The Last Monday of January

Well folks we are 1/12th through 2011

Can you believe that happened so fast?


I have been meaning to post a picture of the actual vagina rock out Saint Nicholas' Monastery. It actually is quite pink, no fooling. As you can see here.


I am going to be playing a bit of catch up this week in an attempt to round out the Greece Comic (still untitled) and prepare for another project I have in the works.

I am also going to be at this year's Boston Con so grab tickets to that if you want to see me standing behind a booth full of sexy artwork. (Rowr! Rowr!)

this weekend we celebrated Liz;s birthday. Here is the much-too-dark photo from Club Cafe (also called Club so Gay) when they presented her with her birthday margarita:

Make a Wish Lizbian!

I hung out with Mom all Saturday afternoon where we successfully did 3 things:

1) Got me TWO new pairs of nerd glasses (won't be ready for another week so I am suffering with contacts until then)

2) Had apps and beers at the BBC which is rapidly becoming "Our" place and

3) Went over to Corinne's to hang out with Tana Junior, Tae and Marae wherein I wore the following flowery headband:

You must excuse the low quality images, my camera phone sucks.


In related things-that-suck news I battled with this cowlick all day Friday and thought some photographic evidence was in order:

Look at it! All smug and refusing to be tamed!

And finally, we are set to get pummeled (again) by another snowstorm this week that the forecasters are saying will split into TWO storms. Dear winter in New England, "uncle." That is all.


I agree with the congregation over there at the South End baptist Church:


Seriously, enough.

See you guys at Boston Con!
April 30th and May 1st!

And here's a cool video of Frank Quietly drawing on his Cintiq (a toy I very much would like). He'll be at the Boston Con too, y'alls.

page 27 & Shaq-o-meter

SHAQ-o-Meter! (Modified)

Want to know how much snow Boston has been hit with in a graph that is both entertaining AND informative?

Well here you go! The updated Tana-style Shaq-o-meter!

The Boston Globe posted this online and I modified it (obviously).

page 27

Also today is page 27 of our still nameless Greece Comic. As usual read the much-in-need-of-proper-editing work-in-progress HERE at my DeviantArt account.

Happy Friday everyone!

page 26 and OMG SNOW!

page 26

"Heat wave, we're having a heat waaave!"


This is what I woke up to this morning.


Time to shovel.

I let Bailey break the Marshfield leash law (Actually, as his owner I am probably legally responsible) and run around like a wild man in the snow. It's his most favorite thing to do.



When I started shoveling the plow trucks hadn't even been by. Soon after there was nothing but Bailey tracks zig-zagging through the yards and woods and all over. I'd be pushing the snow off the top of my Jeep and TADA! there he'd be chomping the falling snow and dancing around like a maniac.



My commute to work was incredibly beautiful. There is something muted and lovely about the world being blanketed in snow. As heavy and slushy and incovenient as snow can be for the working world it is aesthetically pleasing. A sort of quieting of the soul happens naturally in me when the world around presents itself this way.

Traffic sucks

Oh wait, there's somebody

Yep, back to bumper to bumper

Mom decided to give uncle Roger a run for his money on who has the most awesome mustache.

Eat your heart out Unck

Fun, fun.

That's all for now from cold New England

Peace out!

Glasses, Faker Fish, BSO!

page 25

SO, who has two thumbs and found herself at the Boston Symphony Orchestra last night?

THIS guy!

Look at our great seats!

It was AH-mazing!

Marcie won free tickets (she rolls like that) and I was lucky number third-in-line (fine by me).

This was the line-up:


I knew I was going to love the Tchaikovsky.

And the execution was magnificent! There is something so wonderful about big, beautiful live music. All the trembling fingers and fluid choreographed strokes, the call and response across the stage, the wide stances and hooked feet, instrument to instrument, melody and harmony.

Ahh... culture. Inside I am total gay boy for the arts.

The visiting conductor, a little Spanish man with big ears (a boon in his field no doubt!) who looked like Jack Nicholson (a bit) was awesome. He really got into the performance: arms up, down, some move that looked like he was shooting a bow and arrow into the violins section. It was so fun.

And at halftime (I know it's called intermission but admit it, 'halftime' sounds better) Marcie and I shared a glass of red wine and I told her all about the Brockton Court experience I had yesterday morning, when I went with Johnny as both chauffeur and moral support at his custody-of-the-kids mediation, how stressful that was and how long it took.

