Author: Cynical Woman

Cartoonist, Artist, Geek, Evil Crafter, Girl Scout Troop Leader and Writer. Also, a zombie. I haven't slept in I don't know how long.
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Why Does Mommy Have To Be The Bad Guy?

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Well, so much for freakish tales of our trip to Washington, D. C. I went there expecting horrific adventures that would curl your hair and I got nothing but a weekend of spit up and sleepless nights curled around the baby. Not much different from being home. Figures.

However, I do not approach my blog empty-handed today. There have been recent developments in the Madden household sure to make you laugh, even as they make me wince. I’m talking about Cassandra’s continuing fascination with Disney princesses. She grows more and more obsessed by the hour. While watching cartoons with me on Friday afternoon, she saw an ad for the new Light-Up Little Mermaid doll and promptly declared, “Mommy, I need that doll.”

“No, honey. You don’t need that doll,” I explained. “You want that doll.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, bobbing her head in complete agreement. “I need that doll.”

What she also needs, she told me later that night, is the poofy white wedding gown Ariel wears when she marries her darling prince. Here’s how that discussion went.

Cassie: “Mommy, I NEED Ariel’s white dress!”

Me: “You mean the big poofy froo-froo gown she wears at the end of the movie?”

Cassie: “Yeah, that one. I need a dress just like that.”

Me, pointing to my wedding portrait above the fireplace: “Just like the one Mommy’s wearing in that picture up there, with the nine foot train and floor length veil?”

Cassie, nodding emphatically: “Yeah! That’s it!”

Me: “And do you need a big party to go with that dress, honey, complete with a rented ballroom, two hundred guests, a sit down dinner, mediocre disc jockey, and a seven-tiered cake?”

Cassie, dancing with excitement: “Uh-huh! Uh-huh!”

Me: “And an open bar where a bunch of disgruntled bridesmaids wearing ugly teal dresses complain about the huge butt bows you stuck them with?”

Cassie, doing her best Tom Cruise imitation on the couch: “Yeah! That’s it Mommy!”

Me, going in for the kill: “And do you need ice sculptures to go with all that?”

Cassie, eyes growing big as dinner plates: “Ice sculptures, Mommy?”

Me: “That’s right, baby doll. Ice sculptures of you and your prince.”

Cassie: “YES!! ICE SCULPTURES! I NEED ICE SCUPLTURES!”

Me, pointing to her father: “Then you need to talk to that man right over there, because he’s paying for it.”

Of course, the upshot of my little bit of fun is that I screwed myself because Michael now claims he can no longer afford to buy me anything as he is too busy saving up for Cassie’s future wedding.

But back to the subject at hand. Cassie continues to immerse herself in the imaginary world of Ariel and friends. She’s seen the movie enough times now that she can act out entire scenes. Sometimes she’ll do the scene on her own, but most often she likes to assign various roles to others while she plays Ariel. Michael is usually Eric, the prince. Sam gets to be Flounder, Ariel’s little fish friend. And as for me, her beloved mother? Why I get to be Ursula, the bloated sea hag from the Black Lagoon.

I don’t know why, but whenever Cassie decides I must act out a movie with her, I always play the role of the villain. If we’re doing Beauty and the Beast, I have to be Gaston, the big baboon disguised as a virile hunter. If we’re doing Pocahontas, I have to play ugly old Governor Radcliffe (even though I do not have a mustache!). If the movie is Cinderella, I have to play both step sisters and the wicked step mother, plus the stinking cat too on certain days. It’s like my daughter thinks I’m evil, and I don’t know why.

Quit laughing. I can hear you.

I tried to convince Cassie to let me be someone cool, like Sebastian, the singing crab. I even put on my best Jamaican accent and did the whole song and dance routine for “Under The Sea.” No dice. “You be URSULA!” she insisted.

So I’m stuck playing Ursula, she of the skanky bleached hair with the multitudes of blubbery black tentacles trailing from her tookus. One day I hope my daughter will look back and realize what a hero her mother truly was, to spend all day staying at home, taking care of her, changing her diapers and wiping her stinky little behind. I hope she’ll realize that I was a good sport, a mom who was willing to play an oozing scumbag squid woman just so her little girl could act out her fantasies of being an over-hyped, over-marketed, and over-rated mermaid. I hope she’ll appreciate all that I’ve sacrificed for her (namely my dignity). Until that day arrives, I’ll just keep hauling my ugly squid-butt after her, playing up the villain to the best of my abilities. Feh! I hate being typecast.

***

For today’s artwork, I’m revisiting a sketch I did earlier last month. I really liked the figure, so I’ve gone back and added some background this time. I still haven’t worked out all the details. That window on the right side bothers me. I think I may take it out and replace it with a balcony instead. I’m going to keep playing with it until I get it right, then put it on my to-do list for digital painting. I’ve been reading a great book on digital painting for manga, so I’m hoping to put into practice all the techniques I’ve read about when I finally get to sit down with this image.

The Beautiful Bed – pencil sketch, 11 October 2006

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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To My In-Laws’ House We Go…

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In theory, we are headed out to see my in-laws today. I say in theory because Sam has been running a slight fever the past two days and the weather outside is lousy for travel (3 inches of rain at least since dawn yesterday). I’m a little leery of travel when there are sick kids and bad weather involved. But if Sam’s temperature drops and the skies clear up, well then it’s over river and through the woods to my in-laws we will go!

Ah, a trip to my in-laws. What a wonderful time we’ll have. If you hear sarcasm in that last line, take it with a grain of salt. The fact is I enjoy visiting my in-laws just like I enjoy visiting my own parents. Or rather I would enjoy visiting both my in-laws and parents if they didn’t live in the foreign countries of Washington, D.C. and Arkansas, respectively.

Now before you start howling about how geographically ignorant I must be to call D.C. and Arkansas foreign countries, let me just say this. They may not be foreign countries to you, but they sure as hell are to me. See, I grew up in York County, Virginia. Back in the mid-seventies when my dad transferred to Fort Eustis, York County was a very odd place to be. It had farms, but it wasn’t exactly rural. It had highways and shopping centers, but definitely not enough to make it a city. We had enough people to make a town, but no Main Street and everybody was so spread out we really didn’t know each other like the good folks in Andy Griffith’s Mayberry did. Was it a suburb maybe? No, there weren’t enough people to call it that either back then. It was just York County… small, quiet, sleepy little York County, part of the great historic triangle area of the Virginia Peninsula, along with Jamestown and Williamsburg (and if you folks don’t know why these three places are historic, then you’ve got some serious catching up to do on Colonial American history).

