I'm running out of family!

My grandfather passed away last night, and I'm having a hard time figuring out what to write here.

Unlike with the shock of losing my grandmother, this one was a long time in coming. He had been given weeks to live over three years ago, but had defied the odds for so long that I had become convinced he would outlive us all. In truth, he had left us long ago, as advanced Alzheimer's had destroyed his mind. I hope you none of you ever have to go through the pain that is seeing Alzheimer's erase a loved one. It's devastating.

As many of you know, I had spent most of the last few years living with my grandparents and helping care for my grandfather. I only moved on to SCAD when my little brother moved in and the family hired a full-time nurse for him. Being with my grandparents had been my life for so long, it's hard to conceive that chapter of my life is over now that they're gone. Their house had become my home, and without them... I don't know where I belong.

Because I used up all my allowed absences when my grandmother passed, I will be unable to drive up to Virginia and attend the funeral. Because there's such a small break between quarters, I doubt I'll be seeing family then as well. Because of all the make-up work I've accrued, I don't have time to pout and worry anyway. I have to accept it and keep on working.

I hope this is the last depressing post I have to make for a while. I want to get back to sharing progress on the comic and my painting - and I should have some work to show you soon. Just give me a few days to center myself, ok?

I don't have freckles anymore

I did in the old day, which is where Bud gets his dashing good looks.

I wanted to play more with the t-shirt idea in the previous post, but I'm staying with my grandfather right now and we've go to clean up the house. (Mostly this means spraying off the pollen that's caked on he porch and calling hospice until they pick up everything.)

Instead, you get the rare cartoon attempt at me in a stupid t-shirt. With the faint hint of freckles for Precocious continuity.

RIP, Grandma Byrd

There's love in her heart (Tennis-wise, that is)

It's been hard to get the wheels turning again with Precocious. They say you have to write what you know, but right now all I know is cancer, Alzheimer's, heart disease, cancer, cancer and death. This does not a humor strip make.

The only fallback I have right now is sports. I've been watching a lot of sports. I can find humor in that! That's not too depressing! Sports can help! What's that? Every team I support is currently suffering a SOUL-CRUSHING LOSING STREAK? Fuck me. Eh, that is still the least-depressing aspect of my life. Let's roll!

Here's to the quest for momentum. I'm slugging away at the new strips and maybe they'll carry me to a funnier place. They've already forced me to make some decent sketches, as I have to figure out how to draw Suzette in action. If you could see the recent pages in my sketchbook, this is a massive improvement. C'mon, productivity, don't let me down!

Up against the wall

I don't know why these little guys look better when hung on a brick wall, but they do and it's their home. Here we see the current state of the current tiny painting batch. Both have a ways to go, but they might turn out ok. This week, that's all I can ask for.

Forgive me if I seem down. Stress accumulates and it starts leaking into everything. For those who don't know, everyone around me is sick and/or dying. Two weeks ago we were told my grandmother on mom's side could pass at any time from lung and brain cancer. On the other side of my family, my grandfather has Alzheimer's and cancer - but he might lose hospice care because his cancer isn't progressing fast enough. (Health care doesn't give a damn about Alzheimer's, since there's no profit in it. Go America!) There's no way grandma can take care of him without help, as she has major heart issues. Without hospice, we are screwed. This means the past two weeks have been spend dreading the next phone call, because only bad could come from it.

Just to top everything off, my internet connection is so unreliable it's practically worthless. Yeah, if I keep trying I can get through - but if you had a car that broke down half the time you drove it, how much satisfaction would you get from driving? Casual drives down the block suddenly become tense events. (Example: Blogger failed to properly upload this picture three times because the connection wasn't even able to take that without blinking out. I finally had to stick the photo in manually.) This means my means of escapism instead brings mostly frustration and a feeling of helplessness. Awesome.

And I'm supposed to be producing a HUMOR strip during this. Is there any wonder I've had writer's block? (I'm far enough ahead in Precocious that I can take a few weeks off, so that's covered.) I'm not one of those artists who thrive in self-absorbed emo malaise; I'm quite the opposite. I work happy and try to keep my artwork cheerful or fun. Unfortunately for all of you, I also have a vow to make a daily blog entry. You get to see me at my worst on some days. Deal with it.

