In our family we had the tradition of duelling lasagna. (One made with veggies and mushrooms and one made carnavore with ground meat and sausage and pepperoni.)
I’m forced to eat healthy and exercise ’cause my anxiety has done a number on my libido, and I really hope I can fix it in time for the upcoming slipshine!!! 🤕
You could try the recipes in “Afrodita,” (“Aphrodite” in English)by Isabel Allende. Public library should have it, by interlibrary loan at least.
Other than that: dark cocoa powder or 100% unsweetened baker’s chocolate, cinnamon, cardamom, chili peppers or hot spices, turmeric, roasted onions/garlic, ginger, vanilla, avocados, olives, yoghurt or kefir or labna, red grapes or pomegranate (because of the resveratrol), tart cherry, blueberries, green tea … whatever calms and soothes the soul, reduces inflammation, improves circulation, and boosts the metabolism, can help. (Watch out for the cacao pods, though, as those can sometimes be high in heavy metals.)
Oysters are the go-to, but any seafood will do, mostly because it’s so high in minerals. Salmon may be even better, due to its beneficial effects on the heart and brain.
Good to get your balance of electrolytes — calcium / magnesium / potassium. Spinach has all three, but if you want to turbocharge each one you could try a potato with sour cream. You could have a dessert of greek yogurt and frozen bananas sprinkled with cinnamon, vanilla, and cocoa powder. That’ll catch all your basic electrolyte groups.
People say certain mushrooms also help with the feeling of overall wellbeing and euphoria, but I don’t know the mushrooms as well and wouldn’t want to advise you wrong. Some commercial mushroom preparations have heavy metals in them, too, so be careful.
Putting a whole cardamom pod under your tongue for a full day is supposed to increase your self-confidence and personal magnetism.
I would advise against most caffeine or alcohol, though, because those can exacerbate anxiety. Similarly, I would advise against most of the herbs, since they can interact with medications and have unwanted side effects.
And, of course, relaxation techniques — deep breathing, body scan, listening to ASMR videos or tapes, guided relaxation, calm walking, home EMDR exercises… whatever you need to feel tranquil can help.
Also looking at lots of green stuff (like fullscreen videos of a forest floor, if you can’t get out to nature) and red stuff (like a sunset, or pictures of a sunset) can help put you in a more relaxed state of mind. Or just using rose-tinted blue-light filtering glasses (or just the f.lux or “night shift” setting or warm-color light settings on your electronic devices, to reduce blue light). Those can improve sleep, and regular and sufficient sleep DEFINITELY reduces the anxiety.
I find that my anxiety has been significantly reduced since I started using a CPAP machine for sleep apnea. So getting checked out sure nothing is interfering with regular breathing or circulation or blood pressure can help a person feel like they are on solid footing.
So many of us have been skipping our regular health visits during the pandemic — it can be a big relief just to don your N95 mask and go in for a physical exam or checkup, get some basic bloodwork done, catch up on preventive medicine.
Sometimes good music helps you feel it, too. My favorite is “Havana (remix)” by Camila Cabello and Daddy Yankee. The soundtrack of Buena Vista Social Club helps me relax and feel good too.
I forgot to add coconut water for electrolyte balance. Another fave!
Or just good old Mac n Cheese, or your go-to comfort food. (Mine is Tuna Melts.) Something that brings back happy and safe memories.
Just comes down to what makes you feel most like YOU yourself.
Just about anything you cook with roasted onions and garlic will be good. I just had roasted brussels sprouts and zucchini with roast onions and garlic (just put it all in a pyrex pie dish, brushed olive oil on the top and bottom, and stuck it in the toaster oven at 450 degrees for 30 minutes). I topped it with greek yoghurt cilantro salad dressing, mustard, mayo, hot sauce, and canned tuna fish. DIVINE! And it took only a few minutes to make (minus the baking).
If you’re feeling fancy, split pea soup or lentil soup with salt and pepper can be pretty wonderful with roast onions and garlic. You can roast them on a grill, or in a pan, or in a toaster oven, or even in an oven. Doesn’t really matter how, so long as they get toasty.
All of the above! Yes please, more please, thank you! ;-9
You are making me so hungry thinking of split pea lentil soup with chicken and turkey fried rice, onions, garlic, peanuts, and just a tiny dash of salt, pepper, and chili pepper! Maybe some yams?
Friend, when it comes to cooking, the only limits are your imagination!
Just thinking of cooking gets me all excited! Euphoria!
Maybe you don’t think about that as a broken machine to be fixed, but rather like a comfy slipper or a warm blanket that will be there to wrap around you when you need it. Or a warm bath you could slip into. I’ve gone through many “dry spells” and the littlest things — like just thinking about making a delicious soup — can bring it back. It’s like remembering just a few notes of an old song, even if you can’t recall all the lyrics or the melody. It comes flooding back unexpectedly, when you give it time and don’t try to force yourself to remember.
…Hey, I want to thank you for this query and the opportunity to talk about this. It’s good to remember that we are all gorgeous, vivacious, sensuous beings, and that sexuality doesn’t have to be tied to any one particular outlet or object.
Just brushing your hair or wiggling your toes can make you feel sexy. That special feeling can creep up on you any time.
Sexuality can just BE. Like a heavenly aroma hanging in the air after cooking something delicious. Or like the feeling of turning the A/C or the heater on. Just like a feeling of being at home.
This gives me hope, and although not sexual, it’s giving me good feelings already! 😊
By the way, before i go, one more thing. Although Mac and Cheese is technically “healthy” as it is, is there any way to make it healthier, maybe by adding less or substituting the instant packet?
There are some variations on Mac n Cheese to make it healthier. Skipping the salt, or using iodized salt, for one. (Getting the right amount of Iodine is especially important for all of us these days, and it plays a role in sexual and mental health too.)
Or using noodles made with whole wheat flour or chick pea flour or lentil flour or rice flour. Some people use a little nutritional yeast for an extra-cheesy flavor and a healthy dose of B vitamins. Your choice of milk can make it healthier too. I like using a healthy margarine made with vegetable oils that are high in Omega-3 Essential Fatty Acids, for brain health.
And if you want to experiment with the Mac and Cheese to make it go further, you can use it as the base for a casserole. You can add all sorts of stuff to a macaroni casserole — tuna fish, canned black beans, chick peas, canned corn, canned tomatoes, green beans, zucchini, mushrooms, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, chili peppers, curry powder, cinnamon, garlic, ginger… Sky’s the limit! And so long as you are using the canned stuff, it’s all pretty quick and cheap to mix together.
Not all of these ingredients at once, of course, but mixing and matching is fun. Like, you could do spinach, mushrooms, and Swiss cheese and Italian spices, if you wanted your Mac casserole to taste especially French.
Only thing is that canned foods are very high in sodium, so it’s best to pick the low sodium kinds wherever possible, and drain canned foods (or even rinse them sometimes!) to remove the salt water.
