This Recession...

...feels like one big life-enema.

The only time I've been this bare-bones was when I left home when I was 16 and essentially became an adult. I left with nothing but two duffel bags -- true to form, one duffel bag was filled with old Starlogs and Dick Tracy action figures. I mean truly - I was stepping into the void.

Only, I was so young, I didn't even appreciate the enormity of that decision. I was just glad to get away from my mom's husband and the dumb school they made me go to in Queens. Actually, I was just glad to get away from *school*, as, living without parents, I assumed I would no longer have to go. Enter: the truant officer. I actually had a truant officer visit the house. And he actually looked like Slugworth's goon from Willy Wonka.

I entered the apartment -- which was our old home that my mother never gave up the lease to -- with my two duffel bags and fifty dollars. For weeks I ate ramen and drank Nutrament as I squatted, rent-free, in the apartment. I had zero plan. There wasn't even a TV set. I had a radio. Then I got a job. Then another one. I made like 100 a week. I thought I was rich. Then I got a roommate. Then I got another job. Then I was forced (by my mom, who by this time realized that maybe cutting me loose at 16 to fend for myself wasn't the best plan) to finish school and apply to a city college. Then I got scholarships. Then I was on the track for the Rhodes scholarship & Princeton. And then I gave it all up for a job in comics.

The funny thing is -- holy crap, I feel like I'm still that 16-year-old girl with two duffel bags. Whatever that life-lesson was I was supposed to learn, I had better freaking learn it!