I'll keep doing what I can, though. Tonight things should get much cheerier, with loved ones coming to town for birthday fun. Better painting tomorrow, then? Let's all hope!

Go to hell, April!

Get in the corner with Rhode Island, April!

I'm not two Sundays away from having this damn month finished - in strip form at least. Tonight I hope to get one of those Sundays done. The second Sunday will have to wait, as I have NO IDEA what it'll be. By the way - now that I'm out of Sunday templates, I'm going double-decker and stacking two regular-sized strips - IN COLOR! It's both lazy *and* gives me more space with which to work!

I wish I could say I was building up my buffer so I could work on the website, make Precocious promo art, get caught up on the boards with much-needed socializing or anything fun like that. No, instead I'm rushing so I'll be set strip-wise when cancer claims my grandmother and family funeral fun begins. So, yeah, fuck April.

The Do Nothing Week

I came to DC after working my butt off on Precocious. I was a month ahead, but I also had 8-9 weeks of strips scripted and ready to go. Yeah, well, fuck that.

This week was all about the family. That makes sense, since that *is* the primary reason I'm down here. Still, there is usually enough downtime for me to get some work done. Ahh, but that is with one set of ailing grandparents. Now I have TWO! While I didn't do much with mom's side - every time I called to come over, they seemed surprised to learn I existed - it did mean I was doing a lot of schedule juggling. It was a meager schedule, but ask anyone who's been through college if it's more grueling to have three classes back-to-back-to-back or have the same classes spread out over a day with hours between them. If it's 2pm when we get back from lunch and I have to do something at 4:30, I am not going to start an art project. If I spend all day with one set of grandparents and we break for the evening, I have all evening and into the night alone. THAT is when I can get some work done. It takes some time to get in the zone, and zone opportunities were slim this week.

Of course, would I have been productive this week even if the schedule worked better? Probably not. I had spent the last month almost entirely alone, locked in my basement and working on comics. That stuff can wear on you, and I needed a happy atmosphere for relaxing more than work. The lack of a consistent internet connection until yesterday meant I couldn't do anything online that took more than two minutes. If I was going to goof off, I thought I would spend the time establishing my name on some webcomic forums. Hard to do if you can't load the page. The internet was to be a way I could unwind. I have to be on duty for grandparent interaction and I need to be on duty to do art. If I don't get some downtime by browsing Fark or something, my brain overheats.

Well, I was fucked there. So I turned to DVDs! Only... I only brought two with me. It was the Wire, something that can't be constantly interrupted as it's complicated as fuck, so I could only watch it after everyone had gone to bed and I knew it was MY time! Those discs went fast, of course. Shoot, I'm out of media distractions. The only thing I had left was READING. Reading is great and vital and stuff, but reading means I can't do anything else BUT read. I breezed through Freakonomics, but that was all I did. In the end, I did not set myself up to succeed at art. Sitting around and doing nothing does feel kinda nice, though.

And then the weekend came! That means sports! I don't give a crap about college basketball, but that stuff was a blessing. Everyone took the day off yesterday, so we only ended up getting together for dinner and some chatting. Otherwise I had done the unthinkable... and done what I had intended to do in DC! I went back to painting.



Here is the "final" poppy painting. You'll note that it looks static, uninteresting and has fallen short of its true potential. I'll not that I don't care anymore. I spent far too long correcting old errors and trying to make the background even. Eh, maybe I can sell it to a couple with questionable taste.

Getting it done also meant I could start on another! Continuing the plastic plant theme, I decided to do a fern. This is chiefly because most of the remaining plastic plants in the house are ferns, two of which were sitting beside my computer.



Things got out of hand. I've noted before that my aunt had a randomly interesting supply of paint colors, which was a nice creative exercise right up until I ran low on white and realized I couldn't paint any more without it. Well, during her last Delaware trip she had brought the rest of her paint back. Problem solved! I could go back to my normal bold colors held in place by excessive use of white and black! Yeah, about that. Her white and black paint was old and... chunky. After destroying a LOT of charm in the poppy painting by trying to use the black, I gave up that idea.

The thing about ferns is that fronds are not one simple shape. It's a bajillion planty things stuck together, so "roughing" it out with the random colors I had was an adventure. I ended up sacrificing most of my remaining white stash to knock out a lot of background noise. What I really need is some black so I can give myself some boundaries. (It's not conforming if you color outside the lines, then add them in later to crisp up the piece!)

