I'm kind of intimidated about starting up my blogging again after such a long break. So much happened - too much to wrap up in any quick way. It was pretty fucking awesome though...

For now, here's a new Gabagool! #5 review

In the midst of a very not-relaxing week - I've felt all frazzled and awful since saturday. So much to do. It's no fun at all. In about 45 minutes though I will leave work and not come back for about 17 days, so that's pretty sweet. I am very much looking forward to the time off. Then, in about 48 hours I'll be on my way to the Temple to get all married off.

Had a panic attack last night when I put my ring on and couldn't get it off again. It came off eventually, but took much coercing. I took it back to the Diamond Lady today to see if they could make it bigger, but she told me not to. She had me put it on and then told me to relax my finger. It came off a lot better once I did that.

I don't think the above episode is some kind of metaphor for my feelings about getting hitched though - I think it reflects more on me just be unused to wearing jewelry of any kind, and having a phobia of rings getting stuck on my fingers. I know how it goes, the ring fits now - but ten years from now when I weigh an extra 60 pounds the ring is going to be stuck to me as my fatty fingers grow around it like trees do when you tie something around them. Then, if I ever do manage to wrench it off from around my porky digits, they will be all mis-shapen and deformed. I've seen it happen, I know how it goes.

Maybe I just need to get used to it. I have never worn much jewelry - a girl in high school once got me a gold wrist chain that had Ich liebe Dich engraved on the inside (we were in German class together); and I briefly had pierced ears - but aside from that I usually don't accessorize. I don't even wear a watch. The way I find out the time is by asking Aliza to check her cell-phone. She never gets tired of that...

One week from now I will be staying at my parents house, spending quality time with distant relatives, and preparing myself for The Big Day. One week and two days from now, I will be sitting on a beach in Mexico doing nothing except drinking and chilling.

Aliza, in her concern for my pale skin, has arranged for us to borrow a beach tent from some friends to take with us. From what I gather, it's a large-ish tent that opens in the front, so that I can sit in it and still feel like I'm on the beach. I like the idea of sitting in it with the front all zipped up so I am entirely enclosed. Aliza can sit next to my tent, so that it seems like we are still together, even though I will be cocooned up in my little hide-away. I am told there are little windows on the side so I can talk to Aliza, and a little mail-box like slot where she can pass me food and drink. If I can come back from Mexico even paler than I am now, then the honeymoon will have been a success...

Aliza is lucky - she can tan, she will be able to take full advantage of all the sunshine in November.

Excellent review of Gabagool!'s # 1 -3 on the Comics Journal web site today. It's the second review down.

I caught the tail end of the debates between all seventeen Democratic hopefuls the other day. The only bits I heard were a part where each candidate defends him or herself against their biggest criticisms, and the part where they get to sum up their platforms in a minute or less. It was hard for me to keep track of everybody, since it was radio and not TV, so I was only able to really form an opinion about the people who I already knew about.

Al Sharpton: You know what? I like Al Sharpton. He gave the best speech in both segments. He was rousing and inspiring, and he made me want to vote for him. I have at least two friends who splutter with rage whenever you try and talk about Al Sharpton as a serious candidate, and I feel bad for them, because they're really just victims of a media which tells us to think Al Sharpton is a buffoon no matter what he says or does. I think he is a smart man, and he probably spoke the most honestly and earnestly about anything, but it doesn't matter because he's got funny hair. Oh, and also, he's black. Next candidate please -

General Wesley Clark: I liked him before he threw his hat into the ring. I was very impressed with a segment I saw of him talking on the Bill Maher show. I was a little let down with what I heard on the debate because he sounded like a broken record repeating that he served in the military. One exchange I remember went like this:

Moderator: Wesley Clark, what do you think?

Clark: Well, when I was in the military I learned about running things and making a plan. The military taught me how to be a leader. I was in the military.

Very insightful General.

Don't get me wrong, I probably like Wesley Clark the best in terms of somebody who might actually win, I was just a little let down that he seemed to be pandering. I can just imagine his publicity people telling him to emphasize his military service. People love the military, so he brings it up every chance he gets. Reminds me of Arnold's campaign a few weeks back - ignore the issues, don't forget to mention that you were in True Lies.

I wish this wedding was here already. It's still almost two weeks away, and I am just ready to get to it at this point. We've been engaged for almost exactly a year now, it's quite a long time. I would really like to have something else to have hanging over my head for a change. Like trying to find a new apartment or something.

