Banal Hemorrhage

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

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 f

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. 

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 t

Nobody tells you about the awkwardness. When your messy personal life collides with your orderly adult life, sparks can be generated that ripple through your existence. Like the time nudity escaped the censors at YouTube in the video playlist I was displaying in my wedding. Or when kids swear like a sailor after perhaps 2 minutes with my wife and me.   Having condo meetings, being in a board, having a trust, paying off my student loans. These are incredibly adulty things that feel alien to me. And yet, we are doing these things. The me from 5 years ago would be like “what? no, stop!”  I couldn’t be more proud of us though. We are doing the things. We are continuously confused, but we are doing the things.   Is privilege a big (huge) part of where I am right now? You betcha. And I do feel guilt. Only by giving back, my time and money, do I feel a little bit less guilt. In a perfect world, everybody should be allowed the freedom of choice and the support I had throughout my

I wouldn’t give anyone a bj in an alley for access to a smartphone. Using this slim, utilitarian and utterly disrespectful definition of addiction, I am not addicted to my smartphone. In almost all other definitions, I probably am (scratches neck). These days I’m frequently using twitter for political news, instagram for art and facebook for friends and family. For my wife’s birthday I left my smartphone delights behind as we travelled up to Michigan’s north (not north north, but north enough for a weekend trip). We had a great time consuming and sight-seeing all this beautiful state has to offer. We touched alpacas, drank some wine, got soaked in a pier and I was able to show her the part where Johnny Depp gets sucked by a bed in Nightmare on Elm Street. A win in every conceivable way. I am definitely a technofile and a techno-apologist, I believe my life in particular has been enhanced and improved exponentially due to consumer electronics. I enjoy nature somewhat, but

Nobody tells you about the hair. I have been bald or balding for over twenty years. My drains have never clogged. Since moving in with the love of my life about one year ago, I’ve collected enough strands of hair from my bathroom drain to refurbish a couch. I don’t mind using the slithery yellow bathroom snakes, they make me feel useful. It’s one of the few things in cohabitating life that is simple. You push that thing in, you wiggle it in and out and you solve a problem. It’s no mistake that it sounds coital, you do this every once in a while and you achieve harmony. I wish I could snake my psyche the way I can snake some hair from my drain. I would snake those repressed high school memories and flush them down the toilet. Those awkward memories that make you flinch when they light your hippocampus? Wiggle them out. I would write a pseudopsychology book called “Snake the Brain” and make millions. This comic is evidence that I have no editing room. A thought pops in my brai