But yeah, Mac and Cheese makes the best base for whatever I want to eat up because it’s healthy and cheap but which would be kind of unexciting on its own. #1 rule: have fun and get a little wild!
Hmm, that’s an interesting question, Eh Whatever. Good to see you here! Thank you for asking!
I’ve never thought about synesthesia. What’s it like? Is it kind of like my little unexpected hot flash from thinking about cooking just now? If so, then probably, yes, I would assume so, maybe.
I saw you recommended oysters, but tried to look a health hazards due to the presence of heavy metal. Oysters are known to concentate it (a bit like mushrooms), so if you don’t want heavy metals, don’t eat oysters (and most sea shells). I you like heavy metal, Blue Oyster Cult is possible.
Serious and punny recommandations apart, I am tempted to comment on the “soul” or “energetic” aspect just after a comic about a person turned on by science… but whatever works I guess.
Hi khn0! 🙂 Oh, wow, yes, thank you for that reminder! Yes, seafood can be risky, and especially shellfish. I appreciate your advice! (And the music recommendation, too.)
Yes, it’s always a bit odd mixing up the subjective experience (psychological constructions like libido, hard to quantify and measure) with the scientific (ensuring a diet adequate in nutrients). Nothing is an exact science when it comes to the psychology of the body. Diet and sensuality and sexuality often interrelate via subjective emotional and psychospiritual experience of sensation and memory.
But the messiness and metaphor and deliberate use of belief can be part of what makes the experimentation so much fun, sometimes. 🙂 Remember the old folk tale about the elephant with the “magic feather”? (“The magic was in you, all along!”) Or the story of the Cowardly Lion in Wizard of Oz, whose belief in a “wizard’s” promise motivated him to find his own courage. Or the troops who dosed themselves with “Dutch courage.” (The alcohol didn’t really make them brave, but it lowered their inhibitions, which caused them to feel braver.)
Placebo can be a form of doublethink, or conscious induction of belief. Using one’s own mental associations to gather up confidence and courage and calm. If the project is getting in touch with emotions, all tools are on the table.
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Eh Whatever, after your comment, I looked up synesthesia. Doesn’t sound like my experience. Thank you for asking, though!
Lasagna with no noodles and cheese, in soup form? Why not just take the crust and cheese and sauce off a pizza while you’re at it? Just toppings in a bowl.
Lasagna was strictly for Christmas. It takes two days to cook the meatballs the right way so they get the flavor from the homegrown tomatoes. Then you break down the meatballs while building the lasagna, making sure to get enough of the ricotta and parmesan into the corners so the people who get those pieces will be happy.
I’d never thought I’d say anything like this, but recently I found out that too much lasagna does exist. I am painting my new apartment, and I thought I’d buy a family pack of lasagna so I don’t have to cook for a few days. 3rd day of lasagna was miserable. I was craving salad so hard…
I mean, obviously the ride share driver is wearing her skin. Honestly, you should reserve these comments for the harder to glean underlying themes and stories, not the obvious surface level details we can all immediately see.
Sarah loving and cherishing Liz has never been up to question, let alone from Sarah herself.
But you can’t just be a cantankerous douchebag 90% of your life and then just help out when you feel like it. Han Solo got to be a hero in the end but then he, y’know, stayed one. He didn’t go back to being a smirking douchebag rogue.
This is Sarah’s twin, Sara. They were conjoined at birth, but separated, and took their revenge on the doctors who performed the operation.
There’s some debate about who was the evil one. Sure, Sarah is much meaner, but Sara will claim she doesn’t want fries and then eat like half of yours.
Sarah drove off just far enough to realize the meanest evillest thing she could do to her sister is leave on a good note so Liz can’t even be mad noatter how much she wants to be.
A perfect attack for which there is no defense. A fullscreen unblockable, the kind of shit they’re going to give Lab Coat Android 21 in the next patch.
I’m not saying I’ve debated a tuck and roll at 65 miles per hour due to Lyft conversation, but I’ve definitely debated a tuck and roll at 65 miles per hour due to Lyft conversation.
Haaaa, knew she’d be back. She may be strategically mean, but she does have pretty decent sistering skills. She’s best in a crisis, and that’s when it’s easiest to notice, but she has her moments outside those too.
I figured she’d come back, but I’m kinda surprised we didn’t see her change her mind directly. Makes me really wonder what made her decide to come back.
The entire rest of DoA will keep cutting between the two of them ping-ponging between IU and Ball, each taking turns being the responsible sister who drags the other home against their will.
I’ve mentioned it before but I really hope the big twist is there’s no twist at all. There’s no horrific tragedy for Liz, she’s just feeling the effects of peer pressure and the fear of disappointing her friends who AREN’T religious fanatics but just cheerfully faithful.
Basically, Liz is living Saved by the Bell and everyone else has been living HBO.
The effects of peer pressure are that she’s being expected to remain a dumb naive churchy girl because the people around her think it’s funny and more convenient to them.
Also Christian sexual puritanism convinced her that touching a penis would defile her for the rest of her life.
You tend to have poor feelings for the massive cultural institution you’re part of when being in it makes you miserable, especially when that misery started with your peers treating you like a naive idiot baby.
There’s nothing really more to see about Liz’s entirely Christian sexual guilt complex, she was taught that if she touched a penis she’d be a hellbound slut.
Just the ordinary pressure a young woman feels from friends and family to act a certain way, be a certain way, and believe a certain thing. Liz doesn’t know about the horrible trauma that estranged Joyce from her family and community, she only sees the relative freedom Joyce and others enjoy at IU.
maybe she’ll intentionally/’stategically’ come off as bongoy to juanita so anything liz does after she leaves for real will look better in comparison lol
word that rhymes with witch is banned and will correct to ‘bongo’ (iirc because a lot of people were overusing it in really misogynistic ways), now lots of people just use bongo instead
My guess is that Sarah got on the highway, found out that the driver was Dana, realized she didn’t want to get stuck on the highway for 2 hours with Dana, so she cancelled the ride and is stuck at Ball State now until she can figure out another way to get back to IU. Given that she could only afford the ride out to Muncie by using Carla’s corporate account, Sarah may have a hard time returning without the previously booked ride back to school.
That would be what Carla referred to as her “galaxy brain: epic prank.”
…Apropos of nothing, did you folks catch that, in the Supreme Court confirmation hearings today, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson identified her religion as “nondenominational Protestant”? Think that means she’s Evangelical?
Of course it’s fine if she is — as she said, a Supreme Court justice should put their personal religious views aside and judge only based on the law. Just interesting, given that a quick internet search appears to say that there haven’t been self-identified Evangelical justices on the Supreme Court before.
…Not trying to start a political argument or anything, just thought it might be interesting to folks here, given the religious themse in DoA in general.
I think she was just being strategic by not going into specifics. Non demo doesn’t necessarily mean Evangelical. If she got specific the senate committee would find a way to flip it on her as they have with past nominees, and from a poli sci point of view she probably doesn’t want to potentially alienate people watching at home. Very interesting stuff!
