MOVING IS TERRIBLE.

I'm just gonna tell my story, with no care in how whiny it is, or if it's entertaining at all. This is venting. Deal with it.

If you've been reading along, you know my move from Savannah to Virginia has been a mess. My original move was ruined when the buddy who had agreed to help me instead disappeared. (He's back now, and working to rectify the situation.) That meant I had to leave my apartment - and, most importantly, my studio equipment - in Savannah, while I drove to VA.

This past weekend was my only opportunity to get it back.  Labor Day traffic be damned, I set off for Savannah with the dude who lives in my basement (Mover2) and a goal of finally ending that chapter of my life.

The trip didn't start well. Even with Mover2 getting off work a bit early, we had to drive in Friday evening, holiday traffic. Griping ensued. At least it gave us some conversation topics. (You're note that Mover2 is not referred to as a "buddy.") We ate a Bojangles for the first time. It was weird, and the food was not worth the wait. You suck, Bojangles. We did have lots of friendly convos with good ol' country boys while waiting for the food, though.

We got in at 11:30, and took a walk around town before bed. Mover2 gave me a running commentary of how he would like to violate every woman he saw, so that was nice. Bedtime. We had to get up at 7 to retrieve our truck from Budget.

The next morning, we were optimistic. We heading over to Budget when it opened to see if we could get the truck early.  In the lot outside the Budget office, we saw a guy angrily screaming at his phone. Uh oh.

Dude behind the Budget counter took me name, typed it in, stared at the computer and shook his head. "We don't have your truck."

What.

I had the email. I had the conformation number. I had the right location. Dude told me there was no record of me. He gave me a number to call.  The number told me, through a recording, (paraphrased) "the in-store representative you were working with will handle it," and hung up on me. I went back inside. The dude didn't even look at me. He sat at the counter, slowly filing papers, hoping I would go away. Mover2 lost his cool and started shouting loud enough that we couldn't be ignored. Counter dude, never changing his expressions, said there was nothing he could do.

That's when the chick beside him actually looked up our information, and told us my reservation WAS there, but it had been CANCELLED.  The heck? Zombie counter dude shrugged, and said the company overbooked, so they just cancelled a bunch of reservations. Didn't I get a call or message about it? NO. No I did not.

So now we had no truck and panic was setting in. We found a nearby location for Uhaul and went to them. The difference between the two companies was night and day.  The Uhaul staff was smart, informed, engaging and very helpful.  Problem is, we weren't the only people screwed over by Budget.  At 8:30am, we were the third crew to come begging, and any spare trucks were gone.  (Mover2 swears the angry guy from the Budget lot got the last one, but I have no visual confirmation.) We got an 800 number to call, and not only did a real person immediately pick up, but he made an effort to search the area for any spare truck they had. He found two, one at the size we needed!  But there was no guarantee yet. These trucks were owned by independent companies, so confirmation was needed. I was told it would take an hour.

I went to get Mover2, who was ranting at everyone about Budget, and we asked the Uhaul manager for advice. She kindly suggested we leave (someone might have been making a scene) and get breakfast while we waited. Her suggestions: IHOP and Golden Corral. Oh, Georgia.

IHOP *was* close, so we went there. The staff was very nice and attentive. The food was IHOP. We picked at our hash browns when the phone rang. We had a truck! It was a much-larger truck than needed, BUT IT WAS A TRUCK! Only problem was that it was 40 minutes away.  Well, not much we could do there. I thanked the Uhaul person, wrote down the information, and called the confirmation number on the subsequent text message Uhaul sent me. (A great feature, by the way.)

The truck owner answered the call, and was completely baffled. In the time it took for my reservation to be processed and move through the system, someone had come into their office and rented the truck. My notification came in during our conversation, and there was nothing I could do about the double booking.  The owner told me he was renting it out for the day, so we could stop by at 5pm and pick it up for our trip.  We obviously weren't thrilled with that, but we told him to keep my name on the book.  If that was the only option, we were taking it.

Back to Uhaul's office! The manager was still lovely, took down my information and said she'd call if there were any cancellations. Nothing left to do, we hopped in the car to drive back to my apartment.

The phone rings.  "Hey, this is Budget. Are you ever gonna pick up your truck?"

WHAT!?

"Your truck was transferred to the Richmond Hill location. Didn't someone tell you about it?"

