Tag Archives: day-to-day

Big Wheel Keep on Turnin’

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Sometimes a bad day doesn’t have to be a bad day forever. New Year’s Eve started really poorly, the kind of poorly that could have carried over into the new year. I won’t get into any specifics because they’re none of your business, but my life is going to change drastically, possibly as soon as this month.

I spent the afternoon kind of shock, but one of my oldest friends got my stunned text and helped talk me through it over the phone. I’ve worried that I don’t have many friends anymore because everybody has a life, and many of them were pushed out of my life while I was married. However, everybody I reached out to got back to me as soon as they read their texts, and I was able to process the events of the day.

The reason I didn’t have a bad day was because I got to hang out with the Nerdy Couple, a husband-and-wife duo I can trace back to Bloomington, Indiana. They had with them their Delightfully Weird Friend and another friend I could only describe as unhinged.

I told them all about my morning while trying not to editorialize (while editorializing), and after that twenty-minute conversation, we talked about Star Trek, the Star-Trek-adjacent fic I’ve been posting on AO3, but haven’t updated since October. We talked a lot about Star Trek. Nerdy Husband told me that there is a novel with some information on how Sarek and Amanda Grayson got together (a question that’s been plaguing me for a while), and we all agreed that the Kirk of the original series is actually a thoughtful, diplomatic man and not the horny cowboy everybody remembers him as (thanks, in no small part, to the JJ Abrams movies).

From there we gorged ourselves on sushi, cupcakes, and (for me anyway) Adderall and coffee before playing Cards against Humanity and observing ourselves becoming horrible people. I shared my favorite pick-up line (“You remind me of my pinkie toe: you’re small, cute, and I’m probably going to bang you on my coffee table later.”) which matched the tone perfectly. My bedtime is 8:00, though closer to 7:30 lately, so by ten o’clock I was feeling loopy, which only helped me win a few rounds. Taking breaks to show each other TikTok videos and to share horrifying medical stories, we wrapped it up in time for the ball drop. Delightfully Weird Friend dominated, followed by Nerdy Husband. The rest of us weren’t even close.

That’s how I’m going to remember New Year’s Eve 2023. It was the year I became an artist again and illustrated two-and-a-half comics. I saw Romania, which was awesome, and I kicked my marijuana habit. Newcastle came down with hyperthyroidism and arthritis, but once we put him on treatment, he’s incredibly healthy (for a cat who has those ailments plus kidney disease and cardiac failure). I finally made a new friend, at work, and we text each other all the time when we’re not being productive or going out to coffee. I lost the hearing in one of my ears, but yesterday it came back. I did put on a lot of weight, which I’m not happy about.

This year I’m going to illustrate the MortalMan story I’ve been dreaming about since 2000. I even picked up a new art board to do it with. At some point, I’m going to move to a new apartment, and I’ll be living solo for the first time in my entire life. I have a plan to take my weight off. Other than that, my year will be wide open.

This has been a very matter-of-fact post, but that’s because I’m probably going to hop back into bed shortly. Once upon a time I spent New Year’s Day nursing a hangover, treating myself to a greasy breakfast, and watching bad TV, sometimes with a girlfriend, sometimes with my sister, and sometimes alone. This year I’ve spend most of my morning in my pajamas, drifting in and out of sleep and reviewing my first round of proofs while Newcastle cuddled me. I cannot be happier at this moment. Twenty-four hours ago should have ruined me, but it failed. I’m filled with as much chill and hope as I’ve ever had.

May your year fill you with chill and hope.

Like No One’s Watching

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Something unusual happened to me yesterday, and I’m still not sure what to make of it.

My office takes up five floors of our ten-story building, and on floors 6 through 9, there is an identical conference room. The rooms are made of glass and are not soundproof (which is not important for this story, but is something worth keeping in mind if you work here). They are located in the same corner of each floor as the elevators.

Every Thursday, my boss, my boss’s boss, and my fellow Editorial Coordinator meet in a conference room, very rarely the one on our floor. The table has four sides, but my fellow Coordinator Zooms in because she is disabled and works from home. Her face is projected on a forty-eight-inch screen, and therefore my bosses and I populate three sides of the table, facing her. I like to sit with my back to the window for reasons.

And here is where the event occurred. This week, we were located on the sixth floor. The only thing I know about the sixth floor is that the break room is there. I don’t know anyone who works there, but since I had the best view of the cubicle farm, I people-watched while our department talked amongst ourselves.

