This time my lateness is all because I don't appear to have internet at home. I tried, kiddos, I promise, but it looks like my internet is planning to give me trouble for a long time. At least I have slacker privileges at work. ;)

I'm working really hard on myself these days, and feeling better and better because of it. It's tough because even though I'm practicing cultivating compassion and happiness, I recognize that I have a lot more internal work to do and that I need to take a class or find a guide or something, and the more I try to focus and to generate inner poise, the more troubling issues come bubbling up, like a giant soup. They say this is how you know you're making progress, but I feel super emotional as a result. I wonder... how does one find a reputable yoga and meditation teacher in Hawaii? One who is genuine and cool and not a total fruit loop?

On the plus side, it's giving me lots of new toon material. ;)

I miss you guys so much! Tell me about how you are and what you're up to.


Here is your rerun! Somehow, one of my absolute favorites. Enjoy!

So I've been reading this book which is partially about India and the discovery of one's own self and power through mediation and prayer, and this -- of course -- while it's beautiful and righteous, immediately puts me to mind exactly how much work I need to do on myself. Naturally, I have no idea how to meditate, and I really feel as if, like home dentistry, it's not the sort of thing that should be practiced without some serious instruction first, so at this point I'm just floundering in all these thoughts of my own spiritual and emotional inadequacies.

I try to focus on loving kindness, filling my mind -- and therefore my corner of the world -- with good, warm feelings, spreading out like little spiderwebs of joy and acceptance, calming my monkey mind and inviting tranquility and grace into my brain. The trouble was, I was doing this first thing in the morning, on the city bus, with a guy in front of me talking loudly on his cell phone and a lady next to me who kept trying to shove her duffel bag onto my lap. Possibly the best place in world to start -- but then again, possibly not.

Still, I was doing all right, until I got off the bus and realized that the roadworks had made me late for work and that my manager was already there, ready to see me walk in late. Then my poise got a little rattled.

Erica, my manager, was just fine with me being late, but this didn't help my sudden anxiety, since anxiety is always looking for excuses to come in and root through your fridge, and then it just won't leave.

Sara, the new hire who is very sweet and cute, said, "Do you take the bus? Cause you have that same look on your face that I have when I get off the bus."

"Yeah," I said, sighing. "Worst part is, today was the day I was going to start practicing inner poise and developing a calm and enlightened and loving attitude toward the world. Har har."

Then Erica cocked her head at me and said, "Kit... you are, like, the most calm and peaceful and radiant person I know. You have this completely kind and relaxing presence, all the way to your voice. Why would you even say that you need to improve on that?"

For a second I just stood there. I didn't see any of that, but if she did, that was a big deal to me. It made me feel like I'm not as hopeless as I thought.

I think if my life were being watched in little bursts by some person or other, it would seem very absurd.

Burst: Early morning on the bus, reading Nicholas Nickleby two seats down from a man periodically shouting at no one.

Burst: Afternoon, trying to explain to a four year old why it's not okay to paint your body parts instead of the paper while another four year old declares that he has stickies in this pants.

Burst: At home, watching Star Trek with The Boyfriend in between Brad Neely impressions and bicycle crunches.

Burst: Stooped over the kitchen sink, trying to dislodge from a fish tank the skeleton of my deceased algae eater with chopsticks.

Burst: At the desk, putting the final touches on a comic strip featuring myself, a dragon and a kilted Scotsman (spoiler!)

Ah well. It's a fun life anyway.


For you gals -- you know who you are -- who get it. Kilts are magic. And, just a note to all those men not of Scottish descent, though I am happily taken I shall still quote Mae West: "I like two types of men; foreign and domestic." Enjoy.



The reader will please take note of my elaborate use of background scenery.


Reader React: If you chuckled at this comic, comment and tell me who Finn would be pulling you away from!

A few stars about my week...

* I saw a recent picture of Zac Hanson, all long hair and kung-fu, looking like a young and significantly more buff Stephen Tyler, and he was so fine that I actually felt a wave of despair.

* I just finished re-reading Good Omens and it is officially on my as-yet-not-fully-set-down all-time top 5 favorite books ever.