Had final meeting with the Rabbi. He's a nice guy. Both him and the Cantor are very friendly, and have both helped me feel comfortable with everything. Now I need my final meeting with the DJ, and we're done.

The wedding comic was finished yesterday. We're calling it "With this ring..." which sounds a little corny, but makes sense with the story which is about us trying to buy the rings and discussing our various options and disagreeing with each other. It's probably sickeningly cute, but that's fine. Our gift to the people who came to our wedding is a small glimpse into the world that Aliza and I share. People probably don't want to stay there (we are too adorable to stomach...) but they'll have an idea of how it is in our little shared microcosm.

New review of Gabagool!'s # 1-3 here

I had my haircut on wednesday. Paid an outrageous sum for it. It looks pretty good, and it's my wedding hair, so I guess I can justify the cost, but when I look at it from my friend Alex's point of view it's very upsetting. My haircut cost me 20 Heroclix booster packs! That's not even the worst - my shoes cost me 44 boosters. Well, if nothing else, I am going to look like a million bucks on my Big Day - or 368 Heroclix booster packs - once all is said and done...

It's interesting to me that the small press comics world seems to operate on a seasonal basis. The conventions start up in February or March (depending on if you go to/count APE, or if you start the season with SPACE in Ohio) and then end in September. This leaves us cartoonists a good 4 or 5 months of downtime in between. A time when we can cosy up to our drawing tables and actually try to produce something - instead of living life on the road all the time like a bunch of rock stars.

However, there is a new convention this year in Las Vegas at the beginning of November. Alex is going (the lucky bastard) to see how it is. Could it be that the season is going to be extended now, and Vegas will become the new Mecca for the small press? That would be cool, I liked Las Vegas the one time I went there. It would be a good destination.

My brother, sister-in-law, and nephew came up to the city for dinner on saturday. We went to some hole-in-the-wall Indian place on 6th street, where there are a million Indian food places all lined up in a row. It was really nice - my nephew is a little terror, but I had a great time playing with him and trying to keep him quiet. I was really glad they all came up to hang out.

At one point the subject of my old dog came up, and someone asked whatever happened to him. I used to have a Brittany Spaniel called Spanky who was a little shit of a dog that wouldn't behave and destroyed everything (like my nephew does now). He lived with me and an old girlfriend, and when we split up the dog went with her. It was her punishment for being such a crap girlfriend.

A few years later I got a cat who was also very bad. His name was Kevyn, and he had thumbs, and I taught him to attack and bite. I got rid of him too eventually, because I wasn't able to have cats in the apartment I was moving into. I missed him too, but he wound up living with my sister, so even though I don't see him much he's still in the family.

The joke seems to be that I shouldn't be allowed to have kids - since I'll teach them to be bad, and then give them away once they become inconvenient. The first part is probably true - I get a kick out of misbehaviour, but I would hope the second one would be something I'd prove people wrong about. On the other hand - I do enjoy living in the city, and we all know how hard it is to find an apartment big enough for a family here...

In other news: Wedding comic is close to done. It came out real good I think. Bought some fly shoes for The Big Day. They are Paul Smith shoes, they go well with my Paul Smith suit. I don't know who Paul Smith is, but I certainly seem to enjoy his gear...

For the third time in the last four days I had to wake up at the crack of dawn and take the train out to South Orange, NJ. This time it was to apply for the marriage license. I have to admit, it was actually kind of exciting, it made this whole marriage thing seem even more official.

Apparently you used to have to take a blood test when you applied to be married, but not anymore. Now you just have to check a box that says "Do you have a sexually transmitted disease? Yes or No?". I am quite happy about this, because I don't like giving my blood up, and I'm sure it's just as reliable to check a box as it is to go through all the rigamarole of having blood taken and tested and all that. Also, if we still had to give blood we'd be in trouble now, because we are so close to our date, and we'd totally slept on the whole license thing.

Took my third yoga lesson. I am getting better at keeping my legs straight when I try to bend down and touch my toes. I also almost chanted "om" when everyone else did. Maybe I'll do it for real next time. However, I didn't participate in the bit at the end when we close our eyes and say a little "dedication", because to me it feels too much like a prayer, and I just can't get into it.

