Survivor

It is the most beautiful day outside! There is not a single cloud in the sky. I guess everything is back to normal now. The trains were back up and running this morning.

Here's a picture outside my front window which I have been sitting and staring out of for a total of about 30 hours this weekend. If you can see that guy out there, he is always on his porch, and I am always looking at him.


Yesterday wasn't quite a hurricane but the winds were still really high, and he was out there with a leaf blower, blowing the leaves off his porch. Just let that image sit around in your mind for a while, it's beautiful.

Anyway here's another page to my comic.

I thought hurricane season was over.

Here I am preparing for my very first hurricane. The subways are shut down and everyone's just sort of waiting for the storm now. I went shopping for supplies yesterday, since I was due for groceries anyway, and wanted to stock up on storm necessities like toilet paper and wine. There was a line out the door to get into Trader Joe's and a separate, longer line to get into the neighboring Trader Joe's Wine Shop. My coworker and I split up and it was madness. Trader Joe's in Manhattan is a clusterfuck on a good day so I wanted to die the entire time I was in there, but I wanted the whole disaster riot experience. Some of the shelves were empty, but it was like, the chips and the juice and the cookies shelves. You know, supplies.

We've got bottled water and food and candles and flashlights and toothpaste. I'm looking forward to just holing up here for the weekend. I downloaded some tv shows to watch, and I plan on getting some drawing done. We have a nice big window in the living room to watch the storm from, and to get pulverized by flying debris from.


I love sitting at this window and watching all my neighbors walk by. One time I saw a little boy walking his dog in the rain, crouched over, holding an umbrella over his dog instead of himself. Are you kidding me? Most adorable thing ever?

I figured I would do a post about my neighborhood, in case the hurricane destroys it and I live in a rubble pit on Monday. (On Monday I will do a post about my rubble pit).


The second floor is ours. The two giant SUVs belong to our landlord.

We live in Astoria, Queens, and we completely love it. We're a block from one of the main streets, Steinway, and if you go up a block from our apartment, the street is almost entirely hookah bars. If you go down one block, there is an overwhelming amount of discount mattress stores.

There are also a crazy amount of these little coin operated rides.


These are what I pass on my 10 minute walk to the train. I see kids on these rides ALL THE TIME. It took me a few days to get pictures of all of them because there is always a kid on them. I hope they'll survive the storm! (Both the kids and the rides, I guess.)

I also pass this restaurant.


And this night club.


And these sassy doctors at the Astoria Fashion Palace.


And Jake and Elwood at Astoria Optical.



It's pretty good.

Yeah!

Lyin'

Do you remember the lion story? Well it's back to being all I can think about. I think this is going to work this way. I have it mostly drawn out, it's gonna be 16 pages. I know I'm going to have to go back in and tweak the grays because I've got like 90% grays next to 95% grays and that is never going to print or even be visible on anyone's screen but mine.

Let me know if it doesn't make sense, my challenge is to tell the story first without relying on the words, because I am in love with the words and it's never good to be in love with anything you make because it will ALWAYS HURT YOU.

This might be happening???

Page 1 of 16???

air repair

The end of July brought a doozy of a heat wave to New York. Temperatures were over a hundred and everyone was miserable, and I spent it working at an air conditioning repair company.

The place was a small family company, and by family company I mean everyone there hated each other and screamed at each other all day long. They all had thick Brooklyn accents and called each other fucking morons about 3 times an hour. Any time I heard any of them talk to a customer on the phone they slammed the receiver down afterward and said, "Idiot." I was in heaven.

On Monday I was filling in for this girl who was on vacation, and they asked me to stay and help out during the heat. I came back on Tuesday and met the girl back from vacation, who I was supposed to be helping out by answering the phones. She got mad.



So they told me to go sit in the other room and "Chill out for a bit."

I went and sat in that room at a desk with no computer. I hadn't brought a book or anything and I didn't feel like drawing. So I just sat there for about an hour while everyone yelled at each other. The phone would ring and I would make an attempt to pick it up before the other girl did, but I was feeling pretty dejected.



After a while I think they forgot about me and I got bored so I decided I was going to answer the phone no matter what.



This ended up working out ok. I didn't know what to tell anyone who called so I just wrote down what they said in a notebook and told them I'd call them back. I never called anyone back. I wanted to call them back, but when I took my notebook around to the people in the office, no one knew the answers to anything. When was a technician going to such and such address? Can we install this? Something something service contract?

At first I thought I was just bad a taking notes, but it turns out the company just didn't know what the hell was going on, ever, at all. There was no order for how the technitions made visits. The main boss's son decided who was going where, and he just did whatever.

All I could do was tell anyone who called that I had no idea when someone would get there and that I would try and find out and I would call them back when I knew. Then I just waited in fear for them to call back to yell at me.



This went on for 2 and a half weeks.

The phones would stop ringing in the afternoon so they set me up with some bills to enter into the computer and a stack of past due invoices to follow up on. That was horrible, but at least I got to practice my polite but firm voice, which I practice at every opportunity. Most of it ended up just whoever the accounts payable contact was, they'd since been fired or something, so I was just tracking down someone new to fax it too. I like detective stuff like that.

