4. Simian Air

-
Why are we like this? I have such a good system for preparing for a trip, why can't I hold it past the first leg?
Reactions:

Comments

Post a Comment

Say some words, if you’d like!

Follow for Updates!

Popular Posts this Week

187. Level Field

-
Image
Greetings, readers! It is 2021. We have evicted the worst tenant of the White House, we are vaccinating millions of people a week and everything is getting better! Except me. I’m still a lousy husband.  I’ve been a bit worse, since I’ve been working on a vaccination clinic in my town. It’s the hardest, most stressful task I’ve ever done. And I can’t have enough of it. Unlike many of my previous roles, what I am accomplishing is immediately observable: Shots in Arms. It’s way better than my typical reward of “someone may eventually use this knowledge to on occasion do something potentially useful.”  This makes me understand doctors and nurses a bit more. It’s hard to not be a workaholic when what you do is help people stay healthy. It also makes me understand burnout more. I’ve worked 3 weeks with two and a half days off. And I’m itching to go back tomorrow. This is unsustainable, and it will change soon, but I can see why it’s hard to stop. As for my marriage, it will be fine. We are l
CLICK FOR FULL COMIC

183. Policy Matters

-
Image
Public policies work. They have always worked. The number of adult smokers has plummeted since restrictions were put in place . Many of us are too dumb to realize how good this is for us and society in general. I was definitely (and likely still am) one of the dumb ones. A snowflake if you will, like a Republican refusing to accept the 2020 election.  “But what about my rights?”, I voiced to no one in particular when indoor smoking was banned. Why would it be their business what I did with my body? Well it turns out there’s many reasons why.  First of all, these decisions rarely affect just one person. My smoking caused second had smoke, litter and probably a litany of regrets when waking up next to my stinky pack-a-day ass.  Second of all, we are not great at seeing 20 years down the line. Public policy tries to bridge that gap. I may not care that I will be a wheezing, smoke-spewing, leathery sack of crap when I’m 70, but the healthcare system sure will. Lastly & ultimately I am
CLICK FOR FULL COMIC

186. Urine Trouble

-
Image
Bathrooms are the Water Temple of social anxiety. That’s a Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time (1998) reference and trust me it’s very, very funny. On point though, public bathrooms, locker rooms, and other  loci of excreta have always been challenging locations when my social anxiety is at its highest. I don’t want to learn about others in these quarters, I feel no need to reach out to anything but my self. One time, as a new employee, I went to the bathroom adjacent to where I was being onboarded. The CEO came bounding in, loudly announcing himself and patting other urinators on the back. He then proceeded to let go of his liquid waste hands-free while holding a power pose and whistling. It dawned on me that that’s probably why he was the CEO. He had conquered the bathroom. Surely the people who hired him could tell this is a person who can pee while loudly talking about the weather! “He’s going places”, they must've said to themselves!  Extra panel:  Listen, I know it’s a shitt
CLICK FOR FULL COMIC

185. Sweet Nothings

-
Image
I have often been scolded for recycling sweet nothings on others. And yet, I have the slimmest of hopes that I’m not alone here. A hope that maybe there’s other male idiots (even female idiots!) out there who make this vapid generalization error. And we can laugh together. Otherwise this comic will simply hammer down the fact that I’m a subhuman absent-minded foolboy. Of course there is only one true love in my life! But there’s so many cute things things around me that it’s hard to reserve terms. All I can say is that my wife is the only cute Roxanne that I have in my periphery, so I’ll never use her sweet nothings on another Roxanne! This I can almost swear. Rox: I love you mi bebecita linda! Extra Panel: So, the elephant in the room is a PS5 (get it? because it’s large). The reason I haven’t been drawing as frequently as before is not anxiety. It’s not increased booze intake. Sure, both of those things are around, but the main culprit is that I am loving my time with my PS5. I playe
CLICK FOR FULL COMIC