There is a really cute girl on the sixth floor. (I call her a girl when she’s in her twenties; also, get off my lawn.) I saw her approach from the far side of the office on a bearing that would have taken her straight through the glass conference-room wall and right into my lap (not in a pervy way; don’t forget I’m ace). It was hard to avoid watching her because my boss and my boss’s boss were seated in a way that I was facing the cubicle farm, but I didn’t want to seem like a creep, so I kept my eyes on my laptop, and eventually, she veered off.

She reappeared in front of the elevators a while later and pushed the button. While she waited, she started to dance. I am the prime audience for people being free and enjoying themselves, so I secretly applauded her. But the next time I looked up, her eyes were on me, and I felt terrible for invading her private moment. She smiled and continued to dance, and she kept turning toward me, as if to make sure I was watching. A coworker joined her, and they danced into the elevator car.

When I go to the elevators, and there’s a meeting, I get really self-conscious. At the same time, I feel like I have to put on a performance for the people who can see me. For me, that means pushing the button and stepping into the car with exaggerated panache. For this young woman, that meant dancing. Who knows? Maybe she was feeling self-conscious. I won’t dance—I have this pathological aversion to dancing—but there’s a show in me somewhere, and if I put it on, it’ll be because it was brought out of me by this nameless blonde in the white sweater.

Oh My Gourd

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I have been unusually social lately, which is to say I’ve been a little bit social.

It started when my desk moved to the other side of the office, closer to my boss (and farther away from the constant gossips who never acknowledged my existence). Sitting nearby was the new girl whose neo-eighties look I admired from a distance. And, completely unlike me, I introduced myself and engaged in a few long conversations with her.

As an introvert who becomes more of a hermit with each passing day, I’m fine not talking to people, and in fact, I prefer it. But there’s a difference between my new neighbors giving me space and my old neighbors not even acknowledging I exist.

For example, I overheard one of my new neighbors say, “… for when you rip your arm off …” I turned around and said, “What the HELL are you talking about?” And they laughed and included me and filled me in. My old neighbors would have laughed and carried on like I wasn’t there. I may be quiet, but I’m not opposed to conversation.

Anyway, eighties girl was not alive in the eighties, but like 80 percent of the girls I knew who were, her name is Jennifer. She moved desks a few days after I met her, out of sight, out of mind.

What typically keeps me from introducing myself to people is that I feel like I need an excuse. I don’t want to be (anymore awkward0. With Jennifer, it was telling her I liked her style. However, with the other new girl who just started last week, my excuse was she was my counterpart at the other journal we publish. I made myself available for questions, and I did the unthinkable: I asked her out to coffee.

(I don’t think I should have to say this, but I’m going to say this anyway to clear up any potential confusion: this was not a date. I’m ace, and she’s getting married in March. This was a friend date at the most.)

But what really alarmed me was when the boss’s boss’s boss put out a call for the Pumpkin Carving Committee. I volunteered, only to find out that all of the other volunteers knew I was an artist. (I photocopy pages from my sketchbook and hang them up in my cubicle, but I didn’t think anyone noticed.) So not only am I a part of a work-related fun activity, but I kind of took charge. I gathered everyone’s email addresses and contact the group with updates. Naturally, I designed it, marked it up for cutting, and also walked to the art store with the corporate credit card and bought paint. (Based on the recommendation of the gurus there, I purchased paint markers, which don’t dry out and are more convenient if I want to graffiti the place on my last day.)

I’m not going to do anymore to the pumpkin. As I told the committee, I’ve been hogging up the fun. My boss volunteered to gut, but no one is stepping up to give it a face. I am reasonably sure the pumpkin will go unfinished. But I don’t care because look what I did!

That begs the question, what has gotten into me?

You Load Fifteen Tons, What Do You Get?

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I’m currently working at the best job I’ve ever had. The pay is pretty good, the benefits are the best outside of the federal government, and the workload is manageable, with deadlines that I would describe as “loose.” I have ADHD, so even with my tool box, I make mistakes and forget some details, but (most) people are really patient with me. My duties consist mostly of troubleshooting (my favorite job), and (most of) my colleagues are friendly. I clashed with my last supervisor, but by the time she moved on, we had a great relationship where my input and ideas were valued, and she encouraged me to grow in my position. My new supervisor seems nice, and I already trust her with any issues and suggestions I have. And I’m in publishing—science publishing, but publishing.