Anyway, way back in the mid-seventies, I lived in the boondocks, for lack of a better word, and over the last thirty years (my god, has it been that long?) this little boondocks has exploded into a happening population center. We’re still not a city – too spread out and no skyscrapers to speak of – but we have become one hell of a sprawling metropolis with shopping malls and Panera Bread cafes and the occasional military base shoved in just for laughs (at last count, we had five military installations within spitting distance of my house). So I guess you could say that I am a lifelong resident of the land of Suburban Sprawl, a relatively pleasant if mind-numbing place that thinks it is immune to the sorts of problems you’d find in places like Washington, D.C. and Arkansas – poverty, homelessness, drugs, gangs, etc. (Although we do happen to have those problems in spades around here, but we like to blame that on the neighboring cities, I think.)

Nope, we’re not at all like those weird foreigners in Arkansas and D.C. I remember the day I found out my father was going to move my mother out to Arkansas. She was not exactly… how shall I say it? Excited to go? Or rather, she was very excited, but it was more over her plans of how she was going to kill my father and then chop up his body into little pieces and throw it into the canal behind our house so that Dad could sleep with the fishes, because he sure as hell wasn’t sleeping with her anymore (and people wonder where I get my homicidal urges from).

Having visited the place many times before with my dad (he claims he was raised there), Mom knew Arkansas was a foreign country; a barren, uncivilized place that lacked such social necessities as Starbucks coffee, Barnes and Nobles bookstores, gargantuan outlet malls and multiplex theaters. Arkansas is mostly chicken farms and rice paddies from what I’ve seen, with the most serious sign of civilization being its crystal meth industry. The natives there seem to thrive on folk art and country western music, but since neither Mom nor I were raised on that sort of stuff, it all seems really weird and foreign and it just makes us homesick. I do try to keep an open mind about the place whenever I visit my folks, but that’s so hard to do when I realize that the two major topics of conversation down there are a) when is the Rapture coming, and b) how much weight people plan to loose by the time the Rapture arrives. Apparently, it’s better to be thin when God comes to take you away. Excess weight must make bodily assumption harder to do.

At the extreme end of the spectrum of foreigness is Washington, D.C. The D.C. I think stands for “Damned City” which is short for “City Of The Damned,” because you know that with that many politicians crammed into such a small area, that whole place is most certainly going to Hell (and unfortunately taking the rest of us with it). D.C. is home to such weirdness as public transportation (something unheard of in York County) and homeless people. I swear to you, I’ve lived in York County 30 years and never have I seen a homeless person on these streets. Probably because they’d get run down by our local lunatic NASCAR wannabes if they stood on the side of the road with a cardboard sign that read, “Homeless. Please help.”

Every time I go to D.C., I feel like I’ve landed on the Planet-Formerly-Known-As-Pluto during its annual Freak Festival. While visiting our nation’s capitol (see, I’m not that geographically ignorant), I have seen a full grown woman scream at a park full of people while stripping off all her clothing in broad daylight. I have been accosted by winos who reeked equally of alcohol and piss, and could not decide if they were bums or politicians or both. I have watched one of my brothers-in-law’s ex-girlfriends sing karaoke. I have never fully recovered from any of these experiences.

My darling husband Michael claims that D.C. is not really a freak show, and that the crazies we run into every time we visit are the exception rather than the norm. Apparently they sense my unease at being a stranger in a strange land, and thus feel compelled to come out to greet me and make me feel welcome. Either that or else we keep showing up during campaign season, when all the politicos are out whoring themselves in the name of patriotism and freedom.

Oh well. Strangeness abounds wherever I go, so maybe it is just me. In any event, I must draw this all to a close. Sam has stopped fussing and her temperature is back to normal. The rain has died off and I think we will be able to drive, rather than sail, to D.C. Wish me luck this weekend. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of interesting stories to tell when I get back.

***

Here’s an old drawing I’ve done, just some random weirdness to add to the blog. I figure, it’s October. Why not?

Roland, 7 October 2006

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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The Little Mermaid and The Not-So-Little Mermaid: A Cautionary Tale

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A few folks have mentioned that I didn’t make many posts last week. Sorry. I spent most of my computer time searching for a new web hosting service. I finally found one I liked, and now I’m looking forward to a redesign of my computer graphics site. All this digital painting is really getting my creative juices going, and I’m eager to put together a new site with a new portfolio some time the beginning of next year. Meanwhile, I owe you folks for the missing posts from last week, so here’s an extra long one to keep you happy.

Boy, are things hoppin’ at our place! We got a package in the mail today. Seems that Michael pre-ordered the latest release of Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” for Cassandra’s viewing entertainment. I’m thinking the only Disney Princesses we don’t have now are Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. Don’t think we’ll be getting those any time soon, either, as they’re probably locked in the vault until the next time Disney decides to haul them out and stick it to all us parents of precocious preschool wanna-be-princess girls.

Getting Little Mermaid isn’t so bad though. This is one of the better Disney Princess movies in my opinion, if only for the Jamaican crab singing his heart out about how wonderful life is beneath the deep blue sea. Granted, Ariel is yet another one of those girls who has to have her prince and does all sorts of stupid stuff to get him. She gives up her voice, gives up her legs, and (in the original story) gives up her life for the man of her dreams. Heck, if I’d been the Little Mermaid, I wouldn’t have been giving up anything for a guy. I would have just pointed to that kickin’ little fish tail and said, “Come get some sushi, big boy!” and then we’d be having some fun. But that version of the movie would have been rated NC-17 and Disney never would have made it.

So I’m not the Little Mermaid. Instead, I have become the Not-So-Little Mermaid. What’s happened is my knees are getting worse instead of better, much to my dismay and my physical therapist’s. She’s ordered me to stop all the strengthening exercises until we can get a pair of customized braces. Meanwhile, the cracking and popping noises I keep hearing as I go up and down the steps are getting really bad. Even the neighbors are complaining about the noise now. It’s very loud and it creeps them out.