My view of The Christian Science Mother Church across the street from the Symphony

What a day!

Yesterday was Rob's birthday. He was a pseudo-roommate of mine back in college (pseudo beacuse he was dating my actual roommate and thereby came over a lot). They had this fish named Sebastian who was one of those fighter fish and during a really stressful finals week Sebastian spent roughly two days floating on his side in the tangle of weeds that hung down into his bowl and when the stressed-out over-worked couple finally got their shit together enough to have a funeral for him (in the toilet at the end of the hall) the little fucker totally came back to life!

He was swimming around in the toilet bowl and they had to scoop him out and yell at him and plop him back in the weedy fish bowl.

So I made this little doodle for Rob and sent it to him.

Happy birthday buddy.

And happy birthday to Corinne! It's the second annual 30th birthday party for her, today. I have no idea what we are doing to celebrate but I am sure that cake will be involved. Cake and tiny babies nicknamed TJ.


On the other side of 'good news' over here in 'horror-of-horrors!' my glasses, the same awesome lightweight, seemingly indestructible pair I have had for SIX YEARS totally broke this morning and I am super bummed out about it.


1) Because now I have to wear my contacts and I HATE that

and

2) beacuse this means I have to actually go shopping for glasses. I HATE that!

I mean, yes, okay, six years without upgrading my prescription is way too long I know, and I have to squint at everything even with my glasses on, so yes, I see the blessing in disguise here but, I LOVED those glasses. Now I have to go get a nerd-upgrade and I don't even want to (#endwhine)


You know how I always have to be drawing something, everywhere I go? Well, this is some of what I had to draw last night at the BSO.




It's a sickness really.

At bars, in restaurants, at the symphony, or football games, on airplanes, anywhere really. Everywhere, even. I have to be writing something.

We all have our demons.

Here then is page 25 of the as-yet unnamed Greece Comic (I do sort of like "Turning the Dirty Thirty: Two Queers with Pine-Pitch Beers" but I fear it is too lengthy).




As usual you can go see the whole shebang HERE! on my DeviantArt account.

PEACE!

page 24 and Emo Boys

Can you believe this thing was only supposed to be 22 pages long originally? What was I thinking? It's only about half done and we are at page 24. Perhaps I should simply accept the fact that I am long winded. Or something.

Page 24

As always, new readers (and Tina) the full thing can be read HERE. Leave a comment if you see something you like since that reminds people of how awesome I am and also increases my sense of self-worth.

******

I'm such a sucker for emo boy bands.

It's almost sad, really.



These guys kick Katy Perry's ass, in my humble opinion.

*************

Anyway, it's cold in Boston. It was -2 this morning when I started up my car.

This is the view out my studio window this morning. I know you can see the screen but deal with it. There is no way I am going out in that frost to take a screen-less picture for you blog-o-stalkers. The water wheel isn't even turning, it's just frozen solid (Brr!).

My View This Morning

As one friend put it "It's Chicago-Style kind of cold today in Boston -it's the cold where in under 60 seconds snot freezes in your nose."

Which actually happened. If you've never felt that particular sensation I recommend you go someplace very cold, beacuse it's unlike anything else. You can actually feel tiny ice prickles inside your nose. You then have my permission to hurry off someplace warm.

Speaking of warm places Marcie is back from New Orleans! Welcome home. Apparently the particular chemistry of that old city was enough to change an uber word nerd into a whiskey drinking all-night hellraiser. Brava Naw'lin's!



On my way back from picking her up at the airport I managed to get my Jeep stuck (briefly) in a snow bank. How reminiscent of the days we used to date, eh? Nature once again thwarts my attempts to appear butch! You win this time Nature, but someday I shall prevail!


Tonight is haircuts night at the Ford house. My shaggy mane rejoices at this news. Ethan's hair is a wild mess too. And Kiah's is SO LONG! I tried braiding it this weekend (I am not sure if you are familiar with my hair-styling skills but let's just say they leave something to be desired) it ended up in two sloppy rather uneven pony-tails that I called a braid.

Sekiah, you're welcome.

-2 degrees out

Those icicles on the rear gate have never looked colder.

Is it too early for whiskey in my coffee?

What? I just want to warm up!

Page 23 and Names

Page 23

Some potential Greece comic titles offered by my fellow traveler Meghan:

"Bo-ro na thi-la so e-dho?"