* At the supermarket the other day there was a man with a completely scarred-up face, who looked as if he'd lost it to a fire and been re-constructed. I didn't take much notice at first -- just glanced, had a momentary "poor dude" thought, and went about my business -- but then I heard him shouting to whoever he was on the phone with, in a real evil-villain-from-Batman voice, "I just wait for the horrific death of laughter! Laughter is, above all this, most disgusting..." he was still ranting but I was too freaked to listen any more. He must have been just randomly crazy, but f'real, that is some no-nonsense comic book shit. I was ruffled.

* Why does getting new bedsheets feel so damn great? It's like a semi-adult thing, picking out house stuff with your guy and liking the same designs, but it also makes me feel like a kid because the ones we picked out are totally candy-colored and delicious.

* Had a serious attack of missing my dad today. Wish you were here, Pop. Just up the road or at least on the same land mass.

* Extra love goes out to Whitney, Liz, Juliet, Ashley, Jen and Shar. I miss you a million. And Soo, of course, who makes everything better.



With no further ado, let's have a comic, shall we? Love you guys!

It's a mixed bag this week, 'roos. On the downside, I'm being completely ignored by my coworkers, I'm swamped with projects I can't walk away from, I can't manage to cook anything new and interesting, and I think my last surviving puffer might soon buy the farm. The other two disappeared and Aramis, the last one, started swimming erratically and floating. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong.

On the upside, my etsy shop is doing so well in its first week that I already made seventy bucks! I can't help but be excited about that. Plus, my boyfriend is great, my family is great, and I am great.

So, a little bit of a lot of things. Let's have a comic, eh?




I'm fully convinced this happens almost nightly. Yes, the comic is dark, but that's just because it's night. See, I'm all artsy like that. :p Enjoy, all!

My life is in a confusing spot just now. I find myself pretty lonely in between working because The Boyfriend is also working twice as much as I am, these crazy hours of mandatory overtime that really ought to be illegal and probably are. Without him around, I find myself reaching out for anyone who might be around, and in that I sometimes get burned. I recently talked to an old friend who I'd missed dearly, only to find that he hadn't missed me, and didn't seem to care or even notice that he'd completely dumped our friendship once he got a girlfriend. At least, this is how it came across. This was a real bummer, and it seemed to enhance the loneliness for a little bit.

There is an end in sight, it will get better, it's just a ways off. I'm sure a lot of you out there in different time zones are going through the same thing. I wish we could catch up on the phone when you're not already in bed or I'm not at work. We shall all endeavor to hang in there.

I feel comfortable with you guys, even those of you who I don't know personally -- you who are reading this are, in part, a comfort zone for me, and I wish I could grab you all together and have a massive slumber party. I could use one. Or maybe just the slumber part...



In the meantime, I will paint and draw for you, and for those who will pay me for it. ;)

Please enjoy today's cartoon and, I beg you, take it in the spirit of fun in which it is intended.

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."

I will not admit that I'm getting sick, so just infer what you want. I really wish I didn't hate tea so much... or that I had any milk in the house to make a nice 'mater soup.

The main point is that I know I'm late, I'm sorry I'm such a bum, and I may be just a little sad that I didn't get any emails or phone calls reminding me that I'm a bum, but hey, you're all too nice. Ive been lagging behind because I have so many painting commissions to get to, some with deadlines, and my mom's birthday was on Tuesday and I've been at work more than usual as well.

I mentioned to The Boyfriend that I was contemplating a brief (brief!) hiatus, just to catch up, and his eyes lit up.

"Would you let me be your guest cartoonist in the meantime?"

I was delighted. It's an awesome plan. I give him full creative license -- he could even kill me, I told him -- and hopefully he'll start soon. Don't worry, I am not leaving you, I just need to get things in order. I don't know when exactly the break will start, but when it does, I'll be leaving you in excellent hands. The Boyfriend has a Jack-Kirby-influenced old school comic book style that I think is brilliant and marvelous. With luck, we'll all have a good time.

