Lynn's Comments: A friend (who had been married for many years) told me that the one thing that helped to guarantee her happy, long lasting marriage was…separate bathrooms!
Lynn's Comments: An actual outfit and an actual quote. Yes, the strip came in handy. I rarely got angry about a comment if I could use it in the strip.
Lynn's Comments: I think I've said before that my mother was the ultimate "home remedy queen". If any of us was under the weather, we'd run for cover knowing--if the illness didn't do us in, her potions, unguents and cures certainly would.
What I find distressing now is the ever increasing and bewildering choices we have to make when trying to find any over-the-counter pain relief. It immediately makes me want to go back to the remedies my mom pulled out of her hat!
Lynn's Comments: Once again, I received letters from folks who thought the mere suggestion of an “obscene phone call” might rattle the minds of my young readers. I now wonder how much the kids of today have already observed, experienced, and come to terms with by the time they are reading the funny pages!
Lynn's Comments: This was a subject I really wanted to cover. I’d been in this situation myself and had listened to friends as they discussed their own marriage problems with me.
Lynn's Comments: Through the "Annie" character, I wanted to be able to tell what I knew to be true, and yet, it was such a deeply disturbing subject, I lost my courage before I could truly explore it.
Lynn's Comments: Punch lines like this seemed to come to me through some outside resource. I had wondered this very thing…in both my marriages. What did I have to do to prove that I was worth keeping?
Lynn's Comments: Between my two marriages, I dated a psychiatrist. He told me that the worst time to have a serious discussion was after midnight—that after 12:00am, we go into a sort of "twilight zone" where common sense and rationale ceases to exist. "Never," he told me, "get into an argument after midnight!" Mark and I argued many times…sometimes after midnight, and he was right. We’d go round and round in the twilight zone and nobody "won." I'll carry that lesson for a lifetime!
Lynn's Comments: If I wasn't fairly self-aware before I started the strip, I certainly became so afterwards. Writing these scenarios made me think—and from all points of view. Not only was I writing Elly's take on the subject, I was seeing it from everyone else's perspective as well.
Lynn's Comments: I ended this story far too soon. I knew the answer to Annie's question and it was: "Because it’s not over." If an affair has ended the chance that another will begin is all too possible, and in my own experience, probable. When a partner is dissatisfied for whatever reason, is able to lie successfully and get away with it, then the excitement of another conquest often becomes too tempting to resist.