No. No that was definitely not what we were told.  Good lord. I begged the guy to hold onto the truck, promising we'd be there as soon as possible. Swung by the apartment to grab the GPS, typed in the address and we were on our way.  Turns out it's a half-hour away, BUT WHO CARES WE HAD A TRUCK.

This was new Budget center, stuck at the edge of an impound lot at the back of the field and only a tiny, barely visible sign to point out it existed. It was surrounded by puddles of stagnant water, and thus full of swarms of hungry insects. The office was a run-down shack with some very questionable choices with the electronics. (Dripping AC unit above the power strip? What could go wrong?)

The manager wanted to hurry up the checkout, as he ate something that didn't agree with him and he was about to be sick.  That was the computer system's cue to start throwing out error messages. Over and over. He would click. Computer would throw a fit. He would say he's about to vomit. I slid the trash can over to him and asked him to keep going.

After a long call with Budget tech support, the reservation went through.  I finally paid, and the manager sprinted off to vomit. We got the truck inspected and FINALLY got to drive it off.  Over 5 hours had passed since our scheduled pick-up time.  We were frustrated, angry and ready to drive back to the first Budget center and punch zombie dude in his expressionless face.

Let me make this clear:  While we ended up using Budget, it will never happen again. Uhaul costs more, but they are reliable, helpful and competent. I will always take that over that day of hell. Budget had a failure at every step, from the office people, to the computer system to a useless help network. (Which I had also dealt with during the LAST move, but I didn't know if Budget had failed then, or original moving buddy.)

Those five hours lost were brutal, though, as it meant we *had* to stay another night in Savannah. I like Savannah, but all my friends were out of town and I had a loud, whiny sleazeball I had to take everywhere. We loaded the truck much faster than I'd have preferred, so we had a full evening to kill. At least we agreed to leave well before sunrise in the morning. Early bed = less conversational pain! My twitter follows know a lot more about what I'm implying here. Basically, don't ask that dude about his views on women.

We had a great dinner, followed by a long and excruciating walk.  Let me be clear: I adore walking around Savannah. Aside from my friends, it's what I will miss the most. What I don't like is the horrific running commentary I got.

Next morning we woke up real early, loaded the last of the stuff into my car, dropped off the apartment keys and left. The drive was smooth and uneventual. The arrival was move fun from Mover2, who ranted to me about how evil Budget was for restricting their trucks to a 75mph top speed.  Yes, dude, rant to me about not being able to drive recklessly with a truck full of MY STUFF. We knew going into this that he would be a pain, but I was desperate and he owes my family an irreparable debt. Sometimes you have to go with the due who can't say no, even though everything else he says will be awful.

Forgive the griping, but I felt the need to share. I left out a lot of details, such as discovering the gas station store was also the main liquor store of the area, and the 1970's New York locksmith experience, but I'm tired and this is long enough.

The happy ending is that I'm typing this in my newly set up studio, and it's kinda awesome! (For now... I see wifi issues on the horizon, but I'm gonna rely on the cable box and ignore that.)

I now turn back to drawing tomorrow's comic. First new comic drawn in a while. WILL I REMEMBER WHAT EVERYONE LOOKS LIKE?

Rawr! It's a dragon!

I'm not posting *every* sample image I've done today (god... no one wants to see my attempt at an anthro ferret) but this one was so stupid, I had to show the world!

I realized I should have a 30-minute colored pencil drawing in my portfolio, so I set out to make one that also added some variety to the freaky creatures I've already created. Enter: The DRAGON! Now, let me go on record as being totally racist against dragons. I think dragons are lame. I'm sorry if we can't be friends because of that, but it's true. Dragons suck.

Buuuut, certain potential clients LOVE dragons! So I will stop judging and I will start drawing dragons! (Dear dragon-loving future clients, please don't read this post until after I already have your money.)

Anyway, this is my attempt at a dragon. The scan, as expected, is awful - that gray in the background? It's ORANGE in real life - but it's enough to show what 30-minutes of effort will get ya.

(Re-post) The Sycophant - growing the brand?

(Blogger's recent meltdown not only meant I couldn't post new updates - it also managed to eat one of my posts! For completion's sake, I'm posting it here again. My apologies to Facebook users who will likely get spammed with this repeat. Also, watch me look like a fool when the original post is magically restored down the line.)

So I just registered thesycophant.com. Suddenly the title of my blog means so much more! You know what this also means? I HAVE TO JUSTIFY MY PURCHASE! If I'm buying a domain like this, I'd better put it to good use. Cartooning side project? Oh, imagine the possibilities...

