A is for Automatic Towel Dispensers

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You've Been Warned

I have decided to do something that will hopefully make you all very happy.  To compensate for my lack of substantial posts lately, I'm about to bombard you with a whole month of haphazard, mediocre drawings and disjointed thoughts that should probably never be put on the Internet.

I'm participating in the A to Z Challenge!

During the month of April, I'll write and draw one post per letter of the alphabet.  Since the alphabet has 26 letters and April has 30 days, that means I'll be posting (almost) every day for a whole month, except four of those days, which will likely be Sundays, since Sunday posts tend to get ignored anyway.  Or I'll procrastinate for several days and be forced to squeeze all the posts into the remaining days.

As you know, and as I am quickly realizing with a mounting sense of panic, April starts on Monday.  So prepare yourselves for posts.  Lots of posts.  I've been trying to prepare by doing some drawings in advance, so then all I have to do is write the posts to accompany them.  This has been somewhat of an adventure, because I normally write the posts first and then do the drawings.

Drawing this made me question my own mental health.  Someone please turn this into a meme.

That is basically how I will look in 30 days.  And you're all going to be so sick of me by then.  Kind of like when close friends move in together or go on a long roadtrip or get trapped in an avalanche with some bears.  At first you're all like, "We can totally handle this," but by the end you're all stewing in passive-aggressive silence and eating the weaklings and spreading spiteful rumors about each other among the bears.  This will probably be like that.  Maybe there will even be bears.  I'm not ruling anything out at this point.

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I Did Something Else! Hint: It's a Children's Book

I have more awesome news:  I'm ready to tell you about my other top-secret, mysterious illustration project!

I've collaborated with fellow blogger Julie Harrison, from the hilarious mothersofbrothersblog, to illustrate a children's book she wrote!  It's called Herman the Cat Goes to Outerspace, and it's available on Amazon.com.

This is the book.  The cover is glossy and perfect for caressing.  And it has my name on it.

I know this is my second announcement-type post in a row, and I feel sort of bad about that.  But let's just bask in this glorious moment and look at the book I illustrated again!

I'm posting these shoddy pictures because I'm at my parents' house, and their scanner is old and crotchety and hates me.

I've been a fan of Julie's work for a while, and I drew a blind monkey for her one time.  Probably based on those staggering accomplishments, when Julie wrote a children's book about a plucky cat who dreams of building a space ship, she asked if I'd like to illustrate it.  I took three whole seconds to think about it before answering with a coolly detached "OH MY GOD YES."

As I said, the book is about a determined cat named Herman who has always longed to explore outer space.

When Herman tells his friends about his plans to build his own space ship, they laugh at him.

Drawing a giraffe playing hopscotch was pretty much the highlight of my life so far.

In most books, this is when Herman would build the greatest space ship ever and prove all his friends wrong.  Well, that almost happens, but things don't go quite as planned.  If you want to know how it really ends, you'll just have to read it for yourself!  (You knew I was going to say that.)

Click here to visit the listing on Amazon and preview the first few pages of the book!

Julie also has an announcement on her blog today where you can get a sneak peek of another image from the book.

There are also some other ways you can help make the book a success:

SHARE IT!  Post it on Facebook.  Tweet about it.  E-mail the link to people you know.  Generally, any activity that takes people who previously did not know about the book, and turns them into people who now know about the book, is good... as long as you don't maim or bludgeon anyone with the book.

Encourage your local booksellers to carry the book.  Next time you visit your nearest bookstore (especially if it's an independently-owned bookstore), ask if they carry the book, and if they say no, tell them you really, really wish they had it in stock.  Plead.  Cry.  Grovel, if you're really committed.  Stores will start carrying the book if they feel there's a demand for it.

If you read the book and love it (which you inevitably will), consider leaving a positive review on Amazon.  The more positive reviews the book gets, the better it will rank in search results, which means more people will see it.

