I want a better home

"I want a better home," says someone living in a literal castle.

I can't remember what is on the placard on the castle wall, but I'm pretty sure it is a "decree."

This is not nearly as funny now as it was when I drew it. Mainly because I do this in real life. I am perfectly content in my house... until I visit someone's whose is nicer.

Is an 8 year old from 1990 making you feel bad about yourself, too?

The birds and the bees

Just a nice childlike picture of what I imagined everyone was talking about when referring to the birds and the bees. I knew it had something to do with love.

Notice one bee in the middle giving a flower to the other. 

Decorate the tree, spend time with family

It's a special Christmas STORY TIME!

Around the same time I was drawing and writing in this composition book, my brother,  Jason, and I wrote and performed a Christmas musical. I don't remember much about it, but here's what I do remember:

Jason was Santa, and I was Mrs. Claus. We had heard that a new prince had been born, the little baby Jesus, and were going to meet him. 

There were multiple songs, including at least one we "wrote." The lyrics I remember are "decorate the tree-ee-ee. Spend time with famil-y-ee-ee." This was to the tune of "whiter than the snow" which was a song we sang at church during this time. We also sang at least one Christmas song or carol. 

Bless my long-suffering mother who helped us make Santa hats out of red shirts and cotton balls, and who sat through our rehearsals AND the final production.

Today I was scared

Dear Diary...

Today I was scared. Yesterday I had a bad day. 

What's the opposite of "cracking me up"? Because that's what this page is doing to me. The handwriting makes me think this is one of the first things I ever wrote, and it's certainly my first offical diary entry. 

I hope that I just thought this was the kind of thing people were supposed to write in their diaries. But my mom has described me as a depressed 4-year-old, so it's just as likely that this represents my true feelings at the time. 

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go hold my babies, now. 

Strange things (#3)

#3 Strange things

...I finally woke up. 

But when I awoke a weird thing happened, my chair exploded again! 

To be continued...

Oh! It was all a dream... wait! Why is my real life chair exploding?  To be continued! Nooooo!

And guess what? It never was continued. We will never know what was causing all these strange things, or what strange things would happen next! 

From the handwriting, it appears that a significant amount of time has passed between Strange Things #2 and Strange Things #3. It's like a Vicar of Dibley Christmas special.

Strange things (#2)

#2 Strange Things

Then my chair started to explode! 

To be continued...

I think this chair is beginning to explode. It is! This chair is exploding now, and in a few minutes it will be done exploding. 

I wonder if I got away? 

To be contonud: 

Strange Things (#1)

#1 Strange Things

As I was sitting in a chair a strange thing happened.

My own brother started to eat me!

To be continued...

The two things (thaings) I like best about this story are: 

1. Invented spelling. I was always a bit of a perfectionist, but I like that I didn't let that stop me. 

2. "Thaings" is exactly how I pronounced it. 

To be contonud:

The Matt and Eva

I've included this board game mainly because Matt from "the Matt and Eva" game shows up in a later journal. He was my boyfriend in 2nd grade, and I guess he technically still is since we never broke up. Well, Matt, you were an extremely low-maintenance boyfriend these last 29 years. But I have to end it. I have married another. Can you ever forgive my perfidy?

It's a pretty simplistic game, but it isn't very fun, either. Feel free to print it out and play it. If you do, be sure to share pictures.

Hatching Easter egg

"Why are there lines on my home?"

I think it's especially cute that I thought baby chicks lived in eggs after they hatched.

Over the years, looking back at previous journal entries, I've been embarrassed at how silly I was. Not anymore, though. I'm allowing my child-self to be a child.

E.T. with "bee stings" but really boobs

Hee hee hee! I drew E.T. with boobies. But I don't want Mom to know, so I'll pretend it is just bee stings all over. I didn't want to get in trouble for drawing breasts, so I drew 8 breasts, instead.

Fishing?

Girl 1: Do you want to fish?
...
Girl 1: Well?
Girl 2: No.
Girl 1: Why?
Girl 2: Well...
Girl 1: Why?
Girl 2: Well...
Girl 1: Well, why?
Girl 2: I don't have a rod.

She doesn't have a rod. I don't know why she's so embarrassed to admit that.

Girl 1, why are you being  so pushy?

STORY TIME

I used to fish with my bio-dad a lot. And one summer morning, years after this gem of comic strip with a tap-line where it's punchline should be, my brother, Jason, and I got up early to go fishing in Big Wheeling Creek. We didn't catch anything. But we had a sparkly purple crawfish lure, and somehow Jason hooked himself in the nose with it. That was the day I learned what both "tin snips" and "bacitracin" were. 

Turn down the music

Loud music playing
*click*
Tom: Hey! Turn that down!
Loud guy: No. Why?
Tom: Because everybody's sleeping!
Loud guy: Well that's no reason, Tom!
The end

It's funny, you see, because that actually is a very good reason.

It's taken me a WHILE to parse this one. I'm PRETTY sure I've figured it out. I think every kid has to learn the hard way that there must be order to speech bubbles.

