Dumb weekend, I’ll attempt to describe.

I moan and bitch about not having a social life and the fact that I never go out. That’s all well and good but if my social continues the way it tends to in Calgary, I’d rather not have a social life at all.

A couple friends invited me out to go to a club to dance and drink. Sounds great, right? Good time, right? Try, load of crap.

First, I went to Jordie’s house and found out that I’m horrifically allergic to his roommate’s cats. Like, “my lungs are filling with fluid”- type allergic. Hack hack cough choke. No problem, I’ll just stand on the balcony while everyone else drinks inside. God knows it’s only -12 out here. Luckily, we got half decently drunk and went to a club.

I really enjoy going dancing at clubs. Call me weird, but I enjoy it. The clubs I go to in Toronto are weird and wonderful and I’m spoiled because I know people that go there regularly and it feels kind of nice. Building that up again from scratch is not fun and I don’t have the desire.

This club was packed, total sardine-style. No room to move, let alone dance. The music was okay, but how the hell are you supposed to enjoy it? Lots of jerks and people who probably would have kicked my ass in high school. People constantly shoving to get past me to go somewhere else. Oh yeah, and my friends are lost in the crowd, rarely to be seen. Great.

3 hours later, I’m sober, pissed off and back out in the cold. My friends are claiming that they met people there and had a great night, but that’s impossible because:
• The music was too loud for conversation.
• The times I did see them they looked as bored as me.

So, they’re full of crap. Just a bragging contest at the end of the night. One-upmanship central (“I met a girl who was from Brazil. Oh yeah, there was this chick” etc. etc.) Wonderful. Not my bag really.

Call me a freak, but I DON’T THINK MY ENTIRE EXISTENCE REVOLVES AROUND THE NEED TO GET LAID! I know I know, now I have to hand in my male membership card. I’m obviously a retard or something. I just don’t see why every action has to be about guys setting themselves up for a one-night-stand or meaningless sex. I just want to go out and have a good night dancing, drinking and hanging out. Is that too much to ask? Why can’t I do that here?

I attempted to explain this briefly on our walk back to Jordie’s and I got ridiculed by the boys. Apparently, I was just making excuses for my inability to hit on women like crazy. Was I? No. Sorry, I don’t walk everywhere crotch-first.

This is the best social life I can muster here. I spent money I could have used elsewhere and wasted time I could have been more productive with. THAT’s why I don’t have a social life here. Very frustrating.

The rest of the weekend was better. I finished up my writing submissions, sent them out and hung out at the studio. I backed-up a bunch of my files at the office. Conveniently, the hard drive crashed about 8 hours later. I lucked out.

Oh yeah, Pokemon the Movie made more in 5 days than Iron Giant did in its entire run. There’s no justice, folks…this will teach the studios that cheap crap is better than quality films. Be afraid.

So, I’m crossing my fingers for tonight. I have a friend at the Calgary Herald (newspaper) who’s put me on the Guest List because Big Sugar is in town playing. Good band, hoping the atmosphere is equally as good. Wish me luck.

Whoah, it’s Tuesday and I’m definitely having a surreal week so far.

As always, this e-mail is a weekly record of what’s going on in my life. The good, the bad, the surreal. Hope you guys don’t mind.

The weekend was relatively quiet. I’m tackling a writing project for myself. It’s a contest actually. Sending scripts to comic book companies is normally akin to shooting randomly in the sky and praying a bird falls down dead at your feet. They don’t read the stuff they receive because:
• They don’t want to get sued for using your ideas.
• They don’t want to waste the time reading your stuff because they get so much crap.
• They don’t know who the heck you are.

With this contest, they’ll be reading all the entries. If I can wow ’em, I may have some nice work in comics. That would kick butt. I know it’s a long shot, at least I can see a bird instead of just shooting anywhere. If it doesn’t happen, it’s good writing practice and keeps me out of trouble. Either way, it’s all good.

What else… I’m booking my flight for Toronto. I’ll send out an e-mail to all of you when I get the final word on dates, times, etc. Christmas will be here before I know it.

Cheesy slogan comin’ at ya: Book time NOW with Jimbo before it’s gone, gone, gone! Between Family, friends, Sheridan, shopping and partying, his calendar will be filling up fast! Make your reservation and…

Okay, that was lame. Oh well.

I still have no idea what I’m doing for New Years 1999. Anyone having a party?

