CSotD: Monday Short Takes
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Pajama Diaries on a common issue for those of us who work at home: When does the factory whistle blow?
There's always been spill-over, at least among people with a tendency to be workaholics. I remember one publisher I worked for who would walk out to her car every night with a double armload of ledgers and paperwork, which never made me want to gain a lot of power.
I suppose these days she wouldn't have to struggle to open her car door because everything would be in a handy laptop, but, on the other hand, that kind of access makes it even harder to leave things at the office.
And when I was an editor, I would "stop off" at the office on weekends, sometimes for half an hour, sometimes for three hours. There were almost no days when I didn't "stop off" at some point.
But at least it required an effort to go down to the office and I didn't, by that stage, have a family wondering where I'd disappeared to.
Working at home simply makes it easier: Back when I did have family still at home, and was freelancing, I remember that I went into the bathroom one evening and, while there, had a thought and so stopped in my office and began to re-write something.
My wife came in and asked, "Honey, what are you doing?" and I started to explain but she interrupted to remind me that we had dinner guests sitting in the livingroom.
Now, I know several cartoonists who have offices away from the house, which would avoid that, but I've never heard of one whose office was fitted with a time lock to keep them from "stopping off."
So I don't know whether working at home makes it harder to put down the work and enjoy your personal life or if the only way working at home can work is if you tend to hyperfocus on the task at hand anyway.
I do know that at one point several years after it became just me and my teenage boys (known as the "bears with furniture" stage) I asked one of them if he thought I was a workaholic and he said, "You mean to the point where it interferes with your social life?" and started laughing.
Get out now! (Please)
As noted here several times, strip creators have been slipping politics into their work, but I think Dave Whamond gets a special award for this "Reality Check" because it is one, and they could use one.
Of course, it's based on an urban legend once popular among pre-teen girls, and comparing the Trump administration's grasp of reality to the stories whispered at a middle-school sleepover is more accurate than funny.
If you prefer that sort of thing without the humor, Part One of the Los Angeles Times' editorial page's series on Trump ran yesterday and you should read it. It's important stuff and I promise you won't smile even once.
When I'm done here, I'll read the next part of the series, but I find that sort of thinking first thing in the morning dulls my appetite for even dark humor, and makes it hard to do the blog.
Meanwhile, I'll wait for the parents to start pulling up in front of the White House, piling their kids into their cars and heading home, while the Obamas stand on the portico waving and saying to each other through clenched-teeth smiles, "That's it. We're not having any more sleepovers!"
Paging Dr. Filth
And speaking of childish urban legends and the childish people who believe them, here's Ann Telnaes on a vice-president who can't have dinner with a woman unless his wife is present but, as part of the same Christian Sharia Law, can't refrain from trying to tell them what to do with their lady parts, either.
The urban legend in question being the woman who claims to have been assaulted although no sexual contact of any kind — consensual or otherwise — took place.
There surely are such times, just as there are times when someone asks a teenager to keep their baggie of marijuana in his pocket where it turns up when his mother does laundry, even though that teenager has absolutely no interest in drugs.
And turnips are round, so a truck loaded with them would provide a very unstable surface.
But I didn't happen to fall off one recently.
I certainly understand how, for example, a male professor might make it a practice to keep his cubicle door open during office hours, when he would have a stream of students, including young women he doesn't know on a personal basis, coming and going.
But I would hope he would have the judgment to know when it was appropriate to shut the door for privacy.
And that he'd apply that caution across the board, since it would be just as likely for one of his male students to claim to have been sexually compromised.
Particularly if the professor in question is the sort of meticulous, self-righteous prig whose public, unsolicited proclamations on sexual purity so often turn out to be cover for a closeted, self-hating predator.
I mean, y'know, for example.
Mostly, I would hope he'd realize he could sit in the campus coffee shop and have a conversation with a female student, unless he was afraid the people at the other tables might misinterpret his lunging across the table and ripping open her blouse.
Or that she'd reach across the table, stroke his hand, look into his eyes and, in front of everybody, confess her irresistable, completely unsolicited and unwanted, lust for older, highly-repressed dorks …
However, let's be fair: Male physicians generally make it a practice to have a nurse in the room when they examine lady parts.
So Pence should have his wifey present when he plays doctor with America's women.
Or he could perhaps not do that.
Now here's your moment of zen
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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