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Her boyfriend asked her to draw a comic about their relationship. Hilarity ensued.

The series combines humor and playful drawings with spot-on depictions of the intense familiarity that long-standing coupledom often brings.

All images by Catana Chetwynd

This article originally appeared on 05.12.17.

"It was all his idea."

An offhand suggestion from her boyfriend of two years coupled with her own lifelong love of comic strips like "Calvin and Hobbes" and "Get Fuzzy" gave 22-year-old Catana Chetwynd the push she needed to start drawing an illustrated series about long-term relationships.

Specifically, her own relationship.

The drawings are refreshingly touching, honest, and instantly recognizable to anyone who's ever had to learn to live with, for, and around a long-term partner.

Chetwynd says her goal is to explore the peculiar aspects of relationships at different stages, using her own as the master template.

The series combines humor and playful drawings with spot-on depictions of the intense familiarity that long-standing coupledom often brings.

The comics are almost too real — and really, really funny.

If the following comics capture your relationship to a T, you're most definitely not alone.

(All images by Catana Chetwynd.)

"When I started doing the comic, we hadn't lived together or anything yet, and now we've done the whole thing of moving in together and meeting the parents and everything," Chetwynd says.

The evolution of their relationship provides the creative fuel for the comic strip. Thankfully, her boyfriend John Freed is fully on board with being depicted in (digital) ink — despite having to occasionally awkwardly explain things that appear in the strip to their family and friends.

The connection she has built with Freed, Chetwynd says she wouldn't trade for anything — especially now that it inspires her art.

"The end goal for me was always to have somebody that I could be comfortable with in this way, and I think I got that."

You can follow Catana Comics on Facebook and Twitter, and can view the whole series on Chetwynd's website.

Health

This Morning, I Didn't Know What A Binaural Soundscape Was. Now All I Want To Do Is Listen To Them.

The results are astounding.

Image via Pixabay.

A total mind expanding experience is a click away.

I found a hidden gem on the Internet this week: NPR has a Soundcloud set of "binaural soundscapes." Strap on your headphones — it's going to be a surreal ride.Important note: If you have hearing loss, this may not work well for you.

Maybe you don't know what a binaural recording is.

Basically, the deal is, you have two ears.

They are the width of your head apart. And there's a big lumpy meatball in the middle. So your ears hear different things. Then your brain processes these two distinct streams of information and uses them to position stuff in space. Standard stereo recording often uses a couple of mics, but it's not trying to position them in a way that mimics your ears.

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Only 1% of all Americans get to experience this incredible sight.

It used to be something that everyone saw any evening when they walked out their door.

Photo by Warren Wong on Unsplash

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Wow. I never thought about how rare this is before, but many people literally can go their whole lives without experiencing the vastness of space and their own smallness.

It used to be something that everyone saw any evening when they walked out their door.

It used to be that when you looked up at the night sky, you would see deep into the farthest reaches of space and time, but now...

Nope.

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Want To Be Happy? You Only Have To Do 1 Thing. Over And Over.

How to encourage that impulse to grow within ourselves, our communities, and our children.

Photo by Tyler Nix on Unsplash

The sum is stronger than the individual parts.

Matthieu Ricard says that the way for all of us to live sustainably on this planet is to adopt a culture of thinking about each other. And not just the others who are here right now, but also people we'll never meet.

He tells us some stuff that you're probably tired of hearing. We're exhausting our planets resources. Humanity has completely screwed everything up on this planet.

But stick around because he's going to get crazy surprising.

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Her boyfriend asked her to draw a comic about their relationship. Hilarity ensued.

The series combines humor and playful drawings with spot-on depictions of the intense familiarity that long-standing coupledom often brings.

"It was all his idea."

Chetwynd says her goal is to explore the peculiar aspects of relationships at different stages, using her own as the master template.

"When I started doing the comic, we hadn't lived together or anything yet, and now we've done the whole thing of moving in together and meeting the parents and everything," Chetwynd says.

Unbelievable. 😂

Every parent has been there.

Every parent has been there.

Mom and blogger Danielle Silverstein made an "admission" on Facebook: "I really AM a hot-mess mom."

Near the end of the now super-viral post, Silverstein reaches an important realization.

The post has racked up thousands of shares and comments from other parents who want to say, "YES! THANK YOU!"

Kids were tougher then for a reason.

The results are astounding.

Basically, the deal is, you have two ears.

Recording artists have started building these crazy microphone setups that imitate the position and direction of your real ears.

It's like a window into other landscapes. It makes the world feel so close and small and familiar.

First stop: A regular day on a street in Tibet.

Next up, a stop in the Ecuadorean rain forest to hear the song of the orapendula. (It's a bird. I looked it up.)

Let's wrap up with a visit to Dzanga Bai, a clearing in the Central African Republic, where elephants gather as evening closes in.

For more magical journeys, check out the rest of NPR's Binaural Soundscapes.

It used to be something that everyone saw any evening when they walked out their door.

Wow. I never thought about how rare this is before, but many people literally can go their whole lives without experiencing the vastness of space and their own smallness.

Not anymore. We're lighting up our cities like never before.

Over 99% of Americans in the continental U.S. live in areas that are considered light polluted.

Are you scared of total darkness?

How to encourage that impulse to grow within ourselves, our communities, and our children.

But stick around because he's going to get crazy surprising.

And, let's be honest, it's easy not to feel crazy urgent about this, right?

When we consider how we treat our planet, when we're talking about big action, we're doing it because we'd like our kids and grandkids to not live in a post-apocalyptic hellscape.

But then he offers a solution.

An international survey found that the very most perfect predictor of happiness is the quality of human relationships.

But how do we encourage that impulse to grow within ourselves, our communities, and our children?