Most likely. In some circles “nondenominational” is kind of a buzzword for a certain brand of fundamentalist Evangelical, but it can also be used more generically.
It’s also worth pointing out that politically black Evangelical churches are entirely different things than white Evangelical ones, though I don’t know if she has any connection to either. Evangelical can be something of a sloppy term in casual use.
Doesn’t non-denominational protestant also just mean “not catholic”? My boyfriend is a Christian but doesn’t identify as anything more specific than protestant and has a very personal relationship with religion that wouldn’t belong to any specific denomination but is also the furthest thing from evangelical.
That’s kind of my impression. In that sense it probably implies you don’t go to a specific church regularly — or you’d identify as that church does.
Churches that define as “non-denominational” are specifically claiming not to belong to one of the broad grouping (like Methodist, Baptist, etc) and to just be “Christian”, but that mostly just masks which tradition they draw their theology from.
I feel like sisters in general are strategically mean, but boy does “she paid for my 2 hour uber ride back to school which is being paid for me by my dad and isn’t letting me drop out without saying anything” not really registering on my radar as mean.
Sarah has a very practical worldview, like you. She will sacrifice her time and money to help the people she loves. If she thinks she knows better than someone, she will help them against their will. This of course feels mean to Liz, who is still young and naive. But at the same time she understands that returning to school and not rocking the boat was a smart choice.
If I had a dime for every young woman who was living on campus despite not being a student and who was subsequently physically attacked and forced off campus by an insane family member who doesn’t like who she’s having sex with and was trying to get her to go to church, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it happened twice.
Actually, what’s REALLY weird is that this chapter is mostly cutting between this storyline and Becky/Dina, as if Willis is actively trying to get us to compare and contrast Sarah and Toedad. And, obviously, Sarah hasn’t tried to kill anyone, she’s not a threat the way Toedad was, but beyond that I’m not entirely certain what I’m meant to take from the allusion, since the comic is kind of taking Sarah’s side.
Sarah’s only contribution is that she’s forcing Liz to face problems that Sarah thinks are stupid, because she thinks the series’ main character having them is stupid too.
Like let alone taking Sarah’s side, I dunno how Sarah has any positive qualities to doing what she’s done outside of some vague boomer-ass nonsense view on tough love. It feels pretty one-sided to me to see someone you profess to love have a problem, and then you tell them their problem is stupid and fake, drag them back to the situation causing them pain on the grounds that actually they just want to good off, all in the name of only engaging in emotional support in a crisis in a way that Joyce said was exhausting and made her think Sarah hated over like ten years ago.
I guess my confusion is that Liz’s situation has so much in common with Becky’s that I think Willis wants us to make the connection because what Sarah’s doing is super controlling and fucked up, but also Ross was waving a shotgun around and comparing Sarah’s actions to literal murder attempts is insane.
Yeah Liz isn’t really similar to Becky in that regard. Her life isn’t in danger, she’s not the victim of Christian status quo-sanctioned oppression where she’s gonna get shoved into conversion therapy, but she’s being treated poorly by her friends at college because she arrived there a certain kind of person that the people around her came to view in a certain kind of way, and she fears how they’ll treat her if she stops being that certain kind of person, except the person she was is someone they relentlessly exploit as a source of mockery.
She’s Joyce, basically. Maybe Sarah got so attached to Joyce because she already had one. Liz ran away in a panic because she can either stay miserable or let the truth out with her friends, which *gestures broadly at the last five months where Joyce was forcibly outed as an atheist by Becky, told she should find a nice deism by Hillary Clinton, and then had to go play emotional support for someone who’s trying to convert her back to godliness after being told giving it up was like tearing her organs out, on the grounds that Joyce isn’t allowed to be traumatized in a way Becky doesn’t approve of*
There might be some Becky shit going on for Liz depending on how invested her stepmom is in her remaining Christian, that’s the kinda thing a crazy ass evangelical would do to their atheist child, but the Joyce parallel’s been laid on pretty thick so I’m reading this much more as Liz being the victim of her friends than of an abusive stepmother.
Yes, I think there is a theme of controlling parents in this comic, and with Sarah acting like an authority figure in this series of strips I understand the parallels. And yes Willis does treat Sarah with more sympathy than Ross, implying that this is a more nuanced situation and the parallels are not exact.
If you subscribe to the $25 tier on Patreon, you can read the short comic where Sarah’s cab driver is revealed to be a sagely wizard who transports the cab to a fantastical universe where Sarah goes on a magical journey that teaches her the importance of family and emotional honesty, then returning home triumphant after her victory over the Dark Lord at the same time she left.
Actually, what would kill me is if this plot line continued for a few more days, got to a major point, and then cut back to the Becky/Dina show… for a completely dialogue-free comic where they’re eating cereal and making eyes at each other and reacting to the afterglow of sex. Just to really embrace the joke. 😀
It’s Sarah being smart. If she doesn’t help Liz get her life in order, Liz will just cause even more drama and be back in Sarah’s life sooner. Best to nip it in the bud.
Aw this is sweet, I appreciate Sarah making an effort. She looks genuinely shy instead of angry, so I think it’s a real offer and not just another opportunity to lecture Liz.
I think a lot of people (including Sarah) are ascribing Liz financial privilege about the ability to to college on someone else’s dime as well as focus on partying versus her future. Sarah’s financial situation seems pretty strict and Spartan so that her studies are the most important thing to her because any mistake could cost her the chance at a law degree and her future.
Liz does not see college as IMPORTANT or RELEVANT to her future. It’s like going camping or on vacation.
Which means Sarah is FURIOUS with her.
Which we saw Sarah and her weed smoking room mate.
Sarah’s weed smoking roommate was so deep in depression from her mother’s death that she couldn’t function in a public space anymore. Sarah has described calling Dana’s dad as the hardest thing she has ever done in her life.
I’ve long expected the “twist” in the Dana story being that if/when she returns to the story she turns out to be grateful to Sarah and Raidah telling Sarah that “Dana’s miserable” was based on outdated information if not something Raidah made up because she thought it would hurt Sarah
I’ve been a big proponent for Dana being worse off (most likely that both Sarah and Raidah failed her), and with how Sarah’s treated both Joyce and now Liz, I think it’d be a good way to examine Sarah’s tendency to only give back in a crisis, and then by taking control of it without really empathizing.
The most difficult moment in Sarah’s life happened when Dana was suffering and she was the only one to see it, because Dana kept up a facade around the others. Sarah is forced to make the hard choice that ruins her other friendships, and the only thing she gets to hold onto is the knowledge that she did right by Dana and eventually Dana herself will see that.