In addition to no strengthening exercises for my knees, I must also take it easy in karate class (like I was doing much of anything anyway with my broken toe). And since walking is getting to be a pain too, I’ve got to watch out for that as well. In fact, my physical therapist would even make me give up going up and down the steps at home if it weren’t for the fact that the fridge is downstairs and all the working toilets are upstairs (Michael is remodelling the downstairs bathroom – it will be finished some time before we die). Gotta eat, gotta pee, so I gotta take the steps. But while the amount of stair climbing I do during the day is enough to make my knees ache, it isn’t enough to keep me from going crazy from lack of physical activity. Thus I have decided to take up swimming.

I do not have a fish tail (so no sushi for you, big boy!). I have long red hair, but being four months post-partum, it’s a mess because all the hairs that grew like crazy while I was pregnant have now decided to fall out en mass (it’s so bad, I keep leaving a big scary hair monster in the drain whenever I shower, and I swear Sam is going to strangle herself on one of my loose hairs one day). Also, I do not have a nifty clam shell bra, but I’m not going to complain about that, since it doesn’t look like it would be very practical or comfortable for a nursing mom.

Nope, I got none of the things Ariel has. What I do have is access to a 50 yard lap pool courtesy of the YMCA and my physical therapist’s approval to go swimming as it is the exercise that will do the least amount of damage to my knees. Now I do know how to swim. When I was maybe six, my grandma’s next door neighbor, whom we called Aunt Terry, would let us come over to her house and swim whenever we were in town. I think she’s the one who taught me the side stroke and the breast stroke. I also recall taking a few Y swim classes when I was about ten, so I can tread water and float on my back and do stuff like that.

Then there’s my Army swim training. Do you know what the Army calls swim training? They call it drown-proofing. Want to know how it’s done? You show up at an Olympic style pool dressed in full field uniform, right down to your combat boots. The first thing you have to do is swim a complete lap in the pool with all your clothes on, and your boots as well. It’s very, very hard. But it’s actually quite easy compared to the next thing you have to do, which is to climb up to the high diving board with a fake M-16 rifle in your hands and let some jerk who outranks you put a blindfold on you when you reach the top (no, I am not making this up). Once the jerk is sure you can’t see, he proceeds to guide you down to the end of the diving board (still not making this up). As you’re inching your way along, the jerk says all sorts of helpful stuff like, “Take another step forward… and another… and another… Whoops!” At which point you start screaming because you just walked off the end of the high dive while blindfolded and dressed in full field gear and combat boots, all the while carrying a fake M-16 (again, I am really, truly not making this up). You are supposed to hit the water feet first with the dummy rifle held high above your head so it doesn’t get wet. This is impossible of course, because if you step off the high diving board fully dressed and carrying a big-ass fake rifle, you are more than heavy enough to hit the bottom of the pool which is twenty feet deep, and then bounce back out and land right back on the high dive where the jerk is just waiting to push you off again (okay, I made some of that last bit up, but it’s mostly true). If you manage to get out of the pool with your rifle and all your gear and your boots still on, and don’t swallow half the pool water while doing it, you are considered drown-proofed.

I completed my drown-proofing in the spring of 1990, just in time to attend Camp All American at Fort Brag, NC. Now let’s get one thing straight. I sucked at ROTC. Really. I was one of the worst cadets ever to wear the yellow and black patch of that proud bastion of military academics. The only reason I even made it to commissioning day was my good grades. I was a lousy cadet, couldn’t tell my ass from a hole in the ground when it came to the military, but I had a 3.4 average and I graduated with honors so they figured I’d survive being an officer somehow. Good grades were no help though when it came to Camp All American. I barely made it through by the skin of my teeth. My failures that summer were so numerous even I can’t remember them all. But I do remember my crowning moment of ignominy, one that probably anyone who was there to witness it also still remembers to this day. It was the “Forty-Foot Rope Drop.”

The forty-foot rope drop was the last event in an obstacle course that was specifically designed to kill, er, I mean weed out, weaklings, wimps, and misfits like yours truly. There was the ankle-breaking tire jump course, the virtually impossible vertical wall climb, the rope swing across the mud pits of despair, and the low crawl through a cess pool that to this day still makes me puke when I think about it. At the end of it all was the rope drop – a single strand of rope suspended by two telephone poles forty feet over a swift running stream. In the center of the rope hung a plaque bearing the Army Ranger tab. The goal was to climb up one of the poles, shimmy hand over hand along the rope to the plaque, touch the plaque, and then hang from the rope by your hands. Once in that position, cadets were supposed to let go of the rope, cross their arms over their chests, and drop cleanly into the stream rushing by below. Whatever happened, we were all told to make sure we were looking up when we hit the water, because otherwise, we ran the risk of getting a bloody nose or lip if we hit with our faces pointing down.

I was very tired when I got to the Forty-Foot Rope Drop. I almost didn’t make it up the pole, even with the help of all the hand and foot holds. Getting onto the rope was a feat that almost got me killed, and shimmying out to the plaque was an act of physical comedy that not even Charlie Chaplin could match. What really made the Forty-Foot Rope Drop special, though, was that I had to get permission to do each step from the colonel who oversaw the event. It went something like this.

Colonel: Well, cadet, you look like you’ve had an invigorating day, courtesy of the U. S. Army! Are you ready to tackle my rope drop event?

Me (gasping for breath so badly that I sound like I’m having an asthma attack): Huhn… huhn… huhn…

Colonel: I can’t hear you, cadet!

Me: YES SIR! I AM READY TO TACKLE THAT ROPE DROP, SIR!

Colonel: Okay, so…?

Me: SIR, REQUEST PERMISSION TO CLIMB THE POLE!

Colonel: Go get her, cadet! Move, move!

An hour passes.

Colonel: Gol’ dang it, cadet, have you reached the top of that pole yet?

Me (from very, very high up): YES SIR!

Colonel: Well?

Me: SIR, REQUEST PERMISSION TO SHIMMY ACROSS THE ROPE!

Colonel: Go for it, cadet! Move! Move!

Another hour passes.

Me: SIR?

Colonel: Zzzzzzzz… huh?! What? Where? Oh, it’s you, cadet. Are you there yet? Did you touch my Ranger tab?

Me: YES SIR!

Colonel: All right, now we’re getting’ somewhere. So what’s next, cadet?

