Cathy Guisewite [cartoonist]: An Interview with the Creator of the Comic Strip "Cathy"

Today are the most uncomfortable shoes ever created in the history of me showing. I paid extra for his nose and that's why it's such an eagle that the entire weight of my body has been reinforced and even as I am the only thing you see when my foot is this which cuts circulation and makes my feet fall asleep I am. It was proclaimed last year that were to be the hot new fashion item of the decade. No matter what else he did to the rest of yourself you would tell the world who you really were. Despite the emergence of the flats to look these shoes these have been continually pronounced

and I quote the sexiest and most of them any of you read my comic strip on a regular basis should realize that these words spoke to me in a way that they never could. And despite my understanding that every step would not only destroy my past year but gradually my calf muscles. I can't tell you how quickly I slipped on my $59 to own a pair. To me those shoes represent the enormous gap between how things are supposed to be and how they really are in practice. The gap between how things are when everyone else does something and how they are when you try to do it for women and men today were trying to reconcile their upbringings with a whole new set of values and expectations. This is the gap between universally quality and what your own particular life look like. At 8:45 this morning more than any one thing I feel this gap is responsible for the lack of progress we make

both individually and collectively towards producing real concrete change in our lives. Sometimes the role models seem so perfect and the new ideal so far from how we're actually living that you stand back from and you say well forget it. I can't cope with this. You know I can't I can't do this. The new way seems so hopeless sometimes that maybe the old way wasn't so bad after all. I feel this is the exact equivalent of seeing a beautiful woman and then going home and stuffing yourself. Good Hostess cupcakes because you know you never look like that. Now what I decided to do today was to discuss closing the gap between who we want to be and who we really are. By revealing the secrets to love success independence peace of mind and weight loss I will tell you how to overcome every bad habit and live in ecstasy for the rest of your days. Like my favorite kind of magazine articles I have condensed the information necessary to make your life perfect in five

easy steps. I also like my favorite kind of magazine articles. I will be for be referring to the exact same tried easy steps that you always playing in these kind of articles assisting me today we want to America's strongest most self-assured and vibrant women. Do you understand Andrea. I'm sick of this. I want to I want to be somebody. But you are reading are somebody who says I want to be somebody else. Step one towards protection realize you're not alone. I think we all know how easy it is to fall into the rut of thinking that everyone else is doing better than we are. Just look around you can't now but before you instantly assume that everybody else in this room is more organized more efficient more confident everyone else knew what to wear today. Everyone has better love a better savings plan a better insurance rate a better

sense of right and wrong. Everyone seems to fit everyone else better he says. What's next. Here you go Miss This is the very latest. The big with the skinny legs his big skinny legs and once again my body is the exact opposite of. Occurred to me that we tend to look at ways we're unique mainly in terms of our failures. For instance I am the only woman who has ever walked into a business meeting with my knee high nylons strapped to my calves with me as. The only woman who has ever been so desperate for a date that I have accepted a dinner invitation for minutes after finishing a four course meal. I am the only woman who balances my checkbook by switching banks and starting all over everything.

I am the only woman so determined to define mind that I mix pre sweeten Kool-Aid with my period. I am the only woman who will spend more time in analyzing which positions make my thighs look less fat than I have reading about the situation in the Middle East. I am the only woman who has ever trudged home from a day in my career and stood in the kitchen squirting ready whipped with crapping directly into my mouth. Lots of times we look at how great you were unique mainly in terms of how we made should be clear from my mind it would feel pretty strongly about making light of life's little failures. As Kathy would say if you don't make light of life's little failures they'll just gang up on you and write you from the possible thrill of failing at something really big. One with learning to laugh when things sometimes go wrong. It's important to learn to anticipate the sorts of things that will always go wrong. I've

come to expect that as soon as I meet an attractive me and a chunk of mascara and light itself between my cornea and my kind I expect as soon as I arrived on a trip like this I expect certain things to happen and I prepare for them as soon as I write and I am medically gotten new here drier to replace the one I knew would be smashed in my luggage by the Dayton baggage on the others. Here's the airport to replace the ones I knew as soon as they found out I wanted to look especially nice today. I knew I wouldn't have time to worry about broken here dryers and doing this truck is a very important event for me and I knew I would need every bit of extra time to keep my dress from the ramp so that you're not alone. Step 2 Learn to take responsibility for yourself. I think she's looking at power and authority.

