Monday, December 19, 2011

REVISED: What We Talk about When WE Talk about Love.

Jason: Now if the baby dies, it's going to be really hard to dig a hole in the ground, because the ground is starting to freeze.
Me: Now that we know the baby, if the baby dies, the only hole for us is going to be the one at the end of the barrel of a shotgun.

Original post here.

Violet!


Her name is Violet, but mostly we call her Mouse, or Mouse House. We are not certain if she is indeed the mouse, or if she is simply a vessel in which many mice live. Based on the noises that come out of her, hour to hour, it is difficult to say. When she dirties a diaper, Jason says, "Eviction from the Mouse House! I understand you gotta get 'em out, but do you have to chew them up first?" in an old-timey voice. As with just about everything else these days, it's charming.

Moreover, she's the aviator of various aircraft. She is a polite hiccupper. After a feeding, she enjoys a good bit of a dance, which ends up looking a little bit like casting spells and a little bit like Thom Yorke in the "Lotus Flower" video. We have been compiling video and will hopefully post some soon.


Mostly, she's the best baby EVER. She sleeps a lot, snuggles even more, and when she's awake has this endearing quality of just looking around at things, calm and alert.

More pictures and probably the birth story for anyone who wants to hear it coming soon...as well as a MILLION AND ONE thank yous!

Friday, December 16, 2011

Introducing Violet Eliza DePasquale

(the fetus formerly known as Delano)


There is surely an epic tale to be told about the birth of our lovely daughter, Violet Eliza DePasquale, but it will have to wait until later, as we are currently frantically cycling between ecstatic and exhausted. For the moment, please know that we are all alive and well. We've had one slight complication, which is that Amy seems to be suffering from a spinal headache. In the grand scheme of things, it's minor, albeit pretty frustrating (especially for Amy...) It's kept us from being too photo-happy, which family and friends have been complaining about. (We find this very flattering, by the way.) So here are some quick shots of the last few days:



Grandma DePasquale meets Violet.




Cousin Haley and the Sumerton Grandparents pose with the birthday girl.



Uncle Rich and Aunt Rachel. This is the second baby Rich has ever held. (I don't know what happened to the first.)




Rich and Rachel brought mini bottles of champagne (among other gifts.) Here's Amy taking her first sip of alcohol in nine months. (It was also her only sip.)



My sister Natalie and Amy's brother Mike brought a whole host of cousins (and Aunt Caty and Uncle Tyler) to meet Violet. It was chaotic and wonderful.





In fact, all sorts of important people came by to pay their respects.



Here's me with my Practice Baby (Chloe), and my new Actual Baby (Violet.)
(For those who don't know, I was Chloe's nanny for a number of years. She taught me everything that I know.)




Mother and baby, resting at home in bed.


More to come. THANK YOU TO EVERYONE for the gigantic outpouring of love and support. We're profoundly grateful to have you all in our lives.

One more for the road:

Violet Eliza DePasquale
born December 12, 2011
7 pounds, 4 ounces
19.5 inches long
Conqueror of Hearts

Monday, December 5, 2011

What We Talk about When WE Talk about Love.

Me: If the baby dies, we'll have to get divorced and I'll move into a hole in the ground.
Jason: I don't see why we need to get divorced. Can't I move into the hole in the ground with you?
Me: (Pause for thought.) Okay.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Hmm...

Wondering what the bedside reading is at the Sumersquale household these days? The other night, we were both in bed reading, and I looked over to see what Jason's nose was in. It was startling enough that I took a picture. I bet you can figure out who is reading what.

Should I be worried?

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

What to Expect. . .


My two older sisters were pregnant with their first children at roughly the same time. My first niece was born in December of one year, the second was born the following February. There was understandably a lot of excitement surrounding these events, and I got swept up in it by reading one of the many copies of the pregnancy bible What to Expect When You're Expecting that were floating around our homes at the time. It is a book that both demystifies and terrifies. It's the size of a brick, and while it is generally a positive, upbeat book about the miracle of pregnancy, approximately 89% of its contents are about all the ways in which genetics, environmental factors, acts of god, and human error can wreak havoc on your childbearing experience.

I've been revisiting it (and a stack of other pregnancy books) recently, and it reminded me of a little comic I drew years ago. If feels far more relevant to me now than it did when I drew it for obvious reasons:(click to enlarge)

We're now less than two months away from our expected due date, and all seems to be going well. (Please knock on some nearby wood, dear reader, just to be safe.)


