The List #4: Start a Webcomic

At the start of 2015, I was working part-time at a library in southern Kansas City. At the time, my job was to sort and shelve materials. I was also working part-time staring at spreadsheets in an insurance office. I would spend the first part of the day at the insurance office, where I would listen to audiobooks and not talk to anyone. Then, I would go to the library and hang out in the stacks, shelving books, and only occasionally talking to anyone. I couldn't listen to anything while I was shelving so, instead, I just did a lot of imagining. One night, I imagined a ghost.

My imaginary ghost hung out in the 800s and 900s because that's where ghosts belong, LBR. Poetry anthologies and history books are total fodder for ghosts.

Around the same time, one of my coworkers at the library was trying to badger me into writing a comic strip for him. It was one of those kind of lame deals people are always offering to small-time artists/writers/musicians where your only payment is "exposure." I was trying to find meaning in my situation, though, and every moment I was thinking, "Surely this is all happening for a reason," so I thought, "Yeah, why not? Maybe that's the reason," and I wrote twelve strips of a comic.

Several months later, I decided that I would use the comic strip myself and start up a webcomic. I worked super hard to get one put together. I did art and formatting for the twelve strips I wrote, I started writing another several and working on artwork for those, and then I promptly ran out of steam.

For the past year and a half, I've had the twelve strips I finished queued up to be released on a blog, but I knew that if I started publishing them, I'd run out and not have anything to continue with, unless I put forth ALL that effort again.

Still, I liked the idea of having a webcomic. My brother created one. (You can check his out here if you want.) And I had done a lot of work to start one. So, I put it on my list.

I think, idealistically, when I wrote "start a webcomic" on my 2016 list, I imagined it looking like Brenna and Jones which was the one I started working on back in 2015. But I never really felt compelled to go back to working on it. So, instead, I considered a few different options.Whatever it would be, it would be good.

I would come up with an idea, try it out, and then stop before anything came to fruition. Then, I decided, what if I didn't worry about making it good, and instead I just made it something. I could try and tell funny anecdotes with quick punchlines in just a few panels. There wouldn't need to be an overarching story line. Rather than stressing myself out over clean lines and digital framing, I could do quick chicken scratch ink-drawn cartoons in a sketch book. Then, I could just take a picture and post it on instagram. My list said start a webcomic. It did not say "start a good, or even halfway decent, webcomic." 

Besides, maybe there could be some charm to chicken scratch.

So, a few weeks ago, I sketched a webcomic and posted it. I called it "Incompetent Kat." This is it:

...The not so semi-autobiographical bit is where my pet rabbit (Eleanor) sasses me with actual human language. In reality, she just looks at me suspiciously, tries to steal things, runs away, and thumps.

The next day, I posted another. Then, the next day, I posted another. All about me, being generally nervous and incompetent, and my rabbit, being rude and snarky.

After I'd been posting them for a week and a half (right now the goal is to post one every weekday), I started to worry I'd run out of material. But as it turns out, it's not too hard to think about jokes about my incompetence while I'm floundering through life. If you want to follow my webcomic, for now at least, you'll have to follow me on instagram.

Oh, also: I've also decided that, since I made the first twelve strips of Brenna & Jones, I'll go ahead and post them. One every Sunday until all 12 are posted. But that will probably be it. This is the first strip:

The List #3: Move Out of the Parents' House

The decision to move back in with my parents after the lease was up on my last apartment was a pragmatic one. I was tired of working two part-time jobs. I was almost twenty-five and I was ready for a career. (Ew, gross, I know, right?) So, I opted to move back into my parents' house, quit one of my two jobs, focus on my other job--expanding my training, knowledge and experience there--and apply for full-time positions as they arose. By living with my parents, I would be able to accept positions without being tied to a lease and a location.

My lease at my apartment was up in May and, in June, I was offered a full-time position in a town between 30 and 40 minutes from my parents' house. My plan, then, became to live with my parents for a bit, save a little, and then move closer to work. Six months later, I was twenty-five, still in my parents' house, and sharing a room with my rabbit, Eleanor, and way too much stuff. Most of my belongings were in boxes, piled in our garage, made inaccessible by other storage. I'm pretty introverted, and also terrible, so living with people and exchanging pleasantries started grating on me and I found myself transforming into that most loathsome version of myself who glowers whenever people greet her and actually gets annoyed when people ask how she's doing. I tell people a lot that it's hard for people to like me if they live with me, but the truth is: it's hard for me to like me when I live with other people. Someone will cheerily greet me as I walk in the door and the monster inside me will roar about never getting a second to herself and the rest of me will spend the remainder of the day chiding myself for being such an insufferable bitch.

So I decided that I needed to move out, and I put it on my 2017 list as an attempt to really ensure that it would happen.

And it did!

