Latest Thoughts:Well, she does have an I.Q. of 794. She wasn't bragging in the third panel, just expressing the true relationship between her and most people. And I think it's ironic that she was talking about herself---as Lorelei---and he completely misunderstood.

And it says something about his character---that he will take any perceived insult---as a deadly one.

Featured link:

SARAH ZERO---beautiful stylistic art, action at eighty miles an hour, pop culture parodies...sort of like an action heroine on speed.

If you want to know when I update---although I've been aiming for Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays...you can go to COMIC ALERT and sign up to see when Mindmistress...and many other webcomics...update.

Fifty summers.

Fifty seasons of thunderstorms and sun-bearing heat, intermixed.

Fifty years where pools are opened and people can swim.

Summers when I played on the playground.

Summers when I was teaching my young boys how to swim.

And summers, like today, where Brian picks me up from work and has to make a stop at "his office" on the way, since he has his own summer job. A sales job, that he can do for a while, and then stop---since he's going to Monterrey tomorrow, with his church group.

San Diego the week after, to pick up a car left him by his grandmother...and drive back with a friend...

And church camp the week after.

He seems to have a talent for selling...like his grandfather, my father.

Fifty summers.

Fifty years old sounds old.

But fifty summers sounds ...lucky.

Exceptional.

Blessed.

To live to see the seasons turn, for half a century, to that happiest and sweatiest of months...

To hear Dave Matthews singing as the window's halfway rolled down, in a refreshing summer rain, as your son takes the Interstate...

To have Eric giggling in the pool...

Or Eric diving to the bottom of the deep end, to fetch a grandmother's earring....

To know that the comics or novels of my youth have become the blockbuster movies of my adulthood (RETURN OF THE KING; SPIDER-MAN 2)---

Sometimes the sun hangs heavy in the sky, or the humidity is stifling...

Yet even when the heat is oppressive, there are things to do.

Fifty summers.

Fifty summers like fifty bottles of a fine vintage, each a different year, each tasting subtly different...

Walking with Eric, and him running from the loud noise of a lawnmower, the sound too intense for his less-filtered hearing, causing his autistic mind distress...

Fifty summers are an accomplishment and a measure of joy, like fifty diamonds in a jewelbox...sparkling and shiny...

Fifty summers.

May I see one hundred of them.

Or more.