Tag Archives: eating

Winter Garden Mandala

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Mmm…Christmas Cabbage

You know that documentary where the guy eats nothing but McDonald’s for 30 days? I’m doing a similar experiment, except with gingerbread and it’s only day 4 and my liver is probably ready to be foie gras at this point. Actually, I hid the last bit of gingerbread in the freezer, but as fans of the popular early reading series Frog and Toad are well aware, that isn’t likely to keep me from eating gingerbread. We gave away 3/4 of the gingerbread, and there is still gingerbread.

There’s a reason I only do this once a year.

It is very artistic gingerbread. We use cookie cutters for the shapes, and then we frost them with buttercream icing in every color of the rainbow and then we add candy, sprinkle, nonpareils, colored sugar, marshmallow, what have you. Every cookie is unique. Also,  eating one cookie is kind of like eating a small cake. We went to 2 holiday parties over the weekend and I didn’t sample anyone else’s cookies. Because I was too busy eating my cookies.

Might have to go sugar-free for a couple months next year.

Just Because We’re Inhuman Doesn’t Mean We Have to Be Inhumane

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Technically speaking, knight errant must be free-range by definition. 

Back when I was single, after the invention of the internet, but before newspapers seemed completely obsolete, I placed a personal ad in the local alternative rag, which included an anonymous voice mailbox where my suitors might woo me by recording spoken word messages, to be retrieved at my leisure. I ended up dating the glibbest of these guys for a year, and still talk to him occasionally, but most of the wooers failed to wow me with their woo. One of them failed really spectacularly.

His message began by saying that he was a vegetarian, which was actually fine with me. At the time, I was a vegetarian, too. But this guy was very passionate about his vegetarianism, to the point that his entire message was about how important it was to him that he never find himself in the vicinity of meat, and how disgusting meat was, and how he could never date someone who ate meat because the smell of it, the idea of it upon his lover’s lips, was overwhelmingly vile. He spent so long complaining about his distaste for meat and meat-eaters that the voice message cut him off in the middle of the sentence. Undeterred, he called back and continued his tirade for several minutes more.

Needless to say, he did not get the callback.

As to this comic, I just keep thinking of Temple Grandin saying, “Nature is cruel, but we don’t have to be.”

If I felt better I would have taken the shading further (like, but making the tower look cylindrical instead of 2-dimensional) but you can see I tried. I really tried.

 

The Garden Fairy

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I’ll eat all this really healthy food tomorrow.

Of course, I always eat all my vegetables, so this isn’t me. But there really is a garden fairy. She lives next door; if you follow me on social media, you may have seen her obscenely large cabbages and cauliflowers. Not only does she bring me free food, she lets me play with her dogs, and takes care of my cat when I’m out of town, and also brings me stuff from her job. She’s pretty much the best neighbor a person could possibly have.

If you’ve never seen the video clip of the woman who only eats cheesy potatoes, you should Google “woman who only eats cheesy potatoes.” It’s astonishing, but apparently this woman only eats cheesy potatoes. Nothing else. Not steak, not apples, not pizza, not cheesy poofs. Just cheesy potatoes. To each their own, I suppose, but personally a potato-cheese combination is something I’d only want to eat a couple times a year. The Man and I like to joke about it, but I feel sorry for overly picky people, because they are missing out on all the delicious other things there are to eat.

Well, the garden fairy came over today and brought me beets, celery, greens, and fava beans, but I had already planned to make eggplant, mushrooms, and asparagus. Maybe tomorrow.

Dragon Comics: Guest Comic 1!

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I'm so tired I can't tell if this looks right.

I’m so tired I can’t tell if this looks right.

A couple months back, the Fox asked if I was interested in fan art of my comic. Oh, my goodness! Who wouldn’t be? He said it was OK to save his drawing for a day when I just couldn’t get a comic out, and this seems to be that day. I have a massive headache, I’ve hardly slept all weekend, and I’m so tired I can barely thing, so here it is: Fox Comics!