They set me up in some lady's office to enter the bills, and she had this little gem on her desk. Yep.



But then last week it was some guy's birthday in the shop and she brought in a cake from a bakery. A BAKERY. So she can't be all bad.

I was wondering where you'd buy something like that so I tried to find it online, and came across it in this calalogue, next to a forest nymph.

museum day

I finally got around to seeing the Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Met today. I only had to wait in line for and hour and a half, which is a steal. When I got to things like this, I almost always end up being more interested in the people than what I originally went there to look at. It was so crowded in the exhibition space and people were touching me on all sides and it was pretty hard to concentrate.

There was this one girl in front of me who was live blogging the exhibition. It was the second room and she was already composing a post about it. Because I have no concept or interest in privacy, and also because I was smashed up so close to her by the crowd, I read her post over her shoulder. It was all like, "The beauty and the wonder and the magic that I have come across in the Alexander McQueen exhibit is astonishing and earth shaking or something. I am so glad this man got to live for a brief time to give this world this whatever." Like she seriously wrote like that. If I could have punched her by rollng my eyes I would have. Here's an idea, maybe take 5 minutes to look around and be overwhelmed by all the majesty that is affecting you so much right now. If you can blog about it while you're right in the middle of it, it can't be that great. A sercurity guard asked her to put her phone away and she kept it out, and then I was glaring at her so hard because I hate it when people don't listen to security guards.

Then for a while I was behind this other lady who was repeating the audio commentary back to everyone around her. I liked her because I hadn't bought the audio guide and I love those things. Then she got too engrossed and stopped narrating so I moved on to this old grandma ad grandpa. The grandma was going "Hey how about this one" to every thing and the grandpa was going "Hah!" to everything. There was this one dress that was very beautiful and it looked probably the most like a normal dress out of anything else there, and the grandma was like, "Well what about this one, this one is very nice" and the grandpa looked at it, and gets kind of upset. "The skirt is too short! Not unless it's for a teenage girl or something! It needs to be a few inches longer. Then it would be nice. UGH!" So close. Also the skirt went down to the knee.

If you want to know what the hell I've been doing this past month: New York has been having a heat wave, and I've been working at an air conditioner repair company. Not even joking. Also we were apartment searching. So many hells. More on that junk tomorrow.

pancrap

Thursday night I was at the grocery store when suddenly I really wanted pancakes. I don't even like pancakes. The syrup makes me feel sticky all over and it's too much cake but not cake, but for some reason I always THINK I like pancakes. Three bites in I remember that I don't, but there is some flavor and texture that I crave that I associate with pancakes in my mind. An association that is obviously wrong.

I've made pancakes four times since Thursday, and each time I am frustrated by how bad I am at it. I keep thinking, if I make it right, it will taste like how I want it to. But I'm finally starting to think that whatever I'm craving probably can't be made out of pancake batter.

This morning's attempt was the closest I've come to making what the box probably wants me to make. It's the right color, just the wrong shape. And completely NOT WHAT I WANT.


Also, since pancake batter doesn't grow on trees, I now I have to eat all of the ingredients I bought or I will never be able to justify another treat again.

hey bro

What do you think this guy was thinking about? Probably cheeseburgers, right. ME TOO!

If you ever wondered what a "professional air guitarist" looks like, it looks like this turtle.

Today on the train, me and a businessman both went for the same seat. The last seat. The businessman won. What the hell, businessman? You've been sitting down all day! I earned that seat by wearing uncomfortable shoes today!

Get outta here!

Got friendly with this guy on a crowded train the other day. That pole is for SHARING. I really enjoyed gently caressing your face as I tried not to fall over when the train jerked forward.

Sudoku is serious.

pretty much all I think about

Centepedes I almost saw today:
a piece of lint
a piece of hair
a bobby pin
a shadow

America's Birthday

I just want to tell you guys what my perfect day would be, if I got to pick all my favorite things to do. That's pretty much what the 4th of July was this year.

I started off the day with one of each of my 3 favorite breakfast foods: english muffin, donut, and bagel with cream cheese. You can eat whatever you want on the Fourth of July, I'm pretty sure it says that in the constitution. Then me and my roommates headed out to Coney Island for the hot dog eating contest, the most American of sports.

I could tell you the story like this: We went to Coney Island, we saw the hot dog eating contest, then we went to the beach and ate a hot dog, then we went home, it was great. But then you wouldn't understand all the weird things that made the experience different from the television. So I tried to write down all the key things that could really make you feel like you were there, but as I was writing this I realized that most people probably just want to hear the one sentence version and then want me to shut up. So there's that version, you can pretty much stop reading now.

The opening ceremonies of the whole shebang began with a girl singing the national anthem, which was fitting, I guess. Standing next to her was a guy in a hot dog costume. If you didn't look too closely, you could pretend that the hot dog was singing the anthem.

