awkward

Marcel arrives for a chest treatment but receives a facial, then relaxes as the aesthetician massages his face.

I tend to get milia on my chest. The aesthetician didn't know why that would ever happen and made me feel like some weird edge case of a human being, but getting my face smushed for 50 minutes made me forget that affront pretty quickly.

This was a nice experience. Unnecessarily expensive, because I ended up getting something I never wanted, but while lying there, getting every pore of my upper body cleaned out, I decided to consider it a good investment in having something to draw about that day. Do it for the comic!

Marcel orders vegan dürüm kebabs from a clerk who keeps whispering, making Marcel struggle to understand him.

When he actually spoke up, I could understand him perfectly, but he insisted on whispering even though the place was pretty noisy and I obviously couldn’t make out what he was saying. The interaction was somehow even more absurd in real life than it is in this comic.

Marcel pretends he has not been drawing while painting a robin as a surprise gift for Anna.

I lied to Anna for her own good, because I’d prepared a little gift for her, and her investigative skills were dangerously close to ruining the surprise. Thankfully, I’m apparently a pathological liar, because she didn’t suspect a thing and was very happy to receive this little robin.

Marcel visits Edinburgh with Anna, sees the castle and Bobby’s grave, meets Raphael for coffee, and has dinner with Raphael and Marion.

I expected to like Edinburgh more than I did. The people were great, but the city just didn’t have the right vibe for me.

Marcel hurries to the toilet while holding a tablet during a video call with Cecilia.

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.