Me: SIR, REQUEST PERMISSION TO HANG!

Colonel: Hang, cadet! Hang!

(Let us pause for a brief explanation on the term “hanging.” At this point, I was supposed to slide off the rope so that one leg was dangling free. I was then supposed to execute a pull-up while carefully slipping the other leg off the rope, and end up hanging by my hands from the rope, ready to drop into the stream below. The pull-up was supposed to prevent me from swinging so hard that I got yanked off the rope by my own body weight. Keep in mind that I sucked at physical fitness in those days, and have never, ever in my life managed to do a pull-up).

Twenty minutes later…

Me: Um, sir? Request permission to drop?

Colonel: Now cadet, you still got one foot hanging on that rope. You need to do a full pull-up while slipping that foot off the rope, okay? Then you can ask permission to drop.

Me (struggling to keep hold of the rope): Um, sir? I really think you need to let me drop.

Colonel: No cadet. That would be cheating. You got to hang first. Hang! Got it?

Me (desperately trying to do a pull up with arms made out of limp spaghetti): I really, really think we should just skip the hanging part, sir. Please?

Colonel (throwing his hat on the ground in frustration): Gol’ dang it, cadet! I told you to hang!

Me (as my foot suddenly slips off the rope while I am NOT doing a pull up): AAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEE- WHAM!

When I finally came up for air, another cadet told me what happened. My foot slipped off the rope, causing my entire body to swing so wildly that I did a complete 360 in mid-air, followed by a half twist that put my body in horizontal position, parallel to stream below. I plummeted like a rock, arms and legs spread eagle. Now this all happened very fast, but I do remember thinking as I fell, “Make sure you look up… Make sure you look up!” Well, I was looking up all right. I hit the water flat on my back, making a splash big enough to soak the colonel who was standing on the far bank.

The colonel was still wringing out his hat when I crawled out of the stream. “Cadet,” he said. “That was pitiful. Do you see that sergeant major over there?” I did. It was the sergeant major from my school, as it turned out. “He’s the one what put together this rope drop,” the colonel went on. “That means this is his rope drop, and his stream that you hit so hard. I want you to go over to that sergeant major and apologize for bruising his water.”

So I straggled over to my sergeant major and said in a really squeaking voice, “I’m sorry I bruised your water, Sergeant Major Jeeter!” And Sergeant Major Jeeter just sort of rolled his eyes and shook his head, and maybe he prayed a bit too, but I was still kind of dazed from hitting the water so hard, so I’m not sure. He might have been cussing me out for all I know.

But that’s Army swim training for you. The good news is, it didn’t kill me, so I guess it just made me stronger. The even better news is that sixteen years later there is no Forty-Foot Rope Drop at the YMCA where I go swimming now. There’s just a bunch of seniors doing water aerobics as I doggy paddle back and forth in the pool, and none of them seem to mind if I bruise the water when I jump in.

***

Here’s the artwork for today. I’ve been working on this sketch on and off over the past week. Drawing the initial figure happened in one session, but now I’m stuck doing research for the details – the costume, the jaguar, the background (which you don’t see yet because it hasn’t been drawn). This one’s going to take a little while, but I don’t mind. I’m almost past the drawing stage with it and I plan to do it up as another digital painting. One of the two books I picked up on Friday was about digital manga, and I’m looking forward to using this sketch as an experiment for all the new techniques I’m reading about.

Pencil sketch, Temple Of The Jaguar (WIP) – 4 October 2006

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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Welcome To The Sex O’clock News

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Is it just me, or has the evening news just become too obscene to watch? I studied broadcasting in college, and I remember way back when there was a brouhaha roiling over the new standards to move TV shows with certain content (i.e. sex and violence) to after prime time, when the kiddies would be in bed. Not a bad idea, in my opinion. I write erotica, but I am going to be one of the first to tell you that there is a time and a place for everything, and young children do not need to watch shows that features stories about pedophiles and execution style murders.

Which is exactly what’s been on the news in the last few days.

I am so sickened by what happened at the Amish school in Pennsylvania. A man armed with three guns came into the school and took it hostage. He sent out the boys, the teachers and some pregnant women, then lined up the young girl students and shot them in the back of the head before killing himself. Five of those girls are dead. Why would anyone do such a thing? These were Amish children, for crying out loud! I doubt they’d ever hurt so much as a fly. So why, why, why did this lunatic have to kill them in cold blood?

The other story in the news that’s making me sick right now is the one on Congressional Representative Mark Foley. That’s right, the Congressional Rep for the state of Florida, a man who gets paid by your tax dollars, has been sending sexually explicit text messages to underage students working as pages on Capitol Hill. How disgusting is that? Makes what Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky did look pretty tame by comparison. Of course, the news is all over this too. They’re howling about how the Republicans may lose the House because of the disgust the public feels over this scandal. Forget the public’s disgust over the way the current Republican administration has conducted business in general during the last few years. We all know nobody’s been paying attention to stupid things like unemployment, education reform, jobs lost overseas, etc. We only care about gay marriage, flag burning, and all the sex and violence the news can cram down our throats.

Don’t get me wrong. These two stories should be in the news. There are horrible things happening in the world, and we need to know what’s going on. Being aware of the violence and crimes happening around us is the first step toward putting an end to such horrors. I want to know if an elected official is sexually harassing young children. I want to know that there are crazies out there, armed to the teeth and just waiting to barge into our local schools and start shooting. Forewarned is forearmed, people, and I can not defend against that which I don’t know about.

No, my problem is with the way the news handles these things. The evening news is going to beat these stories to death, probably do several specials on them, then hype them, package them, pimp them and whore them, all in the name of earning ratings. Just like they did with John Mark What’s-his-face, who claimed to have killed Jon Benet Ramsey. My poor husband was on a business trip in Colorado the week that story broke, and he was so sick of hearing about the story everywhere he turned, he wouldn’t even turn on the TV when he came home. Now he won’t turn it on for fear of what our kids might see. The girls are not allowed to watch the evening news. For the past two years, Michael’s been recording it on the downstairs computer and watching it after the kids are in bed. He used to do this because it was convenient, but now he’s doing it because he doesn’t want Cassandra to see the news. She’s smart, too smart, and I can guarantee you she’s pick up the word ‘pedophile’ in a heartbeat. Then, of course, we’d have to explain it to her, above and beyond the conversations we’ve already had about good touching and bad touching. I’m not sure I’m ready for any more conversations like that.