(Translation: "Do you mind if I breast feed here?" I died laughing when I found this in the the back of my Let'sGo book in the section titled Emergency Phrases You May Need to Know. Really? Might I someday need that?!)

"A Greek Burrito and the Kindness of Strangers."

"KAthika" (look that one up - you'd've needed it if you hadn't brought the MegMeg!)

"Finding comfort in a flat palm to the cheek and a swift smack on the rear"

"Love me for me!"

"Turning the Dirty Thirty: Two Queers with Pine-Pitch Beers"


*The Palm to the Cheek thing is from the movie Kramer vs Kramer and if you've never seen the movie you won't understand the joke. Even if you have seen the movie you probably won't remember the part it refers to so I won't bother letting in on the awesome joke!



_____________________

Here is an excerpt from a gchat with Meggo yesterday, post Title-of-Comics suggestions:

me: what's KAthicka mean?

11:07 AM Meghan: "I am lost"

me: ha HA!

I thought it would be more like, Hello, I am a prostitute. May I service you since I am homeless and foreign."

11:08 AM Meghan: NO!! a little more basic than that

me: slightly.

11:09 AM I was just playing things out to their logical conclusion

1 hour

12:22 PM me: Imagine if I do name it "Do you mind if I breastfeed here?" in Greek

All of my greek readers will be flummoxed.

12:23 PM Meghan: haha hilarious

*******************

It's snowing here in Massachusetts again, good looking out Marcie P., on deciding not to drive to Naw'lin's (even though it would've been the best road trip ever!). I have to get one of those ice scraper things for my Jeep beacuse can you believe I don't have one?!!

Dang.

Back to inking.

HAPPY FRIDAY!

H.P. Lovecraft and page 22

Page 22

I follow Neil Gaiman's blog and twitter (just like roughly 2 million of my closest friends) and he posted a link this morning to a biopic of H.P. Lovecraft who I did not know much about but he's one of those guys I knew that I should know.

I remember looking up his Wikipedia entry but that was as far as my detective skills took me.

What a fascinating and tragic figure H.P. Lovecraft was!

Love and the lack of love can really fuck a kid up. At least art will always be an outlet for us puny humans, though I am sure if you asked the adult children they might have preferred to have been hugged more as a child.

The world may never know.

Here is the next addition to the Greece Comic. I am going to have to come up with a title for this thing soon, since I personally think Greece Comic is incredibly lame and boring.

Ah well.

Page 21

Onward and upward, now with a full night's sleep! And no one peed in my bed last night!

Ha-ha. When did I ever think THAT would be a highlight of my day?

Welcome to parenthood.

Page 21

Here is page 21 and HERE is where you can read this whole big ass comic back-to-back-to-back.

And if you ARE enjoying it please consider throwing a few bucks at me. Pens and pencils are all this girl needs.

A show of hands if you are the cheeseburger man

Last night Matt and I saw the Deathly Hallows and it was So! Good! and Hermione! Is so cute!

Know who else is cute? Big Papi.

Pitchers and Catchers report to Spring Training in something like 27 days.

Yep. it's baseball time again.



“People ask me what I do in the winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”
—Rogers Hornsby

Page 20! And a *YAWN*

We made it to the 20's! WoOt!

Page 20

You know I had originally planned to only have this comic be a 22 pager? Y'know, a regular old comic floppy, no more epic sprawling stories for me. But when it comes right down to it, the story needs what it needs. And it's my job to do that to the best of my ability. Right?


Since the story already happened it's essentially just a matter or re-telling it in a way that feels satisfying. So, we are going to stretch out to about 40 or so pages. I won't really know until we get there.

Oh my lord, my head.

In the meantime, ohmygodamItired.

At first, I couldn't sleep last night. I went to get into bed and the twins were already in there and it was mysteriously wet (potty training is not going very well but I think they just spilled water). So I put them in their own beds, showered, climbed into the non-wet-spot with that weary I'll-deal-with-this-tomorrow attitude and tossed and turned until past 1:41am.

Then I must've fallen asleep beacuse at 4-something in the morning I wake up to Ethan climbing back in bed with me and, somewhere in that nebulous early morning time warp I realize he's actually peed in his sleep in my bed. Two wet spots = too much to handle. So I scoop him up and take him to the toilet. I stand him up (groggy and rubbing his eyes) to finish peeing in the actual indoor plumbing spot we use for such occasions, I get him clean jammies, I search in vain for diapers silently cursing my brother for not being home to help me deal with this, then I strip the bed, find clean sheets, of course they don't fit! back to the linen closet...