In the work was it. You can't have been unwired for the last 10 years and the message about the importance of being personally responsible for what does or doesn't happen to you. You can't wait for a person or relationship to make your life better. You have to make your life better yourself. Now for some this comes as sort of a nice gradual realization for others like a flash from above. Personally I have come to view the day I marched into K-Mart and bought myself an electric can opener as the major turning point in my life at that point I actually own my own home I own her furniture clothing. I've been totally financially self-supporting for seven and a half years and yet

I had refused to buy any of the household items that could be referred to as a wedding present. Not only was I still using an opener 20 years ago but I was a reasonably successful business person running a kitchen consisting of three plastic glasses Primus whiniest forks and a set of 9 plates and bowls my mother had given me just to tide me over until that big. You know what they arrived. As I sat on my kitchen floor one evening beating a can of peaches alone only him it came to me like I didn't have to wait for a wedding. I could go to the store and I could buy myself didn't start smoking every time I turned the heat up over medium. I didn't have to drink instant coffee just because I was single. I could buy myself. As I walked through K-Mart. The house opened up their little arms to me like

flowers from the tiniest peeler to the giant casserole. The same message pounded through. It's your choice it's your charge card. All of this can be yours. For the first time in my adult life. I knew I didn't need to meet Mr Right before I could open a can of peaches without risking a puncture. I've come to realize I don't need a husband or even a serious serious speakers that actually work. Revelation has plunged me further into debt. It is apparently that same kind of revelation that's made for me to go after the kind of career success that enables me to pay the bills. You are responsible for you if you're a woman. You can't like your sense of well-being. You can't limit your career ambitions to what a man tells you is possible. You can't wait for a relationship to put some order and sense in your life and you can't look at mere inches away to get some free kitchen appliances.

Before my mother passes out in the audience. I'd like to make it clear that I'm not advocating a life without men only that women and men learn to look at each other from a little different perspective you have to be responsible for yourself. Step 3 now that you are responsible. Analyze your actions. Mother is reading the paper in the wild and crazy carefree of the seven giving way to a more sensible down to earth kind of life looks at the paper and starting to get the feeling they missed something big. Obviously this can be a very exciting time to be a woman. In the last 10 years the change in the status of women has been I expect in years to be even richer with change and there are more options open than ever before in history.

I can I can have a career and I can have a career and a baby I can have a husband and a baby I can have a career and a baby I can live with. I can do everything and make a hundred thousand dollars a year. I thought you wanted to get married and he says that's my goal. I want everything. Sometimes frustrating to see all the options and realize more serious is having so many options. Which ones you want to take advantage of. With every possible living situation with

me I'm £60 Now some people look at my lifestyle and come in my independent truth which is that there are suddenly so many options open to me to make a commitment to any one of them every year making any sort of because I want to wait and see what happens to me next year. You have to analyze your options what's there and whether it's who you're involved with or what you're what you wear. You have to not be afraid to search deep within yourself and question the kinds of options that are presented. The latest. Questionnaire. Having realized you not having taken

responsibility for yourself having in amongst your options you are now ready to step forward do something to change your life. It's no use saying I'm going to be there for the rest of my life and have to just use a little. You can't just remember you are the one in control. He says I know that's what I'm going to be for the rest what he says to get some of that creamy dreamy look. How can you be sucked in by that TV commercial just because you are selling his sex broken dreams. You know whether you're mark whether your goal is to make a real mark in the world or to lose 20 pounds the same principles apply. You can't produce a change unless you do something

different. And chances are you will not be able to transform your life with anything you can buy at the drugstore. The women's movement has a long way to go before there is genuine equal opportunity for all. And yet if success were simple is not being discriminated against you would expect for instance that all men would be jumping for joy and rolling in the butt. Any of you who have had occasion to be on a date lately will know this is true. Nobody's life gets any better if the person doesn't do something to change it. If you're sick of your job your relationship your attitude. If you're sick of your hair you have to do something to change it. And of course that seems easy enough. Why is it that most of us never do anything to change anything. Together with my women friends we give each other lectures on how we're going to make something of it. Everybody wants change.

