Oh.

One of the new girls.

Flu-ent.

So, here’s how it happened.

I went to Comic-Con. It went pretty well, I worked A LOT and didn’t see as much as I would have liked. But somehow I managed to talk to every damn person in that convention center, touch their money, shake their hands and lick their netbook keyboards. That’s all I can figure. Because I got the nerd flu. And I got it pretty bad.

Well, ok, look, I TRIED to eat right. I had fresh fruit and tea and veggies everyday. I avoided soda. I had a few cocktails here and there but…nothing like I normally would. But then…then there was the tacos, or maybe the it was the late nights? Could have been the air conditioned room. Could have just been all that breathing. But I did try. I washed my hands, I used that sanitary spray stuff every once in a while…but…welll… by the time I got back from San Diego I was exhausted and had lost part of my voice. Then I got a cough, then the aches…and you know how the rest goes. Nerd flu. It could have been worse, I am sure, but it was bad enough to keep me home from work for several days. And then, of course, even after much rest, hydration and vitamins and whatever, there was still the lingering weariness that the flu gives you. Oh and the nausea…there was that one day where I was getting ready to go to work and suddenly couldn’t.. Too weak, too feverish…too…sick. Out of the shower, back into the pajamas, call in sick and then collapsed on the couch. Woke up three hours later.

I am better now. Still a little tired. But hey, this is a hazard of hanging with 140, 000 nerds and I guess I am willing to…hazard it.

So, the convention went well. BFF came along and, I think to her own surprise, enjoyed herself a lot. She got to see David Tennant while I worked. And she was a huge help at the Tired Girl table, writing up sales and fetching beverages and veggie burgers. The table was, once again, very well received and a pleasant time seemed to be had by all.

Sadly, I didn’t have any celebrity customers this time, which is something I get a kick out of. But I did get to see a few famous-ish folks on the floor (Deborah woll, of True Blood, very briefly and Matthew Gruber Grey of Criminal Minds on crutches…some others I don’t remember at the moment…).

I sold some new art and it did pretty well. I did a series of pin-up girls that were inspired by various Doctor Whos. I chose to do girls for the fifth, ninth and tenth doctor and I hope to do girls for the other doctors eventually, and possibly even some BOY pin-ups inspired by some of the female companions. I did these for Comic-Con because…well…geeks…you know. And the ninth doctor pin-up did sell out (OK fine…I didn’t take that many, but I came back with…NONE! Yay!). So it was a good show. I sold plenty of cards, some prints and lots of flirt cards, I had a good time. I saw a lot of people and then I got sick. That pretty much brings us up to date I think.

Here are some "parts" of my girls. I'll show you more and tell you a little bit about them later. But for now...nekkid girls!

Cheer.

So, I am heading out to San Diego Comic Con shortly and this year, more than previous year, I seem to be feeling all the stress that entails. And you know, I’ve done this a few times so it shouldn’t bother me. But it does.

But that’s ok because I have a few things that help me through times like these….

Baby porcupines (known as porcupets) eating bananas and having the hiccups…



Pugs with baby strollers…


Baby fruit bats yawning…(sorry, can’t embed this one but it’s worth the click if you aren’t afraid of bats).


Eighty three year old ladies who can totally rock it.

Inspiring article on acting with a quote that stopped me in my tracks, “I could not be more alive than I am at this moment. I can't do most things in life. This is what I'm for.”

Paper taco trucks.

And the things you really need to learn. Not as cute as a pug with a stroller but important nonetheless.

I’ll be back in a week or so with tales of geekery, Doctor Who pinup girls and with any luck, a photograph of someone famous…but who?

Weak.

What a strange few days. Not even counting Comic-Con. I mean, that was strange but…well, let’s do that first.