I'll post more later with photos of the projects I've been taking on, but in the meantime, enjoy your comic.

Oh man. Today was lousy. At least, work was. My first art class was really good, but the second went to pieces and it had to be the day that my boss was observing my classes for a review. I left feeling like I wanted to start drinking beer in mass quantities.

On the upside, there's no feeling so good as being on my own with my group of three-to-five year olds for a drop-off art class, confessing that I'm having a bad day and having them gather around me like my best friends and say, "It's okay, Miss Kit, it's only one bad day," and "You're a good teacher anyway." Daniel, the freckle-faced goofball made me giggle by saying, "Just make sure a bad day doesn't turn into a bad hair day!" Kids are so effin' great.

Of course nothing really chases the bad day blues away like a good long hug from The Boyfriend, followed by him making goofy faces at me.


Your comic today is based on a conversation The Boyfriend and I had about women in popular comics, and how there is rarely a role for them beyond sexy uniforms and sassy comebacks. The good lines and good personality traits are reserved for the male characters, and the women are there to look hot and be a part of a traditional fantasy. This is not true of all comics by a longshot, but the majority seems to hold it as law. Anyway, this sprang from it.

It is also shaded in the brand spankin' new, delicious and wonderful Prisma greyscale markers I just got from my friend Kristin! I'll reserve telling her she shouldn't have because I'm just pleased as punch that she did, and so if today's comic looks good at all, it's all to her credit. ;)

Please enjoy!




Also, I got an unfinished small wooden puzzle and decided to paint a little something on it. I may try to sell it later, who knows. Of course, it just had to have a blowfish in it. ;)

Just penned this masterpiece...

I Hate My Neighbors (A Love Song)

I need to sing a song about
The people on my street
Cause if I keep my big trap shut
Someone will get beat

I live in a ghetto cause
Land prices are so high
It wouldn't really be that bad
If my neighbors would all die

The men stay home all day because
Nobody's got a job
But if they feel ambitious they'll
Find someone they can rob

If the women go to work
It's down at Bunny's Bar
They scream at all their children
And they double park their car

And every single day my neighbors
Smoke a bag of pot
And the smell comes through my windows
And I wish their lungs would rot

They hang out at the laundry pit
To fight and smoke and bray
So I can't use the dryer, though
It's busted anyway

Not a single day goes by
Without an awful row
The shouting and the cursing
Floating up from down below

And do I need to hear you scream
When your girlfriend sleeps around?
She might be faithful if you quit
Blasting Jay-Z so damn loud

They stare at me when I pass by
And loathe me cause I'm white
I wish they'd shrivel into raisins
If I concentrate, they might

I'd shoot them way up into space
Or drop them in the sea
Or leave them in a lion's den
Drenched in hot gravy

Yes, my neighbors are quite vile
And reek of weed and beer
But I'm stuck with each one until
I move away from here.


Thank you, thank you all.
*curtain*

Man, I am really pushing my deadlines. Last night I was up inking this until just minutes before bed. I used to do these cartoons a month in advance, but I've lost my lead, and I'm starting to feel like I've lost my touch as well. The ideas aren't coming as easily to me as they used to.

I guess at this particular moment in life, it's easy to feel a little lost -- I'm sitting here at work in a shirt with a huge cartoon clown on the front, with Play-doh on my pants and a little under my nails, and I feel like I'll be low on money and dignity forever. I still think that the most noble thing in the world we can do is make other people laugh, so I'll keep trying even if it's tough to keep up.

I don't know if Finn in this comic is trying to be my friend and give me good advice, or trying to be my demon and encourage me to continue being broke and unpublished... He's sort of playing both sides of my brain.

Enjoy!

Grrrr. I swear, I would like one day, JUST ONE where I can stop worrying about money. I hate worrying about money. I hate that it's so necessary so as not to get into trouble. I hate that not having enough makes me unable to live anywhere with decent neighbors, less cockroaches, actual windows, clean air, working plumbing and fewer bloodcurdling screams and curses at all hours of the day and night. I hate that no matter how much I get paid, it's always already spoken for the moment I get it. I hate that I'm painting cheesy tacky tourist crap in order to pay my electric bill.