In other news - not related to my new yuppie exercise routine - comicreaders.com did an interview with me and Radtke.

Today I discovered Friendster. It's kind of fun, but I am a little self-conscious about how few friends I have. It makes me feel a little losery, but just as I kept reminding myself in Junior High, quality is more important than quantity.

The only problem will be if they start having Friendster Gym, because if it's anything like Junior High then it means that absolutely nobody I'm friends with will ever be in a gym class with me and I'll have to either be mocked by the jocks or befriend the losery girls who take pity on me and let me be the only boy on their volleyball team.

My bath-tub is clogged again. Two bottles of liquid Drano hardly made a difference. The plumber is coming tomorrow to "snake the drain", which hopefully will fix everything. I am going to feel stupid if the problem is just that the plug is closed or something. We have this really weird plug in our tub, it's this weird plunger thing off to the side. I think you're supposed to keep it in the "up" position, but it really doesn't make much sense.

The area that this plunger sits in is a small 2 inch gap in between the sink and the bath. There's not much room for anything to get down in there except lots of water and various caps to shampoo bottles and stuff. Consequently, we kind of have this nasty little swamp area in there that you can't get to. I can see all the blackness and gunge down in it, but I'm not going to put my hand down there to try and clean it, and neither is Aliza. I know there's probably all sorts of spiders and water-bugs and shit down in it.

I had an idea to do a little comic about that this morning, about the nasty things that live in-between my sink and bath-tub. It'll be like Fraggle Rock. Something the children will enjoy.

My body hurts a little today, I am having some kind of delayed reaction to the minor amount of yoga I did on saturday. I am all stiff in between my shoulders.

Aliza and I took a private introductory class together. She doesn't need introductory classes, it was all for my benefit, since I have been dragging my feet on ever actually going to yoga with her on the feeble basis that I'm not comfortable doing something like that in a room full of people who know what they're doing. I guess I have no excuses anymore, so it looks like I'll be doing yoga from now on.

I told my parents about the lesson yesterday when I went to see them. In response to the story my Dad showed me how he can balance himself on his head and elbows. It was pretty impressive.

The American Splendor movie website is running a little contest where people can submit their own strips to a script written by Harvey Pekar. Here's my entry

Got home last night around 9:45, in time to catch the very end of Paradise Hotel, which I have to admit was a big disappointment. I do not think I will be tuning in next season to see the sequel. No thankyou.

On sunday I am going down to see my folks for my birthday. We are going to go to the annual Scottish fair at the PNC Bank Arts Center in New Jersey. Aliza can't make it, which is a big shame, 'cos I think it'd be fun to expose her a bit more to that kind of stuff. I plan on buying lots of t-shirts that say "Scotland the Brave" and stuff like that. I haven't had any t-shirts like that since I was in high-school, so I think it's high time I replenished my collection.

Still struggling with the cartooning, I have to force myself to sit down and do some work rather than go watch TV or just go to sleep. I have it figured out though, I have no show or con coming up, so I've got nothing to get ready for. It totally helps me motivate when I've got a clear deadline. I don't know how my friend Alex -who's writing a full length graphic novel- does it. I wouldn't be able to work at all if I had to wait so long for feedback.

Anyway, I've managed to get going on the wedding comic. We finished writing it, and I drew the first page in one of those Japanese brushy pens because I had it in my head that it'd make my drawings more "expressive". Turns out it made my drawings more "sloppy", so I had to re-draw the first page. It came out good though, I am going to work on it more later tonight.

When we were writing our story I told Aliza that we were going for a "naturalistic" style of storytelling. Last night she asked me what I meant by that, and I said "it means we're writing in all the boring shit that actually happened in our lives and making it all realistic and shit." When she seemed non-plussed by my answer, I admitted I didn't really know what it means. I'm dumb.

Aliza and I have almost finished writing the script for our little wedding comic that we plan on giving away on The Big Day. I am very happy with it, it has an actual story and everything. It's about how we went shopping for our rings and the discussion we had about what to engrave inside of them.

We would have finished it up last night, but the seven-hour premiere of The Bachelor was on, so Aliza's attention was elsewhere. I'm not criticizing too much, because I enjoy a lot of these "reality TV" shows, but I hate The Bachelor. It's just a bunch of messed up women who're willing to degrade themselves just to be on TV and hopefully be the next "Trista and Ryan". This show is more disturbing than entertaining. At least though, in the preview showing all the highlights of the upcoming season, it looks like at least one of these mentally ill women tries to kill herself because The Bachelor isn't going to pick her to be the one to have a much hyped but ultimately failed engagement with him.

