It has been 1 and 1/2 weeks since my official move to freelance illustration. I'm missing human contact. Logan and Bebop, as much as I've always talked to them, have never replied back except for the occasional yawn or bottom toot.

So coffee shops are my office away from office. I'm not there to chat people up or anything, but I like being around entities with opposable thumbs and the possibility of dialogue. Preferable to a library BECAUSE there is coffee and more noise AND they are open much earlier. I love their warmth, the cozy places to sit with a good chair and table and neverending coffee. Also most coffee shops don't require me to vacuum or do the dishes--some big distractions at home.

But the other morning while at Besalu I felt like this career move was proving to be an exceptionally sedentary and posterior heavy one. That there's more sitting now than with my office job! It reminded me of the long hours I spent drawing at VFS and my favorite teacher noticing that everyone's bottom was getting larger. Chair Ass, he called it. The mark of a good animator. And now everyone is following Jane Yolen's advice of Butt In Chair. SCBWI is breeding a nation of good books and wide bottoms.

Jaime