July 26, 2005
Spent all yesterday afternoon painting Tombstone snakes. Heavily influenced by Sergio Leone, with Indian Charley in extreme close-up and the other snakes in the alley slithering into position behind Hatch’s Pool Hall. Excellent nighttime effects. Can’t believe I did it. Unfortunately, I’m still hanging out on Dodge City Gang (about 85% done) and Doc Vs. Ringo (about 55% done). Worked until about nine last night. Fried, but a good fried.

Finishing a book is like moving. You make about six trips and you think, "Man, we’re almost done. We only have the closets left. This wasn't so bad." And then you make a closet load, and you load out, and you load out and it’s like things in the closet are reproducing (I think this is a classic Dave Barry column). The damn book won’t die! We keep going thru and fixing stuff and more stuff keeps falling out. Happens every time.

This is Christina’s last night in the States. We are taking her to Tonto Bar & Grill tonight for dinner. We have really enjoyed having her around. On Sunday, Deena and Ursula came out for a salmon dinner and afterwards I dug out a video of our family at Panguitch Lake in July of 1995 (exactly ten years ago). Of course, Christina and Tomas were just there and rented a boat and cruised around the lake, and there on the video is Tommy at 12 years old, with braces and a pony tail, doing the same thing, only in a smaller body. Tom commented he thought they rented the same boat.

Also on the tape was my 30th high school reunion. I captured Charlie and Linda Waters coming up the walk to the Elks Hall in Kingman (Chas had never been to a reunion). Tons of other classmates. It was funny watching the tape because we are having our 40th in about three weeks and it was painfully obvious on the video that a couple of my female classmates really dislike me. You could see it in their eyes plain as day (I held the camera and walked around obnoxiously talking but keeping the video going). Kind of painful. So high school. Ha.

"Show biz is high school with money."
—Martin Mull