dear John K. Sampson: Will you marry me?

How not to get out of a funk:

1. Spend a disproportionate amount of your weekend at work.

2. Spend an equally disproportionate amount of your weekend listening to the music of the Weakerthans. Develop unattainable crush on John K. Sampson.

3. Read Mother Come Home by Paul Hornschemeier. What a powerful, disturbing, stark graphic novel. Hornschemeier shifts his style a few times, and some of the passages look like a child's drawings, while others are full of depth and detail and incredibly emotive faces. The story is told by Thomas Tennant, a young boy who struggles to come to grips with his mother's death and his father's growing emotional instability. HEAVY! It's a lot to grapple with, but Hornschmeier never sentimentalizes the subject matter or glosses over difficult feelings and ideas. The book opens with a strange, seemingly senseless section in which a slightly off version of Thomas' dad floats over a creepy dream landscape. I was almost put off by the opening, but I promise, if you keep reading, the odd language and disconnected images will make sense. It might not put you in the mood for, say, getting dressed and leaving your house to be part of mainstream society, but it's a must-read for any graphic novel afficionado.

Sigh. If anyone can recommend a very very happy book to me, please do so before I turn into the human lady manifestation of Eeyore (according to Freya this has already happened).