Just a thought!

You should just read this essay by Ken Baumann, but for my future reference:

Phrases which point to no distinct situation, but instead to other phrases which are just as vague. One of the pains of living today is that we live and make decisions without a clear picture of reality to reference or feel a part of. We feel pain not from this lack, but from knowing deeply and intuitively that we are mostly full of shit. And from feeling trapped in a petty game in which you can only proceed by gathering more and more of the right kind of phrases into your head then saying those phrases at the right time to the right people. (Job interviews and talking with customer service representatives are events that scream this truth: the game is not fun because the game was not made for you.)

I’ll say again our situation: we think in phrases that either stun us or which we resent; we want reality and our lives to make sense and feel purposeful but we have bad sources of information; we forget every day the immediate proof of our goodness and ability to choose. It’s as if we are dying of thirst yet stumble again and again to a well full of poisoned water. And when this water touches our lips we wonder: Is there any other way?

Those are the pains that must be admitted.

Now I want you to imagine a machine which can show us proofs of these pains, hundreds of thousands more proofs than we see stars in the night sky. A hundred proofs for every day of every year. Now imagine that this machine works everywhere. That we keep it within our reach every moment of our lives. That this machine is the first thing we use when we wake up and the last thing we use before we fall asleep.

No wonder we feel besieged. No wonder we feel naked to agony and disbelief. No wonder we accept the invitation to refuse to feel.

For nearly all our history as a species, we have lived because we have been where we are. By intimately understanding our environments, we have learned to thrive as a contributing part of them. We are local. This fact too is conveniently obliterated by cellphones and their makers. Knowing that we are best at surviving where we live—as opposed to living somewhere that doesn’t exist, like in some bullshit national narrative or in a battle between good and evil—knowing we are best when we are local helps us practice democracy. And the obviousness of the needs of your friends and neighbors reminds you of the ease of being where you’re at. Reality, and a language that makes sense of it, returns.

I define fascism as a kind of work. Fascism is a kind of maintenance. It is the work we do when we hurt others in order to maintain our belief that we are better than them. A fascist believes that another group is weaker and worse than theirs, then weakens and harms that group so that their original belief feels incontestably true. Fascism is cowardly work. We are fascists all the time. Knowing this, it is our personal and collective responsibility to change our thinking and behavior. Otherwise the logical end of fascism is not killing and torturing this or that specific group: it is destroying everyone and everything that is not you.

— Ken Baumann

There are always going to be linguistic taboos, because words have meaning & some things are unacceptable. It's telling that boomers and older can't abide words like "fuck" and "vagina" but think they should be able to use demographic slurs, while younger gens have flipped that.

There are words my friends hiss and recoil from, but they're all words that are ideologically harmful to material realities of humans: racist, sexist, *phobic, and other words that demean PEOPLE. Whereas our parents assert their right to use those, while objecting to baby words.

Like, "curses" and "swears" growing up in the 80s/90s/00s were all scatological, sexual, or deistic. And there's a whole area of study around what a given culture uses to swear! But it sounds SO pathetic to hear adults go, "Hey now!" when somebody says "ass" near them.

There may be something about boomers & up hiding from their bodies, treating normal bodily functions as so shameful they cannot be spoken, while obsessing over biological differences in skin, hair, and genitals as genocide-worthy offenses. That's something to think about!

But I just found myself going, "Wait is it weird that my friends have taboo words?" There's the conservative assertion that, "Well, I should be able to use ANY word because who cares, they're just words!" But we know that's not true. And it's not wrong to reject certain words.

The question is, what do we reject? What do we weaponize? What do we protect? Older generations weaponize bodies and defend oppressive norms while rejecting their own physicality. Whereas, widely, younger people want to protect bodies and identity while attacking ideology.

And this is a fundamental difference that conservatives don't seem to get. There's a difference between attacking someone's IDEAS vs attacking their BODIES. Being a Republican (ideas, incorrect, hurtful) isn't the same thing as being a person of color (bodies, normal, valid).

You can't be BORN wrong. Nothing about your physiology — not your skin, shape, genes, conditions, genitals, none of it — is invalid. Using words that demean people based on those characteristic IS wrong. It's immoral to be cruel toward people simply for existing.

But you can have wrong ideas. You can BE wrong in the way you regard our world, other people, and yourself. It's super easy to be wrong. Slurs represent wrong thinking. The whole human experience is learning, over and over again, what you were wrong about — and adapting.

And so, "boomer." It's not a slur. It's not making fun of people for just being older. It's a term being used now to encapsulate an ideology of ignorance, irresponsibility, selfishness, and disrespect. Those are common traits among older US people, for historical reasons.

And none of this is PURELY about age. There are teen boomers, because their inherited ideology sucks. And there are great older folks who still put in the work to learn and grow despite our nightmare history of oppression and violence. "ok boomer" signifies exhaustion with lazy thinking.

So it's HILARIOUS that an old white guy would get so hurt by "boomer" that he would ignore history, context, and good sense and compare boomer to the n-word. Unbelievable. Fuck off, boomer. :)

It's Halloween, which reminds me of my favorite spooky-sweet songwriter, Erin Lovett of Four Eyes. Here's a cover I recorded of one of her songs a few years ago, and the original EP you can buy for your increased enjoyment.

