January: Week Three

Sunday, January 15

Matt has a bunch of friends he’s made at his climbing gym, but they’re all gym-friends not real-life-friends. UNTIL TODAY, that is. One of his gym-friends (who had just moved to the area a few months ago and therefore hasn’t built up a solid friend/support network yet) told Matt that his girlfriend of four years had just dumped him a couple days ago and he hadn’t seen it coming so he was pretty shocked and heartbroken. So Matt and I invited him to get lunch with us this weekend, just to help get him out of the house and do something fresh. And he actually took us up on it! Today we took him out for pizza and boba tea and we talked about climbing and communicating in relationships and how good boba and pizza are and now I think we might be real-life-friends? Well, real-life-friendly, at least. Then I went to a three hour meet-up with two historical costumers to plan out construction of our 18th century gowns that we will be assembling over the coming months. No, I do not have any experience making clothes of any time period, let alone 1790s, but here we are.

Monday, January 16

I forgot to take my picture again. I did have a really great interview with Sober Sex, though. “Great” as in it felt like a natural conversation that had me excited to participate and afterwards I told Louisahhh Pillot, the host, I want to keep in contact so now we’ve exchanged numbers and I’m hoping to get to know her better. There is a special connection there for me with people who have gone through treatment programs, whether it was for mental issues, addiction, whatever. That shared experience opens up a part of my heart, makes it easier to communicate with them, dive in deeper on topics that I might otherwise keep at a more surface level. We may have completely different backgrounds and experiences that brought us to treatment, but we do share that in common. At our lowest, most vulnerable point, we trusted ourselves to an unknowable institution so that we could get help, get better, and here we are today, finding each other in the big old world because we did it, we made it through, we survived and now we get to thrive together.

Tuesday, January 17

(Spot the Erika 👀)

Lucy Bellwood interviewed Matt and me for this Oh Joy Sex Toy 10th anniversary-thing we’re putting together. I’m a bit run down from Vague Ongoing Life Stuff and I’m afraid that impacted my energy/performance/whatever on camera. I avoided work for the rest of the day, until my Zoom exercise class and I’m real glad I didn’t skip it. And then!!!! I made dinner!!!! All by myself!!! From a new recipe!!!!!!!!!! That I got from a cookbook I bought for a couple bucks at Goodwill last week!!!!!!!! (This warrants many exclamation points because, at the age of almost-40, I am only just now starting to learn how to cook. Barely.) I made a chili and it actually turned out pretty tasty, so THERE.

Wednesday, January 18

It was really hard to go to the studio today. It was really hard to just get up, get showered, eat breakfast. Once I was surrounded by my studiomates, my brain finally woke up, but now I am back home and my brain is sliding right back into its slump. Is it hormones? I have no idea where I am in my cycle anymore because my new birth control stopped my period. Is it depression? Is it run-of-the-mill feeling blue and tired? Matt is cooking me red meat (lamb) just in case I’m at the  stage of my cycle where I need extra iron. Oh! I met another person who went through my same Space Camp today! We are comrades now.

UPDATE: The lamb helped a lot. I’m not cured, but I have blood in my cheeks again.

Thursday, January 19

Exercised over Zoom. Had a business meeting with Matt about Oh Joy. Worked on my next comic. Hung out with my new bus friend (same one from last week).

Friday, January 20

I’m in bed a little bit earlier right now, 10:41pm. I’ve been going to bed around midnight and I’ve been waking up later and later, so I’m hoping this helps get me back on track. Except I’m typing this away on my phone which is inches away from my face, which is the exact opposite of what you’re supposed to do if you want your brain to wind down for sleeping. Now it’s 10:44pm. 10:46. 10:47.

Saturday, January 21

Matt and I are talking a lot about the future of Oh Joy. Ten years in April. This has been the fastest decade of my life. My youth lasted an eternity, my teens felt like twenty years, my 20s felt like ten, and my 30s went by in the blink of an eye. We launched the comic a couple months before I turned 30 in 2013. This April it turns 10 and then I turn 40 in June. The internet has completely transformed in the last decade, specifically how you get your work in front of people in the first place and how you earn a living from it afterwards. But then, that’s always been changing, every year. I remember when the First Generation of Professional Webcartoonists were losing their shit about the big ad networks dropping all comic sites, which was the backbone of most people’s income. They were mostly in their late-20s to early-40s then, while I was just starting to put down my professional roots in my very-early-20s. So now Matt and I make a book-formatted comic that we post on a stationary website that was not made for viewing on a phone, which is to say that we run a lovely little horse and buggy shop that used to be in fairly high demand when horse-and-buggy was the way people got around but now everybody’s buying automobiles (reading mobile-formatted comics that an algorithm chooses for them on social media platforms that actively impede people from supporting the creator) and the writing is on the wall: evolve or go extinct. Dave and Brad are always talking about “keeping your head on swivel” when it comes to making a living as a creative on the internet. But keeping up with the changing times is a young man’s game. And… I’m tired. And I like making my horse-and-buggies. I’m good at making horse-and-buggies. Come to think of it, horse-and-buggies do still exist today. They’re trotting around Central Park and specialized spots like that as a cute treat while the rest of the world races past in cars. They’re obsolete but they do still exist and that very niche industry still is supporting somebody’s career. Ten years. Forty years. Trot trot trotting on.