The Aviary

I have a lot of digital comics in various formats and I mostly read them on my tablet. Today, I have been swapping some out to add new stuff (my mom and I have been watching The Mandalorian so now I'm reading Lone Wolf and Cub, apparently?) because probably I don't need to keep comics I've already read on there, or series that I'm not currently interested in.

I think that it really tells you everything you need to know about me that the comics that stay on my tablet all the time no matter what are: 1) the original run of Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld, 2) all of New Gods vol 1 and Walt Simonson's Orion, and 3) wherever it was I last left off reading Warlord.

Is it time to reread New Gods again? The answer is almost certainly "yes". (The answer is always "yes", lbr.)

Today, I got two cavities filled and spent most of the day with my tongue entirely numb. Because both my cavities were on the same side of my mouth, but the hygienist read something wrong and numbed both sides instead. Which is not a huge big deal or anything, but did leave me with an entirely numbed tongue for several hours.

Fortunately, I had already requested the day off.

Which meant I had the rest of the day free for catching up on comics! Now I have read all of the Convergence books I bought, as well as the first issue of Fresh Romance. (Which, guys, do you want a romance anthology comic that's written and drawn by ladies? Fresh Romance is pretty great.) Also, I read some of the preview comics for the upcoming DC books and oh, man, the new Black Canary looks amazing. I am so excited.

Plus, I got to have pho for dinner. So, all in all, not a bad day for a day that started with getting holes drilled in my teeth.

Things:

- I am currently terrible at posting. Must try to improve.

- I am also currently sick. And have been so since Wednesday. Fortunately, it seems to be a very quick cold, as I have already moved through the sore throat and wooziness stage to the coughing and lost voice. I hope to be over the whole things soon.

- Because, on Thursday, I am going on vacation! And taking myself on a trip, by myself, to Longbeach, where I will stay in a little bungalow, walk on the beach, look at birds, and not talk to anyone. For four whole days. (And then I'll come back to a fifth day off, as the library is closed for President's Day.) I am so excited, you guys! I might finish my current pair of socks! Or write the three letters I owe people! Or read actual books! (That last might be a lie as it's not like I won't be bringing my computer with me and thus will have access to all my comics...)

- I have been reading a lot of comics lately, btw. Currently, I am reading Nightwing comics from the late 90's. I love Dick Grayson a lot more than I expected to, I must admit.

- Today, I was out running some errands and sort of accidentally purchased doll-making supplies. Or, well, I bought them on purpose, but they were not the purpose of the errands and I had not intended to buy them. But sometimes I am seized with the urge to make rag dolls. I never liked dolls much as a child, but starting when I was in college, I am frequently compelled to make rag dolls. I'm not sure what that's about. The current doll is named Eleanor. She has multi-colored yellow-and-orange hair and will, when I'm done making it, wear a blue dress with stars on it. She also has a star tattooed on her face (or embroided, I suppose). I believe she is some sort of futuristic neo-glam rocker who's decided to take a few years off from making music and hitchhike through space with her mechanoid companion, Del-9. (Yes, there's going to be a robot ragdoll too.) Possibly I like dolls better now because I'm capable of coming up with much better stories for them than I was when I was little.

Okay, here are some nifty things that happened today:

- The other day, I discovered a website called Graphic Audio, which produces (among other things) DC comics audiodrama. And then I downloaded a whole bunch of them. (I am really excited about the one about the Flash because it is Wally and has Linda in it and I miss them so much, you guys.) Right now, I am listening to a Batman one and enjoying it immensely. It's a little goofy - some of the writing is stilted and there's a lot more narration than I'm used to in an audiodrama - but it's still a lot of fun and allows me to indulge my comics obsession aurally. So now DC comics joins the ranks of fandoms like LotR and Doctor Who, where I can read, watch, or listen to them. Which is great. I'm hoping to get to the point with some of them that I can use them as bedtime listening.

- I am learning awesome things about geology! Awesome thing 1: tectonic plates that move under other plates melt down and get recycled into mountains! I guess I somehow always assumed that they stayed solid and just moved around - this is so much cooler. Awesome thing 2: the Atlantic Ocean is growing at a rate of about 2-3 inches per year and the Pacific is shrinking by the same amount, so the North American continent is slowly shifting west. Western Washington used to be islands in the Pacific that collided with North America and stuck there. Eventually the same thing will probably happen with other islands in the Pacific, including probably Japan. Awesome thing 3: when basalt lava erupts under the ocean, it cools into formations that look like sofa cushions, so geologists call them "basalt pillows". Awesome thing 4: geology is really surprisingly exciting. I'm really enjoying learning about it.