I hit some Jeff Buckley-ass notes at the very end. That felt good.

Her last couple of albums especially, Welcome to Earth and I'd Rather Be Ghost Hunting, are truly great works.

Content warnings for depression, medicine, and past suicidal thoughts.

Hello! I posted a month ago about starting to take antidepressants, in day-by-day detail. I'm not gonna do that again! But I do want to follow up.

It's been up and down! The first week was weird, and then in the second and third weeks I was a lot more focused and energized than usual. Since then it's been up and down, with the last couple of weeks trending back downward toward low motivation, more difficulty communicating, working, and moving around in general. I've also been having more of the kind of needless self-abusive thoughts that had become a real problem — but only a little bit!

The reasons I started taking medicine finally are because I have had increasing difficulty simply doing necessary tasks over the last year, and because I was starting to wonder if being alive was something I could keep doing. I didn't want to die, but I spend a lot more time than I should have with the question nagging at the back of my thoughts. It was pretty common for me to get wrapped up in an internal spiral of worry, fear, and disgust that dismantled a lot of the meaning in things I was doing. I can report that I have basically stopped getting that low, and had a lot less anxiety. That's so great!

After a couple of weeks where it was just... easier to do things, I can track a steady decline in that area over the last few weeks. This last week I've gotten very little done that's useful. I can play video games, I can squeak out bits of creative work, and I can be relaxed, but longer periods of productive work and social time have become difficult again. Putting off communication and labor in favor of just... waiting a little longer. Maybe in a bit I'll feel like doing it. But when I can't reach that point, something needs to change.

It was easy for me to start feeling like the whole project wasn't working out; that I was sliding back into darkness, that it just wasn't going to work. But luckily it's been much easier for me to get out of that kind of negative zone, and to make more positive assessments and changes. And, luckily, I have regular appointments scheduled with a psychiatrist and a counselor, so if things get weird, there are markers to look forward to and recalibrate around.

So after a conversation with my doctor today, we're leaving my Lexapro (Escitalopram) dosage at 10mg/day, and increasing my Wellbutrin (Bupropion) from 100mg to 150mg, to hopefully bring my motivation and energy up. It's normal for your body to adapt to metabolizing medicine more quickly over time, so after my initial positive response, tapering of effects is normal enough. You have to find the balance that works over time.

Things I haven't done as well in the last few weeks: I haven't exercised as much as I'd like, and I've gotten over-caffeinated too many days. These are both things I have to keep an eye on. If I run a few miles and do some basic bodyweight exercises, I feel better all the way around. If I keep my total coffee intake down below 3 cups over the course of a day, I can relax and concentrate much better. But it's been hard to get moving and do exercise, so then I wind up having more coffee out of habit, and that's an unhelpful cycle!

It's hard generally to make a living right now, and it's hard to feel safe. Almost everyone I know is struggling to pay their bills. Most of us don't have insurance or have terrible insurance we're overpaying for. There are lots and lots of reasons to be worried, and to question how useful our actions are. But those questions shouldn't be debilitating. I don't want them to be. I want to find hope, energy, and habits that help me be the best version of myself I can be. I want to be here for my friends, my colleagues, my loved ones, and for myself. So, I'm continuing on the path! Thanks for reading, and do whatever you need to feel as good as you can, friend!

I have a hard time with the balance between publishing and letting go of what happens after. I'm wired up to do things performatively; if I write a story or make an image, I want to walk around and show it to everybody immediately. That can be positive, because the thought of showing something can help me push through the difficulty of finishing something in the first place. But then, if I finish something and post it to the internet, there's just... never really enough feedback. It gets hard to focus on other things, because I keep checking to see if anybody else has noticed and let me know they noticed.

Mostly, they don't. I know this is because I mostly make things with pretty niche appeal, and that I don't have a massive available audience. The people who liked any of my podcasts, my websites, my visual art, my stories, or my music... are not necessarily going to like any of the other things! I have always had too many modes for simple market value. If I could just tell jokes, or just sing songs, or whichever of these things... I would have! And it's fine that I have diverse interests and that not everything is a hit. There are plenty of reasons to make things that interest you, and if a few of my friends think something is neat — or even if they don't! — that should be enough.

If it isn't... I've gotta work on that. Either focus on making more-marketable things, and then figure out how to market them, or make better peace with my art being a personal act.

I sure would like my stuff to find its audience, though. A few people have read my Garfield script and told me they loved it. Great! Where's everybody else? Where do I send this shit? Where's the platform? I have never known what to do with that phase. When I made albums, I never sent them to labels. Like, duh. I know I ought to submit my stories to... what, websites? Which ones? Who the fuck publishes surreal absurdist fiction? This is a real question.

In the meantime, I'm trying to remind myself that it's okay to post and then step back. Posting things here is easier than posting them to twitter. I'm still mostly blocking twitter and enjoying greater peace. In that peace, I make more things. But then I share it, because I have to, and that sharing disrupts the peace. So with all of this I'm basically just trying to say to myself, "Don't worry about it. Let it go. If there's no marketing push or end goal, just post and move on."

