A-Z: Hyperbole and a Half - The Greatest Blog Ever! (Except Maybe for this One)

Hyperbole and a Half is a site that has been inactive, in recent months, but I am hoping the creator returns to posting soon, as Allie Brosh is an amazingly funny and talented artist. She combines hilarious narrative with deceptively simple looking cartoons.

In the meantime, I am visiting the site when I can, and catching up on back posts.  Which is why Hyperbole and a Half is one of:

My 26 Favorite Ways to Piss Away Time Do Valuable Research on the Interwebs.

Take, for example, Wild Animal (The Simple Dog Goes for a Joy Ride)
(partial excerpt - much more on her post)

In the park where we were walking, there is a large horse statue.  We had passed the statue many times without incident, but for some reason, on that day, the simple dog became highly alarmed by it.

No one expects their dog to instantaneously develop an extremely specific fear of horse statues, and I was unprepared for her reaction, which was to sprint powerfully in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, what the simple dog lacks in cognitive capacity, she makes up in ground speed, and her sudden fleeing yanked the leash from my hand.

I chased her all the way across the park and into an adjacent neighborhood. She ran into a partially fenced yard and, when her forward trajectory was interrupted by the fence, she began to gallop in giant, crazy circles just out of my reach.

I'm fairly certain she had already forgotten what she was running from and had no idea what was going on, but there she was - propelling herself in endless loops around someone else's yard.  

That's only a small excerpt of one of Allie's stories.

In the very last post, Allie wrote and drew tellingly and movingly about Adventures in Depression.

But trying to use willpower to overcome the apathetic sort of sadness that accompanies depression is like a person with no arms trying to punch themselves until their hands grow back.  A fundamental component of the plan is missing and it isn't going to work.

For Allie, and for all the wonderful, incredibly talented people who get ambushed by depression or another mental illness: Welcome to the Human Race.  Sometimes we have issues we can solve ourselves, and sometimes, like a car that gets stuck in the mud or snow, we need some outside help.  Counseling, medication, nutritional support...  Needing help or getting stuck happens to everyone.

Here's hoping that Allie begins posting again soon, and enjoying life.

My A-Z theme is My 26 Favorite Ways to Piss Away Time Do Valuable Research on the Interwebs.

Wow, this post ended up going in a very different direction than I thought it would - but that's the thing about blogging sometimes, isn't it?

Have you been to Hyperbole and a Half?

Got other sites to recommend beginning with the letter "H"?