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I woke up in the middle of the night/early morning this morning because I suddenly felt like it was freezing cold. I turned off the fan and pulled the blanket over me and I passed out again.

When my alarms started going off around 8, I remember being roused, trying to stand and finding myself collapsing; luckily right back into bed. This time I was soaked in sweat, and it felt awful hot. I passed out right away again.

Suddenly there was a knocking at my door. I looked at the clock; it was a little after noon. My grandfather wanted to know if I was feeling alright. I admitted that I didn’t feel particularly well, tried sitting up and just barely succeeded as my body tried to fall right back down and my brain tried to shut off. I raspily told him I’d at least have to go downstairs for some water, so I’d see him in a few minutes.

I managed to get dressed (doing nothing else; just taking my pajamas off and putting clothes on) in a little under half an hour. Then downstairs. If you haven’t seen the stairs, don’t worry about it, but for those of you that have, it was harrowing. Anyway, I got downstairs and had some water, and had no appetite, but grandfather offered me some watermelon, so I ate a fair amount of watermelon. As I slowly consumed the melon, we discussed how I felt. We thought my blood pressure might be low, so he checked it with a device he conveniently had on-hand. 112/77. I guess that’s low. I never know. My pulse was 89, which seems low for me, but he thought it was high. Based on my experiences, that’s about my pulse when I’m relaxed, on the verge of sleeping.

I didn’t feel too bad; mostly lethargic. A touch of sore throat, and maybe something going on in my sinuses. A sort of overall body ache, but more like my whole body was just tired more than sore. So I didn’t get much done today. I put a couple of coats of varnish on the wood frame for the sign I’m making for the store. I … stressed out more about transportation.

Did I mention that it’s the stress over money and transportation for the con that I believe is making me sick? Like a constant, low-level fight/flight reaction to something so nebulous. Have I mentioned here (I know I haven’t given full details, no) that our plans for getting to the con have changed just about every day for the last week? I thought I was good yesterday when Angela offered to loan me her car, but then she posted about it and I don’t want to stress her out more than she already is and I didn’t know her car had something wrong with it she was worried about; she told me it was okay. So I talked to my grandfather tonight at supper (Chicken Noodle soup and some more watermelon) and I’m going to borrow some money from him. I can pay him back next month from my unemployment checks, no problem; I just don’t have the money right now, when I need it. And I bought some plane tickets on Southwest (the cheapest ones I could find) tonight, and unless something major changes in the next few days, I will go to great lengths not to have to change my transportation plans again.

Incidentally, in order to save about $60, my brother and I will be leaving for San Diego at around 6AM on Wednesday, even though the preview night at the con doesn’t start until 2PM. Likely, we’ll have no trouble finding things to fill our time, but it means getting to the Airport before 5AM. If dad or Angela can’t get us there then… lemme check the bus routes… nope, it’s not physically possible to get to the airport on the bus by 5AM from where I will be in PHX.

I have to put about an hour of work into this painting I’m working on before I pass out again tonight. Then it’s back to bed. Until I wake up bright and early and ready to sell, sell, sell! Because if I can sell any number of paintings before the con, it will help out SO MUCH! If you’re thinking of buying a painting, please, please, please buy one now! You can’t beat the 50% off prices available if you pruchase online!

Sigh.

I’ve noticed recently that I don’t seem to read comics much anymore.

There are a few online strips, Goats, Achewood, PA, that I still read regularly, but … I don’t know, my reading has just dropped off.

I’m sure part of the reason is bandwidth. I am unfortunately on dialup for th foreseeable future, and simply don’t have the bandwidth to browse a lot of comics. I remember back when I had the bandwidth and the interest, I had a list of over 100 comics that I read every time they updated. No, I don’t even remember what they were.

Part of it stemmed from when I lost my internet access at home for a couple of months and was not allowed to browse from work at the same time; I didn’t read any comics at all for a while. And when I finally could read comics again, I had lost my bookmarks or something, and couldn’t remember what comics I was reading… and somehow didn’t have the interest in going through and reading 90 days worth of 100+ comics. It was just too much. So I caught up on the archives of a few comics, but I never got back to that place where I was reading dozens of comics.

When Modern Tales first launched, I signed up. I was sure it was a good idea; someone was going to try to make money off online comics, and I wanted to be a part of that! And at first, I read most of their comics. But as I read them, giving them all more than adequate opportunities to entertain me, I was continuously disappointed. And the ones I liked (Wedlock, Patent Pending, Lil’ Clango, etc…) kept disappearing or becoming sporadic until I was down to only one or two that I cared about. So after my year pre-paid subscription was up, I cancelled. And around that time I found myself with a pessimistic view of the online comics world. I had stopped reading anything Keen when I lost my internet access, and because of all the negative talk I heard about the whole Keen experience, I never went back.

And now dial-up. I know there are thousands upon thousands of online comics out there, but I simply don’t have the time it would take to even select a few percent of them to read regularly. And I gave up on comics forums a long time ago; too much of it devolves into meaningless blather or flames, and so I’m not in any position to hear about the great new comic everyone is reading. I feel out of the loop most of the time. I make online comics, I host online comics, but somehow I’m not part of the ‘online comics scene’. I don’t know what other people are doing. I don’t know what’s popular, what’s in, what’s out, what’s cutting edge. I read Comixpedia to try to keep up, but the stories mentioning specific comics seem to go right over my head, as though written only for people already familiar with the comics in question.

