Last night was a bit kooky. At one point I was on the phone, online doing work on a project - the work required me to talk to two different people at the same time online mind you, and also in a chat room. All at once, you see.

Then I ended up on a different call, which was fantastic and reaffirmed that I work with some great and smart people. Some of who may be laughing nervously the entire time, but I can’t quite prove it, yet. Soon.

Past that, nothing much going on I can talk about.

Come Monday I will be releasing, serializing here at first, another short story for free. This time it will be High Noon of the Living Dead.

Uhm. Shit, that’s all I think I got right now.

So last night I managed to get into a fight about whether or not I lived in my apartment. Which was not the sort of thing I expected to have to defend to a stranger. The doorbell rang and there, standing at my door proudly, was a woman. She was dressed in non-matching floral print shirt and pants with dark leather sandals on. Her hair, like brillo, was trying to expand to fill all available space, like a dandelion puff out for blood.

I asked, simply, if I could help her. It seemed like the thing to do. She raised one eyebrow at me. She tried to look past me.

“Where is he?” she asked me in a perfectly nice tone. The words alone can sound so harsh, but no it was affably said and taken.

“Uhhh, who?”

“You know, where is he? I need to talk to him,” she told me, and I shrugged, out of clues.

“No one else,” I told her, glancing back to see the cat, “lives here but me.” I wonder if the cat took offense.

“Nooooooooo,” she drew out, starting to look frustrated, “I know he lives here. Hey, did he move out? How long have you lived here?”

“Buncha years.”

“No, no he lives here then, he was here years ago too. Where is he? I need to talk to him.”

I sighed. I glanced behind me again. I glanced behind her, out into the hall. “Who do you think lives here?”

“The guy from the shop?”

I laughed, “He lives upstairs, directly. One floor up, same door.” She was looking for my deli guy, they live upstairs. Simple!

“No, no he doesn’t.” Simple except that she wouldn’t let go of this one. At all.

“Yeah, actually he does. I promise. Just upstairs. That’s where he is, you can go talk to him.”

She shook her head. Thought about it for a minute. Started to speak. Stopped. Mouth clacked shut like those old chocolate milk ads with the wooden dog. Started to speak again. “He isn’t here?” she tried, tentatively.

We went around it again. Then a third time. Neither of us let the impatience sound in our voices. We were polite, smiling the whole time. This wasn’t a bad thing, oh no don’t be silly, we were just sorting out who lived where. If I hadn’t been inside the apartment she thought I didn’t belong to, why this would have been dandy.

Finally, after a full six or so minutes of back and forth she stopped. Looked dazed. Laughed and then grew quiet before laughing again.

“He lives upstairs! Oh! Oh!” she said quickly, the words bursting forth from her like joy, “Not HERE!”

“No, not here,” I agreed with a nod.

“I’m sorry,” she said and waved to me as she walked to the stairs.

“Me too,” I said back, softly, as I closed the door.

So what’s up with me? Well then. the footnote gets a lot of love, of course. Go read it and enjoy. But outside of that? I feel a bullet list coming on!

• Been working on a novel.
• And the materials for a comic pitch.
• And a comic script for something else.
• And a short film.
• And now a different, shorter, film project.
• And laying the groundwork for a new webcomic that will hopefully burst into life in a bit.
• And the day job.
• And the coolest new big project ever that I am under NDA about but soon… soon I can talk about it.

So I pretty much: Go to work, work, set up things, go home and write on seven different things at once and then go to bed. The life of excitement.
————————————
The Big Lebowski - 10th Anniversary Limited Edition comes in a freakin’ bowling ball.

Mind you, it’s on sale for 24 bucks on Amazon right now, ships Sept 9th. Has new bonus features. Still! Bowling Ball case! But I don’t need a new copy. Like the Dude, I abide.
————————————
Just finished The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman. I have always loved Haldeman’s work but this book is like … think a Heinlein juvie, but not a juvie. It’s clean. Damned fine book. Fun, exciting, playful, smart and amazingly good writing.
————————————
An d to end with: Here is a Japanese game show where the point is to start yourself to a wall with a rubber band and then try to eat marshmallows on strings. Yes.