My livingroom

The TV stand

The fish tank

These are actually fairly accurate representations of my living room at Wheeling Station. There's our black and white TV with the bunny ears. Below that is a radio/record player/8-track player. Under that is the Atari and/or Nintendo.

Those dots on the fish tank are snails. Snails, you might not know, reproduce like tribbles, except they lay eggs in a slimy mass all over the glass, and you'll have to scrape them off in order to see your fish.

7 and 8's epic battle

Here's a series of panels in which the number 7 and the number 8 are locked in battle. Who will be victorious?

7 and 8 are fighting.
Who wins?
8:me!
7: no, me!

10 appears
10: me!

10:Who will fight me?

7: not me!
8: not me!
7 and 8 run away.

10 removes his costume to reveal he's actually a regular guy.
Guy: that scared them off!

Deus ex machina'd!

I think the guy in the 10 costume just wanted them to stop fighting. Wasn't that a silly trick?

STORY TIME:

When I was about to turn 10, my dad told me I would never actually become 10, because the 1 would fall through the 0's hole and become a nine again.

like this:

That ain't ok!

Toothy worm sticks out his
tongue.
Saliva drips off. 

"Sorry, Mommy."

Mom says, "That ain't okay"

"Go to your room"
The end

I actually remember drawing this one. First I drew the worm,  then I drew his tongue sticking out. Then I drew the saliva dripping off. Then I thought, "Why not make this into a larger story?"

Seriously, though, this worm's Mommy hurts my feelings. Little worms sometimes stick their tongues out because they're not fully developed enough to be able to control those emotions.

Mommy worms need to accept apologies and forgive. That helps little worms grow. Into giant carnivorous worms, perhaps.

Word searches

I really liked word searches, and tried making my own. The first try was a total flop because, apparently, I didn't know very many words. And because I used scribble lines instead of other letters to hide the ones I did know.

Isn't it clever to do a word search about clothes inside a T-shirt? It would have been great if only I'd had the patience to fill in all those missing letters.

The Headless Horseman

This is the headless horseman. You've heard of that guy before. Only, I think I forgot to NOT draw the head. So I crossed it out, instead.

I'd be really interested in any horse drawings that look less like a horse, too.

Hey, you, come back

Hey, you, come back. 

Come back now. 

Are you back yet? 

What? No? 

Well, goodbye. 

Well, then, hi.

Oh, good, you are back. 

That almost made me hack. 

This, as far as I know, is the first poem I ever wrote. The quality of my poetry has not increased significantly in the last 30 years, which is why I am not a poet. I'm almost definitely 7 or 8 here. 

I actually remembered this poem differently all these years until finding it again recently. I remembered the line "What? No?" As "No, I bet." It fits better, so, like most things from my childhood, I remember it being much cooler than reality. 

In fact, I'm wondering now if I never even meant for it to be a poem. 

At any rate, now you know you can greet people, "oh good, you are back. That almost made me hack."

Why eat me?

Monster: because I'm hungry.
Bird: oh.
The end

Monster: I'll eat you
Person: why?
To be continued...

Did you notice that the person became a bird somewhere between page 35 and 38? I  noticed that too. And so, I drew a bird in the person's throat. That way I could pretend it was a bird in a person costume all along.

I don't know how much time passed between the two pages, but there is a poem in between them.

Despite the dream-like quality of this, where suddenly the protagonist has actually been someone else all along, it's actually quite sensible. The monster isn't being mean by eating the bird/person. He's just hungry. And hearing this, the bird isn't really offended by the threat anymore.

Did he get eaten? I'm pretty sure yes. But it isn't clear, so feel free to decide for yourself.

The window washer

A window washer, and a guy inside the window have this conversation:

Window washer: Help!

Inside guy: Why?

Window washer: I'm falling, you dip!

My favorite thing about this comic panel is the window washer taking time to call the inside guy a "dip". Does anybody else remember using "dip" as the worst insult you could think of?

You know who really loves this stuff? My 7-year- old.  In fact, he has started  his own notebook inspired by mine. I'm going to accept that as a parenting win.

I am going to EAT YOU!

Page 1. A big, scary monster roars, "I'm going to eat you!" The terrified person cries out, "help!"

Page 2. A bigger, scarier monster tells the first monster,  "I will eat YOU!"

And then the story ends. With instant karma.

You don't think the big monster on page one looks like the little monster on page two? Well, they are the same guy.

Two worms

First they go left. Then they go right. Then our story is over. This poignant vignette of a day in the life of a pair of worms makes me think of a simpler time. A time when worms going then coming was the whole story. And that was good enough.

But notice the worms' expressions! The top worm is angry and the bottom worm is happy going left. Their expressions are reversed coming back. What happened over there?

I eat meat

A giant, pointy-toothed worm saying,  "I eat meat."

Who doesn't love a carnivorous worm? Everybody. That's who.

I am sure this was directly inspired by something my 3-years-older brother drew, but I can't remember what.

c. 1988-1991, 5-8 years old.