What to do

I realize it's been a couple weeks since I've written, but I have a reason.

I'm extraordinarily lazy.

Ok not really. I've actually been quite busy lately, even having taken two weeks of vacation in the last three weeks. Between the Marine Ball and a couple comic book/design gigs I've taken on, it's been crazy around our house. You'd like I could take a couple minutes to write a little entry about the Austinites. You'd be wrong.

What I really want to talk about is the job situation, but I can't. On my side, I haven't really settled everything yet. The only thing that's even remotely certain is that my last day at my current job will be November 30th. I've had some calls and been on some interviews and I'm happy to report that things are positive, but not knowing who's reading this, I don't want to talk about it and jeopardize anything.

On Mrs. Austin's side, she's having problems with Dell. It's draining and emotional, but again I don't want to give out specifics. Let's just say we don't like them anymore.

On December 2nd, I'll at least be talking about where I am and what my change of employment has brought. It may be a great move or just a good move. I'm at the point where I have to look out for my family and if there's a chance for making that better and easier, I'm gonna take it. I have to suck up this feeling of anxiety and fear of rejection and realize that we have a house and cars and daycare bills and food to pay for. This isn't just me in an apartment where I can go without nice juice and fancy bread for a week or two, or stop going out for a month while I make rent, this is bigger than me. It's now us.

So us is hopefully going to have a full house on thanksgiving. Starting Wednesday night, our house will be a hot spot for about 5 days. We have friends coming in Wednesday night and staying until Thursday night. They work retail, though, so they have to get back for the biggest shopping day of the year. I do not envy them at all. That's got to be rough. We have Friday off, then Saturday we have Mrs. A's Dad and friend coming into town for the evening, the Sunday night more friends to watch Lost and have dinner. At some point Mr. and Mrs. IG will be coming over as well, but we don't know when really.

During this time we still have to get photo and comic book work done.

The vacation time off has been nice. I've been given a chance to do some lettering for a Bronx Angel, written by a fellow Penciljack-ian. The regular letterist had another gig come up so the EIC asked me, seeing some of the stuff I'd done for the ASJ41 project. (I'm xadrian, btw.) So this is cool. It's not just a page or two, it's a full book, it will see print, and I'm getting paid for it. It's an Indy book, but so what. It's a great story and I hope it sees some store shelves. I never thought I'd be a letter jockey, but I've learned a lot that I can use for Project: Gemini or other books I may do.

Speaking of P:G, I added it to the Comic Book Database or comicbookdb.com. It's dorky to add your own book, but fuck it. It's been printed, people have purchased it, it's been in a store, it's a book. Yay me and my self promotion. This just means I REALLY have to get back to working on issue #2.

Completely off topic, I hit our local Walgreens the other day to get some Tylenol Sinus. We had a couple freezes over the past weeks and the weather has officially become non-summer. With the change of the seasons came a giant Canadian cold front which basically killed our sinuses and gave most of us raging headaches. But we knew it was coming, so I wanted to stock up on Excedrine and Tylenol Sinus (proven deterent to both weather front headaches and hangovers.)

Apparently, a while back, some measure was passed (and I still have to find out if it's a Federal thing or not) in which pharmacies are now locking down on psuedoephedrine because it's a key ingredient in making meth. So now, whether you have a home meth lab or not, all sinus/pain reliever with this drug is no longer available over the counter. This means they have these cards where the medicine usually rests. You take the cards to the pharmacy counter and they get it for you after you show an ID and sign a piece of paper.

I wouldn't mind it if the pharmacy wasn't already tasked beyond belief with regular prescriptions. Plus you have to deal with the AARP card holder who sits in line and huffs and puffs about the indecency of having to wait in line for cold medicine.

It took me 45 minutes to get Tylenol Sinus. First they were out of the extra strength, then they were out of the extra strength Walgreens brand. Finally I told them to just get me whatever they had that was similar.

I can't even really blame the drug addicts and illicit manufacturers for this probelm. It seems like governmental ineptitude. They can't find the labs fast enough to shut 'em down, so make it harder to buy at Walgreens.

Meanwhile, I think you can still get this stuff at gas stations.

Whatever.