Having reached a stage in my life where all my friends, acquaintances and well-wishers are all on the verge of, if not already, starting their families, and by proxy their adult lives, there’s a lot of pressure to live up to the expectations of, well, everybody. Sure, some people are all about the nuclear family unit with the 2.5 kids, golden retriever, goldfish, and a decaying elderly relative confined to a rickety rocking chair in the den, and I’d be lying if I hadn’t thought about the very same (sans the goldfish), but is it worth it?

I don’t know why Kate and Ben are being so grumpy in this comic. Who doesn’t like pairs?

Find Your Inner Hate (And Other Great Ways to Become a More Empowered Bigot)

Getting Out of the Seedy World of Guerrilla Knitting

Help! I’m Up and I Can’t Fall Down: Teaching Yourself the Fine Art of Falling in Order to Guilt Your Over-Privileged Adult Children Into Paying More Attention to You Despite Having Their Own Busy Lives

The hick of today is a stunning sophisticate compared to his counterpart of only one or two generations ago. Often flaunting an Ivy League education and a job in the public eye requiring diplomacy and social nuancing, today’s cracker, compared to yesterday’s in terms of sophistication, is as Rand Paul is to Harry Truman, or as Jeff Daniel is to Oliver Hardy, or as Miley Cyrus is to Minnie Pearl. You would never guess how many influential politicians, trend-setters and opinion-mongers are actually outlanders from benighted states like Ohio and Texas and Kentucky, but grown remarkably adept and refined.

My apologies to anyone who thought I was going to have Winslow and Dr. Spiderqueen actually start some sort of relationship. That was never the intention with this last series of strips. My job, as the creator of this strip, is to present the characters with a comfortable level of constancy. I’ll let the fans worry about shipping characters. That’s their job.