Comic-Con was, as always, by turns, infuriating, fun, exhausting, exhilarating, exhausting and…exhausting. I am working at about 60 percent power right now with 75 percent of my voice. It will take me a week or so to catch up with myself but that’s to be expected. Sales were good, response was great. All was fine. I didn’t sell to a celebrity, which is always my goal, but I did meet an artist I am rather fond of, which was pleasant and I did talk to millions of people. Well, it felt like millions, I don’t know…dozens? I didn’t take a single picture, and I probably only saw about half the floor. I work two jobs at Comic-Con, so it’s not a vacation for me. And the weeks leading up to Comic-Con are equally as exhausting and frustrating what with trying to get prepared to do both jobs. So, you know, it’s this love hate thing. At the moment it’s more…eh…then either love or hate. I guess I am too tired for emotions.

Perhaps more inconvenient than con was the trip back. Ran over something on the 405 and blew a tire. Luckily, AAA showed up without much problem. I got off on the closest exit and lo and behold, there was a tire store. They hooked me up and I was back on the road in less than 40 minutes. It wasn’t a tragedy, it was a minor inconvenience, but it was indeed inconvenient.

And now, today, back at work, achy, tired and getting crankier by the minute and oops, rattle, rattle…earthquake. A long one. 5.2 on the Richter scale. Maybe not the biggest earthquake ever but big enough to scare my whole office. And when the giant glass pendant lamp above your desk starts swinging around…I think fear is the appropriate response. So, you know, it’s gonna be one of THOSE weeks. It already is.

Bye!

Goodness but I am getting twitchy about Comic-Con. It will all be (more or less) fine, I know but…aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrgh! I am pretty much ready, except for packing and getting there, but it’s making my head all buzzy and my stomach all fluttery and damn it’s annoying. I should be used to this by now.

Now, I haven’t really been looking at my blog stats lately. I mean, it’s always interesting to see why people show up here and where they are from, but I am not one of those hardcore bloggers that really…cares. But I happened to look at referrals that brought people here recently. Among them was the search phrase “China Mieville is hot” and I’d just like to reiterate that fact. Hi China. You’re a good lookin’ man. And you scare me. But if you are searching for info on China Mieville, I have to be honest with you. He’s hot.

Also, one of the referrals that shows up fairly frequently is “Denny Duchette” because I think I once mentioned him. Now I rather like the actor that played him, Jeffery Dean Morgan. He’s handsome, he’s been in some shows I enjoyed for a time. But sadly, his character always dies. Poor man. Bad news if you are here for him, he’s in a film that I was not at all interested in until I found out he was in it. Yes, I am a bad nerd who is talking trash about Watchmen, but oh hey, Jeffery Dean Morgan is playing the Comedian and now…I am smitten. Like, wallpaper on my cell phone kind of smitten. I am a dork. I know. The only other people who are either not a cat or I am not related to who have graced my cell phone? Professor Snape and Doctor Who. Yep. Dork.


So, ok, if you are going to be at San Diego Comic-Con International, and you want to swing by and say HI to me, or one of the Tired Girl Collective, you can find us in the small press area at table L5. And if you are looking for me at my day job, you can find me…there. You know where that is and I hesitate to cross the streams, as it were. So, travel safely if you are traveling, sit quietly if you are sitting and be happy if you…whatever dude, see you on the flip side!

Nerves.

Well, it’s almost here. That one thing that makes me both shudder in horror and squee with glee. Well, fine, a lot of things do that to me, but this one…you know…Comic-Con is right around the corner. I leave on Wednesday and I am more or less ready. More or less. Some new stuff to show off, some old favorites. It should be good. It should also be exhausting and nerve-wracking. It’s just one of those things.

At the moment I am experiencing the weariness that goes with Comic-Con. Stayed up a little too late last night to get one last thing done, woke up a little too early this morning due to the endless construction on the building across the way. I’ll be better tomorrow I am sure. But it’s not tomorrow that I am worried about.

Right now, aside from regular life worries, I am experie….