Maybe something will come from that piece. Maybe not. Next time I'm in DC I'll be better prepared. I will be armed with much TV on DVD, which is vital to me working. I will bring my own paint supplies, as the color balance is set to my needs. I might also not be so worn down by stress and isolation. (Ha! Not likely.)

Oh well, at least the family time was enriching. The main plotline of this trip was a success, too bad the sideplot was a bummer. On Monday I will be back in Winchester, with all the stimulation that offers. Yeehaw.

Life is but a dream

Ahh, but there are several types of dreams! One, always a favorite, is the stress dream in which YOU CAN'T WIN! No matter what you do, your brain changes the rules to screw you over. One of my most common involves me driving in a highway and taking the wrong exit, only to be stuck in an series of increasingly difficult roads that always lead me further and further away from the path I desire. The common ending for these has me carrying my car on my back as I gingerly walk across a shaky rope bridge over a chasm. One I had recently involved a Batman-obsessed gremlin thing that was a pushover. I beat it up and outsmarted it time and again, but it was always right around the corner to attack again. The dream ended when I thought I had it trapped in my grandparents' house (Mom's side) only to realize too late that they had installed a pet door. With a, "well, that's the end of me," sigh, I woke up. Another fun version ends with thousands of airplanes falling from the sky until one finally hits me.

The above sketch is a fairly good indicator of the past 24 hours. On one side, we have the quiet and reserved Yvette Nutley. On the other, a tempting and shiny meat cleaver. A truer emotional self-portrait has never been done!

Let's recap the fun!

-After sleeping through my alarm and moving like a drunk snail all morning, I arrive at my grandparents' house (mom's side) a few hours late. This is not a problem for me, since they didn't believe I was coming. Such faith they have in me! I try to explain webcomics to them, then explain over and over why the one painting they like of mine wasn't on my website. It's my poinsettia painting that has been sitting at my grandparents' house (dad's side) for the past month.

- Grandma (mom's side), with whom I am supposed to be spending quality as she has terminal cancer and all, says she is tired and goes back to read and watch TV. She feels perfectly healthy, so she's in no rush to do that creepy family time stuff. Most of my interaction with her was checking her math while she balanced her checkbook (she got it right) and turning down the beer she offered. Most of my time was spent chatting with my aunt (mom's side) as we "watched" a basketball game.

- Then I got a call. My grandmother (dad's side) wanted to know where I was. Now, I had told my aunt (dad's side) that I wouldn't arrive until after 9pm. I was told by my mother that grandma (dad's side) said it was perfectly fine if I showed up late at night. When I showed up at my grandparents' house (dad's side) at 9:30, I found out neither relative had told HER when to expect me. I was in trouble.

- The reason I didn't spend the night at my grandparents' house (mom's side) is because I have daily internet obligations! I need five minutes of internet time to upload the day's Precocious strip, and the only wifi I can steal is around my grandparents' house (dad's side).

- When I arrived at the grandparents' (dad's side) house I was greeting with the strange image of my grandmother (you know by now) eating cold Chef Boy-Ar-Dee from a can. Things also smelled funny, but at the time I chalked it up to the can (chef's side). After taking great care to keep their pipes from freezing during the recent cold weather, the pipes chose to rust themselves into oblivion instead. The kitchen was out of commission, the heat was out and the plumbers had a bit of trial and error before finding the problem.

- Thinking the leaky pipe was in one place (the wrong side) they knocked some holes in the downstairs ceiling. Though that hole came the distinct smell of dead mouse. Oh great. That explains it. (It's mostly dissipated by now, but that was not fun coming into the fresh kill zone.)

- I was tired from a day in which nothing had gone right. Grandma (still dad's side) was the same. We talked ourselves into a stupor and then adjourned for the night. It was time to do my update.

- THE INTERNET IS DEAD! I tried every fix I could, even though Windows (Satan's side) told me again and again that the problem wasn't on my end. The person from which I was stealing wifi was currently without internet - and I was up shit's creek until that person realized there was a problem.

- As midnight grew closer, I became increasingly distressed. I had it all planned out! I abandoned my grandparents (mom's side) just so I could be covered for the update! I couldn't do any other work because I was checking the connection every 10 minutes until 3am or so. I missed my update time and I hated myself for it.

