2211 Trustworthy.

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If being online wasn’t so dangerous right now I would be talking about something here, but I can’t, so I won’t.

I’ve got a bunch of my stuff in boxes so I can rearrange things and dismantle the old, broken, bed I have in my room. The one I haven’t been able to sleep on in over a year, I think. Once that’s taken care of finally I’ll have a huge chunk of room opened up to move stuff around more easily. Plus hopefully get some kind of thing to sleep on that’s a little better than just a blanket on a yoga mat, with storage containers to support my body with. I hesitate to actually clear the area out because every time I have there has been some huge fucking disaster that has led to it not getting done & things deteriorating again. At this point I’m afraid a cropduster will fall from the sky and kill us all if I do it. It’s strange how coincidences can make you feel that way, but it happens so often I’m genuinely developing a phobia of touching this old bed or anything to do with moving it… I hate to even discuss my plans. I’m afraid if I do something will rise up and head me off at the pass. Maybe I should delete this post. Perhaps I’ve said too much already.

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The founder of Intel said it best “only the paranoid survive.”

“Trust no one, not even yourself.” -Joseph Stalin.

( ….He was such a happy guy, wasn’t he?) :p

I took my two youngest stepkids to the park yesterday, and they immediately got embroiled in a 15-kid strong game of tag, with ages ranging from 5 to 11.

For some reason *I* was deemed a ‘safe spot’ and a ‘no tagging zone’ for the game after I told one kid that there was no tagging next to me because one of my kids was taking a break and drinking water. Given how many kids were playing figuring out who was It at any given moment got tricky, so I ended up surrounded by water bottles, shoes, jackets, toys, and kids catching their breath and scanning for It.

At one point a kid who was probably 5 or 6 ran up to me, stopped, and suspiciously asked “Are YOU It?” When I replied no, I wasn’t It and I was a no-tagging zone he happily hopped up onto the empty plinth I was sitting on and drank some water. After he handed me his water bottle he stood up, scanned the playground for It, jumped down and turned to me. He put a small hand on my arm, regarded me seriously and, with the earnestness only a small child muster said “In the game of tag, you trust No One!”

As he ran off I thought to myself ‘Words to live by, little dude, words to live by.’

I could be tempted to nod at this as a trenchant metaphor, except that I can totally see the yoga mat on the storage boxes. I can practically feel it under your shoulders. Risk the cropduster, if it rids your life of that curse.

Wondering how Ed’s secondhand knowledge of the Great Mummy Caper will inform his opinions of Reggie.

Reggie seems to be at his worst in the workplace; all the best facets we’ve seen of his character have been displayed elsewhere, like the Mummy Caper, the Order of the Pelt meeting, and his date with Alex.

Sometimes life is like that.

There’s definitely some people that are totally different outside work and Reggie seems to be one of those. I’m sort of one of those as well. While I’m about the polar opposite of Reggie in the workplace (really quiet/shy/stressed/etc), the few people I hang out with from work outside of it are generally taken aback by how different my demeanour is when I’m not there.

I worked for a number of years with a group of people for whom trust tended to be a binary function. One of the most useful things I learned and tried to pass on is a definition of trust.Trust: when you know what to expect from others. You can trust a person to have your best interest at heart or you can trust them to be a dick or most useful of all it opens you to the idea that trust falls on a continuum. It also opens to idea that you should look at a person’s internal level of chaos. By this standard Reggie has some trustworthiness, there are just some things you don’t expect him to do well.

I like to sleep on the floor on a yoga mat. Got used to it after a week. The body weigth pushes me against the floor and it feels like I’ve had a massage or workout in the mornings. Feels really good for the back and I feel more healthy overall, provided I stay on the insulated parts. Of course, getting up and down can be a hazard. I’ve also slept on top of cardboard boxes and a mattress. It felt slightly more cozy but less healthy. With the floor I figured, if Japanese people can do it, so can I. I thought the same about Tatami mats for sitting, but the level of masochism seemed too high at the time.

So, I have something I need to say. I very much appreciate you, Mr. Jackie. Every other web comic I have ever followed has either ended already or keeps going on indefinite hiatus after each update. Your consistency over the several years I’ve been following you is the best part of a comic that has a ton of great features. Thank you for giving my sometimes exhausted self something to read on a regular basis.

I’ve always taken the update schedule seriously because so many webcomics never did. If you can’t take your own updates seriously why should your audience? I’ve done pretty well, & outlasted a lot of people who talked mad shit on me back in the day just by keeping a schedule. Even if you can’t be the best people appreciate you just being there at all.

I really like this page, because it shows just how far Ed and Carol have come from the time he went “Me and you? Not friends.”

I would like to believe that with communication, open mindedness, and building trust, people can forgive and become friends.

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