Lately, on top of my daily work, I’ve been helping out with an annual project. I have the bandwidth to handle it—I have to push back some of the work with looser deadlines to tackle this, but the pressure is minimal. (I have to be nudged occasionally, though.)

I say this because yesterday, my boss’s boss’s boss caught me at the latte machine and said, “Hey, nice work on [that thing you did].”

I said, “Thanks. I still have a lot to do before the deadline.”

“Yeah,” he replied, “but good job today.”

He was thanking me for doing my job, the one I got paid for. And you know what? It felt good. It felt really good. I take pride in my work, and to have it acknowledged that high up meant a lot to me.

When I got home, I painted a little so I could binge a show that was leaving Hulu by the end of the month, and one of the authority figures told a guy, “I don’t thank you for doing your job.” (This is the same show with the line, “How are we supposed to know what they’re gonna do next if we can’t predict their next move,” so I don’t put a lot of stock into it.) And that’s the problem with this country. Workers have spent so much time doing more than what’s in their job description that it’s expected, and it’s expected for free. Wages have stagnated, bonuses aren’t given out, promotions are withheld, and no one says thank you. It’s such a routine thing that, when Zoomers started doing no more than their job description, businesses freaked out, ran to The Wall Street Journal, and called it “Quiet Quitting.” Nobody’s quitting, they’re just recognizing their own value.

I may not get a raise or bonus for [that thing I did] because it was in my job description, but I still did it well. My work was recognized. I was seen. That meant the world to me, and it encouraged me to keep it up or maybe do more.

And so I passed it on. In a group email updating the managers on said project, I thanked the temp for doing [something really tedious]. It was her job, but it was [something really tedious], and she did it well and in a timely fashion. I wouldn’t have been able to do [that thing I did] without her. A manager wrote back, “I didn’t know [temp] had to do [something really tedious]! Great job!” I hope that lifted her spirits as much as my boss’s boss’s boss did.

I guess I’m saying, if you’re a manager or even a parent, and your underling or kid does what they’re supposed to do, a little attaboy doesn’t cost anything, it might make their day. It might encourage them to be better.

Fur Sure

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Yesterday, I was leaned back in my office chair, taking a mandated break from the sketchbook painting I was working on, my feet up on my desk. At this angle, the pear-like shape of my body makes a perfect day bed for Newcastle, who was purring and looking at me through hooded eyes, under the spell of the double-ear scratches he was getting. Once he was sated, he rested his head on my chest and drifted off to sleep, leaving me in this position for the foreseeable future, and I did something a little difficult to explain. I cried. I cried heavy sobs as I watched him curled up in a large, fluffy ball on my belly. It wasn’t particularly dignified, but I love this cat, and I don’t know what I’m going to do when he’s gone.

Nineteen years ago, I took a trip to Bloomington, Indiana, to meet my close friend, Kate. During the trip, we realized we were soul mates, and shortly after I returned home, arrangements were made for me to move from New York adjacent to her house on Stoneycrest Road. This was in June, and I would be moving in with her in August.

During this margin, she began to have dreams about a kitten who was about to die. She fancied herself a witch, so she took it as a prophecy and went to the animal shelter. She found the kitten from her dreams, and they were going to put him to sleep. He was a runt with pneumonia and a bad case of the worms. Also, he was ugly, with his greasy brown fur, looking like the transition from mogwi to gremlin. Despite the offers of a better cat, Kate adopted him and spent the next six weeks nursing him to health. She told me over the phone that she knew that this wasn’t her kitten. She didn’t know whose, but it wasn’t hers. This gross little thing was kept in the bathroom until he got better and her other two cats got used to him.

By the time he emerged, he was still a little greaseball, but he was a kitten who wouldn’t sit still for anything until he got tired and fell down to sleep. He’s also rock stupid. She named him Newcastle, after her favorite beer of the moment, because he fit in a pint glass and he had a foamy white chest.

Shortly after I moved in, he started following me around, occasionally taking naps with me when he slowed down long enough. Kate, who didn’t want to support another cat and was planning on adopting him out when he got well, knew she couldn’t break us up.

The runt grew.

And he grew some more.

My theory was that he ate some radioactive kibble. In actuality, he was either a Maine Coon or Norwegian Forest Cat mix. At only sixteen pounds at his largest, though, he was still a runt.