And say thanks to those of you who do like some of the things I make. I reckon I'm not an easy artist to follow all the time, but I'm trying harder than ever to make things that satisfy me and might bring greater pleasure to others, too. For whatever reasons, to whatever end. Wahoo!

Hover the images or use a screen reader for descriptions of the images, including some additional context.

I'm not sure about most of the lyrics in this song; they aren't transcribed anywhere easy online. I think he says, "My wrecking heart," but I'm not sure. I'd like it if he did.

This album was a slow burn affection. I heard it several times, unable to discern if I liked it through pedal steel bias. Its lyrics, however I hear them, have struck me repeatedly. Arrows to the gong.

"I speak in tatters, a lone disaster. Revelations and diamonds underneath the flowers. Give me idle hands to carry this sword to them."

"I can't see you, Leviathan. Makes me nervous. I spent my wrecking heart on seven failures."

"Your loneliness dissolves / the love you can't... recall."

It takes a lot of effort for me to convert my lyric subconscious into intelligible speech. Some bands run a little closer to the seams. The molten glow we forget below dirt. The raw heat of meaning both above and beneath. I'm grateful for someone who can capture and endure their own eruptions.

In the horizonless cataclysm of sudden-jut mountains and bone-blended sand, Godzilla trudged forward alone. He shifted the incredible weight of his backpack without a glimmer of resentment. It reminded him of before, when creatures great and small did everything they could to bring him down. "Comfort" wasn't really in Godzilla's vocabulary; he did not speak English. He had never heard of English. He squinted directly into the sun and wished it were bright enough to hurt him.

He'd been trudging for many days. It was hard to tell exactly how many, because his stride carried him across time zones with as much regard as you give the seams in a sidewalk. When Godzilla slept, it could be for hours or centuries. He didn't feel much like sleeping in this noise. The planet roiled around him, spilling hot blood and sending scabs of soil into the clouds, where they would suffer slow degradation over milennia. Youth is sharp and daring; age sands everything softer. Even mountains. Even Godzilla.

His claw polish was peeling, particularly on the right index blade. His eyes flashed deep-ember red when he noticed. You do these things for yourself, just to feel like you're worth the effort. Even if you haven't seen another eternal beast in ages. Even if the insects had scoured themselves from the surface. You deserve to treat yourself. He'd keep an eye out for replacements.

—

Rummaging mightily through his backpack, Godzilla wished he had packed more snacks. He pulled the top 20 stories of a skyscraper out of the bag, held it up to the light, and yawned a little radioactive heat into the girders and glass. He saw the tiny outlines of desks and chairs burst into flame behind the windows, and he smiled at how flammable the human world had been. They don't make them like they used to, he thought, and took a big bite out of his s'morchitectural treat. They don't make anything anymore.

Godzilla sat in the dust and blinked his very large series of eyelids into the distance. When you were emerging from a fortyear of peaceful slumber beneath the waves to stomp around a human city as simultaneous punishment for and allegory of their crimes, it was easy to feel like the world was small enough to know. Back then he was liable to run into another ruinous voidbeast every few years or so, especially when humanity was really getting into its nuclear experimentation phase. But with most of the cities scraped clean off the planet, and following the massive topological restructuring of their final self-destructive act, he just didn't know where he was anymore. Nowhere knew where it was. So, he told himself, when you don't know what to do with yourself, it's a good idea to take a walk.

But that had been forever ago. It takes a long time to fill a heart as big as Godzilla's with melancholy. His head, heavier than any non-monstrous terrestrial creature's entire body, rarely drooped beneath his shoulders. Godzilla was, if you had to try and sum him up in a single English word, resilient. Every reservoir has a bottom, though. Most reservoirs didn't even let him soak up past his thighs. Again, he was big. And he was starting to feel quite lonely.

—

Godzilla picked at the edge of a billboard, which he had found broken off its pillar and stuck in the uncertain earth. God damn it, he thought. I just. Come on. Come on. His bulldozer nails sought fruitless purchase between the canvas and its message. Having endless time didn't give Godzilla infinite patience.

BLOW YOUR STAINS OUT was simply colorful noise to Godzilla. The image of a subscription toothbrush shaped like a handgun — SUPERSONICALLY MURDER YOUR PLAQUE — which required monthly refills shaped like ammo clips — OPEN CARRY... YOUR SMILE — with a happy-eyed person putting the bright-neon barrel into their mouth. Godzilla didn't think about what it meant. He was interested in color, and the garish billboards of humanity's end were entirely his aesthetic. He just wished the adhesive was a little easier to work with.

The sun swung low before he managed to peel the poster free, tear it into delicate fragments, and arrange them into a pleasing array. A whisper of death from his cavernous snout holes melted the glue one piece at a time. With tabletop precision, he draped them across his claws and smoothed out the bubbles. At the end he had repaired the blemishes in most of his claws, and he smiled open-mouthed as he held them up to the sighing light. Kaleidoscopic nails the size of tractor-trailers. Evaporated products and ghost-hawked services abstracted into reptilian fashion.

Godzilla chewed contentedly on the billboard's infrastructure and watched the sun give up while his nails cooled and dried.

