9 Chickweed Lane

1-13-2023

So we're still on this I guess.

1-11-2022

I don't understand what's going on here.

I mean, I know that Elliot gave up on his popcorn quest to launch into an erotic (and energetic) version of the Hokey-Pokey.

I guess he's interrupting her discussing the mechanics of sex? "The building blocks of conception" sure is a weird, clunky phrase to use, though.

Then I guess she realizes that her explanation is ridiculous, possibly harmful? I don't know?

And his last statement... The Hokey-Pokey is better than sex?

I feel like I'm just not GETTING something here, that I'm missing something obvious.

Anyway, although we're seeing Elliot in this little flashback, Juliette was dating a guy named Andy who was also divorced, and who had a kid. We saw him interacting with Edda a very small amount (usually when waiting for Juliette) but we never saw Juliette (or Edda) interacting with his kid. Anyway, here's Andy.

9 Chickweed Lane 1-9-2023

Juliette started dating a few years after her divorce but it was almost entirely casual and as far as we know her sexual activity was limited to kissing on the front porch while Gran watched and glared.

Elliot, with whom she worked, was her first serious relationship. They dated for quite a while and eventually he started asking her to marry him. She freaked out each time, but he persisted. Their relationship was a bit rocky at times... she wanted him to be more spontaneous and he just isn't that kind of guy. Her therapist pointed out that her last spontaneous guy was her ex-husband and did she really want THAT? It was a nice bit of story telling.

Eventually Juliette agrees to marry him, although it's unclear whether they are legally married or not. Thorax performs a service where he mangles all the words and they just kind of go along with it. Afterward she and Elliot share her bed. Regardless of the LEGALITY of their marriage they consider themselves married.

And there's reasons for Juliette not to want to legally tie herself to someone again. Although as they're both getting older it would be easier legally for them to make medical decisions for each other if need be.

The thing is, they didn't get married until after Edda (and Amos) had left for their new lives in New York, at the ballet corps and Julliard respectively, at the age of 17 or 18.

So Juliette and Elliot wouldn't be in bed together like a cute old married couple, their tiny hands and spindly fingers delicately gripping their large hardcover books as they read themselves to sleep.

The problem with this set up for the joke is that Elliot is pretty much the only person she can share it with. At this point in her life she doesn't have any friends other than her daughter and her judgemental mother. She has an old friend named Rose who she sometimes talks to on the phone, but that's usually so she can brag about her life and feel better about things. We've never seen Rose, she only exists unseen and unheard at the other end of a phone line. Juliette also has her therapist, who we haven't seen in a long time. And this punchline doesn't really work with a therapist.

I guess this could have been set at the college she teaches at, with her talking to a TA or another professor or doctor or something. It wouldn't take much more set up. "My kid's best friend stopped by to ask blah blah blah."

Like nearly all his characters, though, Juliette exists in a void populated only by immediate family and people she's fucking. Elliot is easy option as someone for her to talk to because he's it. He's an established character who talks to her. And they're in bed instead of sitting on the couch or eating lunch together or something... for reasons?

It's really lazy writing.

Her hair looks cute, though.

I wish we could see more of her face in the last panel, and that it had more of an "are you fucking kidding me" flat look. That would really sell the punchline. Her face needs to be flat or it needs to be laughing.

1-5-2023

I want to note quickly that McEldowney has been doing these "child Edda and child Amos discuss impregnating Edda in flash black format" strips since 2019 at least. I stumbled across this looking for something else. It's 2023 and he's still at it.

These two have only ever slept with each other (probably, McEldowney did some weird weasel thing that implied Edda and Seth slept together but not really but maybe) so who knows what they think is normal.

Before Edda successfully got pregnant, she and Amos had a frustrating and sad time where she just... wasn't conceiving. This is a difficult and stressful thing to go through, and came a few years after she was told she might potentially have fibroids, which can affect fertility. When she finally went to the doctor for a check up (and, amazingly, he took her seriously) she found out that she was super fertile. As is Amos. (His punchline is better than hers.)

So if they were trying for long enough that they're "being brave" about not conceiving (and note: it's RARE that the emotions of someone like Amos are considered in this kind of sad situation), find out they're both super fertile, and then she gets pregnant immediately...

What were they doing wrong?

This isn't like... "Oh, was he wearing the wrong underpants?" "Did she need to take cough syrup to thin her cervical mucus?" "Oh no, too much stress!" "I bet they're DRINKING COFFEE." "Maybe she should be on top."

This is more like... "Is he inserting his penis into her vagina and then ejaculating near her cervix?" "Do they know how to have procreative sex?"

Is he putting something in her, pulling that thing out, putting that thing back in her, then shaking it all about?

Which... actually sounds like PiV sex but weird and why would you share this with a child.

Ew.

I hate this, actually.

I really hate this.

A lot.

1-3-2023

And we're still flogging the "children talking endlessly about conceiving a child and being pregnant" horse.

There's talk of being pregnant with a baby and giving birth to a baby but no talk of caring for the baby or the child it will grow in to. I want to note that. I want to note that endlessly. It's extremely rare that Edda and Amos are shown parenting their children. There have been more flashbacks featuring Edda and Amos as child discussing pregnancy than there have been strips where they interact with their children, I'm sure of it. I haven't counted, but come on. There's just so many.

