My faith in the universe is usually always tested right before everything works out. Either that, or I’m really good at making lemonade from lemons, but only at the last possible instant. I’d been hoping to hear back from a couple of people by now, regarding the gainful employment of yours truly. I mean, it’s not that I’m not proud of what I’ve accomplished with The Vaults of Uncle Walt since it began early December, but no one has come up to me with wads of cash, demanding that I must be paid, either. I suppose I could have ads, but I hate sites with ads, especially if those sites are blogs. I feel that the advertisements demean the flow of thought and distract from the enjoyment of the author’s written word. That being said, it is a source of income that does not necessitate my leaving my apartment. Something is going to happen within a couple of days; I can feel it. Just like the aches and pains flare up in my knees before there is a storm, I can usually sense something coming which will challenge a status quo, and in this case, that almost certainly means a source of income. Have I set myself a challenge? Sure. Is it impossible? Don’t know until I’ve tried. Any regrets? The damnable speed at which I operate, perhaps.

Even now, as I’m calming writing out these words to all of you, my mind is racing, coming alive with possibilities. I find it better not to interrupt myself when I’m travelling at top speed, so I’m going to keep focusing on the task at hand: distracting myself while I try to work out some solution. Tomorrow looks like it will be a busy day for me, with lots of walking and supplication. If I’m lucky, I can find something to pass my waking hours within walking distance of my home. If I’m luckier, it will pay me enough to actually do more that just keep my head above water. The longer I’ve waited to jump back into the fray, the worse my anxiety has gotten. In addition to not knowing which mindless task I might hate the least, I now have to deal with the prospect of acquainting myself with not only new coworkers, but new customers as well. There’s a pizzeria nearby that could seriously use some help. They’re not advertising it, but I’ve tasted what they have to offer. They need someone to overhaul their dough, and their sauce could use some work as well. Maybe I worked my last job for more than just the opportunity to find my future son-in-law.

In other news: Yesterday was Free Comic Book Day. I decided that it had been awhile since the Minkey and I had done anything fun outside the house, so we got up at a reasonable hour, got dressed, and headed out to Berkeley to see what free stuff we could wrangle. I’d called up a friend of mine a couple of days before, and made plans to meet up with him as well. I hadn’t seen him since Wildflower and I attended his wedding, and had been unable to actually figure out a time to go hang out with him the entire month of April, so I figured that we could, at least, decimate the local population of birds in just one go. Nick was coming from The City, and didn’t want to wait around in line for hours, and I wanted to be cheap and take two buses instead of shelling out for BART (not to mention that I still wanted at least a little bit of sleep), so figured we would see what the line looked like when managed to get to Berkeley, and go from there. I’m glad we didn’t get there any sooner.

David and I got there a little over half an hour before Nick. At first, the line didn’t look that bad. And then, as we walked toward what we assumed to be its terminus, our hearts began to drop: the line was stretched around the building, and down almost the entire block. It we had come out sooner, we would still probably have had to wait in line. There were people in costumes looking weary, like they’d been there for quite some time. David would never have made it. But it actually worked out. We didn’t have all that long to wait before Nick joined up with us, and once he’d joined our party, time moved a little faster. David, of course, began complaining he was hungry. We finally got inside, grabbed our free stuff, and shuffled out with the little one to go find something to fill his little belly. Of course, being Berkeley on a Saturday, the places which we wanted to patronize weren’t quite open yet. So we bummed around to kill some time until Jupiter finally opened. We bought something to drink, and smoked a cigarette, and tried to leave David wedged inside of Modern Art.

It was then time to go have lunch. I won’t go into too great of detail, except to mention that if you’re in Berkeley, and like good beer and pizza (and the most amazing garlic bread I’ve ever tasted), then make sure you stop in at Jupiter before you leave. That wasn’t a paid advertisement, until the fine folks at Jupiter would like to make it one.

Oh, and the Minkey picked up a new nickname: Derpdevil, The Boy Without Sense. My friend, Fed, has said that my son is either a genius, or its polar opposite, and most everyone else agrees. He’ll spout something so profound that you literally have to stop and process what he’s just said, and then he spazzes out and hits the people sitting behind him with branches which he’s scavenged from the street. And whereas Daredevil has heightened senses to compensate for the one he’s lost, David has all of his intact, and they seem to be having the reverse effect, making him less aware of what’s going on around him.

We paid the bill, and Nick said he was heading back to get a comic signed by Gail Simone. I had wanted her to autograph my Kindle Fire, but I saw the line and just knew it wasn’t worth it. So we said goodbye to Nick, and his friend Oliver (who had joined us at Jupiter for lunch), grabbed a shot with a TIE fighter pilot and Stormtrooper, and then headed home.

We could have taken two buses to get back, but David was bouncing around with an overabundance of energy, so I decided to have us walk almost two and a half miles to burn a little bit of that exuberance away. As any parent reading this will guess, that was a mistake.

He made it almost halfway before deciding that what he’d really like to do would be to stop somewhere and use the facilities. And of course we’d been zig-zagging through the residential zone, so there weren’t any shops around (or decent vegetative cover). With about a mile to go, we finally found a little cafe. The waiter was far nicer than he might have been, and allowed David to run inside to use the restroom, despite the foreknowledge that we would not be paying customers. I’m going to end the story here, because what happened next isn’t for the faint of heart. Suffice it to say, however, I’m seriously considering taking him to some sort of specialist…