(there’s maybe some other details to plumb like how Sarah wonders if her attempts at support made things worse, and that she sold getting Dana help as “you know what’s unforgiving? The terms of my scholarship!” There’s stuff that can be revealed or further extrapolated from that time, but let’s just roll with what we’ve got)
Consequently, I think Sarah and Raidah’s feud eventually stopped being about Dana, it was about getting back at the other, and so whatever they did was just automatically right. Raidah can take it out on Sarah as much as she wants since it’s her fault, and Sarah doesn’t have to consider the slightest possibility that Raidah had a point that, last she checked, Dana was not getting better (which has the added implication that Sarah herself has not been checking, which, yeah that’s feasible).
What I think Sarah took from that ordeal and the subsequent bullying from her old friends is that she’ll do the right thing no matter what anyone says, a belief system that requires Sarah to intimately know she is right, which is, I think, why she only knows how to give back in a crisis; if it’s up to Sarah, it’s because it wasn’t resolvable through someone else. Joyce should not have gone to the party and Billie and Dorothy didn’t keep her safe, and so Sarah roars in with a bat and solves it good and proper.
But she doesn’t care about what Liz is going through, and she doesn’t care that Joyce has the same struggle. They’re both frauds, and so Joyce is an Edgy Atheist who’s worse than she ever was as a fundie and needs to go back to being the person that Sarah bonded with Jacob over by laughing about how she’s a fucking idiot who believes nonsense and will snap and suck a billion dicks, and Liz is obviously just a spoiled slacker who doesn’t appreciate the privilege of going to college through her parents’ dime (ah, Americans).
Sarah loves them both, she painfully cares for Joyce and Liz, but she sees them both in a state where what they need is a long chat and a hug, and Sarah can’t give that. Sarah sees their problem as their fault, so she needs to bulldoze through them to solve it.
And where I think this ties back to Dana is that she was someone Sarah was left all alone to care for, so whatever decision Sarah made was right. It’s, I think, the moment that taught Sarah how to act in a crisis, and now that behaviour that may or may not have worked for Dana (if nothing else, Sarah had no choice; her scholarships were at risk) is failing Joyce and Liz. Going back to the origin point, that Sarah failed to help Dana and she’s been patting herself on the back for a lie this whole time, I think it’d break her half enough to make her realize that she can’t just keep going by making everyone around her do all the emotional labour.
I mean, you can also quote the rest of that comic, which makes it clear that what Sarah misses most of all is Joyce’s desire to make the world a better place.
This is bang-on. Really good insight into the dynamics of the Joyce situation, too, something a lot of people in these comments couldn’t see and didn’t want to.
Small point of clarification: Carla got Ruth to medical professionals, objective adults who have no stake in punishing her. Sarah did not apply to anyone at the school for help. She went directly to the parent and emphasized the drug use. The results may have been less than helpful.
I’m thinking that Sarah went “… yeah I can’t just leave her there to fend for herself I gotta support her through this” and got the not-uber driver to take her back.
Either that or she got kicked out of the cab for reasons(tm) and now she had to wait for a good time to take public transit back to IU lol
“was that your big sister?” shouldnt’ she already know if theyr’e facebook friends? (unless sarah doesn’t list liz as her step sister in the relationship section or whatever)
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ok so like
did the ride share driver sneak off and kill Sarah off-panel and is currently wearing her skin in order to
uh
eat lunch with Liz and Juanita
bc I swear that’s not Sarah
funny thing is we had lasagna on Monday
I’m always down for more tho
I love lasagna so very much. Enough that would I kill somebody and wear their skin in order to get their kin to by me some? Yes, yes I do.
Lasagna is good, Garfield’s right about that much.
In our family we had the tradition of duelling lasagna. (One made with veggies and mushrooms and one made carnavore with ground meat and sausage and pepperoni.)
I’m jealous!!!
I’m forced to eat healthy and exercise ’cause my anxiety has done a number on my libido, and I really hope I can fix it in time for the upcoming slipshine!!! 🤕
Seriously, anyone got any tips? I’m desperate here!!! 😪
Lasagna soup? It has all the fixins, but you could just not add noodles and less salt and cheese (oh man I kinda want some…)
Lasagna soup is an aphrodisiac?
Oops sorry, kinda neurotic here! 😅
Thanks for the healthy recipe tho, I’m just after tips that can help me specifically with libido.
You could try the recipes in “Afrodita,” (“Aphrodite” in English)by Isabel Allende. Public library should have it, by interlibrary loan at least.
Other than that: dark cocoa powder or 100% unsweetened baker’s chocolate, cinnamon, cardamom, chili peppers or hot spices, turmeric, roasted onions/garlic, ginger, vanilla, avocados, olives, yoghurt or kefir or labna, red grapes or pomegranate (because of the resveratrol), tart cherry, blueberries, green tea … whatever calms and soothes the soul, reduces inflammation, improves circulation, and boosts the metabolism, can help. (Watch out for the cacao pods, though, as those can sometimes be high in heavy metals.)
Oysters are the go-to, but any seafood will do, mostly because it’s so high in minerals. Salmon may be even better, due to its beneficial effects on the heart and brain.
Good to get your balance of electrolytes — calcium / magnesium / potassium. Spinach has all three, but if you want to turbocharge each one you could try a potato with sour cream. You could have a dessert of greek yogurt and frozen bananas sprinkled with cinnamon, vanilla, and cocoa powder. That’ll catch all your basic electrolyte groups.
People say certain mushrooms also help with the feeling of overall wellbeing and euphoria, but I don’t know the mushrooms as well and wouldn’t want to advise you wrong. Some commercial mushroom preparations have heavy metals in them, too, so be careful.
Putting a whole cardamom pod under your tongue for a full day is supposed to increase your self-confidence and personal magnetism.
I would advise against most caffeine or alcohol, though, because those can exacerbate anxiety. Similarly, I would advise against most of the herbs, since they can interact with medications and have unwanted side effects.
And, of course, relaxation techniques — deep breathing, body scan, listening to ASMR videos or tapes, guided relaxation, calm walking, home EMDR exercises… whatever you need to feel tranquil can help.
Also looking at lots of green stuff (like fullscreen videos of a forest floor, if you can’t get out to nature) and red stuff (like a sunset, or pictures of a sunset) can help put you in a more relaxed state of mind. Or just using rose-tinted blue-light filtering glasses (or just the f.lux or “night shift” setting or warm-color light settings on your electronic devices, to reduce blue light). Those can improve sleep, and regular and sufficient sleep DEFINITELY reduces the anxiety.
I find that my anxiety has been significantly reduced since I started using a CPAP machine for sleep apnea. So getting checked out sure nothing is interfering with regular breathing or circulation or blood pressure can help a person feel like they are on solid footing.
So many of us have been skipping our regular health visits during the pandemic — it can be a big relief just to don your N95 mask and go in for a physical exam or checkup, get some basic bloodwork done, catch up on preventive medicine.
If you don’t have a regular health care provider, you can sign up for health coverage at https://www.healthcare.gov/ or find a low-cost community clinic at https://findahealthcenter.hrsa.gov/
Good luck feeling your best!
