Man, I don't reflect much on things, but I was sort of forced to recollect the recent years of my life when I was blindsighted by the weather. It was cold, it was bright, the trees were naked and the grass was green, but the world felt so gone. I just got out there and rooolled around in the grass like an idiot, flooded with memories of an emotionally vacant time in my life when I believe I was genuinely happy.

I had just rediscovered the Eds for the first time in nearly a decade (and wrote a lengthy, rampaging fuck of a journal about how much that meant to me), and I was just naturally high on life, or opioids, or something. Something about the weather on the television matching the real weather outside blew me away, and I just fell in love with it in a totally new light. I watched the show when it first came out (and have an AWESOME VHS recording of the Boy Girl Boy Girl marathon that nobody remembers, not even Joel Dickie), but it didn't stick with the same type of residue that's still stuck to me today. It makes my gut CRINGE just thinking about this wordless, formless blob that represents my love for the Eds. It's beyond the style, beyond the jokes and the slash and the people behind it, beyond my comprehension of what it is that even grabs at me. What the fuck is it that I'm so hopelessly attracted to? The best way I could possibly describe it is 'a new type of desperation' that got me, for the first time in my life, to dedicate myself to a goal relentlessly... and I've spent two years unawarely trying to meet that goal... yeah, I'm in one of those writy moods.

Speaking of that "goal", I think I may have met it. I logged on to DA, saw my page and was sort of awestruck that it was filled with a consistent amount of work that was recognizable, accurate (to a degree) and well responded to... that really doesn't define why I think I met my goal. I just wanted SO BADLY to be able to draw the Eds as well as all the people I saw online and on TV... not just with accuracy, but with GUTS... and with time, I believe personally, that I may have somewhat achieved that. I can draw those little fuckers. Maybe not perfectly, or to quite the extent I desperately wanted, but I'll get there eventually. For now, I'd substitute as an adequate cartoonist.

And I wish I would frequent DA more. I love seeing comments, so I can go back to their work and find something in it that I like. I like communication... not compliments so much as human contact... and for that, I thank every one of my watchers and frequenters, because I've come a hell of a long way from where I was. I may have crashed and burned at home, been shipped to a looney bin and shoved into the corner of the room so that I'd be safe from myself, but at least I can draw.

And I truly appreciate the effortless ways that you guys keep me sane.