Sorry if I bummed everyone out with my last post - I do not hate the board always, it's just right now it's hitting me harder when it's not perfect because it's pretty much 1/3 of my social interaction (1/3 IM, 1/3 work & flatmates).

Today I went through my clothes and got rid of about 15 things I never wear to Age Concern, who I figure are a pretty awesome charity because my mum does stuff for them.  They also got a serviceable but pointless pair of shoes and a DVD of The Happening, which I only bought for Bad Movie Club and wish them luck in actually selling.

Feeling a lot better also since I actually clocked that I am leaving York in May, so started planning for it. I didn't realise how much the uncertainty was getting to me, but when I sat down and worked out that there are no jobs here (York is a small place) in the near future and my contract is unlikely to be renewed again, I decided it's pretty well certain I will be leaving. So that has now become something to prepare for!

Monday I'm checking with my manager that they're not planning to keep me on after April, then I sort out with my parents when they can come get me, then I give notice to my landlady.  Gonna take as many books and magazines as I can carry home at Easter. I have not even thought about how we're going to get the bike back to Reading.  This is all assuming I don't get a job somewhere else of course, which will make things more interesting.

Also totted up my spending and pay and stuff, and I should have a decent amount to live off until I do get another job - money I have in the bank now can take care of my last month's rent, flights to Toronto (booked on mum's card for the insurance) and driving lessons which are all the big purchaces, so my paychecks for March and April only need to be nibbled at by socialising, bills and food, and other bits like transport to Belfast. Then all being well I get my deposit back for the flat too, which the full amount is £350.  So even if I am unemployed I will be independently wealthy for a bit!

It is nice to know what is happening.  

Does it seem weird that I take it for granted I'm moving back in with my parents even though I'm a proper grown-up?  I guess it's that I've not properly moved out really - still living in flat shares and working on contracts is not a great place to be with all your worldly goods.  Anyway, Reading is nice, it'll be summer, and I can volunteer again so I'll not be home on my arse. Maybe mum will even let me cook*!  Miracles have happened.

In other news:

I've not been blogging here so much at the moment because I'm so busy with Martin. Even though it only takes less than an hour to pencil, letter, draw, scan, edit and upload it, it takes sooo long when you add in all the thinking and the fiddling and the "hmm, are eyes funnier than kneecaps?" or "Would Martin say 'shagged'? I don't think he'd say 'shagged'..." or "what should I call it... what should I caaaaall it...?" and the coming up with the idea and everything, and the staring into space then realising you were supposed to be thinking of a script but have spent the last half hour listening to Weekend Woman's Hour with woman who wrote that book about orgasms, and the realising there's a spelling mistake and having to rearrange the letters, and trying to find a photo of a wind turbine without a background.  So it uses up a lot of my creative energy!  I swear I have no idea how people do this every day.**

But this week I got my first Independent Reader - that is to say someone who is completely unconnected to me, not even a friend of a friend of a friend, who found me through an odd series of things Joe worked out admirably***, and really liked it, including plugging it to his mates. While I love all of you who read it, it's a different thing to have a stranger just come across it and like it and I was so happy and frightened I had to go stand in the store cupboard at the end of our corridor for quite a while.

I don't know how to approach Martin - I started it because it would amuse one of my friends, and continued it because it amused many of them. I never had any idea about Doing A Webcomic - I used to upload them just because it was easier for people to see when I couldn't just take them to lectures anymore. So I am torn whether I should want it to be something moderately sucessful or whether it's just not that good so I shouldn't try to punch above my weight.  I mean, I know there are thousands of comics out there, and even the crap ones are often better drawn certainly, and all the ones I read are better written (except one, although it's a different kettle of fish really - apples and oranges to compare the two).

I was reluctant to publicise it at first, but now I am confident I can keep to an update schedule and have a pleasing website with a real grown-up .com and everything it seems more appropriate. 

We shall see. Thanks for bearing with the ol' ramblings, I'll try to do it more often!