I've long since claimed my next project will be The Haters Club, a name which began as in-joke in my old social circle. I love that title. It's fun. It sets the tone for my humor right away. It's... common enough to be used by a few websites.

Well, then, I just registered a viable alternative... which is *also* based on an in-joke from that blissful time of my life. The Sycophant may not bring the hate as much, but it does make for a great title anyway - and I adore the implications that come from that word as well! Plus, when you google "The Sycophant," it seems I'm the first one to claim the title for his project. (Not counting some lame myspace account that somehow outranks me in Google's eyes.)

Now... what could The Sycophant be? It's prime for an observational journal comic, which is something I've wanted to try for a while now. It could signify a title character who bumbles through live in awe of everything around him. (Probably because he lacks viable talent and skill on his own.) I could take the name and use it to justify a site of nothing but fan art for people I admire! Yeah, that's not happening. Fan art is fun now and then, but making it your thing is the same thing as wasting all your artistic talent!

For now, the domain is set to forward you to the blog. (As I post this, the forwarding setting hadn't gone through yet, so those testing it out right away might not get the right result.) It'll probably redirect here for a while, as I've got a lot on my plate already - and there's also the problem of me not knowing the first thing about how to properly use a domain. Hosting? Servers? Site email? No clue how those things work at the moment. But one day, man. One day...

Oh, and I also registered chrisp.co, but I don't feel a need to justify that. That sucker was meant for me!

The Sycophant - growing the brand?

So I just registered thesycophant.com. Suddenly the title of my blog means so much more! You know what this also means? I HAVE TO JUSTIFY MY PURCHASE! If I'm buying a domain like this, I'd better put it to good use. Cartooning side project? Oh, imagine the possibilities...

I've long since claimed my next project will be The Haters Club, a name which began as in-joke in my old social circle. I love that title. It's fun. It sets the tone for my humor right away. It's... common enough to be used by a few websites.

Well, then, I just registered a viable alternative... which is *also* based on an in-joke from that blissful time of my life. The Sycophant may not bring the hate as much, but it does make for a great title anyway - and I adore the implications that come from that word as well! Plus, when you google "The Sycophant," it seems I'm the first one to claim the title for his project. (Not counting some lame myspace account that somehow outranks me in Google's eyes.)

Now... what could The Sycophant be? It's prime for an observational journal comic, which is something I've wanted to try for a while now. It could signify a title character who bumbles through live in awe of everything around him. (Probably because he lacks viable talent and skill on his own.) I could take the name and use it to justify a site of nothing but fan art for people I admire! Yeah, that's not happening. Fan art is fun now and then, but making it your thing is the same thing as wasting all your artistic talent!

For now, the domain is set to forward you to the blog. (As I post this, the forwarding setting hadn't gone through yet, so those testing it out right away might not get the right result.) It'll probably redirect here for a while, as I've got a lot on my plate already - and there's also the problem of me not knowing the first thing about how to properly use a domain. Hosting? Servers? Site email? No clue how those things work at the moment. But one day, man. One day...

Oh, and I also registered chrisp.co, but I don't feel a need to justify that. That sucker was meant for me!

Stomping grounds

Here's the sketch for the doomed neighborhood that is soon to succumb to the Halloween Tiffwitch. I'm not satisfied with it, but time is running out. This will be stressful to ink, as I'm not sure what level of detail I should use. I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow. (Or tonight, if I end up having no life.)

The colors are wonky because the sketch is in no-copy blue - something my scanner normally filters out.

Untapped rivalries

I've spent so long playing the us vs them game, that I've only touched upon the underlying personal rivalries. This is a consequence of me still being in introductory mode, and my world building like a mofo.

I can simply state that Autumn hates Max, but that's lazy and cheap. I need to show why, and I need to do it MORE THAN ONCE A YEAR. Hey, when you have a universe as complex as mine, it takes a while to get back to these things! As I've whined about this before, nothing in the future is dependent on this (one sided) rivalry being known or not known, nor do the Bud-Dionne, Jacob-Suzette rivalries have much importance for now. Still, I want to be able to tap that resource should I desire it. Looks like I have to up my storytelling skills!

Always a rare treat

The joke about Bud's parents is that they're never around. Thus, it is my obligation as a cartoonist to make them suitably interesting for their rare appearances. I don't know about you all out there, but I'm loving this couple so hard that it hurts to part with them. There's a few ins for Bud's dad, since he's just locked in the basement - but his mom is always out of town. We just have to cherish the moments we have together.