You can also write positive reviews of the book on other reading/ranking sites, such as Goodreads.com.  (I'm only saying that because Goodreads is the only site I can think of offhand, not because they are secretly paying me one million dollars.)  If a site doesn't have the book listed, you might be able to list it yourself using the ISBN number, which is 978-1480095540.  I've never actually done that before, but I feel like it's a thing.

Just remember:
People knowing about the book = GOOD
People not knowing about the book = BAD

In case you need it, here is a quick rundown of the book's basic information:
TITLE:  Herman the Cat Goes to Outerspace
AUTHOR:  Julie R. Harrison
ILLUSTRATOR:  Haley Wolfe
ISBN #:  978-1480095540

Now go forth, minions, and enjoy the book whilst simultaneously encouraging others to enjoy the book!

And, seriously, thank you for reading my blog.  Without this blog, I never would have had the opportunity to illustrate this book.  And this blog wouldn't be what it is without all of you reading it.  I wish I could find you all and give each of you your very own individual, slightly creepy hug, but that would be questionably legal at best, so instead, wrap your arms around your own torso right this minute and give yourself a firm, awkward squeeze. That's from me.

<3

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I Finally Did Something!

Remember how I mentioned working on some illustration projects outside my blog, and how I keep saying they're seriously-almost-ready-for-real-this-time-I-swear?  Well, one of them is actually ready now!  As in, here is a link where you can buy it! 

I should probably also tell you more about it.

Back when my blog was new and my drawings still looked like someone had vomited up colorful spaghetti (as opposed to now, when they look like slightly-less-digested spaghetti), one of the first humor blogs I followed was Just Inappropriate by Mary Brown.  Mary was incredibly sweet to me and actually followed me back.  Last year she even had me do a guest post on her blog called "10 Things That Would Happen if I Had Kids."  In conclusion, Mary is one of my all-time favorite people on the Internet.

If you read Mary's blog (or subscribe to her on Facebook), you know that she often posts hilarious quotes from her amazingly-perceptive six-year-old, Adrian.  (At least, I think he's six. Sorry if he's not six. I know it's a single-digit number, anyway.)  Over the summer, Mary's mother, Wendy, contacted me to say she had been saving all these "Adrianisms" over the years and wanted to turn them into an illustrated book.  After several months of illustrating and narrowing the collection down to 50 favorite quotes, we finally got the book printed, and Wendy surprised Mary with it earlier this week.

It's called Warm, Witty, and Wonderful Quotes by Adrian, and it's available here on Lulu.com. 

I don't have my physical copies of the book yet, but if you check out the listing on Lulu, you can preview the first dozen or so pages, and read the back cover.

Here are a few of my favorite images from the book:

And here are some early reviews of the book:

"[This book is] the best surprise I've ever gotten, and I got a brand new Mercedes with a red bow in 2008 (just for perspective)."
- Mary Brown

"We're so relieved you finally did something with your life proud of you!"
- My parents

"I'm so relieved you might actually start making some money proud of you!"
- Hubs

"This book is awesome and you should definitely buy it!"
- Me

"So, is this, like, your novel?  I'm confused."
- Everyone else I know

"Please stop harassing our reviewers about your book."
- The New York Times

A portion of the profits will go toward Adrian's college fund.  Another portion goes toward myself and Wendy because we made the book.  But I'd like you to focus on the part where you're sending an adorable kid to college.

Look at that face. That is a face that deserves to go to college.

This is the perfect book to keep on your coffee table or by your bed, or even stash in your car, for those moments when you just really need something funny and entertaining.  You can just flip through it any time for a quick laugh, although (and I'm biased here) you'll probably find it so mind-blowingly amazing that you don't want to put it down.

But again, I'm a little biased.

You should order a copy and see for yourself!

I've also added a nifty order button in the sidebar of my blog (toward the top) in case you come back later wanting to order 50,000 more copies.

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Getting out of Bed

I'd like to walk you through a typical morning in the Wolfe household.  Not the whole morning, just the part between waking up and actually getting out of bed.  Give me the simple task of throwing back the covers and touching my feet to the floor, and I'll give you a blog post.

