Hmm. I just discovered that I need to push my glasses out about an ENTIRE INCH to get my right eye comfortably focused on the screen. I think it may be time for new glasses. Given that my current glasses were purchased around 2006, I feel like I’m doing pretty good here.

I think it may be time to try contacts again, too. Especially if I can get extended-wear contacts; the combination of my much more nearsighted vision as a kid and 1970s/80s technology meant they were just not happening for me. Now that my eyes aren’t as far off from 20/20 as they used to be, I figure thirty years of people experimenting with new materials should have filled the gap.

And you can bet I will be asking the optometrist about cosmetic contacts.

I spent a few hours this morning poking at the Quest For Surgeons. The ten or so browser tabs I’ve had open for a couple months from the last time I did this have now expanded to like two dozen, and I feel no closer to a decision. I really need to poll my friends and acquaintances who have had it done for who and how they feel about their bits, and actually write that down somewhere I can find it again instead of trusting it to my fallible memory. (Feel free to drop me some e-mail if you are one of those friends.)

Because somewhere near the end of last year, I realized that my internal state had shifted from “happily no-op” to “pre-op”, and resolved that I’d have a choice made and a surgery date scheduled by the end of 2014.

This quest is kinda frustrating because if there’s any kind of central place to go compare these things, I sure haven’t found it. Well, I’ve found a few, but they’re all out of date, or scarily amateur web design that triggers warning signs, or both. (It may be superficial, but the overall feel of a web site is something I can’t help but gauge; IMHO this is a basic survival skill of the modern Internet.)

Anyway. Gonna exercise, then grit my teeth and finish these last tweaks for the second attempt at printing Rita book 2. And maybe work on that drawing I’ve been playing with of Blue Rita getting it on with Carol, too; this mood definitely suits drawing a few interchangeable genitals lying around.

So I was in Trader Joe’s getting some stuff and this piece of pablum came on the speakers. As it percolated up through my consciousness to recognition, I found myself with one thought: I could have happily gone my entire life without hearing this song ever again. I grew up in the 70s and 80s, when music was largely a thing provided by DJs at a half-dozen or so FM radio stations in any large town, and if something made it to #6 on Billboard (as this did), it would be pretty inescapable for months on end.

People are always expected to be all nostalgiac for the top hits of their teen years, but I’m not. Maybe it’s because my teen years were a big pile of grey depression after my father died. But maybe it’s also because stuff like this was still lingering?

Folks tend to say punk was a reaction to the technical excesses of prog-rock, but honestly I find myself wondering if it was as much a reaction to this. On the other hand I went from the technical wankery of soft-rock prog into the even more technical wankery of electronic music, and occasionally love listening to music that is so technical and intricate that it cannot be played in realtime by human hands, so what do I know.

I’m rambling, my ex-with-benefits is here, and I’m not stoned. Let me fix that last. Have a good night.

Things I did today:

• had more of my crotch hair destroyed with a laser
• had a tasty sammich
• took some books back to the library (where I am sitting right now)
• wrote a script to help avoid repeating the $6000 mistake I made with Rita book 2
• finally wrote some scripts to automatically switch Illustrator’s workspace when I connect/disconnect my big monitor
• fixed the spine width on the cover to Rita 1 for reprint purposes

I can probably get more stuff done but these are all a bunch of little things that needed doing. Right now I think it’s probably time to leave the library and either go home or to a cafe.

Things up for doing later today:

• rf2014 flier (and probably style guide too)
• work on rita p.128 or 129 (still not sure if 128 is done or not)
• rita book 2 fixes
• kick back and read some of the comics I’m taking out of the library today, or some of the comics scored at ECCC
• assemble the shelves that came this morning so I have space to store my growing inventory

There’s probably some other crap I’d like to do but who knows. This is the stuff at the top of my mind.

I just took the Sun card from my Tarot deck and drew arrows all over it labeling all the knees of the various bees on it as “me”.

Why? Well, I was poking at my Patreon campaign and came across this text: Patreon is an alternate way to support my work; you’re free to do this if you’re not interested in a physical book from the Kickstarter, or to do both Patreon and Kickstarter if you think I’m totally the bee’s knees of an entire hive full of happy comics-making bees. Do I need to draw that? I should totally draw that before I officially launch this campaign.

And I was like, yes, I do need to draw that, and I think I will do so right now. Or, rather, grab a hive full of bees I drew a few years ago and label it accordingly. I also grabbed another old image, changed it up a little more than that, and added it to the “thanks for pledging!” page.

Anyway. Looking at that image makes me want to go out and get some sun now.

emptying the dishwasher
so i can put the dirty hair catcher in the dishwasher
so i can put the clean hair catcher in the tub
so I can finish resetting the bathroom after my shower
so I can go out and get some sunshine and draw.

There’s this mental change that happens when I dance regularly, I’m discovering. It happened when I started doing burlesque, and it’s happening again now that I’m starting to do pole dance regularly.

Basically, my self-image starts to incorporate “dancer”. And I start dressing appropriately:out come outfits that show off my midriff, even if it’s not quite toned and flat yet. How little can I get away with and not worry about OH NO COCKBULGE? I’ll go out in that.

I mean, it also helps that spring is here, and I can dress like this without freezing my ass off. But still.

Oh! And in other fitness/body-image news… remember that pull-up bar I’ve installed on my bathroom door, with the intent of trying to do a couple pull-ups every time I pass by? Today I gave it a shot, and before I realized it, I found myself looking through the space between the bar and the top of the doorframe for the first time. I tried it a couple more times and was able to repeat it. Woo! I don’t want to overdo it, what with having pole class tonight, but I’m really delighted at how well this program of ‘a couple attempts most times I pass the bathroom door’ has been working out. Now if I can just reinforce the programming to try a few situps and other ab exercises after doing that on the way out of the bathroom more often than not, I’ll be set. I’d do a few right now while I’m thinking about it, except my hair’s full of dye and I’d leave a mark on the carpet!

I’ve been slowly working on the next page of Rita, which is a huge complicated cityscape. It’s taking a while. Maybe I should also start working on a few pages near the climax, that are… even crazier. Because otherwise the comic will just grind to a total halt for a month.

I mean not like it isn’t slow and sporadic anyway. But it’d be nice to have that like half done by the time I get to it.