It's Iron Panther versus the Meanest Martian!

I’m alive! Yes, for what it’s worth I’m here, alive and kicking. Between my sister and my friends, man, I feel like my family is the only household that’s healthy on the planet right now.

 

***

 

My own cold is steadily going away.

 

Had a good KM workout last night. I keep working out with a much more experienced guy, and it’s not easy! He pushes me, hits hard, doesn’t just roll over during our drills. I’m taking some lessons from him in really being a good partner, you know? Learning that’s important not to release the weapon simply because the other guy’s working on a disarming move. He’s got to really DO it.

 

Met a new guy there last night, one almost exactly my size. I was hoping I’d get a chance to pair off with him to train, but we were at opposite ends of the room when that time came. Dang.

 

***

 

Came home and watched some UFC stuff on TV. I like Ken Shamrock, but you know, he’s got some genuine jerks on his team.

 

But, like Mike Llorca said: He’s got a bunch of testosterone-fueled fighters—go figure that some aren’t so nice, right?

 

***

 

THEBOY is so into superheroes at the moment… he’s always asking me to draw them for him, and I’m a so-so artist at best.

 

This morning I had to leave before he was awake. I stopped, and right there during my foggy pre-coffee moments I whipped out a drawing of two new guys I’d made up: Iron Panther (good guy) fighting the Meanest Martian.

 

Iron Panther is what you get when you don’t know who/what you’re going to draw even as you put pen to paper, and you realize that you’ve drawn a guy who looks like a really blocky Black Panther who spent all winter eating at Pancho’s Mexican Buffet.

 

You know, like Roger Clemens…

 

(Badoom!)

 

And the Meanest Martian was really my knockoff of the Vision.

 

Did I mention I hadn’t had my coffee yet?

 

***

 

We’ve been reading Fantastic Four comic books at bedtime each night. Like I’ve mentioned, voicing all the characters is a challenge, but I tinker around with it. If I don’t do a character voice he points it out.

 

A few of them:

 

Ben Grimm (aka the Thing): Gruff and deep, of course. On the one hand, this cold has helped me do that voice. On the other, it also gives me coughing fits when I do it for a while.

 

Reed Richards: Deep and clear, a scientific guy who is still the boss.

 

Johnny Storm: Higher, as he looks like he’s younger, with sort of a rocker mentality.

 

Sue Richards: This is the one that might be most amusing to a bystander. I think I sound like Nathan Lane in the Birdcage when I do this one.

 

The Black Panther: I don’t know what sort of accent a Wakandan should have, so I just pepper in a vaguely UK crispness that’s enunciated clearly and boldly.

 

Sometimes the random characters get the best laughs from THEBOY though. Thugs on the dock, whom I just do as “dumb,” or maybe a random taxi driver, whom I do with what is probably an awfully un-PC accent, just bust him up.

 

***

 

Lunch. Be good.