One day a week, Hubs and I both get to sleep in on the same day.  For the rest of the days, Hubs wakes up during the single-digit AM hours like a normal person while I sleep late like a bum with a part-time job and a blog that is "really about to make it big."

Hubs abhors sunlight.  The first time I ever visited his dorm room, back when he was still Future Hubs, a black towel was tucked across the lone window in place of real curtains.

I have a theory that Hubs is secretly some kind of hybrid bat-person.  He is aware of my theory, yet he has never refuted it.

Unfortunately for hybrid-bat-person-Hubs, I can't feel fully awake unless intense beams of sunlight shine directly onto my eyeballs.

So we decided to compromise and choose curtains that would provide the exact amount of sunlight I crave, while painfully searing Hubs' retinas every morning.

When I wake up and see the sunlight streaming through my adorable, paper-thin yellow curtains, my immediate impulse is to greet the glorious day that has already been underway for several hours now.

As I open the curtains, Hubs usually groans miserably, or hisses.  Sometimes he hisses.  I think he's just doing it to be funny, probably.

I apologize to Hubs for letting the sun melt his face off, but I'm only partly sincere because by this point the sunlight has stimulated some hardcore serotonin production in my brain.

This was an actual conversation.

Once Hubs has closed the curtains to protect his precious "sight," we proceed to play a game of chicken to determine who will get out of bed first, because neither of us wants to leave the bed while the other person is still warm and comfy.  It just seems like the worst conceivable form of injustice. 

The logical choice here would be for both of us to just get out of bed at the same time.

You would think.

We stopped even trying to be fair about it a long time ago.

Lately, we've begun resorting to radical measures to drive each other from the bed.  At this point, it's not even really about getting out of bed anymore.  It's about winning, and guile, and brute strength.

The only problem with the face-licking tactic is that it quickly devolves into a face-licking stalemate.

Eventually, the conflict resolves itself without any real problem-solving on our part; otherwise we'd still both be in bed to this day, wallowing in our own filth and licking each others' faces.

And this is why I will never accomplish anything in life.

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Why You Should Always Lock Your Door

My first apartment was in an old building that used to be a hotel.  It had been renovated, and nearly all the apartments had quirky features.  For example, my neighbor, Emily, had stairs in her pantry that led nowhere.  (You might remember Emily from the long poem I wrote about her cat bringing a live bat into her apartment.)

No two apartments were exactly alike, and that drove me crazy.  I wanted to know if there was exposed brickwork or a non-functioning fireplace that I was missing out on somewhere. 

It was Emily who showed me the best way to explore the building: when an apartment was vacant and waiting to be rented, the landlords didn't bother locking the door.  Since the building had a security code and the apartments in question were empty anyway, I guess they just didn't see the point.

Emily and I took the liberty of touring those unlocked, vacant apartments.  Our motive was mostly innocent curiosity, coupled with an almost obsessive love of the building itself.  Every crooked floorboard and weirdly-slanted ceiling provided a tantalizing glimpse into the days of yore.  And on some level, we harbored secret hopes of finding the coolest apartment and renting it ourselves.

Our apartment-stalking activities gradually evolved into a carefully honed, slightly creepy hobby.

Eventually, we had seen almost every unit in the building.  I started to mentally identify my neighbors based on the architectural features of their apartments.  Sometimes not so mentally.

One afternoon, I noticed my neighbors moving out of their apartment.  That night, I slipped inside and did a little reconnaissance.

The very next day, I brought Emily to the empty apartment.  Leading the way, I opened the door, which was, as I expected, unlocked.

 

For the rest of my time in that building, I could never look that neighbor in the face.

I still don't understand how he managed to move all his furniture into the apartment immediately adjacent to mine without me hearing him.  He must have been some kind of ninja.

And that is why you should always lock your door:  not because of robbers or rapists or serial killers, but because two complete strangers might just walk right into your home for no apparent reason while you're trying to watch TV.

I was inspired to tell this story after reading this post by MOV, who is a much more savvy trespasser than I am.

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