That is all.

Oh, and in other news, I’m trying to fix Robert Howard’s Tangents.us site but have been having some difficulty, what with breaking it and all.

So, yeah…

This is one of those instances.

Limitations

As much as I’d like to think otherwise, I’m not Supergirl. While I usually try to fly at a steady pace with my work my life has been hindered recently by long wakeful nights of moaning in pain and trying to ignore it, hoping it’s not serious. I’ve been throwing up, having gastric problems. It was interfering with my life by forcing me to leave social gattherings early to run home and feel sick. And that’s the best description I had for how I felt. “Sick.” I felt nauseous sometimes and bloated at other times. I had tight pressure in my abdomen and lower gut. Your mind wanders when you don’t have the expertise to diagnose yourself. Could it be my appendix? Do I have cancer? An ulcer? Acid reflux? Tape worm? Giger Alien? I know that there is a joking condition called “medical-student-isis,” where young pre-meds think they have everything they’re learning about because they read too much into each description. Webmd.com is like that too, but for the layman.

You type in your symptoms and their software narrows down the possible diagnosis. I’m typing everything in and some very common problems are popping up as well as some very scary options.

I am no expert so I go to the doctor.

Doctor’s Visit

After an entire straight week of stomach pains and throwing up in the middle of the night followed by a short respite and another long week of the same, Ian finally insisted I go see a doctor. I borrowed some money from my parents and off I went.

His diagnosis is that it might be a gall stone that is too big to pass. “Too big to pass” translates to “you might need surgery.” A common surgery, which is good, but life-changing for a while, which isn’t completely bad. I have referrals for an ultrasound, rescheduled for tomorrow. I have changed my whole diet to limit the pain while we are still identifying the cause of my symptoms.

No meat. No fat. No oil. At all.

I’ve been eating a lot of vegetarian food and recipes friends have offered. Some healthy foods I can’t eat like hummus or tuna. I feel better, as in little pain (compared to before), but I miss meat, cheese, potato chips… Ian and I discovered these awesome black bean burgers through a friend so I can have “almost meat,” which is nice… but it’s not quite the same.

The good news is, I’m alive and not dead. I probably won’t die today or tomorrow. The bad news is if the stone is too big to pass and I don’t get the surgery, it can be life threatening… If I do get the surgery, I’ll be able to re-introduce all of the good foods of man’s creation into my pallet again (which I really am looking forward to). Don’t get me wrong, I love fruit and salad and tomatoes and soy… I just want to keep enjoying them and not get sick of them.

However, my figure looks amazing because I cut out oil, fat, meat, etc. etc. etc…

So to all of the vegetarians and vegans out there I might have rolled my eyes at in the past- Okay, you were right- I admit it.  You can live a perfectly normal life without meat…

But I do miss it… and can’t wait until I can exercise my canines again. Until then, I must live vicariously through you.

May your fork be with you

So if you’re biting into a hamburger tonight, prepping a pot roast, or chowing down on bacon- I’ll be there. I’ll be there with those eating duck and goose, escargot or mussels, I’m the little devil on your soldier whispering you can fit in one more bite. I’m there with you and your hot dogs, sour crout, ketchup, mustard, relish, and all. We breath together when inhaling turkey or venison. I’ll be there eating potato chips and popcorn with you in the theater while we both lear at the guy who brought the individually wrapped candies down in front who is sharing them with me.  When you enjoy fish tacos or fried chicken, you’ll see me- there… Smiling at you like Obi-Wan Kenobi…

Go forth, my minions and friends. Eat meat. Eat it for your ol’ pal Glych.

Glych

This is the second design for The Mad Hatter in the Batman:The Animated Series. The first was a lot leaner, much taller, and a little less creepy. I’m not used to watercolor or ink wash so this is an experiment for me.

Glych

I did a test a while back for The Simpsons  to be a storyboard artist so I learned how to draw the character type pretty well. My parents will refer to my drawing Bart Bird from the first Tree House of Horrors episode in my youth.

Glych

Tweeker is Ian’s cat. this was just a doodle. I kind of like the idea of pets in space. I wonder what they would dream about looking at the stars?

Glych

NSFW, but still a pretty decent sketch. Ian says “She looks very Russian.”

Glych

I’ve been busy on the back-end, working on code and revenue streams. I’ve organized my Code Academy progress and Animation progress into a “Projects,” folder. I’ve also included a comics page and a new section for daily sketches. My friend Mary Longshore decided to do a drawing-jam like we used to in college to cram for classes. As part of that en-devour, I’m re-branding Glych’s Experiment as a simple daily sketch. I’ll be uploading the old archives to The Experiment as I can… They’ll be out of order and with no reason, but them’s the breaks. I’ve also adjusted my previously updated routine with a much simpler one.

In April I’ll be adding a storyboard portfolio to the site as well as some more work on the Animated project that Greg Douglas and I have been up to. It’s pretty exciting.

Glych’s Daily Routine

	6am – 7am Wake up. Make Ian’s lunch, feed cats, dress. Water plants. Breakfast.
	7am – 8am Morning Workout. Inspiration. Clean up. Laundry.
	8am – 9am WORK. Warm up sketches.
	9am – 12pm WORK. P2P Code. Code Academy.
	12pm – 1pm EAT. Lunch. Break.
	1pm-4pm WORK.  Paint/Draw/Storyboards.
	4pm-6pm Break. Eat. Post sketches and daily work.
	6pm-12am WORK Write something.

Glych

A nice likeness of Deforest Kelley as Bones McCoy but a very young Nimoy Spock. I think a situation like this is one of the few that the doctor and the first officer would agree with each other on.

Glych

It’s been a while. I’ve been busy getting the other parts of the site working including getting the ball rolling on Comic updates for both No Stereotypes and Life of Glych with the help of Jeff Drake and Gary Green respectively. I like the way that Comic Easel is oriented when it comes to organizing and sorting archives as well as presenting them so I’m going to continue to use that plugin here for various stuff.

My colleagues Mary Longshore and Ross Moreno are throwing together an online Portfolio Jam which basically gives me the excuse to get off of my butt and actually draw something rather than play around with code all of the time. I’ll be updating the regular blog with a longer post about the new direction of the site but for now, know that good things are happening…

As part of this Portfolio Jam, I’m going to be doing a few warm up sketches a day and posting them here. Since today was the first day of the challenge I’m posting later in the day than usual… That’s okay… It’s cute. I managed to get through three warm-up sketches today… This is one of them. I call it “Monster Closet.”

I also organized other stories I’ll be uploading this week.