🔮Planning for forever is impossible 🔮
My peak 2020 moment came in mid-September when I put on my respirator to walk to the grocery store. This is an air-filtering mask that I bought back in June after realizing it was an essential wardrobe element for anyone reporting on the Black Lives Matter protests in Portland. As tear gas filled the air nightly, you needed a respirator to be able to breathe. But now it came in handy again for filtering wildfire smoke. A thick cloud of toxic smoke lay over the city for 10 days, darkening the sun and making it unsafe to breathe the air. We closed our windows and tried to seal them against the smoke, which made our hallway smell like campfire and killed the humble garden I’d tended on the back porch. Amid all this, I ran out of avocados. So I put on my respirator and walked to the store, where I would switch into an “indoor mask” to protect against COVID and then back into the respirator for the walk home. My respirator has pink stickers on it to distinguish it from Ben's. His and hers gas masks: the perfect 2020 look.
I keep wondering when I’ll stop trying to do normal things. I've been thinking about those experiments where researchers have people wear glasses that distort their vision, turning the world upside-down or sideways. Relatively quickly, people adapt to seeing the distorted world in a new, normal way: “They found that practice with goggles which caused random but severe visual distortions let the wearers compensate for the distortions to the point where they didn't notice them.” Through my 2020 goggles, I keep seeing new flaming logs added to the raging omni-crisis and then reluctantly adjusting to a more distorted, uncomfortable reality. I thought there would be a breaking point where we stop trying to go to work, where we stop giving money to police departments, where we stop wondering plaintively whether Trump might possibly be trying to steal the election, where we stop trying to keep the country running the way it has been. But I think, instead, I just adapt—strapping on a respirator to walk to the grocery store.
It’s hard to know what to do because we don’t know what happens next. I don't know what to do with all this anger and sadness I feel, I don't know where to direct it. Voting, sure. Donating, sure. But then what? I know that in 20 years, we’ll look back on this moment and say, “That’s what regular people should have done!” But living through this “historic moment,” we’re all floundering in the way humans always do when confronted with future uncertainty. I like the way dog sledder Blair Braverman writes about not knowing the path ahead when she’s out on the trail with her dog team: “Planning for forever is essentially impossible, which can actually be freeing: It brings you back into the present. How long will this pandemic last? Right now, that’s irrelevant; what matters is eating a nourishing meal, telling someone you love them, walking your dog, getting enough sleep. What matters is that, to the degree you can, you make your own life sustainable every day.” So what's sustaining you?
Stuff I Made
Amazon collages - I art directed the illustrations for Reveal’s big investigation into Amazon injury rates. I had a vision of collage artist Anthony Zinonos deconstructing Amazon packaging material much the same way the reporters deconstructed Amazon’s public image. It’s rare to have an idea for an editorial illustration actually go according to plan, but I love the way these collages turned out. I also bought several of Anthony’s collage prints to hang on my wall just because I think they’re so clever.
Bojack Horseman fanzine - I drew the cover for this zine of essays about the best TV show ever made about depression. It’s currently nominated for Best Fanzine by the Broken Pencil zine awards, which is cool.
Guantanamo Voices- The book has officially been out in the world for one month! Thanks to everyone who came to a release event. It has gotten really good reviews. I'd love to get it into the hands of more teachers, since this book is a great way to teach about Guantanamo! (And U.S. politics, prisons, and law in general.) I made a discount code on my site that any teacher is welcome to use: Enter the code TEACHER to get 20% off the book.
Upcoming Events
All Ages Nonfiction Comics Workshop - For the Massachusetts Indie Comics Expo (MICE), I’m leading a workshop on telling real-life stories in comics. This is a free online workshop open to anyone, anywhere. I’m gearing it towards people ages 12 and up. I would love to see some teens there, if you know any teens! October 25, 4-5pm EST/1-2pm PST, register here to attend via Crowdcast or Facebook
Stuff I Love
Orville Peck - This fashion-forward psychedelic country music star really became a trend-setter: He always wears a mask in public and refuses to show his face. His fringed masks are a step up from my COVID ones, though. Peck’s new goth-friendly EP Show Pony came out recently and I can’t stop watching this rhinestone-laden video featuring him and Shania Twain.