Sydney Oven is one of my favorites. Writing for her is so natural and easy - and it always makes *me* laugh. This deeply sarcastic woman seems to enjoy it as much as I do when she goes off on an aggressively uncaring rant. Her outlook in life isn't so much, "work to change what I can and learn to accept what I can't ," but rather, "accept what I can't change and what I don't care to change. Fight like hell for the rest." She's the type to pull her son aside, look deeply into his eyes and tell him her Pokemon battle team is more important to her at the moment than her family. She doesn't mean it, of course, but that's how she communicates. If you aren't prepared for her, watching her curl up to her husband and coo about Bud, "I'm so glad we neglected him," might be a bit scary.

The sketches came about because I was working on some Sydney strips and I needed to have more. I wasn't even content with just making a sketch; I had to pull out the colored pencils! Sydney gets one appearence in the next arc and then I don't have an appearance planned for her until December, so it's best to enjoy her now. Ok, fine, aside from the next arc and an outline for the big summer spectacular, I don't have that many future strips scripted. I can still bring her in if needed, but is that the right thing to do? Sporadic characters must be sporadic to have impact - and it should make you appreciate them more when they do appear. The strip is, after all, about the four kids. I have a vast stable of characters, but they are there to rotate in and out of the main kids' lives.

Violets Unmatched

Oh yeah, I went there. That's the official title of the piece. If you don't like it, cram it.

Thanks to the magic powers of OBAMA, I managed to pull this violet painting out in the end. Just a few hours ago this seemed hopeless. Now, I am fully satisfied with the piece.

It's 2am now, and I have three paintings that are unfinished. All of them are CLOSE ENOUGH to pass for finished in portfolio form, but none of the three are signature-worthy. What do I do? Let me explain further: Tomorrow morning, someone with a larger trunk than mine will arrive and take my paintings away. Tonight is the last chance I have!


So, uh, Dana, FUCK YOU! I am *so* close to wrapping this baby up, but it looks like I'll fall *just* short. This is going to be a fun one to finish up at home, as it's so massive my easel may buckle under the pressure. At least take solace in how the painting is shaping up to be really damn good! (The picture doesn't do it justice.) One extra coat of sage green and several waves of touch ups still must be done, but it's at a confidence-instilling place. Yay.

If I do work on another painting, it will be the leafy arrangement, where I'll finally tackle the vase thingy. I may not even get to that, as it's 2am and I've hit the wall.

In conclusion: The Mill should love me, Dana should have mixed feelings and I am a corner-cutting asshole.

Say hello to your new god!

In accordance with Chrispmas, I have until March 24th to provide a gift - and even then we have some leeway. Laziness cannot be contained! Last December I promised my mother I would get her a HDTV to go with the HD-ready box in her bedroom. I had the perfect TV picked out, the Sears' website had it listed as available, my brother and I confidently walked in to pick it up... and two of the most inbred-looking people I've ever seen told me it was sold out. Damn Appalachian runoff!

Well, it went back on sale. This time, it's MINE! My mother will be so happy.

But mother's on a trip. I can't possibly just let it sit around! Hey, look, I have enough spare cords and parts to turn my laptop into a magnificent HD desktop set-up.

Sorry mom, this TV is now a vital part of my life. Old computer has now been marginalized to a corner, only to be used when something goes wrong and Photoshop starts opening adjustment windows in the ether, thus making it impossible to do anything but curse and cry. LIKE NOW, FOR INSTANCE! Even my false idols hate me. :-(

Anyway, assuming a reboot fixes things, I might have to kill my family to ensure I can use this TV forever. It's the only solution.

Edit: The image appears HUGE on this TV (since the resolution is still my laptop's) and it looks seriously impressive at this size. All you people with pedestrian monitors are missing out.

The copyright info is in Franklin Gothic again!

That means I'm home! (It's Impact or Rockwell when I'm on the road.)

There will be little unwinding here in the immediate future, unfortunately. After a month of being converted to an animal/idiot/both sanctuary, my studio needs to be set up anew - a daunting task for someone as mentally drained as I.