- Feeling helpless, I decided to try sketching. Guess what I had forgotten to bring! If you guessed MY DAMN PENCIL, you know me too well. Fortunately, I had brought lead refills, so my no-copy red pencil was sacrificed to the alter of "I can't scan red!" That is one problem solved, everything else in the world still wrong.

- I could not sleep. Not only was my mind still panicking and waking me over and over to check the connection, but it was FREAKIN' COLD! I had just escaped a house where I was forced to run the space heater all day to keep feeling in my hands, and now busted heat put me in the same position.

- I end up sleeping through TWO alarms and oversleeping an hour. I am not remotely rested and I feel sick because of it. Oh well, at least this place has the best shower in the world! See, at home something has gone wrong. At the 10 minute mark, the hot water is gone. This had not been a problem before. Showers (home side) had been reduced to trying to ration hot water long enough to clean AND relax me. (If unrationed, it would never reach 10 minutes.) This means showers had become stressful and ALWAYS ended in cold frustration and disappointment. GUESS WHAT! Two minutes into this shower (grandparents dad's side) I had shut off the cold completely and was taking all hot I could. I finally had to bail, cold and miserable.

By now I am starting to wonder if I have died and ended up in Purgatory. No matter where I go, the same problems follow me. I can't get warm. When I do momentarily reach warmth, overheating immediately follows and I have to freeze again. No matter how long I sleep, I cannot get any rest. This has been going on for days. No matter what I do, I cannot get on the internet. I can't properly taste food. Feelings in general have become confusing. Seriously, since when have I been so succeptible to cold? It's getting worse every day and I don't know why! It's a minor disaster wherever I turn, and I am starting to suspect nothing will ever go right again. Around the 10th time I managed to connect to a wireless network from the nauseating IHOP only to have it fail to connect to the internet, I was certain I was a ghost. It's not just recent events, you see, but the past two months have been unrelenting in thrusting negativity on me. Is this like the Sixth Sense scene where I am lamenting how I am ignored by people I thought were friends, only to realize they moved on because I was, yanno, dead? Is this why I can not sleep for a day, sleep an entire day, quit eating for a while, eat like a pig another time, work hard, do nothing and generally turn my life into one crazy variable experience.... and yet the result is always the same. I feel the same no matter what I do. I weight the same no matter what I eat. This is not something mortals do. I am dead. I've been dead for a while. I'm dead and the afterlife SERIOUSLY SUCKS! Fuck me.

And then we rush home from the IHOP (after two hours of awkward and horrible-tasting misery) because we have doctors appointments. We don't stop by the library (which offers free wifi) because of this. Aha! Once again the solution is twisted away from me! This is a dream or death! I am certain!

Once home, I find the wifi person finally remembered to plug his modem back in. I do my comic update 14 hours late. I have no email, no comments, probably no chance in readership... and when I call my grandparents (mom's side) with an offer to come visit, they tell me not to bother since they didn't expect me to come over anyway. Even though we had all discussed it the day before.

No matter what happens, it all stays the same. WHY DOES THE SAME HAVE TO SUCK SO MUCH!?

Kick off your boots, come sit a spell...

"...Listen to me worry, come and listen well."

So I haven't been able to get much done for myself here so far. See, I am here to help out my grandparents and *not* myself. Usually, there is lots of nap taking and down time, meaning I can get some stuff done for me in addition to doing my duty. This time...

Since my grandfather got sick, he has not once come down to see me when I visited. My interaction with him has always been taking him his food and checking in occasionally. (He usually only had enough strength for a minute or two of conversation anyway.) For *this* visit, dude has been up and about! He's come downstairs for every single meal! That's awesome!

It's also quite sobering. All his life, he's been very good at making it seem like everything's fine with him, whether he knew what was going on or not. He'd pretend to know about topics when he didn't. When his hearing began to fade, he'd say just enough to make you think he knew what was going on. Now that he has Alzheimer's, his old habits can still fool you. So maybe he was able to throw me off previously when I was just visiting for a minute or two. Now that he's up and about (relatively) I can see him when the guard comes down. He plays along, but gets tripped up. Seeing what was supposed to be an invincible man show weakness really can get to you.