WAH WAH WAH.

Sorry. I'm having a bit of pecuniary frustration. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.


A comic for my homies, to chase the ol' blues away. Happy soon-to-be-Wednesday! I love and miss you all.

I was always a picky eater. It's just one of those things, like a lazy eye or leprosy, that you're born with. Usually it doesn't effect one's life too much -- apart from ridicule at the dinner table, eye rolling, exaggeration about the number of things you actually will eat, which is always described as being only three or four -- but it does limit you in many ways.

The one type of food that I can say I'm not picky about at all, that I will try any variety of, that I will never turn my nose up at even were I on the brink of death, is doughnuts.

Doughnuts are the I Ching. They solve every problem that could possibly inflict mankind. Doughnuts are little fluffy round holy saviors; delicious divinity with cream filling. Glazed gurus. Bavarian bodhisattvas. They sacrifice themselves for our happiness. Doughnuts are Jesus.

Here on O'ahu island, we are so lost and misguided without a proper doughnut shop, the nearest Krispy Kreme being on Maui, that we have actually formulated a sneaky pastry cartel, flying Krispy Kremes over from Maui and selling them by the box on the streets for ten or twelve bucks a pop. We have been lead inexorably into a life of vice on the doughnut black market.

I like every kind of doughnut I have ever come across. You could stuff a doughnut with spinach and mushrooms and squid and cauliflower and all manner of things that I find deplorable and inexcusable, and I would probably still like it. I like glazed, filled, chocolate, cream cheese, bear claw, cinnamon bun, with sprinkles, with maple, with anything.

But I can't say that I've always felt this way. There was a time when jelly -- even in God's chosen form of doughnut -- was wholly unlovable to me. I was young and foolish, four, or maybe five, and a jelly doughnut was not a thing that I could abide. There came a day, one of the many when I was stuffed into uncomfortable clothes and carted off to church, a thing I chose to stop doing about the age of eight. I was left to kick around the lobby for an hour or so while my parents were in choir practice, and since my older sister had abandoned me on the grounds that I was really annoying, I had nothing else to do but find something to stick in my mouth. What I liked about church was that they often had doughnuts, and so I went to inspect my jackpot.

Imagine my distress on discovering that a jelly doughnut was the only doughnut available. Either from a newfound sense of adventure and curiosity or reckless desperation for some form of pastry, I trounced the first jelly doughnut that looked like it had enough powdered sugar to give Aspen some healthy competition. My first bite was difficult to endure, being that there was plenty of jelly goop involved, but I was a tenacious little sucker, and I persevered in my task until I came to the realization that I didn't hate it.

Such a revelation, such dietary bravado as I had just demonstrated deserved the attention of my parents. Surely choir practice wasn't as important as the fact that I'd tried a jelly doughnut and actually liked it. Leaving the other half of my doughnut on a table, I immediately burst into their choir room to interrupt the harumphing and shuffling of paper that, in my observation, always seemed to occupy the chief of their time (and the time of all grownups everywhere, come to that). I explained to my parents why they should be exploding with pride for me.

I received a patient but indifferent answer, and the polite encouragement to go play somewhere else, which I happily did, having a doughnut to look forward to. I skipped back to my table, joyful in the discovery of a brand new Thing That I Liked, and the assurance that I could now resume eating it.

But when I got back to my table, there was no doughnut of any kind. Gone. Missing. Cruelly pitched by some black-hearted, doughnut-hating monster, bent on depriving little girls of new discoveries. I weighed my options. In such a situation, there was only one tactic. I cried.

Back I ran to the room where my parents were attempting to continue practice with the rest of their choir, which had to be held up once again by a crying little girl in an ill fitting dress, sobbing, "Muh-my doughnut's g-gone!"

Billy knocked my tooth out. My puppy got hit by a car. My big brother shaved my head while I slept. None of these things could be uttered with such heartbreak and shock as, "My doughnut is gone." This was pure tragedy.