And of course a hot bath or shower does no harm…
Sometimes good music helps you feel it, too. My favorite is “Havana (remix)” by Camila Cabello and Daddy Yankee. The soundtrack of Buena Vista Social Club helps me relax and feel good too.
I forgot to add coconut water for electrolyte balance. Another fave!
Or just good old Mac n Cheese, or your go-to comfort food. (Mine is Tuna Melts.) Something that brings back happy and safe memories.
Just comes down to what makes you feel most like YOU yourself.
Thanks for all the wonderful suggestions Laura, means so much!!! 🥹
I’m also quitting caffeine and cannabis till Saturday to see if that helps!
That’s great, The Wellerman! Good luck! I’m really glad you are focusing on your health and wellbeing.
Say, anyone know any nice, healthy recipes involving roasted garlic/onions?
Just about anything you cook with roasted onions and garlic will be good. I just had roasted brussels sprouts and zucchini with roast onions and garlic (just put it all in a pyrex pie dish, brushed olive oil on the top and bottom, and stuck it in the toaster oven at 450 degrees for 30 minutes). I topped it with greek yoghurt cilantro salad dressing, mustard, mayo, hot sauce, and canned tuna fish. DIVINE! And it took only a few minutes to make (minus the baking).
If you’re feeling fancy, split pea soup or lentil soup with salt and pepper can be pretty wonderful with roast onions and garlic. You can roast them on a grill, or in a pan, or in a toaster oven, or even in an oven. Doesn’t really matter how, so long as they get toasty.
(You roast the onions and garlic, not the soup.)
Ooo! I was just thinking something like roasted onion and chicken or turkey fried rice style, but that sounds super neat too!
Say, ya think peanuts or chili peppers could somehow fit into that recipe maybe?
All of the above! Yes please, more please, thank you! ;-9
You are making me so hungry thinking of split pea lentil soup with chicken and turkey fried rice, onions, garlic, peanuts, and just a tiny dash of salt, pepper, and chili pepper! Maybe some yams?
Friend, when it comes to cooking, the only limits are your imagination!
Just thinking of cooking gets me all excited! Euphoria!
Sorry, sorry, I’ll try to keep it G-rated… Gracious me, that was unexpected!
Thank you so much for sharing! 🥹
And by the way, no real need to keep it G-rated.
After all, my goal to fix my libido was kinda why I started this inquiry in the first place 😆
Maybe you don’t think about that as a broken machine to be fixed, but rather like a comfy slipper or a warm blanket that will be there to wrap around you when you need it. Or a warm bath you could slip into. I’ve gone through many “dry spells” and the littlest things — like just thinking about making a delicious soup — can bring it back. It’s like remembering just a few notes of an old song, even if you can’t recall all the lyrics or the melody. It comes flooding back unexpectedly, when you give it time and don’t try to force yourself to remember.
…Hey, I want to thank you for this query and the opportunity to talk about this. It’s good to remember that we are all gorgeous, vivacious, sensuous beings, and that sexuality doesn’t have to be tied to any one particular outlet or object.
Just brushing your hair or wiggling your toes can make you feel sexy. That special feeling can creep up on you any time.
Sexuality can just BE. Like a heavenly aroma hanging in the air after cooking something delicious. Or like the feeling of turning the A/C or the heater on. Just like a feeling of being at home.
Thank you once more Laura! 🥹
This gives me hope, and although not sexual, it’s giving me good feelings already! 😊
By the way, before i go, one more thing. Although Mac and Cheese is technically “healthy” as it is, is there any way to make it healthier, maybe by adding less or substituting the instant packet?
Laura, you have synesthesia, don’t you?
So glad, friend!
BTW, I just saw this and it looked delicious (albeit a tad too gendered for my taste…):
https://www.berries.com/blog/aphrodisiac-foods
There are some variations on Mac n Cheese to make it healthier. Skipping the salt, or using iodized salt, for one. (Getting the right amount of Iodine is especially important for all of us these days, and it plays a role in sexual and mental health too.)
Or using noodles made with whole wheat flour or chick pea flour or lentil flour or rice flour. Some people use a little nutritional yeast for an extra-cheesy flavor and a healthy dose of B vitamins. Your choice of milk can make it healthier too. I like using a healthy margarine made with vegetable oils that are high in Omega-3 Essential Fatty Acids, for brain health.
And if you want to experiment with the Mac and Cheese to make it go further, you can use it as the base for a casserole. You can add all sorts of stuff to a macaroni casserole — tuna fish, canned black beans, chick peas, canned corn, canned tomatoes, green beans, zucchini, mushrooms, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, chili peppers, curry powder, cinnamon, garlic, ginger… Sky’s the limit! And so long as you are using the canned stuff, it’s all pretty quick and cheap to mix together.
Not all of these ingredients at once, of course, but mixing and matching is fun. Like, you could do spinach, mushrooms, and Swiss cheese and Italian spices, if you wanted your Mac casserole to taste especially French.
Only thing is that canned foods are very high in sodium, so it’s best to pick the low sodium kinds wherever possible, and drain canned foods (or even rinse them sometimes!) to remove the salt water.
But yeah, Mac and Cheese makes the best base for whatever I want to eat up because it’s healthy and cheap but which would be kind of unexciting on its own. #1 rule: have fun and get a little wild!
Enjoy!
Hmm, that’s an interesting question, Eh Whatever. Good to see you here! Thank you for asking!
I’ve never thought about synesthesia. What’s it like? Is it kind of like my little unexpected hot flash from thinking about cooking just now? If so, then probably, yes, I would assume so, maybe.
I saw you recommended oysters, but tried to look a health hazards due to the presence of heavy metal. Oysters are known to concentate it (a bit like mushrooms), so if you don’t want heavy metals, don’t eat oysters (and most sea shells). I you like heavy metal, Blue Oyster Cult is possible.
Serious and punny recommandations apart, I am tempted to comment on the “soul” or “energetic” aspect just after a comic about a person turned on by science… but whatever works I guess.
Hi khn0! 🙂 Oh, wow, yes, thank you for that reminder! Yes, seafood can be risky, and especially shellfish. I appreciate your advice! (And the music recommendation, too.)
Yes, it’s always a bit odd mixing up the subjective experience (psychological constructions like libido, hard to quantify and measure) with the scientific (ensuring a diet adequate in nutrients). Nothing is an exact science when it comes to the psychology of the body. Diet and sensuality and sexuality often interrelate via subjective emotional and psychospiritual experience of sensation and memory.
But the messiness and metaphor and deliberate use of belief can be part of what makes the experimentation so much fun, sometimes. 🙂 Remember the old folk tale about the elephant with the “magic feather”? (“The magic was in you, all along!”) Or the story of the Cowardly Lion in Wizard of Oz, whose belief in a “wizard’s” promise motivated him to find his own courage. Or the troops who dosed themselves with “Dutch courage.” (The alcohol didn’t really make them brave, but it lowered their inhibitions, which caused them to feel braver.)
