Been Busy

Sorry about the non-blogging the past couple of days. I've actually been out of town since last Wednesday night, and been keeping pretty busy.

So I left from work to go see the S.O. in Chicago on Wednesday. Thursday was spent taking care of some errands with her (including a quick tour of Comix Revolution -- great shop; I highly recommend it), but Friday was a gorgeous day that we spent with my dog walking through the park and having a picnic and all sorts of wonderfulness. Saturday, we met up and spent a good chunk of the day with one of my old college friends (who happens to be running for Illinois' State Representative 56th District State Representative; our friendship aside, she's precisely the type of person I'd want representing me) and her family. Sunday we spent with some of the S.O.'s friends. Great fun all around! Monday was really wet and dreary, so we mostly played it cool indoors, except for a brief sojourn out for lunch. And then I spent most of today fighting with all the idiot traffic patterns that pass for Indiana's highway system.

Now, to place on top of that fairly busy schedule, I got a call from Dad on my trip up to the windy city in the first place. I was somewhere in the middle of Indiana when he called to tell me that Mom had a heart attack earlier that day. Quite the surprise since she's never had any heart trouble that we knew of. Fortunately, they were able to act quickly and the doctors got the blockage cleared out sufficiently. Turns out that it had been mostly been in place for a few years, and what another doctor told her was just heartburn a couple years ago was in fact probably this blockage starting to cause problems. After a few days in the hospital, Mom's back at home and in pretty good shape, if a bit tired.

So, yeah. Busy schedule, plus Mom in a hospital weighing on my mind. I repeatedly offered to cut my trip short and drive to see them (and the S.O. was quick to say she'd drop her plans to be right there with me) but both my parents said there was nothing I could do anyway, so don't bother. Mom even apologized for potentially causing me distress during my weekend!

Trying to get this post vaguely back to something comic-related, Comix Revolution was a great shop in terms of material. Excellent selection of titles, with an impressive array of indie comics and decent manga stock as well. I also noted that they had a good selection of hardcover and paperback books of comics analysis -- probably the largest such collection I've seen in person (with my own collection being a close second). I'm also told that nearby Northwestern University not infrequently sends students there for some of their media and popular culture studies courses. While I was there, I picked up Ode to Kirihito Part Two, Cursed Pirate Girl #1-2 and Secret Avengers #1. I easily could've spent quite a deal more if my checking account allowed it.

Also, the youngest son of my college friend is something of a budding writer and has written/drawn quite a few of his own stories. He's only in second grade, but I was quite impressed with his creativity and writing talents. He had a manga-inspired story about a character of his own creation called Tacoshima -- a modern samurai who could conjure and fire tacos at his opponents.

Your regularly scheduled comics-blogging will resume tomorrow.

Related Items