Cast Off!!

So much for cartooning left-handed! I cannot believe I'm already typing, with nine fingers.

All you well-wishers out there, I can only say you must have sent out some sterling wishes and some really efficacious prayers! I went in yesterday to have some tingling and numbness checked out, and they cut the cast off and did x-rays, and Dr. Kang said, "Wow, it's really starting to heal up already!" So she put a little tiny splint on, and wants me to start therapy next week!

I can now sign my name! Like I used to! So I must be able to draw--now I have to get my brain back into gear, thinking of some graphics.

Scottiedog never got to blog for me--but he did take pictures! Here's me looking as bad as I ever look:










And here's a picture of me recuperating with the little book-end cats on guard:

I just can't believe how fast it's all gone--I was in AGONY for four weeks last time!

So mucho thanks to all! More later!

Guest Poster -- ScottieDog

Godspeed all, I am shutting up shop for the nonce, and the obsessive cartooning will cease--unless I can figure out how to do it left-handed.

Surgery is tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. ScottieDog will be posting updates for me, and as soon as I can function, I'll be poking around on the laptop trying to find all of you!

Thanks to all of you for your good wishes!

Throw That Elephant Overboard!!

One more day to draw, then my right hand will be shut down for renovations.

P.S. I decided to experiment with dialogue balloons. I think they can be very expressive.

Goal 9 - Attend The Daily Show

Melissa waiting in line at The Daily Show

Us old people have to sit down. You have to wait in line for two hours.

So ScottieDog and I went last night, and we saw Tony Blair!! We saw Tony Blair sweat!! Jon Stewart is just beautiful. He was merciless with Blair, though funny. After the end of the taping, he was asking us if he had been too much of a dickhead (his word), and we said "no." Blair is really likeable and such a gentleman, so we cheered him anyway, even though he wasn't giving up much.

We were too tired last night to watch it (be warned that it's quite an ordeal to go through a taping--you have to participate! And it's LOUD!!) but we definitely want to catch the early rerun tonight so we can see it up close. We did have big monitors to look at, but who wants to look at TV when Tony Blair is sitting right there in front of you? (And JS?)

John Oliver had an annoying bit at the beginning--I wanted to hear Jon Stewart, and Oliver was just muscling in being a jerk. Then the Blair interview went way long, so they taped the beginning of the show again without the Oliver bit. Don't know which one they'll use.

ScottieDog asked the best question! (Jon likes to have a Q&A as warm-up.) He asked what date Sarah Palin would be on. Heh heh. JS of course said in a very gentlemanly way that she had been invited and would be welcome any time, though the Palin group had not RSVP'd. Of course.

Here's ScottieDog waiting in line with some light reading.



And below, some other very nice people with light reading! (ScottieDog went around being photographer and interviewer.)


These nice ladies are Margaret Ikeda (The Rest Is Noise) and Jenika Gallon (In Defense of Globalization).



And these nice ladies are Karin Wagner (I think she's the one with Food Matters), Charlotte Gill, and a friend. I'm not sure who is who!

It is duly noted that ScottieDog only interviewed ladies...hm.

The thing I like about the one of the hot dog vendors is the banners of JS hovering over them. And I love the one with the heavenly rays descending!



Cheers to all! (Surgery in five days--:-P)

A New Veep Candidate?

Whew, my latest addition to my portfolio. I worked my butt off all day at my day job and couldn't get around to drawing until 7:30 pm, and then I couldn't get it to look right, because I was in too much of a hurry. I'm always terrified somebody will have my idea already before I can draw mine. If I make myself clear.

UPDATE: Just upgraded the image.

Other than my obsessive cartooning here lately, and my working my buns off all day long (like heavy lifting for six hours, really), and my being really dog-assed tired, things have been pretty okay.

Well, okay, no, I'm stressed out that hand surgery is only a week away. But hey, at least I'll get to slack off for a while.

Sheesh! Another one already...

It has forcibly occurred to me over the last day that in just a little over a week I WILL NO LONG BE ABLE TO DRAW. Not for at least two months.

For some reason I thought drawing 10 pictures would be a reasonable goal, but now that I've started I've become a little obsessed.

And hey, people are paying attention. My Miss Piggy picture was an Editor's Pick yesterday on Open.Salon.com, and I got a request from TheZoo to post my work along with their other nationally syndicated cartoonists! Maybe I should look into syndication.

Howsoever, cartoons weren't the kind of drawings I had in mind when I made that goal. So I'll count one of them, but I'm saving the other eight for more traditional work. We'll see how that goes.

So here's the latest one: I woke up at 2:00 in the morning with an idea, and couldn't get back to sleep so I just got up and scribbled it down. Cleaned it up a little this afternoon and fired it off! I think I can draw a better caricature of Palin than this, but it still works, I think.