—

If you walk long enough in any wasteland, you develop a strong sense that surprise, however strongly desired, has become impossible. The spindling textures of individual volcanic peaks become wallpaper patterns against the nauseating curls of smoke that staged a coup against the sky. As fascinating as a campfire can be — and Godzilla is a true connoisseur — there is an upper bound on the meditative power of an entire smoldering treeline. Freeway tangles and splatter-shot branding may have been the disgraceful coda to human colonization, but fire makes its own scalding monoculture.

If, however, you walk yet longer, you will inevitably be surprised. Nature hates to vacuum, and even still there were patches of what had come before. Godzilla caught a glitter in the distance one noxious morning, promising something besides soil and skulls. That's how he found himself walking through aisles of antiques, shopping idly among intermittent flickering lamps and glasswork. Shadowbox cases held disused remnants of the old world. He hadn't appreciated it fully before, you know? But a few standing city blocks were more than a simple playground for wreaking retribution or tussling with his buds. This stuff was beautiful.

And then there she was. Godzilla rounded a corner — plucked a gargoyle from some towering home for exploitative assholes, just to feel its texture against his scales — and saw her. Perched lightly on the golden dome of a building where the powerful dozens had made decades of decisions willfully dooming the futures of billions, Mothra raised her antennae mildly.

"oh what's up, godzilla?" Mothra sighed. She whispered catastrophe. Foundations cracked and shifted in supersonic agony before her, and Godzilla felt jagged lines re-open deep within himself.

"MOTHRAAAAAAA! HOLY SHIT I'VE BEEN LOOKING EVERYWHEEEEEERRRRRRE FOR YOU!" Godzilla said as casually as his grand canyon maw and hindenburg lungs could manage. The tattered flags on nearby buildings waved one last goodbye and evaporated into memories of poison.

"for me?" she asked, shuddering a slight rain of skeptical dust from certain spots on her wings.

"WELL! LIKE. OKAY NOT SPECIFICALLY FOR YOU, BUT YOU ARE ON THE LIST OF PEOPLE I WAS LOOKING FOR!!! I'VE BEEN WALKING FOR EVERRRRR AND HAVEN'T SEEN ANYBODY! HOW..." he shrugged and awkwardly slammed his tail into a bank. "OOPS." His little arms waved around in uneven circles. "HOW THE HECK ARE YOU!!!"

"ehhhh, fine?"

"ARE YOU STAYING AROUND HERE NOW OR...???!"

"kind of temporarily, but i guess i'm more like just squatting for the moment"

"YEAH I GET THAAAAAAT!!!"

"where are you coming from?"

"I'VE JUST BEEN WALKING THROUGH THE EXHAUSTED END OF BIOLOGICAL LIFE ON OUR ONCE-BEAUTIFUL PLANET!!! YOU KNOW! WISHING THERE WAS STILL AN OCEAN, HAHA. IT'S HARD FOR ME TO SLEEP WITHOUT FATHOMS OF PRESSURE KEEPING MY ANXIETY AT BAY, SO, YEAH. I'VE JUST BEEN TRUCKING ALONG!!!"

"yeah, i get that"

A brief pause became a long silence between them. In the distance, a fragment of the moon burned quietly through the sky until it disappeared behind a volcanic plume. Godzilla thought he could feel the gentle quiver of its arrival in the soles of his feet, and in his big weird knees. He'd been walking so long. He guessed his calves were probably looking pretty cut, but it was hard to angle his eyes to see. What absolute luck to run into somebody else after all this time.

"FUNNY THAT WE RAN INTO EACH OTHER IN THE FIRST REMNANT OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION FOR HUNDREDS OF MILES!!" he blurted.

"godzilla..."

"I MEAN THAT IS HOW WE MET!!!!"

"don't do this"

"OKAY SORRY!!! ANYWAY, LOOK DO YOU MIND IF I HANG OUT WITH YOU FOR A WHILE? OR VICE VERSA!!!"

"i don't—"

"I JUST, YOU KNOW, I THINK I USED TO BE A MORE SELFISH PERSON!! I'M PROBABLY STILL SELFISH NOW AND EVEN ASKING THIS MAY BE A MANIFESTATION OF THAT, BUT ONE THING I'VE LEARNED IN MY ENDLESS WANDERING IS THAT BEING ALONE IS DEFINITELY WORSE THAN BEING WITH SOMEONE ELSE, YOU KNOW!!!"

Mothra turned her little (relative to her huge furry body and amazonian canopy wings) head away for a moment, and looked like she was considering just taking off. Godzilla thought about crashing into a building just to ease the tension, but waited as patiently as he could. This involved just crouching a little bit, and then standing up and waving his arms in the air like at the beginning of a Village People chorus. But he did it quietly, and finally she turned back around.

"i don't think that's a good idea, godzilla. i'm kind of looking for a place to hatch my eggs and just like, settle down for a little bit. you're not exactly 'settling down' material"

"HMMMMMM WELL—!!!"

"we're not going to be a family again," she sighed, and flapped once with finality. "i hope you find something else you were looking for."

Mothra took off abruptly, like she was lifted on strings, and sailed smoothly out of the city, while Godzilla stood, mouth agape with hands spread toward the sky, shocked into stillness.

