Easter Blah, Easter Hooray

It started out as a fairly blah Easter, due to (1) lack of belief in Jesus, at least the resurrection end of things, (2) lack of kids in the house to either color or search for eggs, and (3) backlog of freelance work (me) and work work (girlfriend) that put the kibosh on our vague plans for a hike on what would have been the first free weekend day we've had in ages.

So we spent the day sitting at the kitchen table, me drawing and her editing but me mostly scowling and (mostly) silently cursing a crap Easter day, until mid-afternoon, when we returned a movie to Casa (success!) and looked for a new kitchen table at World Market (fail!) and, what the hell, took the leftover gift cards from Christmas on a field trip to Barnes & Noble.

And lo, there did I an Easter miracle witness.

First off, I'm pathological when it comes to bookstore gift cards. I'll take a chance on something at Bookman's, since it's essentially free and it probably going back to be traded in eventually anyway. But a new book? A nice new shiny book that's sat on no one else's shelf? God, the pressure. So I'd been saving the cards for something special, something that I might want in hardback, something I wouldn't flinch at dropping 25 or 50 bucks on because it's just that awesome, and had settled on The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, by Alison Bechdel, and anything by Daniel Martin Diaz, a Tucson artist who paints and renders in graphite freaky Latino-Catholic-derived stuff that's just totally trippy. And today at Barnes & Noble, there they were, one copy of each, hardcover and spotless, and covered by what was left on the gift cards.


The newest acquisitions.

The girlfriend made me sloppy joes for dinner to make me feel better about the lack of eggs, bunnies, and a ham. She makes the finest sloppy joes in North America and possibly the entire hemisphere, so I felt much much better indeed. It was the perfect capper to the book coup. Hope your day had its own pleasant surprises.