Friday, October 14, 2011

Mom&NotMom

Because I always wanted to do a blog WITH someone -- someone who actually participated, actually posted semi-regularly -- I have started a blog with my dear friend Annie Palmer.

When we became friends, Annie and I were very much alike. In the last six years or so, our paths have diverged. Read all about here. Enjoy!

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Work-in-Progress: Do, Do Not

We've been compiling lists of things we do and do not want to do when we're parents. I'm writing them here now because it will be interesting to see how much of it we actually carry through on.

Dos:
  1. Take lots of pictures and blog frequently. (Sorry. Seriously, though, if you don't want to hear about it, what are you doing here?)
  2. Keep up our baby journal. It's already about thirty pages long, and even if she never cares to read it, it will be fun for us to revisit later. I have a horrible memory, and I like the idea that I could look back on her first attempts at speech, steps, and etcs.
  3. Say things that are frequently annoying, such as "We never knew we could love something so much," in moderation, and sincerely.
  4. Try to raise a baby that turns into a child that eats a varied diet, and does not say no to trying new foods. (I know this is difficult. I also know it can happen.)
Do Nots:
  1. Do not ever make my facebook profile picture my baby's face. It is MY facebook page, not the baby's.
  2. Do not make the baby a facebook page.
  3. Do not post on facebook about the baby being sick, or having a temperature, any more than necessary. (Necessary: No more than twice a year.)
  4. Do not get an email address that has the word "mom," "mama," or (especially) "mommy" anywhere in it. While I am sure being a mother will be the most important thing in my life personally, I'd like to maintain some public semblance of life outside of motherhood.
  5. Do not complain about being tired. All the time.
  6. Do not get a car with a DVD player. We both have many fond memories of long family trips with comic books and made-up games, that feeling of restlessness that you'll never get there, and the inadvertent meditation that happens when you stare out of the window for an hour. We still love long car rides.
I feel like I had a bunch more of these to write, but alas, we'll consider this blog a work-in-progress, and I'll update it when necessary. At any rate, I am almost committed to posting something once a week or so, so here we go.

We're also open to suggestions, so feel free to email us or utilize the comments.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Introducing: Carrot Baby!

Last weekend, we hosted our first-ever Friend Appreciation Party. As we have managed, one way or another, to make the last year and a half or so "all about us," and done at least two things that require gift-giving and/or shower-throwing, we decided it was time to shower our friends with some gifts and some love. The lovely and talented Chrissy recapped it briefly on her blog, here.

Speaking of lovely and talented friends (and, fairly enough, it was a night literally FILLED with them), Ms. Laura Goins pointed out something equal parts hilarious and frightening about one of the ultrasound pics we have posted on our fridge. I'd like to present to you all, Carrot Baby:


In case you're still not seeing it, I've put together this:


That's right. Carrot Baby is Delano's unfortunate womb-mate. Carrot Baby, at least in this picture, is screaming directly into poor Delano's face. Carrot Baby has no sex, no eyes, and only one appendage growing out of the middle of its chest (we'll call it an arm).

Carrot Baby no doubt tells Delano what to do sometimes. In my mind, it's something like this:


I bet they fight in there sometimes, and I bet Carrot Baby fills Delano's sweet little head with all sorts of backwoods nonsense. CAPTION CONTEST! What do YOU think Carrot Baby is saying in the picture above?

Here's hoping it's the baby on the left that comes out in just under three months now.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Take THAT, Nursery Themes!

We spent all last week and weekend cleaning out the house (read: small, one-bedroom apartment) to make room for baby. There has been some discussion from friends and family on where we intend to "put" the baby when she is born. Good news, friends: Babies are small, and, at first at least, they don't move much.

Babies, however, come with a lot of accoutrements. Bags and bags of your friends' kids' cast-off baby clothes, a bassinet, a crib, more on the way. Our closets were already stuffed to brimming.

I'd love to know how many pounds we recycled, donated, and threw out last week. My husband, it seems, has never actually gotten rid of anything. Bins of Christmas ornaments (we've never had a tree, and probably won't this year either), stacks of his high-school newspaper, eight hundred photographs of the desert, receipts, papers (upon papers, upon papers).

