The Den

Famous Last Blurbs

March 15th, 2021

This is going to be the last substantial post I make for a while, because this is the last post that’s going to make it in the book.

It’s weird because some of you will read these words on a screen and some of you will read them on paper, and this is the only essay I’ve written in which I am especially aware of these coexisting conditions.

The collection is finished. Pre-orders, which I have never done before, will be online soon. I have curated over 170 essays from 2017 to today and I have read over them at least a dozen times. I’ve been trying to think of a good way to wrap this up, and the most insistent idea is the meta one.

Some days I think the internet doesn’t need me. I think I cause more problems than I solve, and I don’t know if I balance the scales as much as I intend to.

Some days I think the internet doesn’t deserve me. I feel like I might spend too much time and pour too much of myself into what I write and share and I don’t have a good sense of its impact, if any.

Some days I need the internet. And some days I don’t.

I haven’t had the time or space or even the sense of normalcy to begin the grief process over what I lost in 2020.

But I’ve had my words.

I’ve had those and, for better and for worse, I’ve had you to read them.

And as much as it kills me to admit it:

I needed that.

So a sincere thank you is the only way this can end.

I hope this is the first collection of many. I don’t feel like I’m over as a human being quite yet.

It’s time to tie this particular parcel in a string and take the next step forward.

All my love.

Needle Reset

March 13th, 2021

This morning when I got to work, “Kyoto” by Phoebe Bridgers was starting on the radio when I shut off my car.

I worked from morning until close, and when I got back in my car, “Kyoto” by Phoebe Bridgers was starting up. Like I had never left the car at all, even though I had been gone and experienced an entire day in-between.

Sometime during my double shift, I mentioned to a co-worker that I very frequently will have a memory or mention something I did in 2019, but my mind tells me that I did it last year.

He told me his brain does the same thing.

Even though we just experienced one of the most unique (and for many, most difficult) years in modern history, maybe our minds got it right; maybe we are meant to have gone through what we went through, embraced what we have learned, recognized how we have grown and can still grow, be confident through what we endured . . .

. . . and maybe we’re supposed to pick up where the song left off.

Because when all is said and done, life (and “Kyoto”) is a pretty good tune.

Culture Club

March 11th, 2021

I don’t believe in “Cancel Culture.”

I’m not saying there aren’t people out there who want things removed or ended because of their subjective views. I’m saying I don’t believe in the phrase “Cancel Culture.”

It’s made up.

Used by a group of people to further seed divide in a world that, last I checked, is already doing a darn good job of dividing itself on its own.

People have actually been cancelling things since the beginning of time. Jesus got cancelled hard, if I remember that correctly. Christian groups themselves have been boycotting people, groups, brands and companies for decades. As a huge fan of Kevin Smith, I suggest you ask him what the overall response to his film Dogma was back when it was released.

Spoiler alert: people boycotted it.

And it might surprise you to learn this: fictional cancel culture has absolutely nothing to do the current Mr. Seuss and Potato Person and Horny Skunk uproars.

These were all business decisions solely made by the companies involved. And I have another surprising theory for you: they did it because it makes *financial* sense.

How can that be? Because young people live longer than old people. And young people have made it abundantly clear that they have had enough of old people, and their racism, sexism, and outdated and offensive beliefs.

So if companies make decisions *now* to appeal to young people and their worldviews, they have a chance to gain customers for life.

So while 80-year-old Barb might be livid that one of the Dr. Seuss books that nobody liked anyway isn’t getting printed again, 18-year-old Anna might think it’s really cool they made that decision, and the Seuss estate might start seeing revenue from Anna for decades, while Barb and her ancient, primordial anger will soon be dead and gone.

I don’t believe in cancel culture — but I do fully believe in consequence culture and action culture. I think we have to be accountable, all of us, and I think that is the real threat that has people trying to invent labels.

Found in Space

March 9th, 2021

More and more lately, I find myself in space.

I’ve been feeling the everyday plaque of stress and anxiety building up faster and more frequently; I know it’s due to a complex constellation of reasons. Not that understanding it helps.

To find myself out, I have to place myself outside. Way outside.

I imagine that I’m looking at me, exactly where I’m standing right now, from a far off vantage point in space. In fact, I’m far enough away from Earth that I can barely see me at all. But that’s the point.

I’m so in awe of everything else between me and me that it puts the small stuff in perspective.

It’s only an exercise, so I have to practice it like one.

The phenomenon of déjà vu is easily explainable. It generally happens when you’re tired, and the result is your brain lags, giving you the feeling that you’re living through an experience twice.

Sometimes, when I’m not okay, I like to think that there’s a version of me who already exists who is okay. I’m just lagging right behind him, and I’ll be there soon.

I hope you’re doing okay today.

And if you’re not, I hope you catch up soon.

Two Become One

March 5th, 2021

What if you’re not really a person?

What if you’re actually just two concepts?

Two ideas with frequently oppositional magnetic poles.

Imagine two circles. I label one “Your Ideal Self,” and the other “Your Actual Self.”

Now imagine that from birth to death, all you do is push and pull these two circles together, creating a Venn diagram of varying degrees, though your ultimate goal is to unify your two circles into one. To make your actual self and ideal self the same damn self.

This is probably why so many of us are so tired all the time.

We want to be good, we want to be badass, we want to be strong, we want to be kind, we want to be productive, we want to relax, we want to be wealthy, we want to be generous — we have an ideal self that we’re constantly pursuing through trial and error, and despite our thoughts and intentions, the only results are our actual words and actions, which rarely present as perfect.

But something to consider is our idea of ideal.

