Owning up.

So I got myself fired again.

Really not a good feeling. And yes, I will freely admit it. It was my fault. I completely screwed up.

I should have quit over a year ago.

First up, this isn't me trying to shift the blame and somehow make it all 'not my fault'. I don't do that anymore. Truth be told, I had been screwing up a lot lately. It's actually really hard to get fired from - fuck it, I don't work there anymore - Hoyts. Get caught stealing something, insult a manager, fuck someone on the premises and you get kicked out pretty much straight away. Other than that, it takes a bit of effort on your part to get them to show you the door. I didn't do any of these. I got let go because I had been screwing my job up. Missing things mostly. A shitload of minor errors that all added up. And yeah, no excuses. It was all my fault. I was completely fucking up. Like it or not, I earned it.

Why was I fucking up so much? Simple. I didn't care anymore. No matter how hard I tried, I just could not make myself give a shit. I hated that place. I was so over it.

I had been working there for 3 years. Because of the nature of it, I had been working the entire three years without a break. And I really needed one. It was also casual shift work. Meaning there was absolutely no structure to it. I could work any time of the day or night, any day of the week. Mostly working at nights. I haven't had a weekend in over three years without having to book it a month in advance. This might sound like petty shit, but trust me, it adds up. My health - both physical and mental - was seriously degrading. Boy do I have some stories about that. If I wasn't fired, I was going to put in for stress leave.

So yeah. I'm out. I'm unemployed. Again. If you've ever been in this predicament, you'd recognise that awful feeling in the bottom of your gut. The thing is, it's a good thing. I HAD to get out. Just for me in general.

Like I've written before, I'm trying to take responsibility for my life. But I was missing half of the equation. I was owning up to what was wrong in my life, and trying to correct that. But I was ignoring that which wasn't right. In other words, you have to take responsibility for your happiness as well. If you're not happy in something, be it a relationship, a home, a job, or whatever, you take responsibility for it. Part of that is that you fix it if it's worth fixing. But, if it can't be fixed, or isn't worth fixing, you got to have the courage to admit that and move on. I didn't. I'll admit that. I stayed in a situation I shouldn't have long after I should have left. And because of that, it deteriorated to a point where one of us had to make a move. It turned out to my boss who did what had to be done. This is something that I have to take to heart and try to learn from.

I take a little comfort from the fact that I know, 5, 10 years ago if this had of happened, I would have been blaming them and saying it's all their fault, spinning the story to others to make me look like the victim.

I'm learning. Albeit slowly.

Fuck.

Through contacts, I had managed to find a lady who worked for a printers who was willing to give me quite sizable discounts in regards to printing. This is something that an amateur publisher like myself dreams about finding. Printing is one of the biggest costs involved in the amateur publishing racket, and one of the main reasons that people wind up dropping out.

Unfortunately, with the way things are going in he world right now, this extremely kind lady is no longer to able to help me out in this endeavour. I now have to pay full price for my printing costs. Which, the way things are going in the world, is not an appealing prospect, and may well be the reason I stop publishing comics.

Like I said. Fuck

The Accomplishment List

OK, I'm kinda doing this more for myself than anyone else. I was having a little bit of a dark moment last night, feeling like I kinda of wasted the last 10 years of my life. Which, after giving myself a mental face slap, I sort of realised wasn't true. Yeah, I will admit, I've made some choices that weren't exactly the best, but I've done some other things as well, things I should be proud of. So here we go. In no particular order. Me from 25 to nearly 35.

1. Managed to save 4 grand, even though I was unemployed for large chunks of the time.
2. Completed a Web Design course with distinctions in certain subjects.
3. Completed a Fine arts course, once again with distinctions in certain subjects.
4. Confronted my dad about him terrifying me for the last 30 years.
5. Wrote, drew and published 4 comics.
6. Took on a completely different career and managed to survive.
7. Managed to accomplish things in a short tenure as a 3D animator that would normally take up to 5 years of study to learn.
8. Made a film that was publicly shown in a film festival.
9. Moved out of home and made it on my own.
10. Went to my high school reunion and laid to rest a lot of old ghosts.
11. Made a lot of new friends whom I believe are going to be life long friends.
12. Found the love of my life.
13. Was entered in an art competition
14. Got a first aid degree.
15. Did a comedy routine.

That's all I can think of right now. Not the longest list in the world, but still it's stuff that I can truly be proud of. I'm sure if I made a list of things I've screwed up in the last ten years, it would be a much longer list, but still. It's not a crime to fail. Doesn't feel very good, but as long as you try to learn from it and keep growing, it's worthwhile.

And done.

At 4.09, Thursday morning, June 18th, I finished the last page of artwork for RoboToon Issue 3.

Man in the Mirror

When you were a kid, did your father ever yell at you "Have a good hard look at yourself!!"? If you were like me, if ever you heard this, it mostly meant that you were in some seriously deep shit from the old man. Let's face it, this was always one step away from "You're a worthless little shit and I should have invested in birth control!!". And like most, I usually ignored it. Strangely though, that old dad cliche has been coming back to haunt me recently. Because I actually HAVE been having a good hard look at myself. And the truth is, I don't really like what I see.

This isn't really a recent phenomenon. I have moments in my past where I look back and see the person I was and realise what a scumbag I kinda was. I feel sorry for my parents when I think of the type of kid I was. I was a punk of a teenager. I made some progress in my twenties, but not a hell of a lot. Even now, in my thirties, I still see myself in past events and don't like the guy I was. But that has almost always been a retroactive opinion. There would be times I see myself, but gloss over the bade parts. But for a while now, I'm looking at me, as am now. And there are things about me I really don't like.