So today was a pretty good day.

Things:

- Apparently, I had requested today off at Kingston and then completely forgot about it. I did not request today off at Bainbridge. (I have checked. Three times.) So I showed up to work and everyone was surprised, but we decided that it would be better if I stayed and then called the person who was meant to come in to cover lunches and let him know that he could stay home until his normal shift later in the day. So here I am!

- Yesterday, I was seized by a desire to reread Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol. I am currently in the middle of two books and trying to be better about finishing things, but Doom Patrol. So now I am reading that too. (OMG, Rebis, I love you, I missed you!)

- This weekend, my mother and I went to Goodwill and bought puzzles. Because that seemed like a good idea at the time. So we have cleaned off the dining room table (which is never used except for storage) and have a giant puzzle spread out all over it. It's pretty great.

- Next weekend, we are visiting my sisters for a crafternoon and we're each supposed to have some sort of autumnal/Thanksgiving-related craft to share. I am having trouble coming up with one. I mean, once you get past handprint turkeys, what else do you do? Maybe I will teach them to make friendship bracelets and only bring string in autumnal colors.

What I have done today:

- Miscellaneous crafty things.

- Watched cartoons.

- ( Read comics. )

- Absolutely nothing else.


This is the first weekend in at least six weeks where I haven't had somewhere to go or something to do. It is awesome.

There is a tiny girl in the library, wearing a frilly pink dress, loudly proclaiming her love of Batman.

I really don't want to shush her.

Sometimes, when I get my pull list from Midtown Comics, they have thrown in a random free comic in order to entice me to subscribe. I got one this week called Masks, which is about various pulp-era characters teaming up to fight crime and government corruption which, I'm not going to lie, I thought was pretty awesome. Because I love pulp. So well played, Midtown Comics.

Anyway. One of the characters in the comic was the Green Hornet. Which means I am now going to tell you a rambling anecdote about my childhood.

When I was little, I was a huge fan of the Adam West Batman show. It was pretty much my first ever introduction to superheroes and I loved it. It was funny, it was exciting, it was ridiculous, sometimes the heroes were almost killed by giant cakes. It was great. My sister Megan was also a fan. (She liked Robin, I liked the Penguin. Yeah, I don't know either. He had a purple top hat and a cigarette holder! I have liked certain things from a very young age.) We watched it every chance we got.

Batman came on in a block of similar shows, like Wonder Woman and Green Hornet. So we often ended up watching those as well, though not as often. Green Hornet and Kato actually appeared on Batman at one point and got turned into giant postage stamps. Because that is the kind of show Batman was. You'd get commercials for the other shows during Batman and the channel had a kind of goofy vibe and would sometimes make weird little commercials sort of making fun of the shows. One of those commercials made up words to the Green Hornet theme song. (I'm pretty sure that, for a while, Megan thought those were the real words to the Green Hornet theme song.)

Fifty percent of the time, I cannot remember the name of the woman who sits next to me in choir, but I am going to remember the made up words to the Green Hornet theme song until I die. And they have been stuck in my head from the moment I opened that comic and realized that the Green Hornet was in it. Alas, I cannot find that commercial anywhere on youtube and it may only be Megan and I who remember it, but here are the words:

He's the Greeeen Hornet,
Alias publisher Britt Reid.
He fights criiiime with cool gadgets.
Look out for his hornet's sting!

His butler's named Kato.
He's also his chauffeur.
He driiives the Black Beauty.
Watch him make that motor sing!

There are so many other things I could be devoting those brain cells to, but no. Green Hornet theme song. Now you can sing it too. Enjoy.

Things:

- One of my boots is broken. The bottom part of the sole is coming away from the upper part. This is especially frustrating as I had this problem a few weeks ago and took the boot - the same boot - to the cobbler to be repaired. I feel as though I ought to get some sort of refund. Mostly, I just want my boots to be wearable.

- We're planning a horror movie fest at Bainbridge for the Friday before Halloween. This is awesome on two levels. 1) Horror movie fest! 2) Every time I come to work now, people want to talk to me about horror films. It's great. It started out just being classic horror (where classic = made before 1980, I guess), but now we're doing two screens so we have classic and modern stuff and people can move between them as they will. I don't know what's on the modern screen, but the classic lineup sounds awesome (it has The Black Cat, so it has to be good). I am totally excited.

