100!!

Today is the one-hundredth post of Happy Now? cartoons. You'd think I'd have run out of ideas (some will say I did) but you'd also think the drawing would be better by now... The only thing seems to be that I am faster. Really, more efficient as I've done this enough that I know what order to do things in and what mistakes to avoid (since I've already made them over and over and over...).

There are a couple times it's seemed a burden, but mostly I look forward to drawing them; to coming up with an idea.

Meanwhile, the bookstore business is busy. Much of it is fun, some of it is disheartening (some people feel the holidays are a time for them to be waited upon, maybe even a passive-aggressive selfishness; "I deserve to have someone pick up after me, it's the holidays!"). The schedule is a wreck. Part of that is our attrition rate, some of that is I didn't hire enough people. Probably will cost me my job.

Mostly it's exhausting. Hard to find time to sit down for a minute let alone eat something. Last night I got off at 1 am and took the Owl home. That's the bus that "follows" the train route (the night before I was the only one on the train!). However, the bus took an unexpected turn and I ended up in the Haight at 1:30 in the morning. I walked home, taking the shortest route, but I got a little lost.

I've lived in this neighborhood for almost 20 years, but late at night, on the uphill side where the streets weave around the hill, I didn't recognize where I was. That was an odd feeling.

The air was brisk and felt good (I was pretty heated up by 10 hours of work work work) and the moon poked out of the clouds from time to time, and the city shimmered from the hill side.

It was so good to see a block I recognized, to step up the curb to my block, my front door; home.