Yesterday was a scary driving day.
I still didn't do any of the things I assumed I was going to do by now…
Like hit a bird,
or get smashed by a deer,
or destroy a mailbox,
and I haven't even knocked a side-view mirror off yet!
YAY!
However, it IS Winter,
and the roads look like a giant infant took a hammer to them.
My father had trouble with a few potholes recently, so you'd think I would have seen this coming.
NOPE.
Mom, after the fact, said she saw it… but we're going to ignore how that would have been nice to mention BEFORE I hit it. Mom.
*ahem*
So, I whacked a giant hole in the ground and while it sounded scary, most of the road had sounded scary, so I didn't think much of it.
There were also so many potholes, some of which stretched across the whole area, so it was difficult to avoid them.
Usually I'm the only one making horrible noises while I drive, but this time Mom chimed in.
You know that noise Lucile Ball makes on I Love Lucy?
It was like that.
Every. Time.
Still, not nearly as bad as the noises my father makes as soon as I get behind the wheel at all.
Seriously, I could be parked and he'll still hit the imaginary brake on his side.
Anyway, I didn't know anything was horribly wrong until I went into a "lane" over on the side, thinking a car in front of me was in a turning lane, rather than, you know, parked.
Then another car came up next to me in the correct lane.
I figured I was trapped and Mom and I would have to eat parts of the car to survive until we were rescued from my stupidity.
The man in the other car honked, which I assumed was an angry honk.
It was not.
I rolled down the window and he mentioned that our hubcap (read: Mom's hubcap that I slammed off of her poor car) was by the town hall, in a snow bank.
Thank you, Stranger-Man.
I had this weird swell of embarrassment from having been driving around with only three hubcaps.
I pictured getting laughed at by more fashionable drivers.
Because Mom mentioned that I need to be careful with the next potholes so as not to damage the tire, my severe lack of car-knowledge showed.
I was under the assumption that the hubcap was usually bolted on, keeping the tire in place.
I imagined the tire now flying off without it's metal seat belt, and me going to some kind of car-jail for committing tire manslaughter.
Anyway, Mom found the hubcap after wandering around a bit.
This brings up a few questions.
Did it fly off of the car into the snowbank?
Did the kindly neighbors take the time to get out of their car to pick it off of the road and leave it where we could find it?
Did they follow us that whole way to tell us, or was it by chance that they happened to see a car missing a hubcap later on and fill in the blanks?
Either way, Mom and I weren't entirely positive we could put it back on right then and there, so she just plopped it in the car.
I was still a little shaken by "OH MY FUCK I BROKE YOUR CAR I'M SO SORRY" so I asked her to do the driving until our next errand was done.
I've been calling that my first accident just because I want that part of my life to be over with and it didn't involve anyone else being damaged.
Let me think this.
Shhh...
I should start this off by mentioning that I wrote this on a Wednesday, yet I'm posting it a day later at around eleven something PM.
That should give you an idea of how Wednesdays go for me.
I'm becoming like a syndicated cartoon strip, with how much I hate Wednesdays.
I still have to take the road test to get my license (and get a car) and Wednesdays are the day everyone seems to be most busy.
This year, I've had class every Wednesday.
This means, every Wednesday has been me totally alone…
and then suddenly off to school.
This wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't had the anxiety issues and all that.
I wound up just kind of doing nothing all day every day last semester, unless I had somewhere to be.
I was fine once people were home… but yeah. It was a pretty bad semester.
Of course, next week will be awful, even though Rob is home all day, but that is for the opposite reason.
Bored is awful.
Busy is awful.
Next week, we have a meeting together, then I have an interview in another town, and then I have class.
Why does everything have to happen on Wednesdays?
Either way, I am aware that I need to start driving.
This need does not change the fact that I don't want to and have never really wanted to.
Owning a car sounds awesome, without the insurance costs and all that.
I just don't wanna drive it.
To alleviate my automatic fear, I tend to make Mario Kart-like noises, especially on turns.
…
They can't fail me for that on the road test, right?
I will say, I'm not an awful driver, despite my fear.
I even avoided an accident yesterday when a woman came peeling out of a side street without looking.
I'm not afraid of dying in a car, by the way.
I'm afraid of being maimed. Losing a limb…
Hurting the car someone else owns is also on that list of fears.
*sigh*
…
I hate Wednesdays.