At any rate, we've cleared out space. We've rearranged. We've set up a nursery of sorts, in our bedroom. Next to the crib hangs a painting of Washington crossing the Delaware and a Chrissy Deiger original photograph. These were not in the "nursery themes" tabs of Target.com or Amazon. I'm not really into themes, or things matching, for that matter. Also, I like to imagine her dreams not being of cartoon monkeys, but of stalwart men, icy rivers.


We'd been worried about keeping the cats out of the crib. Turns out we inadvertently stumbled upon the trick. Don't put the mattress in, and just drape a sheet over the metal grid. I put the crib together on Sunday and then went out. When I came back, every little square of fabric had been poked in. Someone had jumped in the crib, and had some trouble getting back out. I felt so sad that I had missed it; it must have been hilarious. It must have been Vander, because Monday afternoon, I came into the bedroom, and Bureau was in there, stuck, just staring at me. She'd seen the scene on Sunday, mulled it over for a day, and decided to give it a go. Needless to say, neither one of them has gotten back into the crib since.

I had a feeling being pregnant and all would qualify as an "incredibly exciting time," especially since Jason and I have felt "ready" for parenthood for a couple of years now, but that's not even the half of it. Laying around in bed feeling the baby kick every night is a joy I could not have anticipated. She seems to know her dad's hand (I know this cannot be true; she knows nothing, only darkness, pressure, sound, movement) and sets to work whenever she feels it. Every time he feels a kick, Jason says, "Baby!" Some nights, we lay around and giggle and talk, and Jason just says, "Baby! Baby!" over and over.

It never gets old. I feel like I've been pregnant forever (entering fall, I'm realizing this is my third season since we found out the news), and I'm excited for December, but I try to remember how quickly it will seem that it went when this is all over.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

We Had Our First Anniversary...

...and we got to celebrate it with a romantic work dinner. (It was actually lovely. AND it was actually our fault, for getting married on the date of where I work, 8/26. Hey, it's how we met, and, like so many things, it seemed like a good idea at the time. And it was.)

The last year has gone by so quickly. And what a big year it's been! We got married, got pregnant...well, I guess that's mostly it. Still, pretty big!

The first anniversary is paper. I knew I was making Jason a book, but I stayed mum on the topic. I wanted to him to think I'd not gotten him a gift, as I was certain he was waiting until the last minute to get me one, and then, PRESTO! All the while I'd spent weeks making him a very good-looking book. He'd be so touched, and I'd win. (Some day I'll regale you all with the story of the "Point and Click" Christmas [that involved no pointing or clicking] that I won, and that was a sweet, sweet victory.) I like to do nice things for him, I just have a weird, roundabout way of getting there.

See? Good looking! It's a bunch of drawings about all the stuff that happened to us this year. I even made a little pop-up of us in the back:

Cute! And so much better than the nothing he'd gotten me, right? I know Jason, and I KNEW his gift would be late, because part of his "process" is waiting until the last possible moment, but then...

JOKE'S ON ME, FOLKS. Once again, through his sheer sweetness and truly good-natured personality, I come out looking like the brat. (Which is fair. He is way nicer to me than I deserve. Or will ever deserve. Honestly, I still can't believe he wants to spend the rest of his life with sassy, crusty old me.)

When he left for work in the morning, I told him that if he came home with a box of crap from Acme, I was filing for divorce. (See? THAT'S my wretched sense of humor. I honestly think it's funny to say stuff like that to my husband on his way out the door.) And he came home that night, and presented me with...a box of crap from Acme... (I was right! He WAS bad at time management to the point of thoughtlessness!)

...with a false bottom. With a book HE'D made ME, all about how he's always surprising me.


The surprises, of course, are all clever and funny and paired with his really-quite-amazing drawing skills. The last one is this:


And THEN, when I turned the page, there was a little envelope, and that man had bought me the tiny, simple little antique ring I had wanted all along.


I'm an ass. It's so true. I'm mean, and I'm an ass. And I have a very pretty little ring on my finger that I do not deserve.

At this point in the story, when I retold it to my mom and my niece Mimi, 6, Mimi said, "But he did the thing you told him not to do!" And I said, "What thing?" And Mimi said, "He brought you that, you know, that box of crap!" God, she's a delight.

So, happy, happy anniversary to my dear and sweet husband Jason, who I do not deserve, who I relish calling mean names, who is often the butt of my jokes and the person I take out my daily stresses on, who I push around and then laugh at. I don't know why you signed on for this, my love, but I am sure glad you did. And I will spend the next however-many-years-I-am-on-this-planet trying, trying to be better, trailing after your example.