This is a project for next time I'm manic.

Even the strips about parenting the children, about being parents, have been abstract things about the IDEA of being a parent. The vibes of it. Edda's premature infants are in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) and we get ONE strip of her in a leotard doing an arabesque while visiting them. Then we get a series of strips of her wearing a big sweater, talking about making deviled eggs, telling Amos to cancel his vasectomy, and then seducing him via the big sweater. At one point Edda is dancing and thinking to herself "hold in the tummy muscles" and then collapses to the ground with hearts overhead because she's thinking about her premature infants who are in the NICU. She's not visiting them, she's thinking about them.

(She had a c-section which is major abdominal surgery that involves slicing through your abdominal muscles and moving organs then putting them back in place and stitching the uterus, muscles, and layers of skin back up. After a c-section you're limited as to how much weight you can lift. Sometimes you're told to avoid doing anything as taxing as driving a car. You're not "holding in your tummy muscles," you're recovering from surgery that, again, is major abdominal surgery resulting in a scar that's 4-8inches long. Go get a ruler and look at how long that is. I had a c-section and my scalp is crawling thinking about these details, it's not a fun time.)

I guess in this strip a hunched-over Amos who is somewhere between the ages of, I don't know, 6 and 14 and who grows 18 inches or so between panel one and panel two, is asking about sex. "'N' stuff" to be precise. He doesn't know what "stuff" is although he knows from listening to Juliette that part of "stuff" involves feeling really good - rapture to use her exact word. Because if there's one thing you don't want to talk about with small children (sex, orgasms) it's best to use the word "rapture" to describe it. Talk it up. Sell it. Make it REALLY enticing. Then refuse to elaborate. THAT's how you get them to shut up.

So Amos doesn't know what "stuff" is but he's going to "put [Juliette] in the picture."

What does that mean?

He's going to give her further information?

He's the one who WANTS information. Or he's just going to say he knows what "stuff" is and then she'll know he knows and then he'll ask her questions? Why not say that? Why not say "when I figure out what "stuff" is I'll talk to you again" or something?

Anyway, the position of the speech bubbles is awkward and looks like "deal" should come before Amos' speech bubble. This layout would work better if McEldowney hadn't changed the camera angle for whatever reason.

Her to the left: you're talking about stuff
Amos to the right: IDK what stuff is, I'll ask you later
Her to the left, her bubble under his: deal

Is this the pregnancy talk that she gave to Diane? The one that was so great? Is this why Diane has so many kids?

Ok, I want to point out two good things here:

1) Juliet's hair is cute. It's also not a hairstyle we normally see her with, nor is it the default 9CL Lady Cut that McEldowney defaults to.

2) Edda looks like a kid, like a child.I think it helps that we can't see her legs.

But there's bad things too. Wow are there bad things.

Try not to look at Juliet's neck. Don't look at it. Don't think about it. Just don't.

There's two glaringly wrong things here, though.

First of all, it's tremendously easy to have a child accidentally. Juliet herself is the result of one such accident, although she doesn't know it at this time. If she'd ever done the math RE: the dates of her birth and of her parents' wedding, though, she might have figured it out. Later Edda will convince herself that she had just such an accident, but it turns out she simply wasn't aware that over the counter pregnancy tests exist.

The other horrifically awful thing is Edda's decision to bring a thesaurus and not a dictionary to talk to Amos. She isn't looking to define words for him. She's looking to provide alternate words. Why? Why on earth would she need a thesaurus to discuss body parts? It doesn't make SENSE unless you consider how Amos uses tons of big ornate not always correct words to profess his love for Edda and describe how hot her bangin' bod is. Is this small child already aware of what it will take to seduce Amos, or to have him seduce her? It's creepy to think that, I hate it, but what other options are there? What else makes sense? Why a thesaurus? Did McEldowney forget that dictionaries exist? Is he just so laser focused on thesauruses that it's the only thing he can think of?

"The first thing you'd have to do before you discuss this subject"

I know they're Catholic and there's intense pressure from a young age, especially for girls, to get involved in heterosexual relationships and, once married, have kids. But Edda is really young here and really obsessed with having kids and it's really gross.

Prior to Edda getting pregnant McEldowney did one or two story lines involving Edda discussing reproduction at school. They were short and very sitcom-esque, centering on her mom being a biology professor who believes in the power of education. The school/other parents got angry, kids got grossed out. "They did what with what? Ewwwwww!" Very normal stuff.

But Edda got pregnant and interspersed with obliquely hinting that the pregnancy was so terrifically dangerous someone had counseled Edda to have an abortion (something nobody ever stated or even suggested or even hinted at) was Amos writing letters to their baby (later revealed to be babies) about how fucking sexy Edda is and how much he loves fucking her.

The twins first comment on Amos and Edda fucking while they are still infants, in that comic strip telepathic way so popular among the infant set. Amos refers to a diaper change as "bonding time" or something similar, "quality time" maybe, and one infant ponders what Amos and Edda do to bond or what have you. "Something with less syllables."

It was jarring.

And it only got worse from there.