Friday, July 14, 2023, Tacoma, WA • 07/14/23
Joining me at Freelance Fandango this week were Greg Spencer Wolf, Haley Waddington, James Stowe, and Allen Gladfelter. I needed to take notes about our discussions and stories, as my head swelled with them when I got home. And now I can’t remember a single one. I do recall that Allen was coaching Greg on how to improve drawing fingers. Maybe the AI programs can take a few tips. We also discussed submitting to have a table at Arts at the Armory. I will apply only on Sunday as I already have booked for Jet City Comicon on Saturday, and the table agreed that most of my fanbase will be there that day.
Stickermule is doing a special this week where they offer a discount on a different type of sticker each day. This is great because my sticker inventory was getting low. However, I only had one design created for a round die-cut sticker, and I just picked those up a couple of weeks ago. But I knew I had to get started on my next Weird Elephant poster for a film titled “The Wickerman.” I was distracted by a few other tasks and didn’t start the project until the afternoon. But once I started, I worked on it non-stop. Well, I did stop to have dinner. I had a deadline. I needed to stop at 9:30 because that’s when I prep for bed. I pushed myself and finished. I then went online to submit the art only to discover that Stickermule’s deadline had passed. They were only offering their next daily deal, which was holographic stickers. I was bummed! This design wasn’t going to work for a holographic sticker. I was low on a design that I’d used holographic backing before and resubmitted that artwork. Oh well, at least I got a much-needed jump start to my poster design.
My friend Penny Firehorse has jury duty all this week. I don’t think she was ever called. Which meant she basically sat in a room all week on-call. I got a jury notice last month. I looked at it today to check the website for next week. Whoops! I got the dates confused and was supposed to be serving this week. I sent Penny a message, “Did I miss anything?”
I was picking up some take-out at Panda Express this week when I saw a small family of four waiting for their order. The husband was playing with their youngest, a boy who I guess was six or seven. He was a small bundle of energy in the dirtiest Crocs I’d ever seen. One fell off his foot as the father slowly strolled after him through the empty tables. In economic movements accomplished only by young fathers, he noted the missing croc and picked up his son just as the kid’s foot touched the floor. He then swung the kid into the errant show. All this went smoothly, even after the father was surprised that his child left a perfect brown footprint on the floor. Baby footprints on birth certificates were not as perfect. The father called his young pre-tween daughter over. She was nothing but long limbs and long hair. Impressed by the footprint, she returned to her mother, who was still seated and waiting for their take-out bags. As the daughter reported on the footprint, the look which crossed her face was not one of amusement. Instead, in was a combination of repelant disgust and mild horror. It wasn’t a fleeting expression. It landed on her face and remained there, much like her child’s footprint on the floor was going to be there until someone scrubbed it away. You could tell that this footprint wasn’t going to disappear with a sweep. Somebody was going to have to get a bucket. In the meantime, it drew attention to itself out of its sheer perfection.
Alley News
We have been eating peas with every dinner. Also coming in are cucumbers, which we are dicing up to include in our salads and zucchini. Krista picks it while it is still less than a foot long and very tender. I’ve asked her to repeat a chicken dish she made earlier this week, but this time with mushrooms. I think it will be perfect then.
Last trimmed blackberry vines outside our front fence. I also removed many that were in the garden in the hedge that boarders our neighbor’s yard and acts as a screen to their chainlink fence. I filled both of our yard waste containers, which got picked up this week.
For the first time in seven years, the nearby Air Force base will be hosting an air show. One of their attractions is going to be the Thunderbirds. Today they practiced in the sky over our house. While this was noisy at times, it was also very entertaining. Judy Martin came out from under her carport to watch them. Our neighbors Pat and Cathy Smith were also looking up into the sky. They repeated their practice a few hours later when I walked to the Quick-E-Mart a few blocks from here. Krista encouraged me to buy some lottery tickets. Mega Millions is at $560 Million, Powerball is at $875, and the local Lotto is at $4.2 Million. “I want to retire next week,” Krista told me, “so be sure you get the winning numbers.” As I walked home, the four jets flew so low I swore I could read their nametags. SSSSWOOOOOSSSSSHHHHHH!!
I had some dreams this week:
July 6
#IDreamt in order to take a college course, I had to return to high school for a quarter. I wasn’t making any friends in art class.
July 7
#IDreamt my brothers Cliff and Stan were renting a multi-room rent-controlled apartment in NYC with some friends. They invited me to live there too. One of the friends was moving out. We were cleaning garbage out of a shared vehicle.
July 8
#IDreamt a mother kept wearing Pokémon themed clothing to annoy her daughter long after the daughter lost interest in the game as an act of long-burn revenge.
July 9
#IDreamt purgatory was a nearly abandoned Mall. Jack Elan saw my confusion and explained, “All these places are connected.” He then showed me around a corner to a bar in Thailand, where we ordered seared sirloin strips.
July 10
#IDreamt my personality split into multiple parts for a group therapy session. One part of me convinced the others that this was unproductive narcissistic feeding bull hockey.
July 11
#IDreamt while waiting for the hotel shuttle, I found several Hawaiian Shirts buried in the sand with a note from a thief, a guest at a hotel stole them from another guest to make a treasure map for their kids.
July 13
#IDreamt I was the first of several people to turn into a 16-foot giant. Large seeds were popping through my skin like acne. Scientists didn’t know what to make of it.
July 14
#IDreamt it was 1934 when an alien and his equivalent to a cow appeared on a secluded farm where a farmer, his wife, son, daughter, and their cow lived. Everything was fine until the farmer had a psychotic break.
I’m in the middle of a couple of movies right now. But here’s one I did finish watching on YouTube.
64. July 8
They Made Me a Fugitive (1947) Rating: 5
I watched this movie because I was curious about Extraction 2, and I like watching my movies in the sequence they were released. This is a highly challenging kill-count movie. It’s even a difficult explosion-count movie. The action scene goes at a breakneck pace through a warren of alleys, apartments, balconies, and slums. It kept me entertained as Fourth of July fireworks went off through the night and didn’t interfere at all with the view of the film.
More next week,
Mark
