Never Not Nervous

I turned my phone into a dumb phone

Brooke Barker — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 16:03:45 GMT

I’m tired of my phone! I want to throw it in the trash! But I also use it to call people I love and, less importantly, it’s a flashlight. So a few weeks ago, I turned it into a dumb phone.

First, I made a mental list of the things I actually needed my phone to do.

What I need:

And the things I want my phone to do.

What I want:

I already know what I don’t want.

What I don’t want:

I know, I just said I need to take 400 photos a day - I just don’t want to be looking at them all day.

Fun things:

And none of these fun things are as addicting, now that my phone is in grayscale.

I also put the font on the largest setting. You know when you sit next to someone on a plane and see that their phone is in font size 90? Now that’s me you’re sitting next to.

Here’s my home screen, and the screen that shows up when you swipe to the side.

Ignore the 323 unread text message, that’s not what this is about.

The phone can do nothing else! Do I like it? I don’t know. I wrote this post a week ago, a few days after I set this system up. I’m hoping that writing this a week in advance will make me stick with it.

What do you absolutely need a phone for? Do you appreciate the whimsy of getting lost? Did you grow up with a phone? I’d like to hear about your grayscale phone, or your screentime rules for yourself, or your enjoyment of the internet without any limits at all. Do you have a favorite rendition of Hello Dolly?

Thanks for being here, in gray scale or whatever scale you’re in today. I hope your week is full of phone calls from your favorite people and a thousand things you want to take photos of.

Thanks for reading Never Not Nervous! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Do I really want a dumb phone

Brooke Barker — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 16:46:11 GMT

Stop drawing eyelashes on animals

Brooke Barker — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 14:03:06 GMT

The world is full of animals, and full of people assuming every animal is male.

I blame cartoons for this. There seems to be an established rule that all characters are male unless if they have eyelashes.

So it’s no surprise that when people are exposed to cartoons like this,

Let's go dopamine hunting

Brooke Barker — Mon, 18 May 2026 15:27:39 GMT

Is it better to be grateful or brave?

Brooke Barker — Mon, 11 May 2026 15:19:02 GMT

I heard someone say the other day (alright fine it wasn’t in real life, it was Mae Martin on Handsome) that they’d been gratitude journaling.

Gratitude, I thought. That’s it.

More gratitude is the thing my life needs. If I gratitude journal every da…

What does your favorite ice cream say about you?

Brooke Barker — Mon, 04 May 2026 21:08:04 GMT

The best way to sum up my worldview as a kid is to tell you about a time my friend's family took me out for ice cream. There were three flavor choices: vanilla, chocolate, or swirl.

The whole world was like that, one moment full of infinite possibility and the next moment drastically less cool than you thought.

Cats have nine lives!? Never mind, they’re …

How to save a bee

Brooke Barker — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 14:30:27 GMT

It’s so nice out! Come for a walk with me.

Do you wish the internet had an away message?

Brooke Barker — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 15:28:52 GMT

I'd recognize that voice anywhere

Brooke Barker — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 15:07:44 GMT

You heard that right, this month’s edition of my entirely text and image-based magazine is about the one thing text and image can’t convey: voices.

Do you like your voice? Do you like listening to your voice - do you have to listen to it often? Do you recognize your voice? Do you sound like anyone?

Erica has the last laugh

I was laughing at a friend’s house, a pretty innocuous thing to do, I thought, when their 11-year-old said “wow, when Brooke laughs she sounds like Erica.”

“That’s funny,” our friend said, and then moved on as though it wasn’t important to discuss.

“Who’s Erica?” I asked. They said she was a neighbor, sort of, it didn’t matter who Erica was. The conversation moved on, people talked some more, and I guess something funny happened, because I laughed again and our friend said “Wow she’s right, you really do laugh like Erica.”

What’s Erica laughing like? How can I laugh “like Erica”? I’m just laughing. No big deal, I put it out of my mind and we talked about something else, for another minute until I guess I laughed again and everyone wouldn’t stop going on about it.

“I can’t believe we never noticed how much your laugh sounds like Erica.”

