Bite Off Another Bullet

Katie sent me a great link last night about rejection from a blog called The Rejectionist.


The Rejectionist writes:

"Waiting to be published in order to live your real life is a lot like hanging out on the sidewalks of Manhattan hoping someone will notice you are special. The odds are not in your favor."

The whole article is quick, witty and involves running (by slow people! who have funny gaits - like me!) I highly recommend clicking that link and reading it. For gems like these:

"We run; also, it is hot! These items we have mentioned before. We are not an especially good runner. We are not fast (4,000th place in the NYC half-marathon); we look sort of funny when we run ("you have a very particular gait," says Support Team). "

But also because the message is the best one: Don't give up. Never give up.

I sent out another grant application this morning. That means another chance at potential rejection. I figure, just keep throwing it out there, Tana. Duck! is a solid story with a nice little ending and even if the artwork feels a bit dated to me (at this point its all at least a year old) it still works.

This comic making business is something I am going to get myself into. Come hell or high water.

Speaking of which, I am working on a new zygote of a little story that Matthew and I tossed around last night over drinks. Pomegranate martini's from Ember.

You're jealous.

BE jealous.

Ciao.

Game Cancelled

Both of our playoff games have been canceled this week so the big show down will happen next Monday and Wednesday. Mark those calendars.

That means I am free to play Civilization III all night long to my heart's content. Just me, some babies and Bota box of wine. (In an important Civ3 update I declared war on France last night and I am happy to report the war effort is going extraordinarily well. We now have coal, and are industriously making railroads to crisscross our glorious Roman empire. Hail Caesar!)


****


We took a several cute photo's at last night's comedy show but I have no access to the camera they were taken on (it is Andrea's) and I therefore have no photo reference to share with you. The show was delightful, though, and the beers were ice cold deliciousness.

Today I had a filling replaced and, I am happy to report, the wonderful dentist fixed my chipped front tooth. No more snaggletooth for Tana! We will see how long this lasts as I tend to grind my teeth which is what got me into this chipped tooth mess in the first place.



Meanwhile I haven't had any time to get back in the paint booth. Probably a blessing since the painting I am making for Katie was SUPPOSED to be reddish and creamy whites and I somehow made it yellow and blue. (Really, Tana? There are only three primary colors and you managed to chose the wrong ones.)

Ah, well. All of life is art. Might as well get used to it.

And having run out of pages in Cloud Atlas (which I loved and cannot recommend strongly enough) and Black Swan Green (two enthusiastic thumbs up), I picked up Number 9 Dream, David Mitchell's other book I own and kept reading where I left off. It takes place in Japan and I am just not a fan of the setting. I'm having a hard time willingly following this protagonist on his journey. It seems to be lifting though, so we'll see where this next chapter takes us.

We are super slammed at Matt's right now which is a great problem to have, I know, but which also means no time for me to work on my comic conundrum. Print the book? Continue working on the next project? Paint? Doodle?

Doodles.

They are all I have managed today.

Tomorrow is Zana's birthday (Happy 29th buddy!) and we are Duck Touring and Dinnering with friends. Ought to be a fine time (provided the rain passes by then). I've got to work in some time to get Bailey to the beach this weekend, too. Maybe a late night swim for him.

We'll see.

Whatever you do with your weekend have fun.

See you all next week!

Date Night!

Tonight, immediately following work, I will be high-tailing it down to Hyannis for some dinner and a show at the Melody Tent. The hilarious Brian Regan, who Matthew, me and J.C. all fell in love with a couple of years ago is doing his stand-up routine live. I'm excited.

Here's a sample of his hilarity:




If you know any good restaurants in Hyannis, pass it along.


***
Project: Paint Your Rage is yielding interesting results.




I've discovered a few new things about myself. The first is that I love wearing latex gloves while glopping, scratching and slapping paint onto things. One of the little-known facts about Tana-as-Artist is that I hate getting my hands messy.

Weird right?

But you work in a mechanic's garage, you will say.

Art is inherently messy, you will say.



Yeah... but. Back in the way back days of high school art class my least favorite unit was on charcoal. Ever use the stuff? It's filthy. And gritty. And it makes my fingernails tingle. But put on some latex gloves and I would charcoal the shit out of anything! Then (slap! snap!) toss those messy gloves into the trash can.

It's not the greenest solution to the conundrum, but one step at a time, children.




This week is San Diego Comicon and now that I twitter (follow me at tanaford) it's like I am practically there. Previews, little photos of the concourse, jokes about fat guy's dressed as Deapool wearing a Galactus hat. Man.

My favorite bit about Comicon remains that episode of Entourage where Johnny Drama goes dressed up as his viking character for all the nerds.

Ohhhh, Johnny drama. How I love thee.

Enjoy your Thursday.


VICTOOOORY!

Into the Fire

"A mans house burns down. The smoking wreckage represents only a ruined home that was dear through years of use and pleasant associations. By and by, as the days and weeks go on, first he misses this, then that, then the other thing. And when he casts about for it he finds that it was in that house. Always it is an essential -- there was but one of its kind. It cannot be replaced. It was in that house. It is irrevocably lost. It will be years before the tale of lost essentials is complete, and not till then can he truly know the magnitude of his disaster." -Samuel Clemens


Matt and I made a fire in the fire pit last night out behind the shop.