Monday, July 25, 2011

How in the **** Do You NAME another HUMAN BEING?

Naming a baby just seems crazy to me. I know I will come around to it, because I have to. It's also exciting and fun, of course...but daunting. Looking to lose a few hours? Go here. You can track the popularity of ANY name for the last hundred years or so. We want a name that's not popular but not too obscure. We have a front runner. It hit its peak in 1907 when it cracked the top 100.

What does Jason think about all this? Well, this is how he's weighed in on the list of names we made a googledoc of:

:|
:(
:|
:|
:(
:(
:(
:|
:|
:(
:(
:(
:|
:(
:(
:(
:(
:(
:|
:|
:|
:|
:P
:(
:(
:(
:(
:(
:)
:|

Like I said: We have a front-runner.

Friday, July 22, 2011

In Case You Missed It --

I can't imagine anyone reads this who ISN'T already facebook friends with Jason and me (and if you aren't, you should be, as that is updated much more frequently), but, in case you missed it, we found out last night that we're having a GIRL!

Jason's thought all along that it's a boy. I did at first, and then I took this very laissez faire attitude, you know, it could be either; I was getting feelings both ways, none of them particularly strong. Well, it became clear that, unknown to myself, I too had been thinking of little Delano as a boy, because last night, this happened:

Ultrasound tech: This is the butt...and...are you ready?
Us, in unison: Yes!
UT: It's a girl!
Us, in unison: REALLY??

To be honest, it was surprisingly surprising. And then I realized that all the names I'd been thinking about were boy names, and all the clothes I'd been thinking about were boy clothes. It felt exciting and insane that very suddenly we were going to have a daughter. Truth be told, our preliminary girl name list is MUCH longer (and, quite honestly, better). And -- I'm saying it for the first time of many, I'm sure, right now -- as long as I can steer people away from too much pink and silly pattern and over-ruffled and wordy (that's right, please don't buy the baby "Daddy's little rocker!" onesies; I find it somehow weird to put words on a baby), I think dressing a girl will be fun. (I've been doing it my own whole life, and throughout the lives of my many beloved nieces.)

This morning, I woke up, and I can quite honestly say I've never been so excited about anything in my life. And those of you who know me KNOW that I'm excited, like, A LOT. I started thinking about raising a kick-ass girl, and -- I will later shake my head at having said this, I'm sure -- but I feel like I can do that! And I started thinking of all the girls/women I know who are the oldest in the family (I'm the youngest, and my brother the oldest), and they are ALL kick-ass! Furthermore: The nieces are pleased that it will be another girl joining them at the Niece Sleepovers, my mom and I are excited about adding a fourth generation to our lady-Oscar-Night tradition, all the Sumerton women I know are pretty incredible, and I have heard that girls are the ones who take care of you when you're old (and as we have yet to start a 401K, that will be helpful).

So! Pictures! Here she is:


She has eye sockets, and a spine, and kidneys and stuff! Her legs are flipped over her head, like a little yogi (which seems fitting, as both of her parents have been going to yoga weekly since before she was conceived). Her mouth moves (we saw it!).

More soon! Thanks, by the way, for all the love, you guys. It has felt really great to have so many people so happy for us. We're pretty sure we have the best, most supportive friends in the world (you know how I love a superlative -- especially when I really mean it!).

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Sex Day! & Go Ahead and Touch It!

Friends, tomorrow we find out the sex of our baby. Today, at 19 weeks, it* is six inches long from head to rump. Jason and I have decided that, whichever way it goes tomorrow, we are going to feel really, super excited and a tiny, little bit disappointed.

At any rate, this is your LAST CHANCE to say what type of baby is growing inside me. You have fifty-fifty odds, which, all things considered, is not too bad. I've had a lot of people seem pretty certain that they know. For example, Chrissy D put her hands on my belly the day before her birthday and said, "Girl. It's a girl." She could not have said it more emphatically. She said it as though she were the ultrasound technician and she was delivering the news. This has happened on multiple occasions with multiple people. I find it funny and charming.

