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.

What a weekend! This marks too all-play weekends in a row (this one with a short detour Saturday night at work, but followed by Halloween festivities). On Sunday I got on the soccer pitch after what had been about a month-long absence. It was a great game, wherein a bunch of self-involved cartoonists somehow figured out how to pass to each other and score goals. That was followed by some pizza and about six hours of The Beatles Rock Band (no lie), the latter provided by good ol’ Joe Lambert.

And in case you forgot what I did the previous weekend: