Category: comics

Em ơi! #367: SLC Diaries, part 1

Oh my friends, I have been busy. I have so much I want to blog about, including other comics and a book review I’ve been sitting on for two weeks, but it all has to wait until some mythical time “when my other work is finished.” Yes. Well. I’m off to Montreal for the weekend, and I’m hopeful that I will at least get another comic sketched out.

This comes from a trip B and I took two weeks ago to Salt Lake City to visit my brother and his wife. I will confess that I–like, I think, all dog owners–think the breed of dog that my dog is (shiba inu) is the best breed. Consequently, when I meet other dogs I usually think, “Well, why didn’t you get a shiba?” But Mac immediately became one of the animals I care a lot about, bypassing that question entirely. He was entirely sweet and amazing. He’s also very relaxed. The difference between an almost two year old dog like Maya and a ten year old dog is incredible.

Filing this one under: SF429.C3 L86 2012 for Animal culture–Pets–Dogs–By breed, A-Z–Cairn terrier.

Here are a few photos from the trip. Click to embiggen.

The Thai actually says something like, “Cruelty is not silent.”

I ran over some of those mountains on the left there. I don’t know which one specifically. It was called Little Mountain.

Em oi! #39, 78, 90, 94, 147, 149, 158, and 162: Running Jokes


GV529 .L86 2007 (Recreation. Leisure—Physical education and training—Gymnastics. Gymnastics exercises—Heavy exercises—Jumping exercises.) Guest appearance by Ly!

GV498 .L86 2007 (Recreation. Leisure—Physical education and training—Gymnastics. Gymnastics exercises—Calisthenics. Group exercises—Rope jumping or skipping.) Guest appearance by Chandra!

GV1061.8.P75 L86 2007 (Recreation. Leisure—Sports—Track and field athletics—Foot racing. Running—Other special topics, A-Z—Psychological aspects.) Guest appearance by my sister-in-law, Claire.

GV1061.8.P75 L86 2007a (Recreation. Leisure—Sports—Track and field athletics—Foot racing. Running—Other special topics, A-Z—Psychological aspects.) Same deal, pretty much. Guest here is my brother Daniel.


RC553.M36 L86 2008 (Internal medicine—Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry—Psychiatry—Specific pathological states, A-Z—Masochism). Daniel again. He actually owns a ton of shirts with stripes on the front, in case you were curious. Or maybe he owns only one shirt like that and I just have some weird belief about his wardrobe. That could also be true.


GV1065.17.T73 L86 2008 (Recreation. Leisure—Sports—Track and field athletics—Foot racing. Running—Distance running—Marathon running—Special topics, A-Z—Training). I think that when I drew this, I was actually training for my first half marathon. I remember telling B when we met that my memoir will eventually be called I Wish I Were Eating Curry Right Now. It’s a recurring theme in my life.

GV1062.5.M3 L86 2008 (Recreation. Leisure—Sports—Track and field athletics—Foot racing. Running—Distance running—Individual races, events, etc., A-Z). Here, M3 is the Cutter number for the half marathon at the Madison Marathon.


HD9993.S952 L86 2008 (Industries. Land use. Labor—Special industries and trades—Recreational equipment. Sporting goods—Special products, A-Z—Swimming pools—General works. History.) The pool in question is at the Princeton Club West. In case you were curious. Now I mostly swim at the local Gold’s, which has solid lane lines. I miss the Roschach-like tiles on the previous one.

A ton of people have come up to me in the last two weeks to tell me they want to start running. Even my mom is getting in on it. (Hi, Mom!) So to celebrate, here are some of the comics I’ve drawn about running. Not all of them, even–I have drawn a lot of comics about running I guess.

Anyway, I am not feeling especially funny this week and I need to take some time off. I’ll be back next week with new stuff.

Em oi! #366: The Fountainhead, a summary

B, who has not had the dubious pleasure of reading Ms. Rand’s works, looked at this and said, “Does Francon really marry half the men in the novel?” Yes, she gets married three times, the last time to Roark, who previously raped her. And that is kind of why I have difficulty taking The Fountainhead seriously. I haven’t even gotten to the part where Roark talks about “Prime Movers” and how he shouldn’t be punished for blowing up a building because he is more special than everyone else.