I have photos from Halloween. They’re pretty silly. I’ll scan one and post it up later this week.

In other news…still no social life. Studio work, school (which is also work), artwork. It’s all killing my few remaining brain cells. Can’t wait ’til the holidays. Miss you all.

Halloween’s over and I survived 🙂

Allow me to explain…

I pulled a muscle in my neck last week that left me quite immobile for Tuesday. The rest of the week was recovery and I thought my weekend would be a write off in pain. Luckily, I healed up really quick and by Friday, I was okay.

Friday night was frustrating. I went out to a pub with a couple of friends. It was a vicious circle. I got cut up all night by these guys because I never go out and don’t have a life. I was the target of the night. Of course, if they want me to go out more, this is NOT the way to do it.

Saturday I spent working on my drawing and writing. Quite a productive day actually. I also watched this old film I hadn’t seen since I was a kid called The Last Unicorn. Cheesy, but the nostalgia was nice. Now if only I could find The Flight of Dragons…that’s another nostalgic one for me.

Sunday was crazy. I didn’t have a Halloween costume and Aurenya was having a Glow in The Dark Bowling Halloween Party. Actually, it was a hell of a lot of fun. It didn’t hurt that I was quite drunk…

My costume was surprisingly good for a 10 minute wonder job. Roll up the jeans, white socks- black shoes, throw some pens in my pocket and wear my old glasses (with some tape in the middle) TAH DAH— UberGEEK! Don’t laugh, it worked! When we get the photos back I’ll post a couple.

So, drinking and bowling ensued and we all had a wild time. There were a few party poopers who didn’t dress up, but overall a success. I thought I might be in pain waking up this morning, but I was actually not too bad.

I can’t believe it’s November. Good God, time’s flying fast. I’ll be home for Christmas sooner than you know it. I should be booking my flight this week so I’ll let you know when I’m coming to town. There’s snow on the ground and it’s freaking cold here! Not pleased with that.

Anyways, I’ll keep you up to date as usual.

This will be frustrating.

I want to vent about something, but I can’t talk details, because that would be extremely unprofessional. I don’t want to get in trouble over this, but I NEED to vent.

Q: What would you do if your friend got a kick-ass opportunity that you would have loved? An opportunity that you’ve been busting your butt for (they haven’t lately), but they got instead?

A: Simple, you have to swallow your pride and be happy for them. You act cool and don’t let it wig you out.

Q: What would you do if you saw them screwing up this opportunity and you know that you wouldn’t have screwed it up?

A: You try to ignore it and plow ahead with your own thing.

See, I know the answers, I’m just having a tough time carrying them out. I don’t want to get into trouble. I don’t want to seem like the bitter friend, but I’m really frustrated about it and I wish it wasn’t going this way.

This friend has always had trouble making deadlines and I know that even if he makes this one, he should have worked so much harder on it and created a kick butt opening for himself. He’s not, he doesn’t seem to be worried by it and I’m ripping out my hair.

I went a little over the line and asked him if he’d mind if I did part of the work on my own just for my own practice. Just so I’d get a feel for the type of work. He said:

THE REALITY: “You have to decide for yourself if that’s a jealous action. I can’t tell you if it is.”

MY TRANSLATION: “You are a jealous man who’s trying to horn in on my opportunity. I will leave the decision up to you. This will make you feel guilty and maybe you’ll piss off.”

Ouch…Now I’m just trying to avoid the whole thing. It’s kind of hard, because I see him every day and I don’t want the subject to come up. The good thing is I don’t have to worry about running in to him while he works on it, because HE NEVER SEEMS TO BE WORKING ON IT.

aaaarrrrgh!

I’d have (figuratively speaking) bitten off my left arm for this opportunity and he’s so ho-hum about it.

I guess I’m feeling a little better. Thanks for listening…

My drawing is going well. The every day regiment is working well…I wish I would have done this sooner (Omar, before you e-mail me saying that you tried to get me drawing every day…I know, I know…sorry)

I actually was supposed to go see Fight Club on Tuesday but got into a good groove drawing and didn’t go. Kind of cool.

The nice thing about my personal projects is the Unanimous Council of Jim- If I like it, it stays, if I don’t, it goes…I know most work isn’t like that, but having that for my own stuff helps. Besides, I’m my own worst critic anyways.