—

An unknowable interval later, in what was left of the moonlight, Godzilla sat with splayed legs and drooped tail on a long stretch of sand that had once been a beach. Haunted house fog huddled thick around his toes, stretching out into the futureless distance. One hand rested on his backpack at his side, empty except for a gift he forgot to give Mothra and some bottom-of-the-bag shreds of steel and asbestos. The faint shadow of an accidental tyrant stretched out before him. The mist didn’t feel like anything.

Could it really be that he’d never sleep soundly beneath the waves again? Would there never be water deep enough to pull over himself, no darkness unbroken except for his own intermittent light? What the hell?

Maybe worse: would he live long enough to see the oceans return? Godzilla understood death, and had periodically feared his might come in battle. But he’d been around for thousands of years, gorging on anything combustible and then resting while forests and cities collapsed and blossomed anew. He had witnessed and enacted catastrophes of all kinds. Never like this. He vaguely remembered dinosaurs, wondered how many times a planet could recover from mortal wounds, and whether he’d still be here.

The sun rose without fanfare or beauty. The fog began dissipating immediately, and Godzilla watched mystery succumb to desolation.

He looked down the slope across tumbleweeds of kelp and bleached coral, down across miles of steady descent that eventually wrapped around the planet's curve. Dots of dried out vegetation might have suggested an immense code to someone who cared about symbols. Godzilla didn’t deal in subtext or secrets. Formless lightning flashed in the ruined sky. He was so fucking tired. But being an eternal beast of destruction mostly seems to mean you feel like shit, scream when you want to whisper, and keep moving anyway. It was also possible the deepest trenches of the ocean might yet hold water. Either way, thinking of sitting here without the rush and clamor of waves made him want to roar and flail. So he did, for a time. Then he sighed, slung his pack over his shoulder, and headed down the slope.

In what is without doubt the most tantalizing POSTS exclusive yet, we present a Garfield script penned by renowned novelist Alan Moore. Best known for his books Voice of the Fire and Promethea, Moore got his start writing and drawing weekly strips in ancient devices called "magazines" in the 1970s and 80s. While the scope of his work — and the size of his eager audience — has grown massive and repetitive since then, he remains an enthusiastic collaborator with many of comics' biggest artists.

None of this should surprise anyone who has stumbled drunkenly through any of the accomplished — and quite heavy — displays of his books at their local comic hovel. What will surprise all but three living persons is the idea, let alone the existence, of the attached script. 

In 1992 Jim Davis was another cultural juggernaut, whose work stained every issue of every newspaper — bundles of paper similar to accidentally printing a web site, which used to be driven around cities and thrown at houses in the dead of night — and which sells millions of copies annually of bathroom-bound collections even today. Nothing more needs to be said about Garfield. Davis, unlike Moore, was also notoriously isolated, both writing and drawing his increasingly-unhinged screeds on loneliness, labor, and lasagna all by himself.

By the spring of that year, however, burnout was setting in. Davis asked his manager to arrange for a couple of weeks of guest strips so he could take an expensive Gulf Coast vacation. While not an unheard-of practice, guest artists were usually conscripted from within the well-established club of newspaper stalwarts. Davis's publishers at United Feature Syndicate, however, had a bold new idea. In their hubris, they mistook comfort food for cuisine. Why not get the biggest stars of comic books to try their hands at comic strips? Names like Neil Gaiman, Stan Lee, and Rob Liefeld might be unfamiliar to the morning-porridge demographic, but strips helmed by these visionaries could, they speculated between rails, draw a younger audience not yet stunned into dull submission by the routine of late-capitalist drudgery.

Whether or not this idea could have been executed favorably in some other configuration, we are stuck with this inherited world. Inquiries went out, agents frothed and phoned, writers signed on. And first among them, delighted at the opportunity to inject his venom into yet another placid media vein, was Alan Moore.

We may never know precisely how Jim Davis reacted upon receipt of this script, written in Moore's trademark all-capital verbosity and delivered as an unfolded, single-sided stack via overnight Royal Mail. Several things, however, may be speculated upon. First, that the strip itself never appeared in print, and was likely never drawn. Second, that Davis cancelled all other nascent contracts with the comic book industry veterans. Third, that he did not take a vacation in '92, nor has he in any year since. Garfield has run, uninterrupted and unassisted by any other human hand, every day, of every week, of every year since.

We now present the script, sent to POSTS by an anonymous source. We leave it up to our readers to envision the comic as it might have been rendered, as well as to speculate for themselves at the mercurial whims of self-centered artists whose persistent drivel can only survive in fear of the shadow of true literature. Had this comic been published, it is this editor's personal opinion that Garfield itself might have been impossible to continue. Just as Watchmen thankfully made it impossible to ever produce another superhero comic, Moore's invasive text might have undone the entire comic strip industry, ultimately leaving no refuge for the miserable and exhausted millions except true art, which state of terror and bliss would certainly have brought about the next age of human enlightenment. Instead: Garfield.

