I feel virtuous today! Yes, virtuous… by that I mean I did all I was supposed to do! When you live alone, without editors breathing down your neck, it’s all too easy to say fuck it, it’s too hot, I’m tired or feeling uninspired, it can wait so lets take the day off and watch TV or go out shopping for… whatever! It takes self-discipline and great moral fibber to be so self-motivating… plus it helps to be so broke that shopping is not an option. I got up at the crack of 11 (AM mind you, in the morning!) checked my mail (Guardian) and did my yotchi. That is, a half hour of yoga and an hour of Tia-Chi I’d taped off the multi-culture channel. It was when I was doing some yogic meditation that I had this odd feeling of solidity and strength in my whole body I don’t remember feeling before. It was like those “ecstatic moments” I sometimes get. Actually, I had one yesterday. Ecstatic moments are these brief, frozen moments when I’ll be looking at something I might see everyday, a tree, debris in a gutter, a patch of grass and I’m overwhelmed by the feeling that what I’m looking at is the most arresting, beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. And like debris in a gutter it doesn’t have to be beautiful. Apparently these things happen to us arty types…

I performed the whole 24 posture Tia-Chi and only wobbled a few times, I think I’m getting the hang of it… but I’ll never be able to do those kicks! Then I did some overdue vacuum cleaning of the carpets, I’d been putting it off as my vacuums broken but the floor was getting crunchy! So I pulled out my old vacuum which I had kept in case of emergency and gave the carpet a good suck! I had to replace the bag and clear a nasty paper clog but I got it done. Then I mopped the floors of the kitchen and bathroom. By the time I finished my bath it was time for the 6 O’clock news so I watched that over a late tea. I took the tea into the studio at 7 and got to work inking the Nine O’clock gun story making great progress, listening to “The Magnetic Fields“, “Pere Ubu” and “The Violent Femmes“. When I got tired of that I worked on inks for “The Littlest Gunne” mini-comic before going back to the main project. Dinner at 10 (pork chop with boiled potatoes, apple sauce and steamed vegetables) and back at work until nearly 3 AM! Now I’m telling you.

I was asked recently if I was happy, a question I’ve always treated with great suspicion. I mean, really, happy? Who’s happy? Stupid people mostly. My family does not do happiness. It’s a skill or an instinct that is absent from my family’s DNA, like, like albino’s who are born without pigment in their skin… I the best I can hope for is an absence of misery. I’m striving for contentment. I’m not sure if I would know happiness if it came up and gave me a bear hug, but today, on my own limited terms, I think I came close to happiness… can’t be bad…

I do fear and wonder how I will suffer for this happiness, for I find happiness never goes unpunished.