Thursday, June 30, 2011

Day 30: Cat

I could see how "cat" would be easy. I really can. But apparently my drawing skills completely fail me when it comes to doing animals I know and love. Maybe that's why I suck at people too. Anyway, here are my real-life cats, Duane and Lew (kind of):


Lew (a.k.a. "Fat Cat") is the one on the back of the couch, and Duane (a.k.a. "Neurotic Cat") is the one that looks like a dog, which is too bad because he's really very pretty. In real life he's kind of Egyptian-y, but he's also one of those totally black and white cats, so coloring him was a challenge. Lew is fat, hence his nickname, but he's also a Maine Coon cat, so he's about three feet long, which makes him kind of like Shaq in the off-season... big frame with a little jiggle around the middle because of too many Doritos and not enough free throws. We got Lew from a Chicago alley as a three-week-old, not yet weaned kitten, and back then he fit in the palm of my hand and I fed him with a bottle and wiped his butt for him. He's dumb as rocks except when it comes to getting what he wants: he figured out that the best way to get all the food is to eat the dog's food first because she's the pushiest, then Duane's because he's the nicest and then his own, because everyone else has some kind of antiquated notions about not eating other people's food. He also figured out how to get the shiny things in my jewelry box by prying open the lever, opening the doors and pulling out the drawers. Most importantly, he figured out that he doesn't really have to clean himself because Duane or the humans will do it for him. Duane, on the other hand, is a very clever cat, but he's too nice to put it to good use, so he mostly likes to be picked up and held like a baby, to sleep on people's faces at night and to chase the laser pointer, which is his oldest and most deadly nemesis. We found him outside our college dorm living on mice and cans of tuna from the R.A., so he almost even pre-dates our relationship.

Tomorrow, you'll get to see all the drawings next to each other, and then I will embark on a project I've been trying to get started for 10 years: illustrating my "short" story "Dreams." I wrote it in college and at the time just used pictures of the Internet to illustrate it, but found out afterwards that that probably constituted copyright infringement and have been trying and failing to illustrate it myself ever since. With my new-found confidence bought from this challenge, I'm going to give it a shot. Characters you will meet include a retired ice cream man, the Keebler Elf and a Barbie lunchbox. Teasers!

Also, the Daily Animal Doodles continue in July with some truly awesome animals, so I will definitely be joining up with that, just maybe not every day, depending on my ability to actually get this other project going.


Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Day 29: Hippopotamus

Welcome to the penultimate day in the Daily Animal Doodles challenge!


This is Ned, and he is trying to catch that balloon in his mouth. He's a full-grown hippo, he just has an overgrown sense of whimsy. The idea is that he will catch the balloon without popping it, but as you can see he has very sharp teeth and he's in danger of choking if he's not careful. Ned has already been to the emergency room twice for this, and he has been warned to stop it, but he just can't help himself. Ned is what you'd call a special hippo. In addition to extreme sports, Ned likes the Crayola 64-pack of crayons that comes with a sharpener, French poetry, ham radio and crickets.



Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Day 28: Otter

I went for a river otter with this one, because they have them at the Minnesota Zoo and when I was a kid they were my second favorite only behind monkeys.


This is Paula, and she does not live in the zoo, though she has friends who do. She lives on the banks of the Mississippi river, way up by its head in Lake Itaska, and her favorite thing to do is to run to the top of a hill, fill her mouth with dish soap, surf down into the river and then come up blowing bubbles. That's what she's doing right here. She also likes eating sunfish, but only if they are breaded and fried, because she's trying to build up her layer of fat for next winter already. On weekends she plays in an Uno league with other otters, in which she is the reigning champion, and works at a pizzeria busing tables for extra cash. She is saving up to go back to school to be a chiropractor, specializing in marine mammal adjustments.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Days 25 through 27: Croc, Tortoise, Flying Squirrel

Sorry for getting behind here, but none of you read blogs on the weekend do you? I totally stole the three-animals-in-one idea from Eef, another participant in the animal-a-day challenge. She's a good draw-ist, so I figured it doesn't count as cheating.


This is Clint, Jennifer and William. Clint is a crocodile, and don't think he's not aware of the alliteration; he is, and he hates it. His best friend is Jennifer the tortoise, and she knows that he loves flowers, so she's bringing him this orange daisy in a pot for his greenhouse. Unfortunately, William thinks that Clint is about to eat Jennifer, because he doesn't know either of them, so he's about to dive bomb Clint and try to scratch his eyes out. Luckily he will probably fail because he thinks he's tough, but he's really not. William gets himself into problems like this all the time trying to protect the ladies, but he has still never had a girlfriend, even though he is already two years old. Jennifer likes the white knight type, though, and she and Clint are really just friends, so it might just work on her.