Let's do the rundown. Moron brother has entered his 922nd consecutive day of being "sick" when asked to do work, so my grand welcome home came in lots of heavy lifting with garbage and a trip to Costco for the heavy lifting of garbage-to-be. Moron brother apparently lost one of the packages containing an order from Amazon.com, so I might have to fight the system to replace the lost goods in my future. Moron brother's definition of cleaning is, "move stuff from one surface to another surface around the corner," so you can guess what my room is like right now. Moron brother was also force to move back home, so all this stuff is strew about, adding much to the ambiance here. Moron brother's irresponsibility with my mother's credit card has forced our family to cancel Christmas to deal with the debts he's accumulated. Man, life SUCKS over here. I wonder if there's one common element that is causing all this dysfunction...

Tonight my plan is simple: Focus my stress into an eating disorder (the fat, unsexy one), break out the alcohol my brother hasn't consumed yet (he consumed a bottle of whiskey and tequila, both purchased by me, while here), and devote my life to TV on DVD. I have many options! I watched Lost season 1 while in DC, and season 4 was in the packages waiting for me, so I could continue and watch the new three seasons back to back to back. Black Friday was good to me in that I got all of Battlestar Galactica on DVD for half price, so I could start on that again. I have the first three discs of The Wire season 2 from Netflix FINALLY! The system failed me and sent the last discs first, so only now do I get to watch in order. Mom bought me the John Adams series on DVD as a gift, so that's there as well. Basically, I'm set for a piece of performance art wherein I will be playing the role of a shut-in.

As for the SKETCH, which has been ignored so far, I was feeling really sick last night and couldn't stop drawing... happy characters? Ok, whatevs. Most of drawings, being done through fever and fatigue, were crap and incomplete - but the Jacob one was close enough that I could fix the major errors (proportions) with Photoshop. The book is my joke on his corny smile. Anyone worth their salt should get the reference. If you don't, WHY DIDN'T YOU COME OF AGE IN THE 90'S LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!?!?!

Update edit: Amazon had agreed to replace my lost package. Yay! I eschewed DVDs for DVR and I'm watcing the Survivor finale/reunion. (Any non-Matty, non-Susie winner is fine by me. Sugar totally should have won, though.) I think I will go Wire after this, since Netflix must miss me by now! The goal is to drink myself into submission and stay up as late as possible so I sleep through the workers tomorrow. (Re-edit: Yes, I realize drinking myself into a stupor is not conducive to watching the ultra-complex The Wire, but I AM A GENIUS! My brain may be smart even when addled by CLASSY LIQUEURS! Or... I could watch the braindead Heroes episode I missed while in DC.

The View From the Ivory Tower

This post was supposed to show up yesterday. (In fact, I can leave it with its original time stamp for the 29th if I so desire... which I ended up doing because I forgot to fix the time stamp before hitting the post button. Whoops.) Problem is, I'm stealing the internet! He who lives by pirated wi-fi, dies by pirated wi-fi. No connection meant no posting.

The other delay came from my grandmother and aunt playing against type and shopping lightning fast. These two are grand masters of social shopping. "Talking to the wonderful people in line is half the fun!" said my grandmother. (I'm paraphrasing, of course, but trying to be as accurate as memory will allow.) Thinking they would be gone for hours, I sat down to write an essay and have a long chat with my aunt's partner, a kindred spirit in the anti-shopping mindset. Thinking I had hours to meander around before getting to my point, I launched into a back story for context. Didn't even finish with that before the shoppers were back. How rude! Anyway, by the time I got back to the laptop, wi-fi was dead.

And now... LOTS OF WORDS AND NO PICTURES!

One criticism I am sure to face when I unleash Precocious on the populace will be the justified accusation that it's all just too negative. Another will be that the strip is unbearably elitist. This would be when I giggle.

An artist can't help but project themselves into their work, and Precocious is very much the dark and twisted workings of my head on display. I like my humor like I like my coffee - intensely dark, then corrected with cream and sugar!

My characters are mean, violent, snotty, inconsiderate and foolish. The nice and redeemable characters either have their good natures abused or are treated like an outright enemy! What is wrong with me? People, please! Conflict is funny.

Precocious was created when I was around 11, and the underlying theme remains the same: It's all about classism. Not only do we have clear divides among economic brackets in the elitist-sounding Gemstone Estates, but we have intellectual elitism on display with the children attending the incredibly elitist-sounding Poppinstock Academy. Who are the worst enablers of this? My main characters! They outright ignore those not like them, down to pretending the other side of their classroom doesn't exist!

That would be the intensely dark coffee mentioned before. The cream comes in the form of the treatment. I'm making fun of myself via proxy with this strip. As much as I like to let my pride prop me up, doing so means I miss so much in life. If you take me out to a bar, I'd likely embarrass myself because I've always dismissed bars as being a home for the base elements. No, in reality the bar is just another social gathering place for all types! I think Dana's amazing story of love and happiness can prove I'm a damned fool.

