Practicality and Creativity Will Save the Day...and Some Cash

I would consider myself a fairly practical gal. I own few possessions, and the item I own the most of are books, which I have recently began purchasing on the cheap at thrift stores or for free on the Kindle or borrowed from friends and the library. I have a select few clothes that I wear regularly, like a few pairs of jeans, some simple shirts/tops, a couple pairs of shoes that I will wear to the bone, and some hats or scarves bought for $0.50/each at my favorite thrift store. I don't wear much jewelry, I shave my own hair in a GI Jane-style buzzcut, and I tend to enjoy the simple things in life, like learning a musical instrument, writing, reading, taking walks, painting, playing Nerf Wars, and sitting around a bonfire with some cheap alcohol and good company.

Damn... I'm gonna need a bigger eraser!

And yet, I still haven't managed to pay off my debts. I'm approximately a whole $6,000 in the hole with credit cards and a loan, used for a couple of surgeries. $1,700 here, $2,000 there, another $2,300 over there, and that's not including my approximately $5,000 school loans that are still in deferment. A lack of brutal budgeting has led to my seemingly permanent procrastination in paying off these debts. Though I know there are thousands of other individuals and families who are in far deeper debt, the debt that I have accrued still holds me under just enough to occasionally gasp for breath. I keep kicking and flailing, trying to break free of this hold that bars me from doing the things that I think will add to the quality of my life -- travel, see new places, visit the people that I adore.

I also had a CoxHealth bill that was preventing me from working toward paying off my credit card and loan debts. Recently, I went ahead and paid the rest of the $300+ bill off and scratched it off my seemingly eternal "To-Do" list. Immediately, I noticed a shift of the burden on my shoulders. I felt lighter, a little closer to the surface of the ocean of debt. I liked it.

I liked it so much that I decided I would budget my income and place paying these bills off as my number one priority. I will attempt to use $500 of my monthly income (roughly half of what I make per month) to put towards paying off my debts, one at a time. In order to do this, I need to go out less (for drinks and food) and buy basic foods in bulk for home-cooked meals. In a time of microwavable meals in a matter of a few minutes, this will be a challenge for me. I've spoiled myself with expensive daily trips to the supermarket for Steamables, Rockstars, and 6-packs of Carona or Boulevard Wheat. My cooking skills consist mainly of tossing a pre-cooked meal in the microwave and waiting impatiently for 2-5 minutes for my steaming soggy supper.

I have become complacent with how I indulge most of my whims when it concerns food and drink. Now I have to relearn how I think about food its preparation. This will be difficult at first, but I think it will be beneficial overall. On top of saving money, I will probably end up losing some of the weight that I've gained while satisfying my urges to drink anything except cheap coffee and tap water.

Grains and legumes in bulk, my new best friends

This should prove to be an interesting and most inventive journey. If anyone has any tips on cheap, healthy food recipes where I can buy the ingredients in bulk, I would be ever so grateful for your shared wisdom!

The Due Date

You never quite realize how much time and energy is spent on such mundane things until you remember that neither are as expendable as you've been treating them. There is a limited amount of both; a deadline that you will eventually approach, and once that date hits, the only thing you'll be hoping for is that the product of all that time and energy spent will have been decent enough to make some kind of mark on the world, like a novel, a novella, a short story, or just a lonely blog caught in the cyber time capsule. You won't be wishing that you spent more time on Facebook reposting the same pictures that at least 12 of your other "friends" have already shared. You won't be pondering all of the most updated pins on Pinterest that you've missed in the last three hours off the computer. You won't be wondering how one of the worst characters in the world, Ted Mosby, ended up meeting his wife as you follow obliviously along with the laugh tracks for your cue to enjoy a joke. That is, unless your last moments of conscious thought are annihilated by some kind of feverish delusional state of mind.

The moments that you are going to recall with a sense of wonder and true contentment are those when you are freed from the burdens of a strictly web-based social life. They're going to be the moments when you first learned a new trick or how to completely play Mary Had a Little Lamb on the piano without looking at the book or your hands. They're going to be the moments when you were exchanging laughter with loved ones and you can't help but smile when you recount the freedom of childlike amusement. They're going to be the times when you escaped into a world of curiosity and discovered for yourself revelations that only few others have encountered before in their lives. Sometimes they're not the most productive moments, and sometimes they're not long-lasting, but they're the moments that make the struggles in life well worth the effort, and they're the moments that compile your personal story.

Trust me, you don't want to hit that deadline and all you have to show for it is a pile of disorganized scrap paper with scribbles and frequently repeated lines carelessly scratched into them with a pen that ran all out of ink well before hour zero.

