*yawn*

"So Jeff, you haven't been writing much lately."

Fuck you I haven't. Just not here. I'm working on an autobiographical comic, and that shit ain't easy.

"Well sure, I suppose that'll take up some - buh HUH?"

I've pretty much given up on opening a comic shop. Sure, I'd still like to do it once I win the lottery. As you can guess, it would take up WAY more resources (re: cash money dollar dollar bill, y'all), and Wu-Tang Financial ain't nothing to fuck with.

I get on the train each day, pull out my sketch book, and write. I sketch, I lay out, I design pages, flesh out ideas, try to recover memories. Most of it is verbal, not visual.

Mom's going to send me old photo albums & yearbooks & report cards. Remembering anything before 8th grade is pretty fuzzy.

My art is up to my 10th grade level at this point. I haven't been practising as much as I should. Hell, I'm supposed to work on a strip for my roommate, and that's hard to get into. Despite all the reference I have, and how hilarious the writing is, I'm not as enthusiastic as I should be, as I want to be.

My writing/pacing/design, however, seems to have improved, even if it's just a little bit. I'm actually HAPPY with it.

Going through and writing down some of the stuff has not been easy. Stuff like...

4th Grade, Age 8. When I got home from school, I actually had an hour and a half or so to actually relax and not be on the defensive. But once Dad got home from work, tension in the house shot through the roof - and I wasn't the only one who felt it. Everything pissed him off, and being a violent alcoholic didn't help.

One thing I did to incur his wrath was to place the spoon down incorrectly on the table. My reasoning was that when you eat, the bowl of the spoon points toward you when you hold it. Why not set it on the table the same way?

Dad sat at the table, on my immediate left. I put my spoon down and reached for the fork. A split second later, my line of sight was blocked by an arm. I felt his hand cover the right side of my head.

FWUMP.

I then found myself on the floor, with my left ear to the carpet. The chair I was in broke.

"Get up."

I got up, tears streaming down my face. I put the chair upright, realigned the legs, sat & finished dinner. I went to my room, changed my clothes, laid down, and cried myself to sleep.

Real heartwarming stuff, right? The day I wrote that, my other roommate commented, "you seem a little depressed, are you okay?"

I was fine of course. Just reliving that and a few other incidents I poured onto the page is a tad draining. Typing it out here isn't affecting me nearly as much.