Bad News Bears

Wednesday I went up to Bellingham and stayed there for a couple days. I sat in Woods Coffee for a total of 10 hours in those two days drawing, visiting with some friends, and just having some peace. Why? Well....

This week has been pretty full of bad news.

• Tuesday night I got a call from the staffing agency I work for that I wasn’t to return to work the next day. My employer was aware that I was looking to move up north, but had not expressed an issue with this, so it came to much surprise when they laid me off because they wanted someone who could commit to a long term position. It would have been nice to have some communication that this was an issue or even some warning... so frankly I feel like I’ve been dumped by a boyfriend I thoroughly enjoyed and wouldn’t mind saying with for a while. I feel like it was a “dump before you get dumped” situation. I’m super sad and - frankly - very stressed about the money situation. I’m going to miss the people I got to know in the past 5 months a lot, especially since I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye to anyone.

• Wednesday Ben had the results from his latest scan. There’s a new tumor and his other tumors have more growth. He’s being ejected from the clinical trial. (Read more at his blog here.) This snagged away a lot of hope that these drugs - drugs that did different but not as horrible things to his body - would work and kill his cancer. The doctors are thinking of going back to high dosage of chemo again which would put him in the hospital for weeks. Needless to say, our family is pretty devastated at this news.

So to escape the roaring quiet of my now empty weekdays, I came up to Bellingham to surprise Boyfriend for his birthday (it worked). We celebrated Thomas’ birthday, I finished 2 pages and started another of the comic book, searched for some jobs and had some nice time to myself (and found a tea I love: Wood’s pineapple green tea. yum yum!)

In all honesty, if my life consisted of waking up, grabbing lunch with Boyfriend, then drawing for the rest of my day I would be a very happy camper. But that isn’t bringing in money right now, so that’s not an option.

While I live in this un-employed state (although I got an email from the staffing agency that they have a 2-4 week position possibly for me), I’m going to throw myself into not only finding a job, but drawing. Lots of art. It’s kind of a blessing in disguise in that I have completely open days now, so I can do what I’ve been wishing I could do - draw all day! (Just without the pay...... yet...) And maybe this will get me up to Bellingham quicker. Who knows. God does and I’ll just have to trust him more than I’ve had to in a long time during this time of my life.

I know this is a mostly drawing-free blog today, but it’s been a rough week. The above picture is a poor representation of Karen, but I hadn’t drawn from life in a while so it was a nice exercise.

So, uh, anyone out there with money want some art? Or anyone out there in Bellingham/Whatcom county need a receptionist/administrative assistant?

If you want to contact Beth about comics, art, employment or proven cures for cancer - shoot her an email at beth@fledglingcomics.com