He never outgrew his kitten face, leading to Nicole calling him Baby Cat. (She had nicknames for all the cats when she lived with Kate and me.) Also, the brown darkened into a grayish black, with a spot of brown on his belly with the white chest, so that when we violated the two-pet limit in our high-rise apartment building, we pretended he and Magik were the same.

Like all of our cats while I was married, Newcastle is very social. He loves guests, and he especially enjoys parties, where he can beg for snacks, and he’s not even subtle. He loves people food, except for anything with tomatoes in it. When he was younger, I’d run to the bedroom and jump into bed, and he was right behind me, and we’d lie there together, cuddling. When Kate and I were taking a save-the-marriage quiz, guessing details about our spouses, her answer to “What’s your husband’s favorite animal?” was Newcastle. “You guys have a weird relationship,” she said. In our post-nuptial agreement that was the foundation of our divorce, we split up custody of the cats. She got the other two, and I got Newcastle. I almost lost him, though, because I separated broke and unable to afford his vet bills, which she generously covered for me the first three months following the split.

In 2012, we took him in for an ultrasound, and the vet made an interesting discovery. The reason he was often short of breath was not because of scarring from the pneumonia, as we’d thought, but because almost half of his liver was in his lungs. He recommended “cracking him open” and fixing it, but thankfully our second opinion said that wouldn’t be necessary. He was eight years old by that point, and he was doing fine.

Three years later, the vet noticed a heart murmur, and after another ultrasound, he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. It had grown too big and was folding in on itself, necessitating semiannual cardiology visits and three medications every day to keep it from getting worse. two years ago, they added a fourth. Every two weeks, I cut up the pills and fit them into capsules so I can enjoy my least favorite time of the day, shoving it down his throat. Unlike most cats, he takes it like a champ, though he does look betrayed afterward. Last year, his back legs got really wobbly, and they told us he had arthritis (requiring a monthly shot), and earlier this year, hyperthyroidism (requiring an expensive ear cream). I don’t want to go broke taking care of him, and I considered not treating the hyperthyroidism, but all the pet docs say he’s pretty spry for an old guy (guitar riff). He could have three active, healthy years left if he’s properly medicated.

Sure he’s wobbly, sure he’s eight pounds lighter than he was in his youth, sure he can’t jump on my lap anymore, and sure, all he does is sleep, but he’s nineteen years old, and he’s been the most consistent relationship I’ve ever had. Since he is coming up on the end, I let him have some people food (he loves Fritos), and if he shows up, meowing at my desk, whether I’m writing, drawing, or working, I will scoop him up and give him all the attention he deserves. He’s earned it.

There were tears yesterday, but they were happy tears. He may be a big, dumb cat, but he’s my best friend. We’ve grown old together, and I love him so much.

Ace up my Sleeve

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I wrote this angry. I put it down, worked for six hours, and came back to it. I was still angry (though I managed to add some clarity to some confusing bits). I feel like I was remarkably patient, even though this has happened one time too many.

There appears to be a misunderstanding. Maybe people forgot this about me. Maybe people don’t even believe this about me. Either way, I want to take the time to clear this up. Last month, I wrote a post about wanting to say hello to a woman I see every week at the café. I was anxious about it, to the point of paralysis. Enough of my friends are under the assumption I wanted to ask her out on a date.

No, goddammit. Over the past fifteen years, I have developed crippling social anxiety. I can carry on a conversation with a stranger if they start it. Ask me to start a conversation, and I get the yips really badly. All I wanted to do with this woman was say hello, tell her I’d seen her here every week, and share my name, which I didn’t think was possible without looking like a creep. I didn’t inherit the anxiety from my dad, who would pursue a person through a parking lot if they had Jersey plates.

That brings me to the larger issue. The abbreviation LGBTQ is actually an abbreviation of LGBTQIA. The I stands for (I think) intersex, and the A stands for asexual (ace to its friends). Being left out of the term that describes alternative sexuality is only one example of asexuality erasure. Mostly it’s the flat-out denial, including—from a whole lot of people in the LGBTQ community—that it exists at all. Maybe an ace hasn’t met the right person. Maybe they’re just not trying hard enough. Maybe they can’t possibly know if they like sex or not if they’ve never tried it. Maybe they’ve had sex before, so they can’t be ace.

I identify as asexual. I’m not sure anyone I know believes me because I hear a lot of doubt about it. I’ve been hearing some lately, and it’s been really getting under my skin. It’s part of my identity, and I shouldn’t have to justify it. I shouldn’t have to explain it. I should just be allowed to be. Just this once, I’m going to go over the common things that make people doubt me.

