Deadlines

My strip will be late this month. Really late, as in it's the end of the month and no strip has been drawn yet. Not my fault, I'm only colour and writing but I'm a touch annoyed. I like things on time. I take work seriously and hate to miss a deadline. Well, nobody said collaborating was going to be easy and this particular collaboration is harder than most. It's strange, I didn't think I'd like doing it, creating comics hasn't really been my bag. Now I'm all invested and cheezed that it won't come out on time. I'm working on not being so invested, as I'm not sure how long we'll be working together anyway. I just can't deny how much happier I'd be if we had completed this month's strip. Not my best month ever.

NYC

I miss NYC. Some people would tell you not to go in summer but this is when I would go. It's stinky hot, loud and crowded. The MTA seems to have stocked the train stations with the ricketyest trains possible, ensuring a breakdown every day around rush hour. AC is a luxury we run into the premium shops to enjoy, acting like we've actually got a dime to spend at Nordstrom's until youth takes us elsewhere.

Central Park in high summer is a people watcher's paradise. The rollerbladers vs the old skool rollerskaters down by the bandshell. Let's not forget Opera in the Park. God, I miss that. They have it elsewhere in the world, such as by Lake Merrit in Oakland, but very few places have the Met showing up to caterwaul on the grass.

I miss NYC people too. They can be very to the point. Downright mean, sometimes. But they say what they feel and I like it. No carribean pride parades over here in collegetown. Very few stinky bums. But I could go for a month of NYC flavour. (Yes, that even includes you burbs too. Love you all.) Smelly, wretched, poop basket of a place, but what a place it is.

The gloss is off

Have you ever been disappointed in someone? I don't mean just a "gee whiz, I didn't like that" but the "I really don't want to see your face or know you breathe" sort of feeling. Who knew that feelings have weight? You are crushed, there's this pressure that makes you put your head down on any cool surface, looking for a bit of relief. The neck bows, spine curves, your eyelids droop. Disappointment presses you flat into the ground. Sadness is even worse. Your heart struggles to beat properly and sort of knifes sideways into your lungs every other beat. Oddly enough, your joints hurt and you wish it was the flu.

What do you do? It's good to take comfort in friends and family, unless they are the cause of all that. I fully admit to collapsing in on myself for a while, until I shake it off. It's all too human for people to disappoint us, to hurt us even. If you doubt that's true, I invite you to live a little bit longer, it's bound to happen. I know people who've really cut themselves off because they can't stand the rollercoaster ride of life. They know very few people and make very little effort in their relationships. Luckily for them, they're so unreachable, eventually every person they meet falls away like chaff and fulfills their prophecy that "they won't meet anybody decent anyway". It's easy to be like that. Somedays I wrestle with the urge to delete every name in my phonebook. It wouldn't make me really feel better, it certainly wouldn't make the people I care about feel good, but it's what I feel.

I guess the thing to remember as we trundle through life, jostling up against each other is that there are no "do-overs". Buttons will be pushed, mistakes will be made. You will do harm. It's better to acknowledge it, quit trying to keep that shiny veneer of being some perfect type that has never been insensitive, stupid or just plain wrong at all. And don't, for pete's sake, don't, ask "how can we get back to normal" right off the bat. The first words are "I'm sorry". Nothing more, nothing less.

Assholes, however, can be ditched even after forgiveness. What the hell, hit 'em with a wiffle bat too. I never said I wasn't punitive. Just usually nice.

Discipline for kicks

Oh, it's war now. My latest confused, not quite adolescent, male, work-related, pest has discovered I could possibly be ticklish. I'm not 'fessin' to nothing, just stating that perhaps I respond when poked certain somewheres. We've escalated from snipes, kicks and pinches to the one serious defcon 4 action-the tickle. This is really irritating. Do you know the effort it takes to ignore the tickle reflex? GAH! So far, I've done nothing to swat Mr. Pesty but it looks like I will have to decisively respond. Which means only one thing. Bad tranny porn in his desk drawer and jalapeño ice down his pants. Shock and awe, shock and awe.

Lo, God hath said...

Well, I'm awake. It only took a few hours of driving to do it. This is one of those extra long work days I seem to be racking up this year. Shopping is done, lazy biz partner is napping and before I go do some design work, I figured I'd post some drivel. Speaking of years, this year has turned unusual for me, although that has been quite the usual lately. For pete's sake, I got myself ordained. Well, well, well.

Suck it bitches, I'm closer to gawd than you. I got a freakin' certificate that says so! The how of that, online site I can barely recall, the why-pure, utter pervosity. The one thing everyone agreed upon in my life was that my smarts were going to be used by God somehow. What I felt or even thought about the matter was not asked, so I can provide you with no past me feedback. I doubt I questioned such pronouncements, I was a good little doll. As I matured and saw what being a pw (preacher's wife) might entail, I hoped the just loving deity would provide a traffic accident to free me of this destiny. The loving deity did provide a train wreck of a nonmaterial kind, I can only hope I amused he/she/it's magnificent bastardness. Gods are funny people.

Being older now and marginally wiser, I find myself wondering why we conceived of deities. What need do they fulfill? The logic of absolute belief in linen clad farts with nothing better to do than broadside a person for saying "fuck" or not putting a whole $20 into the offering plate escapes me. The best I can do is believe that we crafted these avatars of humanity. They are our good and our bad and our mediocre.

It is good for man not to be alone, so we created "god". As we impacted on our environment more, so did our gods. As we desired hegemony for our various "superior" cultures, so did gods war and often 1 male became the elevated presence. In some cases, he subsumed all other gods' powers and attributes, taking an infinite word "god" and narrowing it to mean "just this one guy with the thunderbolts".

So here I am, a pagnostic who's been approved of by some online church simply because they believe all who approach have a calling. I can marry you to that lovely flat screen tv you've been eyeing. I can open my own church with nubile 18 year old altar boys for ravishment, um, spreading blessings. I have power and authority. How embarassing.

I think I'll stick to what religion is really good at, ripping off the faithful.

Anyone care for some blessed amulets? Made by a real reverend!

Starts

Interesting. The whole concept of blogging means we can be almost naked emotionally to literally hundreds of people, yet total strangers to our next door neighbors. One posts the minutiae of one's daily existance and a bored, searching other will actually stop to read and comment. It's twisted, decadent, vile and amusing. I heartily approve. Oscar Wilde would have blogged. 'Nuff said.