Here’s a strange aside. I just answered the phone and Sponge Bob Square Pants was on the other end. Well, voice actor that plays him was on the other end. Weird. He was very nice though.

Anyway, aside from regular life worries, I am a little nervous about presenting new art. You know that it’s hard enough for me to refer to what I do as art, but then showing it to people….ewwwwww. Makes me twitchy. And that’s kind of the point for me doing things like Comic-Con. Or having a blog. It’s a challenge to myself to step outside of my comfort zone. And…well…right now I’m not totally comfortable. But, for me, that’s kind of a part of the whole process. The nerves part.

So, in an attempt to kind of get it started, here is a little sampler of some of my newest art….my first attempt at pin-up girls…nerdy pin-up girls…for nerds. I hope you like them! Um, I am just now realizing that the nerdy part doesn’t always show through with just these little bits. They are all full figures, heads, feet and everything in between. And the titles kind of reveal what makes them nerdy, so clockwise, from top left…


Dead Sexy
Rock Out with your Spock Out
Seduction of the Innocent
Mailer Daemon

That should give you some clues. And maybe, when I get back from con, if they have been well received, I will show you a bit more.


Hmmm….you know…there is a serious shortage of pin-up boys in this world…maybe…nah…not yet.

List-y.

Four things from my youth that I apparently have no nostalgia for (some of which are kind of old news since I started this a while ago and never finished it):

• Journey. Did you hear? They have a new lead singer. He sounds just like Steve Perry. Eh.


• Strawberry Shortcake. Did you know that they redesigned her? I didn't. She now appears to be something modern girls might find appealing. So? (OK, while I have absolutely no problem with the changes made to Strawberry Shortcake, I do not like the changes to Holly Hobbie…but the whole appeal of that character was that she was a “prairie girl.”)


• Star Wars. Sorry. You can take my geek card away now. I have seen it. I liked it well enough, I don’t feel the need to think about it all that often.


• Growing Pains. I don’t think I have ever seen a whole episode of this show. And you know what else? Saved by the Bell. And pretty much everything everyone my age watched after school. I don’t know what I was doing…oh, maybe marching band, drama club, indoor color guard or…something, but I didn’t watch much tv in my youth apparently.

Movies I have never seen but am quite should I would enjoy:

• The Big Lebowski


• The Bourne Identity (series)


• The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (I may have seen most of this but I can’t remember.)


• The Godfather (I know! I know! I have tried to watch it but I always fall asleep.)

Pretty much anymovie where things get blown up, people get shot or young lovers sing in French. What? I never claimed to be consistent!

Have you seen Doctor Horrible’s Sing Along Blog? Because I know people are talking about it all over the internets and that, for me, is generally the kiss of death for pretty much anything but I gotta say…utterly charming. And some very entertaining songwriting. And God bless Neil Patrick Harris. He’s a big ol’ mug of AWESOME!

Things I have recently discovered that make me a little too happy:

• Soy pudding. I tried soy pudding years ago. It wasn’t good. I tried to make my own. It was worse. But now that soy milk tastes better (or perhaps I am just used to it), I can finally be a pudding lover again. Thank you.



• The return of Burn Notice and Weeds. Possibly my two favorite shows ever. I can’t watch all those reality type shows that my parents and friends so love. They drive me crazy. I like things blowing up, drug smuggling and Bruce Campbell. Really, what more could a girl ask for? Oh, right. Jeffrey Donovan.

Movies I would very much like to see but can’t just yet:

• Hellboy II-The Golden Army. Oh yes, please! How happy am I about this movie? Very. How sad am I that I haven’t seen it yet? Very. I am shooting for Monday.


• Wall-E-It’s Pixar and I am a fan. Why would I not?


• The Dark Knight- Nevermind that Batman and Hellboy are my two most favorite comic book characters. This honestly looks really damn good.


• Mama Mia!- DON’T JUDGE ME! Look, I saw the musical and I thought it was just OK. But I do love me some ABBA, more importantly, I love me some Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgård. So there.


