Too. Much. Caffeine.

No, I haven't forgotten I have a blog, promise.  I'm actually working on three different posts right now, and I'd be a lot more likely to get one up if I would focus on one at a time, but I'm A.D.D. so yeah, I don't want to do things the logical way.  At the moment, I'm totally hopped up on Caffeine, Slim Fast, and nicotine, however, so everything I draw is looking kinda like this:

Which is also kind of what I look like at the moment except that the combination of Caffeine, Slim Fast, and nicotine thus far hasn't actually made me sprout a sixth finger on one hand.  But it could.  Who knows?  Anywho, stay tuned, folks.  I swear I gots more material coming up some time in the future.  In the meantime, feel free to make jokes about how I basically told the web I can't get it up.  Heh.  Heh heh.

Failure to Launch...I'm Probably Going to Hell

So I spent a week in Orlando a while back with the hubs and Kato.  Actually, Katie met us down there on Thursday, so it wasn't really a full week with her there.  This deprived us of entertainment in the car.  Katie is afraid of tall things.  For the most part, this applies to smoke stacks, but the occasional water tower or bridge gets lumped in as well.

This generally leads to copious expletives, shrieking, and mass hysteria.  It provides me with laughs, however, so I'm willing to deal with the persistent THWAPS to the back of the head every time I crack up at her terror.  Sometimes, I attempt to divert her attention, but it usually doesn't work.

The irony to all this is that Katie came down to Orlando so we could all go to the shuttle launch.  I fail to see how on God's green Earth the woman isn't afraid of shuttles since they're pretty much smoke stacks with boosters, AND THEY FLY, but hey, I don't judge.  Unfortunately, the launch got scrubbed.  Most of the rest of the day went like this:

Kato was heartbroken and enraged.  She needed a pick-me-up, something completely ridiculous and comical to lift her spirits.  Spirits.  Spirit.  HOLY SPIRIT!  This is when I remembered that there's a theme park in Orlando called The Holy Land Experience.  That's right, folks, for the low low price of just $35 per adult, you can walk right on in and pose for a photo op with The Light of the World.  I know this because we googled the park, and there was a picture on the home page.

You should know that if you think this is comical, they've since replaced said picture with a video montage of the Faux-ly Christ with his hair blowing in the wind.  Kind of like this.

Anyway, after our initial howling with laughter, we perused the rest of the site.  We were sorely disappointed.  You pretty much just roam around and look at shoddy replicas of old stuff.  Where was the BAM, pizzazz, bad ass awesomeness that the park needed?  Why, if WE ran this theme park, Mickey would fall by the wayside.  If WE ran the park...

There'd be games!

Once you've got enough tickets, head on over to My Redeemer to cash them in for fabulous prizes.

Hungry?  Of course you are!  And we've got plenty of options to feed your stomach AND your soul!  Simply head to the food court for a nosh.

Now that you've eaten, it's time for the REAL fun to begin, and by real fun, I mean rides.  We've got loooooads of 'em here at Holywood, but here are our most beloved attractions.

Yes, that's right.  We combined cowboys and Christianity because, really, who doesn't want to get baptized by John Wayne the Baptist?  You know, Salvation at the OK Corral or something like that.  ANYWAY, after all that fun and excitement, I bet you're ready for some adult entertainment.  Yes, at Holywood, we don't judge.

What were you expecting?  Ankles is racy!  Feel free to slip a few dolla dolla bills to Merri Magdalene's melons because, at LeTITicus, all that money goes to charity.  We call it Jugs for Jesus... Okay, fine.  Maybe LeTITicus isn't really your scene.  I get it.  Maybe you'd rather spend your dolla dolla bills on something else.  HOW ABOUT SOME NIFTY USELESS SPIRITUAL SOUVENIRS??!?!?!  Pay a visit to Gift of the Magi Mega Mall and buy all kinds of shit awesome Christish giftage.

Have you spent oodles and oodles of cash yet?  Gooooooooood.  Because it's closing time, and the Faux-ly Christ is ready to go get his hair did, so if you'll please just exit through the gift shop...

But feel free to come back tomorrow.  We hope you enjoyed Holywood, and thank you for letting us be a part of your eternal salvation!

Bringing Up Baby: The Ultimate Guide to Parenting

My dear friend Caitlin is pregnant with her first child, and as a first time mommy, naturally, she's concerned about what kind of mother she will be.  Which is silly because she and Mack are going to be AWESOME parents.  But just in case she or any of my other soon-to-be-a-parent-friends had any questions about what you should and shouldn't do, I decided to help out by passing on my infinite wisdom regarding child rearing, years and years of knowledge gleaned from such credible sources as ...um...well...ya know what?  I don't have to reveal my sources.  Anyway, here ya have it, folks--the Foremost Utmost Awesomemost Guide to Not Fucking Your Kid Up For Life (Too Much).

Disclaimer: I know I sound really wise and shit right now.  I'm kind of like the Yoda of Babies.  However, who wants a short little green guy doling out parenting advice?!  Basically, what I'm saying is you probably shouldn't listen to me.  May the Force be with you.

