So, it's a long way up out of the pit of abject poverty. But November 2005 I actually managed to pay my rent on the first week of the month for the first time in a while.

The phone rings off the hook every night. The Credit Card companies. It will take at least until December to get started on them, but at least I can dedicate the rest of November to getting my electricity and phone bills caught up.

I'm writing a book "Relations: SMASH YOUR TV!" which talks about how people are shamed into hiding their poverty and wages. That's mainly why I have such a willingness to talk about my own. Not so much to engender sympathy, but rather, to offer it up so other people can see whether their in the same boat or whether they know people in the same boat and begin to think more deeply about this sort of thing. If this generation coming up is more and more debt laden. And if this generation is far more debt laden than their parents'. Hasn't something gone wrong? If the median wage has fallen and continues to fall in real dollar value and the cost of basic needs for people continues to climb, don't we have an unsustainable system that's inevitably going to break?

I've been drawing a billion pictures for this book. Can't wait to finish it and get people reading it. Finally got around to the cover design for it.