Side Dishes 6-16: Preview (Patreon)

I won't be finishing today's Side Dishes page, and I've got a whole rambling story to explain why, but for those who don't want to read the whole thing, I'll just say that it will be delayed by a day and I'm sorry.

Anyway, to explain the delay... after finishing pencils for today and after sending the inks to CGI to flat my wife and I decided to go out to check out a new restaurant that was kind of out of the way. The important part is, on the drive home I had a tire go flat. I have a little air pump that can plug into the cigarette lighter, so I was hoping to just use that and get it up and running... but after a bit of time it was clear that the tire was properly flat and wasn't inflating. So then I had to go through all the effort of changing out the tire for the flat. I figured I'd drive it home and take it in to replace the tire properly first thing in the morning... but as we got up and drove away the spare tire went flat as well. I don't know if I ran over something or what... for all I know the spare had a hole in it this whole time, since I haven't used it or really checked it for years. I even tried using my air pump on it, but this time it was even more obvious that it wouldn't inflate. So the best I could do was check my phone and see where the nearest tire place was. I don't know about everyone else, but my city is filled with used tire shops. I see them all over, so I figured there had to be one nearby... but of course, the only tire shop near where I was happened to be a Firestone tire. I'm sure for some people that would be a relief to have a name brand tire shop so close by, but I'm trying to save money for the holidays and taxes coming up. It was stressful enough driving the half-mile to the place on a flat spare... it was pretty much shredded by the time we got to the place. So I knew I couldn't risk it and just go somewhere else... so we go in, and of course the only tires they have in stock in the right size are the premium kind... and it's a name brand shop so they mark up the price on individual tires since they try to sell them in sets of 4. In the end it cost me $140, which sucks because I know any other tire shop in town would have done it for a cool $30.

So now I'm home, I'm tired from dealing with this, I still have a headache that hasn't quite gone down, and unfortunately I just don't have the energy to work on this story. I usually try not to complain too much about stuff I work on, but I've been fairly open about the fact that I don't like this particular Side Dishes story. If I had anything else to work on instead I probably would have just worked on it... sometimes coloring is very relaxing and zen for me. But a series like this would just stress me out more. I try not to be the kind of artist who gets stressed and lets that interrupt my work, but my wife has pretty thoroughly convinced me that it's for the best that I just take the night off and unwind, then figure out some way to make the money back when I've got a clearer head. So if anyone's looking for a commission any time soon, I'm open for it.