A FEW WEEKS ago I was looking at a subreddit for "Preppers" because prepping for emergencies is one of those things I keep meaning to do, along with learning how to quilt or ice skate or use layers in Photoshop, so I am always curious to know how other people do it. The most popular post at that moment was one in which the writer explained that people should be now buying several turkeys, currently on sale due to Thanksgiving having just passed, make a bunch of turkey stock, freeze it, as well as start growing vegetables. Essentially, the writer said, now that we have four more years of Trump's "economic" policies to endure, we should be prepping to be poor.

I asked Chad what he thought about the Reddit post. "You're not prepping for end times," he said, "you're prepping for hard times." Which is pretty much the most brilliant thing I've heard this year.

Shortly after that I caught up with an old college friend and we marveled at the current situation we are both in—pushing fifty and still struggling to figure out our "career path." I don't think I'm designed to live in a world that judges people based on their net worth or job title and yet that is the world I live in. I enjoy my life right now, working on my comics and helping a historian write a book about Jane Addams and volunteering at Michaela's school and in our community (I just joined the school district's "sustainability task force").* Yet somehow no matter how much I do it never feels like enough, because it won't fit neatly on a business card—and frankly it doesn't bring in enough money.

I know all of these various insecurities—financial insecurity, food insecurity, my personal insecurity—are aswirl in my brain because I have started dreaming about work. By which I mean not anything I am currently working on, but jobs I have had in the past. I have worked at or for some high-profile magazines—the Village Voice, Artforum, the New Yorker—and on some level I always thought they were doing me a favor by hiring me. You don't need to tell me this is nonsense; I know that, but it's still hard to ditch the feeling.

Anyway that led to my having this weird dream which I decided to put into comic form.

Three Things That Kept Me Going This Week

1. Secrets of the Sun by Mako Yoshikawa. This book—wow, this book. It opens with the death of Yoshikawa's father, a brilliant physicist who worked on nuclear fusion at Princeton University. A relationship with such a figure is unlikely to be uncomplicated, and Yoshikawa recalls moments of conflict and abuse with elegant, even bemused, detachment. The story takes a number of unexpected turns, which I won't spoil for you here, but suffice to say that I felt surprised and deeply satisfied by each new revelation.
2. I feel like I can't get enough of the incredible news about Syria. I know the ramifications of the liberation are uncertain, but it is so uplifting to hear the hope in the voices of the Syrians who lived under Assad's regime or left because of it. A few weeks ago we watched Dounia, a beautifully animated film which doesn't shy from the hardships refugees suffer as they race from one inhospitable environment to the next. Yet the film also makes room for magic, and that feels true, too. This is appropriate for all ages.
3. When we lived in Cambridge we enjoyed listening to WHRB, Harvard Radio Broadcasting, in December and May. That was when the students were in the throes of the "reading and exam period," and thus it was "orgy season" at the radio station, when a dj gets to dig into a specific theme, genre, period, or composer and play related music nonstop for several hours. In the past I've listened to Murakami orgies, songs about walking orgies, Muppet song orgies, etc. As I write I'm listening to the "Meet Me In the Bathroom" orgy, which is focused on the NYC rock scene in the 2000s. You never know what you're going to get, which is why it's good.

I know, I know, I didn't write a Mushroom Head last week! I was feeling overwhelmed. This is a joyous season, and also an exhausting one. I'll be back next Friday with a special Mushroom Head Solstice edition, and then I'm going to take a few weeks off.

I hope your holiday season is also full of joy (and rest)!

Claire

*I still take on freelance writing assignments, too. You can read my perspective on Edgar Miller, one of Chicago's most famous designers whom nobody has ever heard of, in the current issue of Apollo. Miller also defied easy definition career wise: in his 60s he moved to Florida and bought a rundown hotel where he was "discovered" working behind the front desk by a local writer.

Thank you for reading! If you like Mushroom Head, please consider leaving me a tip, or share this with a friend. And if you're new here, welcome. Mushroom Head is a comic diary about me, Claire, a middle-aged lady who lives in Oak Park. Previous installments recorded the time I thought I'd ODed on THC and my experience parenting a person with ADHD as a person who has ADHD. There are also occasional forays into the surreal. If you'd like to get in touch with me, please feel free to respond directly to this email. I'm always happy to hear from you! (Also, you might want to put the Mushroom Head email address into your contacts to avoid having it go to your junk folder.) And if someone forwarded this email to you, I hope you will subscribe, because you are welcome here! Unless you are a bot. In that case, boo, please go away.