Friday, June 24, 2011

Day 23: Rhino and Day 24: Owl

I really was very excited for drawing a rhino, but then I got all busy and stuff, so he remains half-finished:


This is Mark, and he is a baby rhino: he's only about 1 year old, but that's about 10 in people years. He really wanted to have his suit on for his drawing, since it is his first one and he just got it last week, but we ran out of time. He has heard all about poachers stealing rhino horns and thinks that if he paints his green maybe they will be less desirable, even though he thinks it looks rad. He painted his toenails to match, just for this picture. Anyway, Mark lives in Montana, where his parents are ranch hands and have been ever since they had him and escaped the cult they had been living in in Utah. Mark doesn't remember the cult, but it really turned his parents off religion, so he has to lie to them when his friends invite him to the Lutheran lock-in and tell them he's going to an all night concert instead.

For "owl" I decided to see if I could still paint at all, and the answer is: Kind of.


I went for traditional colors on Madeline here, not only because that is what color she actually is, but also because most of my paints, which hadn't been used in half a decade, were all dried up, with the exception of the browns. Anyway, Madeline is an owl model, so she was more than happy to sit for my "doodle" here. Unlike the owl stereotype, she is not very smart at all, and she dropped out of school after the 8th grade to go to New York to model. She's doing pretty well in this market, which is kind of mad for owls, particularly cute ones with giant eyes. Madeline was a very sweet owl before starting this career, but now she has gotten a big head and sometimes throws temper tantrums when her iced coffee is too weak or they accidentally get her cheddar instead of mozzarella cheese sticks. She's very particular about her cheese.



Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Day 22: Flamingo

Yeah, no pink pen. Sorry.


This is Melissa, the green flamingo. Did you know that flamingos are pink because they eat shrimp? Melissa didn't until she became a vegetarian. Now she eats mostly lily pads and wheat grass smoothies, which is really eating up the salary she earns playing professional Flamingo Soccer. It's just like regular soccer (they don't have hands to use to grab the ball anyway) but the ball is more colorful, because flamingos love color. Melissa is the goalkeeper, so it's okay that she's a different color than everyone else on the team. That's it for Melissa; I'm very psyched for tomorrow, which is Rhino!

Also, guess what, there was a button for the Daily Animal Doodles project all along! I'm very observant!


Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Day 20: Dog

Holy Mary, mother of Christmas, drawing dogs is way harder than anything else. This might have something to do with the fact that they are my very favorite animal, or that there are approximately 7 billion different kinds of dogs, or that my current dog is a terrible model and also white, which is a hard marker color to find. Anyway, after about 100 attempts of everything from cartoon dogs to realistic portraits, here's a sketch of Olive:


She's my real-life dog, and that's her favorite position, which we call the "Falcor." She is afraid of cameras, sleeps about 20 hours a day, is 90% deaf and half blind so she does smart things like take flying leaps at the couch and bounce off of the laundry basket she didn't know was there. Also, if I leave the room and she wakes up to find me missing, she will run around and around and around the apartment looking for me, often passing me several times in the process. When we adopted her, she had been in foster care for several months, and her foster mommy was a big fan of dog clothes, so she has a large collection of pink doggy dresses and sometimes I think she wonders why she never gets to wear them anymore. When we were back in Minnesota last week, she terrorized my parents' beagle Bonnie by following her everywhere and sniffing her butt nonstop.

Tomorrow is "flamingo," at which point I promise to have a real finished drawing... assuming I can find an adequate pink pen, or justify a green flamingo.

Check out Flickr and Paper Sparrow, where I'm sure people have actually drawn complete dogs!


Monday, June 20, 2011

Day 20: Beaver (again?)

Some people might be unhappy if they had to draw the same animal twice for this challenge, due to their own stupidity. Me, I'm happy to have the chance to do better this time. Except for the crappy cowboy hat, I'm pretty satisfied.


