No one in New York looks like this.

Sorry I've been awol from this blog, I've been busy not looking like these people here.

More to come, soon! All drawings are orange now.

How to get 100 girlfriends.

One of my favorite hobbies is eavesdropping on the conversations of strangers. The other day I was on the subway and this hipster couple next to me was trying to impress each other. They were talking about first concerts, and I overheard this little gem:

Girl: "I went to to Warped Tour when I was 15."
Guy: "Warped Tour, huh?"
Girl: "Yeah, I was a tough bitch."
Guy: "Or a stupid bitch. Is that it?"
Girl: "Oh."



SO MEAN! I was laughing so hard. I think I gave myself away.

day to day

I keep going to the little grocery store around the corner with a shopping list, and then just not buying half the list because I can't find it in the store. I've gone 3 times to look for things I gave up trying to find, or for stuff I forgot to write down. I've got just about everything now except for the peanut butter. WHERE IS IT, FOOD TOWN? WHERE ARE YOU HIDING IT.

Asking a store clerk means you lose and don't deserve to eat.

I really love these small cramped stores, though. There's a Rite Aid down the street in a normal sized building, but there's ALSO a little family owned sort of drug store, that carries the entire contents of Rite Aid, except in a store 1/8th the size. WAY BETTER. I don't have time to walk from aisle 2 to aisle 8, are you kidding? I'm a business woman.

I also found a hardware store that is basically Home Depot crammed into a large closet. I kind of felt like I was going to die when I was in there but it was great and I got a good deal on an extension cord and some wire brads.

I used these supplies to set up a work station in my apartment, because the place has weird wiring and the outlet by the desk didn't have 3 prongs and couldn't fit any of my plugs. I nailed the wire up around some door frames, using a high heeled shoe as a hammer.

One thing I didn't realize about high heeled shoes is that it hurts as much as a hammer to get hit on the thumb with one. This is good to know in case I'm ever caught in a situation where I need a weapon and don't have one.

I've been meeting a lot of new people here, which has been great. One of the people I met told me to read the short story "Bernice Bobs her Hair" by F.Scott Fitzgerald. I didn't read it yet but I did read the wikipedia entry and it inspired a drawing that I finished in Illustrator.


I'll probably go read the story now.

Another thing is that being here and meeting so many new people has made me hyper aware of the way that I present myself. I'm trying to take advantage of the opportunity to do a bunch of first impressions. My motto for New York is "fake it til I make it."

WORST ANIMAL.

I had sort of forgotten how much I hate pigeons. But don't worry, I remember now. I don't really like birds in general, but they are hardly ever close enough to me that I can hear the FLUTTERING. So sick. When a bird is fluttering near me I just feel like my air is completely ruined. I'm not really the type to ever think about germs, but around a pigeon or 100 pigeons it's all I can think of.

Also you can't trust a pigeon not to fly right at your face. They totally would do it.



JUST IMAGINE IT.

Everything besides the pigeons is great here. It's a small price to pay, I guess.

I drank all my roommate's juice because he was in Boston and I was gonna buy him more juice before he got back but he just walked in so I have to run to the store now. WHOOPS.

exhausted blogging, day 3

We're not homeless anymore! Today we signed a 4.5 month lease, for a 2 bedroom apartment in Brooklyn in a neighborhood called Bay Ridge. I'm pretty sure every time I tell someone where I live I will say "Bay Ridge-I know it's far but IT'S OK I really like it" all in one breath.

The neighborhood is really nice and safe, there's a bunch of amenities, and it's just a normal place where normal people live. Hipster-free. Also there's an express train so relax.

Today I ate a Vietnamese sloppy joe, and a piece of pizza, and a cupcake.

GOOD DAY.

Too tired to blog DAY 2

Today I walked in heels around the Time Square area because I had a job lead, and it felt great. I was alone so I was walking very purposefully, with no regard for anyone else. Really the only way to walk.

