For so many reasons, I am having trouble putting together my thoughts this morning. Of course there is the practical reason: that we are going to France tomorrow, and I still need to pack, and make sure I have everything written down, and check into our flight. I have to work today, and tie up loose ends on my projects, and decide between my many notebooks so I have the right one with me in Paris.

And then there is the Supreme Court nomination, a process which has grown so vile in its disregard for women as human beings—as opposed to human-shaped objects—that I’m having trouble keeping myself from screaming. So many teenage girls being forced to articulate the plain fact that being raped as a teen means being raped in real life.

Listen. I know the last panel of this comic is hard to see unless you zoom in; I tried lots of ways to fix it last night, but in the end I didn’t have time to fully re-draw anything, so I’m just going to explain it: the ghosts are in his eyes. If you look close you can see it.

I tried making him levitate, I tried adding a spooky shadow. Let us just trust that this is a humble pig, that his haunting is a humble haunting, which has not affected his good cheer. Is this not what we ask of women in America every day, that they sublimate what haunts them, that they push it down and away and pretend it does not affect their feelings about men in general and men in particular, that their haunting might be visible in their eyes, but they must not let it affect their good cheer?

I just wanted it to be a spooky Halloween pig. I mean, honestly.

Guys, I am packing up and leaving the country today for real, and though it is just for vacation, and though I would not want to be kept from coming back (under her breath, You can’t get rid of me that easily, I’ve already seen it all) it is such blessedly good timing. I am so lucky in so many ways to be able to take this vacation, but not least is the fact that I may shrug off, for a few days at least, the heavy burdens of being alive in a world of responsibilities—other people’s, my own, all of it. The country has been asking a lot of us all, just in the matter of staying alive, and my god I need rest.

We all need rest.

I love so many of you so much. I will eat croissants. I will take pictures. See you in a couple of weeks. Take care of yourselves, beautiful people.