Last night was the special birthday edition of Monday Night. Now, my birthday is today, the 19th, but there is no way I can do anything tonight. Work intrudes mightily on the mere concept of plans tonight. So we did some hanging last night instead.

Kendra and Noelle met me for dinner at the Pink Teacup and we had a grand old time, full of laughter and headshaking. Then we moved on to the bar. M was working last night, on a special two week fill-in extravaganza, so it was like old times. M handed me a bag of really good coffee beans as a birthday present - which makes even better sense if you remember that back when she was our regular bartender I would bring in bags of coffee for all of us. So yeah.

The four of us hung out a while and then Hammerpants dropped in. There was a bit of a Norm! moment when he did, which was great. And then he tripped over himself trying to remember Kendra and Noelle’s names, since he had only met them once. They left soon after, not due to Hammerpants, and the drinking continued.

Around 10, Hammercapris showed up (Hammerpants GF. She picked the name herself.) which is always cool, and so did Vin. So then we had a small party of folk and drinks and a laughing, cackling, M and Moran.

Somehow, it came out that Moran will sometimes just replace my beer but leave the same napkin. And so what? Well see - cold wet bottle of beer + paper napkin = mush within a bottle. So when she manages to do that, and the napkin dispenser at that end of the bar is gone now (broken) so I can’t grab one myself … well I end up with a mushy pile of … mush. And it’s fine and when it gets bad I get another one and it isn’t like it’s every week. But, you see, Hammerpants started telling this to M. Who turned to Moran with a “Will you PLEASE just give the man a new napkin? Some days?” and that started this chain of hysterical laughing and accusations. Which … I dunno. It just is.

Around then I asked Vin to text Doc, who hadn’t shown up. I didn’t except him to, frankly, the man is busier than me by far, but I haven’t seen him in a year and I’ve known him since High School. So Vin texts him and we get back “Oh shit, that’s tonight?!” after which he started heading to the bar.

So Doc shows up and then we’re spreading drink carnage across the bar. Just glasses and bottles filling up a bigger and bigger space. It became a challenge, I think. But then … oh then… Hammercapris found a wooden box outside. On the street. And decided the bar should have it. So she brought it in. And then we realized the bar’s bobble head dolls would fit inside.

Yes, the bar has two bobble heads up on a shelf. Anyway.

So M stuck them in and I nodded at it. “Well, now they have box seats,” which cracked M up and made the rest of my friends wonder if they could legally drown me. We had to leave not too long after that, since it was getting late. However it also meant it was then past midnight, so I achieved the goal to start my 33rd year in that bar, surrounded by good friends, including the staff, while drinking. If it sets the tone for my year this one will be a blast and a half.

And, under the cut, some more bonus pictures!
Read the rest of this entry »

So Saturday. Let’s see. A few things of note happened! Let’s put it all into a handy list format!

• Brunch with Trista and Alcestis.
  • Sidewalk makes good eggs.

  • And bacon.
  • And there was good company and much laughing at people outside.
  • And then Jess and Jude showed up, quite randomly. Which rocked.
• There were four Red Bull cars parked in a row. As Alcestis said “It’s like a biker rally but sad.” Some guys were giving out free Red Bull. Much Red Bull knew what it was to be drunk on the Lower East Side that day, I can tell you!
   

• An abundance of touristy stuff was seen. And mocked.
   

• Then there were drinks of rage.
  • Trista and I stopped to get some liquid. Stupidly we ended up in a Starbucks (not by choice, but that’s a different story).

  • We got some drinks, knowing they would make us thirstier.
  • Then we sat and drank and slowly each got enraged at our drinks for doing exactly what we knew they would do.
  • Yeah, irrational, but there you go.
  • So we got other, fruity drinks to compensate and thus the rage was abated.
• Then we went to the bar where Alcestis returned to the fun and her friend Jim joined us.
  • That was a wacky time.

  • In a good way. Any night where you hear “Ohhh rub my quarter” tends to have the right spirit.
  • I also got to make an lolAlcestis out of a pic.
  • Because that’s the kind of people we are, that’s why.
  • And they never did play Morris Day and the motherfuckin’ Time!
• I also managed to do some work on the road. Which meant calling Kirkbride and saying “Yes, you are right, do that thing that you came up with because you are smart,” which is how a lot of our professional conversations go.
   