Towards the end of February, I was finding myself particularly deplorable, and I decided that it was time. I asked my dad if he wanted to help me look at apartments on Presidents' Day (because, no work, yay government holidays) and he agreed.

Asking my dad to apartment hunt with me was a stroke of brilliance on my part because as soon as my dad knew what areas I was looking into and what my price range was, he started researching for me. He compiled a list of a dozen or so apartment complexes, their addresses, their listed rent, and any listed pet deposits/fees. This was convenient because my fantasy self does this sort of research and is thorough and reasonable in her decision making, but my actual self just keeps rereading chapter 39 of The Raven King and posting selfies on Instagram.

On the morning of February 20th, though, I called the apartments complexes that sounded best and set up appointments. Then, we headed off. That day, my father, brother, and I looked at four or five apartments. We ate at 54th Street Grill (Thanks again, Dad! Seriously, people, bring your fathers with you when you're looking for apartments. Dads are the best.) Then, we headed back to my parents' house.

There were two apartments that I was considering. They were, of course, the first two we looked at. The first one would definitely let me take my rabbit with me, but there was a $300 non-refundable pet deposit and a $10/m pet rent. The second one needed to think about whether or not they would let me bring my rabbit as they didn't allow cats or dogs.

The second place called me back. They wouldn't let me bring Eleanor. So the decision was made for me. (Although, they did say I could get rid of my rabbit and then live there and that would be cool for them. But, like, sorry guys, I cannot even fathom how good of a deal something would have to be for me abandon this rabbit I agreed to be responsible for. I mean, don't get me wrong, she's a terror who bites my butt whenever I clean her cage and tries to eat ALL OF MY BELONGINGS and refuses to go back into her cage but I LOVE her.)

That week, I had Friday off because I worked on Saturday. So, on Friday, I called and asked if the first apartment I saw was still available. It wasn't. But, they said there was another comparable apartment that would be available later in March. "Okay," I said, "Can I go ahead and bring by an application?" They agreed, and so I did.

"We'll process your application and run a background check on Monday, so you'll probably hear back from us on Tuesday," they said.

So, then I waited. And at the tail end of February, they called me and told me my application was accepted. They also informed me that the people who had an application on the first apartment I saw had not been approved. So, I could have it, if I wanted. And I did! I moved that weekend.

The last time I moved, it was a little bit terrible. I'm awful at asking people to help me with anything, so, I didn't. I had a roommate that I was going to move in with, but he had to work during our move in day, so the only person I had to help me was my father. (Still, we loaded the truck and unloaded it in just two hours. We're awesome.) Then, later, we had to move my roommate! It was exhausting. Leading up to our move in day was stressful trying to coordinate with my roommate. The day itself was hot, muggy, and it kept raining. By the end of the day, I was sick.

This time, I had my parents and a whole host of friends agree to help me out. (Thanks, guys!)

On Tuesday, I found out I would get the apartment. On Friday, I picked up the keys and my parents brought by some of my things. On Saturday, my friends helped me load up all of our cars and then unload them at my new place. One of my friends even hung out for another few hours helping me unpack things. (I still have more unpacking to do, but a lot of it is done thanks to my friend.) Since that was all a whirlwind, I didn't move myself there right away. Eleanor and I stayed with my parents until Wednesday of last week when I finally loaded her up, packed up my bedding, and finally stayed there over night.

Since then, I've been unpacking slowly. (Although, Eleanor has been trying to encourage me to unpack faster by attempting to climb into, toss around, and/or eat anything that isn't put away.)

I wanted to hold off on writing this blogpost until everything was done and lovely and pretty so you could see pictures of my (admittedly kitschy) decor and neatly organized bookshelves. But as this past week and a half has progressed, I've been confronted with the reality that doing things, in general, is slow and time consuming. Someday, hopefully before the end of the month, I'll get everything organized and put away and I might even write up a blogpost so you can see it. Until then, I'll be tearing through boxes, looking for things, and feeling a little bit like Rory Gilmore in A Year In The Life (except... with a job and an apartment and access to my underwear and... you know what, nothing like Rory Gilmore in A Year In The Life, I guess.)

For now, there's a sort of chaotic charm to this half-boxed life. My kitchen isn't properly stocked. As a result, I had Oreos (left over from a party this past weekend) for breakfast for three days in a row. I drank milk the day after it expired (maybe not a huge deal for most of us but certainly something I wouldn't knowingly do in other circumstances). I burned the first pizza I tried to bake but, rather than throwing it away, just reconciled myself to eating ash-flavored pizza. I ate three fork-fulls of cold, week and half old, Chinese leftovers for dinner last night.

Every morning, I sit on the living room floor and get ready for the day, allowing Eleanor to get out of her cage, explore, and play. Then, she gives me a headache as I try to wrangle her back into her cage.

 It's nice though, to have a place that's all my own.