The difference between eating fruit and vegetables from plants you know, and buying the plant parts at a grocery store, is like the difference between making love with a beloved friend, and having sex with a piece of factory-shaped latex or plastic (not that I would know what THAT’s like! ahem). In all cases the physical needs are met, but without the relationship with living beings, emotions are missing and it just isn’t as good or fun.

I miss my garden.

Most of us don’t have any sort of relationships with the plants who feed us. It’s very sad and wrong and unnatural and mechanical and impersonal. Do people miss that if they’ve never known it?

* * * * *

I often wonder how much “brainwashing” is willful ignorance and denial. I’m losing patience with people who refuse to face reality. I’ve often blamed the system and the ruling class because they’re soooooo gooooood at waging propaganda and teaching people how not to think, but for crying out loud, it’s not THAT hard to visit a library or browse in a book store. There ARE books and magazines sitting right out there in the open, from which it’s not TOOO hard to find out the truth, or at least challenge the prevailing view of truth.

I can’t believe how fast this year is going! It’s already been six months since I lost my job and home. It doesn’t seem like that long. My severance package is now over, as is my health insurance. I guess I may get COBRA, depending on how much it costs. Unless I start bringing in a decent income, in a few more months I’m going to hit a financial wall. I’m relieved about the 13-week extension of unemployment, pathetic as the amount is in Florida. Florida’s unemployment compensation is crap — the upper limit is $275/week, no matter how much was earned on the job. In Massachusetts, it goes up to $600/week.

In spite of financial and housing woes, I’m pretty happy overall. I **LOVE** not going to an office!!! Oh my god, I’m so grateful to have any amount of time not having a job. I love working at my own pace on my own things. I LOOOOOOOVE not being trapped in a cubicle, and not having anyone telling me what to do. I love being creative and working hard and late on things I care about.

I worked at a small weekly paper, and several others were laid off after me. The local daily paper, the Sun-Sentinel, just laid off about 55 people last week. The Palm Beach Post recently laid off 300. It’s unbelievable how fast newspapers are disintegrating. In my opinion, one huge reason is that they’re publicly traded companies — they’re forced to obsess about inflating the next quarter’s stock price, to the detriment of long-term planning. Of course they also have a huge problem with advertisers moving to the internet, but I’ve heard that privately held papers are coping with that much better than the publicly held ones. Also, it seems obvious that when newspaper chains are bought in deals wherein the papers themselves are used as collateral for huge debt, and if profits fall at all, the result will be the cannibalization of the properties to pay off the debt. Duh.

The stupidity and greed of a few rich motherfuckers ruins many lives. Constantly and in an infinite number of ways.

Since becoming self-employed I’ve worked hard, but I often feel like I’m not doing everything I need to do. I work too slow. I’ve got to pick up the pace.

Although… I did draw 36 cartoons in three weeks before going to San Diego. That’s not bad. And I sent out about 80 mailings during that time. Maybe I just feel like I’m lagging right now because of recent traveling. I have so much I want to do and time is going fast.

I have a very long list of tasks, but my short immediate list (other than keeping up with Minimum Security) is this:

- six more pages for a graphic novel proposal
- 20 single-panel cartoons for a short list of magazines
- drawings to catch up with 5 of Derrick Jensen’s “Endgame” classes

I had a great time at San Diego Comic-Con! It was monstrous — huge, crowded, noisy, packed with interesting art and comics (and a lot of not-so-interesting commercial crap as well). Two highlights for me were giving copies of “As the World Burns” to two cartoonists I’ve long admired, Matt Groening and Lynda Barry. They were both super-nice!

Recently I found out something very important about myself: I don’t like sailing. Though I was born, grew up and still live in the Boating Capital of the Universe, Fort Lauderdale, I’ve managed to avoid ever boarding a sailboat. But all that changed this past weekend, when I finally tried it with some relatives from abroad.

It was a wretched combination of frying in the sun and puking.

I don’t understand why people think that’s fun.

Today the blissfully wedded couple on the uproarious comedy “Everybody Loves Raymond” decided that it would make sense to be at least as polite to each other (those whom they (presumably) love) as they are to strangers. Imagine — Raymond actually prefers to be called “sweetie” over “idiot.” Weird! Debra thought it was silly, but agreed to try to be nice.

Of course they couldn’t hold out for long. Soon they were back at each other’s throats, yelling angrily in each other’s faces.

As brilliant as that is, it hardly compares with the hilarity on another recent episode, wherein Raymond wanted to have sex, but Debra didn’t! *Again!* What a creative storyline, not a cliché at all, and an eloquent statement on the unparalleled fabulousness of the institution of matrimony.

This show is like the loathsome comic strips “The Lockhorns,” or “Andy Capp” — normalizing abuse by trying to pass it off as amusing.

Here’s a photo from an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about a traveling veterinarian clinic. Check out what’s on his hat!

Following is my schedule for San Diego Comic-Con. I’ll be at the NBM Publishing table. If you’re at the event, I hope you’ll stop by and say hello!

4-5:30 p.m. Thursday 7/24
2:30-4 p.m. Friday 7/25
5:30-7 p.m. Saturday 7/26

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Here’s the last girly kitty strip (in this one, the kitty’s hiding under the table). Thanks to my cousin Michelle for this idea:

Here’s the fifth girly kitty strip (no kitty in this one though. Last one tomorrow):

Here’s the fourth girly kitty strip (two more left):

Here’s the third girly kitty strip (three more to go):