There was a suggestion that I should draw myself on New Year’s morning, but I thought I’d draw myself green with envy instead.

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Here’s some context. When I was a kid living in Indonesia, I met a boy on vacation from his boarding school in France (this was when we had moved from Jakarta to Tanjung Karang and I was the only kid in the ex-pat community, when someone remotely my age came for a vacation I was quick to try to make friends with them). Now, this kid was an artist and when his parents introduced me as a fellow cartoonist he eagerly showed me some of his drawings. He had made his own “Guess Who” game, drawing at least 64 faces, all distinct, all really funny. I was sick with envy. At this age I was already drawing. I drew. I drew a lot, but all my stuff was doodles on reams of Xerox paper. I had, not long before this kid’s visit, tried to draw a comic but got bored after the second or third panel. I had nothing to share to compare. His Guess Who game looked—in my memory at least—like something printed by Milton and Bradley. I still remember that moment vividly, but I don’t know where the rest of the story goes. I didn’t becomes friends with him, unfortunately, (he had, I think, an older sister I was infatuated with briefly) and I don’t remember his name or to where in France he returned.

I experience the same thing nowadays, only on the internet. Some artists are inspiring, but others are so good as to be just plain envy-invoking. I get a little of the same feeling as I did all those years ago.

And the week “Total” was the IF word, I thought of nothing. Absolutely nothing. It wasn’t until I saw the IF Pick of the Week, that I thought of (duh) math and remembered this strange number. It’s the mysterious 142,857. When you multiply it by 1 through 6, you’ll see the product always has the same digits in order starting on a different digit. When you get to 7, you get the odd 999,999. After 7, add the first digit to the last (eg. 1,142,856 becomes 142,856+1 = 142,857) and you’ll see the pattern repeats itself.

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I like numbers and my eye is often caught by odd patterns, but I don’t know how I feel about 142,857.