- This is the week of All Staff Day, the big eight hour everyone who works at the library meeting. It's on Thursday. I am not terribly enthused. Also, I am slightly worried about lunch, as it's meant to be provided at the venue and is apparently going to be sandwiches. Now, I eat a lot of sandwiches as a rule but, see, those are sandwiches that I make. I know what's on them. I have no way of knowing what these people are going to be putting on their sandwiches and it's probably rude to deconstruct a sandwich on a buffet table before deciding whether it's safe to eat. Maybe I will pack a lunch.

- I am reading this book called Supergods, by Grant Morrison. It is a sort of history of superhero comics, interspersed with autobiographical details from Mr Morrison's life. I have just gotten to the creation of Spider-Man. Mostly, it reminds me a lot of Stephen King's Danse Macabre, in that it is a rambley, conversational thing, written by someone who both loves and works in the field, and in that if you gave it to me and didn't tell me the author, I could potentially guess just because I'm familiar with their other work. Danse Macabre could be written by no one but Stephen King and Supergods is maybe the most written-by-Grant-Morrison book possible that isn't a comic book. I mean, I'm really enjoying it but occasionally there are passages about how Mercury is one of the patron gods of comic books and how Billy Batson became Captain Marvel through a shamanic experience and is the Hermetic magus as superhero. And yes, that is interesting (if also really odd), but mostly it makes me feel inexpressibly fond. Also, the book has reminded me that I have meant for some time to read The Ten Cent Plague, so I should maybe put that on hold.*

- The yarn for my new sweater might come tomorrow. (Today, the tracking information says it is in Kent, so I'm hopeful.) It was something like 72 degrees today, so sweaters are still inappropriate to wear but I am going to knit this one nonetheless. I think there's a part of my brain that believes knitting the sweater will force autumn to actually happen.





*I also kinda vaguely want to read Seduction of the Innocent, but I feel like that would probably be a mistake.

Things:

- I made my tea-for-work irritatingly weak this morning. I don't know how that happened. I mean, I'm still drinking it, but it makes me sad.

- Summer reading is almost over! I like summer reading in principle - getting kids to read is always a good thing - but it practice, I really hate dealing with the various summer reading paraphernalia. We always run out of some of the bits and the prize books take up a lot of room. Still, we got a good number of finishers this year, and that's nice.

- I started a new pair of socks today, because it is getting to be that time of year. They have cables, which will either be fun or irritating, and are deliberately mismatched in color, in hopes that the different colors will keep me from getting too bored with the second sock. We'll see how that goes.

- Yesterday, I watched Justice League: Doom. About which, three things: 1) I hate Hal Jordan significantly less when he's voiced by Nathan Fillion. I don't know if I can make that effect transfer over to actual comics. 2) I like Michael Rosenbaum as the Flash as much as anyone, but having him be Barry in this movie rather than Wally was really confusing. 3) Claudia Black should do voicework in everything ever.

- I am seriously going to have to make tea as soon as I get home because the tea I have now is just disheartening.

Things I have done today:

- Went to the Batman movie. ( Spoilers )

- Reread some Starman. OMG, you guys, Starman. I am full of so much ridiculous love and I kinda want to live in Opal City. The problem with rereading Starman, though, is that I don't actually have all of it. I got rid of my scans and I stopped buying the graphic novels when the omnibuses started coming out but I drifted away from comics in the middle and thus didn't buy all of the omnibuses. Now I am kinda stupid tempted to buy all the ones I don't have at once, which I really don't need to do. Maybe I will just buy one of them...

In which I am a dorkface, but in constructive ways:

I go to McDonalds once a week on Mondays, so that I can have lunch while I drive between Kingston and Bainbridge. It's really convenient and so I keep doing it, but the food isn't good for me and I don't really feel good after I eat it. The problem is that, if I don't do that, I have to make two meals to take with me in the morning (because I eat both lunch and dinner at work) and I'm terribly lazy. So I need something to motivate me.

I figured out approximately how much money I spend a month eating at McDonalds on Mondays and told myself that, if I stopped doing that, I could spend that money on something nerdy and fun. And then I went to midtowncomics.com and set myself up a pull list.

I am bribing myself with superheros to make myself eat better. Alas that I have not as yet figured out a way to bribe myself to exercise.

One of the things that I love about working at the library is tiny children who come to the library wearing costumes for no apparent occasion.

Today, there is a little boy in a Batman costume with, and this is the crowning glory, Spider-Man wellingtons.

I'm pretty sure that if you tried to combine Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker into one person they, or possibly the universe, would explode but still. Well done, that kid.