HATE HATE HATE

This is going to be short, because I am at the public library--whose search engine tells me the Portland area has nine copies of 12 Reasons Why I Love Her on order and zero The Everlastings--because the final frustration of a very frustrating SPX was leaving my computer power chord in the hotel. Luckily, James and Randy from Oni had not yet left, so they are bringing it to me, hopefully tomorrow, only leaving me without a computer for two days.

This SPX was a personal nightmare. It began with being taken to the wrong hotel on Thursday night, and ended with me lodging a complaint against a very assholish Super Shuttle driver and the panicked discovery of said power chord's disappearance. It seemed like if there was a metaphorical table end to bang my metaphorical knee into this past weekend, I banged it.

The worst injury amongst the insults had to be the absence of 12 Reasons Why I Love Her from Oni's shipment of books, and the subsequent screw-up of the two replacement shipments meant to fix this mistake. That's three errors in a row by one corporate body which I must stress was not Oni. James and Randy did everything they could to get the books there, and I don't know who I pissed off at the other place, but frankly, they owe me about $450 in expenses.

Not to say the trip was a total waste, but imagine having a write-up in one of the top newspapers in the area and being up for an award for best debut and not actually having the book being promoted to sell. I managed to move a lot of other books, but I could have sold so many 12 Reasons, I can't stand it. Much love goes to the people who came and asked for it on Friday and then returned on Saturday to see if they had arrived. I take it as a high compliment that you remembered to keep looking.

On the plus side, it was a good social show. Oni's crew consisted of Matt Loux, Brian Hurtt, Scott Chantler, and Dave Dumeer, and we all had a fun time hanging out. Plus, Neal Shaffer and Joe Infurnari were around at different times, and Matt's excellent girlfriend Abby Denson. I stayed up until 5:30 in the morning drinking with Bob Schreck, Scott Morse, and Paul Pope, the latter of whom watched as the other three lambasted some poor soul who wandered into our conversation and had the completely opposite opinions on the movies we were discussing. You don't want to mess with drunk movie nerds.

Also, a shout-out to my new friends Greg Thompson & Jen Simmons, who were there with the CBLDF, and to my unofficial weekend hosts, Sarah Grace McCandless and Greg McElhatton. I met Adrian from Broken Frontier, Chris from cIndy Center, Scott Rosenberg who wrote the Express article, Gina from First Second, and Phil from Indie Spinner Rack; I also tipped a glass or two with Phil Bond and Brett Warnock and Jacqueline (sp?) from Top Shelf. Jacqueline has awesome shoes. Finally, I have a minicomic I bought, the only thing I bought that didn't go in my stomach, but it's at home, so I'll plug that at a later date.