Letters to Holly

Thursday, December 3

Must I Rage? Rage I Must.

One thing about Your Mom's office visit on Tuesday: She mentioned that the delay in deciding to be pregnant was Your Sister's doing. She said she knew I wanted kids, but Your Sister was focused on work. I mention this to preemptively set the record straight in case you encounter this line of thinking. It's completely wrong.

I immediately told her it was a long-standing and constantly affirmed mutual decision to remain a duo. No one is "at fault" for us remaining childless for, as My Mom puts it, "so long." The change of position was a yearlong adjustment from both of us. No one can be said to have instigated the decision. Those regular questions we asked each other about maintaining our duo-hood began to get new answers, and they came from both of us. There was no peer pressure, no ticking clock, no fear of remaining outside the definition of a "real family." The Debacles began as a family in 2004. We're bringing in an 18-year tenant. We're building an addition.

Just FYI. If she continues to pass this along, and I'm asking you flatly to rat her out, I'm gonna sit her down and repeat the facts until she can recite them back to me. She often assumes the worst about her daughters, and it's often dismissed in a cloud of stunned dismay. Not this. I won't allow it. Your Sister will not be accused of refusing to be a mom, of stubbornly, cruelly denying me offspring, especially while she's with child.

Damn it. Now I'm mad.

Suddenly it's almost Christmas, and I have no idea what to buy anyone. I'm totally baffled. I'm baffled and mad.

Pictures of the Day
This is the first inked draft of the comic. I hand lettered it, and it failed to make the grade. I re-lettered it on the computer before I tweaked the art digitally. It's due tomorrow, and I'm doing last-second polishing of the faucets on the Titanic.


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