We Need To Talk About Noses

Good news, everybody. I’ve discovered how to draw noses! This week marks the beginning of my characters having one more line on their faces.

I’m still experimenting with “my” style. I don’t know if I want my characters to have necks, noses, or eyes that are more expressive than dots. Past me would have felt frustrated by this. I would have wanted to come up with the perfect style and then stick with it until I’m in my grave. Current me doesn’t care anymore. I’m just doing what’s fun. And right now, I’m enjoying drawing noses.

Monday

Good: We fixed the leaking radiator pipe. Bad: The whole radiator somehow sagged and stopped working. It might not have worked before we fixed the leak, but it definitely didn’t afterward.

Tuesday

Why am I still accepting deliveries for my neighbors?! It’s always the same. I feel bad for the delivery person, and then, very quickly after that, for myself. My neighbors don’t care if a package sits in my hallway for more than a week. It’s as if they expect me to bring it to them, even though I know they’ve been notified about where it is.

That being said, if these are the problems I have to deal with, I can consider myself lucky.

Wednesday

They were in Barcelona once and suddenly decided to appropriate a Catalan holiday. Sant Jordi is a holiday where men gift women flowers, and women gift men books. I bet there’s some kind of religious background to all of this, but I didn’t bother learning any of it. I also subscribe to the belief that women should read as well, so I’m gifting both.

Your rules can’t contain me.

Thursday

Anna mentioned this holiday once a couple of months ago. I quickly noted it in my calendar. We didn’t talk about it again after that, and we were both pleasantly surprised this morning when we managed to surprise each other with books (and a rose).

I would have gotten a rose too, but Anna knows that receiving flowers when you live with cats is tricky business.

Friday

I posted this in the r/ArtJournaling subreddit and mentioned in a reply that I use ChatGPT to convert American recipes to European measurements. They didn’t like that. Every mention of AI, no matter the use case, seems to result in an onslaught of downvotes, as if the topic could be handled in such binary terms.

Anyway, the food was great. Kale, beans, garlic, what’s not to love?!

Saturday

Two days before Anna moves to her new flat. Everything is packed up and ready to go.

I like this drawing a lot. It’s a bit more detailed than what I usually do, and it gives it so much more character. I like that there are things to discover. I’m also very happy with the colors. Everything works quite well together.

(There was a discussion on Reddit about the ethics of still reading Harry Potter. I’m all for trans people doing their thing and don’t want to give JKR any money, but I’ve decided that rereading and enjoying these stories fits with my personal ethics.)

Sunday

My cats are literally angels. They’ve never been aggressive. They also don’t consider hands or feet to be toys, which is something I made a point of teaching them. So our relationship doesn’t involve many scratches or bites.

They only bite to communicate something. Whether it’s “love bites” or “please stop doing this, you ignored my previous signals” bites.

In this case, it was the latter. I was petting Millimeter while talking on the phone. I didn’t notice the early warning signs. She turned around and grabbed my arm with her paws and mouth to stop me. Unfortunately, she misjudged her jaw strength and her teeth broke my skin. Only a tiny bit, but still bad news. There aren’t many animal bites in daily life that are more dangerous than those of cats.

I actually know someone who nearly lost her arm because of something like this. She had to get skin transplanted from her back to her arm. Crazy.

You’ll see next week if I survived this.

This is the end of the free part of this newsletter. After the paywall, you’ll read about my current feelings toward my art, if you want to. It’s not required reading. There will be no test next week.