• And then there was other stuff. But I am old and forgetful.

So there you go. And then today is Monday, and I am no longer on vacation but back at work. Only half adjusted to a day schedule again so this kinda hurts. And I will be going drinking tonight. Not one of my smarter ideas, sure, but hey you gotta do what you gotta do.

Wish me luck.

BONUS! Pictures after the cut:
Read the rest of this entry »

Av came over a few days ago and took some beautiful pictures of MacKenzie, my little furry ninja. She’s such a pretty girl. Here’s one, and then the rest after the cut:

Read the rest of this entry »

Still alive. On vacation. Slacking. Farscape is on. Writing things has happened. Later - more stuff. By “stuff” I mean beer. I was trying to manage to find a way to go to Pi-Con but it won’t happen due to funds and time.

So what’s going on this week? How’s your week now that we’ve hit Wednesday? What are you planning?

So last night Hammerpants and I went to LaGuardia to pick up Trista, who is in town this week. Which is why we were going crazy.

First the highway exit to the airport was closed. Which would be fine except there were no signs to say the exit was closed. We ended up at the front of a line of cars that found out they couldn’t go anywhere. So we hit up the next exit and, once you got off it there was a single sign saying this was an alternate route.

So, eventually, we get to the airport.

She was coming in on a Northwest flight. Well Terminal A is the Delta Shuttle. C is for United. D is the Delta terminal. B is for everything else. So we go to Terminal B. And they tell us to park in lot P2. Except P2 is closed. Just blocked off, with no signs.

So we park in P1 and walk. And then I catch a sign and laugh. Because Northwest lands at the Delta terminal. It is the only think not named Delta that does. So we go back to the car.

We then go off to P5. To park. And as we left the lot there was a sign with arrows. To get to terminal C you walk this way. And I didn’t see a terminal D sign. Oh come on!

But Hammerpants saw it. It was, for some reason, white on white.

I hate LaGuardia.

Timestamp 4 A.M. Head to the deli to get a bagel. And a Yoohoo. Dude it’s been forever and a day since I had a Yoohoo. Sometimes, though, you just need to have a Yoohoo. Sometimes.

Anyway.

The deli is filled with post-party people. God knows I’ve been there. Bar closes, you’re a bit drunk and you’re hungry. A sandwich suddenly seems like the single best invention in the history of the world. Fuck the wheel. Meat between bread takes home the gold.

The radio is playing some song or another, I don’t recognize it right off. This guy, maybe 25, with his girlfriend, walk in and contemplate food. The guy asks me what the song is. I don’t know. He asks me again. I still don’t know. He decides it is “something from the 90s, or one of those decades,” and I agree. It is indeed a song from a decade.

Meanwhile his girlfriend is discussing what to get with the guy behind the counter:

“I should have something healthy. Give me suggestions?”

“Uhm. Turkey?”

“Ew, no. Ok, to hell with healthy. I need roast beef. On rye. Do you have rye?”

“Yeah… lettuce? Tomato? Mayo?”

“Ew, vomit. No. None of that gross unhealthy stuff. Just the roast beef. On rye. Rye is healthy.”

“Right.”

She then decided that she needed orange juice. I left with my bagel. Never did find out what song was playing.

Just about 6 A.M. Time for bed soon. Working on an interview that’ll go up sometime next week, I think. I probably shouldn’t answer interview questions at 6 A.M. as I tend to be far too honest. Which means there is a high chance I’ll come off sounding like a big ego’d prick.

Oh wait. I am one.

So at least that’ll work out fairly well. The first stirrings of dawn are underway outside my window. I just looked. Getting bright out there. Nature is my reverse alarm clock right now.

My birthday is creeping up on me. I’ll be 33. Jesus died when he was 33, right? The current Iron Fist arc mentions that all the previous Iron Fists died when they were 33, as well. Now I want an Iron Fist story with Jesus as an Iron Fist. Holy shit, that would be hot, but I am losing my point.

33 is the year of death, I think. Not, I would hope, my death, but it is something to watch out for. So if I die this year it will be, at least, nicely timed. Remember that. If I die. To mention that I felt it was nicely timed. That’s important to me.

The sun is rising, your cruel, cruel ball of sky fire. I must retreat now, to escape its embrace. I burn easily, you know.