NYC Weekend

Well kids, I’m in NYC this weekend, though not for the giant sized New York ComiCon. I did have some NYCC fun –more on that in a sec.

I’m here this weekend visiting my father, who is dying. I won’t depress everyone with the details, but I will say, if you live by the Rule of Dean Martin, you die by the Rule of Dean Martin. And a big part of me is thinking –Dean Martin knew how to live. The landing sure is rough, but the flight in enjoyable.

Its been a good visit and I’ve been able to resolve some stuff that has been playing havoc with my life, health, and Atomic Robo for all of February. Here we are at the end of the month and I haven’t started inking Issue 5 yet. Yikes!

But right now me and Pop are sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee & bullshitting. Strangely normal. Its nice.

You ever notice how stupid shit is what drives you nuts about your family? Lets look at coffee. A lot of it is consumed at both my house and in my parent’s home. Every house has its own little ritual associated with its gods, and they’re all a tad different. My house is a One Spoon house. There’s this one sugar spoon that sits beside the kitchen sink. You make your coffee, rinse it off, and lay it back on the wide, chrome rim of the sink for the next addict who comes to the alter.

My folk’s though –they are a Two Spoon house. One sits perpetually in the sugar and another on this little spoon holder plate . . . thing. And it never gets rinsed. So there are sticky coffee marks everywhere. It drives me apeshit.

This leads to conflict when they visit. Like my brother last month when he came up –I kept walking into the kitchen for a cup of joe only to find myself locked in a life or death struggle to pry the sticky fucking spoon off my once, almost clean counter, before I go into caffeine withdrawal. Its no joke man! Coffee and sugar residue combine to form one of the strongest bonding agents known to humankind.

But friction is not limited to the coffee pot and its accoutrements.

There is the fact that my brother has moved back home. Again. Except this time its good. He’s at a mid-point in his degree where he has to wait a semester to get into the Big School for EngiNerds he wants to transfer to. So he’s here, and able to really help out with my dad. I love him for doing it.

But if that mutherfucker calls MY bedroom, HIS bedroom, one more time, I’m gonna pop that Moby-lookin’ fucker in the lip. I realize that as the youngest he was forces to live in a tiny, unheated bedroom, while I basked, sultan-like, in the awesomeness that was my own childhood man-pad. And I also accept that he patiently waited for me to go to college before he moved in, instead of implementing one of his dozen schemes to kill me at a young age. I also accept that I am a grown man with a child of my own, and I live 190 miles away, and I will never ever ever live in that house again (unless I get to chop the rest of my family up and bury them in the basement first). But y’know what? I lived in that room for 14yrs, he’s been in and out of it for 12yrs. Ergo, its still mine. End of argument. Now get your shit out of my room! Back in your box, Monkey-Boy!

Yup, this is pretty much the sort of pointless nonsense I’ve been thinking about for the past two days. I love going home.

Now, while I did not go to the NY ComiCon, I did go to the Marvel party on Saturday. I got a phone call from a friend who knew where it was, and he said he’d been talking to C.B. Cebulski, and C.B. liked my stuff, etc. So I should get my ass to the party and say hi. So I did. And that’s about all I said to C.B., who was swamped by the scores of other geeks desperate for his attention.

Way better than C.B. (who I’ve met briefly a few times before –and he’s ALWAYS a really sweet dude) was seeing a bunch of my fellow FOO’s from Mike Oeming’s forum. And Mike of course –but the little guy was so blitzed I’m not sure he’ll remember seeing me. Dorinda came along, which was awesome! Can you say designated driver? I can. I can also say “Fox in a sweater with a plunging neckline, who dances like a dirty otter.” So yeah, good.

Since I hadn’t planned on leaving my parent’s house at all this weekend this was really a great treat, and introducing Dee to a few of the geeks I’ve grown fondest off was excellent. Jeff, Ziggy, & Mary –it was great to see you cats! Corey, it was nice to meet you. Dee enjoyed having another word-nerd to talk to. It was also great to see my Dabble Brothers boy, and meet his girlfriend. I’ll puke on *you* next time, Derek.

I also got to meet a writer-artists team who I love, AND who I totally insult a few months ago(accidentally)  when I said something to the effect of “I think Publisher XYZ sucks balls and has never put out a book worth buying”, and one of them said “Aww, but . . .they put out our book.” And (since this was in internet forum land) he ended it with a sad little L

I have felt like a bigger shit in my life –but I can’t recall when. Especially since I really liked their book. I just forgot who published it. Anyway . . .

EVERYONE should read Jose Torres and Chris Dibari’s, THE HUNGER. Weather you like Zombies or not, (I do not), you will love The Hunger. Unfortunately for me, I never got to finish reading it because Publisher XYZ went out of business. However, Publisher ABC picked it up, and you can get it in a sexy trade paper back. This frankly, always looks better than a bunch of manky, dog eared comic books on your bookshelf. Plus you get extra goodies in the TPB.

Chris and I screamed into each other’s ears for a bit at the party. He seemed like a really nice guy –I hope to see more of him at these things. Jose, who I spoke to less, has some of the most amazing hair I have ever seen. I am currently growing my own art fro, and he had given me something to shoot for.

So, finally; Dorinda drove in New York City. I know; amazing right? For those not in the know, this is a huge, earth shattering deal. Normally we have to pull off the highway hundreds of miles north of the city and I get to pilot us in for the ugly bits of the drive. (She gets to drive all the nice scenic New Englandy bits.) But last night I had a few beers. Two in fact. Spread out over the course of three and a half hours. I was fine. But she insisted. So we spent the next forty minutes blasting through the 2AM traffic of three of NYC’s five boroughs, with Dee freaking out, scratching at imaginary hives, and basically scaring the shit out of me.

The thing that makes driving in NYC different from any other big city I’ve driven in, are the roads. There’s lots of bobbing and weaving, as well as jukin’ and jivin’, in the NYC Dept of Transportation’s road planning. You just don’t find that level of theme park imagination in other American towns. One minute you’re stuck to the inside doorframe as you lunge around a corner, and the next you’re floating up to gently kiss the ceiling with the crown of your head as the road takes a 20 degree plunge. Its fun! And seriously, most of the drivers are polite and just as freaked out as you are –so it works out. Everyone signals. I love that. Because in New England –everyone is too fucking stupid to know what a signal is for. Nor do they have any concept of Right of Way or any sort of motor vehicular rules of engagement.

So this morning, Dee, Dad, and me are drinking out coffee. Dorinda is rightfully proud of herself for getting us home relatively unscathed. And like a 5yr old who has finally mastered a particularly challenging piece of playground equipment she announces, “It wasn’t that bad. I always remembered the city being much bigger and scarier than it was.”

Then my dad, who is nodding off at the table with us, opens his eyes a bit and smiles, saying, “But of course dear. You’re much bigger now.”

Its been a pretty good visit.

PS: I hung sheetrock with my little brother for several hours yesterday. As an engineering student who pays his bills as a handy-man, he loves that shit. As a nancy-boy who pays his bills drawing comics I’ve decided that shit sucks. But it was nice to hang with Moby-bedroom-stealer.