in the beginning, there was me believing i needed to be punished for god only knows what and that metastasized into something else, which morphed into another thing entirely which then took total control just like any other disease and coloured every single thing in my path. but there were people around who either some how got it or didn't care and there was lynda barry in the free entertainment weekly paper doing a cartoon that was like publishing my actual life sometimes...well, more often than not. so years and years later, when i'm not so dyed through with the disease and dysfunction, i'm able to see things in a whole other way and these cartoons are my way of saying that and also saying to anyone who might be on either side of it, that it's okay. this was the first one, still my favourite. everything i cartoon about has happened to me, but is not necessarily still happening, or maybe didn't happen yesterday either.

right now i'm liberally applying the dog whisperer/george costanza philosophy of "it's not you, it's me" to everything and it's working out just great so far. it seems that ever since i was practically born, i've been sending out the wrong messages to everyone. i don't even mostly know that i'm sending messages, but i guess i am and they seem to be vastly different from what i'd like. i can still see the 12 year old version of billy p. down in the math lab standing next to the filing cabinet staring at me while he was pretending to sharpen his pencil, mouthing the words "i love you" over and over again. and sadly, the words weren't greeted with the thrill he might have imagined or even desired, only my horror because i didn't want him to be in love with me. i was trying to be nice. nice does not = love, at least not always, but it seems to end up there if i'm the one doing it.