The reason my kids come off as negative is because their attitudes are foolish. Autumn keeps getting her comeuppance for her competitive streak. Bud is decidedly warped because of his tendency to isolate himself. Jacob's desire to be a part of some grand design often ends with him spending energy on pointless endeavors. Tiffany's space cadet nature can also be seen as a consequence of pure self-indulgence. If I had made my children sweeter, that would imply their intellectual isolation was a *good* thing. These kids satirize the faults intellectuals can have. Intelligence is a wonderful thing. Knowledge as a weapon (the tagline of my strip) cuts both ways.

The character of Max is vital to Precocious. He's a saint and, aside from some blind optimism that strays from realism, he has no personality flaws. My official character biography calls him "history's greatest villain." Max is the control character that needs to pop in every so often to confirm that it's *my* kids are whacked. Later on, the other side of the classroom will also contribute. Kaitlyn Hu is fully sane and perceptive; she's the good Bud. Vincent Iddenstein and Yvette Nutely have their quirks, but they're also good at heart - it's Tiffany and Jacob with creamy souls! Quincy Wozwax is overly competitive, like Autumn, but even he's remarkably social with his nerdy world.

Now for the sugar in this equation. While my characters are often seen as irredeemably evil, there's no way a strip like that can persist without suffocating under its own darkness. The main kids *are* redeemable and they do have souls. Their elitism is the tragic flaw that causes their downfall time and time again; not something that will doom them to a lifetime of evil. They talk big and talk bad, but it's more dark humor than pure evil. They are "haters" that bandy about insults and harsh words freely - but it's not so bad because they all understand the rules of the hater's game. As I've always put it, they hug by hitting! They're normal, but this version of normal is skewed into the darkness.

A Calvin and Hobbes strip once had Calvin remarking how a little bit of antagonism could make any boring conversation into something exciting. The final panel had Calvin beaten into the ground, claiming his point was proven. That's what I'm going for!

For this pilot episode, I've done my best to throw in subtle clues to this. Bud remarks that their conflict is the "current" war, implying they do this all the time. The kids spend more time arguing semantics (and writing official documents) than actually fighting, because the challenge in building a grand scheme is more important than the negative fighting. When it's all over, they walk off content, wondering what they should do for fun the next day. In the end, they just wanted a water balloon fight - but they had to set it up in their way. Just like me, they can't tackle a normal task without doing something foolish to turn it into an epic event.

Even so, the redeemable aspects of my main kids might be *too* subtle. This is where Dionne, Suzette and Roddy enter the fray. If I have Max and Kaitlyn on one end, showing the contrast between my kids and well-adjusted people, I need to have some negatives on the other end to prove my children have sweetness and innocence in them as well.

Dionne is wonderful for that. She is fully aware than my kids talk a good game, but could never fully devote themselves to the path of evil, and she is delightfully malicious in exposing it! Dionne plays the evil game better than anyone, and she'll always win.

Suzette is the big red "Do Not Touch" button personified, always a risk to fly off the handle. She may have *small* point in claiming she's a victim of circumstance, but when she gets worked up her fire burns bright and hot. Again, while my kids scream at each other all the time, none can match the fury of Suzette.

Roddy's role as the outsider helps put my kids' quirks into perspective. He is usually right in pointing out how their attitudes and behavior are unhealthy and unkind, but his bitterness over the whole thing constantly makes him look worse. Roddy doesn't understand the "hater" mindset is another way to have fun, so he's eternally frustrated. Roddy is also my concession that this strip is far from normal. His frustration is fully justified, but he'll never be able to win until he understands of the insular bubble created by the Sapphire Lake kids.

I like my coffee as the intense dark roast, with double cream and one sugar. Get it?

The Paulsen Wildlife Sanctuary

BEES!



Such is life in plague-a-day land! So far we've dealt with the biblical onslaught of terrors such as cute vermin, construction workers, my brother and bees. What's next for God's wrath? My bet is ambitious raccoons making their home inside our walls.



Check it out: Exterminator dude found the queen! Her she is next to a minion for comparison. We've hit the colony with biological weapons, destroyed their infrastructure and paraded their dead leader about for our own amusement. HOW AMERICAN IS THAT? USA! USA! USA!



