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24 Exhausting Hours
Oct. 13th, 2012 10:05 pmThursday night we came to realize that some of Munchkin's increasing weirdness were doing to her going quickly blind. Last night I researched that a little bit and discovered that sudden-onset blindness can result from high blood pressure caused by kidney disease.
Uh-oh! We've been treating Munchkin's kidney problems since about February, so we immediately took her into the (emergency) vet in case she had dangerously high blood pressure. Sure enough. In the 170-190 range where cat normal is 80-120. So we got new meds for her to deal with her high blood pressure (and got home with them at about 11pm). It may even help some with her eyesight.
Today, as planned I went into San Francisco to staff a booth at APE (the Alternate Press Expo) for Chris.
On the way in, I learned how to use the self-checkin bike center in Downtown Berkeley ... which was great, because it let me take my bike downtown and have it ready for when I got back this evening (so I could go and do some shopping before heading home), but I didn't have to leave it locked outside downtown all day. Yay!
Basically, your cardkey says you're going in, then you lock up your bike on racks inside, then when you return your cardkey notes how long you've been there and deducts your account accordingly (but it's super-cheap; I spent $.31 or something).
Anywho, I got into Civic Center and hiked out to the Concourse, which is about a mile south of Market. I've actually staffed a booth there before, when I helped Eric R. out at a Book Expo for Chaosium, probably '96 or '97. *Long* time ago.
I got to meet Dan C., who's just started on the art for a new comic that Chris A. and I are developing called Touched. Always nice to have that sort of face-to-face.
The rest of the day was the typical mixture of boredom and tiredness that comes from staffing a con booth. I was repping a weird variety of stuff.
The main point was to highlight the Infinite Canvas app that Chris has produced that lets you construct multidimensional narratives. It was actually somewhat challenging finding people who were interested and had iPads, but I was happy to spread the love to people without iPads too. Folks who stopped to look inevitably said it was very cool. (I had my patter and what to show down to a science by the end of the day.)
I was also telling folks about the Touched comic which was challenging in itself because we didn't have much material on that, other than the banner that Dan (an old hand at conventions) had produced. I did show a few folks my current script, which covers the first four and a half issues and lays out some beats for the rest.
And I showed off the old Lovecraft Comic that I did years ago, which actually offered a nice "in" to talk about the newer comic (and was easier to do because we had physical copies of that one).
At one point I was talking about Touched and saying that it was about relationships and the past and the future and change and some people were listening with genuine interest and I thought to myself, "shit, I'm actually a comic writer talking to folks at a comic convention about what I'm doing." And that was a moment of crystal clarity and total coolness.
And now I'm home and totally burnt. Was hoping to do some writing (on Designers & Dragons), but at this point it's obvious that I can't do much more than gibber (and read simple stuff ... which ironically means to the comics!). I'd often go for a bike ride when in such a state, but my legs are actually too worn out from standing good chunks of the day. So, gibbering and reading.
Uh-oh! We've been treating Munchkin's kidney problems since about February, so we immediately took her into the (emergency) vet in case she had dangerously high blood pressure. Sure enough. In the 170-190 range where cat normal is 80-120. So we got new meds for her to deal with her high blood pressure (and got home with them at about 11pm). It may even help some with her eyesight.
Today, as planned I went into San Francisco to staff a booth at APE (the Alternate Press Expo) for Chris.
On the way in, I learned how to use the self-checkin bike center in Downtown Berkeley ... which was great, because it let me take my bike downtown and have it ready for when I got back this evening (so I could go and do some shopping before heading home), but I didn't have to leave it locked outside downtown all day. Yay!
Basically, your cardkey says you're going in, then you lock up your bike on racks inside, then when you return your cardkey notes how long you've been there and deducts your account accordingly (but it's super-cheap; I spent $.31 or something).
Anywho, I got into Civic Center and hiked out to the Concourse, which is about a mile south of Market. I've actually staffed a booth there before, when I helped Eric R. out at a Book Expo for Chaosium, probably '96 or '97. *Long* time ago.
I got to meet Dan C., who's just started on the art for a new comic that Chris A. and I are developing called Touched. Always nice to have that sort of face-to-face.
The rest of the day was the typical mixture of boredom and tiredness that comes from staffing a con booth. I was repping a weird variety of stuff.
The main point was to highlight the Infinite Canvas app that Chris has produced that lets you construct multidimensional narratives. It was actually somewhat challenging finding people who were interested and had iPads, but I was happy to spread the love to people without iPads too. Folks who stopped to look inevitably said it was very cool. (I had my patter and what to show down to a science by the end of the day.)
I was also telling folks about the Touched comic which was challenging in itself because we didn't have much material on that, other than the banner that Dan (an old hand at conventions) had produced. I did show a few folks my current script, which covers the first four and a half issues and lays out some beats for the rest.
And I showed off the old Lovecraft Comic that I did years ago, which actually offered a nice "in" to talk about the newer comic (and was easier to do because we had physical copies of that one).
At one point I was talking about Touched and saying that it was about relationships and the past and the future and change and some people were listening with genuine interest and I thought to myself, "shit, I'm actually a comic writer talking to folks at a comic convention about what I'm doing." And that was a moment of crystal clarity and total coolness.
And now I'm home and totally burnt. Was hoping to do some writing (on Designers & Dragons), but at this point it's obvious that I can't do much more than gibber (and read simple stuff ... which ironically means to the comics!). I'd often go for a bike ride when in such a state, but my legs are actually too worn out from standing good chunks of the day. So, gibbering and reading.