This whole new dimension of emotion.

As most of you know, I’ve been dating for quite a while now. Just over eight months, to be precise. We’ve had our ups and downs, and we’ve helped each other progress through a lot of our emotional baggage, and I’ve explored this whole new dimension of emotion – the Fatherhood Zone. Her two kids, Hunter and Aidan, are pretty much awesomesauce, except, of course, when they’re not. Heh.

Okay, yes, I lifted that word from Wil Wheaton. *sigh*

I am in love with this woman, and I love her kids. They have made me a part of their family, fully and truly. Hell, I’m carrying around pictures of children in my wallet. Something changed for me on Father’s Day. Rather, something changed -in- me. Something clicked. And I’m glad that it did.

What the crap am I rambling about? Okay, fine, I’ll try to be succinct. (FAIL!)

If we can find a place in time, she and I and her children will be moving in together next month. My apartment complex apparently has a deluge of requests for apartments, and they’re practically booting me out the door. If not, it’ll be early November.

Secondly, and more importantly, when it comes to the 24/7 glowing and smiling that I’ve been doing, I’m going to be a father. She is in the family way, as they used to say (probably in the times of the Scarlet Letter, but I always liked that phrase). As far as we can tell, in about eight months from now, I’ll be distributing George Burns sticks of doom to many people. :)!

Gentlemen!

The end of Steven isn’t about Steven, shockingly enough. Well, the -very- end will be. I finished the fiction for Issue 23 on my lunch break today – Chen’s Chinese FTW. I’m still kind of frustrated with the small number of words that are hitting the page, but at least I’m finally happy with their quality. I’ve not seen many comic books have defined endings that run much longer than six issues. This one, which is planned for 24, has time for a little bit of angst. The assassin discovers that he has killed his own brethren, but does it matter? Who has sent him? Does it matter?

I am very happy with how the end of this story is flowing into the beginning of the next. There never really is a beginning or an end, is there? :) One story always seems to flow into the next and into the next.

Issue Progress:

More of the chitty-chat hilarity.

Trase: http://www.reason.com/UserFiles/Image/rbalko/baggypants.jpg
Trase: http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080708/NEWS06/307080009
Me: Ahhh, yes.
Me: The Flint Pants Fiasco
Me: The plumbers will finally get theirs.
Trase: *gags on popcorn whilst laughing*

Ridiculous Burger

Me: Steakhouse burger = pure ridiculousness
Ani: lol
Ani: true
Me: I was running late for work and hadn’t eaten yet. They might as well call it “we don’t have a bun big enough for this” burger
Me: *burp*
Ani: LOL
Me: With a side of “we will assemble it so that it falls apart whilst you eat”
Ani: so true
Me: I really just wanted to use the word whilst in a sentence.
Ani: understandablle

Avatar: The Last Airbender: Book 1

This is something that I’ve wanted to see for a while, after seeing it show up in ‘s journal, and then seeing how deep Hunter is into it. So, I added it to my queue. I mean, c’mon, I dig cartoons, even pseudo-Anime like this, right?

*blink*

So, I finish with the first DVD, and all I can think is, “How cool would Transformers have been if they’d paid that much attention to the quality of the animation? The frame rate? The art? The physics? The way bodies work? Just watching the benders go through their various katas (is that the correct word?), and start understanding what kind of motions are related to which element, and wow, that really -does- make sense.

It’s difficult to let the next season make its progression through my queue. Four stars.

Plug!

One of the rubrics for determining if a society is civilized is its art. From , , and :

The Big Ask or: Edinburgh is Expensive.

As many of you may know, I’m taking a little show that I wrote to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this August. We had great reviews in our first run at the Cincy Fringe, and now we’re on our way to performing in the largest arts festival in the world: We will perform in Edinburgh from August 2-25, taking only the 13th off in an attempt to preserve our sanity.

We will be one of nearly 3,000 shows competing for audiences and attention. It’s an incredible opportunity both for myself and the company; for two of our actors, this will be their first time out of the country. Period. They haven’t even been to Canada.

But it’s also incredibly expensive. Our actors are all providing their own transportation to the festival, but as a company, we (this is the editorial we, buy the way) are paying for our venue rental, housing, and all advertising costs. This would be pricey in the best of times, but with the weakness of the dollar, well…

These costs come to about $15,000.

We’re expecting to make maybe $3,000 in ticket sales.

But! The Know Theatre of Cincinnati, where I am resident designer for most of the year, has generously agreed to act as co-producer, offering us the umbrella of their 501(c)3 status to allow us to accept tax deductible donations.

We’ve already received an amazing $5,000 contribution from some wonderful supporters in Cincinnati. Now if we could just get 200 people to donate 25 bucks each, we would be pretty much set.

So now, I pose this question to you: Do you pay taxes? Would you like to pay less in taxes? If so, please consider heading over to the convenient web donation page for the Know to throw a couple of bucks in the hat via credit card or bank transfer. If you do, be sure to write “Hunger Warrior Theatre – Anna the Slut” in the comment box so that the Know can tell it’s meant for us.

Not only will you be helping a group of wide eyed young actors realize a late summer’s dream, you’ll be giving my career a big boost.

And you will also be ensuring that I don’t have to eat Ramen for the rest of the year.

I understand the uncertainty and tightness of these economic times, so I certainly don’t want to imply any sort of obligation. Any and all help, whether one dollar, twenty dollars, or simply emotional and moral support, is appreciated.

Thanks. We now return to our irregularly scheduled LJ.