So there’s a lot of scary shit going on right now. Like, super scary. Like, holy crap did anyone actually take 11th grade European history scary. People say that we exist in a cycle of ups and downs, that history rhymes, but this feels less like a new stanza and more like a student copy/pasting from the fascist textbook without citing their sources.

In light of all of this, it feels immensely selfish to make silly comics, write silly stories, and draw whatever suits my mood. After years of front-line nonprofit work, interfacing directly with the people who are most affected by conservative policies, my desire to learn to be funny, to make things that bring me joy, seems trite.

But, the thing is, it’s the trite, funny, silly things that have gotten me through the hardest parts of my life. When life gets so hard that I freeze in place, I listen to Jenny Lawson’s memoirs, watch Monty Python, or pick up a Diskworld book, and I become unstuck. I could watch any of a dozen Holocaust movies, relive the trauma of my grandmothers, and sink into depression, or I can listen to “Springtime for Hitler”, laugh at the truly cartoonish absurdity of fascism, and find the strength to survive and push back against it. People who are unhoused have made me belly laugh more times than I can count and my support group regularly turns trauma into stories that make the whole room guffaw.

And so, I’m here to embrace levity and laughter. To celebrate trans joy and Jewish joy and whatever other joys we can dig up. To take care of myself and maybe help lighten someone else’s heart for a little bit, so we can survive all the other stuff.

Shit, fuck, this was supposed to be funny. What do you say we end on a joke?

What’s a trans man’s favorite football team?

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The Packers.