I was hoping to go out to dinner last night, but, like every other day this week, I began to feel woozy, nauseated, and generally crap-tastic by the time I clocked out and headed for the bus stop. I sent my friend a text saying that I was going to go home and lie down for a bit in hopes that I would feel better, and could go out. That was around quarter to seven…

At quarter to ten, I roused myself for long enough to blearily text my regrets. I felt horrible – worse than when I had lain down in the first place. I took some expectorant medication, ate a handful of cashews, and went back to sleep.

This morning I woke up at around 9:30… still feeling crappy. More water and back to bed…

Finally rose at ten or so.

This is unfortunately typical… at least once a week, my body simply shuts down until I have gotten at least fourteen hours of sleep, no matter how much sleep I got in the nights before. It really sucks when it happens during the week.

But I managed to get it together enough today to run multiple errands, one of which included buying a mortar and pestle, something I’ve wanted for years but either couldn’t find or couldn’t afford. And make a bunch of coffee, for which I was grateful.

Now I’m making dinner – some kind of combination of beef, bell peppers, sugar snap peas, and potatoes, all fried up in a skillet. It should be very good if I can remind myself that it’s not supposed to be Chinese.

COOL THINGS I FOUND:

• A videography of Russell Mulcahy. Ever wondered “Did he do that cracked-out video for ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’?” Here lies your answer. Not many people care too much about videos these days, but I damn well still do, and have not even learned as much detail as I want about my favorite videos from the early days. Other notable entries here include Zbigniew Rybczinsky, Godley & Creme, and some grab-ass named James Cameron. (Is it possible to get a graduate degree in this?…)
• OrganLive. Have a thing for pipe organ music? I do. Here you go – 24/7, few interruptions. (Not to be confused with OregonLive – which probably happens on the regular.)
• That’s been about it. I’ve been asleep.

It’s TV season again… and once again I just don’t quite feel prepared! some years ago, I decided that I was going to favor watching TV over going out… little did I suspect that I would end up trying to juggle more TV shows than I could imagine as well as trying to live something like a normal life. And here I was, hoping desperately that the golden age of TV was coming to a close.

NEW ACQUISITIONS: I’ve been pleased with the debuts of two ill-starred “reimagined” series, Bates Motel and Hannibal. Bates Motel kind of fills the hole in my psyche left by the absence of American Horror Story – pervy, kinky, extra-wrong shows that combine flashes of excellence with a heavy larding of clumsy idiocy. Vera Farmiga and Freddie Highmore are superb, though, and they have some of the most intense chemistry I’ve seen since the sepia-tinged days of Mulder and Scully (or, to be even more in line with the latent incest kink, Peter and Claire, and Peter and Nathan, on Heroes). 

The first episode of Hannibal debuted last night on NBC, and my iron-clad insomnia kept me awake until 11 pm to watch it all. Gorgeous to look at, but a bit mushy in intent; the show really needs to get its legs under it if it wants to survive. And I want it to – I want Scott “Kids in the Hall” Thompson, Caroline “Wonderfalls” Dhavernas, and Larry “Apocalypse Now/porn star daddy” Fishburne to keep their jobs – and I want to get to the episodes featuring Eddie Izzard and Gillian Anderson. Make it work, kids!

SAME OLD: Doctor Who has turned from a lengthy (but not Battlestar Galactica-lengthy) hiatus with the new companion, Clara, on board the TARDIS and driving our good Gallifreyan old man a bit crazy with… desire? Fascination? I CAN’T TELL. I have a sinking feeling that this season is going to be all fan service for 12-year-old girls hungry for more forbidden romance between human girls and hot alien guys. I hope that won’t be the case… I continue to watch Grimm despite my frustrations, but my love for the cast just grows by leaps and bounds. I wish it luck… 

I also continue to watch Arrow despite how stingy they are with John Barrowman’s Dark Archer. It’s seriously on my nerves at this point and I want him to either have a larger role (and a clear intention and motivation) or I want him killed off so JB can do something else. If I had my way, it’d be the Felicity Smoak/Daddy Merlyn show, with occasional hanging sit ups by Oliver Queen. No use for anyone else on the show… More Barrowman = more better. 

