When I am in my negative cycle, I hate myself as much as I hate you but I still need you to love me. I'm that narcissistic. I need your acceptance like a vampire needs blood. Your husk however I could do without. You kind of get on my nerves.

A simple solution would be a Tshirt that explains everything you need to know about me to convince you to accept me. And then leave me alone. If I had a Tshirt that said, “I know about the ketchup on my face” then you would know that I know, and we wouldn't need to have this conversation, and you can put down that rock.

The problem with this simple Tshirt solution however is that it does require a tiny bit of self acceptance before I can put on that shirt. In the first panel of the comic where the Man With Tie looks into the mirror and sees the ketchup on his face, that step is fundamental. I cannot take it if I am too afraid or if I am to busy hating you for the double life I have imposed upon myself that I live when I'm around you that you don't even know about but that I wouldn't have to live if you only knew! Except that if you knew you might pick up a rock.

I have no understanding that you aren't even real, you, the one I'm writing to and who I hate but also need to accept me. You are only a version of myself within my own mind that I project onto you, Dear Reader. I think you hate me because I hate me. Only when I realize this will I see that what I really need is my own acceptance, not yours, which is actually mine.

My primary fear is not telling you who I am; it's telling me who I am. So if you ever see me in a Tshirt that says, “I know about the ketchup on my face,” know that I don't really know this yet. Rather I'm like a devil dancing in a blue dress hoping you will accept me so that I don't have to accept myself. Or I'm an inmate in a silly orange jumpsuit against his will. I may be only just waking up to the ketchup situation.

A fix will come when I take a closer examination of the devil inside me, acknowledge it, reject it, repent of it, accept the “me” that remains after the exorcism and be grateful to God and move on.

Which is sort of what I'm doing right now. I'm accepting who I am. I am the artist leftover after the exorcism. I've created a lot of art in the four years since prison. The problem is I did it alone in the vacuum of my apartment. This was me not accepting the truth that I am an artist. I was like a toddler pooping his pants in a corner because I was confused by the the horror of the process of creating art. Which isn't cool. So I changed my pants and now I am sharing my art because that's what artists do. Onward to the positive cycle!

That's the odd thing about being in my positive cycle, the best part about it is simply being in it. I am an artist. My positive cycle is creating and sharing art. Simply doing this is so much better than even one second in the negative cycle I used to think was necessary to keep the rocks at bay. This positivity stuff is definitely where the cool cats are hanging out. Seriously. So, onward to creativity and onward to the next annotation!