My Letter To Santa

Wishful thinking, because I'm probably just going to get a stocking full of coal, and rightly so.

Yet Another Sign I May Be On The Fast Track To Becoming A Crazy Person

I had my College Jeopardy! audition yesterday! Very exciting, in a sitting in a room with fifteen nerdy, bespectacled twenty-something young men kind of way. There was a written test, and a simulation of the game, and then a personal interview, during which I was asked what would I do if I won the $100,000 that the college champion gets. And without even thinking I immediately blurted out the first thing that popped into my head:

"Hedge maze with peacocks!"

So we'll see if I'll be saying similarly ridiculous things on national television come April. But in the meantime, I did get a free Jeopardy! pen, so I already feel like a winner.

I Have Noticed

Two things that are pretty easy to get for free:

-crayons

-condoms

Mary, Mother Of Pez

This was done as on commission for my lovely friend Leon. I love thinking about Pez dispensers because I like to imagine a bunch of besuited advertising men trying to figure out how to sell the most disgusting candy ever, after Necco wafers, and one of them saying "Wait! I've got it!" I watch Mad Men, so I know all about how this works.

Hmm, I may need to do a color version of this.

The Grotesque Holiday Decoration That's Sweeping The Nation!

Well, Thanksgiving is over, which means two things:

1) Pie for breakfast

2) The Christmas season has begun!

With Number 2 in mind, I give you the holiday garland that will revolutionize holiday decorating:

MistleToes!

I don't yet know what one is supposed to do under them, but I have no doubt it's something disturbing. And yet my house will soon be festooned with them. Get ready.

Why I Love Trader Joe's

While getting carded as I went to purchase a bottle of wine (and a cartload of awesome Trader Joe's snackity-snacks) a couple days after my birthday, the cashier noticed the date on my driver's license, wished me a happy birthday, and plopped this bouquet on top of my groceries. Totally brightened my day, which was subsequently darkened when I locked my keys inside my car (a car which, I must say, is probably entirely deserving of its own post, and which will probably receive it).

And yes, the flowers are being displayed in Tupperware. I do not own a vase. Shut up.

My Roommates Can Beat Up Your Roommates

My roommates and I made a chalk mural! What you cannot tell from the picture is that this is, in fact, a work in 3-D CHALK (yes, it exists!). So the reds come toward you and the blues fall back. Which makes all the blood flying everywhere super-duper exciting, as you may well imagine. Consider me responsible for the pterodactyl, the sharkity-shark, the artichoke, and one of the hot air balloons. The rest is the work of my collaborators.

I feel privileged to live with such people.

In Which I Both Share And Apologize For My Self-Consciously Quirky Hobby

I collect Wet Paint signs. Here are some of them.

This Is My New Motto

I would buy everything in this store.

Mirror Mirror

I made a mirror out of aluminum foil and put in on my door, which was supposed to be an act of self-mockery (those who know me are aware that I rarely pass a reflective surface without taking a glance), but the fact that I catch myself about to check my hair in a fake mirror a little too often has made it something of an embarrassment.

I'm not going to take it down though.

I've Got An Idea!

What the ferocious Tyrannosaurus Rex lacked in arm bulk, it made up for in great plans about sandwiches. It is also my favorite dinosaur.

And can I just say that the "Fun With Dinosaur Stencils" booklet that I purchased this summer may never be accused of having a misleading title?

Be Forewarned

The life of a dinosaur is not all glamour and excitement. Sometimes it's just abject frustration at being purple and having to wait for apples to fall from the tree.

It's very similar to my frustration at being left-handed and the resulting marker smudges. Which is to say, sorry for the marker smudges.

And Furthermore

This is also pretty great. It's like footage from the security camera in my brain.

Throwing You A Bone

You might have noticed that I haven't been posting of late, BUT I am here to offer what I actually consider decidedly non-feeble excuses for that. To wit, I have been studying for midterms, and I have a fever. That being said, nothing prevents me from posting Billy Wilder's work on my blog and calling it my own (except maybe some pesky copyright laws), so with that, I give you the glorious final scene from Sunset Boulevard:

Stay Out Of The Meadow

So instead of drawing weird things that accidentally turn out looking cute, I figured this time I would draw something cute on purpose.
ALSO
Among my greater disappointments in life: getting to pet a fawn and realizing that its fur was about as soft as a steel brush. Which is not cute at all.

