This is my interesting life. It's a mild Friday night in June, and I'm home blogging.

Well I'd go out and find something to do, but the StreetRodders are in town, and that means two things;
1) Lots of Traffic.

2) Crowds at all the best nightspots (all 2 of them) will be very thick.

The "street rodders" are members of the NSRA. Hot-Rod enthusiasts who hold their East Coast regional get-together in York every June. They come in by the thousands, in shiny, candy-colored, souped-up old pre-1950 sedans and roadsters. They are fun to watch, but they choke all the roads in town as they cruise along under the speed limit, being gawked at by the throngs of cheap York Countians who line the curbs in their lawnchairs, watching the traffic. Anything to avoid the admission charge at the Fairgrounds. My Aunt always warned me about the Thrifty York Countian. "You need to give them Two dollars worth of Service to separate them from their Dollar," she'd tell me.

It was a lesson I recalled every day in 1993 to 1996, when I ran my Comic Shop, Hey, Kids! Comics! ( I forgot to mention that in my last post, that I'd also been a Comic Shop Owner.) When you're a Retailer in the Comics Industry, you learn quickly how hard it is to get a customer to read something different, let alone get them to actually PAY for it.

Apparently, it's not a lesson I learned well, or I wouldn't be spending my life now Creating and Publishing comics. Especially Mini-Comics.

I promised I'd explain why I live at home now. At the end of 1992, the Air Force cut it's Officer Corps in half. Despite the fact that they'd just paid to send me to Grad School for the last 18 months, they decided to let me go , since I was always too close to my max weight.
(you know, it was less than a year before my 30th birthday. At age 30, I would have been allowed about 15 more lbs. More than enough to give me breathing room. I had grey hair already then. I started getting greys at age 14. I tried to convince them that my body was convinced it was already 30, but I couldn't squeek out another 8 months.)

That previous Spring, my Mom was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. She had 5 to 10 years of continuing decline coming, the doctors said. I decided to return to York, even though it would make finding a job in Meteorology near impossible, so that i could be around if needed. I took my savings and a start-up loan, and opened my Comic Shop, putting my own collection up as the initial inventory. To keep living expenses low, so i could devote more funds to running the store, and to be even handier, I moved back in at home.

Well. It's been more than ten years, Mom's still around, they keep changing her medications every several months, and now the doctors are giving newly-diagnosed patients
at least 15 years. Mom has as many good days as bad now. But at least Dad is retired now, still healthy, and available to assist her, so I'm not needed as often.

Sometimes I think the doctors are just using Medicaire patients as Guinea Pigs for the new medications. I keep telling Mom when she freezes up that it's 90% mental attitude. I try to get her to visualize herself taking a step. To imagine herself at the end of the hallway, and tell me what she needs to do to get closer to it. I've asked Dad to request sessions with a physical therapist instead of new medication at the next Doctor visit.

Okay enough of that depressing stuff. Howabout some typical blog info?

last Movie I saw? Finding Nemo. Liked it. Don't want to wait until 11/2004 to see The Inevitables, though. I want it NOW!

next DVD I want to buy? Adaptation

last CD I got? Do You Swing? by The Fleshtones

listening to now? A mix tape from Ian Carney, writer of SLG's "Where's It At, Sugar Katt?", and "Pants Ant Trousers Hour". Lots of Glam, and punk, and cartoon songs. I just got it today. We're winding down our latest Mix-Tape Circle in an e-group I belong to for contributors to the anthology, "Not My Small Diary" check out Delaine's site

I'm also listening thru all the cool Halloween music I've gleaned in the past year, trying to decide what will make the cut for my annual Howl-O-Ween party-mix tape. My Special friends get copies of this, usually towards the end of Sept.

and this has become a big ramble of me typing to myself. I really need to log off now and spend the few hours before bed-time drawing something.

--bye!