But that’s all that’s going to be on the news for the next several days, if not weeks. And that’s what kills me. Other issues, issues that are just as important, are going to get short shift in the media feeding frenzy. Remember how I said we can only deal with a problem if we know about it? Well, a lot of problems are going to go undealt with because the news is going to be too busy hyping Congressional pedophiles and Amish school shootings to pay attention to anything else. And that, folks, is a real crime, because that’s when the news stops being the news and becomes instead the worst, most pornographic form of entertainment know to mankind.

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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My Crash And Burn Weekend

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Ugh. It’s Monday. After a very long and exhausting weekend. Ugh.

Whatever happened to my weekends? They used to be something I looked forward to. Time off from my sucky day job, a respite from the hells of mundania that I used to face everyday. Weekends were times when I stayed up late, slept late, and spent time having fun with my friends. No longer. These days, weekends are hell holes where I run around like a chicken with my head chopped off trying to keep up with my husband and two kids. I hate it.

This weekend was particularly bad. Friday was the last Friday of the month, which means it was also my “Day Off.” Ha! That was a joke. I keep forgetting that I don’t get days off anymore. I was under this delusion that because Cassie would be in preschool all day, I’d be able to go out and enjoy myself with only little Sam in tow. Sweet little Sam. Laid back little Sam. Mommy’s precious-angel-who-never-makes-a-peep-and-never-fusses little Sam.

What a load of BS.

We started our “day off” at the YMCA, where I did my usual physical therapy appointment, followed by a swim in the pool. Sam stayed in the Y nursery. The attendants there love Sam. She never cries, just smiles, giggles and waves her fat little hands at them. She was a perfect, jolly baby all morning, they told me. Then I came by to pick her up and all that stopped. Sam started fussing the moment we left the building. I kept hoping she’d calm down. I had things to do that day, and places to shop – Borders, Barnes and Nobles, Hot Topic, Michael’s Art and Crafts. I had coupons for every place but Hot Topic burning a hole in my pocket. I was gonna buy lots of stuff, but still save big with those coupons. I had dreams of sitting in one bookstore after another, sipping frou-frou coffee and flipping through manga and art books. It was going to be a heavenly day… but Sam wouldn’t stop fussing.

The fussing turned to wailing the moment we hit our first stop, Borders. I did my best to soothe her, holding her in my arms while I pushed the (useless) stroller one-handed around the store. Sam would quiet down for a bit then howl every time I tried to put her back in the stroller. After half an hour of this, it was clear even to me that there was no point in putting her back in the stroller. That was okay, though. I could hold my little darling and still shop. Then the spit up started.

At home, Sam is known as the Queen of Spit Up, and for a very good reason. Some people who have visited lately think we’ve repainted our walls and re-carpeted the entire house in a faintly cheese-tinted white. Not so. That’s all the handiwork (or should I say vomit-work) of little Samantha Ann. She doesn’t do projectile vomiting, yet, but that hasn’t stopped her from coating the house with half-digested milk.

She proceeded to do the same to Borders. At first, I was able to contain her little eruptions to the burp cloth. Then my nice, navy blue shirt took a few hits. Then my jeans. When I heard the first splat hit the carpet in front of the computer graphics books, I knew it was time to give it up. So I grabbed the only two books I’d had a chance to look through and made my way to the cash register. I used my Borders coupons, and then sadly put away the Barnes and Nobles coupons as I headed out of the store, without even a small cup of joe as a consolation prize for my aborted trip.

The rest of the weekend went pretty much the same. We went to the Virginia State Fair, where I divided my time between breastfeeding Sam and containing her spit ups while Michael took Cassie from one ride to the next. I did get to see some very funky looking birds on display courtesy of the Virginia Pigeon and Dove Association. One bird I swear looked exactly like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. Other than that… well, I did get to experience the full wrath of Cassie’s tempter tantrum when she dropped her milkshake. Does that count as entertainment?

After an exhausting Saturday, I looked forward to a calm, quiet Sunday at home. The “at home” part was about all I got. Due to lack of planning and coordination, I spent most of the day running around trying to figure out what the hell I was supposed to be doing as Michael zipped in and out of the house with one child or another in tow. He had a plan, but hadn’t managed to share it with me, so I didn’t know whether he was coming or going and when I was supposed to be on call for Mommy duty or when he was giving me a break. So I got nothing done on Sunday.

But now it’s Monday. Cassie is at preschool. Michael is at work. Sam continues to spit up, but she’s doing it in the comfort of home. Meantime, I’m trying to get around to my next writing project. The novel, complete with the final version of the dreaded synopsis, went out the door Thursday to a publisher. I had hoped to celebrate this event last Friday, but oh well. Maybe my next day off will go a little better.

***

Here’s the little bit of artwork I managed to get done this weekend, sort of a gothic creepy chick. It might be a zombie. I’m not sure. It’s unfinished. The colored spots in the top are the palette I picked out for the image (no, I’m not real sure about that violet color either). I’m still experimenting with the settings for paintbrushes in Corel Photopaint, trying to create a better blending brush. It’s going to take some time. I’ll work on this one off and one until it’s finished, in between other projects.

Hmmm… kinda looks like me after this past weekend.

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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Life Sucks, But Being Cranky Is Good

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Having a cold sucks.

Having a broken toe sucks, too.

Being 37 and having someone tell you that you have arthritis in both knees really sucks.

Trying to take care of a baby and a preschooler who both have colds while suffering through your own cold is major suckage, especially when you stub your broken toe while trying to take care of your arthritic knees.

Finding out that being cranky means you’re smart is kind of cool though.

Okay, that’s not exactly what this article says, but still, it goes to show that cynicism pays. Now please excuse me while I tend to my snuffling baby and my (re)broken toe.

***

Here’s the latest artwork. I sort of copied the pose from a book on drawing manga, but the details of the figure are all mine. I’m going to flesh this out over the next week or so, adding hair and costuming, then work out a background setting for the character. When it’s done, I think I’ll take it into Corel Photopaint and digitally paint it. Not sure what the final product will look like, but so far it looks good to me.

