Doodling saved me. This is a grand statement, the kind I am generally pretty dubious of, but bear with me. Writing and drawing my illustrated memoir, big beautiful female theory, I obsessed about what makes a good drawing, pursued it doggedly, like Ahab going after a really photo-realistic portrait of a whale. If it wasn’t perfect, if it didn’t measure up to the vision in my head, I flew into a self-abnegating rage, shredding the paper to bits with my fingers, throwing it in the bin while tearing myself a new one, psychologically. The irony of this, given the book was full of silly illustrations of boobs and bums, is not lost on me.
I would describe the two years since the book’s release, euphemistically, as a kind of fog I’m emerging from. Less kindly, as a kind of stupor punctuated by a lot of bad television and crying jags. I’ve been trying to figure out what I actually care about, what I would do if I wasn’t focused on being good all the time.