Sunday night marks the return of Mad Men, for which I am so excited I basically have nothing to say…. and last Sunday marked the return of Game of Thrones, Beyoncé’s favorite show. I wonder does she consider herself a Stark or a Lannister?… And I am still heroically trying to work my way through Deep Space Nine to keep up with the AV Club reviews. I am now seven episodes behind. I’ve had 2.5 years to do this. I don’t get it.

And, of course, patiently waiting and waiting and waiting for more Sherlock. Apparently the Cumberbatch has lost most of the bulk he put on to be correct for the Star Trek Into Darkness role, and is skinny and moonlight-pale again. Joy!

I’m also reading several books and following several long-form fanfics. (Recommendations to come, because some of these stories/novellas/novels are blowing my mind with their quality!) Not much writing of my own happening. I hope to change that soon, but we’ll have to see; it doesn’t look like life is going to get any less insane in the near future. (And I hang suspended in the middle of The Good Wife, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, The Catherine Tate Show, Friday Night Lights, etc. etc. etc.)

I am not a particularly good blogger, am I? Well, I write good stuff, I’d like to think, but it’s very easy for me to get preoccupied and then embarrassed and then… no posts. (This is also why I have made no attempt to “get a job” as a professional blogger; I know all too well how easily I fall overboard when things go wrong, and that’s something that one just cannot do in that industry.) I’ve been suffering from a nearly crippling level of depression AND a nearly crippling relapse of MS for the last several weeks, so that’s my excuse. A quick gloss of what’s happened since last time:

• My friend Paul Ash committed suicide.
• A new My Bloody Valentine album, at last! I bought it immediately. I love it.
• I re-encountered my longstanding crush, who I know as “Cute Boy Who Works at the Bishops’ on Hawthorne.” I was unable to ask him out when I saw him, due to having come from Paul’s wake/seeing Stop Making Sense at the Baghdad and, despite having taken large amounts of Tramadol (it was before I had gone to the doctor and was told that I actually needed about twice as much as what I thought was wise, twice as often), was in almost screaming-level neurasthenic pain. But he was just lovely, and he seemed pleased and surprised to see me, too, and … dang, y’know? I felt like I was going to die. I had to go. I have promised myself that I will ask him out the next time I see him, but I haven’t seen him since then. I even went and got my hair cut, but he was not there at the time. I do need another haircut soon, though…
• My immediate superior, Rachel Edidin, left Dark Horse Comics for a freelance career, thus throwing my own work (and position) into major turmoil. (Things have settled relatively nicely, but the stress of that situation was enough to bring on the MS relapse.)
• I saw The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey at the Cinemagic Theater.
• I bought The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey on DVD (as well as Moonrise Kingdom, The Tree of Life, Security Screenings by Prefuse 73, novels by David Goodis, Nick Cave, Peter David, Nick Mamatas [whose novel I am also editing for a release on Dark Horse Books]… Lord knows what else. I have spent way too much money on stuff I don’t have time to enjoy).
• I accepted, and then had to turn down, a gig writing a novel to accompany a future project at which I am not at liberty to discuss. This stress also contributed, and considering all of the variables of my life and the reasons why I could not actually accept the gig, directly contributed to the crushing, devastating collapse in my mood, self-esteem, and creative drive. Essentially, everything that I want, everything I hoped for, my dreams and goals, were revealed in the cold light of day to be an impossible folly, and all because of my own failings and shortcomings. Self-contempt for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with stark terror and despair as snacks. I lose.
• My emotional state has been on a scale of “Very bad” to “If I could afford it, I’d check myself into the hospital.”