I liked feeling important for about 5 minutes, then I wished I was back as a bum wearing boots or sneakers.

I guess that's my life now.

I'M TOO TIRED TO BLOG

I am writing this live from New York City. I am exhausssssted! We've been running around looking for a place to live today, and it turns out Brooklyn is really hard to get around if you're trying to get from one weird area to some other weird area. I think we were on a subway for a total of 5 hours today. 5 hours of just being on a subway. I helped a blind guy find a seat and then 20 minutes later he spit a bunch of phlem on the floor. It was gross. Enough phlem that it might as well have been vomit. You know how it goes.

I was feeling a little run down from it all, and then I ate a really great bagel. Everything bagel with cream cheese and chives. Coffee with 2 creams. PURE BLISS for however long it took me to eat it. Then I felt OK.

Then a little bit after that I ate a soup, and it was just vegetable broth with GIANT vegetables. Like, they didn't try and cut the vegetables up at all. It was good but it was like, Ok I'm eating a vegetable, OK now I'm chasing it with broth, OK now I'm eating a vegetable.

Eating and going on the subway are the two main reasons I'm moving here so don't think this wasn't a great day. I'm also too tired to go in an strategically add exclamation marks to show that I'm excited and genuine. Because I am!!!!

Now I'm going to email a bunch more strangers from the internet and ask to come over and look inside their homes.

News!

Hey blog friends, sorry I left you hanging so long, but this blog post is going to be packed full of fun news items.

First, I have a page in this great anthology coming out along with a bunch of real life grown up big league cartoonists! I posted a taste of what I did for it last month, the final piece is really great and I'm really proud of it. Real high quality jokes. "BLACK EYE: Graphic Transmissions to Cause Ocular Hypertension," published by Rotland Press, is "an new anthology that collects original narrative comics, art and essays by 42 international artists and writers, all focused on the expression of black, dark or absurdist humor."

Cover by Onsmith and Paul Nudd

What can you do to help with my BIG BREAK? You can head on over to the Kickstarter page and throw down your milk money to help offset printing costs. Right here! While you're there, check out that list of names that I'm on.

Second thing: I am moving away to New York City this month to become a famous millionaire. I am very excited and scared and it is very exhilarating. I will miss Detroit and its wonderful inhabitants kind of more than you would even believe. But, it's about time for some adventure, and it might as well be somewhere where I can eat 20 bagels and then stand in the MoMA looking at pictures all day every day until I have died or I get job.

Speaking of jobs. I will soon be a famous millionaire, BUT, there might be a small period of time in between moving and achieving fame and success where I am poor and homeless, and for that time I could really use a job. Anyone know of anyone who could help me in that department?

These are the things I know how to do and have experience doing in exchange for money:
Drawing pictures
Arranging words together on a page
Teaching and hanging out with kids, except not where you need a certificate
Digital printing
Customer service/Reception/Admin support
Retail/smiling at customers/making correct change
Putting books on a shelf in the right order
Sandwiches

I'm particularly good at smiling.

So many girlfriends

blood basin

(1) Monkey

I don't even know what's funny anymore.

bad dog

One of my favorite things to look at during the winter is pictures of people who died trying to climb Mount Everest. It's so gruesome. I also replay the images constantly in my head every time I take Abby for a walk now. It's so cold out, holy crap.

There's ice everywhere and Abby loves winter and snow and cold so much. She jumps around like a maniac. I am super bundled and bent over from the cold, and I take small careful steps with my knees really bent the whole way, so I don't fall and shatter every bone in my body.



This is moments before I slip and am left to die of exposure and the neighbors find my body mummified from the cold and have to drive by it every day until spring because it is too cold and dangerous to retrieve it for burial.

Another great thing about winter is I haven't washed my hair in 8 days. I've showered but I hate getting my hair wet in the winter because it's long and takes forever to dry even with a hairdryer and I don't want my head to be cold and I'm lazy. So, whoops. Thanks, winter hats!

Piñata!

