I take issue with the first panel.

To me, patriotism is “I’m going to work on my house because I love the people who live in it and I want them all to have the best house.”

If you start from the assumption that your country is the “best” that’s nationalism and straying too close to the roots of xenophobia.

Audiobooks+ some other mindless activity shuts my brain off really well. Find a series you love that your library has and pick up a new sudoku or other puzzle app and go to town.

If you’re having trouble finding books I recommend a long sci fi or fantasy series. The Expanse is great, or Dune is also fantastically long. If fantasy is more your style maybe someone can recommend something but I know the wheel of time has a ton of books.

As for mindless things to do while you listen to audiobooks, either find a puzzle game or pick something up to do with your hands that requires few materials and is calming and productive. Here are a few that work for me:

Coloring (you can print out free coloring pages from the Internet like the ones here: https://www.crayola.com/free-coloring-pages/adult-coloring-pages/)

Color by number

Crochet or knitting (lots of good online tutorials and making a scarf is a good first project)

Modeling clay (just reuse the same clay over and over again if you want to save money/supplies)

Yoga

Walking on a treadmill or riding an exercise bike

Weightlifting with free weights at home

Tai chi

Best of luck, I know this type of thing is tough. Try to stick to regular wake/sleep cycles as much as possible and get outside during the day if you can, it definitely helps. Sending hugs and hoping things get better soon.

Yeah… We’re talking about people who literally want us dead. And because it’s America, they likely own guns. Some of them are literal neo-Nazis or Christian fascists and might actually try to do you harm if you’re Jewish, Muslim, or gay. Making friends with them isn’t just painful and unpleasant, it’s dangerous.

Just to give you a sense of the type of things that you might have to sit through to be “friends” with these folks… My cousin had a kid in her Catholic school class write an essay comparing gayness to bestiality. Another cousin’s husband constantly misgendered my trans sibling on purpose. My parents’ neighbors hung a flag on their wall depicting a person pointing a gun at my parents’ house.

I’ll give you a pass since you’re from Europe and have no sense for the level of extremism embraced by our right wing political groups but trust me… If “just talk to your neighbors” worked we’d be doing it. As it is, your best bet is to avoid them knowing your politics and get out if you can.

Ataulfo mangoes. At least in the northeast US, they are reliably delicious and ripen on the counter.

Cortland apples

Yeah I feel you on that, the fieldwork stage of the job can get tiring really fast, especially with the more routine stuff like asbestos and LNAPL spills. Vapor intrusion work is less of a bear, we’re doing a lot of that lately and it’s nice because it’s indoors in the winter. I work in a larger company with a variety of projects so I’m not always doing the same thing and that definitely helps. In my current company people do tend to graduate out of the field positions fairly quickly (like 5 years) and move on to a desk job or at least a partial desk job but those first few years when you’re in the field a lot can be hard and maybe impossible if you have any dependents that keep you from traveling.

Environmental engineer. I clean up chemical messes like oil spills, and make sure that the resulting land is safe enough for people to live on it.

It’s fun and challenging, if somewhat depressing at times. Some things take a LONG time to clean up. On the plus side, I have great job security.

You’re not missing anything, people are just weird about it.

Also the person who named it “toilet-to-tap” is an idiot. Reclaimed water is “toilet to tap” in the same way that a vegetable grown in compost is “garbage to garden.” There’s a host of sophisticated engineering processes in between the two, making the water just as clean as any other treated drinking water.

Mixing with river water or putting the water in a reservoir and then pumping it back out again simply makes people feel more comfortable about it and, like you said, reduces the “ick” factor.

I find it almost impossible to pick a favorite poem of hers, but if I had to it’d probably be “Tutaj” (“Here” in English) by Wislawa Szymborska.

https://medium.com/illumination/here-671e29357dcc

“Starvation Camp Near Jaslo” and “Foraminifera” are two other favorites and Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak have done an amazing job at the translations.

Did his share of the housework. My dad didn’t know how to cook well, but you bet your butt he did laundry, vacuumed, dusted, washed dishes, whatever was needed around the house he did it. And he did cook at least once a week, although it was always stuff like grilled cheese or pancakes.

Growing up in a household where both parents put in equal effort at home really set up the expectation for me that this is how relationships work.

My dad was also very loving and openly affectionate to us all. He would give us hugs, tell us he loved us and how proud of us he is, even to the point of tearing up sometimes. I love that about him and see it as an admirable quality in men.

Girls learn what to expect from men based on what they see their fathers do. Be kind, gentle, and respect your daughter and that’s the kind of men she’ll surround herself with.

Keytar Bear

Dude jams out around Boston on a keytar wearing a bear costume. The music is actually pretty great.