Standing Figure, WIP, 28 September 2006

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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Today’s “D” Word Is Disney

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We’re going to Disney World, folks. Well, me and my family are, anyway. I don’t know what the heck you guys are doing.

Michael is neck deep in planning this vacation. We’ll be in the Magic Kingdom for 12 days from January to February. My parents will be there of course. My mom is ga-ga about spoiling the kids, and wants to come on this trip so she can spend all her life savings on mouse ears and princess junk. And there will be a lot of princess junk, let me tell you. Cassie’s obsession with the Disney Princesses grows worse by the day. She now has a beautiful handmade Snow White dress (courtesy of her Grandma-ma-ma) that far outstrips any store-bought costume that I’ve ever seen. Every afternoon when Cassie comes home from preschool, she slips into Snow White and parades around the house until dinner time. Then this past weekend, when her best friend Sean came over to play, she insisted on modeling it for him, and then insisted on wrestling him while she still had the dang thing on. Like I said earlier, she’s too girly to be a tomboy, too boisterous to be a true princess, but I’ll be durned if she don’t look the part when she goes flouncing past in that blue and yellow gown.

Ah, Disney Princesses. Cassie has informed her Grandma-ma-ma that she will also be making an Ariel costume, a Belle costume, and a Cinderella ball gown. My mother is now torn between elation at the chance to spoil her first grandchild and agony at having to churn out so many froo-froo dresses (they ain’t easy to make). I’m just sitting back, shaking my head. The homemade costumes were my idea. I saw it as a way to slow down the flood of gifts that kept pouring through our door every day. Keep Grandma-ma-ma busy and she won’t have so much time to shop, see? It’s working too }>;) Bwahahahahaha!

Cassie’s princess obsession has its roots in the Disney movies. We must own a hundred dvds that feature this or that doofus princess – Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, the Little Mermaid, Aladin, etc., etc. Of course, I find the princesses to be extremely annoying. Most of them are pretty useless as far as heroines go. Let’s see, Snow White can clean house, but is too stupid to know not to take gifts from strangers. She survives anyway though, because some moron prince thinks she’s pretty and he can’t help but kiss her. Same storyline for Sleeping Beauty too. Cinderella is a charitable girl, nice to small animals, but that’s not why she gets a happy ending. No, she ends up coasting on her pretty blonde looks. We know that Belle can read at least, and she’s willing to make the horrible sacrifice of living with someone ugly to save her dear Papa, so I have to give her points for being educated and non-judgmental. But while she does develop a loving relationship with the Beast, did she really do anything in that movie beyond show up and look pretty?

Let’s see, who else? There’s Jasmine, who refuses to marry snobby princes so she can have Tom Cruise look-a-like Aladin (hope he doesn’t jump on the couches). She does show a bit of spunk, but she’s more set dressing than a real character in the movie. Um, Pocahontas. Technically, not really a princess but a chieftain’s daughter. However, as far as Disney princesses go, I think she’s one of the better ones. She’s athletic, thinks for herself, and is willing to face death to prevent a war. Too bad Disney screwed up American history and geography with this movie. Hey, I live within spitting distance of the real Jamestown, folks. That waterfall you see Pocahontas dive into at the beginning of the movie? I’m still looking for it. Oh, she was also more like twelve when she first met John Smith (who was actually short and balding from what I understand, not a hunky blond Mel Gibson clone, complete with Lethal Weapon Mullet), and she ran around topless, because that was the traditional costume of the Powhatan Indians.

Then you’ve got Mulan. I like Mulan. I’m not familiar with the original story, so I’m not bothered if Disney really screwed it up. I just like the movie (and the sound track – that Donny Osmond dude can SING!). Mulan cuts her hair and dresses up as a man so she can take her father’s place in the emperor’s army and fight the Huns. She’s athletic, smart, quick-thinking, and doesn’t give up when the going gets tough. Even when people spit in her eye after finding out she’s just a girl, she still does the right thing and goes on to save everybody’s mangy behinds. She’s got to be the most ballsie of any of the Disney princess, and she gets her man not by being the prettiest thing out there, but by being courageous and making some hard decisions. She’s a great role model.

Unfortunately, I can’t get Cassie to watch Mulan very often, let alone imitate her.

What I have been able to get her to watch lately is Disney’s Tarzan. What a movie! This is probably the most underrated Disney movie in my opinion. The story is good, the animation and the characters are beautifully drawn. The Phil Collins soundtrack is bland, but it’s also completely ignorable and doesn’t interfere with the rest of the movie. As for the characters, Jane is a girl, but one with guts and a taste for adventure. And Tarzan? Hey, he’s a hunky chunk of man-flesh dressed in nothing but a loincloth, baby! If you’re a stay-at-home mom, you gotta love that.

So we’re watching a lot of Tarzan these days, which is a nice change from the Disney Princesses. Cassie gets to enjoy her funny movie (she loves the monkeys), and I get to ogle an animated hunk. Even Michael thinks the movie is good, and he promises me that someday real soon, he’ll pick up a loincloth and we can both go swinging through the jungle on a vine. Everybody’s happy and life is good.

***

In honor of Tarzan, I present my own sketch of a hunky chunk of man-flesh. No loincloth, but the naughty bits are discretely (sort of) covered up.

26 September 2006, Reclining figure

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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How Do You Like Me Now?

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Medusa Painting, 23 September 2006

Ta-daa! What do you think? I finished it yesterday morning while nursing Sam. Came out pretty good I think.

I’m so proud of myself for finishing this thing. I still had a lot of work left to do on it yesterday, and was feeling a little apathetic about it, but then I sat down and just got lost in the process of laying down color and painting, and when I looked up, it was more than an hour later and the painting was done. Oh, and my left breast was completely flat because Sam was nursing the entire time.

Anyway, I’ve finally finished my first digital painting and now I’m going to look at doing another one. This was so worth the effort. So much more fun that the 3D stuff I’ve been struggling with. The results seemed almost immediate, which never happens when I’m doing 3D. I will probably continue to do the 3D stuff, but digital painting is so much more rewarding. I posted this image to 3D Commune last night and have already had a really nice comment back on it. I’m verra, verra happy right now.

