I'm sick. I think I have dengue fever.

Okay, not really. Just a head cold. But still. It could be dengue fever.

Today I got to see The Boyfriend for maybe twenty minutes between his coming home and going to bed. The rest of the day was spent coughing and drawing. I do have a few interesting tidbits for you, though.

The first is an article, Bitchin' Kitchen style, that I just posted on my other livejournal, Haole If You Hear Me, which, if you ever plan on taking the bus here in Hawaii, or if you just want to cackle at what I've endured in doing so, you may want to read.

The second is this...

I found her by accident but this photo cracks me up. A recently crowned beauty queen, covered in sausage. She was evidently made Hot Dog Queen. The unexplained "Zion" headdress deepens the craziness. Best photo ever.


And now my comic, which I drew, inked and greyscaled all today, a record for me. Please enjoy!

I started out as a skinny kid. I was so skinny, in fact, that my parents assumed something must be wrong with me and, upon finding that my overactive thyroid gland had blessed me with the metabolism of Wonder Woman, somehow decided that this was a problem that needed to be solved. The doctors -- all men with no concept of how vital it is to be a size one in your formative years -- completely reversed my good fortune, slowing my metabolism to a snail's pace. Ever since then, I've only had to look at a photo of a doughnut to gain five pounds.

Because of this, I have never been The Pretty Chick. You know the one -- she stands out when she's walking in a group of her friends, who all look like water buffaloes next to her. She has impeccable hair and clothes, straight teeth, she can walk in heels without looking as awkward as a baby giraffe, and she always has an itty bitty waist.

It's important to be one of these girls when you're a teenager. If you do not belong in the Pretty Group, there are only two other places for the likes of you: the Ugly Group, and the Nobodies. The Ugly Group is never really as bad as it sounds, because the Uglies have comeraderie. They stick together and defend each other, forming a protective shield of ugliness around one another. But if you are not quite ugly enough to be in the Uglies, and certainly not pretty enough to be in the Pretties, you're a Nobody, and we are completely invisible.

I've managed to push my way out of that category since High School, having gained recognition and acclaim for my ginormous gazungas, but I still belong to the Chub Club, and my membership may never expire.

It wasn't until several weeks ago that I realized things had gotten out of hand. I can still fit into my clothes, I can still see my feet, and I am still able to see plenty of people on the bus who give me that incredibly comforting feeling of "At least I'm not that guy", which is very important to have when you're in the Chub Club. That tenuous little thread of security snapped during the art class I teach, when one of my five year olds said, "Miss Kit, it looks like you're gonna have a baby."

I was astounded. I mean sure, kids have no discretion about their thoughts, and anyone bigger than their mom is considered fat, and since this boy's mom had -- to my dismay -- lost her enormous tummy as soon as she gave birth to her new baby and immediately shrank back into a size six, I knew I couldn't take it too personally. I tried to set him to rights.

"No, I'm not having a baby, hon."

"Yes you are," he said.

"Okay, go away. Go do something."

I finally decided that the time had come for something drastic. I have tried everything, including a pricey gym membership which, nine moths and nearly six hundred American dollars later, had done zilch for me. With the market being saturated with organic, natural, herbal remedies to my problem, I figured, now must be the safest time to try the pill method.

I browsed the diet section at the store, puzzling over products that contained, not chemicals or medicines with names I couldn't wrap my tongue around, but delicious fruits. Everything I saw that claimed fat burning capability was composed of cranberry, blueberry, acai berry, pomegranate or pineapple. I found myself getting hungry while looking at pills that were supposed to stop all that nonsense.

"These are good," said a woman next to me, holding up a packet of green tea extract pills.

She was thin herself, so much so that I was almost mad at her for perusing the diet section when she should really be at Macy's trying on jeans I couldn't have fit a single leg into. Still, I reckoned, these green tea thingies clearly worked for her, so why not give it a shot?

At the checkout, the cashier scanned the box and then paused, scrunched his eyebrows, and dialed for a manager, a sure sign that I would be standing there until the next election. I immediately went into panic mode. When a cashier calls for a manager I get the same feeling of anticipating danger as back in school when a teacher asked to see me after class, or at work when the boss called me into the office.