—

GARFIELD: ODIOUS DAY

PAGE 1.
THREE PANELS OF EQUAL WIDTH AND HEIGHT, ESTABLISHING A REGULAR AND MONOTONOUS RHYTHM INDICATIVE OF LIFE IN GARFIELD'S WORLD. NO PYROTECHNICS REQUIRED, JIM. ONE OF THE STRENGTHS OF YOUR ART IS ITS APPARENT BANALITY, WITH PATHOS THROBBING JUST BENEATH THE SKIN IN PFIZER-BLUE RIVULETS. SO WORK YOUR MAGIC. AS EVER, I'LL INCLUDE MORE DETAIL THAN NECESSARY, JUST TO GET ACROSS THE FEELING AND TONE. DESCRIPTIONS IN CAPITALS, DIALOGUE IN SENTENCE CASE AT THE END OF EACH PANEL. YOU CAN PICK AND CHOOSE WHAT TO INCLUDE. JUST HAVE FUN WITH IT!

PANEL 1.
INTERIOR OF A SUBURBAN HOME, STRIPPED TO ITS BARE ESSENTIALS. THE ARBUCKLE HOUSE IS THAT QUINTESSENCE OF AMERICAN ISOLATION, DUPLICATING THE NECESSITIES AND NICETIES OF DAY TO DAY LIFE AS CHEAPLY AS POSSIBLE TO CREATE A BUBBLE OF APPARENT PROSPERITY. SOVIET-FLAVORED AUSTERITY UNDER CAPITALISM HAS PRODUCED AN UNENDING ARRAY OF TASTELESS, UNCOMFORTABLE COUCHES; STOVETOPS WITH PERMANENT SLANTS AND UNRELIABLE KNOBS; FLUORESCENT-BULB FIXTURES OF VARYING COLOUR TEMPERATURE BLENDING MIGRAINILY FROM ROOM TO ROOM TO HALLWAY TO KITCHEN TO THE TINY BATHROOM WHEREIN JON ARBUCKLE HUDDLES SWEATILY AND AT LENGTH WITH A MOISTURE-RUMPLED SEARS CATALOG.

IN SHORT, THE THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS OF APPLIANCES AND FURNITURE USED INTERMITTENTLY BY THE SINGLE AMERICAN MAN BETWEEN STRETCHES OF ANXIOUS LABOR AND TEPID UNCONSCIOUSNESS. THIS HOME, LIKE SO MANY OTHERS, IS A PARKING LOT FOR OBJECTS OF MINIMAL COMFORT, RARELY-USED AND IF WE'RE HONEST, NOT MUCH-MISSED. WE FOCUS, HOWEVER, NOT ON THE PITIFUL HUMAN RESIDENT RESPONSIBLE FOR GATHERING THESE ACCIDENTS, BUT ON THE CREATURES WHO MUST ENDURE IT ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT.

THE PANEL SITUATES A PLAIN DINING TABLE AT ITS BASE, A SORT OF DE FACTO HORIZON LINE THAT WILL BE RE-USED IN EACH OF THE SUBSEQUENT PANELS. AND UPON THIS ICONIC PLANE, ON THE LEFT SIDE FACING RIGHT, IS GARFIELD. HE IS TUCKED INTO A SMALL RECTILINEAR BOX, WITH A BLANKET PULLED OVER HIS BODY, WRAPPED LIKE A MIXED-BERRY PASTRY, OR A CHEST-BURSTING PASTA. YOUR CHOICE, JIM. GARFIELD, THE TROUBLED CHIMERA OF HUMAN DREAD AND ANIMAL COMFORT, SIMULTANEOUSLY CONFORMING TO THE SHAPE OF A BOX AND THE SHAPE OF A CAT. HIS FACE POKES OUT FROM BENEATH THE BULK OF FABRIC, EARS BACK AND WHISKERS AT FURIOUS ATTENTION, A POSTURE OF SKEPTICISM REGARDING THE DAY AND, ESPECIALLY, HIS COMPANION.

ODIE STANDS PANEL RIGHT, FACING GARFIELD. LIKE A DOG WHO WENT ON ONE DINNER DATE WITH A SINGULARITY, NO MOVIE, NO KISS GOODNIGHT, BUT HAVING GOT CLOSE ENOUGH TO BEAR THE TRAUMA OF MEMORY, ODIE IS A DOG BY WAY OF STEAMED PENNE. TOWERING VERTIGINOUSLY ABOVE GARFIELD, HE IS A LEERING BEACON OF UNCONSIDERED OPTIMISM. HIS EYES PEER DOWN OVER A TUBEROUS NOSE, PAST THE TENDERIZED BEEF OF HIS FOUNTAIN-ARCED TONGUE, ACROSS A CHASM OF CONSCIOUSNESS THE FULL EXTENT OF WHICH HE IS ENTIRELY UNAWARE. ONE COULD BE FORGIVEN FOR THINKING HIS PANTING, VACUOUS MAW IS A SMILE.

GARFIELD: Well, Odie, it's another day. Another wave of catastrophes both personal and political which we are powerless to prevent. How do you convince yourself to keep going?