It's About Seeing the Rising Moon

My grandfather passed away last Sunday, December 18, 2011, following an excruciating hospital visit that lasted over a week. I visited him for a couple of days while he was there, a ventilator and everywhere tubes invading his body as he stressed under the pressure of pneumonia. He would occasionally awaken, and I wondered how much he comprehended when he looked at us through those dreary eyes, glassy from the medication. He seemed to respond to questions fairly well. In any case, I can never be sure, but I hope that he was aware that I was there with him, even if just for a little while, as he lay dying in the sterile, florescent-lit hospital. I hope that he saw me when I bent over him as he temporarily woke last Wednesday, a week prior to his funeral, and said that I was leaving to go back to work, but that I would be back as soon as I could and that I loved him. I watched his eyes slowly panned toward mine, the corners wet and crusting, the blue tubes forcing his mouth uncomfortably open, and he nodded his head. The lids of his eyes fluttered shut as he fell back into a medicated slumber. I felt a bitterness in my heart. After 36 hours of wakefulness and worry fueled by adrenaline and anxiety, an eight-hour nap, and then more wakefulness and worry, I felt like I was abandoning him. I wished I could replace the ventilator tube jammed down his throat with a more soothing pipe tobacco that he once so loved to smoke. I wished I could replace the sound of whirring and beeping machines with the music of his favorite singers, like Dorris Day. I wished I could replace the stiff hospital bed that he had to be assisted by two nurses to maneuver in with his favorite recliner. I was angry that he couldn't enjoy his time, surely the last of his days alive. I was scared that this would be the final interaction that I would have with him, the slow nod of his head, which I am still unsure if he was totally aware of my presence.

I packed my things to leave to his side again on the weekend. My mother had been texting me continually with how his health was progressing or regressing. Things were looking alright. Not good, but not necessarily much worse than when I left him. And then I received a text that said he was having irregular heartbeats. Then a simple message: "Dad is passing." Early the following morning, "Dad just left us."

As though he was only out to pick up a gallon of milk. As though he was just out to grab a bite to eat. As though he was expected to return. He just left. He left.

*   *   *

I read a Time magazine article today, dated from 1990. The author, Pico Iyer, tells of the time when his house burned down in California. The story's kicker states: "My only solace came from the final irony. In the manuscript I had saved, I had quoted the poem of the 17th century Japanese wanderer Basho, describing how destruction can sometimes bring a kind of clarity:

My house burned down / Now I can better see / The rising moon."

Revival

I was originally set out to revive Meaningful Memes with an article about something that annoys me. A hand-written banter of opinions about other people's opinions on a topic that I am not nearly as educated about as I would like to be sits on my desk. The dark scribbles are neat and clean, a few scratches here and there as I picked words from my mind with as much care as I could muster in those moments of frustration. These words mock and degrade others with the intention of promoting a positive notion: think before you speak/write.

Upon realizing the hypocrisy with a thoughtful reflection, I decided not to share these words with the rest of the world. They will, instead, meet their timely end in the recycle box with the mess of millions of other easily discarded ideas and words once thought and spoken in some forever drifting moment of time.

Instead, I will utilize this moment for the sake of goodness and hope. As the new year approaches like the dawn of a new and shining day, I find myself in want of a truer embrace of beauty. I feel a pull on my heart by the gravity of impermanence, and I wonder why I feel so weighted down. A self-righteous pessimism disguised for many years as realism has stunted my growth and robbed me of my energy. I no longer want the weight of this ugliness that has beseeched my attention for more days than I would like to recount. This crass lifestyle of crude behavior confused with boldness and unharnessed glowering mistaken for virtuosity have tarnished my image and brutalized my intentions for goodness.

So I hope to be rid of these deplorable habits. Slowly, I have been working towards a more positive and beautiful existence. I have dismissed cigarettes from their vice-like grip on my life. For over three weeks now, I have breached the destructive relationship I had with nicotine. I have incorporated art as a steady companion. I'm learning how to paint glasses and dishware to be given as holiday gifts and to, maybe one day, sell to willing buyers for a slight profit. I'm learning to love writing again, imploring my skill and talent to reawaken and keep me company. I'm allowing my curiosity and imagination more free reign in my life. I'm allowing myself to love without an expectation of anything in return. I'm letting go of expectations in general with the goal of enjoying life as it comes. I'm strongly considering becoming vegetarian once again. I'm building courage and banishing unnecessary anxieties that prevent me from completely being myself. I've began my own website dedicated to the webcomics I've been making, called www.CandidComics.BlackInkComics.com (though have been slow in making more, due to recent unfortunate incidents that have significantly affected my funny bone).

I want to see beautiful things and create more beauty. I hope you'll join me in this travel of beauty, goodness, joy, and love.

Write or GTFO

There are hordes of people who have something that they want to say, but just don't know how to say it. They're politically, religiously, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, sexually driven beasts with ideas that evade the elegance of language. They don't necessarily have novel ideas, but they have thoughts and feelings about particular issues, nonetheless. So they remain stationary, the ideas rumbling through their minds like a summer storm. They either go insane or they reach out to someone who shares their ideas and has already written them down.

What do you do if you have the will and the drive for words, but the well of ideas has run dry? Many of the ideas you contemplate are already written down by someone else, and they've accomplished this feat far more competently than you ever might have. Soon, you stagnate. I can just imagine a puddle of still water in the middle of the road following a brief shower getting stomped on by neighborhood kids. The water goes stale. It just lays there and waits for evaporation.

