Supermassive Black Hole A Star

Author notes

Ep. 40, Page 67

smbhax

on May 28, 2020

This is the page that took me two days to get posted, and it was just because I'm a goofball.

The end of our little spring rainy season here and outbreak of the first almost summer-y weather two days ago produced a sudden surge of relatively high humidity: wooden doors stuck in their frames, my watercolor paper stayed limp, and salt clumped up trying to come out of the shaker.

I cook all my own meals from scratch, clumsily (I'm no cook—it's mostly oatmeal, chicken sandwiches, apples, and frozen veggies :d), and salt from that shaker is pretty much my only significant source of sodium. Not being able to dispense it normally, I tried sprinkling it from a spoon but, after having rendered a few meals a bit on the salty side in a few damp days previously, tried to go easier…and apparently severely underestimated how much I needed to add.

The body needs sodium to retain water; without enough of it, water goes right through you, carrying any remaining sodium away that much faster. I woke up with a slight headache, and, figuring it was dehydration, started drinking more water—which made things worse. :P By the time it came to sitting down to draw yesterday, the headache was pretty bad, and I guess I was kind of out of it, because it took me two hours just to pencil out something that looked like something. By that time, the headache was raging and I could barely think straight.

Finally I realized I was really dehydrated, must be low on sodium, and started drinking salt dissolved in water (eventually followed by regular water, after I felt salted enough—ie, after the salt-infused water started tasting disgusting instead of curative). That was the cure, and after a while of that and a bit of a lie-down I was together enough to paint the page. By the time that was done it was nearing bed time, and I still wasn't sharp enough to sit down and work in front of the computer. So, the rest of preparing and posting the page had to wait until today. Also I repainted her nose three times. :-D

And now I'm erring on the salty side of things until a bit more summery weather gets our humidity back to normal. : P (I guess if it keeps up long enough I'll just get decent at spooning on salt, and then I'll never need a salt shaker again! /thrifty)

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The original 16" x 6.75" watercolor art for today's new A* page is up for auction on eBay. : )