PANEL 2.
BETWEEN PANELS, THE DISTANT HUM OF A NEIGHBOR'S GASOLINE-POWERED WEEDWHACKER. THE ARBUCKLE COMPOUND IS A GROUND-FLOOR, MID-CENTURY POLYP CONSTRUCTED TO PLEASE NO ONE. NO PLEASURE WAS TAKEN IN ITS ASSEMBLY, NO DETAIL ATTENDED TO WITH ANYTHING APPROACHING LOVE. NOR WOULD ANYONE WHO HAS EVER LAID EYES ON IT AS A POTENTIAL OR CURRENT RESIDENT LET OUT A SIGH OF RELIEF AT HAVING FINALLY FOUND A PLACE TO CALL HOME. THE HANDSOAP OPERA OF SUBURBAN LIFE PLAYS OUT IN STARK SHAPES WHICH SERVE ONLY THE NECESSARY THRIFT OF A CITIZENRY STRIPPED OF FAIR COMPENSATION AND POSSIBLE DIGNITY.

THE ROOF HAS NEEDED INSPECTION AND PATCHING FOR YEARS; A GROWING SEEP OF STAINS ON THE LIVING ROOM CEILING SHOW NEGLECT'S SLOW TOLL. ONCE A WEEK OR SO, LEANING BACK ON THE COUCH WHICH SAGS ONLY BENEATH THE ONE REGULARLY-USED CUSHION, JON ARBUCKLE MAY HAZARD A BRIEF GLANCE UPWARD AND WONDER IF THE STAIN HAS GOTTEN BIGGER OR DARKER. HE ASKS GARFIELD WHETHER HE'S NOTICED, PROVOKING A COMMENT ABOUT JON'S STATUS AS A GROWING STAIN ON THE COUCH WHICH WILL SPIKE JON'S BLOOD PRESSURE AND THEN BE FORGOTTEN.

AT THE MOMENT OF OUR DRAMA, THE DRIVEWAY IS EMPTY OF ITS ANCIENT BURDEN. JON'S 14-YEAR-OLD TWO-DOOR SEDAN IS THE MINIMUM PRICE OF ENTRY FOR PARTICIPATION IN THE U.S. WORKFORCE. BARELY-NOTICEABLE TIREPRINT DIMPLES IN THE SUN-FUCKED AND WEED-BUCKLED CONCRETE SURROUND A GREEN-BROWN RESIDUE OF UNKNOWN AUTOMOTIVE ORIGIN. JON HAS NEVER REALLY NOTICED THIS STAIN; HIS INTERACTIONS WITH THE CAR ARE ALWAYS IN HASTE, EITHER LATE FOR WORK, TOAST-IN-MOUTH IN THE MORNING, OR BOLTING TOILETWARD IN DESPERATE NEED OF RELIEF AFTER THE MISERABLE COMMUTE HOME. A POETIC MIND COULD WONDER WHETHER THE STAINS IN DRIVEWAY AND ROOF HAD SOME CONGRUITY OF SHAPE OR MEANING. JON ARBUCKLE WILL DIE BEFORE EVEN ENTERING THE SAME COUNTY AS THIS QUESTION.

ONCE AGAIN, JIM, I DON'T EXPECT ALL OF THIS DETAIL IN THE PANEL ITSELF. IT'S INTENDED TO PLANT SEEDS, TO GIVE DETAILS TO WORK INTO THE SUBCONSCIOUS, FROM THE TIMBRE OF LINEWORK TO THE PLACEMENT OF SPEECH BUBBLES. PICK AND CHOOSE OR, HELL, THROW IT ALL OUT AND CAPTURE THE EMOTION IN YOUR OWN WAY. I SPEND LONG DAYS IN A DESKBOUND DUNGEON AND MUST AMUSE MYSELF IF NO ONE ELSE WILL.

BACK AT THE TABLE, GARFIELD BESEECHES HIS FELLOW CAPTIVE. HIS EYES, BLOODSHOT AND CRACKLING LIKE A SPOON-TAPPED DEMON'S EGG, SHOW A RARE VULNERABILITY. HAVING BARED HIS FEARS AS A BELLY TO A FOE, WITH NOWHERE ELSE TO TURN, GARFIELD HOPES BEYOND HOPE THAT THERE IS AN UNTAPPED RESERVE OF WISDOM OR EVEN COMPASSION WITHIN THE WATER TOWER OPACITY OF ODIE'S IMPOSSIBLE FORM. ODIE'S EYES, IMPASSIVE. ODIE'S EARS, DISRESPECTFUL IN THEIR WHIMSY. ODIE'S MOUTH, GATHERING DOG-SWEAT IN HIDEOUS CAVITIES, PREPARING TO SPEAK. GOD, HOW GARFIELD HATES THE DOG. AND YET ALSO HUNGERS FOR SOMETHING. SOMETHING LIKE A TOUCH, WITHOUT THE SENSITIVITY OF CARE. HE WOULD KILL THE DOG, IF NOT FOR ISOLATION'S CONSEQUENCE.

EXPRESSION UNCHANGED, BLITHELY MUTT-HAPPY, TONGUE A TANGLE, ODIE YAPS WHAT PASSES FOR HIS TRUTH. MASSIVE GOBS OF SPITTLE HANG SUSPENDED BETWEEN THEM, FOREVER A THREAT, GLITTERING DIRTY QUARTZ.

ODIE: Arf! 