This is Barry, he's Ellen's American cousin, hence the cowboy hat, which doesn't fit him and is falling off, but he really wanted to wear it in this picture so that Ellen wouldn't forget what Americans look like. He also wanted to wear blue jeans, but he has an unusual body type and couldn't find any that fit him right. Part of the reason he is so concerned with proving that he's American is that he has actually moved to Canada, where the weather is more beaver-friendly. He has become one of those annoying people that point out that Canada is in North America too, so Canadians are also Americans, and completely ignores the fact that the United States of America has it right in the name, so kind of has more of a right to the "American" title. Besides proving that he's American, Barry likes silk neckties, birch bark (the candy, not the actual bark), hot tubs and Crest White Strips (TM).

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Day 19: Cheetah

As I was drawing my cheetah today, Houseboy asked me how I was going to show that she was fast. "She's a slow cheetah, actually," I said. "Then she'll need roller skates," he said. That's the whole explanation for the roller skates. It has nothing to do with trying and failing to draw cheetah paws.


Brooke is a slow cheetah, but she makes up for it by wearing roller skates and mostly only meeting other cheetahs at the roller rink. Today is 70s Flashback Day, which is her favorite, because the disco ball really goes well with her green hair and pink roller skates. Obviously, she dyes her hair, but a leopard can't change its spots, as they say, and the same is true for cheetahs. She tried once to bleach them out, but even that didn't work. Besides roller skating, Brooke likes sugary cereals, Kafka, and Mexican wrestling. She hates being called a hipster, polo shirts and posers.



Saturday, June 18, 2011

Day 18: Monkey

Remember when we had orangutan, and I was like, "This would be so much easier if it were just a monkey?" Yeah, I was wrong. Do you know how many different kinds of monkeys there are? My favorite is Curious George, but I figured plagiarism was discouraged, so I picked my favorite real monkey, Agatha the tamarin. Not to be confused with tamarind, which is a tree/bean/flavor.


Agatha is yelling at us in this picture because she's pretty much always yelling because she is ill-tempered. She doesn't like when people try to pet her, when it's windy outside, when her beans touch her peas, or when people use the word "irregardless." She also hates reality shows on television, thunderstorms, pleated pants and getting groomed. The only things she likes are chocolate, which she's not allowed to have, and when other monkeys fall out of the tree.


Friday, June 17, 2011

Day 17: Platypus-ish

One of my very favorite characters from Mr. Rogers when I was little was the duck-billed platypus family, so I was disappointed to find out that I can't draw one to save my life. I can't draw a beaver either, but Ellen really wanted her 15 minutes of fame.


Ellen is a beaver, but she lives in Australia among the platypus (platypi?) and wears a duck bill mask a lot of the time because she is self conscious about her tiny nose. The platypuses that she knows are actually very kind about it (they are well known for being an accepting species), but she just feels more comfortable with the mask, even though it makes it hard for her to eat. Ellen introduced her platypus friends to the beaver lodge, and they liked it so much that she makes her living chewing down trees and building lodges for them. In her free time she is in a band, in which she plays the clarinet, because percussion was already taken by a very talented platypus. Sometimes she misses North America, because television shows and movies take so long to get to Australia that she can hardly talk to her friends back home for fear of them telling her what happens in the season finale of Chuck. On the other hand, she loves the weather and she's hoping to go see the famous opera house some time this summer.

Go check out the Flickr Group and Paper Sparrow!

---

P.S. - I just realized Monday's assignment is a beaver... whoops?



Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Day 15 and 16: Panda and Horse

I'm going to blame both my lateness and the lameness included herein on travelling 1800 miles in the last week, which has made my brain and everything else all full up of McDonald's french fries.


This is Lamont; he is not a superhero, but he wishes he were, so he drew an L on his chest with permanent marker, and he's thinking about getting it tattooed. He also paints his nails green, and he thinks if he were a superhero maybe his power could be Nuclear Nails, which would be something like glowing nails that can start fires or something. He is also morbidly obese, but that is okay for a panda, so mind your own business. He loves giant suckers because he can eat them all day (this one is watermelon flavored), but sometimes he gets panda hair in them, and that is no fun.


This is a rocking horse because I can't draw horses and even getting a horse face to not look like a dog was a big challenge, and hooves just seemed impossible right now. Because this is an inanimate object, it does not have a story, because I'm not crazy.

She does look like she knows something though, doesn't she?


Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Day 14: Elephant

Elephants are one of the few animals I can sketch without looking at a picture of one, though I messed up this guy's ear and had to go into Paint and fix it, which probably counts as cheating, but luckily I don't care.


