Home and Away

Last night was a small game night over at Brian's. Just three of us, but a lot of fun as Mateo had a lot of Halo game variants for us to try out. Playing with gravity can be fun, and the absurdity of it all kept us laughing all night.

I crashed at Brian's, since he had scored me a pass for WonderCon, which is this weekend, and it seemed foolish to head home just to come back into the city first thing in the morning. I had packed everything I might need, including my copy of Thom's novel that I *finally* printed out, and the laptop so I could do any editing of Radiostar if I found I had time.

I've gotten about a third of the way through the novel, but I didn't touch Radiostar until got back home this afternoon.

WonderCon is a decently sized comics convention, but after ComicCon in San Diego, it can't help but feel somewhat anemic. Brian and I walked the floor for about three hours, doing at least a cursory look over of every book and table. Comic conventions are curious things for me. I am very fond of the art form, and have enough comics and geeky DVDs in my house to make it quite clear that I am a fan. Still, I don't buy lots of memorabilia, back issues of comics, endless collections, t-shirts, or knick knacks. I don't feel at home at a Convention, but feel like I'm in the home of a neighbor. Close, but not really where I live.

I see actors from shows I enjoy, but don't feel the need to get autographs. This is true even for the actor who played Lita on DS9, who I had an enormous crush on (and still do.. she's still hot). I only really saw two things I was tempted to buy: a card game from Phil Foglio and a Star Wars print that was exceptionally well done artistically and elegantly funny. I may still get the card game, but I have nowhere to put the print (a very 1920's style print of Leia in her Jabba slave girl outfit, as if it were an ad for an exotic revue... with the word "cancelled" at the bottom).

For the most part, however, the Con, like all Cons, felt like an orgiastic geek consumer frenzy. More than anything else, I felt inspired to go home and edit Radiostar and play with the new Wacom tablet I just bought. I wanted to create art, not buy it.

So, home I went. I didn't play with the tablet, but spent several hours on Radiostar and took a few more halting steps towards improving my piano playing. (I can read some music now, and play the Cm and G7 chords with both hands)

I might have finished Radiostar, but tonight was Joseph's birthday gathering, and that was unequivocally the priority. The evening was, as to be expected, a delight. There was an unexpected amount of focus on the recent success of Sweetie Tanya, which surprised me more than it should. I don't see my friends nearly enough, and so in many respects the show feels fresher for them than it does for me. I start rehearsals for "Riches" tomorrow, and am much more aware of what lies ahead of me than what lies behind.