PANEL 3.
TWO BLOCKS AWAY, THE NEIGHBOR HACKS AWAY AT NATURE'S INTRUSIONS ON HIS PRECIOUS PALACE. BLACK SMOKE WISPS UPWARD FROM A VICIOUS DIESEL RELIC. A RUMBLING, HANDHELD ENGINE TURNS A GEARSHAFT, AND THICK NYLON CORD BEATS CIRCULAR AGAINST WEEDS, GRASS, AND A REBELLION OF DANDELIONS.

THREE BLOCKS TO THE EAST, THE HISTORICALLY-WHITE-ONLY CEMETERY IN WHICH GRANDMOTHERS ARE ALLEGED TO BE SHIPPED TO HEAVEN IN AMAZON-WOOD CASKETS RISES AS A DULL CRESTING WAVE, MIST-VISIBLE JUST ABOVE A RENOVATED BURGER KING. BENEATH THE SOIL, SHOWING FEWER FOOTPRINTS NOW THAN IN PREVIOUS DECADES, THOUSANDS OF HUMAN BODIES MELT SLOWLY THROUGH SUITS AND DRESSES LIKE CREAMSICLES IN HALF-OPEN WRAPPERS. THERE ARE NO JOKES WRITTEN ON THE BONES. THE ONLY PUNCHLINE AVAILABLE IS CHRISTIANITY'S INSISTENT DENIAL OF THE HUMAN RIGHT TO REENTER THE CYCLE OF NATURE AFTER A FEW FLEETING DECADES OF TRYING TO BE ABOVE IT ALL. A CHURCHBELL RINGS THE HOUR ON AN AUTOMATED TIMER OVER AN EMPTY PROTESTANT CHAPEL.

INSIDE THE HOUSE, SILENCE SWALLOWS THE BELL. AS WE DRAG OUR EYES ACROSS THE WALLS IN FOUR-DIMENSIONAL FREEDOM, UNCONSTRAINED BY THE LIMITATIONS OF PHYSICALITY, PERCEIVING THE HOUSE IN ITS ENTIRETY, EVERY SURFACE VISIBLE AT ONCE IN A SPLIT-ORANGE TABLEAU OF SIMULTANEOUS, SHUDDERING CLARITY, ONE HORROR ABOVE ALL OTHERS PRESENTS ITSELF AS A VIVID ABSENCE: THERE IS NO ART WHATSOEVER ON ANY WALL OR SIDE TABLE; NOT A SINGLE MEMENTO MAGNET-BOUND TO THE FRIGIDAIRE. JON ARBUCKLE'S LIFE — AND THEREFORE ALSO THE LIVES OF HIS WARDS — IS DEVOID OF INTENTIONAL BEAUTY. 

WHILE THE ANTHROPOCENTRIST MAY QUESTION THE VALUE OF ART TO A DEPRESSIVE HOUSECAT AND HIS OBLIVIOUS CANINE TORMENTOR, WE CAN BE QUITE CERTAIN THIS IS THE GREATEST INJURY OF ALL TO JON'S PSYCHIC HEALTH. FOR, AS I WILL GO TO GREAT PAINS OVER THE REST OF MY CAREER TO REITERATE, ART IS FUNCTIONALLY EQUIVALENT TO MAGIC, WITH THE POWER TO SHAPE AND EVEN CREATE REALITIES. THROUGH ART, THE MOST BASIC DOMESTIC GEOMETRY MAY GIVE WAY TO THE INFINITE DEPTH OF A TIMELESS LANDSCAPE OR A TREASURED MEMORY. WHAT COMFORT CAN BE DRAWN FROM BARE, PAST-DUE-EGGSHELL-TINTED WALLS? WHAT VISION? THE MIND NEEDS MATERIAL TO CONVERT INTO FUTURES. THE DAWNING TREMORS OF JON'S TRUE PLIGHT — AND OUR SYMPATHY FOR WHAT EFFECT THIS HAS HAD ON GARFIELD'S OUTLOOK — SPREAD OUTWARD PISS-SHIVERY FROM BLADDER TO SCALP.

ON THIS DINING-ROOM TABLE IN A FOOD DESERT AT THE END OF THE WORLD, GARFIELD HAS PULLED HIS BLANKET ALL THE WAY OVER HIS HEAD. BLUE-TINTED DARKNESS ENVELOPES HIM, WELCOME DISMAL ILLUSION OF ODIE VANISHING. THIS, FOR GARFIELD, IS AN ARTISTIC ACT, ONE WHICH CHANGES HIS WORLD VIA HIS PERCEPTION. HE ALLOWS HIMSELF THE GIFT OF TEMPORARY PEACE. HOWEVER, AS WE KNOW, GARFIELD IS NOT ONE TO LET THINGS REST. HIS TEMPER IS HIS UNDOING, AT ONCE UNDERMINING HIS EFFORTS AND INFLAMING HIS TINY POOL OF RELATIONSHIPS. THE POWERLESS LASH OUT AT THOSE THEY PERCEIVE AS LESSER, AND EVERYONE IN GARFIELD'S LIFE IS BENEATH HIM. ATTEMPTING VENOM AND ACCIDENTALLY ADMITTING HIS SENSE THAT THE TRUE PRISON IS INTELLIGIBLE CONSCIOUSNESS TRAPPED WITHIN LINEAR TIME, GARFIELD GETS IN THE LAST WORD.

GARFIELD: It must be nice to be you.