Seriously, Rand is like if you took Nietzsche and put it through a sieve so you only got the overman (aka uberman) stuff out and forgot all of the compassion. Nietzsche, who once threw his arms around the neck of a cart horse to stop it being flogged, who wrote to a friend (after he’d gone crazy, admittedly) that he was having all the anti-Semites shot.

So yes, she missed the boat somewhere. Though I do think that Paul Ryan’s particular blend of Catholicism plus Objectivism makes him much more Swiftian than Randian. I do wish the media would stop saying that we here in Wisconsin like him; the man is a total tit and we are aware of it. He keeps getting elected because his district includes all the horrid little white flight suburbs outside of Milwaukee.

Filing this under B945.R233 F6 L86 2012 for Philosophy (General)—Modern (1450/1600- )—By region or country—United States—By period—19th and 20th centuries—Later 19th and 20th centuries, 1860-2000—Individual philosophers, A-Z—Rand, Ayn—Separate works, A-Z—The Fountainhead.

This isn’t the first time I’ve done Rand, by the way: #352 also features her crazy-looking cheekbones.

Also, here are three great pieces of trivia I found out while researching this comic:

  1. Ayn Rand took her first name from the Hebrew word “a‘yin” (עין) meaning “eye.”
  2. She eventually signed up for both Social Security and Medicare.
  3. At her funeral, someone brought a wreath of flowers in the shape of a dollar sign.

Moving on, I ran a race yesterday. It was the Run for Snow 14.5 km trail run in Elver Park. I was very excited to be racing again.

Of course, I was so excited that I forgot my camera, so I only have two photos, both taken from the organizer’s website.

Waiting for the gun. Photo by CXC Skiing.

The race had three distances: 5.5km, 9km, and 14.5km. I signed up for the longest of these.

It was a very small field–about 14 women and 18 men in the 14.5km, with the same or fewer entrants in the other two distances. I seeded myself toward the front (why not) and so when they shouted “Go” I was almost immediately passed by everyone.

My legs were pretty cashed from my long run (13 miles) the day before, it turns out. I still have all my cardiovascular endurance, but I’ve lost some running-specific strength over my little vacation.

The 14.5km course was in three sections: a three-mile (ish) loop, a four mile (ish) loop, and then the first loop again. I say “ish” because my watch went a bit crazy and only recorded part of the race (about 8 miles of it?) so I’m not entirely sure how long each loop was. Here is the map it came up with:

I have circled the actual location of Elver Park and the run in blue. We did not cross the road (Gammon) at all.

The first section seemed to be mostly uphill, but long, gradual climbs, very run-able. I enjoyed it. If I’d been on the first three miles of an ultra, I might have walked, but I didn’t have to. The second loop had a number of sharper climbs and some very technical sections of trail (i.e., trail with rocks and tree roots on it) that make one pay close attention. It was at this point that I realized another woman was behind me by maybe 50 feet or so. As we went into the third loop, I had to pull myself out of my head and actually race to make sure I didn’t get passed. It was hard (at one point my stomach started to cramp and I thought I was done for, but it resolved without issue), but it was a great final section, and I managed to hold my position! I finished in 1:22:47, good enough for 4th woman overall and 2nd in my age group. Out of three. So not that impressive, but I had fun.

I look strong! Nice. Photo by CXC Skiing.

Upcoming races include:

  1. Salt Lake Emigration Canyon Half Marathon–2 Sept.
  2. Lakefront Marathon–7 Oct.

I’m hoping to do a couple of local races I do every year (Literacy Network 10k, Berbee Derby 10k) and I’m hoping to head to Lake Forest for the Dream for Eileen 5k. But that’s it. Maybe something bigger in the spring, once I’ve gotten my mileage back up.

