I’m in Charlottesville for the weekend for my older brother’s graduation (he is graduating from UVA a year after me). When I told my mom I was coming, she said, “Good, because you have a dermatologist appointment, an eye appointment, and a haircut scheduled.” To which I said, mom, I file taxes as the head of my household. Also, shouldn’t I go to all those places in New York? And she said, “Yeah, well you won’t.”

This is true. I hate making appointments like that. My family in general isn’t big on doctors. I remember one time when I was really little, my dad was attempting to build a bed, when he drove a massive splinter through his hand (he didn’t notice it until he found that his glove wouldn’t come off). He yanked the offending five-inch piece of wood out, and refused to go to the doctor, because “what would they do? I don’t feel anything in that hand anyways.” 

So I went to the derm, where I found out that apparently I have severe rosacea, which means that my goddamn pale skin breaks out in a stress rash, and all the acne medication that a previous dermatologist gave me three years ago when she misdiagnosed my skin, was just aggravating it. When the derm told me that, I said, well, I’m not in bad company. Bill Clinton has rosacea. And she was like, “How do you know that?” I don’t know how I knew, but I had never been more sure of anything in my life (look it up— I dare ya).

I went to the eye doctor, and even though I have 20/20 vision, I have an astigmatism, which means my eyes are too dumb to focus on their own. So I have perfectly blurry vision. Call me glasses.

Finally, I went to get my hair cut. A an elderly woman with a portable oxygen tank was thanking Missy, the lady who has cut my hair since middle school, saying, “Can you imagine if I had had to leave the salon looking like that?” I thought that maybe someone had screwed up her hair, but as it turns out, her stylist ran out of the salon screaming during the hair cut because she had gotten a phone call that her husband had died. Holy shit. Missy solemnly shampooed my hair and apologized for seeming distracted during my haircut.

Home sweet home.

I mentioned this a couple days ago, but look at this! Who made a website about my family??? I remember that a while back, some dude tweeted at me, “Look up the book about the Mattimoe’s.” I checked his profile, and it was his only tweet ever. I thought he was talking about the book my great-uncle Ned (a retired Jesuit priest) wrote, but it turns out that there is another book! Anyone named Mattimoe is related to me. A few of my family members were angry when some author, who happened to be from the same area of Ohio as them, wrote a book series about a detective called Mattimoe, because come on! You can’t take a ridiculously obscure name like that and immortalize it in a poorly written book!

There is a review section on the website, where there is a multitude of praises coming from various Mattimoe’s. 

Weird.

Something that I’ve been noticing over the years is that whenever I take a break from drawing comics, my twitter usage goes up. Not in the sense that I check it more often ( think I’m as addicted as anyone), but I end up tweeting a lot more. It’s a weird compulsion to tell jokes, no matter how terrible, all the time.

After taking a long break four years straight of a daily comic strip +op ed cartoons throughout college, averaging around 8-10 published pieces per week), I think I’m back to cartooning. It’s going to be tough. I’m going to start trying to submit to The New Yorker, which involves turning in between 10-15 comics a week while facing constant rejection.

It’s kind of embarrassing to admit this, but once you start putting your work on the internet, you get used to an immediate reaction, and since most people who follow me are friendly, the reactions are generally kind. And even when I was doing comics in college, I was an associate editor for one year and then the graphics editor for two years, so there wasn’t anyone really telling me what to do. 

I’m starting to think of that instant feedback from the internet to be sort of a cheap thrill. I could tweet something, and maybe a couple people will go “gold star!” but I could also save the idea, and create something with more resonance. It’s the difference between buying a couple cheap dresses from Forever 21, which are guaranteed to self-destruct in a couple weeks, or investing in one nice dress that I’ll wear for years.

By no means am I abandoning the internet, and I know that all of this is very obvious, but I guess for whatever reason, I’ve been using various distractions to  fight against comics for the past year. But I’m back now.

I remember that in middle school, we once had a substitute bus driver who thought it was funny to simulate hydraulics by slamming on the brakes over and over again while driving uphill. She said, “Ye-ah! We bumpin’!” I was terrified.

It’s funny. Whenever anyone asks about religion, I say, “Oh, I don’t know. I’m agnostic.” But whenever I see someone who looks like they’re having an especially hard time, I always feel compelled to say a little prayer for them. I haven’t quite figured out where the prayer is directed.

New James Blake Album: Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

New Kurt Vile: KURT VILE FOReVER! The War on Drugs who?

New Deerhunter Album: I’m still stuck on Halcyon Digest. Not ready to move on.

The Great Gatsby: It made me sad and frustrated. So I guess that means it effectively told the story. If I’d watched it in 3D, I would’ve had an aneurysm.

New Vampire Weekend Album: !!! Belongs on Carl Sagan’s golden records! I heard the iTunes stream and I already know it’s going to hold an important place in my heart. 

I guess my review scale ranges from “ehhhh” to “SEND IT TO SPACE!!!”