Long story short it is going to be one exhaustive, sleepy day. Sigh.

Word on the street here at Matt's Auto Service is that Matt and I are actually going to hang out tonight (he's blown off our weekly Tuesday night meeting a coupla' weeks in a row, through no fault of his own...). There was mention of going to see a movie but I am sort of in the mood to talk, talk, talk... you know how I do.

Silver Lining

Peek-a-Boo!

Big Head, Little Head

You know how I know TJ is mine? We have the same hair. She does her swoop on the other side of her forehead but I respect her individuality.


Page 19 is here!

As usual you can read the whole comic on-line (for free!) HERE!
If you like it, go ahead and donate a coupla' bucks over there (---->) on my donate button to keep me in pencils.


Anything to take our minds off that WTF?! game last night right?

Momichek getting ready for the game

It was a dreadfully quiet living room for most of yesterday's Patriots playoff game vs the Jets. Mom made a metric ton of tailgating food; honey-garlic chicken wings and that layer salsa dip that everyone makes, and meatballs hand-rolled by the babies, I made buffalo chicken dip, the fridge was stocked with beers ("Beahs" here in Massachusetts, thank you) and we played text-wars with our relatives down in Florida who have been chomping at the bit for this game for the last two weeks and then....

Fizzle. The Pat's just didn't show up. They sucked. Tom Fucking Brady just didn't look sharp. the Jets get their due because they shut us down. It was weep-worthy.

Mom even put on her headphones. call in a play!

But, there is a silver lining. Two actually: 1) Taela turned 10 yesterday. Double digits man! Woof. And 2) Red Sox Season is right around the corner.

And in case you were concerned, worry not.

Big Head, Little Head

I still have a team to cheer for in the playoffs.

Da' Bears!

I'm really happy they are still in the playoff race. Go bears!

So, Corinne, Josh, TJ (actually named Lila Noelle) and Taela all showed up after halftime with cake and candles and after the game-we-shall-not-name we sang to Tae and did some celebrating.

Melissa Harris-Perry (love)

Also, if being in Boston at 8am was ever going to be a possibility for me (it wasn't) I would have loved to see Melissa Harris-Perry give the MLK Breakfast talk in Beantown this morning (in fact, it might still be going on as I write this) and since I could listen to that woman talk forever it would be one little slice of heaven for me.

Alas.

I will spend this MLK day wishin' and a-hope'n for some warm summer nights in Fenway Park.

Have a lovely MLK day you guys. Go do something good for your country, citizens.

Page 18

Page 18 arrives today.

Yesterday, after laying out all the text for page 20, as my mouse hovered over the SAVE button, we lost power. Boom. Everything I did yesterday, gone.

I must now go and do it all over again.

(Sigh)

If it is not one thing it's another, right?

Snow Day!!

Did you guys know that New England just got pounded by snow?!

Ethan hits Johnny right in the face!

One of the fortunate things about living so close to the big salty ocean is that the salinity of our environment is unfriendly to snowflakes (which here means less shoveling for me!)


And this stuff is heavy, wet and gross. The kids are at the perfect age where they are satisfied by the tiny hill on the side of our house that we can go sledding on. Growing up I got to sled on a golf course and all the huge hills that came along with it.

My coffee, my game, my Ethan

I played my favorite computer game early yesterday morning with my favorite Ethan. I sipped mom's amazing (Bailey's infused) hot coffee. There was no work for me yesterday since I deemed myself 'non-essential personnel' like they do for government/city workers, so I got to sleep in (which for me means 8:19am! Watch out now! Snoozer!)


We let Bailey run around off leash and he loved it. Mostly he just danced around wildly and tried to chomp the snowballs we were making. See below:



Ethan has got a good throwing arm and it appears he's a lefty. Which is fine with me. The Red Sox could use a new lefty pitcher (just sayin'...). Whenever he'd nail Johnny with a snowball he would demand that John play dead like he'd been shot. We totally hammed it up for it with dramatic death-in-the-snow scenes.



*******
Enough slacking it's on to work!

Here is page 17 of the Greece comic. As usual you can see the whole work-in-progress over at my deviantArt site. Click HERE!


And with that I am off to finish inking some more pages.

Stay warm and dry out there, especially you New Englander's.

xxx

******

Here's a video of the dog dancing in the snow and the kids being their unique selves:



or go here to watch it on the youtubes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdcBFt6wAdw

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