Tag: LIFE

Updates from the Desk of a Brief Summer Break

Posted on June 22, 2024 by deepwatercomic

PSU has a bizarre schedule. Its not just the fact that someone decided that the academic calendar should have every federal and religious holiday known to mankind on it, because reasons (because even if we don’t have the day off, happy whatever? I guess?). But this fact makes finding the start and end dates to a quarter hellish to a person with focus issues- However the most unexplainable scheduling faux pas is the first week of summer break is also . . . finals week? Is that normal for other colleges?

Look all I’m saying is that is if I came up with this schedule I’d be fired. It feels like reading a diary I would have kept while un-medicated for anxiety. ANYWAY-

I start my summer courses on Monday. But I do have some pages that I’ll be posting weekly throughout the Summer. My hope is to do one page a week, if I find I have more time then I’ll start doing two pages.

Things are better, but I’m still just trying to keep maintaining a healthy body and mind. Lord knows I don’t want to pull a Whitney here- a bottle of wine and box of cheez-its are fine in moderation. But certainly not a replacement for actual therapy and working on yourself. Which I’m finding is more akin weeding a seasonal garden infested with bamboo and blackberry bushes then graduating from kindergarten(-one therapy session I’M CUUUURED!!). I’m away from some fragile family who I know I have limited time with. Other family is growing up so fast I’m missing out on milestones I’d like to be a part of. I miss my cat. My focus issues are colliding head-to-head with habits I’ve developed over years to survive and maintain crappy retail jobs and my impeccable customer service smile. I had major surgery after being sick for two years. And then I decided to go get a degree, so we moved from a place we loved. Just, you know, some stressors that people recommend that you don’t do one right after the other.

Also politics, but we won’t get into that here.

Other then the gif

But good things are happening as well. I’m excited for my summer courses, I spent a whole weekend visiting my family; and we spent the whole summer solstice with friends we hadn’t seen in forever.I’m plugging away at the comic, mulling over angles and dialogue. So, like most of life- its not all bad all the time

Updates from the desk of actual sorrow

Posted on April 16, 2024 by deepwatercomic

It really feels strange to feel like I have to apologize for being MIA on a blog and website I don’t think anyone (besides my husband) reads. So I’m not going to.

My paternal Grandmother died. She was a wonderful, faithful woman who loved her family fiercely and was a faithful Catholic who died peacefully in her sleep on the feast of Mary’s Solemnity- which I think she would have found incredibly fitting. It was a long haul with heart failure and just, well, old age. But I will always remember the blue house dresses she wore, the way her massive cross, scapular and medals would click together when I would hug her, the way the Jasmine and lemon trees in her backyard would smell. She would try to tell jokes, but would start giggling before she could even get through the first sentence, and no one could understand what she was trying to say- but her laughter was so infectious that we couldn’t help but laugh along. I do hope that with the march of time I don’t forget her French-Canadian accent when she would end every phone call or general conversation with “I’ll pray for you.” And she meant it. I like think Grandma had a direct phone line to the holy trinity, and was frequently discussing matters with Mother Mary. But she did miss my Grandpa very, very, much. And its my sincere hope is that he was there to hold her hand and lead her into the afterlife.

I sincerely want to thank my Aunts, Uncle, and cousins for taking such good care of her so she could spend her last days at home with loved ones. You couldn’t ask for better or more adoring care.

To make matters more complicated my dear cat, Loki, has a malignant tumor on his face. It was written off as a sinus issue during his yearly wellness exam, and developed into a horrible abscesses only a few months later. Thanks to a different vet and a lot of pain meds we have a few more weeks with him. He perked right up as soon as we put him on a schedule of gabapentin! Its like having him back to his (mostly) old self for a little while- Its just a matter of when, not if. Which SUCKS, it absolutely fucking SUCKS to have to make the decision of euthanasia. He was supposed to die in his sleep at twenty after gorging himself on all the tuna and goat cheese his tiny heart desired. But, my little trickster familiar will be at home with us when he goes and that is really, the best outcome in a situation like this.

So its right now after major surgery, with family death, pet sickness that I’m still going to school to complete my Bachelors. (I swear, if I don’t do things on hard mode- apparently they’re just not worth doing AT ALL.) I mean, obviously Deep Water has been pushed to the back burner- and its frankly, this uncomfortable place for it to be (for me at least). Its a story I had hoped would be done about a year ago. I would just hate to push through it right now and then look back and hate the end result, realize I could do better. Because it is my story, and it is worth telling. This isn’t a group project that has deadline or grade. So I’m going to take a few weeks off here, make sure I’m caught up on my school work and try to aim at posting near the end of May.

I hope to see you then. Until then, have a picture of my Familiar in better times. And tell a joke that you can’t finish because you’re laughing to hard in honor of my grandmother.