How Mario Saved the Butterfly from the Evil Voldemort

The time has come where, no matter how awkward, I have to acknowledge the existence of someone who used to be a fixture in my life but is no more.  This friend and I used to be inseparable until we had a pretty ugly falling out, but it's kind of impossible to pretend we were never friends because we spent so much time together.  Basically, at some point, I HAVE to talk about her.  However, just in case I get really super famous, I've decided to protect her identity, so she's kind of in a She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named category.  Forevermore, I shall refer to this person as...Voldemort.

So yeah, one night, Voldemort and I were hanging out, bored, and it suddenly occurred to us (after a few reminders triggered by our channel surfing) that it was Halloween.  HOLY RUSTED SHIT!  I had almost missed my favorite holiday.  Naturally, we decided to get hoochied up and go to the bar, so I hacked off the bottom of an old prom dress, Voldemort borrowed a witch costume, and I stopped off at K Mart to buy some lame cheap wings and antennae.  Voldemort the Witch and Flutterby the Butterfly were off to get tanked.

Apparently, I had chopped off a lot more of the bottom of my old prom dress than I thought, or maybe men in their early twenties are particularly attracted to women with antennae.  Maybe I was just infinitely hotter than Voldemort on that particular evening.  Whatever the reason, strangers kept buying me shots of Jager.  Now I TRULY HATE Jagermeister, and it hates me right back, but I was a broke ass college kid who had just ruined her prom dress for the sake of drunkenness, so I wasn't about to turn down freebies.

I told Voldemort that I was going to die, that she could have my stereo and my 1988 Paula Abdul Forever Your Girl CD, and that I needed her to close her tab and take me home immediately so I could tell my mother goodbye.  She walked me outside to sit on the curb and vomit out my soul then went inside to close up.  There I was, a shivering, sad, pathetic little butterfly with no jacket because butterflies don't wear trench coats, freezing my ass off and throwing up every 14 seconds.  I was also paranoid.  See, there are these inconvenient laws about being drunk in public, as I so obviously was, and my hoarking was unfortunately being monitored.

I was scared shitless.  These guys were seriously on the war path because I was ralphing on Broadway.  Luckily enough for me, a fight broke out, and the cops had to go break it up, so I didn't get locked up in a dungeon forever with a dragon.  I like to think that the bleeding guy with the fucked up nose took one for the team just to protect me.  Such a gentleman.  Thank you, bleeding guy.  Thank you.  Anyway, I sat there throwing up and freezing and throwing up.  Then it dawned on me.  

After asking one of the random fight spectators what time it was, I realized that I had been sitting outside by myself for 45 minutes.  WHERE THE FUCK WAS THE DARK LORD?!  I mustered up all my strength, vomited again, re-mustered, then staggered inside to find Voldemort. 

After spending almost an hour vomiting in front of cops, the last thing I was expecting to see Voldemort doing when I came in was making pelvic thrusts all up on my friend's boyfriend, who she had pinned, defenseless, against the wall.  He was terrified.  Relief washed over his face when he saw me.  Well, until he saw the look on my face, that is.  I tried to remain calm.

At this point, a dim little spark went off in Voldemort's dim little brain.

I was out of patience.  I stalked toward the door, plotting murder and destruction, and Voldemort followed close behind.  As soon as we made it outside, all hell broke loose.  Apparently, butterflies and witches don't often interact socially because a pretty large crowd gathered rather quickly to listen to the cat fight.  Now, if you've read my blog AT ALL, you know I have no aversion to profanity.  Hell, if you read this sentence, you know it.  The fact that I won't disclose what was said during this cat fight is a sign of how oooooogly our argument was.  If *I* won't repeat the language used in that argument, you KNOW it was gruesome!  Let's just say that, in my mind, I had snatched off her leg and was beating her face with one of her thighs.  Actually, that sounds fun to draw.  Here you go.

Aaaaanyway, incapable of giving any rational reason why she would leave her friend freezing and sick on the sidewalk for 45 minutes to grind on her other friend's man, Voldemort called me a selfish bitch and marched off into the night.  Fuck her.  I stood there for a moment, fuming and muttering to myself like a crazy person, then it dawned on me that my cash, cell, and ID were in Voldemort's purse, so I now had no ride home, no cell phone to call for a ride, no money to pay for a cab, and I was drunk in public so I was too afraid to even ask a cop to take me home.  I was screwed.  Until my hero showed up.

Okay, so maybe he didn't warp through a pipe, but nonetheless, there was Ethan, and he had heard the whole thing, and he was offering me a ride home.  In that moment, I had never loved another human being on the entirety of the earth as much as I loved Mario.  We got in the car, and I immediately resumed my incoherent drunken ranting while Ethan attempted to not laugh aloud at my idiocy.  

I wasn't making ANY sense.  Ethan, probably in an attempt to shut me the fuck up, tried to console me.  

The last thing I remember from that night is almost choking myself to death because I tried to get out of the car without removing my seat belt.  I now understand why butterflies are diurnal.