You know what else? I LIKE when people touch my belly, so go ahead and do it! I know this is supposed to be a preggo-no-no, but I enjoy it. And I'll tell you why. Because it feels so WEIRD. It feels so...FIRM. It seems like it should be mushy or something, but it's just this big, firm belly. And -- you guys -- there is a human baby growing in there!

Or is there? Take our poll, just for fun! Everyone likes a poll, right? (And yes, you can pick a gender AND say it's a robot.) Until tomorrow, I bid you leave. I have to get back to eating every piece of food placed within a fifty-foot radius of me. (It tries to be sneaky and hide, but I can sniff it out.)

* Hooray! This is the last time I'll have to refer to poor little Delano as "it."

Sunday, June 12, 2011

First Trimester Recap.

This pretty much says it all. (Not really. I think there may be a comic forthcoming about how SCARY the first trimester is, and how many different, very, incredibly morbid places my mind went.) This was supposed to be a first draft, but I don't think I can draw a cartwheel better.

So, yeah. Pretty tired, or, as I think of it, "pregnancy tired," which is a whole different brand of tired altogether. No vomiting. A lot of nausea and gas. Some crabbiness, selfishness, morbid thoughts. Not a whole lot of poop. Pretty standard, I think.

Friday, June 10, 2011

And Now, We Can FINALLY Tell You the Good News.

Okay, here goes:





So there you have it. Detail-oriented people may notice that we posted my "self portrait" after we already knew I was pregnant. (We started trying in January.) I had drawn it a few months before, but I'm weirdly superstitious sometimes. (I'm also 35, and was pretty convinced that the only thing going on in my ovaries resembled the setting of Gerry, my final egg much like Matt Damon's character for the last half of the film.) NOW we have entered the second-trimester excitement. (When we were trying to get pregnant, I thought if it would only happen, I would have nothing to worry about. Turns out that first trimester, all you do is read about how common miscarriage is and worry about it all the time.)

Some of you know that we were naming the eggs every month that we tried. Mortimer is the one who stuck, which is lucky, because, per Annie Palmer's suggestion, the next month was probably going to be Eggers, and that just had potential to be embarrassing for numerous people.

Monday, we went for our monthly check-in, and because they couldn't find the heartbeat (just when I had STOPPED worrying), we got an ultrasound. We saw the baby moving around, stretching legs, rolling over. It was AMAZING. Here's a pic:


We have an already-many-pages googledoc we're writing as a series of letters to the baby. (This is a good time to mention: We are also working on a new comic about all the insufferable things we cannot wait to say when we are parents. Top of the list: I never knew I could love something so much! And, Once you are a parent, you realize how trivial everything else is. UGH. Don't you hate it when people say stuff like that? So do we! And we can't wait to say it!) About the above picture, I recently wrote: Yo

You have knees! Arms! Legs! At least one ear! You may or may not have a giant, black hole in the middle of your face (we are hoping not, but we’ll still love you if you do)!u have knees! Arms! Legs! At least one ear! You may or may not have a giant, black hole in the middle of your face (we are hoping not, but we’ll still love you if you do)!

FAQ
:

Due date: December 14. Birthday of one of my favorite writers (Amy Hempel), my dear friend Keith Hood, and Fly Girl Ruth Marks (from FLY Children's Art Center).

Sex: YES, we are finding out the sex. We find out the end of July. We'll let you know.

Name: We have some that we like, but we're not really thinking about it until we find out the sex. In utero, we are calling the baby Delano.

Where we are going to put the baby in our tiny apartment: Jason had the great idea of rigging something up with pulleys and ropes. We'll keep you posted.

Is Jason the dad?: Yes.

Childbirth: Hoping for natural.

Delivery: By midwife.

Breastfeeding: Yes.

I think that takes care of it. Post further questions in the comments section if you have them. Hooray! THERE IS A BABY GROWING INSIDE ME IT IS SO WEIRD.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

I've Been Sleeping Hard Lately

I've been sleeping hard lately. Like, wake up with shoulder pain because you haven't moved hard. Like, ALL THE SUDDEN it's morning hard. Like, waking up not knowing where you are hard.

The other night, I woke up in the very early hours. It was still dark out, and I had no idea where I was.

I quickly determined that I was in my apartment. Then I realized there was someone sleeping next to me. That's my husband, I thought, and then, Oh, right, I got married.

Who did I marry? I couldn't remember. I sat up and stared at the man sleeping with his mouth open next to me. It was dark, and it took me a moment to realize it was Jason, at which point I thought, Jason! OH GOOD I married Jason!