I’ve had sex before. In some cases, I’ve had sex a lot of times before. I once bought a family-sized box of condoms on a Friday with the intention of not having to buy them again for a while, only to discover that I needed a new box come Monday. A lot of people don’t fully understand their sexuality until later in life. I had an inkling that I was asexual in my early thirties, but I became sexually active briefly, so I figured that invalidated that. It turns out I’m bipolar, and I’ve only ever been horny when I’m manic, when I’m a different person altogether. In the past, mania turned me into the Incredible Hulk. Now, with the right treatment, mania turns me into the Credible Hulk.

I have crushes. Yes, I get butterflies for both men and women, but men don’t impress me as often as women. The most important thing is that I don’t want to have sex with them. Sex never even crosses my mind. I just want to follow them around like a little puppy.

I write a lot of sex in my novels, and I used to write erotica. Like Stephen King is a non-threatening dork who can write an entire novel from the perspective of a homicidal dog, I write fiction. The definition of “fiction,” from Merriam-Webster, is “fic-SHUN. n. made-up shit.” Emphasis on the made up. I don’t write a lot of sex anymore, but I write a lot of kissing, and words cannot describe how revolting I find pieholes grinding up against pieholes. Sex is even grosser because there’s a wider variety of fluids involved.

I draw a lot of sexy women. Here’s where I think most people get tripped up, but the answer is, I am attracted to sexiness. From the presence of a woman in a power suit to the muscle of a 1970 Pontiac GTO to the swagger of David Tennant in Good Omens, confidence (even feigned confidence) grabs my full attention and holds on. The word sexy trips people up because sex is in it, but I have never associated the two.

Asexuality is a spectrum, like all sexualities. There are aromantics, who want nothing to do with dating and holding hands. (I’m borderline aro. I’m extremely touch averse, but there is one person who is allowed skin-on-skin contact with me.) There are people who are revolted by sex. There are people who have sex, usually for a partner, and don’t hate it, but don’t get off on it. There are demisexuals, who are only attracted to someone once they get to know them. Most importantly for the point I’m trying to make, there are aces who tend to lean into one sexuality or another. I, for example, lean heterosexual. It doesn’t mean I want to have sex with anyone of the opposite gender, just that I find them more interesting than my own.

To be clear, despite that my eye is drawn to physical attributes, they have nothing to do with my opinion of someone. For example, the woman in the coffee shop I wanted to approach is not the kind of woman who catches my eye. Neither is my ex-wife. I hooked up with the latter because we spent an hour in a car together getting to know one another. I said hi to the former because we share a space for an hour a week, and it seemed like the polite thing to do. While I have dated women who were my physical type, I can say of the three most beautiful, two did not go well.

It’s been four years since I’ve had sex, and I don’t miss it. †here are behaviors and preferences I have that seem to indicate sexual inclinations, but I’m asexual. Please do not challenge this. Please do not call bullshit on me. This is a truth about me that you need to accept if you want to be a part of my life.

I’m ace, I’ve accepted it, and I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life.

And Another Thing

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One more point on the reason I hate AI so much and why it’s not art: What’s the point? If you can produce a professional-looking image or a coherent novel or even a movie just by filling in some Mad-Libs, why would you even bother?

It’s frustrating that my art doesn’t look like it does in my head or that I’ll never illustrate those action comics I used to fantasize about walking home from the PATH train. It’s disappointing that I’m not going to finish the last comic I started working on. But look at what I’ve done in the past 25 years. I can crank out a full-color drawing in about a day, and it’s hard. And yet I take pride in my poses. I savor filling in the details. I can’t do that by typing in a box.

I’ve written over 30 novels, plus several unfinished, and with each one I fell in love with the characters, and I learned who they were with every page. Whether you’re a plotter or a pantser, piecing together a story is a rewarding challenge, and one I hope to get back to someday.

I’ve even made 2 movies in my life, one in French, and I don’t even remember the finished project. I don’t even remember the titles–wait. They were The Rat and Rambo et Juliet. What I do remember clearly is hanging out with my friends and traveling all over town and being goofballs and how Max simulated the sound of someone falling off of a balcony (he stomped on a small branch behind the camera).

