While in the past an exchange like this would have wigged me out, I now know to recognize it for what it is: comic material.

To be completely honest, though, I'd rather be referred to as, "The Girl With Killer Ninja Moves."

Everyone's Irish on St. Patrick's Day, or in my case, 50%. And no, in the end I couldn't bring myself to eat a boiled dinner. But I did have a pint of Guinness, so Éire go Brách and all that good stuff.

I gave up coffee for Lent and it is every bit as agonizing as I imagined. A lifetime of caffeine consumption (my mother drank coffee while expecting me)*, has left me ill prepared to deal with the absence of my favorite beverage in the whole entire world. April 24 can not come soon enough...

*Okay, only a cup a day and a small cup at that. But still, I never really had a fighting chance...

I took a long weekend and went to visit my sister in Los Angeles. I knew the trip would mean lots of comic material, but narrowing it down to one thing would be the tough part. Getting stuck in Hollywood hours before the Oscars? My obsession with Yogurtland? Our constant arguments about if the weather was "cold"?

I finally settled on a detour we made to visit the Bradbury Building. I am a colossal fan of the sadly cancelled television program, "Pushing Daisies," portions of which were filmed at that location. Em, however, is not much of a fan of the show. Despite this, she navigated one way streets, a ridiculous parking situation and a film crew to appease this nerd. And, she did it all while wearing stilettos. This is reason #479 why she is really, really awesome.

So thanks sis. And if you could airmail me a mango frozen yogurt with gummy bears, that would be swell.

With this comic diary, I decided early on that I wanted to try to stay as true to life as possible. In the day to day there's plenty of humor, but there's also bills and parking tickets and influenza and all other sorts of things that chip away at you.

But things are what you make of them, right? Anyhow, that's what I was shooting for this week. That said, don't even start me about student loan interest rates...

Sketching this one I kept thinking, "You're really going to admit that you're a grown woman purchasing glittery heart cookies for herself?" The answer to that being, "Yup." It was kind of cathartic to tell the truth.

And in the interest of full disclosure, I actually do want to see that Justin Bieber movie. Purely for sociological reasons of course...

Skyping with my sister last week, we ended up discussing the dangers of exposing toddlers to indie music. Maybe they should slap some warning labels on that stuff? Also, if you haven't experienced Dr. Stringz, here's the video. He's a staple in my babysitting repertoire.