Happy Birthday, Jenn

Happy 29th Birthday, Jenn.

Mom & Dad, Mary-Alice & Michael and a few other family friends are gathering in your memory today -- perhaps you know about it? There's a service with Father Rock, lunch at the Culinary Institute of America and then company over at the parentals. I know there will be fresh flowers on your grave from them and some other people that knew and loved you. As luck would have it, it's the first sunny day in these parts in something close to two weeks. I'll give you some credit for that. Thanks!

As for me -- I'm at work doing work things. I'm thinking about you of course, but that's not too different from any other day. I'm sad Jenn. We all are. God, we are so sad and miss you so much. Finally though, I seem to have worked past being devastated. The depression, the deeper depression and just when you thought you'd hit bottom and the bottom falls out depression have abated. Am I healed? No, I don't think so. Healing though. Getting better. Do I still have regrets about things between us? Yeah. I do. The difference is that I've learned to accept that. I try not to dwell on your untapped, unrealized potential or on how much pain you were in and how lonely you were or how frustrated you were. I know all those things were true and it hurts to know that but I cannot be consumed by it. I know you don't want me that way and I sure don't like being a wreck.

Anyway, I was laughing to myself back on the 26th of June, the day I spent most of my life thinking really was your birthday. I'm not sure why I thought that, but I did. Remember how I used to show up with a gift for you, on the 29th no less, with a belated birthday card attached? Or I'd be calling you and wishing you a happy birthday and you'd be wondering why? Speaking of which, I remember trying to enterain you and your gaggle of 1st/2nd grade friends in our back yard. Mom made me put on a clown wig leftover from your Halloween costume and I tried to be a clown with just the wig and perhaps some lipstick of Mom's I used as face paint.

You look really happy in the pictures from that day.

My one gift to you, if it is in my power to give at all -- is that you be happy just like you were then. No baggage, no crap. Just the happiness that goes with being 8 or so. Let the rest fall away.

Happy Birthday.

Love,

Jimbo

Not so big a confession

I love comics. LOVE them. What a great, compelling medium filled with great story lines, great art and great characters.

Of course -- it doesn't hurt that the female hero's are drawn like an Amazonian CK alight in something from the Madame Xavier's Midnight Lightning Collection. Gotta love Ms. Marvel -- pictured over to the right there. She's ex Air Force, CIA, and S.H.E.I.L.D Agent -- a New Avenger -- an ass kicker and a hottie. Yeah yeah - typical male attitude. Thing is, last I looked -- the male heroes' aren't exactly hiding much either. Lets go to the tape of CK reading the latest installement of Civil War and pause a moment while we let her reiterate what she said when she saw the second to last panel of the book -- which features Spider Man.

"Holy Crap! That's Hot!"

And there you have it.

I've been away for a while -- decades I think, but now I'm back and the love affair has started all over again...thanks mostly to working two blocks down from one of the best, if not the best, comic store in all the land - Mid-Town Comics. It took a year for the store to work its voodoo on me, but now I've got an account there and find myself looking forward to Wednesdays more than ever.

Right now, these are my top reads:

1. Civil War - The art is fantastic. Just compare Spider Man in it to the art in one of his titles, like Sensational Spider Man and you will see what I mean.
2. Annihilation - It's fun to watch the Super Skrull get betrayed and the Silver Surfer reborn and once again, very very vengeful and PO'd.
   
3. New Avengers - This is the best regular series book out there right now IMHO
   
4. Daredevil
   
5. Lucifer
   
6. The occasional dose of Ms. Marvel or her DC equivalent, (kinda-sorta) Power Girl. Ms Marvel started out well enough, but this last one with her fighting a wizard and hanging out with Dr. Strange annoyed me. Fight the space creature and the world threat, not the magical ones. Ms. Marvel does not come from that base. Stay on your base!
   

What was old is now new again (hockey, comics, guitar) What next?

06.06.06

Welcome to the apocalypse, the end of days, Armageddon...or maybe just Tuesday.

Random Omens from today: (All For YOU blog readers! All for you!!)

Grand Central Omens:

• A woman arrested outside the Duane Reade in Grand Central. I could not see her face.
• A man gave up his seat on the train.

Times Square Omens:

• There were naked men playing guitar in Times Square
• Some guy wanted cash donations for literacy for chickens.

"30 Rock" Omens.

• I saw the "Queer Eye" Guys dishing with fans in the Today show crowd whilst Roker did an interview with....someone.

Whatever. It's Tuesday. All this friggen extra security all over the city. For what? A friggen movie. It's a stretch to equate 6606 with 666 in the first place. Nimrods.