This Friday was the opening of the Work:Detroit Touch show. Everything in the show invited audience participation, and you got to touch everything. I had a pinata in the show.



I put about 4 pounds of candy in there. I wasn't sure about my engineering skills but it held.

Photo courtesy of gallery director Stephen Schudlich.

My main worries about the thing was that it would either a) break open after one hit and be really anticlimactic, or b) not break open at all, but only sort of crumple in on itself, which is something that can happen with pinatas made of newspaper like this.

BUT. You guys. Neither of those things happened. It went PERFECTLY. There were so many people in the gallery, and everyone crowded around to watch and cheer. Six people got a chance to hit it. They got blindfolded and spun around by me. Everyone got 3 swings at it, and everyone hit it at least once out of their 3 swings. First the arm fell off, then the other arm, the someone got a headshot in that knocked half the hair off.

It was finally split open by artist Ryan Standfest.

Photo courtesy of a stranger.

It was beautiful. Everyone was smiling and cheering and having a great time. I kept laughing and stomping my feet, I was loving it so much.

It split open so perfectly. I think the heavy candy is what helped make it not crumple.



BONUS real life piñata lady. I bet that lady was REALLY kicking her self about her outfit choice. Unbelievable.



After it split, people dived for candy and body parts. Which were then relocated throughout the gallery.



All in all, a terrific time and a great show! The corpse is still hanging by the door, and the show is open until Dec 24. Lots of cool pieces, plus a free original artwork available by mail order from one Andy Gabrysiak.

BF

This is sort of belated but this year I had some electronics I've been wanting to buy, and so for the first time ever I participated in BLACK FRIDAY.

I didn't go to any of the crazy stores like Walmart or Target because I didn't want a new TV, but I'm kind of bummed because I wanted to see the maximum frenzy. Next year I want to just go as a tourist.

I did a lot of Black Friday ad research and found two retailers selling what I wanted, a new computer monitor to hook up to my macbook, and a specific netbook I'd had my eye on. The ultimate goal was to retire my macbook to a life on the desktop as a "WORK" computer, which I hope will lengthen its life, and to get a cheap little baby lap top that I could cart around and use for emails and twitter on the couch and internet tv in bed.

First stop was Radio Shack, which had a really good deal on the netbook. My brother Joey agreed to be my team mate even though he didn't want to buy anything. Radio Shack opened at 5:30, and since it's sort of right by a Walmart we figured everyone would be there getting trampled, so we got up at 4:30 and got there at about 5:10. There was a small line so we trucked out of our car to go stand.

I forgot to mention that it was BITTERLY BITTERLY COLD OUT. When we left the house, my car's doors were all frozen shut. I had to bully the passenger side door open and after that, IT WOULDN'T CLOSE. So I was like, great, these deals are not work a broken car, but whatever, TOO LATE NOW.

Here's a picture of me outside of Radio Shack.



I like how I have ghost legs.

WELL it turned out that the ten or so people in line ahead of us at just come from Walmart. WHAT. They were all hardcore and were first in line there and bough their shit at 5:00 exactly and then came to Radio Shack right after. The guy in front of us was at Walmart all night to buy some laptop but it ended up not having a webcam so he didn't want it. He said that's why everyone else was in line too. WHAT Anyway we waited until the store opened and then it turned out Radio Shack only had ONE netbook at that price and some other asshole had got it before me.

At this point I am very sad and feeling like a total failure. But we were not going to fail at Office Max so I had the fury. Office Max is the one that had the deal on the monitor I wanted and they opened at 7.

We got to Office Max at 6. There was no line in front but there are a few cars idling in the parking lot. We park and discuss how everyone must be in a game of chicken for the first person to get out of their cars and all stand in line. Then some guy knocks on my window and he says they've created their own numbering system so they can wait in their cars. I said, well, that's civil, and take the number he offers me. It looks like this.