The other adults shrugged and shuffled their papers, my parents tried to console me while explaining that, in proper society, people who see a half-eaten doughnut sitting on a table will presume that it's trash, and throw it away. This, I was to understand, is the cruel way of the world.

Which did nothing to make up for the loss of the first jelly doughnut I had allowed myself to love. I shuffled back to my lonely, clean, doughnutless table and thought back to that carefree infatuation, fleeting, unexpected, doomed. It was a love not meant to be. It was my first lesson in the harsh, bitter ways of the world. It was, now that I think about it, my last jelly doughnut.

But I like the cream-filled kind better anyway.

I was tagged by the delectable Liz J. to list nine things about myself and tag nine folks to to the same, and since I can't let my Lizzy down, and since I love to talk about myself, I shall.

1. Today I bought two pairs of sunglasses for five buck apiece (which is more than I've paid for sunglasses in, like, ten years). One of them is yellow, a therapeutic trick I recommend to anyone to make your day better, and one rose-colored. They look great on me.

2. I have to be out of my apartment in a week and I'm no closer to finding a home, or a job. I'm not even packed.

3. I'm currently listening to a rich, chocolately, delicious CD by French artist Tete called Le Sacre des Lemmings, sent to me by my new music guru who lives in France. Thanks for the parcel, my dear! I'm looking forward to listening to all of them and then sharing them with Lily.

4. I am sunburned and I love it.

5. I am desperately looking forward to picking out laundry baskets and silverware sets and setting up bathroom stuff and kitchen stuff and office stuff and living room stuff. I need to do this so badly that I'll start vibrating if I think about it too long. A part of me is afraid that The Boyfriend and I will clash horrifically on issues of decorating, but we've promised each other not to let it tear us apart.

6. I'm becoming a coffee drinker and this petrifies me. Of course, I can only drink sissy coffee, with chocolate and caramel and lots of milk, but still. One day I was cranky until I got some coffee. This creeps me out.

7. Yesterday I saw the most adorable tiny little wiener dog puppy. She looked at me with her little beady eyes as if begging me to take her home. If they didn't want a thousand bucks for her, I might have.

8. I am probably doing more painting and drawing than job searching, apartment hunting and packing. Hey, I could have worse destructive behaviors.

9. I still want to go to New Zealand. Secretly, I still think it might actually be perfect.


All right, enough about me! I pick you: Whitney, Jen, Raj, Nathan, Ashley, British, Kristin, Dad, Andrew.

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. ;)

I've got to get out of here.

I've been escaping all my life, taking off without anyone knowing, packing up my shit and moving all the way across the world -- in my head. The truth is, I never do this thing that I really want to do, I'm not brave enough or smart enough or rich enough or strong enough to just go away and tell everyone in my life about it only when I get there, and start over. The truth is, it's my biggest fantasy. The truth is, if my id had her way, I'd never stay in a place longer than nine months.

But the truth is, I'm a housecat, not a rocket girl. I get choked up when I think of the word "home". I need a place to write from and draw from, windows to look out of, a bed that smells like me, a place to keep my cat, a shelf for my books and knicknacks and things. Maybe this place ought to be somewhere exotic -- this island, for example, satisfies my need for adventure in a lot of different ways -- but at the end of the day my heart, my tender, squooshy, badly knitted, partially unraveling heart, needs a couch with my cat on it, and this, my computer, the Beast's magic mirror looking outside.

I accept that I will not do what I've pretended I always wanted to do. I will not book passage to Puerto Rico and live alone in the jungle for weeks in search of El Chupacabra. I will not fly to India and live among the elephants. I will not go to New Zealand. Maybe ever.