I have been doing some major spring cleaning, went through drawers and boxes and the piles of stuff that has collected over the years and serves only to clutter up my office. I came across stacks and stacks and stacks of papers. Old papers, sketch books, doodles, the entirety of Duck version one (pre-computer crash) and all of Duck 2.0 (Has a bit of a ring to it).



Among the detritus were love notes and cards for no reason, hangman episodes, urgent napkin poetry and mostly, junk. Piles and piles of dialog, revisions, doodles, just papers upon papers of the stuff. So, in true artistic fashion I decided to burn what I couldn't keep.

Smartly (here Tana pats herself on the back) I decided to order in bulk some of my favorite types of journals so it happened that I had a large, completely fresh place in which to tape all of my forgotten treasures that had been hiding on my shelves.


What I didn't get saved got dragged into the back yard and thrown, happily, into the crackling fire. Bailey stayed close even off leash, even after dark. We had fun playing Chew The Stick which involves him crushing and chomping and chewing on sticks. Something he was bred to do.





Matt and I drank cold beer, lounged in camping chairs and ate chocolate and cold Chinese food. We listened to Mitch Hedberg's AA BB CC's play from inside Matt's truck which was parked behind us in the dark. Matt totally does not get Mitch's deadpan brand of humor. I, however, was giggling like a schoolgirl.

The weight of a thousand years of dust has lifted off me.

If you've got anything of your to burn, I highly recommend it.

Happy Friday.

Tequila Mockingbird

Last night's screening of Tequila Mockingbird* was awesome.

What I liked best was that the kids acted like kids. They hung on everything and draped themselves over everything; porches, hand rails, rocking chairs. They sat on the steps like kids sit on steps and ran and behaved just like real kids behave. There was none of this Disneyland fake kid crap involving blow dried hair and bad attitudes. And there was no female love interest in the movie, imagine that. Just a guy that looks like Clark Kent making do with two kids in the racially divided south.

The movie itself was loooooooooooong though.

I had forgotten how long.

There was a panel discussion before the movie with a youngish professor who stuttered (perhaps he just said "um" a lot), an author who spoke about first discovering the book as a child and feeling it was accessible in a way Dickens' and other books on her parents' shelves were not, and a Rhodes scholar law professor who had not bothered to read the book before speaking on the panel but had watched the film and talked about the different ways to evaluate Atticus Finch's performance as a lawyer. Was he just doing his job? Is he really heroic?

None of it added anything to my appreciation of the movie.

What made me laugh out loud was Scout walking along in a HAM costume for the school play. I had completely forgotten about that scene. She looks like a bowling pin. Katie warned me not to giggle though, because Calpernia probably worked really hard on making that costume. Which is true! Who else would have made it?



The best part was that it said "HAM" right across her front.

Classic.

This year I will make that costume and go to Halloween parties and no one will understand the reference. (Unless I'm with Katie who may or may not dress up as Boo Radly).

***

Also, today qualifies as the 'Ides of July'.

Less mystical than the Ides of March, certainly, but hey, I'm not Gaius Julius Caesar, and neither are you.

Happy Thursday.




*Stolen pun courtesy of Katie C.

I Have-a Returned!

Aren't those babies getting big?

For those of you that did not know, last week was my vacation week (more of a STAY-cation, actually, since all I did was lounge, drink and read on the beach). I finished the excellent book Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. I highly recommend this.

In this morning's mail arrived two more of his books which I will eat through shortly. It's been a while since I found an author I could devour.

Also, the news you have ALL been waiting for is FINALLY here. Yes, that's right! Tonight is the season premiere of The Closer! Kyra Sedgewick you wily fox, you. I have my wine chilling in the fridge ready to go and heat or no heat I am making myself the most gigantic bowl of salty delicious popcorn and watching (whilst squealing) in the dark tonight at 9pm. (Do not call, do not write. I will be busy).

In other news this year is the 50th anniversary of To Kill A Mockingbird. A book (according to Katie) that ought to be read once every year from now until you die. To celebrate, the Harvard Bookstore is doing a panel discussion and screening of the black and white Gregory Peck movie this Wednesday. If you want to run into me, odds are I will slurping down a frozen strawberry margarita at Border Cafe before the show (and after too, if I can twist some arms!).

***I leaned back to take the picture, hence why I am not in it.
I took the liberty to point out where I would have been.
You're welcome.

I watched Spain win the World Cup over at Mirta's house, which is stacked to the rafters with boxes of REEF gear and swag and shoes and flops and posters and what-not (Oh, the life of a brand-rep). She gave me a copy of the surf DVD we went to see last Thursday night up in Portsmouth, New Hampster (which was packed for being a weeknight and you know... in New Hampshire!).

I also got back a hoodie I had left at her place months ago. Just in time since I left my new favorite hoodie over another's friends house post-birthday party on Friday night. (I claim vacation-brain) I also stood-up my Piano teacher, slept late every day, gave my liver quite a work-out and neglected to go to the gym just about every day.

All in all a perfect vacation!

Just in time too.

They are saying thunderstorms all this week.

(Sucka's!)

Back to sorting out a week's worth of mail.
Peace.