Exterminator dude said we had the largest nest he'd ever seen. This is not to be confused with the last times yellow jackets made a bold real-estate venture into our neighborhood. What does that say about my family that we ignore these problems until hundreds of bees begin to rain down upon us, coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE! We watched them zoom around all summer thinking, "Hey, cool! It's nature!" What could possibly go wrong?

I tried to sneak up next to the action and take some close-ups, but that venture was thwarted after my unrestrained hair became a net for buzzing bastards. It's the hip new accessory people! After getting my buddies to tag along, I backed down before disaster could strike.

Covering myself in bees for attempted bad photography = cute.
Getting stung repeatedly by bees for bad photography = stupid.

FUCK Volunteering!

Only good thing to come from volunteering at the Mill: It allowed me to drop off Mousie in another town, ensuring she won't return this time. I hope. If she *does* manage to get back, I'm doomed.

Otherwise, the Mill was a completely unpleasant experience. The people running the place seemed to have their clique of volunteers, making a n00b like me a useless outsider. The artists around seemed to have their clique of barn-painters, making a contemporary artist like me a strange outsider. Most of my time was spent wandering from wall to wall, occasionally straightening a frame and slowly dying inside.

Sitting in the gallery was profoundly depressing. The economy is shit, so no one is buying. There's a giant festival across the road from the art show, including the police blocking off access to the mill from one location, so foot traffic is down. The reliable regulars to the mill are only there to buy traditional art, meaning I didn't see anyone give any of the interesting paintings a second look. Unless the art featured barns, horses, cuddly animals, birds, flowers, clouds or the mill itself, it was ignored. Watching person after person fawn over four very MEH paintings featuring two birch trees in each season killed more of my soul each time.

Today, one of the artists was in attendance, painting a large copy of one of his displayed paintings by request. The painting was of chickens. Chickens. The painting. Chickens. BY REQUEST! I tried to chat with him for a bit, but he was notably condescending and dismissive. I mentioned I had begun painting relatively recently. He responded that people must LEARN to paint over time. I told him I normally work in drawing. He responded that everyone can draw and it's purely learning of technique. I told him that his sketches would make good lithographs. He responded that he didn't like lithography and only liked etchings. This was all exacerbated by his snotty British accent. I looked through the catalog he brought, promoting his work as well as that of his pathetic, talentless, fairy-loving wide. I TRIED to say something positive, but I... I couldn't. Best I could do was say, "Oh, neat." Watching people fawn over him all day was excruciating. Chickens. Middleburg, Virginia can just go fuck itself. Next mill show, I am only submitting paintings of sunflowers and barns.

Not only was this agonizing, but it the temperature kept dropping until the circulation stopped in my toes. Oh, and I was missing the Redskins-Browns game! Thankfully, those two teams decided to wait until I showed up at halftime to start playing. THAT IS WHY I LOVE THOSE TEAMS!

And I had to come home to a house missing a kitchen, meaning my retard brother (WHO DOES NOT LIVE HERE, BUT SHOWS UP TO MOOCH FOOD THE MINUTE I BRING IT INTO THE HOUSE) was constantly in and out of my room. Dude is uncomfortably stupid, and unbearable to be around. The last thing I need after a day of visual stupidity is to have stupidity personified hanging around to violate my food and only leave once he was asked to clean up an unsanitary mess he'd created. Dude is more destructive and unsanitary than the mouse could ever hope to be.

In conclusion: If I ever find a genie in a bottle who grants me three wishes, one of them will be to create a disease that painfully kills the stupid while leaving the smart stronger.

The subconscious is one's worst critic

OR, how to start one's day in the most inauspicious way possible!

The culprit this time was a dream. Usually I have dreams of brain-numbing repetition or ones where I'm continuously hunting for candy. (Thanks, shameless sweet tooth!) When stress or gluttony dreams aren't in the rotation, it's usually mind torture in the form of anxiety dreams - where everything goes wrong for me. As noted before: My brain hates me.

In today's dream, I was shipped off the convention for people with personality disorders. The goal was to isolate us from society and teach us how to stop being drains on the world. My group was seemingly the worst of the lot. After all, our "invitations" were done in sinister black. The other defect groups had bright cheery colors linked to their disorders. Mine was black. Like, death and depressing black.

This awful group you see, was the COMPLAINERS! We were the cynics and sourpusses who lose their cool at the slightest irritant. We were mean, bitter and no fun to be around. If we didn't fix ourselves, we'd be doomed to a life of sad ostracism.

