The Pull List: G.I. Joe (2014)

Even when the G.I. Joe cartoon was airing back during my childhood, I wasn't a big fan of the series. I didn't hate the show, but it really wasn't on my single-digit-aged mind. When I got a bit older, I tried watching some of the cartoons, but I found them a little silly. And yes, this does come from an adult woman who loves My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and The Muppet Babies. I suppose I had a much more sophisticated palette then (hahaha who am I kidding? I watched plenty of pretty awful kids' shows).

The Pull List for October 1, 2014

Well, I think it's about time I tried something different. Instead of doing one monthly compilation of what comics I'm going to read (and you should, too!), I will be posting each week. It'll actually give me a chance to delve deeper into the books, not just list them with bullet points. As another check mark in the positive column, you'll know when they're coming out! Win/win, right? The weekly reviews on Mondays are going to continue, as well, so don't think I'm punking out there.

So here we go ...

Life with Pets: Meditation - A One-Act Play

In an attempt to further her spiritual practice, JUJU sits crossed-legged on the floor with the intent to meditate, something she usually does in the dead of night because of a set of certain four creatures she calls her own. Today, though, she has decided to see if she can concentrate through the inevitable activities that will ensue. ZOLA, the bulldog, is snoring on the couch; BITSY and BINA have fallen asleep on the window sill; and KITKAT has just utilized the litter box, happily scratching away at the sides of the contraption. Juju starts her meditation playlist on Spotify and takes a deep breath.

JUJU: Alright, meditation time. (lays her hands on her knees and closes her eyes)

I Have the Worst Luck with Cars, Part XV: A Plague on My House

I think everyone reaches that point in their lives where they just sit back and say, "You know what? Fuck it. Fuck it all." Ladies and gentlemen? I have reached that point when it comes to the topic of cars.

If you've been reading for a while, you'll remember that Fancy, our 1999 Lincoln towncar has had her issues. We get the oil changed regularly, and we use 93-grade gasoline (even when we can't really afford it). It's an older car, so I get that there would be some maintenance work that would need to be done, but it's now getting officially ridiculous.

Time to Come Out, Juju

I don't know what I expected to happen when I officially declared myself bisexual last week. It's not like the majority of people in my life weren't aware in the first place, although to varying degrees of acceptance, and I'm not an incredibly important person as far as the universe is concerned. But I definitely had a certain paranoia that settled over me. When was I going to get that panicked phone call from my mom, asking me why I'd put such a personal factoid all over the internet? How many people would unfriend me online? In real life? Would I have to constantly monitor the sky for some freak lightning that would strike me dead? And despite all of that fear? Yeah, I'm never going into hiding again.

The Pull List: The New 52

A few weeks ago, we sold our most expensive comic book, the first appearance of The Governor in The Walking Dead. The gentleman that bought it was giddy beyond imagination, and you know what? I'm not going to mock him. Even though I can think of about a thousand other things on which I'd rather spend $300, he has every right to use his hard-earned money on a piece of comic history. But there's another big difference between me and a stereotypical comic buyer: I'm not purchasing books with the hope that, one day, that single issue I got will be worth thousands of dollars. As I've stated before, if I enjoy a comic enough to buy it, I'm going to wait until the trade paperback comes out. With the sheer number of releases that come out each Wednesday, it would be nearly impossible for me to afford my hobby, but by God, certain publishers aren't going to stop trying to entice me.

Life with Pets: Extracurriculars - A One-Act Play

It is early evening in the Three-Juju apartment. Both of the humans have been home from long work days and lazily sit on the couch: THREE holds the Xbox controller firmly and grimaces at the player somewhere in the world that is competing in online Magic: The Gathering 2014 with him, and JUJU attempts to complete a word puzzle while BITSY tries to sit in her lap. ZOLA sleeps under the coffee table, snoring loudly, and BINA stares out the window (still). KITKAT sits on the fake leather chair next to the window, cleaning herself calmly.

