After three stinky days on the road, I was blissfully happy to relax chez my uncle Fritz Pohl in West Hollywood. I know, I know. I'm not very hardcore--the Anarchists should have booted me out on my ass.

Fritz and his wife Meg's art-filled home and backyard hot tub was nirvana after spending one night in The Stardust with a shower that left me feeling slimy and a second night in an apartment where I was too shy to use the shower.

This is Fritz's wife, Meg Liberman. She's with Tamara Faith Berger and Henry. Isn't Henry cuuuute? Isn't their backyard nice?

San Jose was also super. If you're ever in town, definitely check out Anno Domini, the most incredible factory turned art gallery you'll ever see. It was thoroughly disguised as a non-descript brick building in an industrial part of town. This is a shot from their website of their store, which sold art books and artists' prints. I think they also run a design firm out of the space.

It's worth mentioning that we got into a vehement discussion about whether Courtney killed Kurt after the show--just because it's a good opportunity for me to chip in with my opinion. I DON'T CARE!

One other thing worth noting about San Jose: Sonja swears it's legal in that town to do a left turn on a red light. I'm a little dubious about that, but nevertheless, she got away with it at midnight when we were trying to take a bite out of the 12+ hour drive up to Portland.

In order to make it there, we ended up driving for an hour and a half after the San Jose show in order to pay for a motel room that we were in for exactly five hours. Oh, and there was a shirtless, muscle-bound guy doing wheelies in his topless Jeep in the parking lot when we arrived. Fun, fun.

This is around when fate forced us to stop at Heaven on Earth for the second time, even though we'd previously sworn to never eat their gooey, overly sweet cinnamon buns ever again. Wave to Sonja!

Portland. Ahh, Portland. An oasis of indie press lovers in a sea of people who don't care. There's an incredible community there and Reading Frenzy, the sweet, zine-loving bookstore that hosted our event was packed. I actually sold out of Kiss Machines in Portland, because Reading Frenzy and "legendary independent" Powell's down the street bought so many damn copies! Three cheers and a burp for Portland!

Here are two shots of me introducing the superheroines who showed up that night. Tamara took the following series of photos.

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Here are a couple close-ups of the heroines. Aren't they cute? They took off after the show to fight corporate crime and sing karaoke. It was really nice of them to take time out of their busy schedules to come to a book launch, don't you think? I don't remember all their powers, but the woman on the right below had the power of sassiness and the woman in the neon yellow cape above was super-sarcastic.

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