Slowly working on an overhaul of my personal website. New artwork, better interface, etc, etc.

The site hasn’t been updated in a while. The photo seems weird actually. I gave up on the longish hair thing and got my hair hacked short again. I did it because it was easy to take care of, but I actually like the way it looks right now. A lot. I may leave it like this for a while.

So, another week goes by…we’ll see how Halloween is gearing up next week. Later.

This week was a mix of good and bad.

The good was yesterday afternoon. I haven’t been able to wear my contact lenses for weeks and have been stumbling around near blind or wearing my hideously huge and old glasses. I hit the mall yesterday and got a good price on some new contacts. Better still, they had them in stock and I put them in on the spot. Razor sharp vision can be taken for granted. I’d been having trouble being social…you lose all the subtlety of a conversation when you can’t see the nuances of someone’s face. I felt pretty crappy. Now, I’m back on top 🙂

The bad was yesterday night. I decided to head out and enjoy the city (with clear sight). The studio was moving furniture around and I set out for a night on the town. Problem #1- No one wanted to come with me, or they had previous plans. Problem #2- I didn’t know where the heck to go, even though I’ve lived here for a year and a half.

When Sarah and Lisa were out here during the summer, we only went out dancing once. I regret that now. I should have done more when there were people willing to party here 🙁

Going to a club by yourself is a painful experience. Meeting people at a club actually never happens unless you already know someone. You can’t just introduce yourself, otherwise people instantly think you’re hitting on them (even though sometimes, you want to)…and dancing by yourself is embarrassing and kind of hard to handle. If you don’t look relaxed, you’ll dance like crap, but it’s hard to relax when there’s no familiar faces. But, I danced anyways and things were slowly getting better…

Then, some of the students from the school showed up and I had to leave. My contract with the school is very specific about “no fraternizing with students”. They were very iron clad about that since I’m the same age as the people I teach…so I was forced to beat a hasty retreat and take the streetcar home. Yeesh.

The drawing thing is going okay. I’ve been drawing steadily and the improvement is there. I just have to keep it up. The crappy drawings still creep up, just less often.

Other interesting stuff may be in the wings for me. I’ll let you all know as I get closer to locking stuff down.

Thanks to everyone who e-mails me. I love hearing about everyone’s exploits 🙂

I’ll have to catch up on my clubbing and dancing when I come into Toronto for the holidays.

Let’s see…time flies when you’re having fun. We’re already making our way through October. Yeesh. Next thing I know it’ll be Christmas and I’ll be signing everything the year 2000.

My mouth is healing slowly but surely and I’m feeling much better about the whole thing now. My jaw’s still a little sore. I’m hoping by next week it’ll be a dull memory.

I’ve been on a good drawing binge here. I’ve been trying to keep myself drawing EVERY DAY, and so far, so good. It’s been 3 weeks straight. What have I been drawing you ask? Some of it’s for my own personal comic, the rest is a secret for now… 🙂

Teaching has been extra stressful as of late. We’re getting ready to renegotiate our contract and as much as I enjoy teaching, it’s a major drain on my time. I wish I could do it once a week or something. It’s nice, but not what I want to do full-time. I’m looking into other options and I’ll keep you all posted.

I’ve been a bit homesick this week as well. Most of you who are receiving this e-mail are from Ontario. I miss you guys (and gals)! Here’s hoping that the holidays come up as quickly as the weeks seem to be going now. Either that or, COME OUT HERE AND VISIT! There’s lots of jobs and stuff… Calgary’s very nice and would be even nicer with some familiar faces here, too. Oh well, you can’t blame a guy for trying 🙂

Thanksgiving doesn’t make it any easier. My family will be mowing on incredible food at the cottage in Ontario and enjoying each other’s company while I’m going to be hitting Swiss Chalet by myself. That could suck…

My friend ‘Nifer e-mailed me about the idea of gathering our old Rez friends for a reunion in 2000. That got me thinking about the past few years. I think the idea would be great, except that so many of us aren’t in strong contact with each other and of course, there’s the usual soap operatic-type confrontations that would probably occur.

Speaking of which, it was one of my ex-girlfriend’s birthday 2 days ago. That kind of bothered me. It’s the old “should I call” dilemma. Do you call them and hope it doesn’t wreck their birthday, or do you ignore it? I opted out and didn’t call. Probably the safer choice. No point in digging for scar tissue and reopening gaping wounds I guess.

