53. The cycle

-
I am constantly in this loop of wanting to do too much and then realizing I'm doing too much and then realizing I'm not doing enough. Is this what being an adult is like? The cycle knows.

Comments

Post a Comment

Follow for Updates!

Popular Posts this Week

137. Double Date

-
Image
Nobody tells you about the skeletons. In a first date, how often did you divulge your deepest secrets? Not often, I’m going to wager. You didn’t tell them about your childhood crush on Gadget from Chip And Dale Rescue Rangers;  and you definitely didn’t mention your psychological issues in crushing detail.

Those come later.

Finding someone who you can eventually open up to is great. Having someone who can dance with your defects is divine. I’m a lucky bastard, as I’ve mentioned before.

More and more, the weirdos are those who never fall down. The ones who make a career or get their jollies by showing you a constant image of perfection. Those are the ones that I don’t get. They’d be more believable and more approachable if they’d at the very least tell you their fart story.

We have all let a fart go in the most awkward moment. It’s just that some of us are broken enough to write a blog post about it. My runaway gas was in my office just before a performance review in my office. Yours …
CLICK FOR FULL COMIC

104. Primitive Regression

-
Image
Dear readers, social behavior is like a muscle. And mine is as flaccid as your average GOP member's dangling neck blubber. I have always found joy in solace, happiness in oneness and validation in self-immersion.

I enjoy hanging out with some people. I really, genuinely, do. However, even the most interesting, laid back, and nice people drain me a bit. The only person who doesn't exhaust me is my wife. For some reason she just feels like an extension to me. Like an angelic ingrown hair or a serene wart, she is a part of me. Legally. She is bound to me legally. So if she is upset that I just compared her to a wart for shits and giggles, she would have to go through a lengthy process to get rid of me.

There has been years in which I venture out more than others. Years in which I say yes to social contact a little more freely. Those years seem to be also years in which I save up on bail money just in case.

In any case, here's the extra panel:

It's an homage to Mystery Sc…
CLICK FOR FULL COMIC

135. Anxiety All The Way Down

-
Image
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,…
CLICK FOR FULL COMIC

136. Maturity

-
Image
I never said I was a mature person. Sometime in the middle of this anxiety around a new job and new responsibilities, this moment came and brought me more joy than you can imagine. Yes, dear readers, the name of my city has a phallic acronym. The good old City of Kalamazoo is the COK. I know, my fortune knows no bounds. I absolutely have not stopped thinking about this since it happened. Here are a few of my favorite usages:

"The COK shrinks in size during the winter months."
"The COK has grown in the past few years."
"The COK was erected in 1829, thanks to Titus Bronson."
"The COK is full of pharmaceuticals."
"The COK is no stranger to humidity."
"When you think of the COK, think of beer."

Please feel free to indulge me with your ideas in the comments!

I even made a shirt to commemorate this righteous moment in our history.

Extra Panel:

It looks like this


CLICK FOR FULL COMIC

133. Dreams

-
Image
I used to have epic dreams. Metallic sharks following me in an infinite pool of geometric impossibilities. Multi-night adventures that had a cohesive plot. I even had a dream diary to document my recollections from the world's best cinema, my giant head.

Then came college. My dreams started to be taken over by earthly worries. Dreams of being unprepared for exams persist until this day. Dreams of  rejection and ridicule proliferated. Every once in a while I'd dream about high adventures on the seas of Orpheus, but less and less.

Cut to adulthood. I dream of going to the DMV. I dream about forgetting to pay my license registration fee on time (and I still forget). I dream about buying necessary things, not even exotic things like a domesticated snow leopard or an ebony moog machine. This dream about buying razors was the last straw. My brain wants to be boring and I need to fight it.

I'm going to read fantasy, watch adventure movies and play video games until bed time to s…
CLICK FOR FULL COMIC

23. It goes both ways.

-
Image
I am sure that the forced conventions of organizations can be awkward for all of us. I mean, we don’t do this at the bar. Like ask people to shout out their name, position and what kind of bodily fluid they would be. It only happens in our workplace, shielded by our uncomfortable clothes and the flawed notion that there’s a reason for every meeting that we have.
CLICK FOR FULL COMIC

134. Ok Hugger

-
Image
Trigger Warning for Some: Contains references to hugging. 
I am an introvert, and I am a hugger. I don’t know why these things coexist in me, but they are not the only cacophonic elements of my psyche. Is it from my cultural upbringing in Venezuela? Is it in my genes? I don’t know, but  I love hugging the few people I can call friends in these strange times.
I don’t hug everyone. I gauge the situation very carefully, often saying things like : “are you a hugger?” or watching for open armedness.
Sometimes I am wrong (mostly with people bearing the XY chromosome). I can tell when I screw up, it feels like hugging a dead tree. Many times I never see the huggee ever again. I imagine that they decided to avoid me for the rest of their lives, lest they be held in in my (very arguably) comforting arms ever again.
Sometimes, I turn non-huggers into huggers. Sometimes.


Extra Panel: Leaving a wake of petrified people behind. 


CLICK FOR FULL COMIC