Instead of forcing two different polarities to overlap and merge, maybe we just need to demagnetize entirely.

Embrace the idea that maybe your reality — the one that you inhabit right here, right now — is the ideal one.

That no matter where you were yesterday or where you’re heading tomorrow, you are where you essentially need to be today.

So you might be a person. You might also be two concepts.

But you are, without a doubt, alive, which means you are still exactly where you are supposed to be.

Apples to WAP

March 4th, 2021

A teacher is explaining to her young student how to properly compare things in order to increase understanding.

“What is WAP?” she asks the child.

“WAP is an explicit hip-hop song whose target demographic is a mature, adult audience who appreciates both the genre and the subject matter,” the young man repilies.

“Good,” the teacher says. “Now, what is a Dr. Seuss book?”

The student seems confused.

“A Dr. Seuss book is… a book. Written for and marketed to children, who are just starting to learn about the world and are easily impressionable.”

“Okay,” the teacher says. “So, is a Dr. Seuss book a song?”

“No,” the student answers.

“Is a Dr. Seuss book explicitly intented for an adult audience?” she asks.

“No,” the student answers.

“Looking at these very basic facts, are WAP and a Dr. Seuss book two good things to compare?”

“Well, no,” the child says. “That would just be a silly exercise in unnecessarily tearing down a thing I don’t like in favor of another thing I do like.”

“Very good,” the teacher says. “Class dismissed.”

new lights

March 4th, 2021

People like to say they appreciate good weather.

In my experience, most people only remember to appreciate it when it threatens to change.

Late-fall patio guests braving near-freezing temperatures. Grown men wearing short shorts in February.

Anything to get just one more day in.

When I was driving towards home on the freeway late tonight the lights of the city, for a reason I can’t explain, looked completely new to me. Like they did when I was a little kid.

And I remember long car rides home, falling asleep in the back seat. My head would shift from one side to the other, my eyes sliding open for a moment. I’d catch a glimpse of the lights, stunning, promising, and then go back to sleep, certain there would be more time to come back and see them again.

We tell children that what they experience as new, we’ve seen before, because we’re jealous of the feelings that they feel.

So often we treat our days like we have countless more to come. It’s rare to appreciate the people and moments in your life before you know it’s rapidly ending.

You Never Forget Your First (Unless You Actually Sort-Of Do)

March 1st, 2021

I read a lot of interviews with creative types. I can’t help but compare everything I do to everything everyone else does (and I don’t recommend it, especially when the stuff you make is as weird as mine).

My brain is always blown when people can recall the exact issue of the first comic they ever picked up. Not because it’s not a mind-blowing moment; it is. But because for most of my life, all I could ever remember were the covers.

I knew they were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and X-Men books. I had no idea when they were released, or who wrote or drew them. But I knew exactly what they looked like.

If you read my writing regularly, you know how often I talk about nostalgia. I love going to thrift and antique stores; the one in Burnsville is legendary. It’s like walking through a museum that sells the dinosaurs.

I was there last Monday, looking for nothing in particular, when TMNT Adventures #16 (bottom left) slapped me right in the face. OMG. That was one of the covers. I bought it and then ran home to scour eBay, finding the other cover I knew (#14). I learned that X-Men Adventures (a comic based on a cartoon that was based on a comic) existed, leading me to yet another cover I remembered.

I wanted these because I wanted to be able to say the first comic I ever picked up was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures #14, which came out in September 1990 when I was 5 years old. I got it at the local drug store on a spinner rack when I lived in Minneapolis.

I wanted these because I wanted to know what my earliest artistic influences were. What shaped me as a kid and gave me such a love that I obsess over these stories, characters and medium to this day.

Speaking of which: my Mind’s Eye t-shirt arrived, too. The comic I picked up when I was 5 put me on a path to make my own comics and have relationships with the comic community and shops like the one on this tee.

Some love fades away — and some love just never dies.

Multiversal Recalibration

February 26th, 2021

We have this thing where we think we’re the center until we can see the whole.

A few months after my mom died, I got three plastic tubs full of stuff from the time I was born until the late 2000’s. She kept a lot of me and for that I’ll be forever grateful; if there is ever a me museum, it will be entirely too thorough.

For a long time, human beings thought Earth was the center of the universe. (I’m sure there are people who still do and I just can’t even right now.) It wasn’t until we pulled back to see the bigger picture that we found we were wrong.

I think the same goes for our sense of self. We start by knowing only ourselves and, as far as we can tell, we are the most important part of our own everyday existence.

For weeks I’ve been going through this stuff, reconstructing my own timeline, and it’s helping to see the actual orbits of my entire life.

Like the Earth itself, once self-actualized, we get to recognize the awesome system that we’ve been a part of all along.

Jupiter pulls in debris before it can reach Earth. We have people who speak dearly of and defend us when we’re not around. Other planets and stars make themselves visible regularly, shining bright. Those people share our orbit — they’re our cheerleaders, our moral support, who remind us that they’re always around. We all have our constellations of acquaintances, and some of those burn out. We each find our own suns to rotate around.

And just as you’re accepting that you’re Earth, you make the realization that you’re also one of these other heavenly bodies to every other person you know. You’re a moon. You’re the sun. You’re a dangerous comet. You’re a shooting star.

I don’t know what I did to deserve the universe I got, but I do know that seeing my place in it from this vantage point has made me appreciative beyond belief.

There was once a scientist who spent his entire life trying to explain why our planet is 93 million miles away from the Sun.

The moment you figure out why that was a waste of time is when you accept and embrace your celestial roles in the infinite multiverse to which you belong.