For one thing, the Ohio area is where all the publisher-arranged promotional events are held. I'll miss my family and friends when I move, but my dad and doctor are proud of me for thinking of my career first. My mom and sister, on the other hand... are a different story altogether. My sister doesn't want me to leave her behind, so we've discussed letting her move up there with me. A friend of mine volunteered to share a place with her, to keep her from living with me and my girlfriend. That would be a little awkward.
We're still planning on going to Scare Fest from 9/28-9/30, and if she finds a place by then, I'll move up there mid-October. I really want to be there with her on Halloween, as that's our shared favorite holiday. I'll have to take at least some of my All Hallows Read books with me, even though I don't know how many trick-or-treaters we'll have. I'm torn, because I know my best friend's niece and nephew will be here, and I want to leave them some books. My AHR box is overflowing, so maybe I should evenly divide the books so my parents will have some to distribute. If my sister has to stay behind for her job and join us later, she can take care of giving AHR books to the kids. Not sure if my dad would.
Speaking of Halloween... one plus to my moving up there (in addition to selling more books) is that the area I'd most likely be moving to has a huge Halloween store (open year-round), and a whole bunch of used bookstores, including a 2nd & Charles. From what I've heard, it's not as big as ours (and doesn't have a humor section, which sucks), but it's better than nothing. I don't know if that store does author signings... Ours said they can't afford to have them.
Speaking of used bookstores, I'll miss The Book Tavern when I move, though I still want to do a book signing there at some point before I go. I also need to use up my store credit at both Book Tavern and Book Exchange before I go. I have about $21 at Book Exchange and a tad over $11 at Book Tavern, so I'll try to use those up next time I go.
In other news, my birthday is Saturday and I've been getting myself "early birthday presents" since payday. I usually buy myself stuff every month anyway, but this time I got myself more needs than wants, like a new pair of sneakers and a cable modem for the household so we don't have to pay an additional $5 per month to rent one from the provider. I don't know if my folks are planning to cut off the internet when my sister and I move out, but if they don't, I can leave my Roku player so that they can watch Netflix and Hulu Plus on their TV.
I also spent $15 on 12 books at 2nd & Charles and $2.88 on a clearance graphic novel at Barnes & Noble, which were great deals, if you ask me, and also paid $14.99 + tax (total of $16) at Best Buy for Batman The Animated Series vol 3, but that's it for stuff I just wanted. I got the BTAS because my girlfriend has never seen the show, even though we watched Mask of the Phantasm while she was here, and vol 3 (28 episodes on 4 discs) was the same price as the 2-disc Best of Batman, which mostly contained episodes from volumes 3 and 4 anyway. If Best Buy had all four volumes at $14.99 each instead of only the third, I probably would've gotten them all and wouldn't have been able to buy the cable modem or anything else!
Had my girlfriend not driven back to Ohio last weekend, I'd be able to spend my birthday with her. With her gone, and since my sister already had vacation plans that put her out of town through my birthday, it's going to be kind of lonely. Fortunately, I've made plans with friends.
Saturday morning, I'm going with one to the flea market, Book Exchange, and maybe 2nd & Charles and B&N again. My girlfriend got me a 2nd & Charles gift card yesterday and said it should be here before Saturday, so I'll be able to go get some more stuff, hopefully without having to spend any money. I may cancel the flea market and just see if he'd be willing to go to Book Exchange, Book Tavern, and 2nd & Charles since I have credit and a gift card at those places.
Another friend and I are planning to go to the Augusta Museum of History for their Dollar Dog Days of Summer deal... Thurs-Sun this month, admission is only $1 from opening to 5pm! As I only have a few dollars in cash (though I'm considering asking my dad for some birthday money), that would be a great cheap birthday activity, as would a movie at the $1.99 theater.
In writing-related news... Well, there is no writing-related news. I've been too preoccupied planning stuff with my girlfriend to finish editing Odic Touch 2, and haven't written anything else since that essay on 7/13. She wants me to finish the Odic Touch sequel since she's read the first 100 pages I recently edited, and wants to know what happens next. I have 43 pages left to edit, as I have for the past month or so. I really need to make myself finish the edits. Maybe if I get to the end of the completed text thus far, I'll feel motivated to finish writing it... I hope so, anyway.
Oh wait! I just remembered some writing-related news, kinda. I submitted The Odic Touch to a small publisher that is very interested in publishing it in paperback after loving the Smashwords e-book. I know it needs some editing, and so do they, so hopefully it'll be ready for mass consumption soon.
I've been buying more funny comic collections lately. Books collecting comics from The Oatmeal, Lio, Wizard of Id, Peanuts, MAD, and The New Yorker Book of Literary Cartoons; as well as I Saw You..., a collection of comics based on real-life "missed connections." Yesterday I scanned and shared a whole bunch of the literary cartoons on Facebook. I had to make an album full of them. Now I need to add the funny web-comics I found during my search for literary cartoons for Word Nerd Wednesday. I think I'll go do that now. More later...