JUJU: Bitsy, seriously. Go bother Three. He doesn't need his lap.

BITSY: But I want your lap. 

THREE: (to the television) Did you even read the card? It clearly states that you can't block my creature. 

BINA: Is that a bird? It is a bird. I want it. (chitters)

Dear Sister Person Book Club: His Clockwork Canary by Beth Ciotta

Dear Sister Person,

SO WE MEET AGAIN, BINGHAM. This. Fucking. Guy. How does he even put on pants ever, let alone mastermind a plan to assassinate a monarch? Whenever he enters the scene, all I can picture is Rick Moranis as Dark Helmet, only much more inept and skeevy, in a way that only a robot-porking misogynist can. I am really hoping that, in one of the sequels, Renee, his robot sex slave and "confidant" returns to finish the job she started, only this time by sitting on his face and suffocating him.

Excuse me, I believe I'm getting ahead of myself here.

The Spectacle of Coming Out

Nothing pisses me off more than sensationalism. Well, that's not true. Passive-aggression and denial of agency (among several other things) piss me off more than sensationalism does, but for the purpose of this blog post, I'm going with sensationalism as the centerpiece at which my ire is focused. And now that I've used that word three times, I'm not allowed to do it for the rest of this thing. Hold me to that, okay?

Back in May of this year, Lauren Morelli wrote a very moving coming out story that actually brought tears to my eyes. If you aren't familiar with what I'm referencing, Morelli is a writer for the Netflix show, Orange Is the New Black, and as she began to pen scenes between Piper Chapman, the main character, and Alex Vause, Piper's on-again-off-again lover, she came to the realization that she, a woman married to a man, was indeed a lesbian. Her husband was incredibly understanding, and after amicably splitting up with him, Morelli recently filed for divorce. Oh, and she's also dating Samira Wiley, who plays Poussey on Orange, something that has been going on for a while but only now is being reported by the media. But I'll get back to that in a minute.

The Pull List: Ms. Marvel

As a general rule, I try to at least skim several DC and Marvel titles, just to make sure I'm somewhat in the know in case a customer has a question. This past week, I've read nearly all the Future's End one-shots that have been published so far*, which was quite an undertaking, and even squeezed in the second installment of Death of Wolverine in between Captain Marvel and Deadpool. But not once did I think that I'd be reading Ms. Marvel.

If you look back on my previous Pull List ... lists, you'll notice that not once has Ms. Marvel been on it. I kind of likened it to last week's Teen Dog: cute but not really worth my time. The importance of a Muslim Pakistani girl becoming a superhero was not lost on me, but I was worried that it would be too gimmicky, possibly even pandering to bring in readers, only to utterly fail and then close any doors for even more minority characters to lead their own books. I didn't want the new character to be a token or a notch in Marvel's diversity belt. But here's the thing: I absolutely love this series.

Life with Pets: Fire! - A One-Act Play

Most Sundays with the Three-Juju house are uneventful - and thankfully so - but this particular Sunday has Juju at work and THREE at home, resting on the couch and reading a Star Wars expanded universe novel after an exceptionally long and frustrating week. Or, at least, trying to rest. BITSY and KITKAT continue their Forever War, staring at each other and growling in the kitchen, and BINA, who has just recovered from a kitty cold, has deemed it necessary to bat at Three's face in order to get his attention. ZOLA, as usual, looks forlornly up at Three, her head resting on the edge of the couch. There is a distant beeping that sounds very similar to a fire alarm going off in the upstairs apartment, as it has been for about fifteen minutes. 

Ten Books that Have Stuck with Me

Damn you, Facebook, and your wily ways. Well, hey, at least this new book meme is better than the "post what color bra you're wearing to promote breast cancer awareness" one from a while back. That sure was eyeroll worthy. But this? This I can get behind. I've already added a ton of books to my to-read list, and nothing makes me happier than sharing things that delight me.

Without further ado, my list of ten books that have stuck with me over the years.

