Stephan Pastis

And then they have a lot of questions for me, wondering if I share his politics and some of his viewpoints.

I don't respond to that stuff.

But if I did, this is what I would have said.

I could count on one hand the number of political topics Scott and I would have agreed upon.

And I disagreed with a lot of the stuff he said.

But it's okay to have people in your life you don't agree with.

I need more of those relationships in my life, not less.

How are we going to get anywhere if we don't talk?

And besides, sometimes all we need is a friend to stand with us in our kitchen and tell us we were probably not put here by aliens.

But also you should know this about Scott.

Every year I would email him or text him and thank him for giving me a career, offering to pay him back in any way I could.

including mowing his lawn or washing his windows.

And do you know what Scott said every time in response?

Pay it forward.

Go out and help somebody else, anybody else.

That was Scott too.

More importantly, there was so much Scott and I did share

We were both geeky kids with glasses from small towns who each headed to San Francisco, worked for corporations, did not like working for those corporations, and weren't particularly good at drawing, leading us both to the same logical conclusion.

We should make a living drawing.

And it worked.