"Did I do something wrong?" I asked the cashier.

"Nono," he said. "Well, I dunno. It's like, cough syrup, you know?"

Buh? Yes, of course I know exactly what you're saying. TALK MORE!

"There's a limit to how much cough syrup you can buy cause I guess if you get a certain amount you can make meth."

"Meth?" I said. "God, I can't even make lemon squares."

"Well yeah, so it's probably something like that."

"Uh... then maybe I should re-think this thing..." But we both just stood there, waiting for middle management, like the barrel-scrapers we both secretly were. As we waited, I had time to sincerely contemplate my impending purchase. What was I about to swallow, here? What, when you can scamper off with booze, cigarettes and fireworks with scarcely a glance at your ID, would merit disturbing a manager from her Cheetos break before taking it home and putting it in your mouth?

After about six months the manager arrived -- a vision in square spectacles and fem-mullet -- and she squinted at the cashier's screen which was shielded from my view. It could have said any number of things on that mysterious monitor, notices popping up in response to my dangerous diet product: CRIMINAL. CRACK DEALER. Or, which I most feared and suspected, FAT GIRL.

Cashier Boy and Mullet Lady knew something about me, some terrible secret that I might not have known myself, or would find out the hard way.

Mullet Lady tapped in a code, they looked at my ID, and that seemed to be the end of it. They were both prepared to move on and let me walk away with a possible arsenic cocktail. I decided I'd better speak up.

"So, is there anything in these I should know about?" I asked. "Because if there's crack in these, I don't think I want them."

Our Lady of Perpetual Mullitude squinted at the box with all its professions of all-naturalness and looked for some giveaway in the ingredient listing like "cocaine" or "acid" or "hobo-maker" or "ground up kitten bits". I watched her read, waiting for some sign that I should give up and accept my lifetime membership to the Chub Club.

After a few minutes she harumphed and walked off without another word. The cashier looked at me.

"So... she didn't answer your question, did she?" he asked.

"No," I said. "But if I come back and I'm a zombie, I'll have my receipt."

So I got canned.

I was fired, dismissed, sacked, chucked, possibly also laid off. My record store is on the verge of closing down, another casualty of this ridiculous war and the recession in which it has left us. The price of gas is rising so the price of homes are rising and the price of food is rising and, here in Hawaii, everyone is struggling so hard just to make ends meet, most of them can't even think of going to buy music or books. The things that make us a culture and not just a bunch of people surviving, the music and the films and the books and the comics, the things my store provides to the island, are now being put aside and considered unnecessary in the face of more practical things.

They are keeping a skeleton crew until they figure out if they have to close. I did not make the cut.

My boss was on the verge of tears when he took me back in his grubby little office to talk to me about it, to assure me I hadn't done anything wrong, and that he was sorry. He had only just become aware that I'm losing my home at the end of this month and have not, as yet, found a new one. I let him vent about business while I squeezed back tears of shock and sadness, trying to adjust to the fact that the people who had been my surrogate family for a year and a half voted me off the island.

Being the only full-time employee that was being let go (a slew of others were laid off as well, but they all had other jobs to fall back on), I succumbed to a brief moment of panic, thinking that if there was a worse time for this to come, I can't quite picture it. Everyone knew, and they all looked at me when I came out to my register. So I grinned and said, "Ah, I hated all you bitches anyway."

Everyone suddenly wanted to give me stuff. My boss told me I could go home if I wanted to, it being my last day, and I'd get paid for the full day. One coworker tried to give me her overtime pay, which amounted to a hundred and twenty-five coconuts. To my shock, I discovered principles that did not allow me to take it. Seeing this, another coworker took out his wallet and started trying to give me the four bucks that was in it. My other boss saw the movies and records I'd had on hold to buy later and told me to just take them, no charge, which amounted to about seventy, eighty bucks. I should get fired every week.

And to my shock, I feel fine. Dad said I could mope for twenty-four hours. That was my time to be pissed and sad and to lay around like a lump. After that, it was time to pick up and move on.


So what comes next? I am completely open right now. Depending on my mediocre cartoon for support will do me no good at all, as it's only really brought me enough money to afford to keep the CafePress store open. My first inclinations are to chase brand new opportunities like lion trainer, ninja, or pole dancer.

