Updated late again sorry!

I DID finish it ontime I promise! I just...forgot about the part about loading it into the computer. ANd then work arrived.

And it was a rushed job, anyway. (Sigh. You deserve better for yoru patience) Had to get it done before I went back to work, so I let myself cut a few corners...and really, really screw up a few more.

Makes me glad tomorrow is my last day.

Good news and bad news there...well, actually it feels like mostly good news. I was only part-time seasonal help, and Christmas is over, and I've been miserable while I did it. I couldn't be creative and work at the same time, either because I was too tired, or that's...just the way work is. I know there are creative people who work a nine-to-five at the same time as thier writing/drawing/real life work. They are better people than I am and they have my respect.

I don't think I'd BE quitting if they hadn't already let me go. Oddly enough, my boss-lady let me know she was letting me ago a day before the cashier they WERE keeping turned in his two day notice and Boss changed her mind. There was a six hour spread between when I KNEW I was being let go and when she let me know that she was going to keep me after all...and I felt like I was being let out of prison. So I thought it over that day, and today, and tomorrow I'm going to tell her, in effect, thanks but no thanks.

Maybe I'm being stupid, maybe I'll regret it, but...as sucessful as I have been at working and meeting other people's expectations, I've never felt less like me than I have while I was working. To go in every day, it felt like I had to kill a part of myself, or at least gag it and lock it up in a closet. That's the part that gives you this comic, and all the pretty pictures in my gallery, and all the stories in my head. And I know that if I gag that part, beat that part and make it stay away to meet the imposed standards of sucess that other people levy against me...it'll die. And that's the one thing I've got that I value more than anything else. I'll do a lot to survive in this world, but I'll never do anything that makes me feel dead inside.

So laugh at the silly stupidity of the immature little girl who can't adapt to Real Life. Laugh if you want to. I just don't think that the nine-to-five that makes you feel like you've shreaded your heart just to go everyday is Real Life. Real Life is something that makes you glad to be alive.

And don't expect to see me back at a Cash Register anytime soon. I've got to spend some time reminding myself what it feels like to be happy again. - Chelsea Gaither