Absence Makes The Cat Go Bonkers

Every single time I come home from traveling one of my cats has completely forgotten I ever existed, and the other is positive I am an undead replicant or possible a million alien bugs wearing a Joel suit. The apathetic one, Replay, briefly looks up from licking his own asshole, then gets right back to chowing down. The paranoid idiot one, Tivo, tears across the house as soon as he sees me, then takes refuge either under my bed or between my night stand and the wall. Two places that I, as a human with arms and legs, obviously have no way of ever infiltrating.

Tivo is your basic fuzzy dumbass. Just fuzzy as all get out, and as dumb as the day long. These are things that do not terrify Tivo: me sitting in a chair. Me walking through the room. These are things that ABSOLUTELY terrify Tivo: Me getting up from sitting in a chair, me walking through the room wearing sandals, me walking through the room holding something in my hands, me walking in the direction that he is also walking in, me doing a thing, a thing happening, me standing up and then a thing happens… you get the idea. His primary fears are me, things, happenings, and most other all of it.

Replay, the other one, couldn’t give two shits connected by a piece of string that he ate (A real thing that has happened in my house several times. We call them “poop-chucks.”) if I lived or died. The only thing that leads me to think he might prefer my death is that I get the distinct impression he wants to hollow out my chest cavity and take up residence in my rib cage. It’s hard to explain why I think this. Some cats, just give off that vibe, you know?

Calling all Whovians with holes in their ears! Just look at these Sonic Screwdriver earrings my wife made!

https://www.etsy.com/listing/200762224/doctor-who-inspired-sonic-screwdriver

Learning Through Osmosis

This is such a true story, it is MULTIPLE true stories. With an S. The first time this happened I was in Toronto and the My Little Pony: Equestria Girls toys were being debuted at the show. Kiddo was obsessed with the movie and I was missing her first day of 1st grade to be at this particular convention, so I wanted to get her a cool gift. I went up to the booth and browsed what was in the case. There was a mother with her young daughter, 8 or 9 years old (American years… no idea what the Canadian metric conversion age is.), and it quickly became clear that we were looking at the same things. I feared her mother had warned her about the “grown men who like to play with ponies,” of which I was not one, but CLEARLY appeared to be one at that moment. I almost said aloud, “I’m shopping for my DAUGHTER,” but I thought better of uttering what is likely the shameful battle cry of the self-hating adult pony enthusiast.

My Patrons can see the original last panel to the previous comic which spawned the writing process for THIS comic [HERE].

A more subtle approach would be to ask, “How old is your daughter? Mine is 6 and she LOVES this stuff.” But as I thought the words they immediately became twisted and creepy. “HoWwWwww OLLLLLD izzzz yoURRR DAWWWWWWTERRRRRR?!?!? [pant pant hisssssssss]” Better to just smile as un-creepily as possible and wait for the booth worker to come over. She arrived and addressed the little girl first. “I want Twilight!” she belted enthusiastically. “OK, just let me get one from the back, eh? [aboot soory]” the associate replied. I had already been away from my booth for longer than I intended, so I just raised my hand and said, “Make that two.” I might as well have said, “I’ll have what she’s having,” then given the mom a wink and a pair of finger guns. Then I could just hold my wrists together and wait for security to put them in handcuffs. A more direct approach would have been, “I’LL HAVE THE SAME PONY THAT THE CHILD IS HAVING! I’LL HAVE IT FOR MY OWNNNNN!”

Anyway, I felt goofy buying it at a convention, but Kiddo loved it and that was the point. A year or so later at SDCC I had the exact same experience, only more so humiliating. My con-wife, David, had procured through man-child sorcery a special VIP pass to the Hasbro booth, which let you skip the massive line of other man-children and purchase whatever they were offering that reminded you of when you were young and alive and so much further away from an inevitable death. David and I made the death march from the webcomics area of the floor to the Hasbro booth which, while only being about 10 rows away, took a good 30 minutes to reach in SDCC time. The cases were full of robots and ponies and maybe some robot ponies, but definitely NO pony robots. I flashed my VIP (Very Impressive Pony) badge and was ushered to the front of an impossible long line.

To my chagrin, I learned that all of the stuff in the cases was not, in fact, for sale and was, in fact, for filling space in cases. The only thing they sold at this booth was convention exclusive toys, most of which cost upwards of $50-$100. I usually spend about $20 on Kiddo’s convention gift and maybe another $10 on comics for her. The cheapest thing they had, that would be of any interest to her at all was $35. It was a limited edition pony who was based on a character from an episode that she had seen, but who only actually appeared in the comics, which she had not read. I had come all of this way, and no booth was going to have shorter line than this. Maybe she would think the “con exclusive” aspect of it was cool. Whatever. “I’ll take a… Mane-iac Mayhem Equestria Girl.” The booth worker looked at me like, “Of course you will, Beardo,” and wrapped it up.

