That’s a wasps’ nest, dead. Our guess is they built it last year, and hadn’t yet recolonized it this year. The hole in it was unavoidable — the nest had been built around numerous vines, and we couldn’t get behind it to cut the last of them free.

One more picture behind the cut.

I scripted 9 rows this morning, and then proceeded to pencil them all and ink four of them. Let’s see… that’s 22 rows done in one day. Not bad.

I would have gotten more done, but my phone rang halfway through inking the fifth. I was at The Keep, and it was 6:00pm-ish, and Patches (my three-year-old) was sad and wanted to know where Daddy was.

We talked on the phone, and he said he wanted to play The “Hey” Game. And I realized that while I probably COULD crank out another two or three strips, my hand was hurting, and so was my son. Time to call it a day.

I drove home, and the moment I walked through the door he grabbed his blanket and ran into my room and plopped down on the bed. The “Hey” Game goes like this: I lie down to take a nap, and he comes in and offers me one of his treasured blue blankies. I snuggle it, then he steals it back, and I say “Hey!”

Repeat.

There are variations. Sometimes he throws the blanket across the bed and I have to try to catch it. Sometimes he steals my spot on the bed before I can get there, and I’m expected to lie down on Sandra’s side of the bed and complain loudly (“HEEEY!!!”) Usually The “Hey” Game ends when I announce that I really would like to get on with the nap, and he gives me a hug, heads out of the room, and shuts the door. This evening I wasn’t about to take a nap starting at 6:30pm, so we played until I actually started to get tired enough to take a nap, at which point I got up and had some dinner. Gleek participated in the game, too, gleefully throwing blankets around, and by the time I left the two of them were happily playing with each other.

This is why I left Novell 18 months ago, even though I didn’t know it at the time.

Well, I made good progress, but I’m out of steam for now. 3 rows colored, 5 rows inked, and week’s worth of inking is queued up for coloring now.

My goal is to get it all colored today. I’m feeling a little brain-fried, though, so I’m taking a break.

Maybe until tomorrow.

chalain tells me that when you’re manic the best thing you can do is cut yourself off early and get some sleep, even if you need to medicate. That way the day after a solid manic episode doesn’t end up being a total loss.

Friday I was reasonably productive. I got 13 rows worth of work done — coloring, pencilling, and inking. Unfortunately, in order to hit my goal of adding a week to the buffer before leaving for Penguicon, I have to get at least 17 rows done TODAY. No way can I afford a repeat of Thursday, when I slept most of the day and got nothing done. So… last night at around 8pm I popped a couple of Excedrin PM and a handful of melatonin (Yes, this is a dosage I’ve taken before. No this is not something I do often. Relax, please. I know I did.) and drew myself a bath. I had a nice meal, a hot bath, and then read 60 pages of the latest Star Risk book. And then I rolled over and went to sleep at about 9:00pm.

I got roughly 11 hours of sleep. I’m ready to rock this morning.

–Howard