Banal Hemorrhage

Before 2020 we were normal people. We never even considered having a small dog, let alone two. As the coronavirus raged, we found ourselves in a narrowing corridor that led to the acquisition of the weirdest, most undogly of beings. I still don't understand their place in the universe, which works out well because I don't understand my place in the universe. One time, as a youngster, my friends and I were inexplicably burdened with the care of a peer who had ingested copious amounts of LSD. Those harrowing hours are the closest I've ever been to what my current life is right now. These beings oscillate between trying to murder your face and being the most adorable things I've ever held.  They go berserker mode on animals 10x their size. They drop down and ask for belly rubs, posing like hairy French girls. These are unknowable beings.  We have less friends now that we did before COVID. Is it because of COVID or our monsters? Social distancing or simply avoiding the '

Generally, people think a bit highly of you when they learn you are bilingual. It's great that they do, but how can I break it to them that I was mostly motivated to be able to play old Sierra and LucasArts computer adventure games? It was of no choice of my own that my mom enrolled me in a bilingual private school. I did nothing to achieve this, so I hope my very public idiocy demystifies bilingualism.  The one good thing about being bilingual is that it gives me a nice excuse when I screw up nouns. Names, places or things have never been my forte, so I constantly use the wrong pronouns, names and directions. I can always blame it on the fact that I have to have 2 copies of everything in my brain, one in Spanish and one in English. Little do they know that I screwed up names in Spanish as well! Swipe opened a very new way of being wrong, something I was not looking for.

  Today, my wife and I have been married for 5 years. What connected a liberal girl from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and a weird guy from Venezuela? Hell if we know. But it works. While the relationship is fantastic and easy, the cohabitation has been a journey. This whole blog has been a way for me to process the changes I've had to go through to become a passable adult. My tenth comic (good luck deciphering it) was all about this being my biggest challenge in adulthood. I had to learn to leave the sponge out of the sink  and apologize correctly. I had to learn that socks in the floor were in no way cute.  Our wedding changed my life for the better, full stop.  Change doesn't always feel like a good thing, but I love the man I am today more than the man I was 5 years ago. I just wish I could keep marrying her every 5 years to jolt even more change in my life! My wife's love language is behavior (usually with a sponge and broom), my love language is actual language.

Psychological projection, in its most basic sense is putting out in others what is deep inside you. So in a way, it's like flinging poop. You are flinging poop on other people all the time.  They don't want you to fling poop on them. You may not know you're flinging poop on them, but you sure are. We all are. We all do it, but it's not all bad. Projecting can be seen as being in the same spectrum as commiserating or empathizing. But then, you meet conservatives. The people being the most adamant against homosexuality, nudity and non-missionary sex have shown very often to be closeted themselves. They rage against their own machine.  All these super religious people who don't believe people can be good without religion? They're saying a whole lot more about themselves than about people in general.  What about abortion, why are so many white old men so verbally against terminating pregnancies? What are they hiding with this ridiculous resolve? Do they have an inna

My wife came up with this one and I manically drew it over the weekend. It made me remember why I married my wife. For some men, the keys to their heart is in their stomach. I don't get that. Does that mean I'm in a long term relationship with Grubhub? Because outside of making my tummy happy, Grubhub is not my type at all.  By about our third date, Roxanne was the funniest woman I had ever met. The first two dates she accomplished by being gorgeous, smart and interesting. The rest she got by making me laugh or by joining me in laughter. Sometimes my deadpan humor misses the mark for her. I'm sure when I actually have really sad news for her she'll laugh thinking it's a joke. Strangely enough, I think I'd like that.  Drawing and making these stupid cartoons was mostly her doing. As I started doing them she was lavish with praise, in a way I've never been able to elicit through my cooking, homemaking and love making skills. So I knew I had to bank on it! (Thi

Smartphones and social media are a double edged sword for me. Without them I'd be a lot more disconnected from the world at large but with them I am more connected with the world at large. Would I be more sociable without them? If we somehow un-invented them, like in Neil Gaiman's short story "And Weep, Like Alexander'", would I be a more sociable guy or not? I lost my phone to the waters of a foreign country recently and I experienced first hand what the world is like without one, and it's not pretty. How did we know which restaurant had better ratings? How were we able to know who that guy was in that episode of Seinfeld? What the nearest fuel source is? I lived through those dark times and I can't even remember! As a bonus for being patient, here's another take on my miserable experience.  

  I thought I was being fancy. Whenever you see a rich bachelor in a movie, they consistently have satin sheets. I've been trained to associate satin with luxury. Because I felt like a fancy person, I bought satin sheets last week. Boy are these things smooth! What they don't tell you is that they may be TOO smooth. I feel like a bar of soap in a crisco disco. It's a veritable sleep and slide in our bed now, with dogs, cats, pillows and humans just sliding all night every night. We're getting used to it but it's been feeling a bit rough, which is an ironic feeling for satin sheets.  Luxury items are funny.  Congratulations on that fancy Italian car for which you will need to hunt for repair parts the rest of your life! Good job on acquiring Downton Abbey, and I hope you can find a good footman in this job market. I know two people who have pool maintenance businesses and the only thing they have in common is that they don't own pools.  Sometimes what you covet w