Banal Hemorrhage

Yes, dear readers. I found a new job. I am an extremely lucky individual. I am lucky to have found a job doing pretty much what I was doing before (whatever that was), locally, and with a great group of people. Even during the occasional depression, anxiety and existential malaise I've experienced in my life, I've always known how lucky I am. I have a one in a million mom, a one in a million wife, a one in a million cat (Khaleesi), and one in a million friends. I also have to contractually acknowledge that I have another cat (Eris) and an immediate sibling. When this unemployment journey started, man, I had a plan. I spent a portion of the day learning, a portion of the day exercising, a portion of the day applying for jobs and interviewing. That lasted maybe a week. As certainty about my new job increased, I began to regress to a twenty year old version of myself. By now, I'm close to buying cases of Lebatt Blue and sending drunk ICQ messages. (Ask your grandpa if y

Recently, I was hanging out  in the job market . It's a market I hadn't visited in 16 years. It looks and feels like a lot has changed! One of the most interesting things is that people seem to be able to make up their own job titles with no repercussions: you can be a sensei, master, guru (basically anything Bruce Lee would have been called)  expert, commander, chief and many more! I don't know exactly the amount of self esteem one needs to unironically and seriously call themselves something as superlative as a "thought leader", I only know it's at least twice as much as I currently have. I actually don't have a problem with being called any of that, it's just that calling yourself those things seems a bit presumptuous. I've been called a guru before, but I would never, ever, call me that. In my profession, one of the biggest tenets is to "lead with humility". You quickly become an oxymoron if you title yourself a guru. Ther

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 prep

I will never enjoy working out. I know that people in the self-help fields try to stay away from ‘always’ and ‘never’ statements.  Well in this instance, they are wrong. I will never enjoy working out. However, I do enjoy walking nearly 10,000 steps every day and it is because I get to walk to work. So that has to count towards my fitness goals, right? Right? *crickets* I like the concept of accidental exercise. Somebody should write a book about the micro-exercises that we could do all day that could have a non-infinitesimal effect. Parking far away from your your destination. Standing up at work. Carrying weight when walking from meeting to meeting. Gesturing maniacally while talking. Forgetting stuff in your car a few times a day. Taking the stairs I hope someone writes this book that confirms my bias that I am doing ok. Extra Panel: One way to become more absent-minded.

Authenticity. Most of the time when someone says something nice about me it’s about authenticity. When they say negative things, it runs the gamut: absent-minded, forgetful, weird, clumsy, childish. I feel authenticity is a spectrum, however. Too much authenticity and you get the far-too-honest-asshole,  too little authenticity and you have the con or shyster. I try not to linger too much on the corners. Speaking of which, my wife and I are currently absorbed with the podcast " Who the Hell is Hamish" . If you are interested in people with zero authenticity, it is a must listen. Authenticity is defined by some psychologists as the congruence between your internal and external self. It’s hard for me to keep one from the other, so what you see is usually what’s going on inside. I have never been able to shape my face to something other than what I am feeling, yet somehow it has been the appropriate thing to do for my entire life. So if you’re like me, frowning

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-Lo

It may come to a surprise to you, my dear readers, that this infantile web comic author is an introvert. Like 99% of the people creating stuff on the Internet. Isn’t it weird how accepted introversion is these days? As a young man, no one talked about introverts and people most definitely didn’t self identify as introverts often. But here we are. Almost every web comic has tinges of social ineptitude, desire for isolation and comfort in blankets. Could it be that creating pictures for people attracts a particular personality type? Or is it that we are all introverted at some point, especially when perusing the world wide web? Alas, we may never know. Fact of the matter is, I am an introvert inside and outside the web. And not the sexy type either. I’m the type that can isolate for long periods of time and become unkempt and bereft of the social graces. Some times I can braid my ear hairs and have nails to rival my cats. I am very lucky to know amazing people that understand me

Perhaps this will surprise you, gentle readers, but the creator of this sophomoric webcomic is not particularly adept at domestic duties. It is with that in mind that I share with you my laundry process, so others may learn from it. It is not a practical method, but it does end up with clean laundry at the end. In the frames you can find Khaleesi, the brown, young cat. She is cute, dynamic, and the devil's armpit sometimes. She is the one that eats all my cables. I don't want to hear what you've tried... I tried vinegar water, lemon water and other internet-provided ideas. The only thing that works is reverting to an amish lifestyle with no cables. We are fine now, and getting good with the churning of the butter and stuff. The white haired cat is Eris, and she is wonderful, adorable and hairy AF. She definitely was abused as a child, because she is ambivalent about being petted. She likes it, but she hates it and moves away from you at the same time. Twinkle

Sometimes the wife and I are so disconnected with the world of scheduled holidays that we forget some important things. Since we don't have kids, Spring Break means nothing to us. Since we don't believe in zombies with great abs, we don't celebrate Easter. However, we did celebrate, unknowingly, by eating a lot of sugar and overindulging as always. Perhaps I don't care about religion, but I do care about you all, so I hope you had a good Easter! Or if not your cup of tea, I hope you had a great anniversary of Apollo 16 landing on the moon! Or whatever floats your fancy on April 21st.

Again, my two systems fighting against each other.  It is extremely fun to say yes to everything! And yet, it is the cause of many breakdowns and anxious moments in my life. Saying no is very powerful and it may be the most honest thing you can say sometimes. I've always respected people who know their limits and walk away from the cliff. My only advice is to listen to that voice that knows all the things you are working on. That voice is wise and can put things in perspective. I'm pretty sure in your deathbed you won't remember all the things you said yes to, but I'm sure you'll remember all the times you bit off more than you could chew!

This is a true story. Some events may have been exaggerated for comedic purposes (maybe). I have always loved Children's Museums. We had an incredible one in Caracas, Venezuela . We didn't deserve how awesome it was. The architecture , the artistic design, everything was above and beyond children's museums that existed and have existed since. I went there well into my teens and early twenties. The art director was Jorge Blanco , who made a popular comic strip at the time . He often broke the 4th "panel" and he influenced me a lot (even if it took 40 years to make it's way to my fingers). Those characters in the walls were burned into my memory. It is probably in incredible disrepair and I purposefully have not looked into it's current state. Like many things from my childhood it is probably better left in my hippocampus. It is with those memories that I asked Roxanne if we could stop by the Children's Museum in Chicago. It w

This one has 100% less anuses references! I did this one mostly to appease my mother, who was horrified by the previous one! I chose cats. That means no leather furniture. I’ve known some people who got rid of cats because of their ruined furniture. To me these are the lowest of the low. I don’t have kids because I would be a terrible parent. But I know I can and will take care of cats very well until they die, even if they die through peeing on everything I own. It’s for life, yo!

Dear Diary, today I screwed up. I wanted to surprise my patient wife with a home cooked meal. This comic is a reenactment for artistic purposes. In reality what happened was that I used an old Blue Apron recipe card and I failed to remember that the squash came pre-cut. My wife actually came to the kitchen and when she saw the squash in the pan could not contain her laughter. I did receive a pat in the head for trying. 

I make no apologies for the sock on sock action.

I truly know I'm in denial about aging, yet some days I look at the mirror and don't understand some of my new "features".

This happens to me an inordinate amount of times. I'm stuck on an airport so I was able to vent with a toon.

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.

All manner of horrors follow me, frustrated at my inattention.

What’s your high score? I got all of them. All of the awkwards.

We come with our own record scratch