Em oi! #365: Our Class Trip to the Market

This all happened at a place called “Việt Hoa Market.” To judge from the characters on the sign (as is not uncommon for Asian shops in the US generally, the sign is written in both Chinese and Vietnamese/English), the name means “Beautiful Vietnamese Market.” The Việt used is 越, meaning of course the country of Việt Nam. The hoa used is 華, meaning đẹp tốt (beautiful). Of course, why the market is called this in the first place is a bit confusing, since my Ajaan (professor) thought that the owners are Chinese…

Interestingly, the dipthong “-oa” is not one used in Thai (the Thai dipthongs are, I think, -ua, –ua, and -ia). This means that when my Thai professors pronounce the store name, they say “Viet Hua.” I guess -ie is close enough to -ia that it makes sense to their ears, but -oa is not? Of course the ODDEST part of the whole experience (beyond watching, you know, the purchase of blood) was finding myself pronouncing the store name “Viet Hua” DESPITE THE FACT that I speak Vietnamese and KNOW how it should be pronounced!

By the way, if you are wondering how I came up with the Chinese characters/Vietnamese pronunciation (i.e., chữ nôm), you must check out Cao Dai Tu Dien. It has never been entirely clear to me why the Cao Dai are maintaining a dictionary like this, but when you know a little Vietnamese and a little Chinese and want to put the two together, it is invaluable.

I’ll file this comic under: GN450.2 L86 2012, for Anthropology—Ethnology. Social and cultural anthropology—Cultural traits, customs, and institutions—Economic organization. Economic anthropology—Distribution of goods and services—Commerce and trade—Markets.

If you were curious, the blood looked almost exactly like I have drawn it: rectangles of a dark brown-red color suspended in a water-like liquid (possibly water). I have no idea what it was treated with to make it do that.

Em oi! #364: I Have this Talk with Myself Every Day

Once in the Orlando Airport B looked in my bag for a pen. He was baffled by the array of writing instruments he found there.

“I have one that I use,” I told him, “But then I brought a backup.”

“And what are the other seven?”

“Backups for the backup? Also what if I needed a different color?”

Now when I sit down in class and pull out the pens I need (typically at least two felt-tip pens, a pencil, and two highlighters) I think of that conversation.

The word for pen (ปากกา) was, incidentally, the first word I learned in Thai.

I’ll file this under RC569.5.H63 L86 2012 for Internal medicine—Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry—Psychiatry—Psychiatric aspects of personality and behavior conditions—Other personality disorders, behavior problems, situations, etc., A-Z—Hoarding. Compulsive hoarding.

Yesterday I biked 65 miles, so today I was a bit stroppy and moody. This is somehow related to a number of factors, including how much I worked yesterday and how much I ate and slept. I’m not really sure how to avoid it, but I’m trying to figure it out. Anyway, I decided I was unfit for public company and, after class, took myself home. I made a quiche for dinner and napped, then went to the gym to swim. The Aqua Zumba people were at it, so I got shoved into the wall side of lane four (see diagram). The guy I was splitting the lane with (I’ll call him angry green shorts man) was swimming a lot faster than I was, and between his passing and the aquarobics going on, it was about as much fun as swimming in a washing machine. I kept getting whanged up against the concrete, and now I am all scraped up. Also Aqua Zumba finished at the same time that I had to go change to meet B for lifting, so they were all in the showers and I didn’t get a shower.

But then while I was waiting for B, I jumped on a dreadmill and managed half a mile (in 7 minutes, or a speed of about 4.5 miles per hour). The only special thing about this is that my leg didn’t hurt at all, and afterward my muscle didn’t start to cramp up like it did the last time I did a run of any significant length. So that’s something! It is not much but it is a starting point. Maybe I can stop freaking out and start building back slowly.

Anyway so that’s the news. Now I have a bunch of Thai homework to take care of, so I will take my leave of you, kind readers.

Em oi! #363: Picking a Lane at the Pool: An Illustrated Guide

I have been logging a lot of time at the pool lately (14,300 yards total last week alone). I think I mentioned last week that there is something wrong with my leg*, and so I am temporarily off running for a bit. This is driving me crazy. I was already pretty depressed by the time I got to the PT, and then he said something like, “Take two weeks off, and then you can go back to running two days a week.”

