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Jill:
I'm going to go to the fabric store and buy zippers I think.;) you cool with that?
Me:
Honey, we talked about this. We're Amish now, remember? No zippers. Hooks and eyes. Actually, we should probably do something about these phones, too...

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My friend Alex likes to tell this story. Sometimes I like to tell it for him.

One afternoon he and our friend Tommy were sitting in a coffee bar in Vegas discussing Henry Rollins. This was right after Rollins started doing those GMC ads in all the music magazines, and they were musing about whether or not that meant he was off the punk rock roll call. Alex took the Bill Hicks position, that lending your face or voice to any kind of advertising automatically makes you an irredeemable whore, while Tommy wondered if what Rollins was doing wasn’t actually some high-minded act of subversion.

Just then, an attractive, fashionably dressed girl of about 17 stopped at their table on her way out the door and interrupted them.

“Excuse me, are you guys arguing about whether something’s punk or not?”

Alex, thinking maybe she was flirting with him, said yes.

“Jesus,” the girl said, and rolled her eyes. “You guys sound like my dad.”

The girl walked out, and Tommy and Alex sat there, staring at each other in silence for the next four and a half hours.

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Whenever I see a new movie or read a new book and come away loving it, afterwards I always go to a site like Amazon.com or Fandango and read all the negative user reviews. The one-star hatchet jobs. I’ll go on IMDB and see what people are bitching about on the mini-forums. I’ll google the title along with the word “sucks” and see what comes up.

I have no idea why I do this, and I wonder if it says something important about my personality.

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I hope her magic be strong.

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Is it my sincere regret to inform all of you that Jill and I will not be attending Comic-Con International in San Diego next month. It will be the first time we’ve missed the show in eight years.

A nasty combination of medical bills, tax bills, automo-bills, and sporadic unemployment have left us both feeling a bit like Job this year, only without all that shepherding money to fall back on. As Paulie said on the SOPRANOS finale, “You can take 2007 and give it back to the Indians.”

Anyway, after crunching some numbers we determined that even if we cut the trip short we couldn’t possibly make it without plunging ourselves even further into debt. Which is too bad. There are a lot of people we wanted to hang out with, personally and professionally — but whattayagonnado, right?

See you next year.

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Two days ago I’m at the mall buying a video game for Jill. The kid working the counter at the game store, he’s maybe 17. He looks even younger.

I ask for a copy of JAWS UNLEASHED and the kid makes a face.

“What?” I say.

The kid snorts. “That didn’t sell very well.”

“So?” I say. “It’s a lot of fun. It’s like GTA, except you’re a shark. You should give it a try.”

“If it was that much fun,” the kid says, “it wouldn’t be twenty bucks new.”

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Got back from SDCC on Monday. In a stupor ever since.

It was awesome as always to see the old Vegas crew (representatives of which will be joining me here in the Great Wet North in a couple months), and I got to meet a ton of people I’ve only spoken to via email or message boards. Had a great time, made some new friends, pressed much flesh — even signed a few copies of 24SEVEN for people I didn’t know. Which was weird. And awesome. And also weird.

By all accounts the book is doing well. Online reviews have been scarce (non-superhero + anthology + release the week of SDCC = zero coverage), but Publishers Weekly said some very nice things about the book and about Ben and my story in particular on 24SEVEN’s Amazon page. I’ll have to send them some muffins or something.

So, yeah. More later, including awesome pictures stolen from my friends’ blogs.

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It’s my birthday today. I’m 30 years old. Now begins the introspection.

It’s a weird age to be, I guess. You’re not a kid anymore, but you’re not a full-fledged grown-up, either. (I think that hits at around 35.) You can’t drink as much as you used to, but you can still handle Thai food without your insides betraying you. Too old for high school girls, too young for the Golden Girls. It is the perfect age, in fact, to declare yourself the son of God.

Thank you to everyone who called/emailed/texted to wish me happy birthday. It worked. I’m going to go drink whiskey and sing karaoke and smoke all the cigarettes in Portland.

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Hobo-stabbing art-borg Laurenn McCubbin stayed with us over the weekend, and we did the social thing. Unaccustomed as we are to things like “people” and “talking,” it was like pulling teeth to get us out of the house, but once we went we had a great time. As expected, Jill and Laurenn were fast friends. It didn’t take long before they were finishing each other’s sentences and plotting the deaths of everyone they’ve ever met (except Kelly Sue DeConnick, who, by all accounts, is made of chocolate and has the power to grant wishes).

Friday night we met up with Jamie Rich and a very talented artist named Joëlle (didn’t catch her last name — but dig that ümlaut!) I got drunk on enormous scotch-and-sodas that the bartender apparently thought were meant for Jamie, and my punishment Saturday was to spend several hours holding purses, umbrellas, and shopping bags while a pair of scary tattooed redheads systematically pillaged every shop on 23rd Avenue. Jill bought a dress and a pair of shoes. Laurenn bought everything else. The girls then spent all day Sunday eating bonbons and playing KATAMARI DAMACY. I’m totally not joking.

Despite all this, I actually managed to get some work done. I made some good headway into some of the 800-or-so project proposals I’m trying to have ready in time for San Diego (one of which now has an artist — yay!), and I set the McCubbin up with a shiny new website, nearly free of charge (I only asked three beers a piece for each of my co-workers).

As Laurenn left, she and Jill hugged and made plans to get together as soon as possible to continue planning the inevitable downfall of western civilization.

Should be a hoot.

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My first actual new car, ever. It’s a 2006, if you can believe that.

I love this ridiculous thing, and not just because it looks like it could have been a prop car in SIN CITY. (Talking of which, I’m gonna have to get me one of those horns that goes, “AAA-OOOOH-GUH, AAA-OOOOH-GUH”.)

Mobile again. Lovely.

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