DRILL HERE...DRILL NOW...

Building Surrounded by Newspeople this A.M.

Well, it's 9/11, and I wish I'd remembered before I traipsed off to work. I usually meander in about 10:30 or so, later today because I was trying to fix the toilet, so I was able to get into the building by going around to the Broadway entrance. Some were complaining that at 9:00 a.m. they couldn't get in at all. (I should explain I work in One Liberty Plaza across from WTC.) I guess Obama and McCain were around there somewhere, but I was feeling too irritable to gawk.

One of the attorneys I work for (in my day job) refuses to come to work on 9/11. Now that I think of it, I do think it should be a national holiday. I mean not a holiday but a day off.

So I consoled myself by drawing another picture. Love to all.



UPDATE: Wow, this cartoon got Editor's Pick on OpenSalon.com today!!! And another site asked if they could post my work! Yay! I love making people happy.

UPDATE 2: This cartoon was ALSO picked up by TheZoo! Check it out! TheZoo

Politics makes me sick.

I have to put myself on another news blackout. Does anybody else get so stressed that they stay awake at night? And have chest pains?

I'm thinking I might make some t-shirts with my cartoon on it! There's a very cool site where you can upload your art and see what your shirt looks like before you order. The internet is so great.

Now I have two drawings down, eight to go.

UPDATE: This cartoon was picked up by a major political blog, TheZoo. Check it out at TheZoo

So far so good...

As promised, I have awarded myself a goal for breaking a bad habit (leaving my shoes all over the house). Yes I know I said I back-slid a bit last week, but I renewed my efforts, and it's been over a month, so I'm claiming it.

(Hey, these are actually the shoes I bought to wear to my daughter's wedding. They are currently up on the closet shelf in a box. They are a lot sexier in person.)

I also renewed my exercising efforts. Yesterday I had to get on the elliptical because for some reason the treadmills wouldn't start up. I discovered that a lot of my workout mix that hadn't meshed too well with my walking works just fine on the elliptical! I think I'm going to need two mixes, a fast one for walking and a slower one for the elliptical.

And I need HELP with this. I know hardly anything about rock/pop music. The songs I have currently (my daughter AC put a mix together for me) that I really groove to are "Let's Dance" (Bowie) and "Cocaine" (Clapton). I think I'll have much more incentive to exercise if I have some really fabulous, driving, fun-to-listen-to music, preferably not too bubble-gummy. Any suggestions???

ALSO, I have pretty much settled on another virtuous habit: establishing a flossing routine again. I was doing pretty well until a couple of years ago when a series of accidents put a real cramp in my style. At one time I had both hands in braces, from falling down and hurting my wrists. And I also broke a rib. Not that time, another time. And now I have this hand thing going on.

I'm not going to put off developing the habit until after surgery--I'm going to try to cope with dental hygiene right through the recovery period. My dentist sold me a nice Water-Pik, AND I have another new ally in my quest: I only discovered this brand lately because my stepdaughter left it behind when she moved out. What a revelation. My teeth are really close together and really hard to floss. This stuff makes it easy!!! And fast! (Please don't tell me it doesn't do as good a job as the regular floss.) And yes, it is more expensive, but it makes it so much less onerous a task. In fact hardly onerous at all.

My first product review! (*simper*)

Slacking off...

Well, I have been very bad the last couple of days.

I went out yesterday without all my makeup on and packed no lunch. So I had to buy lunch with all the paper and plastic that that entails. (In my defense I had to be at work way early.) And I didn't exercise this morning as I had planned.

AND I left my shoes out a couple of times this week. I think it was Wednesday morning ScottieDog woke me up and said my sneakers were on the bed! I remembered that I had been going to put them on the night before but changed my mind. I think that's a first--sleeping with my sneakers.

Eighteen (18) days until surgery. :-P

(UPDATED with link)

Goal 54 Done!!! (Whew)

So if you voted DENTIST, you win. Gosh I should have had something to give away to the winners--I supposed there's always the contents of my goodie bag.

I meant to take a picture of some kind, but I was so wigged out I forgot.

When I first asked the assistant about the gas, she said she didn't think I'd need it, they would be very careful not to hurt me at all, so I started to cry. Little do they know. I mean it's not really the pain that does it. The nice dentist (I really like him better than my last one even) took one tiny poke at a tooth with that metal pick and I let out a shriek--

So I ended up gassed into oblivion as always. Had to pay $100 out of pocket for it, too. Insurance doesn't cover weenies. There is NO WAY I could have had that cleaning without benefit of drugs. Maybe next time! And yes, I DO have another appointment already made for my next checkup in March.

I also left with a new Water Pik which they said would help me when I have my hand surgery. No way I'm going to be able to floss!

I know Andy over at Bloginyourface has a thing about dentists too. Anybody else??