Putting The "Recess!" In "Recession"

I think I'm going to start prefacing all my statements with "In this wintry economic climate..."

FOR EXAMPLE:

"In this wintry economic climate it has become harder for me to tolerate people who use the word 'random' inappropriately."
or
"In this wintry economic climate one would expect the weather to be a few degrees cooler so that I could actually wear a damn scarf."
or even
"In this wintry economic climate I have to go to the bathroom."

See? Economic downturns are fun!

Auspices

So last spring, in a Livy-reading-induced bout of whimsy, I decided to take my auspices (which is to say, look at birds in the near vicinity and "interpret" their movements as they pertained to my fate). The picture above is what I saw (those are deflated balloons below, in case you were wondering). At the time I interpreted it as a bad sign (and considering how the rest of that day played out, I was probably not wrong in this assumption), although last night I translated an anecdote about a guy who in the middle of a one-on-one battle with a huge, ferocious Gaul and had a crow land on his helmet and then go attack the Gaul for him, after which the crow returned to his helmet to just hang out and be groovy, so maybe crows are all well and good.

I am obviously really cool and popular.

Their Eyes Were Watching Television

Because God was a rerun.

Education

I know so many things.

I Might Have Set The Bar For Clever Titles Too High, Or Maybe This Post Is Too Boring To Merit One

Forgive the lax posting. This week I have been consumed with number of things.

Chief among them (in no particular order):

1) Candy corn: As a purveyor of all seasonal candy, excluding Valentine's conversation hearts, this has been an important priority on my agenda given that Halloween is nearly at hand.

2) Dead languages: I translate them on a daily basis, and this takes time, and sometimes effort.

3) Contemplating a pact with the devil: I have been reading Goethe's Faust, and although I suppose I am meant to view it as a cautionary tale, I have to say, it makes the whole selling one's soul option seem pretty attractive. If only there were some kind of pamphlet for prospective soul merchants such as myself. "Is a pact with the Devil right for you?"

4) Bemoaning the weather: How, perhaps you wonder, might something so trivial consume so much of your time, to the exclusion of other activities? Well, dear reader, because it's goddamn October and I am ready for some gloom, and some tights-donning, and some scarf-wearing, and the weather has not been delivering (well, actually, today was an improvement), and I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore! Network is a good movie; you should watch it.

With all this having been said (that was an ablative absolute, in case you were wondering; see item 2), you may expect to see some Venn Diagrams and really poor magic marker drawings in the coming days.

A Still Life

Cezanne so wishes this shit had been around during his lifetime.

A Miracle of Evolution

It can't fly, but it can walk gracefully in heels, which is more than I can say for some people.

Yep, Sea Creatures, Act Surprised

Here's a good one I got off a Laffy Taffy: What do you get when you cross an octopus with a chicken?

Wait for it.

Wait...for...it...

Drumsticks for everyone!


Oh, guess what, octopi are as smart as dogs. No really. They are. Look it up.

Paul Newman Would Have Known What To Do

I am heartbroken we have lost such a beacon of goodness in a crocodile-filled world. RIP, Paul.

Literary Commentary

Did anyone ever read "The Giving Tree"? Did it fill anyone else with indescribable rage as that stupid little kid repeatedly took advantage of the steadfast tree who maybe didn't want to give him anything and maybe just wanted to hang out in the forest and drop pine cones (yes, the tree in the story was deciduous, but we're talking about the tree's fantasy life, so I'm going to take a little artistic license) on that little sonuvabitch's head?! Anybody?!

It's Over There

Summer Is Over

But that doesn't mean you're safe!

Okay, So Maybe I'm Clearly A Chump

I unintentionally lied when I said I would get right on updating this sucker, BUT I am back with a vengeance, and all the pen and thoughts your feeble human minds will be able to take!

STARTING NOW!!!

Good News!