I’m never going to be a famous artist or writer or a filmmaker. My stuff will never be as polished as what some of these AI engines have produced, and I don’t care. It’s not sampled from other art (I use a lot of references, though, and some swiping) and writing and movies, it’s mine.

One day soon, all of our popular movies, books, and graphic images may be produced by AIs, but it won’t be art. And I, for one, and really smug about that.

Or, to put it another way, I bought this from an MOC site.

After spending an hour with it, I had this.

Another hour later, this:

I could have scoured the internet and found a Short Circuit action figure and put it on a shelf and forgot about it immediately, or I could have spent my drawing time this morning enjoying it, feeling it in my hand, guessing which iconic part of the robot I was constructing next, and building a scale replica of a memory from my childhood from a couple bags of plastic. I feel accomplished, and on a day I had Artist’s Block, I passed the time (somewhat) productively.

Some things shouldn’t be easy—not because it’s hard for me, but because it’s good for the soul.

A Puzzling Experience

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I’m going through a manic period right now, which means I have a lot of energy, I’m in a great mood for the most part, I’m focused, my creative output is on the edge of being ridiculous, I’m chatty, even with strangers, I’m not paying attention to my budget as much, and the slightest inconvenience makes me want to flip a desk. I’m glad I have the tools to recognize when it’s happening, but with the drug cocktail I’m on, they’re usually a lot more subtle. I’ll probably have to get my medication adjusted, which is the 2-1/2th circle of hell.

Meanwhile, for months, there has been a puzzle. I like the puzzle. I don’t ever use it, but I like it. I’m aware of the therapeutic power of a puzzle because my mother is a professional when it comes to them. It’s great to be able to take a break and refocus your mind elsewhere (which is why, for example, I’m blogging at work for a few minutes). The puzzles are fun, from the Vegas-style mid-century Palm Springs poster to the various farms to the ‘Murca one (a bald eagle flying over purple mountain majesties and amber waves of grain, with wavy red-and-white stripes in the sky). There’s just one problem: the puzzle space is on the other side of my low cubicle wall.

There’s no chair there, so you have to stand up to work on it. This isn’t a problem with my work friend, who chats with me when I’m not in the zone, but for everyone else, who don’t quite know what to make of me, who don’t even say hi, that means, in my periphery, several times a day, there is someone looming there for up to twenty minutes. It’s distracting, and it’s unnerving, and it makes me tense even when I’m on an even keel.

I am not on an even keel.

After a long puzzle session from someone who doesn’t acknowledge my existence, I restrained myself from snapping and went to Work Dad’s office and explained my situation, starting with the sentence, “I don’t want to be the guy who kills fun, and it’s been great for morale, but that puzzle has to go somewhere else.” Before I could even list my reasons for this, he started brainstorming new locations for it (a chore because where it is now is literally the best place for it), and he gave me a compromise: let them finish Palm Springs, and he will give it a new home. Work Dad has an absurd amount of empathy.

This is the second great victory I have scored this week. The first one was procedural, and I can’t explain it without about four or five paragraphs, just that it was mighty. I have no one to brag about it to, though, especially not my work friend because the puzzle’s current location is right outside her office, and she’s such a crucial part of the staff that she can’t stray too far from her desk.

So I’m bragging to the readers of my blog, both of you. Here’s hoping they finish Palm Springs quickly before I go on a rampage.

Coffee Shopaholic

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Twenty years, when I lived New York adjacent, there was a spot on Eighth Street near Astor Place where you could look at a Starbuck’s, turn to your left and see another Starbuck’s, and turn to your right to see another Starbuck’s. It was like you entered some kind of vortex. There was a Starbuck’s in the Container Store when I worked there. When I visited Shane in Binghamton, the only place we could go was Starbuck’s. In the early nineties, it was a magical, distant place I’d only hear about in whispers, but by the late nineties, it was like mold.

It’s been years since I’ve been to a Starbuck’s. (Except for in airports because they give you no other options.) I prefer the smaller places that don’t bust unions, and they don’t serve you coffee that tastes like it’s been on the burner for a month. I found one a short distance from my place, and I’ve started going there regularly.

I bring one of my three sketchbooks and something to draw and color with because I work best in noise and the occasional distraction. I don’t see a lot of repeat customers, except for one.

The cafe consists of some booths and two couches with tables in front of them. I always sit in one corner of the couch. On the other corner is always a customer, about my age and not dressed in athleisurewear like every other woman who patronizes the place, and she is there every Saturday morning. She tends to sit on the other side of my looong sofa, and she spends all of her time drinking her iced beverage and reading her phone.