Placebo can be a form of doublethink, or conscious induction of belief. Using one’s own mental associations to gather up confidence and courage and calm. If the project is getting in touch with emotions, all tools are on the table.
__________
Eh Whatever, after your comment, I looked up synesthesia. Doesn’t sound like my experience. Thank you for asking, though!
Lasagna with no noodles and cheese, in soup form? Why not just take the crust and cheese and sauce off a pizza while you’re at it? Just toppings in a bowl.
Well, that’s basically ratatouille, no? Delish! :-9
Lasagna was strictly for Christmas. It takes two days to cook the meatballs the right way so they get the flavor from the homegrown tomatoes. Then you break down the meatballs while building the lasagna, making sure to get enough of the ricotta and parmesan into the corners so the people who get those pieces will be happy.
The corners are important, Especially if the cook rushes things, the corners are cooked through first, our of the pan.
I’d never thought I’d say anything like this, but recently I found out that too much lasagna does exist. I am painting my new apartment, and I thought I’d buy a family pack of lasagna so I don’t have to cook for a few days. 3rd day of lasagna was miserable. I was craving salad so hard…
Come on, Sarah can have nice moments too you know? I think being around Joyce has made Sarah happier over all.
That driver? Garfield himself.
Ah, but Liz doesn’t want to have lunch with Sarah. Therefore this is indeed Sarah.
I mean, obviously the ride share driver is wearing her skin. Honestly, you should reserve these comments for the harder to glean underlying themes and stories, not the obvious surface level details we can all immediately see.
See Liz? Sarah doesn’t dislike you, she just wants you to do your best.
Sarah loving and cherishing Liz has never been up to question, let alone from Sarah herself.
But you can’t just be a cantankerous douchebag 90% of your life and then just help out when you feel like it. Han Solo got to be a hero in the end but then he, y’know, stayed one. He didn’t go back to being a smirking douchebag rogue.
you gotta watch out for the guy who has exacting standards for other peoples’ behavior.
WHAT
This is Sarah’s twin, Sara. They were conjoined at birth, but separated, and took their revenge on the doctors who performed the operation.
There’s some debate about who was the evil one. Sure, Sarah is much meaner, but Sara will claim she doesn’t want fries and then eat like half of yours.
As a foodie I literally cannot decide which would be worse.
Ooo! You’re a foodie? 😃
Do you have a blog? Had anything interesting lately? 😋
Sarah drove off just far enough to realize the meanest evillest thing she could do to her sister is leave on a good note so Liz can’t even be mad noatter how much she wants to be.
A perfect attack for which there is no defense. A fullscreen unblockable, the kind of shit they’re going to give Lab Coat Android 21 in the next patch.
The driver started trying to make conversation, Sarah had to take drastic measures
I’m not saying I’ve debated a tuck and roll at 65 miles per hour due to Lyft conversation, but I’ve definitely debated a tuck and roll at 65 miles per hour due to Lyft conversation.
This would not surprise me if this was somehow tomorrow’s punchline
“this time I will eat TWO toasts”
This is a very interesting twist, hmm.
Haaaa, knew she’d be back. She may be strategically mean, but she does have pretty decent sistering skills. She’s best in a crisis, and that’s when it’s easiest to notice, but she has her moments outside those too.
I figured she’d come back, but I’m kinda surprised we didn’t see her change her mind directly. Makes me really wonder what made her decide to come back.
Strategic meanness.
And now Sarah hangs out, plays some Mario, almost has an ill advised hook up, and has to be dragged back to IU after a couple days
Or they just get lunch and Sarah begrudgingly helps Liz through her own insecurities
The entire rest of DoA will keep cutting between the two of them ping-ponging between IU and Ball, each taking turns being the responsible sister who drags the other home against their will.
That Zoomr driver is gonna be rich.
I’ve mentioned it before but I really hope the big twist is there’s no twist at all. There’s no horrific tragedy for Liz, she’s just feeling the effects of peer pressure and the fear of disappointing her friends who AREN’T religious fanatics but just cheerfully faithful.
Basically, Liz is living Saved by the Bell and everyone else has been living HBO.
yeah, I figure this is just regular school drama. but because it’s happening to her, of course it’s the Worst Thing Ever.
That’s what I’ve been thinking, more or less.
The effects of peer pressure are that she’s being expected to remain a dumb naive churchy girl because the people around her think it’s funny and more convenient to them.
Also Christian sexual puritanism convinced her that touching a penis would defile her for the rest of her life.
Those feel like real issues to me.
I think part of the issue is that she views church people as dumb and naive which is something that is hopefully not.
The encounter with Joe ended up horribly and is the biggest evidence there’s something genuinely wrong but we’ll have to see more.
You tend to have poor feelings for the massive cultural institution you’re part of when being in it makes you miserable, especially when that misery started with your peers treating you like a naive idiot baby.
There’s nothing really more to see about Liz’s entirely Christian sexual guilt complex, she was taught that if she touched a penis she’d be a hellbound slut.
Perhaps but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more.
Okay but the “more” in this case would be more Christian-brand sexual puritanism guilt.
Just the ordinary pressure a young woman feels from friends and family to act a certain way, be a certain way, and believe a certain thing. Liz doesn’t know about the horrible trauma that estranged Joyce from her family and community, she only sees the relative freedom Joyce and others enjoy at IU.
Oh!
Well this is good.
PLOT TWIST
I gasped.
….is Sarah ok though she’s not trapped here she’s genuinely just trying to connect, right?
Even when she’s being nice, it has the side-effect of undercutting.
Well played.
Is she being nice, or is she planning on telling Liz’s friends about what Liz was up to/saying?
Likely in an effort to make Liz confront her own beliefs in a healthier way, but still.
Smile says she’s being nice. Although there may be further strategic meanness in the way you predict.
The heck is she pulling a switcheroo?
maybe she’ll intentionally/’stategically’ come off as bongoy to juanita so anything liz does after she leaves for real will look better in comparison lol
bongoy?
anon means “b**chy”. The actual word is censored.
son of a benchahh, good place filter, i see ill keep that in mind for next timeword that rhymes with witch is banned and will correct to ‘bongo’ (iirc because a lot of people were overusing it in really misogynistic ways), now lots of people just use bongo instead
Huh. Learned something new. Thanks!
My guess is that Sarah got on the highway, found out that the driver was Dana, realized she didn’t want to get stuck on the highway for 2 hours with Dana, so she cancelled the ride and is stuck at Ball State now until she can figure out another way to get back to IU. Given that she could only afford the ride out to Muncie by using Carla’s corporate account, Sarah may have a hard time returning without the previously booked ride back to school.
That would be what Carla referred to as her “galaxy brain: epic prank.”
That’s my prediction, anyway.
…Apropos of nothing, did you folks catch that, in the Supreme Court confirmation hearings today, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson identified her religion as “nondenominational Protestant”? Think that means she’s Evangelical?