Side story: When I got here, I met his hospice nurse as she left. She was very sweet and everyone loves her. Her name starts with an A. When I visited granddad later, I complimented him on how healthy he looked. He explained he was squeaky clean from his bath. I remarked that I'd briefly met his caretaker and that she seemed sweet. Then I turned to him and said something along the lines of, "Oh shoot, I've already forgotten her name. I hate when that happens!" Classy, Chrispy.

On the other end of the spectrum is my grandmother, who is wickedly smart and one of the most interesting people anyone could ever know. We've been talking quite a lot - politics, social issues and ye olde family tales - with the conversations going for hours. It's very enriching...but time consuming! She's *also* feeling better, so extra rest time is no longer required. In true elderly bliss, she tripped yesterday - and managed to do the old "break into a job while regaining one's balance" thing. This is a HUGE DEAL when one is 83 and has a bad knee. Everyone's energized!

Is it just a precious moment when things are bright - or is it the presence of hospice? They only come twice a week, but they take care of the difficult tasks. Without the strain, both grandparents are doing better. It's lovely and wonderful that I still have time to connect with her and just be there for him - BUT HOW AM I TO GET ANY DAMN ART DONE!?

Eh, I'll trade my productivity for their vitality any day.

(opening lines cribbed from Natalie Merchant)

Missed it by *that* much

Aww, my daily streak is over. It would have been so easy to change the time stamp on the previous update to yesterday - especially since I edited it to add in more images at 1am - but where's the fun in that? Are *you* going to judge me harshly for spending the day in DC visiting my dying grandfather? Yeah, I thought so.

I wasn't planning on any update tonight, but I'll put forth a token effort. Netflix came through for me today and sent me the last two discs of Battlestar Galactica season 2 in two days instead of three. Score! I put in the first disc, settled down with my sketchbook and worked while I watched.

The episode involved the evil black market, profiting on the desperation of others. Naturally, the resulting sketch was Dionne in a schoolgirl outfit. Not only is she using a cuteness tactic to sucker people, but she's STEALING AUTUMN'S BIT! How evil can you be?

This was also the first BSG episode I've watched that I can say really sucked. One of the guest stars was the same dude from the infamous "shake the bunny" episode that was so awful it nearly destroyed LOST. Bill Duke, you are the destroyer of good shows!

Periwinkle: 3/17/1993 - 9/5/2008

Today was supposed to be a good day. It was a beautiful day, I was feeling great and the electrician was finally here to fix my lights. Today was the day I was going to sit down and begin making up for lost time in drawing my strip. Naturally, seeing that I was about to become happy, the universe chose to rip my heart out and stomp on it instead.

Today's events have left me absolutely devastated, incapable of anything but the most common analogies for sadness and heartbreak. I apologize for the weak literary merit of the post, and I hope you understand. I've been blindsided and coping is out of the question at this point.

Peri had started to look a bit ragged over the past few days, but I had chalked it up to her playing in the (dirty) dog pond. We have several tiny frogs (and the odd, late bloomer tadpole) living in the pond, and I'd caught Peri playing in the water before. Otherwise, she was the same as always: Sweet, loving and smart. When I was reading my book outside, she would come over and sit in my shadow, purring until she fell asleep. Even yesterday she was up to her old habits, begging me to turn on the kitchen faucet or to put ice cubes in her water bowl so she could bat them around.

But today mom discovered a spot of blood on the floor. Peri had started bleeding from her mouth. Our normal vet was away, so I had to drive her across town to a new place. On the way, Peri started to cry - something unusual for a cat who always had a loud purr for everyone, even the vets giving her shots! I dropped her off, talked to the vet and they said they'd give me a call once the results of the bloodwork were in. By the time I got home, they had already called. My mother was crying so hard she couldn't finish the sentence when she tried to talk to me. All I heard was, "she has cancer."

The vet had explained that this cancer was a fast-acting type. A mass had begun growing in Peri's mouth and rapidly expanding. We were told there was nothing that could be done. Not wanting her to suffer, we agreed that she had to be put down. I will likely hate myself for the rest of my life for doing this, but I couldn't see it happen. I couldn't take it, and had to sent my mother to sit with her during her final minutes.

This was *my* cat. I had picked her out and named her on the spot. I had insisted she be brought home with us when the rest of the family had chosen her brother, Striker. This cat had been my companion for more than half my life. I loved her.

Today was supposed to be a good day; the day when I started picking up the pieces and fixing my life. Now I can't stop crying.