6 March 1998: Abundance

Friday, 6 March 1998:

Abundance

Hey, I'm back!

A combination of business and listlessness kept me from writing the last few days. Actually the listlessness was not all that serious; more like a 'it's 10:30 and this is the first chance I've had to write tonight, but I'd really rather just go to bed so I'll do that' feeling.

Wednesday was comic book night, and I picked up several new things. I've also decided to collect Alan Moore's run of Swamp Thing. I already have his first 15 issues or so in trade paperback form, and I bought ten more on Wednesday. Only another 20 or so to go. It's good stuff, decent horror material, although the quality of the printing is substandard, kind of muddy. The paperbacks look nicer because of the better printing.

I drew up a list of comics I want to pick up. Strange to think that I'm actually running out of comics published in my lifetime that I want to own (not quite as impressive as it sounds; there's an awful lot of crap out there, and I buy a lot as reprints). I suppose I have too much disposable income these days - though a lot of it is going right into savings against buying a house (which I guess means it's not really "disposable").

Last weekend I expressed to someone (I forget who) that one of two things is going to get me out to actually look for a house: Either I'll be suddenly struck with the urge to house-hunt (stranger things have happened), or else I'll wake up one morning and realize there isn't another square inch in my apartment to put stuff. The latter is more likely, even though it doesn't feel like I have that much stuff. But furniture all by itself takes up a lot of space, I guess!

I'm also actually entertaining thoughts about buying a new car! But probably if I get my current one (a 1987 Honda Civic) tuned up and buy some new covers and padding for the front seats, it will suffice for a while longer. I'm having trouble with the windshield wiper fluid, and I think I need a brake job. I also need to get the radiator looked at. Have I mentioned all this before?

Anyway, I guess when I own all the silver age comics I want, then we'll find out how big a collector I really am, and see if I turn to the golden age stuff.

Thursday evening was a surprise party for the 30th birthday of my friend Dan, through by his SO (and my cow-orker) Charlie. It was a nice dinner at a decent restaurant I'd never been too named Quivey's Grove, which seemingly serves highbrow stuff in a house and lowbrow stuff in a barn.

You can probably guess that my friends are gay. Of the 20 or so people there, I guess there are maybe 4 or 5 straight people other than myself. Makes me feel orientationally challenged. Especially since there was an attractive and single woman there who was clearly gay herself - although in reality she probably wasn't my type. Fun conversationalist, though.

What is my type, I wonder? Certainly just being attracted to a woman doesn't mean she's my type. These days I'm heavily into my main interests - comic books, science fiction (not fantasy) and baseball (pretty much in that order) - so it seems unlikely that anything with someone who's not strongly interested in at least one of those will work.

At any rate, the dinner was a good time, with yummy food, and Dan seemed very surprised and pleased by it all. I gave him a copy of Riven, since he and Charlie are the ones who turned me on to MYST in the first place.

Speaking of which, I got a copy of the Riven Movie Snoop from a friend and spent some time watching many of the movies in Riven. There are hundreds, but many of them are insects and birds and doors opening and such. But I watched the alternate endings, and stumbled on the easter egg in which Gehn struts around his chamber singing opera, to big applause at the end. Funny!

Apparently I set off some peoples' "gaydar". I'm not entirely sure why this is, although from the reactions I've gotten I am more naturally accepting of gays and lesbians than most people. And I seem to be up-front enough about my own orientation that I've only ever been hit on once. But really, I'm a flaming heterosexual (though I seem to have pretty accurate gaydar myself).

Work was pretty good this week, although Thursday was kind of a directionless day, as I was turning away from one project (set of related projects, actually) and trying to break into a new one which was as-yet hazily defined. It's better-defined now, but I need to coordinate with another team to finish the job. But that's what next weeks are for, right?

I got really, really tired the last two afternoons. Not sure why, as I've been sleeping well, heavily, and for a decent span of time. I sometimes wonder if I have sleep apnia. (I do know that I snore heavily. Someday I'll probably talk in my sleep like my grandfather did.)

One big piece of news in Madison is that the lakes thawed last weekend. Before this year, the earliest the lakes had ever thawed was March 8, so you can figure that this is a record. And now it's supposed to get cold this weekend and on Sunday we could be in for a large snowfall (many inches). Strange weather, but that's Wisconsin for you.

This year's El Nino forecast for the summer is hot and dry. Sound pretty good? It is, until you realize that it's not so good for the farming.

Tonight I read the latest Comics Buyer's Guide and the first third of Stephen Dedmon's The Art of Arrow-Cutting, which is one of those mystical, the-mystery-is-figuring-out-what-the-mystery-is books which mostly lives and dies by its dialogue and bizarre plot twists. It's okay, which means that sometimes it lives and sometimes it dies. I hate it when main characters have names like "Michaelangelo Magistrale", though.

So does all of this constitute having a life?

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Michael Rawdon (Contact)