So I'm like, great, thanks for this scrap you tore from something on the floor of your car. Immediately me and Joey start talking how how this is going to fall apart, which it will. Someone will betray the system, or there will just too many people. As we are sitting taking advantage of this slight reprieve, more cars start showing up. The number guy is running around the parking lot, knocking on every car window and explaining their system. An Office Max employee comes out and is like, dude, please don't do that. You can't make your own numbering system, we can't honor it, we don't want a riot ok? Totally fine, Office Max guy. So we all get out of our cars and go stand in line.

We move up from 13 to 8th because the system is disintegrated. We have a sleeping bag to wrap up in, not because I cam super prepared for standing outside, but because I always have a sleeping bag in my car because I am a hobo. Still, it's real cold, and we're taking turns with the sleeping bag. BUT. Even worse than the biting freezing cold, was that the number system guy WOULD NOT STOP TALKING ABOUT THE NUMBER SYSTEM.

HOLY GOD. He would not stop talking about what an asshole Office Max was being, and how we had "all agreed to the number system" and how he was just trying to keep everyone from "freezing our asses off" and how "Office Max wants us to freeze our asses off" and how he wouldn't be as mad if "the employees would stand out here with us." YEAH RIGHT GUY, they already hate their lives because they had to get up at satan's asscrack of dawn to sell us shit we don't even need, I would never ask them to stand outside with us.

We had to listen to this guy constantly for nearly an hour, you guys. It was exscrutiating. If I had to choose between listening to this guy for an hour in 70 degree weather, and standing out in the freezfest and have him be dead, like, it would be a really tough decision.

Anyway, the cold wasn't even that bad because Joey and I took turns standing outside in a sleeping bag cocoon and sitting in the car. That's why the buddy system pays off, lonely guys.

My favorite part of the morning was having the guy in line behind me mutter "I can't believe I have to listen to this asshole" about the guy who wouldn't stop bitching. We then became friends.

ANYWAY, finally the store opened and we all went inside. I asked the guy who came out earlier and told us where everything was where the monitors were, and he said they were by the register. So I went over there, the OPPOSITE of where everyone else is going and say, one monitor please! The BITCH said "Monitors are over there!" across the store where there are now 100 people standing around confused. I almost cried. I blew it. I went over there, dodged through everyone being confused, grabbed some not as good of a deal monitor to hoard, and went over the register. SOMEHOW I am the 3rd person in line at the register. No waiting AT ALL. I couldn't believe it, but everyone was still being confused on the other side of the store.

I told the girl at the checkout that I had hoarded this one monitor but I really wanted this other one. She was like, ok great they're right here, here you go. AHAHAHAH PHEW! I had sent Joey on a mission to see the deals on the netbooks, and he found it, not as good as the Radio Shack deal but 20 bucks less than the Walmart price so he reports back as I'm checking out so I just buy the netbook too. While I am paying I look behind me and there seriously about 200 people in line behind me. The line stretched all the way to the back of the giant store. This was the other best part of the night. Being in the front of a huge line. Here's a blurry picture of it but you can't really see how far the line snakes around.

Whatever dudes, I know that Black Friday is like a heroin bender for capitalists but I really wanted to try it out. And I gotta say, I'm hooked. I'm going next year for sure. Standing in line with those people made me hurt in my heart with the perfect combination of tragedy and sense of community, which I strive for every day.

I just got around to setting up my purchases yesterday. I knew once I did I would just be on the computer forever. The giant monitor is kind of freaking me out. I did some work in Illustrator and the extra space from dual screens is just SO LUXURIOUS! I am experimenting with loading different OS onto the netbook and I am kind of way too excited about it? So I am still playing around and it is fun but also time consuming and making me hate computers. In like a hate but secretly love way.

After I got back from shopping I spent another 200 bucks on sweaters at the GAP.COM online sale, half of which I will return after I've tried them on. I was in a frenzy ok. I REALLY LIKE SWEATERS.

After that I went and worked 11 hours and then went and hung out with my friends until like 4, because I am an idiot.