Trust.

This has been a day.

Few quick things.

Last night, around the middle of the evening, I got an e-mail from an Illustrator in Spain, interested in doing a short comic for Eric's zine, and worried his English wouldn't be quite strong enough for an American audience. Deadline for Eric's zine is only a few weeks away, but the illustrator [named Ander Sarabia -- website here], said they could work fast if I could get together a two-to-three page script quickly enough. I didn't have anything nearly that short, but have had a few ideas kicking around in the margins of my moleskin [boy, that sounds dirty], and I figured I'd take today, take some of my notes and make something coherent out of them, and if Ander was still interested, give it a go. I couldn't see any reason not to take a leap of faith on it, and since I always have a lot of raw stuff to work from, I figured I could come up with a three page comic script pretty easy.

Of course, my grandmother's nuts also arrived today.

Quick background, because I've only explained this a few hundred times. My grandmother sells bulk nuts, candies, and various trail mixes through a program not unlike some fund-raiser you probably participated in during high school. It takes very little overhead, and enough people around here need the nuts for ingredients, or the candies and mixes for Christmas gifts, so it's a pretty profitable gig, even when you figure that my grandmother sells her for not much more than cost. Nevertheless, it is a very big job on the day they arrive, with lots of stockroom-like duties, from stacking boxes and opening boxes, to organizing orders, and though not always on the same day [today on the same day], to delivering said orders to local patrons.

Allow me to take a moment and be the first person on the internet ever to pat himself on the back; nuts and script delivered, all in the same day. I am officially the strangest specialized business on earth. Randall's Peanuts and Comics -- franchising soon.

Put some work into the peep show script. Somewhere, there is a very good re-write to a least a couple of places of problem dialogue. I really need to get a better filing system than "paper I have on my person at any given time." Until I find my rewrites, there is a moratorium on washing any clothing with pockets.

I consider this incentive.

Ian also sent me some feedback, for which I am very grateful. At this point, I'm just keenly interested in seeing what people get out of reading the script, what they expect, what they don't, what they feel, and just how and who they relate to in it. Of the three people I've talked to, I've gotten some good insight, but no one has been so forthright as to tell me they liked it or they didn't. I might yet need to show it to more people, but honestly, there's still time, and I'm so close to getting a draft of this thing that I'm pleased with, I may just wait. Still, if you're interested, let me know. I'm not going to turn you down.

"New Hooverville" is almost finished. My friend Ally took a look at it, mostly taking care of the grammatical errors which I find I overlook too easily because of the manic, Thompson-esque voice I used to write it. One of my professors at Bennington, who edited for Thompson, said a lot of his work was sort of reassembled by editors after the fact, so I have no qualms about someone with a better handle on the style guide taking a run at it. It was a lot of help, and now "Hooverville" is pretty much done, save for one paragraph that I just can't seem to get right. I'm going to take another run at it tomorrow, but I want it done and sent off by Saturday. Because self-imposed deadlines are always healthy, and in no way, shape, or form early warning signs of OCD.

To the few of my readers who are likely more qualified for this than me. Savannah [of "Huge" fame] posted this link on her Facebook page, to the blog Style Rookie. I was aware of the blog, but not a regular reader, but this call for submissions for a new-age version of Sassy intrigued me. Why? I can't give a solid reason, other than the fact that despite being a female-driven publication, Sassy has come up a lot in things I've been reading lately, and the superstitious side of me decided to take this a sign. They're taking submissions until tomorrow [oops], and perhaps because it feels like a publication I wouldn't quite fit in with, I decided to send them some writing samples. I'm really not expecting anything from it, but I do want to keep an eye on the project.

I'd be lying if I said some of it didn't have to do with my currently reading Girls to the Front by Sara Marcus. I'm going to admit, I'm really using the book, and the Riot Grrrl movement in general to try and give myself a fighting chance of finally, really getting into a good place with feminism. The past few years I've been calling myself a feminist, I've been doing the reading about feminism, but the honest fact is I'm self-teaching, and not really "getting it." The recent reissue of "The Second Sex" thoroughly kicked my ass before I had a chance to even get an inkling of what was going on in it. But I want to be better. I want to learn. More importantly, I have the time to learn, and I think with good note-taking and close reading, I might be able to turn a few hours in my day into a chance to be more than an arm-chair enthusiast as it concerns certain topics, not just limited to feminism. Gender, as a topic, interests me. But so does music. And I've forgotten way too many things from my film history class.

If I can't be a student right now, I'm going to try to be one hell of a non-student.

Speaking of Sara Marcus, I recently started following her on Twitter, something that just didn't occur to me to do despite the giant lower-case "t" on the Girls to the Front website page. I was pleasantly surprised when Marcus opted to follow me back. I realize, of course, it's just Twitter, and "it doesn't really matter," but that book is a big part of my life these past several weeks, and the music it's about has been one of the things that's kept me going in... I'm hesitant to give a proper name to this shit-storm of a period in my life until it's over, but the point stands when I got that e-mail about being followed by her on Twitter I geeked out pretty hard.

You should do her a solid for giving yours truly a chance, and go buy her book. It's pretty awesome, and I'm going through it with a fine tooth comb, so I'd know.

On the subject of books, after one of the longer hiatuses I've had, I've finally gotten a new book in the mail to review. Kind of worked out perfectly, just as I'm getting so close to polishing off all this writing, I get a little paying work again. Small favors.

End of November is shaping up to be interesting. Final deadline for Eric's zine is then, plus I'll hear back about that contest I entered "Nova" in. And who knows what else? I guess Thanksgiving's in there somewhere.

I haven't even had time to shower. I feel gross.