WELL. I mean, I went to the PT for an aggressive plan of treatment that could get me back into shape fast so I could start training for my damn marathon. So I guess I was disappointed with his advice. I didn’t tell him this though, because I was upset, and I know from experience that if you show you are upset in front of a medical professional, they will write in your file things like, “Shows inappropriate emotional reactions.” I don’t even know what that really means, but I have a feeling it isn’t a good thing to have in your record. So instead of telling Mr. PT that I wasn’t satisfied, I did the following:

  1. Hid my feelings.
  2. Went to the pool.
  3. Cried while swimming laps.

No one can tell you’re crying when you’re swimming. It is a perfect solution. Well, ideally not crying would be a better solution, but sometimes it’s unavoidable.

Anyway, yesterday B sent me a link to this TED talk. He was really sending it to a friend of ours who suffers from various chronic pains and PTSD from a term of service in IRAQ (that’s some serious shit, yo), but I immediately seized on this as a method for making myself happier despite the injury and attendant stress. And so everyday I think about what might help me get a little bit better, a little stronger. Everyday I try to notice how far I’ve come from the day three weeks ago when I had to cut my run short because my SI joint was stuck and running was just too painful. Also everyday I do things that make me happy and reduce my pain, like eating half a loaf of focaccia (oops), a mango, or doing my PT exercises (somewhat more usefully).

It doesn’t hurt that the exercises are working and every day I am feeling less pain and my gait is getting stronger. I hope I will be back to running very soon.

Clearly, this gets filed under GV838.53.S85 L86 2012 for Recreation. Leisure—Sports—Water sports—Swimming, diving, lifesaving—Special topics, A-Z—Swimming pools.

*The PT thought it was a “strain,” which is actually not, as it sounds, a mild case of overdoing it. Strain, in medical terminology, refers to a torn muscle–in other words, you really fucked up. I do not think I have strained my leg, based on how much it hurt during the course of the injury and a lack of precipitating circumstances but WHATEVER I AM NOT A PHYSICAL THERAPIST I GUESS.

Em oi! #362: ชีวิตประจำวัน (Daily life)

Translation by panel, with a few corrections and notes:

Panel 1/2: ฉันตื่นนอนที่๖โมงเช้า แต่ไม่ลุกจากเตียงก่อน6:05
I wake up at 6:00 in the morning, but I don’t get out of bed before 6:05.

Panel 3: ฉันไปห้องน้ำฒเพื่อ ล้างหน้า แปรงฟัง และแต่งตัว
(Original said: …แปรงฟัง ล้างหน้า…)
I go into the bathroom to wash my face, brush my teeth, and get dressed.

Panel 4:: ฉันต้องเดินเงียบๆ เพราะสามียังไม่ตื่นนอน
I must walk quietly because my husband is not yet awake.

Panel 5:: ฉันกับหมาไปเดินรอบๆบ้านและบริเวณใกล้ๆ (6:15)
The dog and I go for a walk around the house and the nearby neighborhood.

Arrow pointing at dog: ไมยะ
Maya

Panel 6: พอเดินเสร็จฉันทำกาแฟ บางที่ฉันทำอาหารเช้าด้วย
As soon as the walk is finished, I make coffee. Sometimes I also make breakfast.

Panel 7: 7:05 ฉันออกจากบ้านไปมหาวิทยาลัย ฉันชอบขี่รถจักกรยานมากกว่าขบขับรถ
7:05 I leave the house to go to the university. I like riding my bike much more than I like driving.

Panel 8: ประมาณ๔ชั่วโมง(ตั้งแต่ 8 โมงเช้าถึงเที่ยง) ฉันเรียนภาษาไทย
For about four hours (from 8:00am to noon) I study Thai.

(Those are my classmates. I won’t embarrass them by naming their names. They are nice people and very tolerant. Also they come to class looking very put-together, whereas I come to class looking like I have been dragged backwards through a bush. Biking is excellent for the posterior but not great for the exterior, if you catch my meaning. But even if I were driving, I probably wouldn’t look fantastic when I arrived. I guess I figure I am wearing trousers and a shirt that is clean (or was when I left the house). What more do you really want from me?)

Panel 9: เรียนเสร็จแล้วฉันก็ไปกินอาหารเที่ยงและทำงานที่ห้องสมุดเมโมเรียล
When class is finished, I eat lunch and go to work at Memorial Library.

In panel (top): ฉันไปหาที่OCLCเพื่อสืบค้นทะเบียนของหนังสือ
I look on OCLC to find records for books.

