DallasComicCon

Today was a pretty cool day...

Last week, my wonderful wife found out that the Dallas Comic Con and SciFi Expo folks were having a con with free admission. The guest of honor was Anthony Daniels (a.k.a C3-PO), but also in attendance were supposed to be Jaime Mendoza and James O'Barr...

JAMES O'BARR?!?!? The guy who wrote/illustrated/created "The Crow"! Oh yeah... we were going to this, and I was going to get him to sign my book. By that I mean the graphic novel that I purchased after the movie had come out. See, it was the late 80's when I came across this black & white indie comic that really grabbed me. I hunted and dug and found every issue, and read most of them to tatters. It was in the early 90's that I sold the rest. I first dressed as "The Crow" for Halloween in 1991. I had exactly one person know what the make-up, leather pants, and black wig were all about. Then I found out about the movie, and had to go and find the comics again. I lucked out and found all of them in one anthology, one giant graphic novel, that I read again and again.

When I heard that the man who created this... this work of art... was going to be at this con, I had to go.

He signed my book. He was cool about it too... He was sitting there, working on an original sketch, when he looked up and saw me standing there like the ultimate fanboy and asked if I was waiting for an autograph. I said "Yeah, but I don't want to interrupt..." He smiled a gracious - and almost embarrassed - smile, took my book and signed.

I nearly pissed myself.

Later, as we continued to walk the con, my wife and I saw him walking around. He was looking at comics, action figures, memorabilia... He was being a geek, and that was really fuckin cool.

Also, as we are walking around, I saw a guy that I used to go to school with at the Art Institute, Mark Walters. After I got my book signed, I saw him behind one of the tables, and asked if it was really him. It turns out that this guy RUNS the cons. He is the cons. I found out that a guy that I used to hang out and smoke with is in charge of organizing one of the coolest things that happens on a regular basis in D/FW.

Today was a pretty cool day...

"You'll shoot your eye out..."

Those words of warning to young Ralphie Parker in "A Christmas Story" flashed through my mind today...

It was the Christmas Eve get-together for my in-laws. I like my in-laws, which is probably weird to begin with, but the other weird thing is that they like me, too. They think I'm this nice, clean-cut, witty guy whose great with kids and a real shark at 42. So basically, they see exactly what I want them to see.

But I digress...

I was playing with the children of my wife's cousin, one of whom had received a Nerf gun that shoot darts with Velcro on the tips. We made up a type of dodge-ball/dart kinda game, and I was teaching them the finer points of dodging...

...when I shot my eye out... sorta...

I had pulled the trigger, but my thumb was blocking the plunger that shot the dart. I was confused, so I turned the gun to look at the barrel. By doing so, I moved my thumb from its inhibitive position, thereby freeing the dart (tipped with Velcro, remember?) to complete its destiny and hit me dead on in the left eye.

"Ow... damn...", I thought. "I just shot my eye out..."

Well, my eye is still there, really, but I lost a nice chunk of eyeball skin to the Velcro. About 1/4 inch square, right above my pupil, still in the brown part of my iris. The bad part is that I shot myself in the eye, but the good part is that I missed the pupil and can still see out of it. But...

Ow...

Now I have a patch over my eye to keep me from messing with it until it heals. My depth perception is way off, which makes for great fun when reaching for my beer. It takes me two or three tries before I actually grab it, so then I hang onto it for a while... not wanting to go back through the hassle of figuring out where it is, exactly.

The moral of the story is:

Don't freakin aim any freakin gun at your freakin face!

Ow...

Ow...

See, two weeks ago (31 June 2005) I tripped and slammed the big toe of my left foot into my deck almost as hard as I possibly could have.

Result: I broke the end of the bone of my big toe off. I broke it so bad that the orthopedic physician said "Wayull, now... that thar's a break, idnit?"

Lemme back up a little... we were washing the dogs in the yard (as is normal for us during the summer months - cools them and us off), and I was going into the house to grab the other bottle of shampoo. I tripped. When you trip, you immediately throw the unhindered foot forward to catch yourself (try it... you'll see). When I tried to throw my left foot forward, my big toe met the top edge of the deck.

Hard.

I fell down.

Hard.

I crawled three feet to just inside the sliding glass door, closed it with my right foot, and let out a primal scream that caused nieghbors to look up from their yardwork. That's right, I was inside my house - a full two acres from my nearest neighbor - and they still heard me.

The wife comes in trying to figure out what the hell I did this time, as it is normal for me to fall down. This time, though, she could see that all the color had drained from my face and I was very near passing out. She consoled me and asked if it was broken (she's smart). I said "I'm not sure yet, it hurts to bad to tell." (I'm not smart)

After a couple of minutes of going "Ergh... cchhsssssshhhhhhh... ergh... cchhsssssshhhhhhh..." I went back out and finished washing the dogs. The rest of the day was spent in a chair on the back deck with my foot propped up and a beer in my hand. I drank myself numb and decided that if it still hurt as bad the next day, then it was probably broken.

Sunday - the next day - I decided it was broken.

Pain.

"Oh my GOD!" kinda pain.

Anyhow, as the doc I usually see is 40 miles from home, but only 10 miles from my work, I decided that I would go in on Monday... I drank myself numb again.

Monday: I go see the doc. I get X-Rays. The doc says, "You need to go see and orthopedic physician right now," writes a scrip for Ultracet and T3 (Tylenol with Codine), and sends me off with a list of orthopedic docs to contact.

I search the list for a name and location I like, and call. Nope, can't see me for a week. Try again... Nope, we don't look at toes (wtf?) Try again... Dr. Wong will see me today. Alright! Nothin' beats a little asian doctor when it comes to bones, right?

We (the wife is driving as I am now on hard core pain killers) get to Dr. Wong's office and are led to an exam room. After getting my history, the nurse says that the Dr. will be right in. Not even two minutes go by before this little asian guy walks in and says "Wayull, how y'all doon?"

This moment is so surreal that I immediately decide this guy is my orthopedic physician forever more...

He looks at everything, says that the x-rays show the bones to be in alignment, and it's a clean break. I tell him that I don't want any hardware in my toe that I was not born with. He tells me that as long as I wear "the boot" and stay off of it and let the Good Lord and my body heal it, then I won't need a screw. Then, an assistant brings in "the boot".

This thing is 5 pounds, goes almost up to me knee, and is padded (in Texas, that means 'insulated') That means that it's awkward, heavy, and freakin' hot all at the same time!

So I have to wear the boot for maybe two months while my big toe (which you cannot balance without, FYI) heals.

Oh, and we're getting afternoon thunderstorms now... It's usually hot and dry this time of year, but Dennis is making sure that inclement weather sticks around. The reason this is a bad thing is that I know about 20 minutes before it's gonna rain cuz my toe freakin' HURTS!

so...

Ow.