Watch Out for Romance

I've been away for a bit. I went on vacation, spent time with family, and have returned with some new drawings to show. Today it's romance, baby:

This is a drawing of David Bowie kissing a faceless woman. Just kidding (or am I??).

I drew this several summers ago, while my wife (who was at that time my girlfriend) was away in Cypress researching ancient Cypriots. If you've never dated an archaeologist, let me tell you, it's an emotional roller-coaster. They travel to foreign, rural locales where they can only contact you by unreliable post, infrequent email, and the very occasional long-distance, two-minute phone call. They tell you stories about sleeping in sheds, being face-to-face with giant Wolf-Spiders (and Spider-Wolves), being shot at by farmers, outrunning boulders, walking across invisible bridges, and fighting off Nazis and sketchy graduate students. I never knew what kind of danger she was in, or whether she'd come back alive at all! At the time, drawing this picture did not help me miss her less. In fact, it kind of made me depressed. The next day, I tried another approach: I drew a lifelike portrait of her and made out with it. This also did not make me feel better, and in fact left me with several paper cuts.

The bottom line is, drawing will not make you feel better. But if you produce something nice, you can look back later and say, in a French accent, "Ah, look how I suffered. Such is ze life of a true artiste`, no?"