I'm getting excited about shopping for ceiling-fan pull chains and Swiffers. Something is definitely very wrong here.

I got to thinking earlier today -- apropos of the recent flap with Mr. Fanboy Twatwaffle of 2007, and (far worse) the idiot who taunted dgkgoldberg in the comments of her final agonizing, caustic, funny, terrified, brave journal entries written while she was dying of cancer -- about how there's always some shitheel circling in the water ready to strike if you bleed the least little bit. Strangely often, it comes in the form of aggressive "advice" from someone who knows you only slightly or not at all and would have no right to give you advice even if it was offered kindly. I already knew this was true of depression. Back in the mid-eighties, after my first few stories were published in The Horror Show, I received four or five reader letters and corresponded to varying degrees with the people who'd sent them. One was a punk-rock kid whose enthusiasm exceeded his articulacy, but who was funny and nice until I sent him a slightly depressed letter. It probably was annoyingly angsty, but my pen pal's response -- along the lines of, "I've got no pity for that kind of shit! Get yourself together and quit whining, lots of people are starving in China!" (why do they always trot out those poor folks starving in China?) -- seemed way out of proportion to the offense, and we never corresponded again.

Anyway, I thought about how some people seem to be so infuriated by the concept of human frailty that even other people's physical weaknesses turn them mean, and I realized that when I thought about it that way, I could kinda understand it. I wouldn't abuse a stranger for being sick or injured, but I'd make the world's most terrible nurse. Chris claims that when he had hernia surgery several years ago, I brought him home, dumped him into bed, immediately popped a couple of his pain pills, and had to be shaken awake, grumbling, a few hours later to make him soup and toast. I don't know if I was quite that bad, but I know I wasn't good. That led to my thinking about how I'd just as soon not have a body at all except for the few undeniable pleasures it provides, and since I bought a new sketchbook today since I have to draw a cover for the H.O.G. Syndrome chapbook, that led to this:

( My Ideal Self (Possibly Not Work-Safe) )

Note the lack of hair, spine, boobs, or any other troublesome bits. I've got a brain, eyes to read with, a digestive system so I can enjoy eating, cassowary legs, and a few other parts whose use will be obvious. Because I am not a furry, "otherkin," or what have you, I didn't add fanciful bits like wings, cat ears, a tail, etc., but you could if you liked. Apart from the impossible engineering, I think this is a fine design for a human.