I wiki’d the character once I got back to the booth, so I could at least know what I was presenting to my child. That’s how it happens. That’s how you get THE KNOWING. Not, necessarily by being interested in your kid’s toys and shows themselves, but by being interested in your kid. Granted, there are lots of things she’s into that I am GENUINELY into. Adventure Time, Minecraft, Ninja Turtles… Our Venn Diagram of interests has plenty of legitimate overlap. MLP: FiMOMGLOL just isn’t my bag, and so I feel like a goofus when I have to display my uncharacteristically extensive knowledge of the subject matter.

My daughter lives in a world where everything she likes is the universally adored, coolest stuff ever. “How could anyone NOT like Littlest Pet Shop?! [I could list 1000 reasons] It’s the COOLEST! [It is not]” But, rather than be the dad who “doesn’t get it, doesn’t WANT to get it,” I want to be the dad who begrudgingly watches the overly bubbly, hyper manic, highest possible pitched shouting matches that are her favorite shows, so that when she wants to talk about them (which is always), I will have more to say than, “That’s nice, Kiddo.”

The problems occur when I actually start to have opinions about this stuff. Like how, in a world with three distinct evolutionary offshoots of the dominant species, where one of the subsets is so much more powerful than the other two as to make them appear crippled, does a caste system not naturally develop? Here’s how a real world Equestria would break down: Unicorns on top, ruling the Pegasi and Earth Ponies with an iron hoof. Just dominating every aspect of pony life and taking what they want, when they want, from whomever they want. They are telekinetic magic users in a community where everyone else can’t even get a book off the shelf without gnawing at it with their teeth! The pegasi are their enforcers. They are still subjugated by the unicorns, but they are awarded special privileges for keeping the Earth ponies in line. The Earth ponies are garbage. Just pure, fucking nonsense garbage. They dig trenches, and break rocks, and pull shit around in carts and probably serve as a food source for the upper classes.

Bare minimum, this shit is all going down 5 minutes after the unicorns figure out magic. Extrapolate a bit further, probably after an uprising or two, and the unicorns have completely wiped out the other two classes and enslaved… I don’t know… whatever species Strawberry Shortcake is.

Calling all Whovians with holes in their ears! Just look at these Sonic Screwdriver earrings my wife made!

https://www.etsy.com/listing/200762224/doctor-who-inspired-sonic-screwdriver

Doctor, It Hurts When You Do This.

Update 09-03-14: I am frantically trying to update/backdate new comics so there are 4 a week for every week since I got back from Toronto.

Teaching kids to deal with and even anticipate disappointment is tough. Teaching them that certain humans called “Genre Fiction Showrunners” revel in building up their hopes, just to dash them against the bloody rocks is nearly impossible. Children want to believe people are basically good, but they lack the experience and emotional sophistication to comprehend that many showrunners often are not… people, that is.

My Patrons can see the original last panel to this comic with completely different dialog and a different ending [HERE].

My wife and I will often carry on these deep, philosophical and analytical conversations about the worlds our kid’s shows take place in. Curious George is a frequent puzzler for us. George occupies a universe where no one takes issue with a man raising an ape (no tail = not a monkey) as a child. They can all understand him when he “talks” and they almost always leave him in charge of their stores, restaurants, human children, dumptrucks, air traffic control stations, etc. when the opportunity presents itself. The other, almost MORE crazy, thing people in George’s world do is give him stuff to deliver. “Oh hey, George the animal ape! Can you take this pie to Mrs. Stevens on Elmhurst St. She’s in the Parker building between 5th and 6th in apartment 14b. You got all that, George? George the naked ape? Can you be trusted to take her this food, and to NOT put your feces covered paws all over it? YOU CAN?! Excellent!” They even sent him to space once*.

Then we realized what we’re talking about and go make a sex, or drink delicious wine or whatever grownups do.

*DISCLAIMER: Curious George is actually an excellent show for children from about 2 to 9. Every episode is about using the scientific method to solve real world problems, and I’ve seen the positive effects it has on my daughter. It gets her thinking in that “hypothesis, experiment, evaluate results, try again” headspace. After she finishes an episode, she usually runs to the craft table and tries to build a scale version of whatever contraption George built to stop cap the out of control underwater oil well or whatever.

Calling all Whovians with holes in their ears! Just look at these Sonic Screwdriver earrings my wife made!

https://www.etsy.com/listing/200762224/doctor-who-inspired-sonic-screwdriver

After Con Special

Update 09-03-14: I am frantically trying to update/backdate new comics so there are 4 a week for every week since I got back from Toronto.

