So cleaning's done and I'm home again. It's strange to realize that I actually have hardwood floors. Even the underbench area is clean. Hrmm.. Last night was rather restless, meaning that I was up late reading one of my many dictionaries, this one the Isms one, which is surprisingly rightwing in the "common sense"-un-PC sort of way, proving once again that all dictionaries are ideological. It also, like me, includes "jism" as an -ism, being the only one I have no ideological objection to, per se. Ping is a strange duck, and I will devote a separate post just to him. There is evidently no particular reason why he is yellow, or Chinese.

Ummmm... so the day spent tidying up, unearthing and marvelling, before sweatily making my way to Chinatown to run briefly into Kenneth, who was grocery shopping (big surprise), and to feel more than a little alienated, actually: people just seemed uglier today than usual. This impression is hard to explain. The mannequins were Aryan and handsome, though. So I dunno: I just wasn't feeling it today, though I did stop by the famous chicken cart to say hello and buy some lo mein, as always. It's nice to have a mother figure who doesn't expect you to get a PhD. My stopover in Columbus Park (or whatever) was strange, as I was by far the youngest Chinaman there: the rest were overaged Chinamen loudly slamming Chinese chess pieces as they played Chinese chess. I wonder what it would take to get in on a game. This might be a sometime occupation.)

After a few detours, eventually I made it to buy yet more comics. The Red Star, a magic/hard-sci-fi/fantasy retelling of Soviet war history, is a bit strange, and not as politically punchy as, say, Red Son, but is decent as an epic-type narrative. More exciting about the new Human Target and of course a Top Shelf anthology. Indie/Altie stuff is always more invigorating.

Meanwhile, American Splendor, while patchy in a few places and a bit too meta at some point, is a fine study in sympathetic oafery. Makes me really wanna go dig up my Bijou anthology. And it's all very fast, but it works: the metaness doesn't leech it of all feeling, as with Adaptation. Post-modern trickery is still fine by me, as long as it's more pastiche than self-reference.

Dinner with Alric as concerns movie plans still rather nebulous. I am in it. And some traumatic-girl-experience for the analogue to him. But of course, it's not clear what that might mean. I have been scripting a monologue for most of my adult life.