Day in the Life of an Idiot

I've been thinking that one of the ways I want to live my life is as if I were in a slice-of-life manga. You know, something like Laid-Back Camp or Super Cub.

But, because I am also like this, I actually started drawing it. I am, because I am a weirdo, drawing it as if you should read it right to left. I started on the last page of a book that I was already using for doodling and other art projects. Because I'm pretending this is a manga, I'm also including translator's notes, as though you are stumbling across this on some pirate site.

Because I'm not sure if this will be a one-shot or a full volume, there is no cover or title yet. I may continue in full-color, though I should really, if I want to be manga-like only have a few opening color splash pages and then move into black and white.

I kind of like coloring, though.

So perhaps this is an imaginary collected webtoon or manhua.



Image: a rendition of my actual kitchen in most of its actual colors and me (a little skinnier than I really am) doing the dishes, while looking out the window.

The narration starts, as manga often do, with the main's full name, age and occupation. So the first panel of this this reads: "I'm Lyda Morehouse, 56, a not very successful self-employed writer." Now before you yell at me for not talking up my successes (and I do actually think I'm VERY successful, thank you very much!), this often the type of main character you find in slice-of-life. They're doing OKAY. They're usually not on the fast-track at their job. Sometimes they're not-very-popular high schoolers, FREETs (someone who is content to live off a parttime salary,) or other people who are mildly out of step with the larger, fast-paced society. Not always? Like, I read a very delightful slice-of-life called Sweetness & Lightning that is about a single working dad trying to find the time and energy to make meals for himself and his only daughter.

The lower panel reads, "One day, I decided to imagine what it might be like if I lived my life as if I was in a slice-of-life manga."

Very self-referential so far! Very meta!

The next page looks like this:


Image: second page of the manga -- lots of outdoor images, no people.

So, remember, you're reading this top, right panel, then left. This page's narration says: "Outside of the kitchen window, the black-eyed susans and golden glows were a riot of color against the grey siding of our neighbor's house. All of my gardens are like this. Wild, out of control." Then you see the cicada who has a very Japanese cameo here, signaling not only that it is summer, but that today is VERY hot. The next panels read, "The weather forecast said there would be a be a heat index of 100 degrees.* We could tell. The cicadas were singing at 10 am. I hoped to harvest some chives before it got too hot." The bottom dialogue box is from the supposed translator and it reads, "T/N: America uses Fahrenheit. To most of the rest of us, this is 37."

I'm pretty impressed with my cicada:



Image: cicada hanging on a tree. She sings: "Bzzzt! Bzzzt!"

So, yeah, this is what I do in my copious free time when I should really be starting on the next novel. I mean, to be fair this did not actually take all that much time. I probably spend more time playing Solitaire, so, I mean, look forward to that chapter! ;-)

I started this in part, in response to a conversation I had with pegkerr over Zoom about what other people find boring. She's been doing a weekly visual journal and has been feeling like her life is boring, as if no one would care about the little things she gets up to every day. First of all, please!  I will point the gentle reader to the above. There is an entire deeply successful manga genre devoted to people reading about people's boring lives. 

Also, I have long resisted the idea that life is EVER truly boring. I mean, part of what I love about slice-of-life manga is that they often call to the reader to slow down, look outside their window, and revel in the fact that eating good food nourishes the soul. This is literally the stuff of life. Hear the cicadas. Feel the heat. Consider the wildness of the flowers outside your kitchen window. Do the dishes. Tidy up. These are all GOOD and valuable things!

So we got into a bit and so I have now dedicated my life to being as f*cking mundane as possible it and drawing beautiful images about my utterly plain life to prove that dullness is in the eye of the beholder. 

Maybe you wouldn't read 57 volumes of this, but maybe I can give you an interesting peek into my day-to-day life. 

 One of my "assignments" from the Domestika course was to make a short comic about myself to introduce myself to the instructor. I am not super into writing about myself? I kind of hate drawing myself?  So, I have written about VOID CAT.


Image: First page of my silly comic about Void Cat.  The text reads:  (top left) "mew." (top right): "Void cat is only ears, eyes, and... shadow"(center) The ADVENTURES of... VOID CAT. (bottom right): "VOID CAT aka 'Willow' is polydactyl; she has six toes on both feet! Makes catching toys fun."

So far, there is no actual story, which is particularly hilarious since 'story' is normally my strong suit. However, I have just been filling panels with various bits of information and random art.


Image: page two of my extremely silly comic about a cat.  Text reads (top left panel) "Willow lives with two other cats, Buttercup..." (top right panel) "Plus an extremely elderly cat named Miss Piggy. a little scary. 20+"  (middle panel) "Also there are humans?? Cat feeders! We love the cat feeders!" (bottom right panel): VOID CAT blends in SHADOW.

I am clearly in this to amuse myself.  

Plus I've had this blank comic book around for ages.


Image: blank comic book (apparently along with a copy of today's New York Times so that you can know that it is still alive as of today.)