Inevitably, I always miss something important when I’m out of town. I missed my daughter’s first day of kindergarten while I was away at a convention. I left a day early so I wouldn’t miss it, but Delta flat out lied to an entire plane full of people who had connecting flights and told us even though our first plane arrive 45 minutes late we would all still make our connections. Spoilers: Zero people made their connections, and because so many people were affected by the lie, they decided to help NONE of us.

So Delta lost a customer for life, and I lost a once in a lifetime opportunity to be there for my kid when she needed me. Of course, first days of school are one thing. New Doctors are another thing all together. I’m not sure how I feel about Capaldi yet. I don’t know if I not warming up to HIM, or to he AND CLARA, or just to Clara in general. I feel like her story was complete when The Doctor found out what “the impossible girl” really was. It felt like a complete arch, and now it feels like she just forgot to leave or die or get trapped in an alternate reality or whatever it is most companions do at the end of their adventures.

There are separate rumors that Clara, Capaldi and/or Moffat will be leaving after this series. I‘d be more likely to believe Clara and Moffat were splitsville, and Capaldi will be around for the requisite 3-4 years. It took me awhile to warm up to Matt Smith, so I am reserving judgement on Capaldi for now. I started with Tennant, so I’m not used to an old, cranky Doctor. I see the door open on that blue box and I expect a young, spry, good looking dude to pop out and start causing/solving problems. Maybe the Universe as a whole is just in an older, crankier state, so it needs an older, crankier Doctor. Honestly, at this point my feelings wouldn’t be hurt if Smith was the last Doctor and The Adventures of Jenny, Vastra and Strax started in Doctor Who‘s place. Of course Captain Jack would be in at least half the episodes. Can you imagine him trying in vain to woo the good and lizardly Madame? Fun times, I’m telling you.

Calling all Whovians with holes in their ears! Just look at these Sonic Screwdriver earrings my wife made!

https://www.etsy.com/listing/200762224/doctor-who-inspired-sonic-screwdriver

When I Say Pants, You Best Pants…

Update 09-03-14: GAH! Toronto Fan Expo was a ton of fun, but the preparation, time spent there, time traveling home and recovery have and ARE costing me greatly in terms of productivity. I am frantically trying to update/backdate new comics so there are 4 a week for every week. I’m doing my best. Luckily I don’t have much travel planned for the rest of the year.

The only real, honest reason to be your own boss and work from home (as I am and do) is to have the power to decide when to wear pants. Of course there’s the freedom, and the fulfillment and the loving the work and the blah blah blah, but primarily it’s the pants thing. It’s not so much deciding when actually to WEAR pants (because no sane, self actualized person would ever consciously decide to put on pants while not under duress), as much as it is deciding when and how often to perform activities that REQUIRE you to wear the pants. Got a bill that requires you to go somewhere and pay it in person? That’s a pants bill! Cancel that service immediately! Need to go to a store and buy a thing? No you don’t! You already have too much shit! Don’t create a pants problem where none exists. Trying to meet a potential mate who doesn’t already live in your house? Just die alone! Why prolong the inevitable, and why prolong the pants?

The typical career path of the self employed, creative type is slowly but surely whittling down “pants time” to the absolute minimum, with the ultimate goal being achieving a state of “Pants Zero.” It’s like Absolute Zero or Inbox Zero, but for pants. This is honestly the closest any self employed creative is ever going to get to the concept of retirement. We typically understand that we’re all going to die at our drawing desks, or keyboards, or pianos with a big grin on our faces. Working ever increasingly more and harder (not smarter) as one approaches death IS the plan. The only way to sweeten the already sweet lifetime of sweet toil is to make sure while the graph line of “time spent working / age” goes steeply from the bottom left to the top right, that the line for “time spent working / wearing pants” starts at the bottom left and declines sharply right off the page.

I am extremely lucky in that I am not wearing pants right now, and I am rarely called upon to do so. It’s like when you try and do the dishes and they somehow come out dirtier than before, then people eventually stop asking you to do the dishes. I have time and time again displayed my ineptitude at being a person who puts on pants to get the mail, or answer the door. Eventually people just stopped expecting it of me, and I move ever closer to my Pants Zero goal. I have maybe two pants days a week, and even then it’s usually only for 2-4 pant-hours at a time (a pants-hour is calculated as two time’s a regular hour, because of how shitty it makes you feel and how everything sucks twice as much when you’re wearing pants). Seriously, though. Fuck pants.

Calling all Whovians with holes in their ears! Just look at these Sonic Screwdriver earrings my wife made!

https://www.etsy.com/listing/200762224/doctor-who-inspired-sonic-screwdriver