Proving the event organizer's point, I didn't take my invite well. I, well, COMPLAINED about being singled out as a bad person and admitted I felt persecuted because the black envelope let everyone else know (people who were just as dysfunctional as me - if not more so) that I was the worst of all! I was being avoided! The told me I didn't have to eat in the cafeteria with the rest of the nuts - I could help myself to candy in the guest room. (Yes, even in this dream I desperately needed a chocolate fix.)

The main reason I was upset was because they organization just didn't get it - there are two types of complainers: Zesty and bitter! I complain a lot, but I do it as a purge and I try to find some humor in it. I think running around proclaiming the sky the to be falling is FUNNY! My fellow black-labeled wretches were clearly on the bitter side. We had the old ladies who had nothing to do with their lives but yell at people for being noisy during their naps. We had TONS of repressed conservatives and Christian fundamentalists - who hate themselves because their values are so strict any deviation from them must make them horrible people, so they judge everyone else harsher in retribution. We had the general sad sacks who were so beaten down they'd lost their sense of humor. Basically, I was surrounded by BAD CONVERSATIONALISTS!

We had a private pool just for us sourpusses, but it was very unfriendly. The old ladies wouldn't get in the water for fear of getting their hair wet. The conservatives all inched dangerously close to each other in the hot tub, filled with sickening tension. The sourpusses would dog-paddle around by themselves. I was the only person to take a leap into the water and make a splash. The rest silently walked into the pool from the shallow area - doing all they could to be silent and keep the water calm. I splashed around and tried to get the people to play a game. No response. This was went I went off to complain about my "peers."

At least my brain was telling me I don't belong on that group. As the dream went on, it became clear I was the star of my crew. My fellow complainers - while still hating each other as much as themselves - all warmed to me and my charming ways. I had become a leader and I was fairly respected by everyone in the reject convention.

The next morning, I got a visit from Dana - who was wearing adorable jammies for some reason. Seems she was taken away too, as part of the "obsessive" camp. We happily chatted about sneaking off to get breakfast away from the rest of the wretches. Conversation then turned to the old lady in the bed beside mine. She was frustrated with inconsiderate people making too much noise as she slept. When Dana asked if I was causing problems - as I'm an insomniac and I toss and turn like mad - the old lady said I was the only one she liked. I was never a problem and I didn't make any noise to disturb her. It was a good self-esteem boost.

Eventually, I found some kin in the complainer group in two women. One was a pushy New Yorker whose tongue was sharp enough to disarm all those not tempered to absorb "New York charm." The other was a tall woman - well over six feet - with a loud voice and a pushy attitude. She seemed like the lawyer type. Together, we decided to write a letter to the organization explaining the two types of complainers. We might bitch and moan, but the others in the program are not our people. Line by line we laid out why they suck and why we are simply misunderstood. At one point, I sat back and wondered if what we were doing was too self-serving or something that would make us far more irritating in the organization's eyes than the wretches we found to be vastly inferior. The New Yorker could see it happening, but the other lady (who seemed less self-aware and probably wouldn't be in our group if there had been anyone else slightly worthy) got a bit self-righteous, claiming truth is truth.

At that point the dream trailed off and fell into the standard surrealism/stress dream stuff, such as me trying to reach the pool on the ground level from my floor and managing to end up hanging off a balcony a few stories up. This happens all the time in dreams, of course. Instead of going into the elevator, I ended up outside it and I had to strategically drop down floor by floor, getting me in tons of trouble for the disturbance. During this, another dream standard was at play: I was trying to travel with a gal (generic hottie) and no matter what I did, we'd be separated. I reached the pool and jumped in, only to find she had made it down with me... but forgot her suit. Once again, the pool symbolized isolation!

Overall, I think the meaning is fairly straightforward. The dream was more of a highlighter and exaggerator of stress than one hiding it in symbols. At least it was creative in handling it. I take it as failure when my brain only offers up cookie cutter dreams. Anytime I'm flying or my teeth/hair fall out, I wake up embarrassed for my brain.

Still, it's rather depressing to wake up after a dream where you are officially labeled a black-level asshole. Hey, maybe something reassuring could happen as soon as I wake up to make me feel better about myself.

I woke up to see a GIGANTIC FUCKING SPIDER on the ceiling directly above me. It waited until it was sure I saw it, before it scrambled into a vent. Thus, this arachnophobe now knows there is a GIGANTIC FUCKING SPIDER in my room that is just WAITING FOR ME!

There is no way this day can go well now.