Episode 27 - Now We Are Forty

My birthday was yesterday, but my warrenty ran out a looooooong time ago. In the last forty years, I have...

• Split my scalp (I was jumping on the bed, missed, and landed on my noggin; I know, explains a lot, doesn't it?)


• Smashed my middle finger in a weight machine (not fun)


• Ended up in the emergency room puking my guts up four times over a gall stone no one could find (but my mother knew it was there!)


• Had surgery to remove gall stone no one could find (damn thing turned out to be as large as my thumbnail)


• Broken my nose


• Broken my ribs... twice


• Screwed up my right knee (my husband's fault - he mistook me for a 900 lb. gorilla and attacked me)


• Screwed up my left knee (someone else's fault - apparently they also thought I was a 900 lb. gorilla)


• Screwed up my right knee again (completely random sparring accident - my opponent did NOT think I was a gorilla, but did get her leg tangled in mine during the match)


• Fractured my sternum (once again, someone mistook me for a gorilla, only this time I must have weighed 1800 lbs. given how hard I got hit)


• (BTW, these last six injuries all happened during martial arts classes, in case you haven't guessed.)


• Had a c-section (for Princess)


• Had a VBAC - Vaginal Birth After C-section (for Pixie, and I split right up the front into the naughty bits when she came out!)

I'm pretty sure I've done some other things to myself, or been injured by others who have feared my inner gorilla, but these things are too numerous to be recalled. In any event, what I'm trying to say is, I'm damned lucky to still be alive!!

There will probably be a two-week break between this episode and the next. It's not that I don't love you all, but this weekend I've got a 3-day karate camp to attend (yay! more opportunities to get injured!) and the next week I'm headed out to Las Vegas for EPICon 2009. If you're planning on attending EPICon, I should be doing a panel on podcasting for writers. And yes, I will be wearing my horns, so you'll know me when you see me };)

Until the next episode, see ya!!

Ephemera 01 - I Am a Baaaaaaad Cartoonist

I did not forget you guys. Seriously. And no, I have not died. I have simply been too dang busy for words. Honestly. Right now, I'm trying to finish edits on my next book, get the cover artwork done for said book, get my podcast out the door, prep to participate in TEN panels at a science fiction convention coming up this weekend, and put together a workshop outline on podcasting for EPICon 2009 (Vegas, March, be there, baby!). Not to mention trying to recover the house from the holidays, recover the kids from the holidays, and oh, I've been sick the last week and a half.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Whine, whine, whine. Quit being such a big cry-baby, Helen, and get with the cartoons already! Well, I don't have a Cynical Woman cartoon done right now (although I already have the next few episodes scripted out and they will be funny, I promise!). What I do have is this…

I know, it's freaky, but this comes from my current sketchbook, which I carry around with me and doodle in whenever I get a free moment (free time? Ha! What's that?). This was mostly done in the dojo our family attends, during Princess' karate classes. The Saturday morning classes, that is, when Saint Michael the Magnificent takes Pixie shopping so I don't have to keep an eye on that hyperactive little busybody who gets into everything.

So, every now and then, when I get a sketch done (or as I find a few old ones I've got lying around), I'll scan it in and present it here. These will be called 'Ephemera' and they will be a nice little bonus to the usual comics. Or they will be a way for me to buy some time when my sorry ass gets behind in my work again.