"But Mike", you might say if you knew me really well (and I don't think many people outside of Aliza knows this next fact about me), "you love to watch Paradise Hotel, which is the sleaziest of all the sleazy reality TV shows." And to that I would reply, "yes, I do love to watch Paradise Hotel, even though I am mad at the producers for the awful cliff-hanger they gave us on the penultimate episode."

I can't justify it all that well, but I can at least say this: At least on Paradise Hotel they make no pretense that this is anything but some nasty awful people behaving atrociously for our viewing entertainment. And it has been an extremely enjoyable show to watch. There's no discernable rules or rewards in the show, the whole premise is that for some reason all these attractive, yet despicable, people want to stay on this hotel to fight with each other and deal with lots and lots of drama. The best was when they brought back a bunch of the booted cast-members who proceeded to "get up in everyone else's grill" and fight and squabble and generally give me something worth watching on the TV.

But, The Bachelor isn't as good as that. First of all it's bogged down with all sorts of boring rules and rituals that get in the way of everything. Second, it does have a prize, but the prize makes even less sense to anyone than the one on Paradise Hotel, because the prize is to be lucky enough to "get married to this guy who you met as one of 25 desperate and pushy women on a television show". Wheee!

Well, whatever, I know that if I'm watching some junk on TV, I can't act like my junk is better than some other junk. It's all junk. At least I am getting bored of Fear Factor and Making the Band II is over. Maybe I can come up with more productive things to do with my time...

Currently listening to Tie Your Mother Down by Queen. It's nice having a door at work so's I can play my music without having to wear headphones.

Poor Aliza hurt her neck last night when we were hanging about in bed. She didn't even do anything too extreme, just turned her head quickly and pulled something. It was my fault, I was trying to drool on her. That may sound gross, but if you were there you'd understand that I was only trying to drool on her because she was acting up and biting me for no reason. Of course, if you were there I would have gotten upset and probably smacked you with our iron. We keep it conveniently next to the bed, so's I can step on the plug in my bare feet in the morning and yell.

I ran into an old college friend the other day when I was in Brooklyn for Aliza's shower. It was cool, he looks good and seemed happy to see me. I gave him copies of Gabagool! 4 and 5. I find the comics are a good thing to hand to people when you run into them like that. It's a good shorthand for the whole "what have you been up to?" thing. I don't have to explain, I can easily just show them that I've been up to spending too much money on vanity projects...

Radtke, often reads my blog and seems to get disheartened when I say things like the above. So, for Radtke, I must make it clear that I am only being funny. I know Gabagool! is very worthwhile. I am very proud of it.

Speaking of which, I had a good night last night drawing. I am almost finished with this page that has been dogging me since SPX. I think once it's done with I can get back on track with my usual one page every two nights or so, which I think is a better rate than one page every month. Incidentally, the current page has boobies on it.

Tomorrow I have three parties to go to. I am going to be pretty tired when it's all done because they are all over the place. On sunday we have a wedding. I am psyched for that, I'll get to wear my new suit again. My brown one, not my wedding one. I am not allowed to wear the wedding suit until after Our Big Day. That is when it will be making it's debut. I think the shirt will recieve rave reviews. My Dad told me the other day that fucia was his favorite color, so he should be pretty psyched when he sees me in all my Hot Pink Glory.

Soembody To Love is playing now, so that means it took me about half of Queen's A Day At The Races to write this shit. I better finish up in that case, I have some work to do...

Speaking of which, the office baby just came by for a visit. It was very cute, like an adorable, wrinkled up little old woman.

Things have been moving slowly since the big SPX. Usually after a show I am recharged, but after this particular show it has been different for some reason. It's taking me a bit to get back into the swing of things. I drew four pages in the week or so before SPX, and I've barely finished one since I came back. But last night I had a bit of a breakthrough, things started to come out right again, so I feel good once more.

My pal James is due to have a baby at the end of this week. It is exciting, he is the first high school buddy of mine to have a kid (well, first one that I keep in touch with). A lady at my work just had a baby, and Aliza's cousins both had some too. Seems like a lot of babies around.