Where have all the comics gone?

I intended to share my recurring nightmare, but I wanted to show, or at least link to, a great Sylvia cartoon.  But I can't find any Sylvia archives before 2001.  Then I thought about a Cathy I wanted to link to for another post idea - same deal, no archives before 2001, and even those are hard to get to.  And neither has any kind of subject search capabilities like the Dilbert site.  And remember the post a little while back where I had to tell you to link to amazon to get a Life in Hell strip?Has every cartoon publisher become Web copyright wacko, and taken all free copies off any archive sites?  I'm very upset about this.  In conversations with my kids,  I'm always referring to some strip.  And the best part is that, since the kids have read all my cartoon collections until the books are falling apart, they know which strip I'm thinking of before I even quote it.  That is supercool.

So what should I do now?  Scan the cartoon strip?  That would be copyright infringement, except that I'm not writing this for profit.

http://sluggy.com/images/comics/970825a.gif

In the mean time, anyone who hasn't heard of Sluggy Freelance, check it out.  I actually haven't read it steadily in years.  But I read it daily from about '98 - '01.  Make your way past the first couple boring weeks and it moves quickly to hysterical.

Not a smiley day

I am usually a smiley person.  Not bubbly, but smiley.  I would say the majority of employees, at the fairly large institution where I work, know me and will give me some friendly recognition when I pass.  Part of this, I'm sure is because of my somewhat unconventional garb, and because I've been here over a decade now, but I think a lot of it is because I usually give everyone a smile, and often a greeting.  I don't do it for any ulterior reason, it's just who I am.  But it's a quality I am pleased with. The 1st century scholar Shammai taught the virtue to "greet everyone with a pleasant face."  Conversely, we learn elsewhere that we should not be overly friendly or chatty to the point of immodesty.  So...

I just heard an article on the radio with Jane Hyun, author of "Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling.
http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Bamboo-Ceiling-Career-Strategies/dp/0060731192
One of the things she spoke about was the norm in many Asian cultures to  keep a blank face.  To walk around in public with a smile on your face is unusual; it is not percieved as friendly, but rather crazy.  I have heard this about Northern European cultures as well.  I don't know about any place else.  There used to be an upper level manager here that would go into "super smiley" mode when he passed someone.  "HelLO There! How are YOU?!"   I'm sure he learned to do this at some management seminar.  He seemed like a nice guy, but the sudden change of face, like a mask coming over him, was creepy, very ingenuous.

Years ago, a total  stranger passing me said "Hey, why don't you smile?"  I'm not sure what I replied at the time, but I thought he was a complete jerk.  I thought later that I should have lectured him that if he wanted to ask for a smile *from* me, the way to do that is to give a smile *to* me, and then I may respond to this request or ignore it.  Like if you drop in on a friend's house, and you want to taste some food you see, you don't say "Hey, gimme some of that."  You may say "Oh, that looks (smells) delicious."  This gives the friend the polite options of fulfilling the request  with "Oh, please sit down and have a taste," or instead rejecting it with "thank you," and then moving on to other topics.  Plus you just shouldn't accost strangers! Okay that was a tangent on manners.

 On the other hand, a really nice memory was the time I was walking towards a guy on the corner, in a crazy advertizing get up, who had such a pleasent friendly expression on his face, that I couldn't help smiling extra wide.  "You have a beautiful smile this morning" he said.  "I was about to say the exact same thing to you," I answered truthfully.

Being regularly smiley has several possible downsides.  One is people assume you are happy.  Maybe that doesn't seem like a downside.  Well it is.  Another thing, is I feel extra rude if I do not smile some days.  Yesterday was a bad day, there was a terrible tragedy in my extended community, and I could not shake it out of my mind.  I felt scared and angry and horrible.  And I couldn't smile at the other people in the lab, the custodian who is always so friendly, the delivery man, the cashier in the supermarket.  I felt that they thought I was being downright nasty.
So...
I going to Harry Potter tonight, I hope.  Then maybe I will come into work smiley again.

My Discovery of the Summer...

...is that I do not like being a supervisor.  I think that is the major thing I am learning in the lab this summer.  I can't get anything done because people are forever coming over to me - which is what they are supposed to do, but it is still hard on me.  Several of these people have never worked in a lab before, and unless I give them a specific job to do, they just have to sit around.  Another person is a grad student, who, I'm sure, resents that I have been asked to watch over her.  Plus I'm one of the only two people in the lab who has the authority to order supplies through the new (I hate it!) web-based ordering system, so I have to stop what I'm doing every few minutes to order something.  So I'm getting almost nothing done on my own.  These underlings better have some results for me by the end of the summer!  Wouldn't you love to have me as a supervisor?
P.S. I tried to find a link to the "Life in Hell" strip about the 9 types of bosses, but couldn't find it - go do it on your own, that is a strong suggestion from this supervisor.
http://www.amazon.com/Work-Hell-Matt-Groening/dp/0394748646
Click to open the book, then search for:  bosses.

True wealth? The depressing post.

Until now, I really did try to post upbeat essays, because depressing ones are generally not interesting - just whiny.  But I really want to put this down.  And what I say is NOT meant as a stab at anyone.  I know a lot of people genuinely want to help, and a few people have really put out effort.  I appreciate your kindness, and it helps, but the situation doesn't change.  And if you are trying to hold on to a recent high (you know who you are), this is not the time to read this post.  I am going through a bad time.  There's a lot, A LOT of outside stimuli aggravating a existing depression.  And it is really affecting ability to act amiable.  More to the point - I'm acting like a jerk.  Well, maybe I'm being a bit hard on myself; outside of my family, I haven't actually been mean or even particularly rude - but self-absorbed all the time. 
In the past couple week I've gone to a wedding and a birthday bash.  I just couldn't get happy.  I pretended, but not with a whole lot of enthusiasm, and I actually started crying for myself at each.  Pathetic.  I cry at everything now, always obsessed with my continual pity-parties. 
In the past couple months I had an epiphany.  I was always thinking, "I'm smart.  If I believed what other people say, I'm damn smart.  So why don't I have the good life?  I deserve it!"  then I realized - I don't deserve anything for being smart.  If I am smart, that was a gift I was given.  I may have an obligation from the Giver to use this tool for all the best that I can. But receipt of one gift does not equal entitlement to another gift. (I did think about that episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, about the shirt that is "a problem, not a gift" http://www.watch-crub-your-enthusiasm-online.com/Watch_Curb_Your_Enthusiasm_Online_Season_3_Episode_1_Chets_Shirt.html but I don't want to go there right now).  I don't know if that helped me cope at all, but at least it's one less angle to complain about.
I was trying to think of a good story to go with this - but I can't.  Or rather, all the stories I think of show why I am so pathetic.  Think of the hundreds of books, movies, folk tales, bumper stickers, etc, that explain that life's worth is measured in love, family, good friends, health.  I'm almost bankrupt.  If my funeral were tomorrow, I don't think more than 20 people would show up.  If I were never born, I guess a lot of people might have been somehow worse off, but I'm fairly certain there would be no large, or even moderate, or even small scale change in any of the cities where I lived (as if I were George Bailey).  And on the balance, it's seem quite possible that the world would have been better off without me, because when I am bad, I am horrid.
That's all.  Sorry for being whiny.