I'm on the verge of a lot of big kid things. I have to find a new home by the end of next month or I'll be homeless. I keep looking through advertisements that say things like "1/1, w/d, 1p, pt. furn." and all I can think is, do I want to stay here? I'm increasingly alone, dealing with a mother who is moving out, a sister with a new best friend, and a boyfriend who is living with his old roommate, whose schedule is opposite from mine, who swears that he loves me and wants to be with me, but it feels like something is missing. Right now a lot is up in the air. His new job, us finding a place by mid-August, coming up with money we don't have -- who has time to get mushy with each other? I understand, it's just I'm new at this. He shows me a lot of love, but at the end of the night, he still goes to his place and I'm alone in mine, and I feel like maybe I need something else. We didn't say goodbye the right way because I was holding back and thinking about how it's not time for what I want, not yet. We need to get ourselves in place, get an apartment, get a secure job, put a little money away, and then our minds will be free of all these worries. Then maybe I'll discover that he's what I want in the longrun, not just this moment when I love him. He won't see this, because he doesn't read this journal, which bothers me a little.

I feel like I'm being pulled away from, by everyone here who is important to me. I've been feeling that way for a while. It makes me want to secretly move to Portland, to London, to Papua New Guinea, and tell everyone only after I get there.

This is just the id talking. Inside, I know that I'm happy, or am going to be happy, that it's not time for me to give up on all these good things that I care very much about, that I couldn't just pick up and go because I love them all too much. Even when it lets me down, even when I get disappointed, even when the whole thing falls apart and I get my heart broken, I love them. It's good to depend on people, even if it hurts sometimes. I guess that's when you realize you love them instead of just like them.

I'm in a better place now than when I started writing this, possibly all because he called to make sure we were all right. Yeah, we're all right.

This will be messy, unorganized, irresponsible, immature and possibly ill-spelled.

Everything is held together by these tiny little bits of thread, and usually it looks like it's all okay but I have to keep tugging at everything to keep it in place while gravity does its work, and really all thread is is little tiny bits of thinner strings twisted together, strings that are made of nothing but even tinier, thinner bits of string, and on inward until all you have is nothing, really. There's so much to be done. Ink the cartoon sleep eight hours look for apartments buff the muffin scan the painting feed the cat vacuum the floors call dad back go to work go to the dentist get a CAT scan learn to ride scooter illustrate the book. Where does anyone ever get clean clothes? I think they magically appear in my closet because I certainly don't wash them.

I'm tricking myself into chasing intangible things while I should be getting my tangibles in order. I'm impatient, not controlling my temper but not saying what I want to say when I want to say it like today on the bus that idiot guy sitting in front of me and spitting, actually spitting on the bus floor, like it's the ground, like he can just spit on stuff where people are going to have to walk or sit down and he was doing it the whole bus ride but my crippling fear of confrontation kept me from telling him off, no matter how I wanted to.

I was so mad that I pulled out a Buddhist learning book to try to get my temper under control but the first thing it said was to accept yourself exactly how you are, that it's wrong to turn to Buddhism to try and become a better person so I put the book down. Who doesn't want to become a better person? I can't love and accept that I'm ignoring shit that makes me mad and yet getting impatient with almost all my customers and if I can't help me and Buddhism can't help me, should I just stay this way even if it pisses me off?

But why am I even worrying about myself when not a day goes by that I don't have a new thing to worry about that has nothing to do with me? Mom gets sick and I have to list her symptoms over the phone while my father listens and rules out a stroke but advises me to dial an ambulance if it gets worse. I have to be out of my apartment by the end of August which is no time at all but how am I supposed to find an apartment when my two hands can't even find my ass? I have to finish the website, learn to update, print up a book, make more money, peddle to syndicates, get rich to finance the treehouse I want to build and the eight children I want to have.

The brother of this guy I used to write about a lot came in the store, and he remembered by name even though I never told him what it was, and he looks just like his brother only he smiles more so I was thinking of asking what went wrong with his brother and who he really is deep down and why doesn't he have any friends and is he doing okay these days and why hasn't he been to see me and why the last time he came in was he so cold to me, not smiling or looking at me or talking to me? But I didn't bother because those are the questions I always have about that boy's brother, along with why he seemed to like and hate and like and hate me so much more than the others. In the vein of boys I'm living down there's another who I thought I might check up on just now, before I wrote this, but I had to physically propel myself away from the computer to avoid doing so because that's how it starts, I wonder how he is, I'll just check, and then ten minutes later you're obsessing and feeling like you want to hurl in your commode and then hurl yourself off a cliff. I'm so much happier when I don't think about them, which is almost all the time, and each time I start, I remind myself that I don't want to get steamrolled again.

