Hello friends,

Today is my birthday! I’m turning 37. Since I already went through my quarter-life crisis when I turned 35, this year’s incremental upgrade doesn’t make me feel like I’ve suddenly become old. On the contrary, I feel like I’ve figured out how to live a good life, how to focus on what matters, and how to enjoy the time I have with the people I love. What more could I wish for?

Anyway, enough about me and my ongoing battle with entropy. Let’s focus on… more of me!

This post is a little different. I won’t be sharing all of that week’s comics because some of them are from my recent trip to the UK, and those will get their own post. Instead, you’re in for plenty of thoughts on courage, packing, and, of course, cats.

Enjoy!

Monday

Keeping up a long-distance friendship requires sacrifices. Mine is spending the last 30 minutes of Cecilia’s and my regular FaceTime session in agony because I drank way too much water while we were talking.

Tuesday

It took me quite a long time to realise that I tend to get hangry. Once I noticed it, the fallout was reduced significantly, and I’d consider it a solved problem now. But it’s funny how we sometimes don’t reflect enough on the connection between our bodies and our moods, and end up spending years running around grumpy simply because we haven’t eaten and never made that link.

(I really can’t complain about too many meetings, though. We have a very strict “Let’s not fill everyone’s days with something that could just as well be a non-synchronous Slack thread” policy. So when a meeting runs longer than planned, it’s usually for good reason.)

Wednesday

Hamburg is considering a bid to host the Olympic Games, and the citizens have been voting on it. It’s been a recurring topic in my group of friends over the past couple of months, and we’re more or less evenly split on the issue.

I understand and respect the “no” votes, but I’ve decided I’d rather see us try our best and possibly fail than not try at all. It’s the more optimistic perspective, and I want to see my city as one that’s brave enough to take that chance.

The Lambert & Friends concert was great! Anna was shocked that I broke the rules and smuggled in outside food, but she was still very happy to have something to snack on.