Then there was the kids version of the contest, which they called something like "Meat" Eating Contest but they were saying some word that sounded like "meat" but wasn't, and no one could understand what it was over the microphone. Everyone was like, oh god what are they doing to these kids. It eventually became apparent that it was a "Neat" eating contest, to be judged on manners. Real cute, right? The best part was the few kids who either didn't understand the contest, or didn't care, and were eating as fast as they could anyway. This one kid was really going at it. The asshole MC announced that everyone tied for first place and that kid was broken hearted.

Then they had an old guy and a young guy doing flips on a trampoline. The old guy was an "Olympic silver medalist" and a "Guinness World Record holder." He jump-roped with a hoola hoop, and I think that's what his world record is in.

Then they introduce the celebrity guest, Nick Cannon, but he didn't really do anything. He was just like "Hey, uh, glad to be here." I don't think he came back for the rest of the show. Maybe once. I don't care.

Then they had the first official women's contest, and they were all wearing tshirts and not bikinis, so I was happy. This contest was pretty exciting and I was pretty into it. The lady who won ate 40 hot dogs. She was already the record holder with 42. That's crazy. When they announced her at the start they said she weighed 102 pounds. I don't know how many pounds of hot dogs 42 is, but it's like, way too big of a percentage of her body-weight to be eating. She's an athlete and I love her. Here's her wikipedia entry: Sonya Thomas

After the women's contest I was about ready to be done, and they kept drawing out the show by shooting tshirts at the crowd. They had this one guy on the stage, and introduced him as a past competitor that wasn't able to compete. Then they had him do a rap. It was so embarrassing and I wanted it to stop. I couldn't tell what he was rapping about. The only way I can make it ok for myself is to imaging he was rapping about hot dogs, and even then, it's pretty awful. He even came back later and did another one. They did a bunch of other crap that I was too hot for, so when it was finally time for the main event I was pretty happy. They announced all the eaters with little videos and it looked just like when you watch professional wrestling. We all picked out favorite based on the video, mine was this guy because of his Ultimate Warrior mask. His nickname is "Eater X." They all have nicknames like that.


The old champ Joey Chestnut won, so it wasn't too exciting, but it was pretty gross and funny to watch his technique. This picture has been making me laugh for about 3 hours.


Then it was over and we tried to get out of there as quick as possible, but almost got trampled.

Did you know: There's a ride at Coney Island called "THE GHOST HOLE" which I want to go on before I die, but can't go on until I live a long and full life because it will probably kill me.

THE GHOST HOLE. Are you kidding me? I could never have made up a better name for a ride if I had thought about it my whole life.


Scary!

We didn't have any time or money for rides so we trekked on to the beach, which was packed full of people having the time of their lives in the filthy water, and that made me pretty happy. Me and Allison waded in up to our knees, and I probably would have dove in right there if there weren't so many kids in my way.

We were hot and sunburned, but I didn't want to leave without getting a coney dog, so we went to go stand in line. The line to order wasn't so long, and I ordered a chili dog. After we ordered we had to go into the pickup line, and that was a complete disaster. We had a receipt with a number, and they were calling numbers, but they were also just taking the receipts of anyone who would crowd up to the window. The people in front of us were a group of foreigners with this one guy trying to explain to them what everything was, and I loved how long it took everyone to understand what a corn dog was. It was seriously beautiful. He was in the wrong line though.

The second line was some kind of hell and some other lady almost killed everyone when they wouldn't let her order from the pickup window. I didn't think anything would be worth all that drama, and let's be real, when I finally bit into that hot dog, it wasn't. But it was pretty close to being worth it.

When we were walking back to the train, we sort of got into a fight when these teenage no-goodniks were throwing exploding caps at the crowd (you know that kind that you throw on the ground and make a loud bang?) and couple of them hit us. Josh turned and told the kid that he had hit him and that he couldn't just throw things at people, and the kid apologized with a shit eating grin, and then the girl next to him was like, "We didn't mean to hit anyone," and then I lost it and yelled at her and called her a liar and that throwing things at a crowd made her a piece of shit and that was it. Somehow the fact that there was this stupid girl being impressed by this stupid guy made me the most mad. Anyway, I guess we won, only because we didn't get pelted by caps to the back of our heads when we turned to walk away. Josh and I are now in a gang and we will fight anyone so LINE UP!

When we got back to BAY RIDGE we had a short internet break followed by a last minute trip to the store and then the main event was on. Everyone prepared a ton of food to cook - I made kebobs with bacon-wrapped steak chunks - and we headed up to the roof. Our grill is pretty small so we were cooking things for the next 4 hours and then it was dark and we burned things and it was the only way I ever want to spend a day. We couldn't see the big Macy's fireworks display on the Hudson, but there were some fireworks going off around Brooklyn that we could sort of see behind buildings, and that was enough.


The happiest you will ever possibly see me.

business

Yesterday was so great! I have a lot to say about it but I'm still pretty tired from loving America so hard. And really sunburned. Maybe tomorrow! Here's a backup drawing.




Everyday when I ride to work the train goes over the Manhattan Bridge and everyone checks their phones, because everyone likes to think they're important enough that someone tried to talk to them in the last half hour they were underground. I do it too, I am never important enough. Also, the view of the city from the Manhattan bridge is beautiful, all tourists should take the N train from Brooklyn into Manhattan as part of their tourist routine.