second half is a mockumentary of the making of the adaptation. I can't even say I liked it. It's smart and funny (Your Sis was laughing out loud very early), and it has quiet, real moments of backstage interaction. But it doesn't feel like a finished product. Maybe it needs another 20 minutes to simmer. It also has the cinema verite comedy of both versions of "The Office," a style that leaves me bored and shrugging.




Stranger Then Fiction, however, may be my new favorite movie. It shouldn't work at all. At first blush, this is The Truman Show, complete with a noted funnyman trying to play it straight. I'm no fan of Will Farrell's continued use of blithe confidence shouted long and loud. And he is clearly the least interesting character in this film. I can't tell if he is purposefully trying to be bland or if he cannot muster intriguing, normal reactions. Literally, anyone can play this role, and the movie would be the same. But the film has two things in its favor:

1) A fantastic script. This is a film about writing, and it may be the best film about writing I've seen, surpassing possibly Adaptation. As the story unfolds, we can clearly see the script refers to its own efforts to make a story work. And when the movie is over, the finished product stands as a work much smarter than I gave it credit for. I rooted for it to make the pieces fit, and it does. It does very well.

2) Emma Thompson. Without her, this film withers. She plays the writer narrating Farrell's life and flummoxed with a satisfying manner to kill him off. While Maggie Gyllenhaal is incredibly adorable and Dustin Hoffman equally intelligent and comfortably odd, Emma makes this movie work. She is the core of the film, not Farrell. It's her struggle that emerges as the central churning. Queen Latifa, like farrell, is just there.

It should be noted that the DVD packaging does absolutely nothing to properly sell the movie. It's bland and simple and cheerful, and it prepares you to see a similar film. But this is a lovely, intelligent movie that establishes its own rules of progression without breaking them later. It's a standout film, and had I any idea, I would have watched it in the theatre and cried my eyes out.

Unfortunately, Your Sis became violently ill this weekend. She was flattened by severe vomiting and stayed home from work today. I think the worst is over. Apparently, this is a bug flying around the school, and now we wonder if I'll get it too. I hovered over her (from a polite distance) all of yesterday. We watched a little bit of the miniseries of Stephen King's "The Stand," and, holy cow, it doesn't hold up at all.

Potatoes of the Day
The garden is getting greener. They're about five inches tall at most, and they're almost halfway to harvest time. We're managing to grow something edible on purpose. We're stunned. None of the neighborhood animals have bothered them. I guess cats and dogs don't eat potatoes.