1. Northern Vacations

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This is it. The first comic in ProCreate, the tool I used from then on. In all it's glory. Look at the circle hands, the broken lines, the unnatural proportions. Gosh, I miss the beauty in absolute mediocrity.

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150. Waiting for you

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Isn’t it weird how there’s always someone waiting at the bottom of the pit?  I know this is a snarky, cynical look at recovery but... I  don’t actually have a but, I’m just an a-hole sometimes. I don’t really care that people need culty things to help them get out of rock bottom, it’s that they become super annoying about it. Every person’s path is so completely different, what one person is lacking is not comparable to what most other fellow humans are lacking. And yet, you always get that guy that “Bro, do you even lift”’s you. Or that person that assures you, their church is different, their church is the true path. Or that guy that assures you that focusing solely on work took him out of his despair.

No Chad, I don’t think going to the gym 6 times a week is going to solve this ennui that I feel right now. This transitory feeling that life is just an experiment conducted by an AI simulation and I am in the control group, yeah I don’t think I can just church that one out, Nancy. Th…
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138. Mother

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I don’t believe my mom set to destroy the patriarchy, I think the patriarchy was just an inconvenient hurdle on the way to her goals.

But destroy the patriarchy she did. Over and over again. One of the first women petroleum engineers, the first to work on oil rigs, one of the first to not change her last name, the first to many, many things. I imagine the amount of paperwork that had to be changed because of her mere existence and it always makes me flash a wicked smile.

The most amazing thing about her is how humble she is about all of this. Throngs of women have looked up to her for generations and all she’ll ever admit to is being a hard worker. There’s more to her, though. She’s always a steady snowball that simply knows how to move forward. I wish that certitude of hers had splashed down to me through her DNA strands. Alas, the only thing I’m certain of is that she has always and will always be my hero. My she-ro.

Most people that meet her, remember her. And not just because she …
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135. Anxiety All The Way Down

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Anxiety comes at me in waves. Sometimes I am perfectly satisfied with this hard wrought life I’ve made for myself, complete with a wife, home and community. The next second I am obsessing about having to meet people and how am I going to find and wear the proper pants for said meeting (and I only have like two pairs of pants). 

One time, I had so much anxiety about my choices in the board game Pandemic Legacy that I ruined that game forever. I still think about all those diseased millions we left uncured in Shanghai.
There’s objective reasons for my current bout with anxiety. I have a new job, a new commute, a new culture to shape and change. Anxiety is attacking me routinely. The self talk is obsessive and the feeling in my chest is pervasive. Some days are better than others, but last week it was off the charts. I daydream of an incompetent personified anxiety.
The best I've been feeling lately is when I volunteer after work. I feel like I’ve contributed, I feel like I’m valuable,…
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154. Unmasking

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The whole mask situation has been a little confusing. The CDC told you not to wear them at the onset of this pandemic and others have urged you to do the opposite. So what gives? Dr. Price, with his sexy oval face (like yours truly), mentions what I believe is the main benefit of getting a mask: It will train you not to touch your face. That's the main way he believes we are getting this disease in the community. How many of us just now realized how often we touch our stupid faces? Having a mask will bring awareness to that behavior, and prevent skin to skin contact.

I work in healthcare so I understand why the CDC recommended not using them at the outset. We are in a PPE crisis. There are not enough masks to protect the people who really need them, the front line caregivers. Urging everyone to wear masks at the beginning of this pandemic would have further disrupted that flow. If we couldn't get our toilet paper hoarding under control, just imagine the far more precious mask…
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117. The Layoff Episode

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Last week, my department got laid off, along with dozens of others around my organization.

In my  job as an internal consultant, I made use of my talents to help the people I cared the most about: the employees (from front line to leaders). It was in the direct help to employees that I derived the most work satisfaction. I will definitely be mourning the loss of the opportunity to help my co-workers for a long time to come.

I am unsure what I will pursue. At this moment, many roads seem viable that I hadn't seen before. I am both strengthened and overwhelmed at the choices. I really want to be in a position in which I can continue to help workers achieve better outcomes for their customers and themselves.

Extra Panel:

The Psychology of it All

It had been telegraphed to us that we would lose our jobs, so I had time to build up to it emotionally. Or so I thought! The mixture of shame, disappointment and anger that comes after a moment like this is not possible to prepare for. I alw…
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151. Plagued

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Generations before us had widespread worldly wars, warm and cold.  Today feels like the anxious times we were told we were fortunate not to have. And there is some beauty to it.

My friends and family are losing their jobs. My job has become incredibly stressful and demanding (I work in healthcare).  Our parents and grandparents are at risk. This is some scary stuff. So it feels bad to make light of this situation. I am going to, but only because I am an idiot who doesn’t know how to cope with things.

There is something about this current ambiance that I am responding well to. There’s something to knowing everyone is going through anxiety together that I find comfortable. I always feel guilty for feeling anxious with such a privileged life. I have met the love of my life, I’ve achieved some economic success, and I get to do the things I enjoy. Guilt about anxiety, begets anxiety, begets guilt, begets anxiety. Today, though, I can feel that we are all vibing similarly. And we are hooki…
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102. Adult Male Fantasy

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Dear readers, what makes one a failure at domestic life? I will tell you the formula that concocted me. Privilege + Unconditional Love. Back in Venezuela, I had a live-in maid. Many of us did. Her name was Aurora and she was, for all terms and purposes, family. I never realized the extent of my privileged existence until we left the country (admittedly with many of the fruits of my privilege).  I’ve been in the United States since 2003 and I could have learned to become a creature of domestic habit. But I haven’t yet.

My mom has been a source of unconditional love for me and my brother. She prioritized academics for us and she was lenient on our domestic duties. Through her, I learned to unconditionally love others, but alas, not how to mop the toilets or however that is done.  I think she went the right route. I am learning domestic habits now, but would I be able to learn unconditional love had I been bereft of it?

Now the challenge I’ve been working on: Unconditional Self-Love! My…
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120. Open Minded

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Hey folks! You can try this at home! Start broadcasting that you need a change in life, that you are willing to try something new. You will start receiving an advice avalanche from people you know (and some you don’t). The amount of life improvement nuggets that exist in the universe of humans seems
absolutely infinite. 

We are all culpable of this. I remember when I first tried meditation for anxiety. I couldn’t help myself telling people to try it! Meditation, or more specifically the perceiving of oneself without emotional engagement, worked for me during hard times. The thing is, it is not for everyone. Not everyone needs to meditate.

Terry Pratchett’s quote has always stayed with me: “The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”. In it’s most benign interpretation we have people really trying to help, from their limited focus. In one of the more pernicious interpretations we have cult leaders and their t…
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