Spare the Child

It was a tumultuous week of strong emotions.  I'm here typing, having just finished a whirlwind reading of Asterix and Son, and before that the final chapter of Are You My Mother.  My mind is swirling with the thought of continually disappointing a boy whose life I find it difficult to be a part of, a Father whose vacillation between estrangement and presence in two children's lives is costing him dearly, and a cathected pet, my lost lizard son, Jojo.

I am back from an extended absence.  It is now the middle of August as we near the end of summer.  The Perseids have sailed the night.  The temperature has risen for what we hope to be the dying gasps of summer. 

The week began with a bit of male privilege quackery at the hands of Todd McFarlane, Gerry Conway & company, as well as Mark Millar who was keen to promote his swiftly debuting Kick Ass 2 flick.  I was off to a pretty decent start with an energetic playlist mostly consisting of Das Racist, Tupac, and my trusty Fridays mix.  I shopped around for a new backpack to replace the one I have let fall into literal shreds.  It also occurred to me to look for some brushpens as my pitt black had all but run it's course.

There was a tomato fight on twitter precipitated by Terrence Wiggins & Jessi Zabarsky that I had chance to participate in.  It inevitably led to me making my first caprese panini and forming tomato solidarity and enmity with acquaintances.  I followed girltoonist on the advice of Brandon Graham, read about Sean Murphy's shady sounding apprenticeship, and backtracked through Girls With Slingshots to the last strip I read maybe back in March.

Ashton Kutcher gave a grown up speech for kids and people took notice.  That Tuesday I found my little lizard friend perched in a sidewalk crack, and I stealthily swept him into an unused lunch tote where he rode the day with me.  I was ecstatic to give him a home and bought him a terrarium and some crickets.  But as I researched how to care for a lizard I became filled with dread that I had sentenced my tiny monster son to a slow death.  I desperately needed food and rest, but I resisted to try and acquire whatever he needed.  I even tried to take him hunting around the fence line to get some tiny crickets.  I was a dreadful mass of self-loathing toward the end of the night.  I left him out on our back porch that night and hoped he would either fall into his element, or just sleep peacefully.

I was amazed the next morning to find that he had not left.  Even moreso when he was still there at the end of the workday.  My friend's son and I went hunting for crickets that afternoon, and we piled them into the terrarium with Jojo, hoping he would discover his eating instincts.

That Wednesday on Brittney Sabo's advice I began following Danielle Keller whose art has popped up more than once in my tumblr feed.  Lady Gaga and Kendrick Lamar were in the entertainment headlines.  I narrowed down my backpack search.  Apparently a new Criterion collection of all the Zatoichi film adaptions was released with an envy-inducing swath of indy artist illustrations.