The Paternity Test Is In

Someone mentioned to me that they've stopped visiting my blog because I've stopped talking about Kaia, so I figured I'd share a picture -- though I know that's Steph's gig -- and show you Kaia's latest discovery: her middle finger.

Apparently this week she's figured out she can move her fingers independently of each other. Being my daughter, her first act of independent finger movement was to start flying the bird.

On Sunday, Steph was holding Kaia and I walked up and said something to her (Kaia, not Steph; avoiding pronoun confusion), and she raised up her hand and flipped me off. Brought a tear to my eye.

Okay, honestly, she's doing well. Been eating like crazy. Smiling most the time. She has started getting back up once in the middle of the night to eat, which sucks. We try to take turns, but if Steph has to pump because there's no milk, that means we're both up.

Kaia is taking a bottle or two of formula now, which helps alleviate some of the pressure on Steph to keep up. But then again, you never know when Kaia's going to reject the formula. Sometimes, she doesn't want the smelly shit. Can't say as I blame her. Breast milk kicks ass.



I'm kidding. I've never tried it. Christ.

Lurkers
I know there are you out there who lurk on my blog and never comment. I wouldn't have thought it after all these years. First, that anyone new would be reading and second that they'd be askeered to comment. If you're here at all, you have permission to comment. I don't give this fucking thing out to everyone and you can't really find it by accident.

Neil
So Neil Gaiman isn't coming to Tulsa. I think Jerm mentioned it on his blog. I'm bummed about that on a lot of levels.

First, I was pretty excited to get to see him. I've heard his live readings are pretty cool; he's been called Dickensian. Second, I've been reading his stuff for 19 years. Jones got me an autograph of his a few years back, and I've always been jealous I didn't get to see him in person.

Well, apparently not only has the appearance been canceled, but something's gone to shit. Jerm and I each ponied up $100 for VIP tickets so we could actually hang with the guy for the afternoon. And allegedly, I was going to introduce him to the crowd (though they didn't tell me it was possibly going to be 2000 people, so thank Thor for that).

So you would think since he's not coming we'd get our money back. $100 bones is a shitton of money to me these days (for instance, I still have a week until I get paid and I've been sitting on $20 in the checking account). Apparently, there's some shit going town between the event booker/promoter and Neil's Agency and no refunds are forthcoming. The "L" word has been mentioned (Litigation/Lawyer).

w.t.f.

Jerm's on good terms with the comic shop owner who was co-sponsoring the event, which is where we're getting the lowdown on the situation. Jerm hears all this from him, relays it to me and we decide to send Neil messages via his website.

Not an hour after I sent the message, I get a response from Neil's assistance and Neil himself.

From Neil:

I just heard this from someone else, and am trying to get to the
bottom of it. I was told it had been cancelled at the Tulsa end as
only 40 tickets had sold, mostly to friends, and had agreed to drop
all fees to let them get out. So talk of lawyers etc is news to me...

n
From his assistant:

Dear Corey,

Just got your letter about the ticket refunds. Neil is NOT happy and this will be handled as quickly as possible. We had no idea that this was happening and had assumed everything was fine and that refunds had been issued.

You will be getting your money back and I am looking into this first thing in the morning. I have sent your letter onto our agent and requested we speak as soon as possible.

My sincere apologies for this,

Lorraine

Lorraine Garland, assistant to Neil Gaiman

So that's pretty cool. He's always seemed like a down-to-earth kind of guy, the kind of person who'd take outrage at something like this. I'm not surprised they reacted this way, but I'm surprised he took the time to write me back himself. Pretty cool.

That's all for now. Out.