I've been drawing these things and I'm not gonna post them all here because SURPRISES but...
FLEYES because I'm clever.
I love them.
I can't stop drawing them doing silly things...
Fifteen of them in black and white will be used to countdown to the first Oh Hell, Donna! being posted.
I'll let you know when that starts.
...For now...
Lookit fleyes playing the snow!
*ahem*
They’ll all wind up on mugs and such in http://society6.com/RowynGolde and possibly in a RedBubble store for stickers.
We’ll see.
I’ve got to shop around for that.
If you can think of a good place to have stickers made, let me know.
I'd also love to make some kind of charm out of these guys eventually.
Looking out the window today, I am reminded that…
I have always hated the snow.
Mostly, I only looked forward to snow when there was enough to keep me from standing outside neck deep in it, waiting for the bus.
Now, don't say to me, "Then why live here???"
I have lived in the harsh desert lands as well.
Didn't work out.
I like it here. I do.
I also think the snow is very pretty.
And not liking to be in the snow, even as a child, certainly didn't stop my friends from outright forcing me to have a good time in the white, Wintery muck.
I did, indeed, have a good time.
…Once in a while.
Even in high school, we used a recycling bin:
Created snow-bricks:
And used said bricks of snow to make a very intense snow-fort:
It was around this time that it occurred to me that growing up didn't have to mean no longer having fun or being imaginative.
Being inventive is what makes life interesting.
After two nose bleeds, literal blood, sweat, and tears went into making that damn fort.
There were also many times before and after that day where R rated snow people were created.
Still, none of these memories, precious as they are, can convince me that going outside in the snow is better than sitting cozy inside, watching the snow from a window instead.
Happy snow day, to those who have it today.
Some people are aware that Oh Hell, Donna! used to look very different.
This is because the first page was done long before even Deddrie (www.deddrie.com) was a thing, and that comic has been around for about a decade or so.
...Longer?
Oh crap.
How old am I???
In any case, I'm not ready to show you those embarrassing days of Donna yet.
I might for fun once the comic is up and running.
Instead, I'll show you a different thing that wound up a giant pile of failure.
I'm showing you this because I KEPT it.
I kept it just like I kept everything of Donna, until I was ready to come back to it again.
My hope is that one day, Risker will go that way too.
Actually, I think it would work well as a videogame.
This was the page that made it to any kind of portfolio:
Out of the twenty something pages planned, only four were ever completed...
And they were mostly shitty.
I was BIG on detail work, but I had no sense of anatomy or pacing or layout or... Anything, really.
That being said, the style itself was kind of neat, and
if I ever have the time, I might use it for something else
*coughDONNAcough*
The two main characters were Risker:
Such... emo...
And Katryna, who I'd need to rename.
Seeeeee, she was created before the hurricane of a different spelling, but I feel the fact that her main move is to spin around like a bladed tornado might cause some problems.
I'll have to think about that one...
Other sketches for her and what eventually became her were about as unsuccessful as those two random tails you'll never see again.
(Was this early Rage or...?)
If she were a superhero...
Future... steampunk... something?
Oh, and the plot of this story had something to do with Risker's mom being kidnapped to use as basically a mini baby factory for monsters.
He spends the first half of his story looking for her, and the other half trying to defeat his dad...
Who has one of the worst character designs ever.
Ever.
Even the Snykelbei...stump... Whatever.
Even that thing that eventually became a scratch drawing for whatever reason:
Started off with a different design:
I went through a phase of things like this, and I wanted them ALL to be in Risker.
The henchmen/soldiers eventually got more human-like:
AAaaaaand of course there were plenty of other characters that didn't quite make it.
Seriously. The Hell was some of this crap?
Oh, and all the badguys had a symbol that worked as a brand.
Risker and Kat both had them as well, though Risker's is shorter because he flipped out and screwed it up.
These were other ideas for that thing:
Fun fact, that top one was made into a real, wearable necklace in a shop class once.
Made out of metal and everything.
It was Kat's necklace, you see.
I was like, really sure that I was going to stick with this particular storyline and such.
SO sure, that I have a tattoo and everything.
Yep.
Mind you, I love my tattoo, and at this point it represents more of who I am than it ever did for this comic.
Still, I'd like to make this into something one day.
We'll see.
For now, it'll wait in the morgue just like Donna, Stitches, Moth and everything else I brought back in the last few years did before.