I impulse bought myself this blank comic book several years ago under the illusion that it "would be fun" to make a visual diary of my life. I did start something, but I found the work of drawing myself doing things kind of overwhelming. I'm OK at drawing people, at least to my own mind, but I find all the trappings of life--chairs, rooms with perspective, beds, cars, etc. TOO MUCH.  Cats are easier. I think I will stick to the story of VOID CAT.  

Speaking of cats, I just ripped through the most adorable anime ever: With a Dog AND a Cat, Every Day is Fun (犬と猫どっちも飼ってると毎日たのしい, Inu to Neko Docchimo Katteru to Mainichi Tanoshii by Hidekichi Matsumoto.  The anime is insanely short, I feel like it can only be 10-15 minutes for two short episodes, because I watched the entire first season while washing the dishes which, at most, takes me an hour. But, I mean, here also is a mangka who has made a living writing about their cat and dog.  I'm sure that this comic book will bring me equal fame and fortune, no??

Actually, I am going to hunt up the manga for this because I want to be able to review it for my manga blog. The thing I found the most amusing about the anime, however, was a completely random detail: the cat's voice actor had the deepest damn voice, ever. It was a hilarious counterpoint to the happy, child-like voice of the doggo. So, I mean, no stereotypes of cats were harmed in the making of this anime, alas, but it did add a new dimension to the whole "cats are evil and grumpy" thing, because dude's voice sounded like Satan, Himself.

Otherwise, my life continues apace. Mason is spending today writing an essay for his Shakespeare class. Shawn is grumpily making more masks (she enjoys sewing, but making masks depresses her). I've been writing to pen pals--fun fact! DeJoy has finally slowed down mail for me, I am ONLY JUST NOW receiving CHRISTMAS CARDS from my pen pals in Europe. I KID YOU NOT.

So that sucks.

But, anyway, I should figure out what's for dinner.  I shall leave you with my favorite panel of my goofy comic.


Image: cartoon image of cat staring out a window. Cat is just a silhouette. 

 I am taking a break from reading manuscripts. I missed the official "What are You Reading?" day, but I wouldn't have had much to report at any rate.

Can I tell you how frustrating it is to finally have the ability to read back and STILL NOT be able to?? Like, I bought myself three books from the Philip K. Dick award nominations list and I was really, really looking forward to settling in and reading them. 

The problem is that I have time to read again? But when I do, I think: "I should be doing the reading that makes me money," and so that's what I do. In between the stuff for hire and the stuff for class, I am reading and critiquing the work of my colleagues in my various writers'. I mean, I love it? But I'm also looking forward to having less of it. If only so I can read a BOOK.

I am still watching shows while doing the dishes. I finally remembered to start in on the second season of "Midnight Diner: Tokyo stories."  So, it's not all critique all the time.

I also recorded a reading for MarsCON 2021, which is coming up in March. http://marscon.org/2021/  I'm also on at least one panel discussion about the various Apocalypse crafts we've all be up to, so that should be fun.

Shawn and I are continuing the Domestika course on doodling, though neither of us is convinced that we're learning much.

Did I tell you guys about this? So, Facebook decided to target Shawn with ads for art classes. I suspect she hit some algorithm or other because she buys a lot of fun pens and such for her bullet journaling.  So, she sees this thing pop up where Mattias Adolfsson is going to teach us to make fun doodles. His art is very cool. So, she decides (since they offered a special deal, the whole course for $11.00!,) she's going to sign us up. So far? He's had us drawing... pens.


Image: pen and ink drawing of pens... and an ominous as f*ck fork.


I ended up drawing a whole page of forks and their shadows, because I found the shadows (and my strange inability to draw a fork that wasn't CREEPY AF, to be kind of entertaining,) but I was looking forward to the next go round.

I mean, as I told another artist friend I was Zooming with the other day, I feel pretty confident in my ability to draw OK when I have what I want to draw in front of me. That's pretty much been the pinnacle of my abilities.I'm NOT AT ALL confident in my ability to draw from memory or, gods forbid, actually make something up. I worked on that a bit when I was teaching smols how to do cartooning (a sordid part of my history--I was wholly unqualified for a job I had for DECADES, but, honestly, when kids are 6 -10 years old you don't really have to teach drawing so much as PROVIDE PAPER AND MATERIALS. So, that's what I did.) And, as you can see above, the work I can do will absolutely impress a six year old. I did not fare as well when I tried to teach adults via Open U. However, I was (and still am) hoping that maybe this class will help push me up another level as an artist.

At any rate, we've been through a half-dozen of the video lectures so far, and we are STILL drawing pens. Last night's course? Draw pens from your imagination:


Image: more pen and ink drawings of... pens--only these are imaginary pens.

So, I don't know.  I mean, I'm enjoying the fact that having paid for the course (even if it's only 11 bucks) that I have some kind of obligation to sit down and try to draw every so often. I've been trying to draw every day, but it's more like every other. 

Forks will forever be my bane, however.


Image: pen and ink drawings of forks and their apparently terrifying shadows.



So, I guess when my grandchildren sit at my knee and say, "Grandma, what did you do during the pandemic?" I'm going to nod sagely and say, "Forks, my child. Nothing but forks."