I know I've been a bit of a deadbeat blogger of late, due in large part to technological issues, BUT you will (I hope) be happy to hear that I have a brand spanking new scanner and some new doodles to upload! Yay! Right? Yay!

More fun to come.

And Another One

Spindly flapper has trouble walking.

Lionel Roy The Vinyl Boy

When I was in high school, there was a kid who would wear head-to-toe vinyl every single day. Pants, boots, hat, vest, jacket, gloves, sometimes even goggles. I spotted him so frequently that I felt I was doing him a disservice by continually referring to him as "that kid who wears head-to-toe vinyl every day," and so I dubbed him "Lionel Roy" for the simple reason that I could think of no other name that would rhyme with "Vinyl Boy." Eventually he stopped wearing vinyl, and I was, needless to say, very disappointed in him, and I even went so far as to write the lyrics to a tragic ballad on the subject, music provided by the then-boyfriend of one of my close pals. The song has since been lost in the sands of time (which is just as well, because my lyrics were pretty half-assed), and although I have contemplated a rewrite, for now, I think this similarly half-assed portrait will be a sufficient tribute to the boy who knew only of synthetic fabrics.

Further Experiments In Spindly Doodles

Is It Just My Obsession With Fishies This Summer?

Or is anchovy pizza the most delicious thing ever?

I'm going to go with "most delicious thing ever," in spite of the possible repercussions for such a flagrantly hyperbolic claim.

Or at least "a totally legitimate breakfast food."

I Ate Too Many

My Sister Made Cookies

There Are Worse Ways To Go

Don't cartoon deaths sometimes seem whimsically humane?

More Sinister Fishies

Yes, more of them.

Let Me Eat Cake

Personally, if I were an 18th century French peasant, I'd find Marie Antoinette's rampant and well-documented (or possibly fictionalized by me) cake-hoarding infinitely more outrage-inducing (any other opportunities for hyphenation that I'm missing?) than an offer to share said cake.

The Alternative Being To Not Grow Up At All

I did a few drawings experimenting with these spindly figures, and they all (predictably) kind of ended up looking like Eastern European runway models. C'est la vie.

Career Day

All pretty viable options, although, given my proclivity towards sassiness, I'm probably most qualified for that last one.

Also...

Safety first.

Paging Mr. Herman

You remember what to do when anyone says the secret word: scream real loud!

Heartwarming, Isn't It?

Some artichokes love each other as much as I love drawing artichokes.

Sinister Fishies

I have the feeling aquatic subject matter is going to be overrepresented on this blog. Oh well.

Monster Portrait

Self-explanatory?

It's Been One Of Those Days

Socrates, eat your heart out.

Sassy Fish

Some fishies are even sassier than TV judges.

It's Even Better Than They Said It Would Be!

Seriously, did you guys know it was going to be a musical?! No one told me. Gutsy choice, Chris Nolan.

(No, I haven't seen The Dark Knight yet. I have to wait five more days for reasons beyond my control, and it's eating me up inside.)

In The Immortal Words Of A Snoopy Folder From San Francisco's Chinatown...

I think what puts this text head and shoulders above other poor translations I have found on commercial products is that I can only begin to speculate at what this is actually supposed to mean. Something to do with rain and how it shrinks wool . . . and then choosing to walk rather than some other mode of transportation . . . with the Lone Ranger's sidekick . . . and then directions on how to do so?? I have to hand it to my mom and sister for finding this gem.

Vegetables Are Good For You, And So Are Puns

Lest you think I only draw marine life (fictional and otherwise).

You're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

"You yell 'Barracuda,' everybody says 'Huh? What?' You yell 'Shark,' we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July."

Something tells me yelling "sharkity-shark" doesn't carry quite the same weight.

By Popular Demand

Oh like you wouldn't.

Why, Commissioner Gordon? Why?!

The new Batman movie is gonna be, like, WAY darker than the others.

(Tableau by Tessa Strain, Photo by Angela Woodside)

This!

In which I subject you, dear reader (viewer? surveyor? spectator?), to things I draw and write and collect and share for your reading (viewing? surveying? spectat--ok, that's not a word) pleasure.