Now I’m back in New England, but not the mountains of Vermont yet, folks, for now I’m in the swamps of Connecticut. I’m in Mom and Dad’s living room, and he’s workin the P90X while I write. This morning Caitlin did the woman in the gray suit commuting thang on Metro-North down to The City. She and I watched Schmavatar on Christmas, and I’ll admit it was interesting, especially that crazy bio-luminescent flora and fauna, and the only times I felt overly aware of the fact I was looking at CG were the times when real people were in fake helicopters. There was some really dumb dialogue, beat-you-over-the-head parallels to the Iraq war, colonialism and the environmental movement. But still, it’s nice that somebody is addressing (and entertaining) a mass audience with these liberal polemics. And there were some really exciting action sequences, and a cool alien concept that I won’t divulge lest I be called a spoiler. I forgot to mention this galling fact: the Na’vi subtitles were written in…PAPYRUS!When I get back to my home/office computer up north, I think I’ll post the full Captain Walton, since its plot so closely parallels the Av’s, right down to hot, blue alien babes and mining for rare crystals.

Oh, here’s another diary doodad I forgot to show ya! A bit cutesy, yes, but that’s what sells, kid.

Oh golly, I guess I forgot I had a blog. I’m in Charlotte now, at Cait’s parents’ house, and I’m watching Star Wars on TV (“Only a master of evil, Darth”). We’ve got Legos and preg-os, so basically, things couldn’t be better. Since last I wrote, we’ve had a kegger at my “frat house,” a lovely night out at Union Hall in Brooklyn, and I made a header for Joe Kopta’s blog.

Guess what else I forgot. I used to post doodles! Here’s a page from back in September.

Since last I wrote, I’ve been jamming out an anthology comic with friends Josh, Betsey, and Ben (the last two need to get their internet asses in gear, so I ain’t got shit to link to). It’s about how a cult rock musical from the ’70s has affected people throughout the decades. The movie’s about a hermaphrodite alien who comes to earth, falls in love with a farm boy, and changes his gender (because, obviously, her alien vagina isn’t compatible with a human penis, but her alien phallus fits just fine in a man’s vaj).

So here’s the cover, before it got type. I’ll show you the final after it’s got some gold screen printed onto it.

Pen and brush: better together!

As it turns out, the bus ride I described to you last week was in some ways better than the two others that followed – at least it didn’t involve standing outside Penn Station in a mosh pit of Marylanders for three hours. Fingers crossed on that continental high-speed rail network Barrack put some money aside for! Yeah, right.

Speaking of buses…

Well yesterday while I was on a Greyhound from Vermont to New York, I started to hate all humanity. One guy was working his entire respiratory system up through his trachea a couple seats behind me. I was surrounded by iPhones and got squished by a pain in the ass college kid (am I really already hating college kids?? I’m only 24! I’m a college kid!!!) from Hartford on. Actually, this isn’t the first time college kids boarding at Hartford have driven me crazy on a holiday weekend ride. And having taken the train so much recently, I now know just how small the seats are on a bus. They’re tiny. At least for a somewhat tallish person they are. No legroom, no elbow room. Basically, I was feeling crotchety. Then the bus took the scenic route through the Bronx on down to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Lord, how I wished I was on the train. But, since there is only one train from White River Junction per day, they were all sold out for this week  by at least a month ago.

Anyhow, when I finally got to the Port Authority, I found my cell phone too dead to even let me look up Caitlin’s work number. Typically, I either don’t pack my charger or my underpants. This time I packed my underpants. I went to the Authority’s pay phones to try to 411 the New Yorker, found the first phone emitting a high-pitched tone normally used to torture detainees at Gitmo. The next was simply silent. The third asked for 50 cents, but sent my quarters right down to the coin return slot. The fourth! Took my quarters…and kept demanding 50 cents! Naturally, I banged the shit out of that thing. Then a cop let me know that he probably wouldn’t do that. So I walked the two blocks to the Conde Nast building – why didn’t I do that in the first place? Before long, all was right with the world again. And I started to feel…thankful!

Today I don’t have a drawing to show you guys. Actually, I have a new comic, but not with me. So instead, how about a little schmultz? I give thanks for the Center for Cartoon Studies, for a loving and supportive family, an equally loving and supportive girlfriend, a fluffy cat, all sorts of inspiring, funny friends who aren’t too shy or phony to tell me when and where I’ve missed my mark in my work, and for you, my dear readers, who are almost entirely made up of those people listed!

So I actually spent time on this one, and it made me fall behind on my other work and I only slept for two hours last night, and I blame all my Pratty fart school friends for making me feel bad about my shitty drawings. Now I understand the appeal of bigheads, by the by.

Today is Caitlin’s birthday. At least I think it is as long as there hasn’t been an apocalypse between my writing this on Thursday and her birthday…today (?). So, if my calculations are correct and the flux capacitor can get enough energy by the time I reach a speed of 88 miles per hour, I have just given Caitlin this lil’ present and then jumped on the train back to White River Junction. The train that has hover wheels.

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, today you get two Dear Diaries for the price of one! First, you’ll find out what happens when a household’s estrogen levels become dangerously low (this one is especially rough, but I ain’t apologizin – you’ll just have to figure out where those speech bubbles point for yourselves, goddamnit). Second, you’ll get a cartoonist addressing his audience directly in every panel.

Dearest friends and esteemedest colleagues, I forgot to post this back on All Hallows’ Evening and I’m sorry. (By the by, Halloween also marked the second anniversary of this blog.) Enough of this nonsense; I give you the latest in a long line of drawing portraits of BFFEA, Zombie Todd!

Too much? Can’t stand to look at that accursed misery any more? Here’s nice Todd

Todd’s a celebrity. He must be cause he has a blogspot domain with his name on it. And he draws superheroes! So I’m posting this as a Celebrity Saturday. See if I care what you think.