I've been a barista, a day care teacher, a floral designer and a record store bitch. Maybe this time I want something entirely different. Dolphin tank cleaner at Sea Life Park. Lazy security guard. Surfboard pinup artist. Fisherman. Apprentice pirate. Nude model. Tiki architect. Blues singer with a minor in vintage jazz vocal.

To be honest, I could get back into day care and like it. I realized that working at the store had me in exile, crouched under those buzzing florescent lights and providing nothing useful for mankind. I hid away and bagged on mean or dumb customers and drew cartoons at the register and grew impatient and petty and bitter for no reason. I saw it happening a few months ago, and realized I was becoming a person I didn't like, but I couldn't seem to make the change. Attitude change is a challenge without some atmosphere change to back it up.

In the past two days, since being laid off and thereby freed from the store, I've been feeling pretty great. I don't feel resentful or bitter, I feel like I've just shaken that off like I ought to, I feel happy, optimistic, creative, calm. I'm friggin' Snow White. The evil stepmother of my career had tried to have me killed and run out of the castle, and I'm just chillin', knowing that I'll run into seven little men, and seven is a lucky number.

Maybe things won't work out. They have every opportunity not to -- practically speaking, my circumstances are pretty cruddy right now. I may not find a place to live, I may take too long to find a job and wind up completely broke, but even if I do, I get the impression I'll wind up being okay. How can I not? That's my only option.


Yikes. This wound up positively heartwarming. Let's close here and I'll just make another post for your toon so you can all skip this part. ;)

W. Pitts just game into the store. Mr. Pitts is a middle-aged man with curly puffs of nearly orange hair growing out from the sides of his head. He was, like many of our customers, only concerned with how cheap something was, no matter if he particularly wanted it, and spent over two hundred eggs on discounted DVDs he had never heard of, and rolled his eyes at not getting a discount on a three dollar VHS tape.

After W. Pitts bought his DVDs (giving me a look as I announced the price as if I was the one who made him put them in his cart) he bought a mango juice in a little can.

"Open it for me," he said, putting it in front of me.

"Uhm, no," I said, putting up my hands to keep them from even accidentally touching the can. "I don't touch other people's food or drinks."

"Well I need you to open it or I can't drink it," he said, looking at me like this was totally obvious.

"Look, all you gotta do is pull the tab thing."

"Well I can't do it."

"Why not?"

"Because I never have."

"You can pull on a tab."

"No, I'll tell you why," he said. "When these first came out, people used to pull the tabs off and throw them out their car windows, and I lived in Vermont and everywhere they glittered like a sea of silver. So I said I'd never open one and I never will."

"While I respect your principles, I'm not touching your drink," I said.

"Well then I want my dollar back."

"What?"

"If you won't open it for me, give me back my dollar."

I contemplated going Coffy on him, chucking it in his bag and yelling, "No REFUND, muthafucka!" But I didn't. I just opened it.

Then W. Pitts happily took a drink, told me how refreshing it was, and went on his way.

This is what happens where I work.

Do You Have An ATM?


"Hi, is there an ATM in here?"

"Right behind you," I say for the hundredth time.

"Oh, hello," the customer says as they turn to see the big, tall, glowing ATM machine right in front of their face.

This happens five more times that day. Because people are completely insane. Is it ignorance? Laziness? The inability to find something that's right in front of them? Every single day, some schmoe -- maybe a schmoe who just walked in, maybe a schmoe who has been in the store for hours -- will ask, "Where's your ATM?"

I don't even waste my breath anymore. I just point. Right there. Right where you were just standing, staring at this mysterious shiny thing with buttons and big block letters spelling out "ATM" while you scratched yourself thinking, Gee, I wonder what that stands for. Oh well, I need to ask this girl to find me a money box.

I mean it. All day, every day.

"Do you have an ATM?"

"Hi, where is your ATM?"

"I was told you have an ATM but I can't find it."

"Howzit, I lookin for da kine."

It's right there, RIGHT THERE, you just looked at it two seconds ago! There is a sign, a big glowing sign that says ATM. The sign glows, IT GLOWS! You have to be completely vacant to simply not see such a thing.

But in ten minutes -- just watch -- someone will ask me again.