Broken Frontier

Part 4 - Unstuck in Time

Sunday, July 17, 2005 - 11:00pm (continued)

I remember starting to doze when I was on the phone with a friend from North Hollywood. I was leaving the Convention Center as it closed. It may have seemed a bit abrupt, but I dropped pretty quickly, so it was better to end the call. I’d given blood a couple hours earlier, and I was starting to get loopy, and yeah, that was part of the reason I chose not to leave for Los Angeles tonight. Another being the cost of leaving my luggage at the coat check: I needed the six bucks, seriously.

The Robert A. Heinlein blood drive, which I’ve mentioned elsewhere is an annual tradition. I’ve given blood every year that I’ve attended the convention since that first time. It was pretty easy this time out, but I found it really difficult to get good pictures of myself with only one arm and no way to know what I was framing. Yeah, I couldn’t get that emo brooding in front of a mirror thing down either.

I met some neat people giving blood, including Leslie, who was busting her convention cherry, and being a first time blood-donor as well. She was only attending the convention on Sunday, and yet she was willing to give up the hour it takes to donate a pint. Kudos to Leslie!

If I was at the Graphitti party (I wish!) I’d be replenishing my donation in more entertaining ways. Sounds like a way to get incredibly drunk after a mere sip. I would have made a splash and probably not in a good way.

And it’s not like the blood drive is lacking for donors, but I’m so surprised by the number of people who aren’t aware that it exists. It’s been running for more than a decade, and it deserves to be mentioned. Still, if you have anything charitable in you and no religious objections you should think about setting aside the time to donate next year.

This afternoon’s coming back in chunks, all out of order like a Quentin Tarantino film.

I met some cool elves on the Trolley to the Convention Center on Sunday morning. They said that the previous day’s train went aching-ly slow, so it was good that I’d been getting rides into town, for the last few days. Five bucks worth of commuting expenses ain’t too bad.

One cool thing: I spent absolutely NO money on Sunday. The few booths that I checked out noticed my press pass and gave me copies of their books. They were books I wanted to check out either way: Zowie! and God the Dyslexic Dog. Now I can say I got at least one press-kit. Both books look intriguing, and I’ve got a huge stack of reading ahead of me, not to mention a few interviews to transcribe...

I spent the noontime hour tagging along with Shane Mccarthy, who dragged me around while doing Bob Schreck’s bidding. Shane’s a really good guy, and his interview went smoothly. It looks like there are lots more ahead for this rising star.

Jason Martin let me eat my lunch at his booth while he tried the dance challenge. I’d never met the guy before, but it seemed that he found the review I wrote for his book Super Real: Beyond Reality at least somewhat helpful. Nice guy and I hope good things happen for his book when it gets solicited this month. That’s not just because he let me eat lunch, but because I think the book could be cool.

It was a good day for my sketchbook. I got about six pages done, in spite of the hour I gave to the San Diego blood bank.

Sketchbook highlights for Sunday:

• Rodolphe Guenoden poured out a gorgeously flowing young lady in a blue dress while I went off to the blood drive. You might remember his story about a man on a bicycle from Flight volume 2. If there were a sketchbook I’d have paid for this weekend, I think it would be his. His work is just too beautiful. It’s completely magnetic.
• Aaron Renier quickly drew the main character from his Top Shelf book Spiral Bound as the convention center closed. It took about a minute, and the character’s completely charming.

And then I remember checking to see who won the Eisner Awards before I tanked at Jeremy and Michelle’s house tonight. BKV won the best writer award the night before I missed meeting him. Congrats dude! Caballeros rule!

Ooh man, a special burrito sounds good. Michelle left some beans, rice and some red peppers and onions. There are still preparations to make before I leave.

Better get to it.

Monday, July 18, 2005 - 7:20am

“You slept so much, I thought you were going to die” said Michelle as I stumbled from the couch to the kitchen. She was washing dishes, before she left for work.

“What time is Jeremy leaving?” I asked.

“He doesn’t have school today.”

“Cool.”

It was at that moment that I realized I didn’t exactly know where my train tickets were. My luggage was all of a sudden unpacked again, one bag at a time. It was a good opportunity to clear my bags of any random garbage I wouldn’t need.

Michelle’s wandering from room to room. She’s supposed to leave in about ten minutes.

“Thanks for leaving the beans and rice and peppers.”

“I was gonna make you one, but you were all...” Michelle rears her head back to make a snoring sound. I must have looked pretty cartoonish.

Monday, July 18, 2005 - 11:50am

Checked my luggage because the blood bank said I wasn’t to do any heavy lifting for the next 24 hours. Now that I’m on the train, I have some time to upload pics from Jeremy’s camera. He gave me a CD of the files, and even edited them so the inks from the sketchbook would pop! Man, how cool it would have been if I’d had the camera all weekend long.

Waiting for the train to leave, under an overcast Southern California sky. It’s like saying good-bye to summer camp; it’s time to go home. I miss my dogs.

At noon, the train leaves right on time.

End Part 4