When I saw her this past Saturday, I thought about saying hi (not ask her out), but I got the yips. I’m naturally shy, I’ve got a mean resting bitch face, you can’t tell I’m not dating just by looking at me, and the most important part: I am pathologically afraid of being a creep.

I’m large, with hair that doesn’t stay nice and a beard that grows back as soon as it’s trimmed, my inability to start a conversation, and the aforementioned mean resting bitch face. I assume the sour looks on faces I see on the sidewalk is because they’re disgusted with me, as opposed to the fact that nobody ever looks happy on the sidewalk. This is called confirmation bias.

So my therapist and I talked about it, and she pointed out that if she were creeped out by me, she wouldn’t sit on the same sofa, over and over. She may not want to be a friend, but she’s definitely not disgusted with me.

My homework is to say hi, and if she is friendly, tell her my name. Maybe even get hers. I see my therapist once a month, giving me four Saturdays to get past the yips.

Wish me luck!

Create Expectations

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When I started writing again after a long hiatus, I was working at The Container Store, which is the most on-the-nose name for a place of commerce since I hung out at The Coffee House in Lincoln the summer of 1996. My shifts were typically six hours, and they could be at any time the store was open or closed, which meant overnights or every Thursday at 5:00 a.m. I was itching to write, but I could only pull it off if my shifts were in the afternoon and evening, as after work, I had no energy or focus.

I didn’t want to be one of those writers who talks about writing but never writes. Writing isn’t work to me or a duty or something I have to do; it’s a process that brings me joy. Every day I couldn’t do it left me frustrated and depressed, leading me into deep planning mode. I noted that, because I’m crashing from my day, the only thing I do in the evening is watch TV or scroll slack-jawed through the internet. My solution was this: hack off that part of the day and gift it to myself on the other end when I have the energy.

Now, at four in the morning, I wake up and get ready, and by 4:30 (I’m a boy), I sit down at my desk or on my stoop, weather permitting, and this was my time to write, every day. I could write a lot or a little, as long as I was writing. I could scribble, “I got nothing” in a notebook for two hours, and it would count as writing. Several months ago, I started drawing, which crowded the writing from my schedule. Now, at 6:30, when I usually need a break, I hop the train to work and draw at my desk until I clock in at eight. The hour at my desk is important because I use my time in the ungodly early hours of the morning to illustrate my comic, which I can’t and shouldn’t bring with me to work. That leaves me with an hour plus lunch with my sketchbook and no restraints. As much fun as the comic is, it’s nice to branch out and play around a little.

I put a lot of time into being creative, so you’ll understand why a man with a lot to worry about is still pretty content.

Unfortunately, I’m entering a bit of a depressive period. I don’t mean depressed like sad, or even the kind of depression that turns my world into black and white and freezes my joints. Aside from concern over Newcastle, I’m actually doing quite well. The problem is, food doesn’t taste good to me anymore. Music doesn’t sound good to me anymore. The new Guardians of the Galaxy is out, and is apparently pretty good, and I couldn’t give less of a fuck. And yet, even this numb is better than the alternative.

Another sign that I’m on a downswing is that my artistic output goes down. I still work during the aforementioned mornings, but I’m more likely to wrap up early or get pulled into the movie I have on in the background. I’m still cranking out pages—I just filed page 6—but I’m less satisfied with the work I’m producing than I’d be if I were level. I’m still drawing in the morning, but I’ve been setting up my drawing gear for lunch when I’ve changed my mind and skipped it altogether to eat while I work.

It’ll come back, it always does. It’s hardly worth mentioning. Except that Newcastle has been extraordinarily clingy lately, and I don’t want to miss any time with him, so I’m probably not finishing page 7 by Sunday evening. Up until just now, I was cranking out two, maybe three pages a week, but between my inspiration drying up and my muse being such a narcissistic asshole, I’m not finding a lot of time to work on my project.

But my reason for creating art is so I can take pleasure in the craftsmanship, from watching a plot unfold before me to scribbling a circle to stand in for a head while the body takes shape. I got to letter in the word “diarrhea” today, with an accompanying facial expression and pose that really sold the dialogue. If I’m not having fun, there’s no point in doing it, so I’m going to have to take it slow for a while.

And if it means I have to be even slower for the sake of my cat, then I will gladly take my sweet time. Doing it amateur means no deadlines.