I’m going to the San Diego Comic-Con International this year, I’m a featured shopkeeper at Cafepress’ booth, and I’m excited about all the hubub that is sure to be present this year about micropayments, but … otherwise I have no idea why I’m going. I never read many print comic books, so that was just barely a draw, and only to the Slave Labor booth. Although this year the artists from 100% of the online comics I read every time they update will be present, I’m not too looking forward to meeting them. Especially Jon.

I think one of the things I’m looking forward to about the con is that maybe it will brighten my waning attitude about comics in general. Of course, the alternative is a possibility, that faced with the reality of the ‘online comics scene’ by walking up to it and chaking its hand at the con, that I will finally see that I should just drop out, have nothing to do with it, stop trying to make comics, stop trying to find new comics to host, stop even reading goats and PA…

Though I hope that that is not the case. If I manage to attend at least one panel with Scott McCloud, evidence from previous years suggests that I will have not less than two new ideas for comics. Although… due to a variety of reasons (the biggest of which being my own procrastination) I haven’t even really made much headway on some of the ideas I got from Scott back in 2000. So maybe that won’t be worth it after all.

I remember the last time I went to the con, I wasn’t sure why I was going, even up to the day I left for it, but I know I had a good time when I was there. And then last year I missed the con, at which apparently I missed the best times.

Still, when I come home from the con, whatever my mood, I will still be on dial-up, and I will still not be a part of the ‘online comics scene’.

And likely, I will still not have all the panels done for my latest attempt at an online comic, The ‘Mouse’ Project, where I tried to push the ‘online’-ness of the online comic to the creation side, but found myself so far from the ‘online comics scene’ that I could not find enough artists willing to sign up online. I am actually preparing pages with a 6″x6″ square pre-drawn and the text and description below. To carry around at the con and try to get people to draw the remaining panels. It

I have no good explanation for this, but I have been selected as a featured shopkeeper by Cafepress, and will be sitting in on their booth on Thursday and Friday. Well, part of the day; there are many panels I want to attend. So, to give examples of the merchandise, they asked me to select 5 items from my store that they will have on-hand at the con, one of them being the mini poster. So I can sign/hand out mini posters. Plus, they asked for a mini bio of myself, my involvement with comics, and my use of Cafepress. I wrote the bio, selected/designed the items, and since there was also mention of having copies of my novel onhand, I edited it appropriately (once I got it in my hands, there were a couple of things I wanted to change).

Anyway, I got online tonight after supper and the only non-junk email that cam in since earlier today was an email saying I’d made a Cafepress sale. I though to myself “How odd! I didn’t think anyone would pay my new prices!” But I looked at the order… 1 Large, Classic Need Head T-Shirt, 1 Flaming Squirrel Black Cap, 1 ME Logo Travel Mug, 40 Mini Prints of my painting ‘Please’ and 40 Limited Edition Comicon 2003 New Comic Poster Prints. For a total of $417.83 in commission. Wow. No follow-up email at all. Apparently they needed to go through their own order process to get the products made.

I went ahead and clicked through and logged in and looked at my order report, and no such sale appears. Sigh. I thought maybe they were paying me $417.83 to sit in their booth. In which case, panels be damned! I would have gladly sat in their booth for two days! Alas, it was not to be. Though they are absorbing the cost of creating all that merchandise. Pretending that they pay the same base price I do (I know, I know, it’s probably half that or less), that’s $442.17 in merchandise from Modern Evil. I wonder how much interest they’ll generate from their booth, what the payoff point would be to make it worthwhile…

Too bad about them not actually paying me that commission. Transporation would no longer have been an issue. At all.

So, right after I left Phoenix yesterday, Oscar, the AT&T rep who helped me out getting set up back in February, finally returned my call. So, my dad got the call. Oscar confirmed that there is no longer a roaming agreement between AT&T and Verizon, and that there are no plans to ever create a new one. My dad asked him about getting out of my contract, and Oscar emphasized emphatically that this was no reason to be able to get out of a contract, and that I would not be allowed to, but that I should call Oscar myself to discuss it with him. Since I was already in Pine where there is 0% chance of me making a call with my AT&T phone, I went ahead and didn’t call him.

In fact, I didn’t call him again today, when from the landline here I dialed AT&T’s 800 number, and spoke to a generic CS rep who agreed that there was a note on my account to not charge me the early termination fee, kindly cancelled my account, and informed me that on my bill it will appear that the early termination fee was charged and then an equal credit was applied to my account. And you know what, I’m still not going to call Oscar about it.

SO 602-RETARDED is no longer my phone number. In fact, I do not know what my new phone number will be, if and when I get one. I’m thinking of getting a Motorola Verizon phone, though man-O-man they are either mega-big or cost a fortune. I am also contacting Nokia to try to convince them to send me one of their next-generation phones that work on CDMA networks, of which Verizon is one. I am also focusing my spare concentration to try to just communicate with anyone I want telepathically, which may be easier than getting the rest of this worked out.

This is a vague warning about a possible event to occur tomorrow, 311.0. You will know it if/when it happens, and if you know what you’re looking for you can find where I predicted it more specifically in a post ages ago.

Oh, and no, I won’t be more specific. Unless, I guess, someone finds an old reference to it and makes an accurate comment.

Pthbbbt!