• The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor-SHUT UP. The Mummy is probably on my top twenty movies list. Definitely on my top ten movies that I can and will watch over and over again. Good looking men, Rachel Weisz and you know what? It’s just a really fun, classic adventure movie. It reminds me of 1950’s type matinee movies. And I will defend Brendan Fraser with my last breath. He is a fine actor who likes to make fun stuff. And if you aren’t sure about the “fine actor” part, please do see Gods and Monsters, he’s quite good in it. Do not, however, mistake Monkeybone for anything resembling fine. Just don’t.

Things I am successfully not panicking over…yet:
Comic-con. I am zen. For the moment. Due to the Handmade Brigade, I am more or less prepared. So much so, that I am planning on rolling out two new card sets and a set of prints! I am very excited about the prints and really hope that they do well. I’ll post some next week I think but until then, here is an image from the new card set that I “debuted” at Handmade Brigade (“debuted” makes it sound like I had a big fanfare or at at least a sign that said NEW! But I didn’t. I just mean that they had not previously been for sale…because they weren’t finished…but now they are. And they will be available (hopefully) in the shop within the next few weeks).


Now, as I said, the cupcakes are not yet available in the Paperlotus store but many fine items are. Most recently I have added some less quirky, more useful cards, so maybe you’d like to check these out…

Recovering.

I gotta tell ya, I think I am getting old. This comic-con? It near killed me. Only today, one week later am I starting to feel like I won’t pass out from exhaustion and I might actually make it through the day. Yeesh.

But, that said, it was…well, it was good in a lot of ways and it also made me feel like, oh heck, I ain’t NEVER doing this again! But I am sure I will. It was just the busiest con I have ever seen and I pretty much went into the building at 8:30 every morning and left at 7:15 every evening and that was it. I did have a lovely, relaxed dinner one night with a few Tired Girls but every other night featured dinner in the hotel pub or in my room. And it wore me out. But, on the up side, we did get, once again, a nice response to our stuff. And things that I really thought wouldn’t sell…did. So it was all very nice. And I got to see some bloggery friends, however briefly and meet some bloggery friend’s spouses (the pleasant and slightly overwhelmed by all the geekery, Mr. Say It, Don’t Spray It and the quite comfortable with all the geekery Mr. JustJenn, and the lovely Mrs. “Josh who no longer blogs because he is just too busy and fancy and special”) and I saw some of my favorite artists and I even purchased a few small bits of original art. So, you know, it was good. And tiring. And overwhelming. And it scared that little bug I had before I went into an adrenaline induced remission and then when I came back…BOOM! Feeling the yuk!

But now I am home and most things are packed away…ok, so they are not, but they will be. And the bug has wandered off for the moment and I finally feel like I may not keel over at any time and life goes on. I have ordered a copy of the Harry Potter book, have you heard of this thing? This Harry Potter? No? yeah, whatever, I have finally ordered my copy because everyone else I know has read it and they want to talk about it, so I’ll be doing that soon. Oh, and a book on vegan ice cream because…well, I like my ice cream but it doesn’t like me so…yeah.

Hunh, I realize that all of the above is only slightly informational and not terribly interesting AND contains no links. Go figure. Lazy me.

Gone.

Things that are conspiring to keep me from sleeping

1. stress, both real and imagined
2. fear, both specific and generic

and speaking of fear…can I just tell you that I have been programmed by my education to not sleep? Seriously. And I am betting it’s a generational thing because I am pretty sure anyone who went to school with me has this lingering fear of nuclear holcost and if everyone in my eighth grade class has it, then I am betting that pretty much everyone from that era has it. I can’t be the only one who spent an entire semester in a darkened classroom watching movies about nuclear winters, can I? And when I say movies, I mean MOVIES, Tora Tora Tora, The Atomic Cafe, The Day After…lots of them. And the teacher wore fatigues! Ok, maybe we were the only ones but that one semester of eighth grade social studies has trained me to lie in bed at night and fear the worst. It’s bad enough that the kitchen floor is dirty or that the cat box could use a good cleaning or that I may have spilled paint on the counter and forgot to clean it up but then I start to worry about faces melting and ducking and covering and…oh, you get the picture…anyway