But that’s enough about me. I am writing to mourn Roger Ebert, one of the figures responsible for deepening my love and appreciation for the art of cinema, and giving me a lifelong hunger to become a film critic (which I have actually accomplished, though I have never been paid for it, so take that with a grain of sodium chloride). I would stay up late, or get up in the middle of the night, to watch Sneak Previews (later At the Movies); it wasn’t the verbal battles between Siskel and Ebert that drew me in, it was the discussion about movies at all. For most of my childhood I hungered to engage someone – anyone! – in serious discussion about the works of Spielberg, or Mel Brooks, or any of my other early favorite creators (gimme a break; I’m talking about being eight, nine, ten years old – the fact that I knew what a movie director even was is something, isn’t it?) but no one else seemed interested. They saw movies, or watched TV, and as soon as the screen went blank, so did their minds. It didn’t mean anything to them. But it meant something to me – and to the Bert and Ernie of film crit. They helped me feel like less of a freak. (Only slightly, but significantly.)

Only later did I know more about Ebert’s fascinating past (as screenwriter of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, I owe him a greater debt than could ever be repaid) and his incredibly touching and frankly brave romance with his wife, Chaz. By then he had cancer and lost his lower jaw, becoming a fascinating grotesquerie, and yet it seemed to give him a rapid leveling-up in wisdom, whimsy, and drive. To this day, I check his reviews first on IMDb; even if I disagree, I know his arguments will be cogent and measured. And funny. 

I am glad he’s free.

My colleague (I am editing one of his novels for a summer release from Dark Horse Books) Nick Mamatas gave Mixtape for the Apocalypse a shout-out in his list of “Five Obscure Books I Recommend You Read”… Thanks, Nick!

http://www.locusmag.com/Roundtable/2013/02/five-golden-things-nick-mamatas/

I’ve been going through some MS-sy business lately… it doesn’t excuse everything, of course, but it does excuse some of it, so why not blame everything on it. It’s like blaming solar flares, or W, or a vengeful Old Testament God – who knows anyway? The litany sounds like your nastiest-tempered grandparent’s list of woes: severe headaches, muscle aches, joint aches, transient muscle weakness, extreme stiffness, “tics” similar to the ones experienced by those with Tourette’s but never repetitive or in the same place, loss of bladder control, upset stomach for no reason, need for spontaneous naps, intermittent hallucinations, shitty handwriting, brain fog, ummm… what else. I can’t remember. I’ve also been told that everybdy my age experiences this sort of thing all the time, so maybe I’m just a whiner.

I stayed home from work today, answered many work emails for many hours, then, headache ramping up to Joan of Arc levels, I took some generic not-excedrin migrane and lay down for a risky but necessary nap. I woke up in time to go to the Sequential Art Gallery to see the opening of Steve Lieber’s presentation of original inks from Alabaster: Wolves. Whatever else, I have loved this series, and my opportunity to work with Steve professionally, even in such a rarified way, and I wanted to be there to give props. Plenty of local “geek” “celebrities” were there, and I guess I have to realistically call myself one, even if I can only manage to make it to 1-out-of-20 geeky events I’d like to attend. Yeah, sure, propaganda, I have the disease; the disease doesn’t have me, but that motherfucker sure does like to ground me like a super-strict parent.

But I saw those gorge0us pictures, and said hi to folks, and had an increased chance to listen to the newly released m b v. I was able to spin some hyperbole for the folks at the gallery – “It’s an album of songs that you exist within.” But really, that’s accurate. My Bloody Valentine sets the scene, and then you’re just in it, subject to the millions of rhythms, melodies, and transient effects contained within each song. I love it more every time I listen; my particular jam is “if i am” – which is SUCH a Cocteau Twins song. (If you don’t believe me, listen to “Crushed” and “if i am” side by side.) It’s an homage and an answer at once. The gauntlet of unique ways to make soundscapes with the guitar has been thrown down… we would all be wise to pay attention to the next Robin Guthrie project.

I’d better go to bed. I call it good; blogging is writing too so I have permission to feel good about myself.