Beaming Up

Every now and then, one of my friends or family reminds me of my "greatest claim to fame" in the comics industry. Did I write something really groundbreaking? Not unless you consider a never-published inventory story "groundbreaking" in some way (ground fertilizing, perhaps). Do a fantastic job coloring? Um, no. I figured out after one job that coloring isn't the best career path for someone overwhelmed by the color options in a 24-pack of Crayola. Draw? Or letter? Well, if you knew me, you wouldn't ask about those. Let's just say "stick figure" and "chicken scratch" and leave it at that.

No, no, my claim to fame is that I was "cast" as a transporter room crewmember in a few issues of DC's Star Trek comic.

That's right, I really did beam them up. Or at least my alter ego did. In a mini skirt, too.

Keep reading...

And how did I become so famous? Because the writer knew me and decided to use my name, which at the time was Sara Tuchinsky. He often borrowed the names of family and friends when creating new characters and I guess my last name caught his eye as interesting. What he hadn't realized is that that the artist knew me as well. So when he saw my name in the script, he naturally drew me.

I had no idea until the bundle of comics came out (Marvel editors and their assistants at that time got a bundle of comics each week with everything published by Marvel and DC). People started coming down the hall saying "Hey, you're in Star Trek." And so I was, for several issues. I even got hypnotized once so that a weird alien-guy could try to use the transporter without being caught.

Years later, while vanity-googling, I discovered that some Star Trek fan had created a web site listing every single spaceship by serial number. He'd gathered the info from the show, books, and various other Trekkie media, but whenever he couldn't find a ship's name for a particular serial number, he'd make one up from "authentic" names he'd seen in Star Trek material. And there I was, the USS Sara Tuchinsky. I'd include a link, but the page disappeared a couple of years ago. Fame is fleeting.
 

Procrastination

It's 8:30 pm and I'm unpacking and doing laundry after a weekend trip out of town. Or at least, I was unpacking etc.

Now I'm sitting at the computer instead. I just read a few online comic strips and then came here. Because I want to be folding laundry at 10:30 pm? Or because someone is paying me to waste time and write this fascinating blog entry? Or is it that I hope the laundry will magically go away if I run out of time to do it?

And then I wonder...how many blogs have an entry with the title "procrastination." So I use Blogger's Blog Search and find that there are 78,625 posts matching procrastination. At least I didn't start reading them.

Keep reading...a little more procrastination won't hurt...

In my ongoing fight against procrastination, I've begun to realize an uncomfortable truth. It's like weight loss - I already know what I have to do, how to do it, when, where, why, etc. I'm just not doing it. (Obviously, I'm not talking about people who have hormonal/illness/drug-interaction issues. Bear with me, this is just an analogy.) So here I am, ignoring my laundry/exercycle and eating twinkies made of time instead of high fructose corn syrup.

Guilt-ridden as any yo-yo dieter after a mallomar binge, I begin convincing myself to hop out of this chair and get moving with the Spray 'N' Wash and the tedious hanging up of shirts. And then I have a revelation.

A few days ago, I watched the first ten or fifteen minutes of Martha Stewart's new show. Martha was trying to teach Marcia Cross (of Desperate Housewives) how to fold a shirt. Martha laid two impossibly flat, perfectly ironed tee shirts down, did something complicated with her hands for about a quarter second and held up a perfectly folded shirt. It was like watching a good close-up magician. Marcia was standing right next to her trying to follow along with the other shirt and ended up as baffled by the sleight-of-hand as I was.

And now I see it: Laundry should be left to the professionals. This is not something to do casually at home. It's an art, dammit.

Procrastination solved.
 

How I Got My Blog...

I was on the phone with Steve and invented a new word: inertial.

"Is inertial even a word?"

"No, I invented it," I bragged, "and it's great. I should get a blog so I can publicize it."

"Do you want one on Comiculture?" he asked. "I can set it up in about 5 minutes."

"Sure!" I said.

But then, while he set up this blog, I went to Dictionary.com and discovered that inertial is actually a real word. It's the adjective form of inertia, as in "The inertial response to the problem prolonged it."

So I'm not nearly as original as I'd thought. But I have a blog now.