Of course it’s fine if she is — as she said, a Supreme Court justice should put their personal religious views aside and judge only based on the law. Just interesting, given that a quick internet search appears to say that there haven’t been self-identified Evangelical justices on the Supreme Court before.
…Not trying to start a political argument or anything, just thought it might be interesting to folks here, given the religious themse in DoA in general.
*themes
I think she was just being strategic by not going into specifics. Non demo doesn’t necessarily mean Evangelical. If she got specific the senate committee would find a way to flip it on her as they have with past nominees, and from a poli sci point of view she probably doesn’t want to potentially alienate people watching at home. Very interesting stuff!
True. I was glued to the newsfeed most of the day, I regret to say.
Most likely. In some circles “nondenominational” is kind of a buzzword for a certain brand of fundamentalist Evangelical, but it can also be used more generically.
It’s also worth pointing out that politically black Evangelical churches are entirely different things than white Evangelical ones, though I don’t know if she has any connection to either. Evangelical can be something of a sloppy term in casual use.
Interesting, thank you!
“Evangelical” hardly means anything anymore. Even Catholics can be evangelical in America.
Doesn’t non-denominational protestant also just mean “not catholic”? My boyfriend is a Christian but doesn’t identify as anything more specific than protestant and has a very personal relationship with religion that wouldn’t belong to any specific denomination but is also the furthest thing from evangelical.
That’s kind of my impression. In that sense it probably implies you don’t go to a specific church regularly — or you’d identify as that church does.
Churches that define as “non-denominational” are specifically claiming not to belong to one of the broad grouping (like Methodist, Baptist, etc) and to just be “Christian”, but that mostly just masks which tradition they draw their theology from.
These two are both really good at never actually leaving when they say they’re gonna.
Maybe this is Ball State Sarah, a completely different entity from the Sarah we know.
Maybe she got a gander at the Letterman Communication and Media Building https://www.bsu.edu/web/letterman/building
The only connection I have to Mr. Letterman is buying stuff from his Indycar race team Letterman-Rahal-Lanigan.
Remember everyone, Joyce is still miserable off screen so Sarah is still balancing the Universe
Big sister is soft inside ♡.
I feel like sisters in general are strategically mean, but boy does “she paid for my 2 hour uber ride back to school which is being paid for me by my dad and isn’t letting me drop out without saying anything” not really registering on my radar as mean.
Sarah has a very practical worldview, like you. She will sacrifice her time and money to help the people she loves. If she thinks she knows better than someone, she will help them against their will. This of course feels mean to Liz, who is still young and naive. But at the same time she understands that returning to school and not rocking the boat was a smart choice.
The guilt works!
If I had a dime for every young woman who was living on campus despite not being a student and who was subsequently physically attacked and forced off campus by an insane family member who doesn’t like who she’s having sex with and was trying to get her to go to church, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it happened twice.
Actually, what’s REALLY weird is that this chapter is mostly cutting between this storyline and Becky/Dina, as if Willis is actively trying to get us to compare and contrast Sarah and Toedad. And, obviously, Sarah hasn’t tried to kill anyone, she’s not a threat the way Toedad was, but beyond that I’m not entirely certain what I’m meant to take from the allusion, since the comic is kind of taking Sarah’s side.
I’m lost… Did Sarah want Liz to go to church (in this case I must have missed an update) or are you speaking of an IRL experience?
…two… dimes?
How’s the comic taking Sarah’s side?
Sarah’s only contribution is that she’s forcing Liz to face problems that Sarah thinks are stupid, because she thinks the series’ main character having them is stupid too.
Like let alone taking Sarah’s side, I dunno how Sarah has any positive qualities to doing what she’s done outside of some vague boomer-ass nonsense view on tough love. It feels pretty one-sided to me to see someone you profess to love have a problem, and then you tell them their problem is stupid and fake, drag them back to the situation causing them pain on the grounds that actually they just want to good off, all in the name of only engaging in emotional support in a crisis in a way that Joyce said was exhausting and made her think Sarah hated over like ten years ago.
I guess my confusion is that Liz’s situation has so much in common with Becky’s that I think Willis wants us to make the connection because what Sarah’s doing is super controlling and fucked up, but also Ross was waving a shotgun around and comparing Sarah’s actions to literal murder attempts is insane.
Liz isn’t Becky, she’s Joyce.
Oh okay I see what you mean now.
Yeah Liz isn’t really similar to Becky in that regard. Her life isn’t in danger, she’s not the victim of Christian status quo-sanctioned oppression where she’s gonna get shoved into conversion therapy, but she’s being treated poorly by her friends at college because she arrived there a certain kind of person that the people around her came to view in a certain kind of way, and she fears how they’ll treat her if she stops being that certain kind of person, except the person she was is someone they relentlessly exploit as a source of mockery.
She’s Joyce, basically. Maybe Sarah got so attached to Joyce because she already had one. Liz ran away in a panic because she can either stay miserable or let the truth out with her friends, which *gestures broadly at the last five months where Joyce was forcibly outed as an atheist by Becky, told she should find a nice deism by Hillary Clinton, and then had to go play emotional support for someone who’s trying to convert her back to godliness after being told giving it up was like tearing her organs out, on the grounds that Joyce isn’t allowed to be traumatized in a way Becky doesn’t approve of*
There might be some Becky shit going on for Liz depending on how invested her stepmom is in her remaining Christian, that’s the kinda thing a crazy ass evangelical would do to their atheist child, but the Joyce parallel’s been laid on pretty thick so I’m reading this much more as Liz being the victim of her friends than of an abusive stepmother.
Yes, I think there is a theme of controlling parents in this comic, and with Sarah acting like an authority figure in this series of strips I understand the parallels. And yes Willis does treat Sarah with more sympathy than Ross, implying that this is a more nuanced situation and the parallels are not exact.
If you had a dime every time this [insert thing here] happened, you’d have two nickels? Inflation is out of control!
She’s up all night for lasagna
Awww
If you subscribe to the $25 tier on Patreon, you can read the short comic where Sarah’s cab driver is revealed to be a sagely wizard who transports the cab to a fantastical universe where Sarah goes on a magical journey that teaches her the importance of family and emotional honesty, then returning home triumphant after her victory over the Dark Lord at the same time she left.
Ah, I thought it might just be Carlyle.
Hey friends. It’s good to be here among friends, thinking about lasagna and comics and other wonderful things.
My late partner would have been 48 today. Just kind of hit me like a wave.
If I act particularly mother-hen-ish in the comments these days, that’s why. I just miss him. It’s good to have friends to cluck at.
Ah :(. Sorry for your loss Laura. Hope there is some comfort to be found in thinking about lasagna, comics, and…all of it.
Thank you Steelbright.
Ouch, I hope you remember sweet things on this sad day. Thanks for being such a kind and caring commenter. Take care Laura
Thank you, milu. It’s been a good day, and tomorrow will be another good day.
