This year I sat writing, listing, deleting, pacing, obsessively drawing, and feeling generally unable to deliver a piece of decent writing. After it was done I said, “I feel like I just gave birth, and I don’t even like the baby."
Read MoreReflection: LOOOOOOVVVVEEEEEEE /
I think that it makes sense to commemorate my thirtieth trip around the globe with a huge, loud LOVE FEST. Here goes.
Read More"Young Fathers" Fossil /
I have a recurring nightmare about a jolly, anthropomorphized wasp befriending me before sucking all of my memories out of my ears. “How do you feel?” The wasp says. I feel like I don’t want to hurt the wasp’s feelings, so I don’t tell him that I am empty and scared. I can remember my name and my mom’s face, but that’s all. I say, “I don’t feel as bad as I think you thought I would feel,” and then I pat the jolly wasp on his head.
Read MoreYesterday Lynda Barry Taught My Comics Class /
Yesterday the cartoonist and legendary demigod Lynda Barry taught my comics class. I had been looking forward to this day with a kind of sickness: I didn’t want the day to come because I enjoyed looking forward to it so much; when it was over, what was I supposed to look forward to? Now that the day has come and gone, I can answer that question with some confidence: Post-Lynda Barry, I am looking forward to, enthusiastically, the rest of my life.
Read MoreIf You Are Lucky Enough to Ride on Buses or Trains /
You know those really big moments in your life — the ones that act like vertexes on angles? You know: The shifts; the places where before this moment everything was one way, and afterwards, everything was another way. Common examples from literature, film, and lectures mothers give daughters are: the first night you sleep at someone else’s house; the day you get your first period; the first time you can’t eat off a children’s menu at a restaurant; your first kiss (and your first devastating break-up); when you go to college; the birth of your first child. For me, one of the most seminal moments like that came when I was finally allowed to ride the city bus by myself. This happened over the summer the year after eighth grade.
Read MoreGreen Things Are Coming Up /
When you move to Chicago, here is what people say to you: “Oh, whoa! Did you know it’s cold there?” They don’t usually phrase it as a question, but they say it like you have overlooked this fact. It’s as though they think they are announcing something particularly newsworthy that you, in your blind lust for a big city, have overlooked.
Read MoreDepression Feels Like: A Comic With A Cat In It /
I have been trying to draw what it feels like to be depressed.
Read MoreA Regular Here /
I have written a very long comic, and you can read it.
Read MoreThe Year In Mixtape /
An autobiographical mixtape reflection on 2015; favorite songs included in multiple media.
Read MoreWhat You Have Been Doing With Your Last Few Days In New Orleans /
The goodbye party at the lake is going exceptionally well. The lake was chosen because it’s outside and big and there’s always space, and if you’re brave you can go swimming. ("If you’re brave" because the city regularly advises against people swimming there; Lake Pontchartrain is dirty, and every once in a while someone dies in it for reasons that can’t be explained.) There is watermelon, a summery tape playing on a “Do The Right Thing”-inspired boombox, and an inflatable dolphin. It’s hot, but the shade and the breeze off the lake makes the heat tolerable. The people who have come — and there are lots — are people you love. You’re standing by the grill (green peppers and rings of onion are softening slowly over white coal) when someone you loved once asks: “What have you been doing with your last few days in New Orleans?"
Read MoreIntroverts & Cats #10 /
In which the protagonist hears her horoscope.
Read MoreReflection (In Cats) /
Coltrane liked the old house. He's a wiry tuxedo cat who routinely loses fur around the base of his tail because that’s where the bugs like it most, and he bites at them incessantly. When we moved, Coltrane got this horrified look on his face that was practically human. He was like any kid on a TV show where the family has to move, except there was the tragic complication that Coltrane couldn’t understand why we would want to leave what had been a perfectly fine living situation for a smaller house with a ramshackle joke of a backyard. We couldn’t say, “Hey, the owner of the old house had to sell it. We don’t like this new one as much, either. But sometimes in life you just have to deal with things happening that you don’t like."
Read MoreIntroverts & Cats #9 /
In which the protagonist calls in sick.
Read MoreI Don't Know Nothing Except Change Will Come /
Before I embarrass myself, we should establish something: I am really into butterfly metaphors. I couldn’t care less how much they’ve been “done” (as one of my writing teachers told me they were), or that an entire generation of once-girls-now-women have rendered the image cliche through a veritable onslaught of lower back tattoos. A butterfly emerging from a cocoon is one of the best tiny mysteries of the natural world, and there just isn’t anything else quite like it.
Read MoreIntroverts & Cats #8 /
In which the protagonist has a pile of clothes.
Read MoreGenderless Wombat Explains Public Libraries /
Tomorrow, New Orleans votes on the New Orleans Public Library Millage Proposition Election. If the measure does not pass, New Orleans will need to close several branches of its libraries. This would be an unspeakable tragedy; public libraries are one of the most important things in our modern world. But don't take my word for it: here's a genderless wombat who will explain some of the details for you.
Read MoreYou Have Privilege. Use It Responsibly. /
I am sitting down to write while Baltimore is uprising. Or — since the National Guard has been brought in, and a curfew is in place — I am sitting down to write in the wake of Baltimore uprising, and I can say this without hesitation: my white friends have opinions about it. Their opinions are: “There is never a reason for violence"; “Violence begets violence"; “It’s an uprising not a riot"; “The media is racist"; “Rioters are thugs"; “Rioters (uprisers) are heroes"; and, most popularly, “This again?"
Read MoreWhat Was Worth Keeping /
Two days ago, someone broke into my car. I was at a concert — the kind of concert I hadn’t been to in almost a decade, with electric guitars and an obsessively-adored touring musician. Throughout the show, I kept thinking, “I wish there was some way to hold onto this feeling.” I could tell that I was nearing the end of a part of my life where I truly enjoy being pressed up against the front of a stage, digging my fingers into some twenty-something’s amplifier. Someday soon this will all feel less exciting to me. I wanted to be able to remember how it felt to be that kind of alive. Meanwhile, someone quickly went through everything I’d left in the car since I started to move, and made judgements about what was worth keeping.
Read MoreCollaboration /
I have been collaborating with Rebecca Gabrielle Porath Katz. We sent half-comics to each other in the mail and then finished them. Here's the half I got in the mail, and, below that, the half Rebecca sent me.
Introverts & Cats #7 /
Introvert goes on a date with a boy.
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