This e-mail’s pretty eclectic, I’m going all over the place with it.

I think I’ve got girlfriends and old times on the brain also because when I woke up this morning there was this show on the Learning Channel called A Dating Story. They film a real blind date and see how it goes. That would be damn nerve wracking! I was groggy and just left it running as I got ready this morning. You end up getting kind of drawn in. You want to know how it turns out. I guess it’s natural human curiosity to be all voyeuristic and want to see other people’s lives. It also might be because it’s helpful seeing people finding relationships outside of the Hollywood romantic schlep.

Of course, none of the blind dates were successful… groan.

Just improving myself and my drawing skill is like a full-time job. Let alone teaching, studio work, eating, sleeping, etc… I wonder if I’ll ever be able to maintain a decent relationship with someone. They’d have to be pretty damn understanding about my life. I haven’t really dated anyone who could handle my career path, lack of time and emotional poop. Of course, I wasn’t exactly much help in supporting them either, so I should’ve expected as much. Gack, you’d think I was writing this e-mail on Valentine’s Day! Next subject…

I’ve been toying with the idea of entering the amateur night at Yuk Yuks here for stand-up comedy. It’s not something I want to do as a career, but I do want to try it. I’ve got some ideas that have gotten reliable laughs that I think could be adapted quite well to it. I think it would be a good social push for me as well. You have to phone Yuk Yuks on a Tuesday morning and try to get through as one of the first 12. You have 5 minutes to go wild if you get a slot. Maybe, maybe…could be fun. God knows I love making an ass of myself and 5 minutes is totally do-able.

Anyways, back to the grind. Take care everyone. Have a nice Thanksgiving and have a toast for ol’ Jimbo if you get a chance. I’d appreciate it. Until next week…

Oh God, I’m having an ugly day…

Sorry I haven’t written in a while.

Let me paint this scene for you. I’m sitting in a heap in a chair at the office, wrapped up in a blanket. My entire body feels like it’s trying to reject me.

It seems that mid-Wednesday was a good time for my lower Wisdom teeth to begin tearing their way to the surface through my gums. Sure, why not… The excruciating pain of these suckers have caused my jaw to swell and left me looking quite like a chipmunk. I’m all hopped up on massive amounts of Advil, trying to pretend it’s not actually happening.

“Get them taken out” you say. Sure… except I don’t have the time, money, or dental benefits at this point. Thank God they’re coming up straight and there seems to be room for them. I experienced this last year with my top Wisdoms… not quite as much fun as these ones though.

Then, snow has fallen here already, which has triggered two other wonderful transformations. Firstly, we have a contest going at the office that when the first snow fell we’d all try and grow beards until the holidays. The good news is, I’m winning. Russian genes and all that. The bad news is I look like a scraggly mountain man with puffy cheeks.

Secondly, like clockwork, the cold snap had brought on my annual cold sore from hell which is ravaging my lip and leaving me looking quite beat up.

Did I mention I have a mystery zit that appeared out of nowhere on my cheek and am having bad hair day?

Good God, I feel like Quasimodo right now… or The Phantom of Aurenya or something. A total mutant.

Not fun. Not fun at all. I can’t wait ’til the chompers are in place. I’m gonna have a big chunk of dead meat and mow at it like the ultimate carnivore. This near-liquid diet right now’s gonna kill me.

We went out for dinner last night and I just wanted to hide my face. I felt really grotesque. Eating’s a real graceful exercise too and I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so slow just to keep from dumping shit everywhere.

In a couple weeks, I’ll look back at this e-mail and laugh…

Otherwise, things are fine here, nothing to report. I’m going back to bed.

August zips past the halfway mark and here’s the way it was for Jimbo this week…

The weekend went by without mishap. Nick’s back from his vacation so I’ll get to sleep in again starting tomorrow. It seems the boy did some cool stuff on his holidays that may bloom into something bigger and brighter for Aurenya, but I can’t talk about it too much at this premature stage.

Script writing continues and I hit my milestone this week. That means that the deadline of the 1st week of September is do-able. Feels good.

It’s going to be a broke month for me as a horde of books I’ve been waiting for get released. The newest Bone collection (Volume 6) is out, plus the new Blade of the Immortal trade paperback and finally, the much awaited Art of Tarzan book. Yikes, I’m a total book hog. My shelves at the office are filling up a little too fast with mighty reference material.