Also I've noticed it's a quarter to one in the morning. So even on a Saturday I think that's bedtime.

---

* something that isn't spag bol. I mean, I don't mind cooking their meat, but it's all weird and there's colours in it you don't expect.
** As a full-time job, I guess.
*** I asked the author of Bunny on Twitter how old he was (for 'twas his birthday) he replied, this guy follows a LOT of webcomic people and saw the reply, clicked on my name, saw the website on my profile, and said 'it's the sort of thing I could spend all day reading through the archives' which made me happy beyond measure, because he wasn't obliged to say this by politeness - he could have just seen it was bad and left, but he genuinely liked it for what it was!

Silly Punk wanted ideas for her poem, and I said dust and she said it was silly! SILLY! So I done it! and it is awesome! It's got everything - sinisterness, dust, lines that end in commas!

I'll just sit back and wait for my Nobel Prize!

______________________________________

Dust

They made us think these escaped bits of us,
Were re-grouping. Organised.
In their too-quiet corners.

They’d gather mass,
And fluff,
And dead things,
And together they’d stir slowly,
As if it was just the breeze.

And we thought we saw them waiting.
Biding their time in crannies,
Gathering hairs to them for extra power.

We dusted of course,
And looked askance at our outsides.
That they could want free of us so much!
That it should come to this.

Would long sleeves protect us?
Or aid them by friction?
If you’re not with us, you’re against us.
And the dust was not with us.
Not any longer.

And then it turned out we were wrong,
That it was mostly clothes that shed, not skin,
Into those sinister drifts.
And we looked suspiciously at our socks.

The more webcomics I read the more insecure I get!  But I can't stop!

Now started on Templar, Arizona and read Anders Loves Maria up to present.  Anders Loves Maria will end at some point, I assume quite soon, which is unusual in the comics I read - they tend to be stand-alone or soapish.  But it's awesome, so you should read it.  It's set in Sweden too!  Templar, Arizona I am only a few pages through, but it's awesome too!  Berlin also meant a break in the Bunny marathon I've been having, but that's back on track now, and I'm up to July 2008. Y'all should read all of them.

Also, if you have Firefox (and you should, she says with the evangelism of the convert) I can reccomend the Morning Coffee add-on which you can set all your comics on for the day/s they update, then on a given day you hit the icon and all of Tuesday's (assuming it's Tuesday) comics all unfold in their own tabs.  I likes it

man, the world is just so damn beautiful.*



* no, I have not had sex

I am all cultured out.

London:  Hamlet, Monkey: Journey to the West, and Babylon exhibition.

In order of preference.  Hamlet was awesome.  The lad who took over from Tennant was amazing.  A very different Hamlet from Tennant I imagine - definately went for the depression angle, not as manic as he can be played, and by the time I saw it he'd had time to bed in an' that.  Patrick Stewart was amazing too, as was the guy playing Petronius who was very sweet and funny so it was a real shame when he... well, I won't spoil it for you.

Monkey was also awesome! It had acrobats and people spinning five plates in each hand while DOING ACROBATICS!  Spectacular, I think is the word.  Most of the sets were actually quite minimalist but there was so much colour and so much going on that it seemed very full.

Babylon is where I can get my geek on.  Really intereting as a subject, and in terms of aesthetic design very good.  The layout however led to a lot of bottlenecks, and in some places it was impossible to have more than two people reading the text at a time.  Also, it's grouped in sections, each in their own area (interlocked areas, linear flow system) but the main introductory peice in each was in the middle rather than at the entrance.  So unless you double back a lot, it's not a very logical order.  I estimate I read about 1/3 of what I would normally have read had I been in there on my own.  British Museum!  You know how busy these things get!  Maybe plan for it a little bit?  If I'd done it I'd either have gone for a big room so that people could see where everything was and move easily between areas to avoid bottlenecks and mean visitors can cover all the areas by using them when they're less busy, or a far looser linear design.  I mean, every time, British Museum!  All the tickets are always sold out!