Arrow pointing to books: หนังสือเป็นภาษาฮิบรู
Books in Hebrew

On books: ספר של המת
Book of the dead

Panel 10: ฉันกลับบ้านราวๆบ่าย๓หรือ๔โมง แล้วฉันก็ไปวิ่งหรือไปยิมออกกำลังกายกับสามี
I get home around 3-4:00pm, then I go for a run or work out at the gym with my husband.

(This is kind of a lie because I haven’t been running in several days due to an SI joint problem. Instead, I have been swimming. Win? I have swum more than 10 miles since Friday. I keep trying to find a way to deal with this gracefully, but I’ve started to realize I usually deal with adversity by punching it in the face, so kind of a no-go. Still, someday maybe I will be a cool and calm individual who can cope with adversity without, you know, freaking out.

Right.)

Panel 11: หลังจากกลับบ้านฉันอาบน้ำ ฉันและสามีทำอาหารหรือโทรศัพท์ไปสั่งอาหารร้านอาหาร Curry in the Box ขอให้พวกเขาเอาอาหารไทยมาส่งที่บ้าน (ราวๆ๔โมงเย็นหรือ๑ทุ่ม)
After we get home I shower. My husband and I cook food or call to order food from the restaurant Curry in the Box and ask that they deliver it to our house (around 6-7:00pm).

Panel 12: กินอาหารเย็นแล้วฉันก็ทำการบ้าน ฉันไปนอนราวๆ๔ทุ่ม
After eating dinner I do my homework. I go to bed around 10:00pm.

In panel: ความฝันของฉันเป็นภาษาไทย
My dreams are in Thai.

So there you have it. This was my midterm for 5th semester Thai. I believe we were supposed to be demonstrating our use of relational time words (like “and then,” “as soon as,” “after that,” and so on). I don’t know if I really demonstrated that, but I did do a drawing big enough to distract everyone from the problems with my Thai.

File this one under PS3612.U686Z46 2012 for American literature—Individual authors—2001-—L—Biography and Criticism—Autobiography, journals, memoirs. By date.

This took a long time to color. That is why I am late posting it. Next week: Less Thai.

Em oi! #361: The Yolk’s on Me

It's SO EGGCITING!

When I showed B this comic, he said, “I think you have to do some kind of penance for the title.”

Luckily my friend Rowan was the one who suggested it. 🙂

So the thing about eggs is that there are two kinds of eggs you can buy: Cage-free cruelty-free various-other-things-free free range happy chicken eggs, or cruelty-containing eggs. In the first case, you run the risk of having fertilized eggs (at least if you’re getting them from legitimately free-range chickens), because if the chickens are running around…well, sometimes they meet a rooster. This typically shows up as tiny blood spots on the yolk, and is only really a problem if you are trying to keep a Kosher kitchen, which my friends and I were doing during my undergraduate years. On the other hand, cruelty-containing eggs come from chickens that are confined to tiny cages and given no opportunities to meet with any other chickens of another gender, so all the eggs are unfertilized. BUT the addition of cruelty to the eggs makes them problematic for most vegetarian, especially those who are sympathetic to animal rights.

It’s a conundrum, I tell you. Anyway, this comic is why I don’t buy extra-large eggs (and why there was a long period of time wherein I didn’t eat eggs ever).

I’m filing this comic under TX745 .L86 2012 for Home economics—Cooking—Food of animal origin—Eggs. Incidentally this is the second comic this month that I have filed under TX7nn, the other being TX767.C5 L86 2012.

Also, happy anniversary to my cousin Jesse and her husband Keith, who got married one year ago today. Many happy returns, guys! 🙂

Em oi! #359: Saucy

"Quick! Taste this chocolate sauce!" This is uttered more frequently in my house than you might think.

We’ll class this under TX767.C5 L86 2012, for Home economics–Cooking–Baking. Confectionery–Recipes for special food products, A-Z–Chocolate. The recipe in question I was making is here, on David Lebovitz’s blog. It’s fantastic.

And in case you were wondering, it turns out a bottle of corn syrup will last pretty much indefinitely.

A few things: the About page has been updated, as has the Index of Comics. I have also added a Frequently Unasked Questions page. If you have anything you’d like answered on it, please email me (ehluptonATgmailDOTcom).