The Fox is a rather talented writer and artist. He certainly has the “bizarre realities that can only exist in comics” down to an art. There’s a little joke between us here, as he is of the opinion that if it tastes good, you should eat it, while I have been largely sugar and gluten free for about 5 years. I’m not saying that I never have a piece of cake, but generally I eschew carbs in general, and flour and processed sweeteners most particularly. I just feel better that way. So, although we are very good friends with many things in common, his “Eat all the things!” attitude clashes with my “At least 80% healthy” diet.

I love the drunk-looking cupcakes, the flying pie, and whatever is going on between the tiered cake and the fork. Green Jello kind of freaks me out, though.

If you are on Furaffinity, you can see some more of his drawings here, but you have to register with the website to get at the content.

Most of this afternoon, I was concentrating on my first professional photography gig! The model was a bit shy at first but opened up and was soon enjoying herself. We were shooting for about 3 hours, including some short breaks. Originally, we had planned to use a my friend’s swanky house in the suburbs for half the shoot, and then hike a bit into Saguaro Park West for the second half, but we ended up getting so into it that we never left the house. I think the client is going to be very happy with the results.

Dragon Comics 43

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HAPPY THANKSGIVING CATS AND KITTENS!

Only in America could we transform a celebration of gratitude for not starving to death into a celebration of Dionysian excess ushering in a month-long period of accelerated capitalism.

Only in America could we transform a celebration of gratitude for not starving to death into a celebration of Dionysian excess ushering in a month-long period of accelerated capitalism.

In brief: after 9/11, although I have never loved New York and didn’t know a single person there in 2001, I was one of those Americans who sort of lost their minds. For 3 days I did nothing but listen to NPR and freak out. I had to leave grad school in the middle of the semester to go home to my mom for a week. I was treated for PTSD. And then one day I woke up and said to myself, wait a second, I’m a fantasist. I can escape this world any time I like; I just need to go back to my novel.

We live in trying and complicated times. All QWERTYvsDvorak can offer is a moment of (hopefully) comedic escape. This is my first attempt at a purely visual gag. This Thanksgiving, I will offering gratitude for myriad blessings, and remembering those less fortunate and those whose lives, by a trick of fate, are so much more difficult than mine.

QWERTYvsDvorak will be taking the week off to enjoy time with family and recover from whatever bacteria has settled in my lungs. Comics and updates resume Wednesday, December 3rd. Be good to one another, people. We’re all we have, really.

Dragon Comics 13

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Number 13: I’m feeling pretty lucky right now!

In reality, Fox explains that he can eat no more than 1 entire pizza pie and drink no more than 1 gallon of milk. This is purely comic exaggeration.

In reality, Fox explains that he can eat no more than 1 entire pizza pie and drink no more than 1 gallon of milk. This is purely comic exaggeration.

This week Dragon is moving into a deeper realm. There’s a couple weeks’ worth of story arc outlined as Dragon begins to ask the deep, penetrating questions. These are the thoughts that have, in the past, held me back and prevented me from devoting as much time to visual arts, or from feeling as if my ability translated into anything worthy of the hours devoted to it.

In conclusion, look at Fox’s mouth in the last panel! Look at those tiny little teeth! Tee hee. This page is best viewed at 125% or greater magnification, so zoom in if you can’t see. If you enjoy the adventures in Dragon’s cave, please like and share these links.

What are you doing, Dragon? Part 5

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This is a webcomic.

This is a webcomic.

This concludes the 5-part story arc. I learned a lot this week, and the results are pretty heartening. One of the things I learned, though, is that I’m not quite ready to draw dailies, regardless of whether the world is ready to read them. Even in this very rough style, it still took me about 3 hours to do each of these pages. It’s just too much of a time commitment right now, although you haven’t seen the last of this Dragon. The next arc has already presented itself, and I may try some single-panel comics in the near future. However, I want to devote more energy to the graphic novel as well as to a couple new T-shirt designs. But, as silly as it sounds, what I’ve done here this week fulfills a dream I’ve had for a long time. I’ll come back to this. 

In case you’re missing mandalas, here is a special mandala for your Friday pleasure: 

And by special, I guess I mean that if this mandala was a kid, it would ride the short bus.

And by special, I guess I mean that if this mandala were a kid, it would ride the short bus.