Banal Hemorrhage

This post is a guest post by my wonderful wife, Roxanne, about her mother, Mary. We both love and respect Mary very, very much.  “My mom did not fit the mold of our small rural town in WAY up north Michigan. She painted her fingernails different colors (sometimes just the pinkies) and wore silver rings all up and down her fingers. She walked long distances all over town, before it became a fitness craze, and while she walked, wore a big old camo jacket she got at an Army surplus store. She also had a fashionable and sophisticated wardrobe that was the envy of even her young high school students. She drank whiskey and water out of a plastic tupperware cup, and she swore like a sailor, all while constantly correcting our grammar. She spoke French and loved to turn up the hi fi and sing out loud to Neil Diamond while we danced. She is a yooper transplant that can help my dad butcher a deer one day, and go model for her local artist’s life drawing class the next.  All the things t

There’s no words to describe how crappy our toilet paper is. But I’m going to try. The toilet paper we found is malnourished. This toilet paper is like sliding spider web on your butt ravine. It’s like scraping waste with the Emperor’s New Clothes. It’s like using Casper The Friendly Ghost’s face to clean the evil remains. It’s the LaCroix of toilet paper. It’s like using graphene to dig up gold nuggets. And we have enough of it to survive two apocalyptic events. Yay. Extra Panel: Look out Halloween!

Obama was a bit drone happy. Hillary was a bit hard to relate to. And I voted for both of them. The thing that surprises me the most about the Trump presidency is how his supporters don’t even acknowledge his faults. This week the president suggested that we look into putting disinfectant inside our bodies. Fact. Even the dumbest among us know how dangerous that would be. And the Trump defense force has been strong this week. Their defense is the most hilarious thing I’ve seen, and I consume a lot of comedy. Their argument is that Trump isn’t actually doing it, he just wants us to consider it. The highlight of my week was a Trumpian saying it was fake news and providing text that would exonerate the President, but the idiot forgot to change the words and provided the actual words: “And I then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute, and is there a way you can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in th

There are no bad ideas, indeed. How often have we seen this, my cubicle warriors of today? In many of my attempts at facilitating a brainstorming session, I have seen leaders do a version of this. Why is it so hard to just let the ideas flow and pass no judgement? I've failed at it numerous times. I believe our ego is partly to blame, as is the desire to go for what is known and tried. To me the whole point of a brainstorming session is to allow employees to leap out of the boundaries set from the first day that they entered an organization. It's also a great opportunity for leaders to coach and guide their employees as they try and navigate the intricate ways to get things done. Often, it just becomes another way to exert our ideas downstream. I've been doing process improvement for over 15 years and still, the most enduring and easily implemented ideas have come with a combination of employee problem solving and leader guidance. Extra panel: Or we can just k

This week, I am not anxious. I find that extremely surprising, given the weird apocalypse-adjacent adventure we are experiencing. It really is about knowing that we are all going through the same thing that gives me strength. By this point, we all know people who have been affected physically by the COVID, or someone who has been left behind in the economy. We are all helping each other as much as we can in the most uncertain times many of us have experienced. I am not known for my optimism, but I truly feel we will come back stronger. We will appreciate communication more, we will be more informed about infection control and we will focus on the important things. This is one of my series of comics that have homunculi ,  personified abstractions of my issues or my mental processes. I am often drawn to that style as I work through my demons. I hope you enjoyed the comic! Extra Panel: This harkens back to Awkwardo , my personified social awkwardness. He’s in heaven right no

The whole mask situation has been a little confusing. The CDC told you not to wear them at the onset of this pandemic and others have urged you to do the opposite. So what gives?  Dr. Price , with his sexy oval face (like yours truly), mentions what I believe is the main benefit of getting a mask:  It will train you not to touch your face. That's the main way he believes we are getting this disease in the community. How many of us just now realized how often we touch our stupid faces? Having a mask will bring awareness to that behavior, and prevent skin to skin contact. I work in healthcare so I understand why the CDC recommended not using them at the outset. We are in a PPE crisis. There are not enough masks to protect the people who really need them, the front line caregivers. Urging everyone to wear masks at the beginning of this pandemic would have further disrupted that flow. If we couldn't get our toilet paper hoarding under control, just imagine the far more pre

Mediocrity in comics is my safe zone. I’m pretty used to the space I’ve come to conquer in this medium. Right there with the guy who draws horny dolphins and the girl making fan fiction about Ted, the guy who dumped her right before prom... 20 years ago. I like the small amount of followers through the diverse mediums I’ve gathered after this year of comic drawing. It allows me to keep practicing new techniques and styles (this is my first potty humor post) without repercussions. It allows me to put things out here that are, well, less than refined. I love you and thank you for letting me experiment! It’s easy to do so, I have no brand to protect. Speaking of brands, this is the first comic that was bought by a brand! Yes, SLOOF, found me in instagram and paid me a few bucks for this comic! Thankfully they made a related product to what I was thinking! Extra panel: SLOOF Before last week, I had barely heard of SLOOF. But they are all over the place, with hundreds of affordabl

I am not a fan of  “Fake it till you make it.” It implies a lot of things that are against my credo. It is inauthentic, it creates an unsafe environment and it hides gaps in knowledge. By this point in my blog post, I know I come off as a total party pooper so I am going to do what I do best: double down. It is inauthentic to act like you know something you don’t. I am certain that being a faker mcfakerson will wear down your soul. The true way to learn how to do something is to fail, and fail a lot. And to ask lots of questions. I have a feeling that focusing on “Fake it till you make it” ends with  people getting the imposter syndrome. Think about it, con-men and employees use the same phrase. Do you really want to have the same philosophy as Bernie Madoff? If you are prompted to “Fake it till you make it” in your workplace, your workplace may have an unsafe environment. A safe environment is one in which you can admit you know nothing and get the help you need to gain skills

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. There is something about this current ambiance that I am responding well to. There’s something to knowing everyone is going through anxiety together that I find comfortable. I always feel guilty for feeling anxious with such a privileged life. I have met the love of my life, I’ve achieved some economic success, and I get to do the things I enjoy. Guilt about anxiety, begets anxiety, begets guilt, begets anxiety. Today, though, I can feel that we are all vibing similarly. And we are h

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 with the five o’clock shadow that swears that focusing solely on work took him out of his despair. No Chad, I don’t think going to the gym 6 times a week is going to solve this ennui that I feel right now. This transitory feeling that life is just an experiment conducted by an AI simulation and I am in the control group, yeah I don’t think I can jus