So, I woke up last Saturday morning inspired and ready to face the challenges of life. This alone was miraculous.

I was dancing around my room, cleaning up and getting ready to draw some new cartoons.

Then I read a letter I just got from my father. In it, he calls me ungrateful, bitter and self-entitled, and that my predicament is all my fault because he told me not to move to NYC.

He doesn’t understand that I HAVE A DREAM. He thinks dreams are dumb.

The thing is that I AM GRATEFUL! I AM NOT SELF-ENTITLED! Well maybe entitled to some compassion from him. But I know he doesn’t owe me anything.

And yeah I’m bitter, but not about him.

I’ve suffered some debilitating depression and need help, that’s all. But to him, that means ungrateful, bitter loser, I guess.

I don’t know where he got the idea that I was so ungrateful. Don’t I tell you guys how grateful I am all the time? Well, I do. I hope you’ve noticed!

And my cell phone message to myself is: GRATITUDE. And has been for months.

But unfortunately, I guess I have not made my gratitude for my father clear to him.

I AM GRATEFUL I SWEAR TO GOD I AM!

And it sucks that he doesn’t know how grateful I am. It sucks for me, but it sucks even more for him. How sad. I’m so sorry for that. Sorry he doesn’t know how much he means to me. It’s all so fucking sad.

But yeah, I’ve fallen on very hard times. I like to call it severe depression, others like to just say I’m a loser. Feels like rock bottom but I know I could dig deeper.

Whatever the case, I had to ask dad for some money. I told everybody I would rather stab my eyes out than ask him for money.

I should have stabbed my eyes out. You make a lot more on disability that way, and I would not have been able to read that letter.

But I didn’t. I asked.

I waited until after the Packer/Giants game to ask because my dad is a hardcore Packers fan, and if they win he is ecstatic and if they lose, well, the opposite.

So I gambled and hoped that they would win. If they won, he would be in a great mood and everything would go more smoothly.

The Packers didn’t win that game. The game that would have led them to the super bowl.

I gambled and lost.

Now I had to ask him for money after they lost. Not only that, but they fucked up too, as I understand it. Which probably hurts a fan more than if they did their very best and still lost. (I don’t know. I didn’t watch. I was busy preparing my alternate plan - suicide).

Not only that but they lost to NEW YORK on their home field. OH THE IRONY!

So they lost. And I lost more. And so he wrote me a devastating letter. Just thinking about that letter makes my heart ache so hard I honestly think I feel it imploding. That letter makes me feel like the world’s biggest failure.

And, it’s a real letter you guys, the old-timey kind, ON PAPER, that I can hold and cherish and read again and again and again. Right now I’m keeping it in my wallet, but soon, I’m having it framed.

Thanks a lot for losing Packers. I hate you.

When I first let on to my dad that I was having financial troubles, he suggested I move to Tucson and herd goats.

I am not kidding. And, I think he was sorta serious.

When I told him that sounded pretty lonely, he said that I could make friends with the illegal immigrants that escape over the border. “Do you know Spanish?” he asked. He knows I don’t know Spanish.

Maybe he just likes the idea of me dying in the desert better than in the snow.

Maybe I do too.

I imagine moving to Tucson and picture myself crawling in the desert like some dusty, dying cowboy from some old western, my glasses cracked and broken, my tiara askew, my elusive slacks all ragged, and one of my kangaroo shoes missing.

Only instead of seeing a mirage of water like the cowboy, I will see a mirage of my dead dreams.

Listen, I asked you all to send me sandwiches and I have not received a single sandwich yet from any of you!

YOU PEOPLE MAKE ME SICK.

No, I didn’t mean that. You know I love each and everyone of you, my sweet babies. Except for the ones I don’t.

But the Lori Mocha household is in great need of assistance. And by assistance, I mean sandwiches.

However, if you’d rather send me drugs instead of sandwiches, that is perfectly acceptable, and in fact, preferred.

In fact, forget the sandwiches. SEND DRUGS. Or cash, but drugs are better. Better than anything, really. Better than love and friendship, that’s for sure.

So, in conclusion, here’s what you should send me:

1. drugs
2. cash
3. sandwiches

IN THAT ORDER OR ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Now get busy doing what I say or I’ll quit blogging! I MEAN IT.*

*I don’t mean it. But please do what I say anyhow. I like it when people do what I tell them to do.

I want all of you cogs to make me a sandwich!

With bacon! And that’s a direct order!

Sir yes sir!

You will be a cog in my self-centered craziness.

Well, I spent yesterday crying my eyes out all day long because I got the cruelest email I have ever received.

Yes, it was from that one guy. Let’s call him Mr. Hollywood from now on. I can think of a lot worser names for him, but let’s go with that one.

So Mr. Hollywood wrote me a very unkind email, and although I know I didn’t deserve ALL the horrible things he said to me, I do understand my ability to drive men to madness.

And I know I did a real good job of bringing crazy to the table at this dinner party. (Dinner which I paid for mind you, but that’s another issue).

But like, he said I’m the most self-centered person he’s ever met. Which is fascinating, because I think HE’S the most self-centered person I’VE ever met. I guess we will have to battle that one out to see who wins!

Now, I will never ever deny being self-centered. I won’t. But, I will also defend it because I think that being a writer, an artist and a performer REQUIRES a bit of self-centeredness, though I guess I’d rather call it introspection and self-awareness, in my case.

Plus, I don’t really understand how telling him I love him every fucking day, and spending ungodly sums of money on him, amount to “most self-centered.”

But whatever, right? So what?

Well, so, my demons are encouraging me to say horrible things to him in revenge. Cruel things. Things that would hurt. Things that would hurt BAD.

And, man oh man, do I have some hurtful material lined up. Hell has no fury like Lori scorned!

But, I know I’d regret it. He’s wounded enough already. It would kinda be too easy even, not to mention just plain wrong - even though I want to lash out SO BAD.

I mean, how dare he talk to me that way?

But no. No Lori no. No no no. Quit it. For the love of “god” will you quit it already.

It’s time for me to let this go. I mean he ended the email by saying he just doesn’t want to be a cog in my craziness anymore. And oh my god I get that. I wish he had ended on that note. But unfortunately, the last line of his email was “go blow a homeless guy.” I did not like that ending.

But just like I didn’t like that ending, Mr. Hollywood probably won’t like how he’s portrayed in my memoir either.

No but seriously. I’m gonna move on. I’ve GOT to move on. It’s way past due and I know it.

SO PAST DUE.

No. I mean it. I’m gonna let go. No, like for real this time. I know I’ve said it before, but with this last email from him, something in me has shifted. Every interaction I have with him leaves me feeling worse than before. And that’s no good. I’m sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. I’m tired of crying my eyeballs out over an imaginary relationship with a guy who was never very nice to me to begin with.

It is time for a fresh start. It is time to put the past behind me.

It is time to get some new cogs in my craziness. So who wants to sign-up?

Ok sweet babies, I’m coming out of my depressive stupor and am ready to blog.

Except now I have a job.

I’m sorry you guys, but I can’t do it all.

If you guys would pay me to blog, we wouldn’t have this problem.

Um. So. Pay up! Then you will get the high quality Lori Mocha blogging you deserve.

But until you pay, well, you are just gonna have to settle for some half ass blogging.

So pay up! Or suffer the consequences. It’s up to you.

Have at them, Kev.

Teach them to wear doo rags with style and grace, like you.