Sick Days

I'm doing my editorial cartoon at home today, sparing my co-workers the hacking and coughing my poor family has suffered with for several days now. Yesterday my brain was AWOL but today I'm giving it a go.

People have asked me for years why I go into the office at all. "Can't you do your cartoons from home, with the internet and email?" Technologically there is nothing stopping me from a life working in my pajamas, and there are lots of Cincinnati winter days when even I don't understand why I make the commute.

But there's something about going into my 19th floor office downtown overlooking ribbons of asphalt hustle and bustle that gets me in the mindframe to think about the Big Stuff in the news. There I overhear conversations among reporters and editorial writers, pick up bits from the bank of TVs in the newsroom, and generally absorb the helpful stress of complaining readers and anxious editors. OK, I don't really understand it either, but it's worked for a long time now.

From my little studio space here at home I'm more tempted to think about the little stuff of family life, which is why I draw Zits almost exclusively here. The house is quiet during the day, my dogs sleep nearby, the birds feed outside my window -- it's harder to get cranked up about global markets crashing and candidates clashing, even if the same information is available to me in both locations.

Which is why I'm making another pot of coffee right now. Surely I can get twisted into a knot about something.