It was like a part of me had been sleeping for five years and had just then woken. It was weird. And funny.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

On the Way Back from Cincinnati

Spent a lovely weekend with the Pershings. Stopped at Steak 'n Shake on the way home, where this was created:

Twenty minutes later, this happened:



We have, essentially, the smallest amount of self-control you can have without having NO self-control. More on that, and other things, soon!

Monday, February 14, 2011

We Have Been Remiss.

Hi there. Happy Valentine's Day! I just wanted to pop in to apologize. The onus is on me now. I have been trying to compose a new comic, and it's just not working. I tried to make one about a funny thing that happened (fitting, right?), and I made the comic, and it's, like, extra bad.

The story ITSELF is cute. Jason and I were laying in bed one night. I was watching Wuthering Heights on This (a hilarious channel we get -- ah, yes, antenna TV!), and J was playing on his phone.

At some point, I leaned my head on his shoulder and looked at his phone. On it, I saw that he was playing a card game. The player sitting opposite him he had named Amy. The other team was populated by Some Jerk and His Dumb Friend. "What are you doing?" I asked, and he replied, "Oh, just playing euchre with you."

I know I am biased, because I married him, but that is CUTE, don't you think? Not a great comic, as it turns out.

In other news, Jason surprised me this morning with a cartoon of foxes doing it (and the caption "Let's make some foxy babies") and a gorgeous necklace, despite the fact that we agreed we would not get each other Valentine's Day presents.

In other OTHER news, he lost the master list of everyone we sent a wedding-present thank-you card to.* So I guess you take the good with the bad, the better with the worse, n'est pas?

Okay. So. Comics. Coming soon. We have two little things I'll post soon. Also, we're going to Florida for four days next week, right during Jason's birthday (and me ovulating) to spend time with my parents and watch the Oscars with my mom. Should make for great fodder!

* If you haven't gotten a thank-you card yet, and you did get us a gift, feel free to send me an email and let me know!

Monday, January 10, 2011

Mittenfest V: The "Our Married Life" Wrap-Up, AKA I SUPER LOVE Kim Deal, I Really Do (ESPECIALLY Pixies-era).

A few things happened to the Sumersquales at Mittenfest V. We were better behaved than we've been in the past. We suffered no mystery bruises, no hangovers. We were also reminded, often, of how old and out of touch we are. Oh, and how pretty my hair is. (But mostly how out of touch we are. Sixty bands later, it's all still a blur.)



I can't post this next comic without a few caveats. For starters, I LOVE chick drummers. I mean, I LOVE them. I get excited when I see one. My heart fills with admiration. (Picture me, then, at the Weezer show on Saturday night, when kids from the Chicago School of Rock sang two Weezer songs for the 3,000+ in attendance -- oh! my heart! wept! SO COOL! -- and there was a middle-school aged chick drummer. I wanted to travel back in time to be her BFF.)

Furthermore, I appreciate women musicians in every form. That is all.



I think at this point Jason's caught up to me with comics. Better get to work on a new one! Hmmm...

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Marriage = Compromise

Another showing by my favorite artist, Jason DePasquale! Jason started student teaching this week (hooray!) at Ann Arbor Open (hooray!), and, so far, his days have looked like this:

- Coffee starts up via robot at 6:30am
- Up, showered, and out the door by 7:40am
- Student teaching all day
- Straight to Dawn Treader to work
- Home around 9pm

On Sundays, he works at Acme. Saturdays, I imagine, will become the day for sleeping. At any rate, his appearances on this blog for the next few months might be few and far between, and rightfully so. Enjoy him while you can get him, is what I'm saying. We've got a couple of Mittenfest posts in the wings. (Honestly, I thought we'd do a ton of comics behind the 826 booth, but we wound up talking to a lot of people and coloring all the awesome robot pictures people were drawing. Coming soon to the window of the Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair!)

Ready? Here goes:


Furthermore, for those of you interested in DIY poetry wall hangings, you can still find a few in Press 34's shop. All the books sold out, within twenty-four hours, no less! (Press 34, for anyone I haven't told about it, is a new small publishing house I've started. Small runs, thirty-four, to be exact, of handmade books. The first one, The Lion by Catherine Calabro, is currently for sale. It's half books and half wall hangings. A book of photography triptychs and another poetry collection coming soon!)