The Boyfriend is temporarily living back at his old place with his roommates instead of with me so he can be closer to work and though he promises it's not because he wants to be away from me I'm still alone more and I used to be just fine with being alone now I want him around all the time but I couldn't really say why other than that he makes me comfortable, but what if it's not working out and he's ready to walk? That ridiculously handsome boy was back in the store with that lingering ice blue eye contact and it makes me so UNcomfortable but I still like it but there's no way I'd even be attracted to someone so handsome because I always make myself look like an asshole when I see him and with the Boyfriend I'm always safe and pretty and healthy and happy right in my own skin.

I finished my fairytale, the first draft anyway, and I can't show it to anyone before my sister sees it so she can tell me whether or not its crap and there's another impediment to my personal growth, that need to be validated by other people. My fantasy used to be to run off to New Zealand where no one knew me and start over and in doing so be perfectly independent and learn to be with just myself and to take care of myself but I can't even remember my own social security number, I can't fill out a tax form, I can't ride a scooter to get from place to place nor even translate the crazy bus schedule I should be using, and I need a big sister and a boyfriend and a mom and a dad to all read over my fairytale before I know if it's good or not. This fact just makes me want to go away even more, to suddenly move and tell them all after I get there and spend a year or so all on my own, taking care of myself, but though I tell myself it's because I'm not brave enough to do it I know it's really because deep down I don't want to at all, I enjoy depending on other people even though I get disappointed a lot, more than I ever tell them, the fact that I can still depend on them after that may be some convoluted form of bravery. Or stupidity.

What can I do but sort through whatever I can, piece by piece, whether or not I'm heading for disaster?



This was a big fat load of confession. I don't know if it really helped, but if you actually read all that, you've got a strong constitution. And you probably know more about me than I do.

How long has it been since I've written something here that was really worth hearing? I used to write all the time, introspective rambles to you, the void, that space between talking to yourself and addressing a crowd. I used to reach out my fingertips to those of you who are reading from the shadows, in secret, and wiggle them in a silent hello. I used to write letters to you, and sometimes you'd unmask yourselves and write one back.

Maybe I wrote more because I craved some mystery in my life, and each time you put something out there for anybody in the world to see, you get a surprise. There is danger, and inspiration, and magic in it.

A lot of people are gone since then, and I wonder about you who are still reading but not talking. What's happening to you? You, who are in New Zealand, you, who are on the mainland, you, who are on this same island, but as good as a thousand miles away. Even if we fought, even if we never clicked, even if it was just time for us to stop knowing each other, I miss you. Each person I've known has an individual flavor that they add to my life, and when they go, that flavor's absence is conspicuous. Sometimes I only miss it for a while, then adjust, and sometimes it comes back to me in waves, sometimes it's so powerful I want to write you again or pick up the phone or drive to your house in the middle of the night.

I don't say much now that really makes people think. I guess I put all my energy into making people laugh. This is a noble thing, I think, and I enjoy it, and most people would rather read a comic strip than a page long diatribe on existence and the need for affection. My comic has seemed to take over everything I used to write about, and the presence of love is currently negating my need to write long digital moans about the absence of it. Is this progress?

We're moving in together, The Boyfriend and I, into my apartment. Maybe I'm mostly doing it because I like his huge bed better than my little one. ;) I'm facing financial responsibility, my mother's empty nest anxiety and the threat of becoming a big girl, also the danger of the whole thing not working out. I have a good feeling about it, because someone has to.

I do this a lot. I'll start to write something and halfway through realize it's useless and a little silly, and just delete it. I don't think I'll do it this time. Plenty of things are useless and silly and are nice to have anyway.

It's funny... even now I'm thinking of more things to make you laugh instead of thinking about how to finish this. I suppose that means we know now what I'm supposed to do with my life.

I guess I just wanted to say that I love you. I don't think I say it enough so you know that I mean it.