***

Yesterday I did the 26th annual Verona Hometown Days 10k. Because I’ve been doing a lot of speed work lately, and have seen (or imagine that I have seen) my times get slightly better, I thought I would do a little 10k to see how I am doing. There is nothing like a good race to really show you where you’re at. But the problem is, I am training for a long bike ride, so I cannot exactly put that aside and taper for a week. So instead, my training schedule last week looked like this:

Sunday: 32.2 mi bike ride, 6.3 mi run.
Monday: 8 mi run
Tuesday: 6.1 mi run (AM), 4×1000@4 min (ha) plus warm up and cool down for a total of 4.5 mi (PM)
Wednesday: 10.2 mi run, yoga
Thursday: 34.9 mi bike (includes commute), weights
Friday: 31 mi bike, yoga, weights
Saturday: 46.5 mi bike

So is this the best way to taper? Right. So. Also I went to bed quite late on Saturday and got up early on Sunday, even though Verona is only about eight minutes from my house.

When I got up, surprise, my quads (which had been very tired the previous day) felt fine, and my calf muscles felt all right. B took the dog out and I went off to Verona, arriving around 7:30.

It was already on the warm side (about 70 degrees), although my “heat training” (I do Bikram-style yoga–really, I do hot vinyasa yoga; I will explain the difference sometime) meant that I wasn’t feeling it as much as I might otherwise have been. Instead of bibs, we were given little strips with our names and a colored sticker indicating age group. This proved to be helpful (somewhat) during the race–I quickly ascertained that my age group was marked with a pink circle.

Since I live and run in the area, I knew the first mile and a half would be pretty flat, then hills through to mile five, then mostly downhill to the finish. Accordingly, I planned to: Go out as hard as I could, try to keep my pace steady on the hills but run conservative uphills if necessary, then really push it on the last 1.2 miles. (This is basically my strategy for every race, actually: Run fast, don’t stop.) A book on racing that I’ve been reading says the key to a good 10k is to run strong intermediate miles–it’s easy to find motivation at the start and finish and easy to get distracted in between. So that was another key to my strategy: Don’t falter between miles 2.5-5.

At 7:45, they shouted “go” and we took off, right up a hill. I passed a speedy-looking woman with purple KT tape on her back and, arriving at the top of the hill, realized I was the second place woman and probably fifth or sixth runner overall. The other woman was somewhat ahead of me and seemed to be moving comfortably. Our pace for the first mile was 7:15, which is not sustainable (I was shooting for 7:30s). So I decided, instead of grinding it out at the start, to wait and see if she would over-extend herself later in the race.

At mile 1.5 or so, another woman in a Berkeley Running Co. shirt passed me, and I had to let her go, settling into third place as we turned to go up the big hill next to Verona Area High School. I could see that there were some people back there, but it wasn’t until mile 3, when we headed out Northern Lights Road for an out-and-back section that I realized how far ahead I really was. The turn-around confirmed that I was pretty far ahead of the next woman, and so I ran a bit more conservatively on the way back through this section, which was very hilly. At mile 5, 9 Mound Road was a bit hillier than I remembered, and I had to push to keep my times up. It was getting very hot by this point, and there was not a breath of air to be had. I could see one (older) gentleman ahead of me, and if I turned I could pick out a man in a bright yellow jersey behind me, but basically I was alone. So basically I held onto 3rd place until the finish, where it turned out that neither of the women ahead of me were in my age group (I’d known about the first place woman, but the second place woman wasn’t wearing her strip where I could see it).

I won my age group with a time of 48:21.03. My splits were: 7:15, 7:45, 7:48, 7:59, 8:04, 8:01, 7:36 (pace over last .2 mi). This is an overall pace of 7:48, or about 14 seconds/mile faster than a tempo 10k run I did two weeks ago at track practice. So I’m pretty satisfied, although it is about what one would expect given my last 5k time and the bad weather.

In terms of lessons, I wish I’d tapered a bit better, slept more, and that the weather had been better, or that I’d had more time for yoga lately because that might have helped too. But overall, a solid performance. And really, I was not going to catch the first two women, and the next woman was not going to catch me, so I ran about as fast as I needed to.