Japanese fabric facemasks -Speaking of masks, I own two of these masks by Portland-based design shop Kiriko, they are the holy trinity of good-looking, comfortable, and not-glasses-fogging.
Pen15 - Ben and I already burned through season two of Pen15 on Hulu. It’s such a creative and empathetic take on the cringing, awkward moments of junior high.
Pregnancy Zines - A lot of my friends are pregnant right now and I just want to buy them presents. So I gifted friends copies of Alli Katz’s down-to-earth comics about her experiences with pregnancy and breastfeeding.
Plant Daddy hat - I bought this for Ben so fast. It’s perfect.
All Rise - I don’t know much about this organization, but I backed this very cool looking campaign to publish a magazine made by incarcerated people in Oregon. Check it out.
Oregon Humanities - I feel like I’m constantly telling people that if you live in Oregon, you can get a free subscription to Oregon Humanities magazine. A free print magazine full of and writing, how great is that? Subscribe here.
The Believer and their Friday comics workshops - Okay, just one more magazine to plug! The Believer mag has been doing this amazing free comics and writing workshops every Friday online. The lineup of artists has been really stellar, definitely give it a shot.
Community supported bread - I signed up for a month of bread from Handsome Pizza/Seastar Bakery. Every Saturday, I get a new loaf of a different type of bread. Before 2020, did I think I would be excited about learning about new types of bread? No. But I have to take my excitement where I can get it, people.
Anti-capitalist naps - My biggest vice in life is naps. I feel sheepish telling people that I take a nap almost every day. But it’s what my body craves! Never have I seen someone else explain how naps are a form of anti-capitalism until I came across the Nap Ministry instagram. I like seeing naps get the attention they deserve as a way to resist expectations of productivity and the 9 to 5 grind.
National Bird print - Anuj Shrestha is one of my favorite illustrators. His simple, striking drawings create an unforgettable mood. One of his drawings, National Bird, is now available as a print and I snatched one up to hang on my wall.
You're Wrong About and Ear Hustle - I absolutely can't handle reading or listening to the current political news without spiraling into a rage, so these two podcasts have been a balm. I know I've suggested them both before in this newsletter, but really they're what brings me joy these days. Two of my favorite recent episodes: The Stepford Wives on You're Wrong About and The Great Ear-Hustle Cook-Off on Ear Hustle.
What I’m Reading
This is How We Lose the Time War - This time-traveling love story is a speedy treat. You’re plunged into correspondence between two immortal fighters in a twisting war that spans all time, and you never really get to come up for air.
Giovanni’s Room - Despite frequenting the nonprofit queer bookstore Giovanni’s Room in Philadephia, I’d never actually read the James Baldwin book that inspired the shop. Set amid a self-destructive gay nightlife scene in 1950s Paris, the book is full of wise and salty gems. Like: “There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.”
Caste - I’m still reading Isabel Wilkerson’s heavy-hitting examination of American history through the lens of caste. Her writing is so direct and irrefutable that it’s making me think deeply about what my role is in our fundamentally unequal society.
Something to Do
“Don’t react, engage.”
That’s the advice artist Ben Passmore shared at a MICE panel this past weekend and I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Each hour brings ridiculous news to react to. Will Trump die of COVID? Will we have martial law? Will we be able to actually vote? Anything is possible! So instead of reacting to each new crisis, I’m trying to engage proactively in the work I think is important. I feel like the dog in Up who has to learn not to be distracted by every squirrel, but instead stay focused on a larger mission.
I'll send out another update soon. In the meantime, you can follow me on Instagram and Twitter. You can also support my work on Patreon and receive wonderful things in the mail. The archive of past newsletters is right here.