In light of the rest of yesterday’s events, this image only seems to highlight to me how much I don’t fit in with other moms my age (or any age for that matter). I took Cassie to a birthday party yesterday afternoon. One of her classmates from preschool turned three last week and his mother threw a very nice bash. They had a lovely house, with a lovely pool, very nice furniture, nice careers, nice cars. They travel to Europe a lot (the mom is French), they both work. The other moms all worked too, and all the kids there were from Cassie’s preschool class. I sort of fit in, but I sort of didn’t, and I’d have to say the same for Cassie. It wasn’t horrendously bad, just little things I noticed that made me realize how far into Mundania I had to travel to get to that party.

You see, I live an odd life. Or at least I like to think I do. I love my artwork and my writing, I love working in erotica and science fiction and horror. I love karate and other hard core forms of exercise. I love being weird and dressing like a pirate and listening to strange music and being conversant in the latest episode of Doctor Who. I love my weird, weird friends. I love being cynical. But these other moms that I met yesterday, they all seemed so… mundane. Safe. Placid, maybe. Not Stepford wives, but too conservative for my tastes. For instance, one mom was commenting about her son. He likes to refer to one girl in class as his “girlfriend,” and he calls one little boy in his class his “boyfriend.” And his mom said, “Well honey, that’s okay for now, but when you get older, that’s going to have to stop.” The homophobia was so subtle, yet so tangible, I cringed. I’ve got a lot of gay and lesbian friends. I’ve got a lot of friends who have traditional marriages and relationships. I’ve got a lot of friends in open marriages and I’ve got friends who live the BDSM lifestyle to the hilt. So that one mom’s remark was like a slap in the face to me.

Then there was the great breastfeeding debate, where the moms all compared how long they managed to breastfeed their kids before they finally gave it up. I didn’t venture to say how long I’d breastfed Cassie, but let’s just say I nursed my eldest longer than all the other moms nursed their kids combined. And I did it while writing the most torrid erotic stories, and I’m doing it now while creating even more torrid art (did you see my lovely picture above? I’m so proud of it!).

Things got even creepier as I listened to the moms talk about the preschool. These are all working moms as opposed to the moms from my previous mommies group, who were all stay-at-home moms. This group of moms has had their kids in preschool and/or daycare almost from day one, so the preschool is a big part of their lives. And they’re very, very serious about it. They all sat around talking about next week’s letter of the day (it’s D, just in case you’re wondering). Each mom discussed how they were prepping their kid with a word for class the next week, so that when the teacher sat down with the kids and asked them to list words that started with “D,” the children would be ready with an answer. This sort of bothered me, because the first week Cassie had to deal with the letter of the day, she couldn’t figure out a word. She just hasn’t made the connection yet between sounds and letters, although she can name most of the letters of the alphabet when she sees them and she can sing the alphabet song. Her teacher, Miss Dorothy, said Cassie was in tears because she couldn’t come up with a “B” word. She finally got some help from the other students and came out with “Barbie.” So I felt a little… I don’t know, threatened, maybe… to see all these other moms talking about “D” words and how carefully they were preparing their kids for next week. It’s like they were already thinking about how Ivy League schools wouldn’t take their kids fifteen years down the line because little Johnny or little Susie couldn’t figure out that “Dog” starts with “D”. It seemed all so competitive.

Of course, I fell for it. When I got home after the party, I told Michael all about the “D” word debate and he and I spent all evening coming up with “D” words for Cassie to use. Being us, the list was rather unusual. Don’t be surprised if I report next week that Cassie chose “disco,” “diphthong,” or “draconian” as her “D” word.

(Then again, she could go the brown-noser route and say “Dorothy,” her teacher’s name.)

What got me most, though, was watching Cassie play with the other kids. She was her usual outgoing, rambunctious self, jumping around, exploring, directing the imaginary play, mixing it up with the boys and their balloon swords and then singing lullabies to the dollies with the girls. She was too girly to be a tom boy, too energetic to be a princess. She was some alien creature, fun and free spirited, who just didn’t realize yet how different she was from the other kids.

I love the person Cass has become. I love that she can wear her Cinderella dress and play soccer at the same time. She’s a bit of a goof like her mom, coming up with crazy songs and rhymes and riddles, and she definitely has a mind of her own. And that scares me because I know where all that leads to. I was never popular in school. I had my friends, and I still have them, but I remember that while growing up people went out of their way to make me miserable because I was different. And that may be why I didn’t really enjoy myself at the birthday party yesterday. I still remember all that, and I’m just waiting to see the reactions from people when they find out how truly different I am. And thus how truly different Cassie is too.

Anyway, I love my painting, which I feel is a true expression of me, and I loathe taking trips into Mundania where I have to listen to other moms coach their kids to be normal and perfect. My kids will not be normal or perfect. It just isn’t possible. They’ve got me for a mom, and we all know normal and perfect just isn’t me.

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.
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The Perfect End To A Lovely Day

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I had a lovely day Wednesday. Wednesday is Cassie’s day at home with me, and a day I don’t have to be at karate, so I’ve decided to make it an all day play date of sorts, where I just focus on the kids. This past Wednesday I took Cassie and Sam to the YMCA. Poor Sam had to stay in the nursery, but Cassie got to go to the pool with me and swim for almost an hour. Afterwards, we went to Chic-Fil-A for lunch with Cassie’s little friends and then hit the local playground for another hour of frolic and fun. Cassie had a great time, and we only had one melt-down the entire afternoon. Sam just sort of went along for the ride most of the day, but she did get to lie on a picnic blanket with me at the playground, and she seemed to enjoy that.

After all the running around, we headed home, where Cassie and Sam both ended up taking a three hour nap. I used that time to work on some story ideas and do some drawing. I felt very productive and was in a great mood by the time both kids woke up and Michael came home.

For dinner that evening, Michael grilled steaks and corn on the cob (YUM!). Afterwards, I sat with Cassie and Sam and watched a Disney movie that didn’t involve a princess (yeah!). Cassie went to bed fairly easily, and Sam was down shortly after with very little fuss. As I put on my pajamas, I told my husband I had had the perfect day.

Then I went and broke my damn toe.

OUCH! OUCH OUCH OUCH!

See, what happened is this. I was all tucked in bed, snuggling with my husband, when I realized I had forgotten to do my physical therapy exercises for my knees. So I hopped out of bed. Sam’s bassinette is right next to my side of the bed, so I was being very careful not to trip over it as I walked toward a more open part of the room to stretch. I was so careful, in fact, that I failed to notice the iron bedpost on the other side of me and I slammed my left foot into it, thus breaking my little toe. The conversation between me and my husband in the twenty minutes following that event was rather interesting.