This is Brian, and he is a four year old elephant and he just got a new blanket and is doing a little dance about it. It looks like he's walking, but he's actually dancing, it's just that elephants aren't very good dancers, since they're so ponderous. He also has a hat, as you can see, which makes him just about the fanciest elephant in town, not counting circus elephants, which only come through town every now and then and so don't count. He found the hat hanging on a pole outside a person's house and it fit on his head, so he took it, because he's still a little too young to understand stealing or how it is bad. He also has a little plastic pipe that blows bubbles (not pictured), and he is looking forward to getting home and blowing bubbles around his yard while wearing both the hat and the blanket. When Brian grows up he wants to move to Montana, because he likes mountains and he heard they have a very big sky there and he wants to know what that means.

I am on the road once again this week, so I will try to schedule some animal doodles to post while I'm gone, but if not you'll get a panda and a horse (eek!) when I get back to Nashville. In the meantime, check out the Flickr group and Paper Sparrow!


Monday, June 13, 2011

Day 13: Sea Lion

I don't actually know the difference between a seal and a sea lion, and no amount of Google image search could really help me, and I looked at the Wikipedia articles and was like "I ain't reading all that," so I didn't, but here is Len anyway.


Len's full name is Leonardo Da Vinci Jones, but he goes by Len, because he's unpretentious like that. He lives in California, and he likes watching the surfers and the sunbathers and sometimes he yells out to them, but they can't understand him because he only speaks Sea Lion. Still, he shares their ice cream cones, and his favorite flavor is pistachio. You might not be able to tell, because I suck at drawing backgrounds, but he's enjoying a beautiful sunset on the dunes, and he's saving up for a dune buggy, which he will ride around to all of his favorite beaches and maybe sell bottles of water or icey pops to make extra money, but mostly to get to hang out with the people at the beach. Len is also a surprisingly good singer and he thinks that he could sell more icey pops if he makes up some songs about them, so he working on that this summer, along with growing a mustache.


Don't forget about the Flickr Group and Paper Sparrow!


Sunday, June 12, 2011

Day 12: Jimmy James, Macho Business Donkey Wrestler!

I really, honestly can't even hear the word "donkey" without thinking of that episode of News Radio. I don't know if you can read it, but Cyril here is saying "Feel my skills, donkey, donkey, donkey, donkey!"

Cyril doesn't even want to say that, but it's a part of his job. Cyril is a sideshow donkey, mostly because he has green fur, which came about because of a chemical spill in his area when he was just a baby donkey (colt? foal?), which tragically killed many of the chemical plant donkeys, but only turned Cyril green, because he lived downriver and likes to go swimming. Cyril sees that spill as a blessing because it closed the plant, so he never had to work there, and it made him a pretty color and got him a job traveling with the circus. On the other hand, he really hates the circus because all the other sideshow animals are mean to him, and he doesn't even know why. He really wishes he could be a swimmer in the Olympics or maybe a pack donkey that helps people get to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. He heard that they only take burros for that job, but he thinks that a donkey is pretty much the same thing, and he is learning Spanish just in case.

Don't forget about the Flickr Group and Paper Sparrow!


Saturday, June 11, 2011

Day 11: Whales and a vocabulary lesson

Today's word of the day: symbiotic! As in, whales and remora (remoras? remorai?) have a symbiotic relationship. Don't you love it when the example sentence doesn't help you at all? Maybe a picture will assist us:


This is Lurleen the Baleen Whale and her best friend, Jeremy the remora. Jeremy attaches himself to Lurleen and lets Lurleen carry him around sometimes. Technically, that's called a "phoresic" relationship, but Lurleen and Jeremy are closer than that, because sometimes he gets her milkshakes from McDonald's and sometimes she scratches his fins for him and in a lot of ways they are very close and would probably get married if they were from the same religion, but they are not, and Lurleen's parents are very strict. Lurleen is in school for information technology, and in a year or so she hopes she can move out on her own and she wants a loft-style apartment where she can float around with really high ceilings.


Friday, June 10, 2011

Day 10: Killer Giraffe

How many of us are surprised that it took me nine whole days to draw one of these animals as a psycho killer? I really held out because I think the giraffe is the most deadly of the animals. Also, they have the same number of neck bones as humans! Fun fact!