The Pull List: Tech Jacket

Tech Jacket, Issue #1
Via Image Comics

Walkin' in the woods ...

Three and I went hiking today, and guess what! I took some pictures, most of which were crap, but I was really happy with these two.

Why, yes, I did indeed play with filters on this one! Why do you ask?

All I did was add a border to this one. Quite happy with how it turned out!

And feel free to go check out some of my other photos on my artwork page.

Life with Pets: Three, The Cats, and a Tent - A One-Act Play

(I know that this is realllllllly overdue - and I am soooooo sorry for that - but a lot of shit went down at Three's work, so it was necessary to postpone posting his very own Life with Pets vignette. Plus, we had last month's 31 Day Challenge, but here it is!)

Dear Sister Person Book Club: Her Sky Cowboy by Beth Ciotta

Dear Sister Person,

So when we decided to read this book, I was, admittedly, skeptical. I'm not really a steampunk fan, but hey, the book had pretty decent reviews. Plus, after my encounter with Courtney Milan's work, I was ready to indulge myself with more romance novels, so I started reading Her Sky Cowboy as quickly as I could.

Her Sky Cowboy* by Beth Ciotta

It only took me a few days to complete the book, which isn't necessarily an odd occurrence. I mean, I finished Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code in a day (And oh, what a frustrating day it was. I've only thrown two books in my life, and that was one of them.). Your text message response about what you thought, as far as you'd read - note: I expected you to finish before me - pretty much summed up my overall impression of the book.

I Have the Worst Luck with Cars, Part XIV: It Spreads Again

Back in 2006, I was driving down the road from my apartment, going to meet my then-boyfriend at a show for which he was doing sound, and as I pulled around a corner, I noticed that a firetruck was on the side of the road, trying to put out a raging fire that had engulfed a Bronco. One of the non-firefighting firefighters waved for me to stop, since the flames were starting to get unruly, and when I came to a complete stop - well away from the vehicle - it suddenly exploded. For real exploded. The blast sent one of the firemen flying backward a couple of feet, and a plume of fire reached for the sky. Thankfully, no one was injured badly (I have no idea where the driver was), and I had a cool story to tell my friends when I arrived in downtown Nashville.

100 Happy Days

Via 100 Happy Days

The Pull List, September 2014

Dammit, my pull list keeps getting longer. There's just so much new stuff coming out, particularly from indie publishers, and it all looks so good. Well, most of it, anyway (I'm not really into horror books, but hey, if that's your thing, believe me when I say that there are plenty of those types of titles to sate your hunger.). Here's what I'll be reading in September:

The day after ...

Well, I guess it's back to your regularly scheduled programming? In that, there is none? I don't know. I am exceptionally tired today and kind of have this weird sense that I'm not totally aware of what's going on. There's so much to do - laundering clothes, cleaning the house, drawing, writing, exercising, designing, planning my next challenge*, working ... this list just keeps getting longer and longer.

At least I'm not bored? 

Anyway, Life with Pets went on hiatus during August because of my Battlestar Galactica challenge, but it'll be picking back up this Friday with the much-anticipated (and much delayed - I'm sorry!) guest post by the Husfriend himself, Three. :) If you'd like to do your own Life with Pets one-act play, feel free to send me what you got (email: juniper.trela@gmail.com)! I'm also adding a bunch more artwork and photographs done by me** over the next couple of weeks (this past month has been ridic busy, and I have a ton of photos to share), in addition to starting the new bi-monthly Dear Sister Person Book Club, and continuing the Pull List. 

Blah, I hate how this is just an info post, but you know what? I am dead tired, so I think I'm going to spend today doing nothing but reading comics. Because I'm an adult and can do so.

* In case you were wondering - or if you didn't already click on the Challenges page - my next challenge is going to be in November, in honor of N7 day: the Mass Effect trilogy! 

** I'm actually considering starting a new Tumblr, but ugghhhhhhhhh, TUMBLR.