Self-Imposed
by CMcL on January 27, 2012 at 6:15 PM- Pictures from Inside
Wedged in a prison I entered of my own free will, I look around my cell and wonder, in a largely-ignored corner of my mind, why I consistently do this to myself. As the walls close in, reducing my available options with every passing day, I stubbornly refuse to look up. An oubliette’s opening is always at the top, the way you came in the only means of escape. Surrounded by the bones of all my previous failures, I keep my eyes fixed on the floor. “I can make my own way out,” I growl through aching, grinding teeth. “I can do this myself.” The words belie the reality; I’m here, again, because I spoke without thinking, again, leapt before I looked, again. Now I sit here muttering, “I meant to do that,” which nobody ever believes, not even me. The inevitable approaches, openly, with no stealth or camouflage, calmly making its inexorable way towards me. I watch, mutely, as I always have before.
Apology
by CMcL on November 28, 2011 at 10:59 AMI’ve gotten a few nice notes from people who’ve been wondering what’s up with my lack of updates for a while now, and I thought I’d better pop in and make a public post to explain.
Real life is kicking my butt lately, pure and simple. Due to business not picking up the way the bosses told us it would’ve by now, I’m having some very serious financial struggles at this time. This contributes directly to such things as deepening depression, periodic Internet and electricity shutdowns due to non-payment of bills, and more time spent away from home attempting to secure additional income and possibly a backup roof over my head in the event that the rent becomes unpayable, all of which in turn has led to me not updating my doofy little photocomic.
I sincerely apologize for the lack of communication; when times are tough like this, I always have a tendency to withdraw into my shell and avoid human contact, but it occurs to me that this long-standing habit of mine has never actually served any useful purpose and is probably only making things worse. So, those of you who are still reading: I’m sorry. I’m having a rough time right now. I appreciate everyone who keeps checking in, sending notes, and leaving comments. I’ll try to at least post some pictures, even if I can’t get it together enough to scrape a conversation onto them, but I’m thinking things won’t be back to normal here for at least another week or two.
Finally, in the (admittedly unlikely) event that you’re not feeling the sting of the current Economic Fun Times and you want to throw me a bone, I do have a PayPal donate button on the About/FAQ page. If you send me your mailing address along with a few dollars, I’ll get a hi-res photo print to you with a love note from me on the back. Or, you can buy prints directly from my gallery on ImageKind.
Again, apologies for the radio silence. I’ll try to do better.
ARGH
by CMcL on October 14, 2011 at 1:00 PMSo sorry for the radio silence these past few days! I had so prided myself on updating faithfully, even if I couldn’t make it the same time every update, and now here I am, a colossal failure. I lost Internet service at home for a few days and only just now got it back up and running, so the missing updates will be forthcoming forthwith forthyou. Don’t give up on me, small gang of stragglers who still follow me for some reason!
Random Question
by CMcL on October 2, 2011 at 3:44 AMI’m up late, can’t sleep, mind wandering, night-addled, and a little punchy, and I had a thought. Actually, I’ve been having this thought off and on for months but it keeps slipping away from me, but since it’s almost four AM and I have nothing better to do, here’s a question: How would people feel if I started using touched-up photos on the site — adjusting things like contrast, levels, brightness, etc., not actually changing the contents of my photos but just fiddling with cosmetic things like that? I’ve been a “purist” for the past year or so in that I’ve just posted the photos as they are, warts and all, but lately I’ve had a bit of an itch to tinker.
I’m sure I’ve vastly overestimating the extent to which anybody cares about this sort of thing, but again, night-addled and punchy. Tell me what you think, if anything.
Housekeeping Notes
by CMcL on September 9, 2011 at 12:11 PMEarlier this week I made a few changes to the site, hopefully they’re for the better. The sidebar was getting ridiculously overlong, so I changed the layout to three columns (and yes, added another ad, hopefully it’s not too distracting, but the spare change I earn from those things is very helpful to me). I removed the background image, even though I always liked that picture, because I felt like it was competing with the comic photos. I just added a search form, in case there was a particular conversation or story you wanted to find but can’t figure it out from the tags or the archives. I’m also going back and gradually adding transcripts to all the old conversations so you can search by the text in the image as well as my little blurbs.
If any of this stuff doesn’t work or the pages look broken in some way, pretty please with sugar and a cherry on top let me know? Thanks!
Tweaking
by CMcL on September 4, 2011 at 7:13 PMSince I’ve got the next couple of days off work, I might be making some changes to the site layout. If you see some weirdness, please don’t unsubscribe and leave me all alone! I just want to smooth a few things over and ComicPress is occasionally wonky, so it might be a bumpy ride. Feel free to drop me a line at cmcldotnet (spelled out like that) on the Google Mail Thingy if you see something that’s really off-kilter, or stop by my Twitter or G+. Heck, feel free to do that anyway. I don’t bite.