This is Victoria. The tooth is an implant that she got put in on her 10th birthday because she found that when she was biting people it wasn't drawing as much blood as she would like. She doesn't eat people, she just bites them and them laughs at them because they're bleeding. She got kicked out of the zoo for being anti-social and ejected from the circus for, well, biting people. So, now she just travels the country like a hobo and occasionally biting folks for fun. In addition to torture and murder, Victoria likes cream of celery soup, basketball and the rumba.

Don't forget to check out the drawings of sane people at Flickr and Paper Sparrow!

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Day 9: Lions are Bada$$

Do you like how I used the dollar signs to protect your delicate sensibilities? You're welcome.


This young man's name is Kevin, but he likes to be called K-Dog, because he thinks he's tough. He loves his tattoos ("They're tribal!"), so he keeps his arms shaved all the time to show them off. He also put red streaks in his hair with Manic Panic, and his mom is totally pissed about it, but he doesn't live in her den anymore, so she can't do anything about it. He has always gotten compliments on his blue eyes, but it makes him wonder if maybe he's adopted, or half husky or something, because lions don't usually have blue eyes. He likes to listen to Andrew W.K., Odd Future, and Beyonce, because she's hot, and his favorite dessert is a chocolate souffle if it's done well and otherwise Oreo cookies.


See more drawrings:




Monday, June 6, 2011

Day 7: Sheep is singular AND plural! and Day 8: HEDGEHOG!

Since I'll be in the car for the next two days, here are your Daily Animal Doodles early!

Day 7
Somehow I thought one sheep would be too easy for what I've taken this challenge to be this month, and a herd of sheep would be more fun:


These little dudes are still waiting to be sheared, and wondering why Emelda got taken care of two days ago already and they're still laying around in a big heap, too heavy to move. They are pretty happy anyway, though, because they got dyed last week, because at this farm they dye the sheep and then shear them, instead of dying the wool or the yarn or the cloth. It's very revolutionary, and it makes the sheep happy, because everybody likes to be colorful and pretty. Their names are Jim, Jack, Jerome, Kallie, Karen, Krista, Bobby, Bobbie, Belinda and Kostoglotov (he's the one that's upside down).

Day 8
The hedgehog is one of my favorite animals, and not only because one of my best friends is a Hedgehog.


Her name is Lisa, and she is fiercely loyal, dangerously smart, and looks smashing in a tutu (probably). She knows all kinds of things about sociology, and can use words like "cultural capital" and "structural functionalism" in a sentence, without even sounding like a total asshole. She has smart opinions about important things, and if you cross her she'll scratch your eyes out with those little sharp claws, but if you're respectful she'll give you a little nuzzle. She likes home improvement projects, Isabel Allende novels, helping others and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

If you like these, don't forget to go over to Paper Sparrow and Flickr!

Day 6: Kangaroo

This kangaroo is a superhero, but this is a picture of his secret identity, Bernard:



He doesn't have to wear glasses like Superman or Spiderman or anything, because he's a kangaroo, so who would suspect that he's a superhero? Have you ever seen a kangaroo try to move slowly? It's painful to watch. They're not really made for leisurely strolls, so no one is suspicious when he jumps at super speed to the rescue. He does have to pretend to be interested in football though, and he's even in a fantasy league. His team name is "The American Football Champions," because he couldn't think of a good pun, since he doesn't actually know anything about football. Anyway, he's smiling a little bit here, because he's on his way to save a bunny rabbit that is being held prisoner by his nemesis, Captain Evil, and he just likes knowing he's going to get to lord it over the rabbit, who thinks he's a really good jumper, but has nothing on a kangaroo.

Don't forget to check out Paper Sparrow and the Flickr for more animal doodles!

On another note, have any of you ever checked out the search terms that lead to your blog? It's a frightening undertaking. It seems that the thing I'm most famous for is that one time I talked about the earwig in our bathroom... sorry everyone who searched for that, I don't think I had any advice besides "get your husband to stomp on it for you." The second thing I noticed is that it seems like some people just type whatever they're thinking into Google, like "Your [sic] grinding your teeth it's so discusting [sic] I can't never sleep." Was your computer grinding its teeth? Were you only interested in articles on tooth-grinding that contained this exact complaint? Or is there some kind of artificial intelligence out there that I have completely missed? The third thing I found was by far the most disturbing, and almost caused me to shut down my blog entirely. This phrase: "How do I get my sister to sleep with me?" led to my blog. Just in case the same (or another) person ends up back here because now I've typed that exact sentence, here is my advice:

You don't. Shut up. Please leave the internet immediately before we have to get the bouncer out here. Gak. Wait, before you go, please tell me you don't actually have a sister, and then show me proof of the intensive therapy you're about to undergo and then you can leave.



