I went almost two weeks without a flat tire on my bike. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve taken the stupid thing in to get a flat fixed. I haven’t been riding over nails and glass, what could I be doing wrong? Does this happen to all cyclists?
Moving On…
Okay, moving on with whatever friends I have left….
Today I had a voiceover job for a car commercial. It is paying more than twice the amount of money I made during the entirety of a certain year that I was doing nothing but freelance art (based on net income, not gross). This, to me, is completely nuts and morally unsound, but at least this will afford me the luxury of dropping the 9-5 habit which in turn will allow me to get back on track with my comic book projects. Tomorrow I am looking at co-renting a studio at Kingsway and Broadway.
I can now hang around sick people.
The weird thing is, though I was making more money per hour than I ever have before – dramatically so — I was way more nervous dropping in on Best unannounced at her work (a first) than I was about the acting job.
I'm A Stunted Half-Human
No disrespect meant in any way at all.
Birth and death – why don’t they move me like they do others?
When someone dies – and I’m thinking of someone in the public eye, not your grandpa – people like to talk about it and reflect. Myself, I think, oh that’s too bad that Gary Gygax isn’t going to be a part of the gaming community, but I don’t feel bad in the least. If anything, any sense of loss that I have comes from the fact that the person who has died will no longer be contributing to my quality of life. I felt that way when Edward Gorey died because I knew there’d be no more Edward Gorey books, and I will feel that way when Alan Arkin dies because I really enjoy watching him act. How selfish is that? It may have something to do with the fact that I personally have never experienced the death of anyone close to me. All relatives and friends with whom I had even a halfway decent conversation with are still alive as far as I know. Maybe that’s part of the reason I approach death from a cold, clinical perspective: it’s a natural and necessary part of life – millions of people die every day and if they didn’t Earth would be a living hell.
On to Part 2 of How To Lose Friends and Alienate People – Thank Gawd You’re Raising Kids So I Don’t Have To:
There is a real stigma about not being a fan of babies, despite the fact that a good number of people I know fall squarely within that group. I date women who don’t want children. I have a (childless) friend who had a vasectomy and whenever he and his wife show up to baby showers people are outraged. It puts me (or if I may be presumptuous, us) in a difficult position because as the years go by, more and more friends are having babies, and clearly this is extremely important to them. I want to support them; I want my breeder friends to be full of joy and pep and warm fuzzies; I don’t want to be a downer — but I pride myself on being an honest guy, which often means I come across as an asshole. So while I am happy for their happiness, it’s not important for me to see the baby, or hold the baby, or talk about the baby. I don’t know what the proper questions and answers are. I am a cat owner, and that’s as far as I go. I have never had a baby and I never will have a baby. I feel the same way about cars, except that I have actually owned a few cars in my life. But I don’t know anything about them and they are not important to me. I am part of a group of arrested demi-humans who are not fulfilling their biological and evolutionary function and I am more than okay with that. I guess what I’m saying is: my friends, please do have as many kids as you like – you will be as excellent parents as you are excellent people (you are my friends, after all); but I will never be a parent, and I ask that you have low expectations of me outside of my limited purview. You have friends who will fawn and gush over your baby; I’ll be here when you need a break from that.
Don’t mistake this post for a rant. I’m not lambasting anyone for not being as blase about death and babies as I am. My attitude is not more cool or correct. I’m just trying to do what I always do – express my innermost feelings to a large group of people through a computer.
Hopefully the next blog post will be a treatise on how terrible my tact is.
Addendum: I thought of someone I may actually be sad for when he dies: David Attenborough. We’ll see (if I don’t die first).
I'm A Good Consumer
Yesterday Deanna and I trucked out to Coquitlame to visit the wonderful world of Ikea. I feel so dirty! I already had some Ikea furniture but they were all Stewie’s hand-me-downs. Until about a month ago I had never been to an Ikea since I was a child. When Kolja and I drove down to Seattle to pitch our comic to Wizards of the Coast, we had breakfast at the Ikea nearby. Yesterday we picked up a new bed for me and also wall-mounted shelves, which we spent last night putting together (partially, anyway). So now I can no longer say that I’ve never shopped at Ikea. I keep washing but the dirt doesn’t come off.