My baby brother came to visit

My brother Craig is performing in a production of Sweeney Todd down in Florida so as I mentioned a week ago, he came for a visit. It’s a hike by plane, but easier than when he’s on his home turf in Los Angeles. Here were are enjoying some tea at a University of North Carolina coffee shop.

Yes, he’s technically not a baby, being only a few years younger than me.

We had a great time chatting about Doctor Who, comics, family, playing with the dogs, walking and watching movies. And eating. And hanging with TYG. Wisp wasn’t thrilled to have a STRANGER in the house but she was more chill than I’d have expected.

In other cheery news, Plushie’s eye problems, which I also wrote about last Friday, turned out to be bad (eye ulcer) but thanks to TYG spotting there’s something wrong, they were treatable. He’s fine now. I’m always impressed how fast she can spot things like that.

The first week of September was a good one for writing. I’m up over 100 pages in my final proofing of Southern Discomfort so I feel I’ve accomplished something. It’s still mostly minor changes though my friend Maggie got me to do a major rewrite of one scene. So far no problems or flaws have been unfixable.

I rewrote the first chapter and a half of Jekyll and Hyde and read part of it to the writing group. The feedback was favorable, with some constructive criticism, though nothing that would be worth detailing here. I also watched a streaming performance of Jekyll and Hyde: The Musical (my brother played Sir Danvers Carew) and a 1950s adaptation for the TV series Climax.

My ideas for a Local Reporter story mostly didn’t pan out, which led to me spending lots of time trying to find something that would. It would have been more cost-effective to skip the week, but I hate doing that. And I did find and write a decent story, about transit and downtown development plans soliciting public feedback.

At Atomic Junk Shop I looked at various Batman stories from early 1969, including his last battle with Catwoman for five years (though she appeared elsewhere, like the Wonder Woman cover below).

I went to the doctor this week, a recheck of my blood iron as it was low last time. Almost certainly because I’d just given blood but nobody knew that. Happily my blood iron is good again, my cholesterol is decent (good cholesterol could be higher) and blood pressure is normal. I also did better on exercising and stretching this week than I’ve done in a while.

The four-day week, with blogging and email on Friday, continues to work well. However it is surprisingly exhausting to finish the blogging for here and Atomic Junk Shop in one day. Perhaps because it’s the equivalent of squeezing out multiple short articles, most unrelated to each other? One reason for the four-day approach was that focusing on one thing a day, when I can work it, makes me more productive. Still, overall the change has been a win.

#SFWApro. Cover by Dick Giordano. All rights to images remain with current holders.