The most agitating advice for pen-blocked writer is "Write what you know." What if you don't care about what you know? What if what you know is uninteresting? Or what if you strive to attain Socrates' wisdom by acknowledging that "I know that I know nothing"?

Then I was gifted with the best advice that anyone could possibly receive:
"Shut the fuck up and just write." It doesn't matter what you write, it doesn't matter who reads it, it doesn't matter if it lasts throughout the ages like a tale from Shakespeare or Homer, it doesn't matter if you like it, it doesn't matter if other people like it. If you write enough, you're bound to come up with at least one diamond in the mess of worthless pebbles. If you don't, do not despair: the process is what matters most. Just enjoy yourself. If you're not enjoying yourself, then get the fuck out of it and find something that you do enjoy.

Candid Comics Continues!

Comic #30

Comic #31

Comic #32
Prelude to several comics to come!

Comic #33
Contrary to popular opinion, panda bears CAN and DO cry.

Comic #34
(Protip: If you're thinking about drawing a camel, DON'T.
They're goofy-looking animals that are a pain to draw)

New Candid Comics

Comic #26

Comic #27

Comic #28

Comic #29

Button-Pusher

"Where do you work?" "What do you do for a living?"

The answer is always more complex, more important, more interesting than the reality of the situation. Local news station. Computer graphics operator for the news shows. I try to dumb it down by saying that I'm just a button-pusher. That's what I do. I push buttons. This is easier than explaining exactly what my job entails.

It always feels like there's pressure to buff up my social status when I answer this question. What you do to make money is a part of your identity. It defines who you are as a person. Just like your choice in couch and matching love seat, the car that you drive, the clothes that you happened to wear that day, the way you style the hair on your head, how you paint your face, if you have the updated iPhone 4 or a flip phone from six years ago...

"Ooh, you work in the news? That must be exciting!"

I watch people die every day. I listen to the stories about political and religious fundamentalists gagging the airwaves with their trite comments on how things "should" be. I air updated photos and information about child molesters. I see the most depraved individuals running away and getting caught. I help report the latest death tolls from tragic incidents as mere numbers on a screen, but give a face to the most recent celebrity gossip. I see when a man and his son go missing on their fishing trip, the search and rescue team briefly seek out their bodies, and then end with a shrug, figuring that the bodies will turn up at some point. I see when a police officer or trooper or soldier go missing on their fishing trips, the search and rescue team ceaselessly combs the region until they are found, deploying every search team and vehicle imaginable.

No, not exciting. I just push buttons.

I'm a button-pusher.

Guts (Or the lack thereof)

            I’m tired. And I’m angry.

            And I’m tired.

            I stamp out the cigarette under my foot. It smolders for its last breath. Its black guts spilled out. I watch as it takes its last breath and the smoke dissolves into the humid breeze. I feel nothing for it.

            I watched a woman get swept away by raging flood waters on the TV. I watched while she screamed for the last time. I watched as she thought her last thoughts before her lungs filled with water. A man stood by and recorded her death.

            That water couldn’t have been very clean.

            I watched a man get beaten to death on the internet. I watched as men in black uniforms decorated with gold badges kicked him. I watched as he convulsed from the electric currents pumped into his flailing body. I watched as he screamed for the last time. I watched as he called out for his father before his lungs filled with his own blood and his face swelled. A man stood by and recorded his death.

            His hospital bills must have been expensive before succumbing to the injuries.

            I’m tired.

            And I’m angry.

            I’m mostly just tired, though.

Limbo.

                Five in the morning and already the air smothers me. Sun peaks beyond the cloudless horizon and the sky is in that weird transition between night and a new day. Not blue. Not black. Not anything, really.

                I look up. Dried leaves rustle in the light breeze. I can see the translucent dawn between the bug-eaten holes of leaves baked in summer sun. They sway to a tune I cannot hear, to a rhythm I cannot groove to. A friend falls now and again to its concrete doom.

                How is it this hot already?

                I can’t help but feel like there’s some secret I’m missing out on. When the birds chirp, the wind rustles the leaves, the cicadas screech, I feel out of the conversation. I’m sitting in the middle of dozens of people, all talking about the same thing, and I’m completely out of the loop. They don’t include me in this conversation.

                So I sit and listen. I strain to focus on the main theme.

                Lives consumed by the three “f’s”. Every chirp, rustle, screech, and death of a leaf are directly linked to one of the three “f’s.”

                Fighting.

                Food.

                Fucking.

                The former greatly influencing and affecting the latter.

                It probably wouldn’t feel so hot if it weren’t so damn humid.

                There’s got to be more to it than this. Is there a deeper meaning? A code that needs decrypting? A secret buried beneath the obvious? Maybe even a practical joke?

                Five in the morning and already the air smothers me. The sky’s in that weird transition. Not blue. Not black.

                Not anything, really.