3. tossing and turning of husband
4. whirring of fan…why, oh, why don’t we have an air conditioner in the bedroom?
5. That damn bird that has learned how to mimic an alarm clock. SERIOUSLY. And he starts going off around 3 a.m. Bastard.

BUT THAT'S ALL RIGHT, THAT”S O.K. I DON'T NEED SLEEP ANYWAY!

Why? Because I am a TIRED GIRL, that’s right. And the Tired Girls are about ready to take over San Diego once again. And when I say “take over” I pretty much mean sit quietly at our table and talk nice to you when you walk by. But we will be there, at the convention center, from Wednesday night to Sunday evening and we will be peddling our wares. And I don’t mean anything dirty by that…unless you have a lot of money, then we can talk. NO, NO! I keeeed, I keeeed. (Good Lord, can you tell how tired I must really be if I am making prostitiuion jokes?). We’ve got all kinds of cool stuff and most of us are reasonably nice people so please, stop by if you are in the neighborhood, won’t you? Say “HI” to Anna, Jodi, and Sherri…and me too!

And don’t forget to go see our boys at Big Boss. They are super swell and we love them, especially Jason! Stop by his blog for more Comic-Con pimping and see if you don’t get all excited over the geekery.

See you in a week or so!

Ow.

“Ice pick headache.” I think the name pretty much says it all. It keeps happening and then there is a moment of “Oh god, I didn’t think I would die this way!” and then it’s gone. Fun times were had by all. Yuck.

There was no baking this weekend (there were no headaches either, that just started) but baking was received and approved of. Dad likes those brownies and he was kind enough to share his father’s day present with Mom so all is well at the sugar shack. I hope they are eating their vegetables too.

Currently life is moments of sheer panic followed by moments of…slightly less sheer panic. Well, that’s an exaggeration…things are getting tense as the days count down to comic-con. There is much to be done and quite frankly, very little desire to do it. It’s summer! I should be on a beach somewhere with a boat drink and a trashy novel. Wait…I don’t think I have EVER done that. OK, maybe not. But ‘tis the season for freak outs and I know I am not the only who is well on their way. On the upside, my eye hasn’t started twitching yet. So…that can only be good.

But other than that, life is fine. No tragedies that aren’t of my own making. No real problems that I can’t overcome. It will all get done eventually because it has to. Right?...RIGHT?

But late at night, when I know I should be either sleeping or getting a little work done, I have been watching things like “John from Cincinnati” and “Meadowlands.” I liked them both, so now I have one more reason to put things off. Heh.

Oh, one other thing. I brought some left over biscuits and chickpea gravy in for lunch the other day. I find it curious that three people said “Oh, that looks/smells good!’ and one said “Oh my god. What happened on your plate?” it is quite good, actually. But I guess every one’s taste.

Let’s see…anything else? No, not really. Everyone is telling me how hot it is but I’m still in sweaters (although I am wearing flip flops and freezing my toes off out of sheer stubbornness…it’s summer dammit!). Let me just leave you with some entertaining links before I got bang my head into a wall for a while…

The Darwin Correspondence Project. I love to read other people’s letters. Mostly dead people since it would be pretty rude and illegal to open other people’s mail. Darwin is endlessly fascinating to me. So reading his letters…pretty groovy.

Have I shown you this before? The Life Sized Whale? I find it oddly soothing.

Trying to figure out that song at the end of House last week? Try this.

Something I keep forgetting to show Jodi .

And another book site that I wander to occasionally.

And finally, just in case you ever get lost.