(( <3 ))
I would very much dig it if it turned out that suddenly, Sarah found she did not want to return to HER friends & their positions were reversed
Hahaha! Now Sarah doesn’t want to go back. Sarah will lurk on Ball State’s campus. You can’t get rid of her that easily, Liz.
Is it just me or does Juanita has this Lucy/Joyce vibe of a sweet puppy?
Everyone’s up for some lasagna. It’s the only thing on the menu
Meanwhile, Steve’s eating cereal.
…
Actually, what would kill me is if this plot line continued for a few more days, got to a major point, and then cut back to the Becky/Dina show… for a completely dialogue-free comic where they’re eating cereal and making eyes at each other and reacting to the afterglow of sex. Just to really embrace the joke. 😀
Sarah: “That peel-out was AMAZING!”
Driver: “Yes, and it was $50 for it.”
Sarah: “…”
Driver: :And of course on top of the standard fare for your ride back home.”
Sarah: “yeaaaaa, you can just let me out here…”
I didn’t expect Sarah to actually come back. She didn’t seem like she really cared about the problems Liz was going through before now to me.
Agreed so it’s nice to see a small change of heart.
It’s Sarah being smart. If she doesn’t help Liz get her life in order, Liz will just cause even more drama and be back in Sarah’s life sooner. Best to nip it in the bud.
Aw this is sweet, I appreciate Sarah making an effort. She looks genuinely shy instead of angry, so I think it’s a real offer and not just another opportunity to lecture Liz.
I think a lot of people (including Sarah) are ascribing Liz financial privilege about the ability to to college on someone else’s dime as well as focus on partying versus her future. Sarah’s financial situation seems pretty strict and Spartan so that her studies are the most important thing to her because any mistake could cost her the chance at a law degree and her future.
Liz does not see college as IMPORTANT or RELEVANT to her future. It’s like going camping or on vacation.
Which means Sarah is FURIOUS with her.
Which we saw Sarah and her weed smoking room mate.
Sarah’s weed smoking roommate was so deep in depression from her mother’s death that she couldn’t function in a public space anymore. Sarah has described calling Dana’s dad as the hardest thing she has ever done in her life.
I’ve long expected the “twist” in the Dana story being that if/when she returns to the story she turns out to be grateful to Sarah and Raidah telling Sarah that “Dana’s miserable” was based on outdated information if not something Raidah made up because she thought it would hurt Sarah
I’ve been a big proponent for Dana being worse off (most likely that both Sarah and Raidah failed her), and with how Sarah’s treated both Joyce and now Liz, I think it’d be a good way to examine Sarah’s tendency to only give back in a crisis, and then by taking control of it without really empathizing.
The most difficult moment in Sarah’s life happened when Dana was suffering and she was the only one to see it, because Dana kept up a facade around the others. Sarah is forced to make the hard choice that ruins her other friendships, and the only thing she gets to hold onto is the knowledge that she did right by Dana and eventually Dana herself will see that.
(there’s maybe some other details to plumb like how Sarah wonders if her attempts at support made things worse, and that she sold getting Dana help as “you know what’s unforgiving? The terms of my scholarship!” There’s stuff that can be revealed or further extrapolated from that time, but let’s just roll with what we’ve got)
Consequently, I think Sarah and Raidah’s feud eventually stopped being about Dana, it was about getting back at the other, and so whatever they did was just automatically right. Raidah can take it out on Sarah as much as she wants since it’s her fault, and Sarah doesn’t have to consider the slightest possibility that Raidah had a point that, last she checked, Dana was not getting better (which has the added implication that Sarah herself has not been checking, which, yeah that’s feasible).
What I think Sarah took from that ordeal and the subsequent bullying from her old friends is that she’ll do the right thing no matter what anyone says, a belief system that requires Sarah to intimately know she is right, which is, I think, why she only knows how to give back in a crisis; if it’s up to Sarah, it’s because it wasn’t resolvable through someone else. Joyce should not have gone to the party and Billie and Dorothy didn’t keep her safe, and so Sarah roars in with a bat and solves it good and proper.
But she doesn’t care about what Liz is going through, and she doesn’t care that Joyce has the same struggle. They’re both frauds, and so Joyce is an Edgy Atheist who’s worse than she ever was as a fundie and needs to go back to being the person that Sarah bonded with Jacob over by laughing about how she’s a fucking idiot who believes nonsense and will snap and suck a billion dicks, and Liz is obviously just a spoiled slacker who doesn’t appreciate the privilege of going to college through her parents’ dime (ah, Americans).
Sarah loves them both, she painfully cares for Joyce and Liz, but she sees them both in a state where what they need is a long chat and a hug, and Sarah can’t give that. Sarah sees their problem as their fault, so she needs to bulldoze through them to solve it.
And where I think this ties back to Dana is that she was someone Sarah was left all alone to care for, so whatever decision Sarah made was right. It’s, I think, the moment that taught Sarah how to act in a crisis, and now that behaviour that may or may not have worked for Dana (if nothing else, Sarah had no choice; her scholarships were at risk) is failing Joyce and Liz. Going back to the origin point, that Sarah failed to help Dana and she’s been patting herself on the back for a lie this whole time, I think it’d break her half enough to make her realize that she can’t just keep going by making everyone around her do all the emotional labour.
needs to go back to being the person that Sarah bonded with Jacob over by laughing about how she’s a fucking idiot who believes nonsense
I mean, if we’re going with a narrative that Sarah Has To Believe She’s Right, it seems relevant that she has very much realised that this was wrong.
“Joyce, this is worse.”
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/01-sister-christian/worse-2/
Sarah wants her triangle smiling, emotional constipation resolving, dad punching teddy bear who does all the relationship labour between them.
I mean, you can also quote the rest of that comic, which makes it clear that what Sarah misses most of all is Joyce’s desire to make the world a better place.
You know, just saying.
“Joyce needs to go back to who she used to be for my convenience” was the subtext of that post, yes.
This is bang-on. Really good insight into the dynamics of the Joyce situation, too, something a lot of people in these comments couldn’t see and didn’t want to.
I think that Sarah did what Carla did. Raidah is Jennifer.
Sarah is Carla.
She probably saved Dana’s life.
Small point of clarification: Carla got Ruth to medical professionals, objective adults who have no stake in punishing her. Sarah did not apply to anyone at the school for help. She went directly to the parent and emphasized the drug use. The results may have been less than helpful.
In any case I’m VERY surprised and tentatively hopeful at this development. What revelations shall show up at lunch?
Hmm, so Sarah is another member of the teleport club?
I’m thinking that Sarah went “… yeah I can’t just leave her there to fend for herself I gotta support her through this” and got the not-uber driver to take her back.
Either that or she got kicked out of the cab for reasons(tm) and now she had to wait for a good time to take public transit back to IU lol
“was that your big sister?” shouldnt’ she already know if theyr’e facebook friends? (unless sarah doesn’t list liz as her step sister in the relationship section or whatever)