164. Flame Buoyant

-
Image
I remember the ‘92 LA riots. If you don’t, there’s a brilliant documentary in Netflix about it (LA 92). At the time, the loss of property and all the literal flames made me question if the response was balanced to the cause (Rodney King’s beating.)  Now, I don't even pose the question. I can never know what it is like to be culled and focused on so adamantly. Sure, other minorities get some crap. But there’s something about the image of a black individual in society at large that scares white people. An angry white man doesn’t generate the same fear and reprisal that an angry black man does. An armed white man? Well that’s just Walmart on a Friday night! An armed black man is a death sentence.  I’ve only experienced racism a few times, and it only happens when they hear my accent. Instead of cops, the institution that treated me like dirt was Homeland Security in airports. They mocked my accent, they questioned my motives, and they generally made me feel powerless. However, I never
CLICK FOR FULL COMIC

184. Election Nation

-
Image
Things have been... weird. We finally beat the worst president we’ve ever had. He’s out. More than 80 million people hate him. His autocratic style was transparent and against what the United States stands for, regardless of if you are a Democrat or a Republican. A weight is lifted for immigrants, LGBQT, liberals and the environment. And yet... tens of millions of people voted for him. Many have moved on since, but at least half (the same half that put credence to Q Anon) believe that the election was systematically rigged and that it will be turned back to Trump. Let me be clear, these people are idiots or monsters. These are the worst of our society. People keep telling me that many of them are ignorant, as if that excuses their dangerous wants. At this point what they want, based on slim evidence, is to overthrow the election in swing states. They want to have the legislatures (many Republican due to gerrymandering) elect their own electors.  The gulf between what they want and the
CLICK FOR FULL COMIC

182. Revenge

-
Image
Time is a flat circle. It's dizzying how things come back at you, like that nasty rash in your nether-regions. Speaking of rashes, let's speak about mothers. My mother and I can irritate each other every once in awhile. I say this with full candor, but armed with the certainty that this happens to all relationships. Specially to the earliest relationship you've ever had. For example, I get irritated at her continuous concern for my wellbeing; she gets irritated at my manic driving down the wrong lane while swerving to the music. It's maddening. And yet, I am a huge momma’s boy. In another dimension that may be an insult, but if you ever met my mom, you’d probably understand. She is intelligence, humor, courage, humility all rolled into one. I’ve spoken at length about it .  I know not everyone had a role model of a mother, and I understand that. For those people I hope that they find someone who loves them unconditionally. We all deserve that, an ardent, blistering, con
CLICK FOR FULL COMIC

181. Spreading

-
Image
This year has been rough. I’m not going to list the ways it has been awful for most of us. Okay, I will, because I love lists: Fires, RBG, COVID, unemployment, stress, Trump, police killings, tabloids, lost children, friends lost in cults, being home-bound, finding out Kirstie Alley is a gender-bent James Woods. The George Floyd killing was one of the terrible things that happened, no mistaking that. However, this year, more than any other year, I found increased support for BLM. More people seem to have bought-in to the fact that Black Americans are being policed, prosecuted and punished more severely than their white counterparts. I was pleasantly surprised at some of the support this idea found, in the year of despair 2020.  Let’s talk about Republicans, though. Only about 16% of white Republicans support BLM in some way. Compare that to 88% of white Democrats. I just don’t get the Republican philosophy. Imagine being a Republican your whole life. Over the past 4 years, you have ha
CLICK FOR FULL COMIC

143. Beholder

-
Image
I am squalor blind. Last week I was on kitchen duty. We had just etched out our 3.2 version of the kitchen checklist. I had to load the dishes, clean the counter, make smoothies and clear the traps on the sink. I would have rated myself a 10/10. In the morning, I got to see how wrong I was. There were entire kernels of corn in the traps. Somehow they are invisible to me, like oh so many vegetables and stop signs. This makes me really think about the reality of the space that we are occupying and co-occupying. My physical reality is different than the physical reality of the person closest to me. Can you imagine how different it is from that of a Trump aficionado?  If positivism in sociology and the sciences was based on believing in one truth, an objective truth, palpable by our ever increasing utilization of the scientific method; today seems to be marked by the realization that there is not one truth to be experienced but as many as there are people around. And I am becoming
CLICK FOR FULL COMIC