D is for Disgruntled Trash Collectors

Our trash collectors must have a lot of pent-up rage.

Every week, after they empty our trash can's contents into their truck, they launch the can and the lid, usually separately, on an impressive trajectory in what could be considered the general direction of our house.

I wonder if this is their subtle way of commenting on the putrid bags of cat litter we toss out on a regular basis.

Last summer, the can and lid flew a good twenty feet into the woods by our house, landing several feet from each other in a bed of poison ivy.

I dressed for the trash can retrieval like I was on a hazmat team.  My pants were tucked into my socks.  My sleeves were tucked into a pair of garden gloves.  My hair was stuffed underneath a hat.  All this in mid-July.  I wore only old clothes that I could theoretically bear to part with, just in case everything got contaminated and needed to be incinerated later.  I tiptoed over the poison ivy and handled the trash can as if it were a live bomb. 

As soon as I had dragged the trash can back to the driveway, I rushed inside and took a panicked shower.

Miraculously, I was spared and did not get a rash.

We've actually come to rely upon discovering our trash can in bizarre positions and locations, as an indicator that the trash was, indeed, collected as scheduled.  This has become such a regular thing that last week, when we found our trash can sitting perfectly upright, lid fastened, on the day after trash day, we were confused.

This week, I was actually a little bit comforted to see the trash can, once again, lying on its side near our mailbox, lid ajar.  Like a thoughtful, passive-aggressive message meant just for us.

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C is for Cannibalism

Have you ever noticed that when people say they want a certain kind of food, they often omit the word "food" altogether?  Instead they say "Let's eat some Italian,"  or "I could go for some Indian."

It sounds like they plan to go out and cannibalize someone of that particular nationality.

For instance, when someone says

I picture this:

What you mean is Mexican food.  You want to eat some Mexican food.  Not tear your teeth into the flesh of some unfortunate man who happens to be from Mexico.

So next time someone asks, "Do you want some Chinese?" your response should be, "Absolutely not!  That is disgusting and wrong!" and you should probably run away before you, too, are eaten.

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B is for Bad Employee

A few months ago, the toy store where I'd been working as a cashier went out of business.  Luckily, my boss there helped me get another cashier job in a pottery gallery where she happened to know the owners.  For the most part, the transition into my new job has been pretty smooth, except for the fact that I seem to be cursed.

On my very first day, I was supposed to be there at 10:00 AM.  To allow myself plenty of time to get ready, I set my alarm for 8:00 AM.  Hubs also gets up at 8:00 AM, so I figured if all else failed, he'd make sure I was awake.  We have both been known to set cell phone alarms as backup, but for some reason, neither of us did that on this occasion.

I was annoyed when our phone rang at what felt like the crack of dawn the next morning.  Hubs got out of bed and answered the phone while I rolled over and refused to open my eyes.

It was one of Hubs' co-workers calling to make sure he was alright, because it was 9:45 AM and he still hadn't come to work.

As Hubs scrambled toward the bathroom, leaving a trail of hastily discarded pajamas in his wake, he explained in a garbled panic that our power had gone out overnight, both our clocks had reset, and I should definitely consider getting out of bed very soon.  I raised my head from my pillow and blearily glanced at my clock, only to see that it was uselessly blinking random numbers.

I somehow managed to cram food in my face, stuff my body into clothes, rip a comb through my hair, send a text to one of my new bosses explaining what had happened, and still get to work at 10:20 AM.

When I arrived at the gallery/studio, the boss who was there was not the same one I had texted, so I apologized again.

"Wait, what time is it?" he asked.

"It's 10:20," I said.  "I'm really sorry--"

"Huh," he said, glancing at the clock on his iPad.  "Oh well, don't worry about it."

I was immensely relieved that no one was angry, and I swore to myself that I'd be nothing but an exemplary employee for the rest of my days.

A few weeks passed, and the awkward memory of being late on my first day began to fade.

Then one day, my phone died at work, and I didn't have the charger. 

I primarily use my phone as a clock, and after its sudden demise, I couldn't find anything else in the store with which to tell time--there was no computer (more on that later), and my boss had left for the day and taken his iPad with him.  Finally, I discovered a 24-hour clock on the credit card machine and used that for the rest of the day.  At 6:00 PM, I closed the store and came home.

Apparently, the clock on the credit card machine was 30 minutes fast.

I spent that whole night in agony over the fact that I had closed the store 30 minutes early.  The owners live near the store; what if they drove by at 5:40 and noticed I was gone?  When I got to work the next morning, I explained what had happened and was on the verge of apologizing when the owner stopped me.

"Oh, I've done that before!" he laughed.  "Don't worry about it."

Fortunately, I will probably never accidentally close the store early again, because a month ago we got a shiny new touch-screen point of sale system.  Up until then, we'd been handwriting all our receipts on carbon paper, so, yeah, I'm basically in love with this new computer. 

I've only ever had one issue with the new point of sale system.  As I was getting ready to make the cash deposit before closing one day, the cash drawer wouldn't open.  My first thought was that the coin tray had come ajar, and now it was jammed.  I really wanted to go home, but I needed to make the deposit, and to do that, I needed to open the cash drawer.  I rummaged around in the workroom and finally found what looked like a tiny metal crowbar.

After at least two solid minutes of straining, during which my desperate prying accomplished absolutely nothing, I noticed something.  There was a key in the lock on the front of the cash drawer. 

No, I thought.  I did not just spend the past two minutes trying to pry open this brand-new cash drawer only to discover it was locked the whole time.

It was.  It was locked the whole time.

I decided to just not mention to anyone that I attacked the probably-very-expensive piece of equipment with a tiny metal crowbar.  Except I'm mentioning it to you now, Internet.  But you won't tell anyone, right?

This is why you should really consider buying the book I illustrated--because I am clearly unfit for any other form of employment.  Or if you can't buy the book because you're broke like I am, just pick your favorite post on my blog and share it a bunch of times so I'll become a famous Internet person.

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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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