On top of that, Disney announced that they’re going to start releasing their animated movies on DVD starting in October. Looks like I should save up for a player before Christmas…

I really, really need to get through these next couple of days and get some rest. I’ve been wearing my contact lenses WAY too long and my body’s fighting back now with hideous bloodshot eye action and quite a bit of pain. So, now I’m wandering around without them on and blind as a bat. Crappy…and I’m sick of people telling me they’re red, I know, I know… I might have to break down and buy a new pair of glasses. Something sort of stylish, not those monsters I had growing up.

We went out last night as a Going-Away Party for Lisa and Sarah as they head off to Ontario at the end of this week. It was fun, but a little depressing. Kandrix is really good at keeping strong ties with our people though, so I’m hoping it all goes well. Thursday and Friday may be a little rough… but I’ll keep smiling and shake off the blues over the weekend.

So, dinner at Jack Astor’s really showed Aurenya’s true colors. We don’t get out much and the ice cube and french fry fighting was embarrassing but fun. I wonder if we’ll still be this way when the company grows even larger?

WHAT I’M WATCHING:
We saw The Sixth Sense last night and I went in with little to know expectations. Wow, I was impressed. It starts off slow, but builds up to a real satisfying movie experience worth checking out. This summer’s been pretty good for odd movies coming out of nowhere. The big releases, like Wild Wild West and Star Wars are crappy and the little movies like Iron Giant and The Sixth Sense are the ones to check out.

Not much else to say… looking forward to some relaxation tomorrow and some hard-core ZZZZZ’s.

I hope everybody’s summer is going well. Whenever I send out these letters to all of you, I remember why you’re all on this list and realize how lucky I am to have so many good people in my life. Cheesy, but true…

The last month of summer speeds along and here’s my report…

Let’s see, the proposed camping trip has been delayed until this coming weekend. We’re crossing our fingers that it all comes together. Whatever the case, you’ll hear the story next week.

On Sunday, Jeremy and I pigged out on steak. We moved Jeremy’s old barbeque to the Aurenya rooftop earlier this summer and occasionally we cook up a storm. Jeremy in his enthusiasm to light up the barbeque almost blew my right arm off, but no lasting harm was done. The hairs on my arm will grow back soon enough. You think I’m joking, but I’m not.

Marketing Man Brett has me convinced that we should go to the casino in the next few weeks and play some Black Jack. Have no fear, I won’t be a gambling junkie… I’ve just never been before and at least you have control in Black Jack, unlike a roulette wheel or a slot machine. I’ll watch a lot and play a little. The key is to take a little bit of money for the entertainment of an evening, just like a night out drinking. If you go there expecting to win money, you’re sunk.

This weekend is the opening of Iron Giant and everything I’ve heard about the film says it’s incredibly good. No musical annoyance, it’s apparently a touching character piece. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to it. If anyone else on my list checks it out, please let me know what you think.

Nick’s taken some holiday time, so I’m taking on his teaching chores for two weeks. That being said, I made sure that we headed to the Zoo for Life Drawing tomorrow. It’ll be a nice break and I enjoy drawing animals. Maybe I can get the school to chip in on an Iron Giant viewing next week…

While Nick’s away, I’ll be pounding out more script material for our concept. The first draft should be finished at the end of August or early September.

WHAT I’M LISTENING TO:
I put together a mix CD of female artists that I like (Bjork, Cranberries, The Cardigans, etc….) and I’ve had it spinning all week.

WHAT I’M READING:
I sat down last night and poured over my favorite parts of Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman for some inspiration. Apparently, the Jim Henson company is going to be doing a Neverwhere movie, and I can’t wait.

WHAT I’M WATCHING:
The company went and saw The Blair Witch Project on Friday and had a great time. Correction: we were wigged out by it, but it was intended to be that way, so it was a good time. I knew it was fake and I’ve done tons of reading about it, but my stomach was still in knots. It should make camping this weekend fun…

So, that’s the week so far. Next week I’ll hopefully have camping tales and my brief review of Iron Giant.

Later…

PS: Because I send this newsletter to myself as well and it’s a good way for me to keep track of things like a diary I should add this note – JIM, DON’T FORGET LAST NIGHT (Tuesday, August 3rd, 1999)! It may be important later!