Banal Hemorrhage

  This week around my wife’s birthday I started thinking about all the ways she and women have had to do everything I do plus so much more.  They were talking in the radio about menopause and work, and how it is usually something kept under wraps. Additionally, they mentioned how some women had no idea this process can have its start as early as the thirties. Some women were so unaware, that they didn’t recognize menopause until it was already partly through! I spend a lot of time demystifying mental health issues and I wanted to make sure I recognize that women have some special biological and psychological processes that are also seldom discussed.  To Roxanne, I see you. You’ve handled this and other issues so well! Do you imagine me going through menopause? Based on how I react to colds, I would probably wallow in self-pity and make stupid jokes about it! I am forever humbled by your strength and I have no doubt in my mind that you and every other woman out there are and have always

This is one of the greatest ironies in the pharmacological world. Through sheer happenstance they found a medication that actually helps with depression symptoms. However, one of the most common side effects is the inability to achieve a literal orgasm, or to want to participate in sex. So you finally get the energy to say yes to that orgy e-vite, but you can't actually enjoy it as much. To this day it's not like I advertise that I'm on medication. Nobody does, even though as much as 13% of ALL adults in the US take them. And it's more staggering the older you get.  What is that shame that comes along with needing something external to stifle the darkness?  I know part of the answer. The moment you mention you're taking medication, there's 100 voices telling you that you wouldn't be depressed if you just exercised more, ate better, meditated, joined a club, found jesus, wrote, cooked, lifted, art-ed, cut social media, hire a life coach, went to a specific th

One thing I wasn't prepared for when I became a manager was the snitching. A few of the people I supervise love throwing other people under the bus. I have my own data, I can see what's up. It feels so weird to me that they feel the need to tell me who they think sucks, who speaks ill of me or who is on their underwear all day while working form home. That's information I couldn't care less about. I can tell some of them are frustrated because I don't bite, don't ask for more "tasty goss." In this era of worker empowerment we should just be focused on our own journey, why should an employee have to also burden themselves with what others are doing? The way I see it, I'm freeing them from that preoccupation.

One of the biggest ironies of the world is that to keep safe the things we love we have to hide their beauty from the world. Ferraris live under tarps, fine jewelry in old wooden boxes and our phones on cases or with nasty screen protectors. I'm sure that's why my wife buys me hideous shirts, to keep me safe from predators. Just kidding, I'm just checking up t see if she still reads my blog. Growing up in Venezuela I learned at an early age to hide any wealth. "They'll kill you for your shoes!", I often heard. And they sure did sometimes. My interest in shiny things has never been vast, even after I emigrated. It's telling that I have the ugliest car and shoes in the team of 27 I work with, and I'm the manager! The only time I see the special edition colors of my phones are 30 minutes after I buy them and 1 week before I trade them. Extra Panel: Padme with a Case  

Before the fated year of our lord 2020, we had built a life of our own. We had made things, signed off on things, cleared our schedules of things to make space for other things, organized things, arranged things, got recognized for things. Dammit we did the things! We had a life. We were actually pretty proud of our lives.  All agency has been lost since then. All we are known for in our town is this pair of dog-forsaken animals. They're not even that well-made. Our first vet told us that they are "structurally off". One of them is a biter and a blepper. The other is a serial licker and has a literal hole in her head.  That's our current legacy in our hood.  And this is a true story, as we were walking out of a musical event in downtown Kalamazoo, we overheard a kid calling us the Chihuahua People.  Our reaction in real life was more like this:

I pity the people the GOP pander to. If their messaging is about being anti-woke, who are they trying to appeal to, the asleep? They’re anti-Antifa, are they Profa? Would they call Hitler their daddy and ask to be spanked? Think of the dumbed down messaging they throw around: "build the wall", "make America great again", "all lives matter". These are slogans for scared, simple people who can't handle nuance.  They think so little of their constituents that they truly believe all they have to do is put a guy like Herschel Walker on the ticket. Republicans are not dumb, however. They have successfully sold anti-immigration to religious immigrants. There's humans in my sphere that have been both illegal immigrants and pro-Trump. Republicans make this happen by aligning with quick-bite issues du jour .  Having trouble with the multiple pronouns and terms emerging out of the LGBQT community? "Join us, we don't even try!" Worried that books

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 '