Living Down, Playing Up, Drawing Out

It's been good to get back to doing Open Mic night again.  The last couple times, I'd close the bar with the punk guys, then wind up back at their apartment until about 5:30-6am.  Then I'd go home and get Isabella ready for school, and go to bed.  This is one of those times that my usual night schedule benefits me, and by the time I get home, I'm not dragging ass and irritable toward my kid.  In fact, given the performance and the "after party", I felt accomplished and pretty damned good about myself.  Once my head hits the pillow, I'm the most comfortable guy in the world.  I'm grateful for it, since Saturday brings with it a broken sleep schedule that leaves me tired the whole day. 
The prospective band that I've been in contact with may be getting together next week some time.  I'm still having trouble keeping my hopes up, but we've gone farther with planning this than other musicians who contacted me in the past.  We've got a reasonable list of songs to work through, and my confidence is pretty good right now.  The Open Mic nights did a ton for that.
The whole "looking at publishers" thing, now that's not going so hot.  I keep having doubts about who would take Golden Brown without asking me to completely revise it.  I know I'm supposed to be prepared to compromise on things like this, but I've worked on this story for a total of over 4 years, including hours of revision, editing, rewriting, redrawing...I'm DONE doing that.  I want it published, I want it out there for others to be able to thumb through and laugh at.  Oh well, keep trying.
On a related note, I received a paycheck from the Farmer's Union paper in Bismarck yesterday, for an editorial cartoon I was asked by Mike Shirek to draw.  Not my first paid illustration gig, but it is my first paid comic gig.  I keep forgetting that when someone asks what I do for a living, I can technically call myself, among other things, an Illustrator!