There are more than a few messages from lonely people wondering why they never find themselves described...I illustrated one, "How come no one ever misses me?" They kill me, those.

There are also dozens and dozens of success stories; many couples have emailed me with their original posts. I love reading these stories, but confess I am not as interested in drawing them as the unfinished, elusive ones.

I usually draw in silence, but listen to music or public radio when I'm painting, after all the important decisions have been made.

Odd things happen in New York, which is why it's such a great source of stories.

There's arrogance for you. I think all artists insert themselves into their subject matter.

I've illustrated many children's books and I feel awfully lucky to be able to do something I love so much, and yes, to be able to pay the rent, but there was a yearning to do something more grown up, and something where I didn't have to cater to anyone; I was just waiting for the material.

I did have a couple of people asking me to illustrate their MC in a hope to widen the exposure, unfortunately the messages weren't a good fit, so I couldn't oblige. And I didn't really want to become a matchmaking service. Someone posted a missed connection "I like your blog" which was directed at me... that was kind of fun to stumble across.