Really Think what it would mean. Became a neurosurgeon married a pediatrician. Nobody speaks to Marine anymore. The entire text of the Equal Rights Amendment is one cent equality of rights under the laws from might be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Now people who oppose the Equal Rights Amendment do so mainly out of a fear of change. In conversations today you often hear men say sure and for the women's movement and you hear women say I'm pretty eory but the boat usually means I believe in the end result but I don't change anything. To me the process of changing things in our individual lives is just a mini version of the same process. We're trying

to change the whole country. People might not be getting the Equal Rights Amendment is a lot like trying. I want to be skinny but I don't want to have to give up my cookie. The thing I'd like to stress today is to not let your fear not let your fear of losing what you can't prevent you from working towards change in all forms of change. It's both. You feel some contradiction. As my perspective on myself as a woman changes I find myself with equal fervor. On one hand exactly like my mother and on the other hand begging the heavens. Says I love you man but I will never be like you I will never never act like you never looked like you. And you know

you're just like me. Like he runs from the room screaming. That's just what I used to do. I want to be independent from my mother. HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME. For you it's never just

only a mother could turn a designer into a. Relationship I find myself consciously trying to change those of communication. To it. I continually rationalize miserable situations. Of course I know that Irving cares about me. How do you know. He says I can see the signs and reassess the time you're with him in front of the TV. I can see it in his eyelids and sometimes I don't communicate. Irving says you're just pretending you're not because you want me to think I don't

care. You think that if you show me you feel threatened by acting like you don't care how much you really do. And frankly I don't need that kind of pressure as well. I think change implies some contradictions. But that's OK. Another hindrance to change is that it takes time. If you have a full time job a full time relationship full of full time school and or a full time house to take care of you will probably find that you're left with approximately 35 seconds a month for meaningful self-improvement. Who has time to step in the door and promised myself. Try to figure out who is trying to protest a sexist attitude in the department store. I stamp the store and give myself a big lecture on how next time I'm going to take the time to be really has the energy to come home from work

and take a real stand against somebody. You've had to work every night this week to say Baby let me give you a back massage and you give your back. Who has the stamina to keep working for a change. This is what you're up against. You're great except they're 9 inches can I cry the same size only shorter saleslady says no women only comes in one one if you want the right one to go with him and he says I beg your pardon pardon the lady says women's genes come in men come in and this is someone I think all women of the same size legs.

The saleslady says I guess they just figure out women. Let's just forget these but I want the ladies. No they only do operations on the men's screams the men don't need alteration their jeans can the right thing the lady says oh well I guess one of things we have to put up with. I also think it's true that when you really take the time to concentrate on changing one area of your life the rest of your life will start to deteriorate. Sometimes you wonder if the change is worth it. This brings us to the final the most horrifying step step back. Stick to your decision. Whenever I'm just saying no. Whatever the answer is NO NO NO. I'm like you want to.

She says OK. They're normal human lives is of determination. This is man exactly an easy time to make a commitment to anything. The trend is against the car you need a $9000 commitment to last Wednesday fall apart next Tuesday. The money you commit to a savings account is worth less now than when you ate your lunch 10 minutes ago. The married to make a lifetime commitment to its long has only slightly better than a 50/50 chance of making it. Market trading for states are really fun. You know Mark everything so fresh and finding things we really don't like so much in the fighting because the other person isn't everything we want to be he says. Then I

get bored she says. Other people the Getty need to get whatever happened to be different with us. In spite of what's going on today one of the major lessons every parent who lived through the Depression tried to get through our little heads was to make a commitment to something. As with much of what my parents taught me I have carried this lesson to the proportion both at home and at work. When I decide to do something I become obsessed. This is now and become disciplined. Here is how I produce it. First I wait until late at night so I won't be distracted by the fact that I'm not getting any. I need every scrap of food within walking distance. I turn the lights down low in my studio so there's only one artistic ball going over my desk ruining my

vision. I bite my nails read the manufacturing information on my box of staples and then paper cuts into little Firmian. I drink coffee I drink coke. I smoke cigarettes. And then I listen to depressing music through headphones. It's manged down my hear having surrounded myself with artificial stimulation artificial lighting and little do dads. I generally reach the perfect creator from beyond 45 seconds before I pass out. That's how I work. I'm not disciplined but I am committed. I'm obsessed with the goals I have for myself and my career. Coincidentally enough this is the one area of my life where I'm actually succeeding as much as I hate to admit. My mother was right all those years she begged me to practise the piano. It always comes down to this. The people I know who set goals and stick with their decisions seem to be successful and productive. The people I know who don't stick to decisions are grumpy and never get anything done.

When I was a better my me. If we can keep going back 10 years together we have to work individually. We have to work to do this. We all have to regularly step before that step for something to change your life. Before that step 3 analyze your options. Step 2 take responsibility for yourself in those moments when you demoralise with no hope in your heart.

I urge you to open your newspaper and recall your novel. Yes he says Irving has deserted me Andrea and it's no wonder I've been devoting all my things I mean were you in the canteen This is me. You mean you're supposed to be in me with three drinks in me. You supposed to revel in me. Yes it is wonderful. Now I'm stuck with me. US 11.