The lying is the big one. I just do it. It's out of my mouth before I even realise what it is I'm saying. It's never huge stuff - I'm not trying to convince people I'm something I'm not. My name really is Shannon Browning - but if I'm in a situation where I'm in trouble, or something has happened that was either directly of indirectly my fault, I do tend to find someway of explaining it that doesn't make me look so bad. Putting a spin on it, I believe most advertisers would call it. The thing about that is, you actually start believing it. And I hate it. About the only person I don't lie to in some form or another is my friend Amie. No, I'm not just saying that because she reads this. Her, and her Husbands opinions of me a very important, so I try to be as truthful as possible. The fact that she can just get the truth out of me even when I'm lying to myself is a big factor as well.

The other big thing is that I seem to have this thing about getting something for nothing. if there's some way I can cheat the system, I'll try and do it. This, more often than not, leads to some rather big problems and also leads me back to problem number one. Again, not something I am proud of. The stupid part is, even when I catch myself doing these things, I do feel ashamed of myself, but proceed to do them anyway.

Why the hell then am I writing about these, here in this public forum? Why am I risking the opinions of those who know me and read this thing. Because, as I said, I'm looking at myself and not liking certain parts. So, I'm trying to change them. Confessing to these things is a big part of it. I'm putting it out there so people know I do these things, in an attempt to not do these things. I truly do want to be a better human being then what I've been. I just didn't know where else to start.

I think the real reason that I'm doing this is because, twofold, I don't like who I've been and wish to improve. But also, I finally have someone in my life that means the world to me. And I think she deserves to have a good man in her life. She seems to think, for now, that that man is me. So it's now up to me to become the type of man believe she deserves.

I want to be a better man. Both for her sake, and for my own. Please understand why I am trying and forgive me if I fall.

And the tally is. . .

15 pages and cover down. 11 to go.

I really would like to know where I suddenly get this work ethic from every time I do a new book.

Home

My parents had a lot of trouble out their place back when I was living there. Shit with a neighbour. Not something I want to go into here. We had several break ins, a fire, our animals were shot and killed one night. It took a while to get to the point where you felt safe at home again. The subconscious thing that helped was that they never made it inside the house. You always felt safer knowing that the house was mostly impenetrable. At least it felt that way.

I've been living out of home in one form or another for the past 5-6 years now. And I've never had any sort of problems like that since then. Guess I got a little comfortable with the idea - rather the delusion - that it couldn't happen to me.

Until this morning.

I woke up this morning and noticed that the interconnecting door between the outer area's and the main room was open. This struck me as odd straight away, because I never leave it open. I hate having the door open when I sleep. It's a thing. I crawled out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen. At which point I noticed that my front door was hanging wide open.

Yeah, that's how I felt.

My neighbour John, who is just an old guy who can't walk to well was putting things on the clothes line. I asked him if he had seen anyone around my place during the morning, like you would. I checked the door, which had been unlocked and opened. AS you would think, the first thought was that maybe I left it open. That disappeared real quick. There was a massive storm last night, with a wind blowing up a gale outside. My door doesn't close unless it's locked. if it wasn't, the wind would be blowing that door all over the place. Which leaves only one option. Someone with a key had unlocked my door and come into my home.

Just so that sinks in, I'll repeat it. Someone, without my knowledge or invitation, unlocked my door and came into my home. While I was there. Asleep.

If you're suddenly getting a feeling of dread in the lower pit of your stomach, you can imagine where I was about that time.

So, I went through my house to see if anything was missing. This kind of thing, the first thing you check are all the big, expensive items. Computer, TV, camera's, that sort of thing. All there. So I believed that someone had come in, realised I was there, then made a quick retreat. I decided to go out and buy a new lock for the front door and install it. I had a shower, still feeling a little creeped out, got dressed and was about to go when I realised I couldn't find my wallet. Or my keys. I did a pretty intensive search in all the places I would have stuck them, getting more and more uneasy. I ran outside to check if my car was still there. It was. Came back inside, searched some more. I finally went out to my car to search it. Getting to my car, I tried the handle. It was open.

I NEVER leave my car open. I lock the damn thing twice when I'm walking away.

Upon opening the door, I saw my keys sitting in the ignition. I was really starting to freak out by this time. I took my keys out and checked the car. No wallet. Closing up and locking the car, I realised why my car was still sitting in the driveway. There's a trick to starting my car. Even when you know it, it can still trick you. I'm guessing that whoever grabbed the keys tried to start and take the car, and when they couldn't get it started, they left the keys where they were. Yes, thanks to a little bit of a design glitch in my car, I still own it.

I've reported all this to the cops. They're arranging to get a fingerprint person out here tomorrow, but it's been raining heavily and I've possibly been smudging anything inside the house, so I'm not really expecting them to turn up to much. The scariest part about this is that this wasn't something completely random. Someone who has lived here before or has access to this place before - they have a key - came into my house while I was asleep and stole stuff from me. The only reason they didn't get away with more was because they couldn't figure out how to work my car. My hands are trembling as I type this and I am restless and uncomfortable in my home.

The worst part is that I have reason to suspect that it may have been one of my neighbours that did this. I'm going to report that information to the cops first thing tomorrow.

Your home is the one place you're supposed to feel safe. It's the place where you can lock the world and all it's problems outside and just relax and be yourself. In one selfish and inconsiderate act, that's been taken away from me. God help the person I suspect if they turn out to be responsible.

My lease runs out in August. I'm gone the next day.