No, San Diego didn’t kill me. But Seattle almost did.

Comic con was fabulous. Was there ever any doubt? While I wondered how much I would get out of it (only being 99% nerd, after all) I think I came back even dorkier, if possible. The highlights:

• Chatting with (ok, blubbering over) the incredibly sweet Gail Simone.
• Accidentally groping the incredibly attractive Grant Morrison while trying to deliver coherent sentences to him (there may have been alcohol involved in this one).
• Meeting the creative forces behind Unshelved. A comic about libraries? Sexy!
• The goods: a signed Tim Sale print, evocative of his Catwoman “When in Rome” run, Alan Moore’s Lost Girls (akin to smutty literature – my favorite!), and a signed issue of Supernatural Law (rockin’ the idea way before She Hulk, thankyouverymuch).

A short four days later the boyfriend and I flew up to Seattle to see Murder City Devils (a wonderful birthday present, no?). First of all, Seattle , I love you. You’re like New York , only with less people and traffic. You, too, have every ethnic food imaginable available mere steps from one another. And beautiful old buildings that look graceful, not lumbering. And cops on horseback (how quaint!). And I didn’t even really notice an over abundance of Starbucks! ( Orange County may have desensitized me in that respect.)

Our first night in Seattle (the night before the show) we met up with a friend who also happened to be in town and hit the bars. Unfortunately, non-natives that we were, it took us awhile to find said bars. And let me tell you, a few definitely did not meet our expectations. And we like dive bars! Our expectations were not high! But Tiki Bob’s? So not as good as it sounds. To sum that place up? Irish car bombs out of plastic Bud Lite cups. Yeah. Sacrilege.

Finally we stumbled across town and made it into a decent bar where people have been tossing back booze since the 1890s. Our fabulous bartender also happened to do underground tours of Seattle, something that would have sounded fascinating even without that fifth Jack on the rocks. While I fully intended to make one of the tours the next day, our bartender’s alcohol skills proved more attractive than her possible tour guide skills, and I was infirm for most of the next day.

I emerged from under the covers sometime around 5pm the next day, just in time to get ready for the show. We hightailed it out of the hotel around 6, accidentally ran a marathon (turns out, that’s the only way to really cross the street when one is going on and everything is blocked off), and a good 20 minutes later, ended up in Capitol Hill. With good bars. Next door to each other. Heaven!

The show. The show was incredible. One of the few times (only?) that I have stood, sardine-like, with everyone shouting in my ear, and wished that it could have gone on longer. And while the show had to come to an end, the drinking and partying did not die off so easily – Spencer Moody was spinning at Neumo’s right after the show. The music was (as you would expect) fantastic, and the night was perfect. Oh, except for that part where I was screamed at a guy and pushed him off the dance floor.

(Begin ranting now. Feel free to skip to the next paragraph if so inclined.) To back up a bit, I don’t normally cause scenes. I don’t start shit, and I don’t normally get in anyone’s face. I like to live and let live. To each their own, and all that. However.(!) Dudes, if you bump into a girl and spill her drink –on a totally not crowded dance floor, by the way– at least offer to get her a napkin. And preferably another drink. Don’t just stand there, with “tough shit” written on your face, begin to walk away, and then look surprised when I start calling you out for being a jackass. And don’t look more surprised when someone else, an random person, pours their beer over your head to demonstrate their feelings about your jack assery. (Thanks for the sentiment, unknown stranger, but wasting beer? Too much.) You really, really shouldn’t act like a total jerk after a Murder City Devils show, when the odds are that I am intoxicated way past the point of knowing better than kicking your ass (and yet, still knowing full well enough not to spill someone’s drink and then stand there silently). Anyways, his friends pulled him away, I bought my own damn self another drink (you just can’t reach some people), and merriment ensued. There was even some dancing, thanks to friends of friends that took advantage of my drunken state.

Oh, and then there was this. Envious? Yeah, I would be too.