Sunday, June 5, 2011

Is mohair made of llama?

I know, it's the kind of thing I could totally Google, but I guess I just don't care enough. Minions! To the Internet!

Anyway, here is my Llama for Saturday:


Her name is Emelda Burkis, and she has just been shorn for summer, her wool made into sweaters, possibly of mohair, possibly not. Either way, it is still a little cool in the mornings in Montreal, where she lives, so she bought one of her own sweaters. Orange and green are her favorite colors. Her friend Nathaniel is sitting on her back. He is a bluebird, but he thinks he's a llama too, and he's wondering how long it will be until they come back to steal his wool.

For Sunday, June 5th, the assignment was "orangutan." Man, do I suck at orangutans. Monkeys are one thing... you can give them big pitcher ears and fat lips and maybe even a tuxedo, and you're done. Everyone knows it's a monkey, they're not stupid. An orangutan, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have any ears, if Google image search is to be trusted. The babies look just like our babies, if our babies were slightly deformed by some kind of post-apocalyptic fallout. I kind of wanted to draw one of them, but kept failing, and then I wanted to draw a fat old one squatting down, but it kept looking more like a person in a gorilla suit than anything else. Anyway, this young lady finally showed her face:


Her name is Crissi, and she is a cheerleader for the Warren County College Bears, which is a community college she attends, where she majors in fashion design and actually started the cheerleading squad because before her their Division III wrestling team had no one at all to jump up and down on the sidelines saying things that rhyme. She writes a lot of the cheers too, but she is shy, and self-conscious about her enormous guns, so she has never expanded the cheerleading beyond wrestling, where her boyfriend Brent is the captain.

Don't forget to check out the one and only original Paper Sparrow for the genesis of this whole idea, as well as Flickr for the contributions of many more talented artists than me (like that's hard).


Friday, June 3, 2011

Narwhal-pig

Day 2 of the animal-a-day challenge is a pig:


This is George, and he is a magical uni-pig, though he prefers to be called a Narwhal-pig, because he is real and not imaginary, like a unicorn. The main magic he can do is shoot stars from his horn, though he used to be able to fly before he got so fat that he can't even stand up on his tiny legs. Next week he's being shown at the State Fair, and the week after that he will be magical bacon.

As a bonus, you also get a warthog, because I like them better than pigs because they're good at fighting:


Lucy's not that into fighting though, because she is lavender, and a pacifist. Though she does like to work out, which is why she has rockin' pecs. Lucy is a vegan, whose favorite board game is anything by Milton Bradley, because he is also her favorite baseball player, even though he is most definitely not a pacifist. She just loves the bad boys.

You can see everyone else doing this here, on Flickr.


Thursday, June 2, 2011

Animal-a-Day, a day late

So, I mentioned already that Paper Sparrow is doing a "Daily Animal Doodles" Project, and I did the bear, but already mailed it off. Well, here is my fox, so I'm in only a day late:


His name is Chester, and he has a little sunburn because he forgot his umbrella yesterday. He is in high school and all the other boys make fun of him for his sensitive skin, which makes him a little prickly. I was going to make it raining toasters, but it turns out I'm not very good at toasters. Actually, I'm not very good at foxes either, but on the third try I think he looks at least a little like a fox. And the umbrella is downright umbrella-y, if I do say so myself.

Up next: PIG!


Pictures I'm not showing you

Yesterday Houseboy and I went to the DMV and got our new driver's licenses, officially becoming... ugh... Tennesseans (no offense). On the way over there we engaged in what he called "urban anthropology," as we drove through downtown. Have you ever noticed that it's the same people who work in every downtown in America? There are about 100 times as many of them in Chicago as in Nashville, and the proportion of heavy-set black ladies with too many bags to young white men in suits and mirrored sunglasses seems to be smaller in DC and larger in the south, but overall you can always pick out the types.

Anyway, I would totally show you my driver's license picture, because it's actually not half bad (particularly when compared to Houseboy's, which makes him look like a serial killer), but I don't feel like scanning it in or whatever it is the kids are doing these days. Likewise, I actually did day 1 of this challenge, and drew a morbidly obese superhero bear, but I already mailed it off to a friend, so you don't get to see that either.

So... thanks for reading a bunch of words with no pictures, I guess?