Today has been an emotional crazyhouse, more downs than ups, and way too much stress for someone whose biggest worries are usually concerning drawing cartoons and not sitting in a pee-seat on the bus. Living with my mother, having barely enough money to get by even with help, my mother's occassional and not always unintentional rudeness to my boyfriend, the impending feeling that I will never be as good an artist as my heroes, the unwelcome prospect of possibly having to move to a town further from my sister to satisfy my mother's hatred of traffic or face living on my own or with the Boyfriend which -- considering a one-room apartment in Hawaii costs, at the very best, nine hundred dollars a month -- would mean my taking a second job and therefore having no more time for my cartoon... these are issues that have been pounding on my skull with giant hammers all day.

There were good things. My raise kicked in this week, and, as I found out today, the raise is a bit more than what I was told it would be, which means good news for my rumbling tummy. My wonderful boyfriend came to pick me up even though he said he couldn't, and he also bought me a collection of a fabulous Frank Cho comic strip that he said reminded him of mine (though I only wish) called Liberty Meadows. In spite of having a main female character that is perfect in every way with ridiculously large boobs and tiny waist and more or less modeled after Lynda Cater as Wonder Woman, it is a hilarious and beautifully drawn strip, right up there with Bone and Calvin & Hobbes, both of which he is clearly influenced by. I'm going to tuck into it once I finish this post, and possibly also one of those microwave soft pretzels that mum bought, very sweetly.

So please, my favorite people, help me out. I need to shift my focus. I need to concentrate on what's really important, rather than this petty stuff. Like trees. And the giant panda. And applesauce.

Send me photos, lists, stories, videos, of things you find wonderful, amazing, important, funny, soulful. A friend of mine, without any prompting, just sent me this incredible video of an elephant painting a self portrait. Hilarious, beautiful, emotional, even. Or maybe I'm a sap. But I want everyone to see it, and I want to see more.

Show me something great. Show me a photo of you, maybe. Put more happy out there, out here, where we need it.

Love you.

Let's pick things up from yesterday's dreary post with a short little list.

Sitting: in my messy messy room, at my desk where Reggie and Jing-Tei are swimming around happily.

Craving: Donuts. Of course.

Listening to lately: Mindy Smith, a unique blend of country, blues and folk sung with a crystal clear voice. The Beatles, who I am loving more with each listen (Help in particular may be near to replacing Revolver as my favorite record). M.I.A., attitude-driven electronica with a London twist.

Reading: Too much! Fluke by Christopher Moore as well as the brilliant and insightful Stiff by Mary Roach, a book about dead bodies and all their adventures; also waiting to be started are Christopher Moore's Practical Demonkeeping, a personal favorite, The Tao of Pooh, a book relating Winnie the Pooh to Taoist principles, and a book whose title I can't just recall now which is composed of a series of articles about shocking things people have done in public libraries.

Watching: Samurai Jack (why did no one tell me before how brilliant it is?), The Venture Brothers (why has no one else told you how brilliant it is?), My Name Is Earl (go see it now).

Disappointed in: Lauryn Hill's so-called new album, which is just a remix album of all her old songs, only they're not really that remixed, they sound more or less the same, and she put two different versions of the same song right next to each other, a major musical no-no. Come on, Lauryn, it's been ten years, ten, since your record came out, and this is all you can give us? We miss you, you've got talent, use it. Also disappointed in the recent news (or, recent to me) that Aaron McGruder has left the scene of comic strips right when we needed him the most. His outrageously political and pissed-off revolutionary comic strip The Boondocks was a raised fist of fury for all those sick of the system and willing to laugh at it. Obsessed with his own importance and controversy, so it seems, McGruder's newest collection is, while funny as ever, seemingly self-congratulating and more depressingly cynical than ever. We need more intelligent cartoonists, especially now.

Excited Because: The website is coming. The website is coming.

Thoughts are with: Whitney my pear, Sara my peach, panda bears and polar bears, and that poor little f-ed up John Mayer.

I Love: Too many of you to name, but you know who you are. Come snuggle in bed with me.

I'm going to get in bed and think about comics.