Me: *%&^#^$*!!! Oh &$%(^$&!

Michael: Sweetie? What happened?

Me: @#$@#%%^^#*&^!!! I broke my $%^*@#! toe!

Michael: Are you okay?

Me: No, *^%&@$#%! Do I sound okay? I broke my %^$&#$%#$% toe!

Michael: Do you want me to turn on the light and look at it?

Me: #$*%&$%#&!

Michael: Okay, do you want me to go get some ice then?

Me: %&$%*#@(^&%^$##%^!!!

Michael: Maybe you should lie on the bed and elevate your foot.

Me (collapsing on the bed and writhing in pain): *&^#$*&%^#$^!! I can’t believe I broke my *#&%#^*(@&^&# toe!!

And so on. Note that in my moment of distress, I naturally lapsed back into my native tongue – swearing.

So after a perfectly lovely day, I smashed up my little toe and now I’m hobbling around the house in constant pain. The toe in question is twice its normal size and very, very purple. I did go see a doctor, even though I didn’t want to, and listened to him as he explained that the only thing he could do is tape the mashed toe to the one next to it (which is something I already knew, and that was why I didn’t want to bother with going to see a doctor but my physical therapist insisted). I’m out of karate for the time being because I can barely walk. I can do my physical therapy stuff if I’m very careful not to knock my left foot around. And I can still take care of Sam. But most of the time I’m pretty much immobile with my foot elevated and packed in ice.

So there you go, a perfect example of the Cynical Woman truism. Just when you think everything is going great, something goes horribly, horribly wrong, and then Cynical Woman raises her ugly head and says…

Well, you know what she says.

***

Here’s the artwork from yesterday. My plan yesterday had been to continue working on drawing torsos and maybe start adding legs. Somehow I actually ended up completing one of the figures. I’m thrilled with the results. The pose is complicated, especially the angle of the head, yet I didn’t need to look at any reference guides to make it work. I was able to draw it straight from my mind with a bit of experimentation. Practice has definitely made all the difference in my artwork.

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.

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The Origins Of Cynical Woman

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I have a secret to confess. I am not the original Cynical Woman.

Are you shocked? Don’t be. Cynical Woman is a title I inherited/borrowed from a friend of mine way back when. Many, many, many moons ago, I was a young college student studying communications at Virginia Tech. I was also a cadet and an ROTC scholarship student, but those are miseries we’ll discuss in later entries. As I was saying, I was a young Hokie working hard on my degree and in desperate need of a social life. Being the geek/freak that I am, I joined VTSFC, the Virginia Tech Science Fiction Club, and proceeded to meet a wild assortment of characters, including a charming young woman named Joelle. I do not use the word charming lightly. Joelle originally haled from Atlanta, Georgia, and was as close to a Southern Belle as anyone I’ve ever met. She had style, grace, good manners and enough attitude to power all five computers currently running in this house, which is funny because computers and Joelle never really did get along.

So I met Joelle and we very quickly became good friends. She was working on her master’s degree in entomology, the study of bugs, and did cool things like make pets out of giant Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches (while still maintaining that wonderful Southern Belle attitude). Unfortunately for Joelle, life was not always easy. I think she had more than her fair share of bumps trying to get through grad school. She was supporting herself and paying for all her courses, which often stretched her finances thin. She worked an assortment of jobs to make ends meet, and did them all very well, but usually only got paid crap for them. She rented a small room in an apartment that was quite frequently mistaken for a landfill. Her room was clean, but the rest of the place was a dump. And she had problems with friends who turned out to not be friends, thesis advisors who stabbed her in the back, etc., etc., etc. I won’t go into too many details because a lot of it is quite personal and much of it is not pleasant, but I will say that Joelle survived in spite of all the garbage that was dumped on her by her graduate department, minimum wage jobs, and assorted aggravating room mates and faux friends. In fact, she did quite well, although there was always something coming up to cause her trouble even after she graduated and moved on to bigger and better things.

Through much of this, I had the pleasure of being one of Joelle’s friends. I can remember several lunches, usually held as some fine but affordable dining establishment located somewhere in Blacksburg, where we’d sit and discuss our woes (I had my own problems with being a cadet and an ROTC scholarship student, but again, we’ll save that for later). What I remember best is that after detailing her latest crisis, Joelle always said the same thing. “You know Helen, just when I think things are going well and everything is wonderful, something really crappy happens, and then Cynical Woman raises her ugly head and says ‘I told you so!’”

And that’s where Cynical Woman came from. It wasn’t until a few years later that I myself started to use those same words. “And then Cynical Woman raises her ugly head…” By then, I was dealing with my own crappy minimum wage jobs, assorted aggravating room mates and faux friends and I so totally understood what Joelle meant. You think things are going okay and you start to feel happy and kind of nice and then life jumps up and bits you in the ass. Only the way Joelle said it sounded so much nicer. Cynical Woman. It just had a nice ring to it, so I adopted the title and developed the persona to go with it. And I have to admit, being Cynical Woman has served me pretty well these last few years, especially when my life has been at its worst. Anytime I’ve been hip deep in agony, I’ve always been surrounded by a bunch of Pollyannas who try to tell me that life is great, things are going to get better, God has a plan for me, etc., etc. Well I know better. Life isn’t always great. Many times it down right sucks, and I’d much rather be Cynical Woman and know that life is going to hand me crap than be all perky and obliviously happy and then get kicked in the teeth when things go bad. Some people think that’s a horrible attitude to have, but I say it’s realistic, and being realistic means I’m always prepared for when things go wrong.

So whatever happened to Joelle, you ask. Where is the original Cynical Woman now? She’s in Bangkok, Thailand, a place she went to pursue her dream job and live an exotic, adventurous life. Of course, they’ve just had a military coup over there and everything’s in a sort of uproar. As Cynical Woman would say, “It figures.”

***

Artwork from yesterday. More torsos. I’m getting better at it, I think.

Torso studies, 19 September 2006

Cynical Woman is the creative property of Helen E. H. Madden.
Be sure to visit www.cynicalwoman.com for Cynical Woman cartoons.