“Wow it’s like Erica’s in the room with us, it’s uncanny.”

I tried out different laughs all weekend, with some success. But usually I laugh without thinking much about it, and when I do, I sound like Erica.

Aggressive hat reviews

Brooke Barker — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 15:29:50 GMT

I love to knit, and I love to knit hats. Knitting a hat is much faster than knitting a blanket, and you avoid all the trickiness of a sweater or jacket, where no one wants the length a little too long, or sleeves that flare out, tight armpits. A hat is just a hat, nothing to be self-conscious about.

Most of all I love knitting hats because I have a head…

My brain is a little free library

Brooke Barker — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 15:06:38 GMT

We’re lucky to live in a neighborhood rich with little free libraries.

Every walk presents a fresh harvest of old travel guides, hardcover best-sellers, detective novels, and tens of thousands of printed words about Paw Patrol.

Peeking into a little free library feels a little bit like looking…

Recycling is the most optimistic thing I do

Brooke Barker — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:03:31 GMT

Is it rude to assume you’ve never been to a recycling center? I’m just guessing you haven’t.

No offense, you seem cool! I bet you’ve seen a lot of things. I haven’t seen a recycling center either.

I’ve touched a lot of plastic bottles, and then put those bottles in recycling, but I have no idea wh…

It's more fun to shop for someone else

Brooke Barker — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 15:18:34 GMT

I’ve never bought clothes for myself.

But I’ve bought a LOT of clothes for someone who looks like me and has my body, but leads a completely different life.

Once, on trip where I was already carrying too much, I saw a handwoven market bag. I have a pretty good m…

Can I ask you a question?

Brooke Barker — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 16:25:09 GMT

Have you heard the tip, that when you meet someone new you shouldn’t ask their job, but instead ask “how do you spend your time?”

It’s a nice idea. Assuming everyone has a full-time career leaves many people out, and why are we centering conversations around capitalism anyway? I’ve been asked “How do you spend your time?” and found it disturbingly existential, but I appreciated the thought.

Do people still ask kids what they want to be when they grow up? When I was a kid, it felt like everyone wanted to know. And I wanted an answer for them.

Welcome to Issue #2 of Nervous Magazine, about what jobs we wanted when we grew up. Nervous magazine is a monthly newsletter with more comics than usual. And you’re already reading it! This is how you spend your time!

What kind of benefits do wizards get

As a kid, all jobs fell into two groups: jobs I knew about because people I knew did them, and jobs that didn’t seem like jobs at all, and in hindsight weren’t jobs at all.

Level four: Dragon Master!

Brooke Barker — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 16:58:11 GMT

Whose ears are these

Brooke Barker — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 16:16:21 GMT

In case you missed it: last week I shared the first issue of a longer monthly Nervous Magazine, about comebacks. Thanks to everyone who read it and commented, I’ve been thinking about your comebacks all the time. I’m working on the March issue now and I can’t wait for you to see it, and in the meantime here’s today’s comic:

Subscribe now

Buy yourself a pizza

Brooke Barker — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 15:57:30 GMT

What temperature is the room you sleep in

Brooke Barker — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 16:24:58 GMT

Nervous Magazine issue one: Comebacks

Brooke Barker — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 19:00:42 GMT

I’ve been working on something new for you:

Welcome to the first issue of Nervous Magazine! A longer collection of comics and stories on a super-specific theme. This month is all about comebacks.

Subscribe now

Future monthly issues will get even cooler, and include illustrations based on your comments, physical mail, real life surprises, collaborations with cool people, and more. I’m really excited about it. Don’t be nervous. Or do! You do you.

Insults and Comebacks

Keep reading for more of the Comebacks issue:

What do you think 1, 2, 3, 4 means

Brooke Barker — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 15:31:00 GMT

This week’s comic is about free furniture. I found something really good this week, or I think it’s really good - it’s definitely mysterious. Maybe someone reading this will be able to tell me what it is! But first I want to talk about my hometown.

When I was nine, my family moved to Minnesota. My mom had me draw a cartoon of the seven of us bundled in s…