This is my kind of Thanksgiving. Ditch all the cultural baggage and just remember how fortunate we are that we can share our lives with good people.
This year, they’d made a pact: appreciate what they had – stop being ashamed. At first, it was hard to talk about Thanksgiving (the tiny apartment, the mac-n-cheese buffet, cheap beer, cheap wine, old movies, family you didn’t have or [in the interest of self-preservation] you left well enough alone), but it got easier. People were kind and then kind of interested and, before long, a few had asked if they could come. “Absolutely!” they responded, surprised, telling people not to stress about what to bring – an extra box of mac-n-cheese was more than sufficient (and less than fifty cents). It felt strange to be so honest, but both sheepishly agreed they should’ve started long before.
(2/3) “I’d also been engaged recently. We broke it off in January. I was trying to make some changes in my life. I stopped wearing make-up for a few months to see what sort of things I’d notice if I stopped looking in the mirror so much. I made a deal with myself that I wasn’t going to post any selfies for a while. I was only going to photograph things that weren’t me. I started posting photos of nature, art, and my teacup collection. That began to attract other people into my life who were interested in those things. One night Chris sent me a message. It was a photo of a bridge he’d just taken. We went back and forth for a couple weeks, then decided to meet. A few months earlier, I probably would have never agreed to meet. But I was at a point in my life where I was trying to be open to new things. I told him my only rule was that he couldn’t murder me.” “And my only rule was that she had to wear her cat glasses.”
Our kitten, dear Mr. Sam Shitrocket has proved very handy at killing vermin. He's a pro at sky raisins.
“The older I get, the less I notice people taking pictures of me. That’s the youth-oriented culture we live in I guess, everybody wants a kitten. Until they need to get rid of a mouse.”
Every once in a while Tansy Undercrypt posts something that really resonates with me. I've been the guy without the True North and it really sucks. Thankfully, I had a friend who gave me some change for the phone and the right number to call.
In my case it was a very nice lady named Laura who sat and listened to me talk and she helped me steer my way to a better place. Tempest and I go see her every month and we just talk about important things.
“You true, man?” a voice in the alley rang out. “Yeah, man; I’m good,” came a response from farther down. “Wally?” the same voice called. “You facing north, Brother?” “Comin’ back; doin’ the work,” sounded another voice in reply. Nick heard footsteps and felt himself shaken gently awake. “You okay?” someone asked. “You true?” “Please fuck off,” Nick mumbled, bleary and sick. “I don’t even know what that means.” “It means,” Arnie said, sitting down with him and prodding Nick into a sitting position. “You understand that you’re not without hope unless you have no one to represent True North. You gotta always have that one person you can call who will tell you about yourself and you will listen – somebody who’ll kick your ass to save your life … and sacrifice the friendship to get you pointed in the right direction.” Nick accepted the cup of black coffee placed in his hands; it was a cold morning and it felt good just to hold it. “I got nobody,” he whispered. “Not true,” Arnie said, smiling and pushing two pieces of paper into Nick’s pocket (along with the coins to use the ancient pay phone two blocks down). “True Norths,” Arnie said into Nick’s confused and questioning face. “You can borrow mine.”
"what my mother feels for me is love; what she did was abuse. neither of those things is a lie. "
That truth really hurts. Except in my case I'd use the term ex-wife. That's why I do my best to treat my memories of her with kindness rather than anger. Difficult. But still possible.
i worry that i am imagining that my mother abused me because i know she loves me. but my suicidal thoughts increase every time i’m around her. i don’t know how to escape this.
we do this to people when we tell them “they didn’t love you, because they abused you”; we do this when we draw a stark black line between love and abuse and say ne’er the twain shall meet, instead of accepting that the two things are often wound around each other like two sick strands of ivy, that love isn’t a golden pure thing that burns away all the horrors but often just the engine which drives them; we do this to people and they hear the inverse: “you cannot have been abused, because i love you”; and we give freedom to abusers because they can say “i love him, i love her, so how can i be abusing them?”
what my mother feels for me is love; what she did was abuse. neither of those things is a lie.
“It’s a complicated case,” Bevin said, stirring the creamer into his coffee. “Do you think he actually wanted to murder those people?” Krafft asked, knowing the rules, but finding it hard to resist. “Well, it’s ‘innocent until proven guilty’, of course,” Bevin replied, not missing a beat, “but I think Erik absolutely intended some kind of harm. I mean – the guy made cyanide brownies for the office party. And yet …” Krafft chuckled. “And yet? How is that complicated? Sounds cut-and-dried to me!” “He made them gluten-free,” Bevin said, looking out of the window and taking a long drink.
This is absolutely a good trend. Those cans are way better for his hearing than the earbuds of yesteryear. And why carry a huge CD player when you can get 1000x the music in that tiny box?
Is not the same as forgiveness, tolerance or being a doormat. It’s not letting people get a free pass.
It’s realising that even arseholes are scared. It’s realising that the worst criminals in history still had people who loved them. It’s realising your enemy is probably just doing the best they can in a world that makes no sense. (That’s why, incidentally, they’re adherents tof toxic ideologies and practices, andrefuse to interrogate them; such things provide them with fucking security blankets. They give them a sense of agency.)
We have to be kind to each other, even if it’s thrown back in our faces. Why? Because we’re all here together, for such a terribly short time, and contrary to popular belief WE. ALL. NEED. HELP.
He signed his letters Dionysos and “the crucified one” - why?
Because he realised we are all that horse, and also the people beating it.
Please, be kind. It’s the only way anything will change permanently. Be angry, rise up all you need to, but be kind to each other as you do it.
I know it’s hard, nearly impossible in fact, but it’s the only way we’re going to survive - as a species and as you and your friends and family. I’m not inherently kind, not at all. But all the good things I ever had, and have? I got them by being kind, by letting the bullshit flow past, letting the crap of the world pass by and focusing on the importance of trying my best to help other people, as they helped me.
Call me a hippy if you want - it’s not true. I’m a grumpy bastard who really would rather be a misanthrope. Maybe I can’t be kind to everyone, but I’m going to be kind to those I can be. And if they ask me why, I tell them this: Because it’s infinitely preferable to the alternative.
Because it’s not a war, it’s a rescue mission. It’s descending into the dark to find light that you can share with others, to help them learn how to heal and be whole. If I have to bleed to do it, if I have to pour my heart out with words of storm and fury, fire and ice and black bird’s carrion calls, so fucking be it.
And you’re going to help. You have already. So many of you have already, in small unnoticed ways, but you have and will
Consider this a reminder then. Consider this a voice in your ear. An act of memory.
Seriously. Always ask before tuning your friends bass.
This is a little backup short I did for Adventure Time #40. I wanted to draw a light, simple sort of story and have some fun. And I did, I had some fun. My wife, Kathryn, helped out with flats and basically kept me from making things terrible. Otherwise this was written, drawn, colored, lettered, etc by me.
