57. Barking Mad

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Did you know dogs bark in different languages? Well they don't, but  for some reason we do onomatopeya them completely different!

Inspired by a curious Czech girl.

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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.

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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.

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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.
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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.

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The Psychology of it All

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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.

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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.

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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
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124. Casa/home

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ENGLISH VERSION BELOW

“No Podemos Regresar a Casa”
Cuando decimos eso, casi siempre queremos decir que tú o el lugar donde crecistes han cambiado muchísimo. En el caso de Venezuela, nuestra casa literalmente no existe. Yo se que no se compara con lugares como Siria, pero es impresionante como todo un país fue eliminado por las terribles decisiones gubernamentales.
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